Tag: Arthur McManus

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 26: Looking Forward.

Portrait of Bob Stewart taken by Edith Tudor-Hart.
Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound us,
Fond memories bring the light,
Of other days around us.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

At the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held in Moscow in 1961, I met among others an old man whom I discovered was one of Lenin’s oldest companions, even in the days before the Russian Communist Party was formed. We had a long discussion about politics past and present, and the Communist Parties past and present, with particular emphasis on the difficulties of the days long since gone; and naturally, as old people do, we discussed ages. Petrov, the man with whom I was having the discussion, was then eighty-seven years, and I eighty-four years. In all this welter of reminiscence I said to Petrov, “We must meet at the dawn of Communism.” “All right,” he replied. “We shall meet in Moscow in 1980.” So that’s a date, though I have had doubts of whether Petrov and I will be able to keep it. However, I heard Petrov speak on a radio programme from Moscow in April 1966 and my spirits revived. I certainly have no intention of throwing in life’s sponge at this interesting stage in world politics and so the meeting may yet take place.

Much more certain than the meeting between Petrov and myself is the dawn of communism. In all my political life, since the early days of work in the Dundee jute mills, through all the vicissitudes of political, trade union and social work, I have never lost my faith in the people to change the economic and political system which holds back progress to a full and happy life. Of course there have been the ups and downs. That is life, and it is part of political life as well. But as I look back with a mature eye to the days of the early struggles of the Communist Party, I can see the giant strides that have been taken in Britain.

One of our first tasks on the formation of the party was to get clear what revolution meant. Our political enemies naturally pictured the revolution as a bloody civil war, as a destructive act, neglecting entirely the aim of the revolution, which is to transfer political power from the capitalist class to the working class. It is that transfer of power which constitutes revolution, whether it is accompanied by civil war as it was in Russia and China, or in a different set of circumstances, as it happened in Eastern Europe after the Second World War. In Britain and the countries of Western Europe it seems reasonably certain it will be a peaceful revolution achieved within the present parliamentary system, but changing Parliament from a showpiece into a workshop, legislating in the interests of the people.

We explained our main aim, the transfer of political power, patiently in speech and print; and gradually it became understood if not always accepted. Our second trouble in the early days was to get our own people to accept the idea that revolution in one country cannot be just a carbon copy of revolution in another country. In the early days it was common to find at our meetings five Russian posters to each British poster. Exaggerations took place and in some districts the party looked more Russian than British. There was a Smolny Institute in Sheffield. All this was very well intentioned but certainly wrong in the field of British political work. We soon learned that the major part of our policy and work must be for our own country-which does not exclude, nor can it, the greatest possible interest in the countries outside Britain, and in particular the greatest interest in what was then the only socialist country in the world, Russia. Even to this day there are people who talk of the Communist Party as a foreign or Russian party. Well, this was also said of the early socialist movement. It was falsely accused of being a German importation.

In its forty-six years of existence the Communist Party in Britain, in addition to being effective, active and militant in the workshops, has secured a large following of workers who respect it even if many of them, as yet, have not joined. The party has had great success in education for scientific socialism, in all aspects of Marxist philosophy. In its daily news-paper, the Morning Star (for many years the Daily Worker), in its weekly and monthly publications, in many thousands of pamphlets and books, there has been the necessary explanation of the political events which has been read, appreciated and discussed by millions of people. In the times when the labour movement was in retreat, the political discussion and action arising from these political explanations held the movement together and laid the basis for future advance. It may be idle to speculate where the British socialist movement would have finally landed if it had not been for the work of the Communist Party, but it is a fact of life that many times in the last forty-six years, in government and out of it, the Labour Party has moved far away, very far away, from socialist principle and practice. The criticism of the work of the labour movement by the Communists has many times assisted in bringing the movement back to policy and practice that represented the interests of the working class and condemned capitalism.

This condemnation of the capitalist system is at the centre of working-class politics. Condemnation is needed, not because the individual boss is bad, or a group of bosses treat their workers badly, although this frequently happens. We don’t object to capitalists as good husbands to their wives and good fathers to their children. What we object to is the miserable way they make their living, by exploiting the workers, by making profit out of the labour of the workers. The capitalists are parasitical, yet they get a much better living than the workers. The aim of the Communists in politics is to end capitalism and the capitalists’ parasitical existence. The Communists take a Marxist scientific view of events. We don’t live in the clouds, although it was a member of the Communist Party who first soared into space and it is the Soviet Union which leads the world in space exploration.

We know how and why capitalism came into existence. It was not born overnight. It had to destroy the handicaps and barriers to its progress from the reactionary feudal system which it superseded, and with quite a bloody red hand. There was no nicety about the emergence of capitalism. In many countries kings literally lost their heads. The British capitalists conveniently forgot about King Charles being beheaded when Russian capitalism was overthrown, and they condemned the killing of the Tsar. They forgot they themselves had set an example.

The Communists know that capitalism is not an everlasting system, and that just as it displaced feudalism and mercantilism in order to develop the production processes and meet the needs of the people, so now is socialism necessary to break the capitalist stranglehold on production to meet the needs of the present day. Feudalism became a fetter on production and the capitalist system took the fetter off. Now the people will end the capitalist system which has become a barrier to developing production. Socialism must come to provide a better and more scientific system in which the means of production will be owned by the community and work will become a virtue and not a drudge.

In the early days of the party we had to argue from theory alone. We have now in the course of history reached a stage when theory has become practice. As Lenin said, “Theory is grey but the tree of life is green.” So the green tree is growing, and now in the Soviet Union and China and in the other socialist countries there is the evolution of new industrial techniques to meet the requirements of the twentieth century, and the twenty-first which is not so far away. It was easy in the early days for the capitalists and the Labour leaders to sneer at the size of the Communist Party, to jeer at our utopianism, but great developments have taken place and are continuing to take place in the socialist countries. The opponents of socialism can’t jeer away a new town, vast new industrial automated plants, great new industrial regions, some of which produce more than the entire production of some of the advanced capitalist countries.

For example, the British or United States railwaymen can’t say to the Russian railwaymen “Wait till you catch up with us”, because the Russian railways are now far in advance in all modern railway techniques. This is not because the Russian railwaymen are born better, but because their industry is more modern and because socialist practice in the Soviet Union has electrified more railways than has all the capitalist world put together.

People all over the world can see, if they want to see, the fundamental difference between socialist industry and capitalist industry. In the socialist states the trade union office is in its rightful place, inside the factory, not pleading for a bigger share of the cake, but as an essential part of the running of the factory and taking part in every discussion and decision on production and labour conditions. There are no brass hats in the factory who have the last word on what is to happen to wage increases and hours of labour. In the socialist states the day of the brass hats is over and their obstructing power flung into the dustbin of history.

In 1917 there were 300,000 Communists in Russia. Today there are 12,000,000. Twelve million devoted scientific workers can make a tremendous productive difference in an old economy. As they lead the Russian workers in operating the new modern industrial techniques in the vast new industrial plants, great new production targets are set and broken, set and broken again and again. Production is rising to vast new heights.

I remember vividly my first journey to Russia in 1923, the tremendous thrill I experienced when I crossed the frontier. “Ours!” I said, “a country which the workers own and control.” On that first trip from Riga to Moscow I shared a compartment with Vassili Kolarov, his wife and two young sons. Kolarov, who became head of the People’s Republic in Bulgaria, was the bosom companion of Georgi Dimitrov with whom he worked for many years, sharing the disappointments of the stagnant periods and the joys of the revolutionary periods. Georgi Dimitrov of course became famous after the Reichstag fire trial in Hitler Germany, but at that time, in 1923, he was just “one of the boys” with whom I later had the pleasure of working.

Looking back on the Russia of my first visit, how right I was to be immensely proud of entering a country which was owned and controlled by the workers, in which capitalism had been overthrown! How right I was in my judgment that this land of socialism would transform the lives of the people and in doing so set an example to the workers all over the world!

It is not a question of rivalry between country and country. Progress does not rest on the character of persons or nations. It is a question of science being applied to the most important thing that human beings engage in, that is making a living, and in our day making a living means giant production for giant populations, the elimination of hard labour, using the machine to release the workers from hard toil and to reduce the hours of labour and give the workers more and more leisure time. There are so many things to do, so many things to learn, that no person lives long enough to do and learn even a fraction of them, even the cleverest of us, and most of us are not too clever. At the age of ninety years there are many things I still want to do, still want to learn to do.

On looking back over the many years of work of the British Communist Party we should remember the positive as well as the negative features. Never at any time did we admit the hill was too steep or the mountain too high to climb. Our attitude has always been “How can we overcome?” and by our work we have overcome the one-time hostility of many millions of people who, while in open discussion they will not say too much, nevertheless in private conversation will admit how impressed they are with the work of the Communists and the Communist Party. Millions of people now understand perfectly well that the Communists are not the “troublemakers” the capitalist press, the T.V. and the radio would like to brand them, but honest, sincere people who work for a fundamental political change. This has been a long process.

In the early twenties the Communist Party fought with the miners, tried to mobilise the entire labour movement to the side of the miners. The Communists gave everything they had in support of A. J. Cook in his fight for “Not a minute on the day–Not a penny off the pay’. It was the Communist Party who expelled Bob Williams from their ranks because of the part he played in destroying the triple alliance of miners, railway and transport workers.

In the General Strike we knew more of what was happening than the General Council of the T.U.C. We did not spend our valuable time playing football matches with the police. We gave the striking workers leadership as their militancy developed. This contrasted with the T.U.C. leaders who got diarrhea and went chasing round corners following Lord Samuel and looking for a way to sell out.

After the strike it was the Communist Party who organised to reform the ranks of the working class and the unions for the political and industrial struggles of the 1930s. In the fight against the sell-out of the Labour Government by Ramsay McDonald and his associates, and against the anti-working-class legislation of the National Government that followed, the Communists were always part of the vanguard.

Then came the fight against fascism. I remember well the formation of the British battalion of the International Brigade which went to fight fascism in Spain. At first many ordinary Labour people were hostile to the idea, but as the struggle against fascism deepened and the fight for Spanish democracy against Franco developed, so did the understanding of the necessity of the fight against fascism grow. The International Brigade grew in popularity, and when they were repatriated from Spain under a decision of the United Nations I remember the amazing scenes at Victoria Station in London. Tens of thousands of people filled the station and crowded the surrounding streets to welcome the British soldiers home. Everyone felt that the Brigade had honoured Britain by their fight against fascism and had upheld the good name of the British labour movement.

In the struggle decisive changes take place in people’s thinking, and this leads to further action. The Communists said the war that ravaged Spain would come to Britain if rapacious fascism were allowed to proceed unchecked. We were right, not because we were good astrologers or prophets, but because we were Marxists and could read events better than other political parties.

In my many decades of work I have met, discussed with, worked with, and become friends with some of the finest people who ever breathed. Men and women whose main aim in life was to serve mankind. Men and women who came from many nations and whose skins were of different colours but whose aim in life was the highest of all: to serve. Many of these people are found in the pages of this book. Many younger than myself have died, leaving their mark on politics and political parties. Some of them greatly influenced my thinking and I want to write of a few of them who made a decisive impact on British political life. Not in order of merit: that would be quite impossible because they all had merits of different degrees, and in any case my prejudice, if I have one, favours the men and women who come from the workshops, a bias not entirely separated from my experience of life.

A man who influenced masses of people in Britain was Harry Pollitt, for many years the General Secretary of the Communist Party. An outstanding politician, Harry was virtually born in the working-class movement. His home was a socialist organising agency. His mother was a clear-thinking and capable socialist, and from boyhood Harry was forever on the stump. No doubt this early training was invaluable, because he developed into one of the finest orators in the British political movement. This fact was widely acknowledged by his bitterest political enemies, and remember he spoke from platforms in the days of great orators in other parties, Winston Churchill and Aneurin Bevan to mention only two.

But Pollitt was not only a very fine speaker. He had organising qualities few possessed. Always for Harry the question was “What is to be done?” Not only did he pose the question but he worked on it and tried to answer it. He applied himself diligently to everything he did and was extremely careful in the preparation of his speeches. This stood Harry in good stead when the shorthand notes of the reporting policeman would be put against his own notes in the Court cases in which he became involved. One thing Harry Pollitt proved beyond all doubt. The speaker who likes to speak has every chance to become a good speaker. Many times I have tired listening to speakers telling me how difficult it was for them to speak. Well, if they found it difficult to speak no doubt their listeners would find it more difficult to listen. The good speaker is one who feels he has something to say, a message to give. Anyone who heard Harry Pollitt in any meeting, big or small, found his speech lucid, powerful and sincere. While speaking of the needs of the present Harry could always paint a picture of how socialism could be won and the joy it would be for the working class. That was his great achievement. In both speech and organisation he brought many thousands into the struggle for socialism in Britain and many into the membership of the Communist Party.

Another man who loved to speak, and who was sometimes impatient of others speaking, was Willie Gallacher. He was an experienced workshop man who, in the period of the First World War, by his forthright stand against sectarianism, did much to weld together the famous shop stewards’ industrial movement which played such an effective role in Glasgow and many of the great industrial centres such as London, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham and other cities. Every. where the name of Gallacher was known as a working-class leader in the industrial and political movement. He was a man without self-interest whose life was devoted to the working-class movement and who made an unrivalled contribution to the work of the British Communist Party.

Internationally Gallacher became a well-known figure. When he met Lenin, he complained because Lenin, while praising his courage, attacked his political ideas. Gallacher told Lenin that he (Gallacher) was an old hand at the game of politics. Lenin’s justified criticism of Gallacher was published in that internationally famous book Left-Wing Communism–an Infantile Disorder. This book was sorely needed in the early 1920s when the young Communist Parties were making so many fundamental political errors. Because of Lenin’s advice, Gallacher discarded his anti-parliamentism and helped many others to do so. The negative attitude that a good socialist could not remain good if he went into parliament was strongly held in the twenties.

One very good characteristic of Gallacher’s was his ability to admit to being wrong on occasions, a characteristic not readily shared by a few of the leading Communists. Gallacher’s parliamentary career stands out as an example to those who believe that Members of Parliament can remain true to socialist principles and fight for them in Parliament. When he first entered Westminster he was portrayed as a revolutionary who wanted the streets to flow with blood. But he proved in his fifteen years in the House of Commons that he was a first-class parliamentarian. In fact he was one of the few who knew the rules of the House sufficiently well to break them and get away with it. His first thought in Parliament during any business before the House was: Will the working class gain? On that he took his stand, and his hundreds of speeches recorded in Hansard from 1935 till 1950 are essential reading for any serious student of British political history.

Harry Pollitt and Willie Gallacher are dead. Many others who gave all their life for the advancement of the working class are also dead. Albert Inkpin, Arthur McManus, Tom Bell, Tommy Jackson, big Jock McBain, the names are countless. All of them great working-class politicians and great companions in the day-to-day struggle.

There are a number like myself who are blessed with long life and are still working hard. R. Palme Dutt was one of my early mentors and mentor to many leading Communists. He comes from a remarkable family of highly educated people and I doubt if anywhere in the world, certainly not in Britain, one could find a political journalist who has made such a regular, consistent contribution to the elucidation of British political problems, particularly in relation to the colonial and ex-colonial countries. There is also that wee pawky Scotsman John Ross Campbell, familiarly known as J.R.C., who was in the early days editor of the Glasgow Worker and became, many years later, editor of the Daily Worker. He is one of the best working-class politicians and economists Scotland has ever produced. His speech is remarkably clear, witty and always down to earth. In those early days his workshop notes in the Glasgow Worker had a very wide readership.

And so I could go on, lists and lists of names, industrial and professional, all of whom made big political contributions to the struggle for socialism. One thing above all these older leading Communists understood was the fundamental Marxist principle: “That which is coming into being and growing is more powerful than that which is ascendant but is already dying away.”

The leading Communists of the past educated, trained and prepared the many thousands of Communists of the present who by their diligent and successful work have been elected to leading positions in the labour movement. This re-creation on an ever increasing scale is the guarantee that the British people will take the road to socialism.

The great world political argument rages. For Socialism. For Capitalism. The Communists understand that the aim of a modern political party must be to end capitalism. Not to keep it on its feet to totter around preventing the introduction of dynamic socialism. Not to agree to sacrifice by the workers in the interests of the bosses, but to end capitalism for all time. The Communists by their scientific analysis know that socialism will finally be victorious, and while in the Western capitalist countries the capitalist fetters may bind the hands of the workers for a few years yet, without doubt the tools are ready, well and truly sharpened to break the bonds.

In little more than a decade the call will change. Then it will be “For Communism!” I am certain, positively certain, that the world will see the dawn of communism, and I will frankly admit, despite having had more than my three-score years and ten, and a full and exciting life, that I hope, fervently hope, I shall be able to accept the invitation of my good comrade Petrov and be there in Moscow to see the Dawn. In any case, whether or not I live till 1980 or sign off sooner, as William Morris wrote:

“The dawn and the day are coming

And forth our banners go.”

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 23: The Arrest of the Twelve- the General Strike- I Become the Acting General Secretary.

In 1925, with their big majority in Parliament, the government and the Tory Party intensified their offensive against the working class. In the discussions we had in the party leadership it was quite clear to us the way the wind was blowing. The big industrial fight was against wage cuts, particularly in the mining industry. The wages and conditions of all workers were under attack. Stanley Baldwin, the Tory prime minister, was adamant that “the wages of all workers must come down.”

In June the mine owners issued notices at the pits terminating all existing national and district agreements and demanding wage cuts and longer hours. The Miners’ Federation called on the T.U.C. to support them in their fight against these demands. The T.U.C. and the Miners’ Federation leaders met Baldwin, but his answer to their request to stop the wage cuts was a blunt “no”. The government was fully supporting the coal-owners.

At a further meeting of the T.U.C. and the miners’ leaders a resolution for action was passed and it was agreed that, as from the 3rst July, the transport unions would instruct their members not to move coal by road or rail. Now the chips were down and the government’s bluff was called. They gave way and instituted legislation giving the coal-owners a subsidy for nine months to maintain the wages and hours of labour of the miners. The Daily Herald called this Red Friday, the day of trade union victory, to distinguish it from Black Friday in 1921 when the Triple Alliance was burst asunder and the employers won.

While recognising and sharing in the victory, the Communist Party warned that the government was only biding its time and was making preparations for a real attack. Government ministers at their meetings in the country were saying, “We are not to be dictated to by the T.U.C. The wages of workers must come down.”

In September came the first blow, strangely enough, at the conference of the Labour Party. Since the birth of the Communist Party its members had worked unceasingly and unselfishly for the unity of the labour movement. On September 31 the Labour Party conference passed a resolution excluding Communists from acting as delegates to the Labour Party conference. Up till then many Communists had been delegates from their trade unions.

Following this decision, only days later, came the second blow from the Tory Party conference, where the delegates demanded “action against the Communists strong measures against the revolutionary movement in Britain” There is no doubt in my mind that the decisions of these two conferences, particularly that of the Labour Party, laid the foundation for the sweeping offensive against the working class which followed in 1925 and 1926.

In October came the arrest of the Communist Party executive members, known then and since as the “Arrest of the Twelve”. I was working in Liverpool when it happened. I read of the arrests in the newspaper and immediately packed my bag and came to London. When I got to King Street I was told the executive had been bailed out and were in session, although no one seemed to know where they were. Everyone was very cagey, as well they might be in such a situation. I was about to leave the office when a word whispered in my ear, “Meynell” gave me the clue. The executive were meeting at Francis Meynell’s house. He later became Sir Francis Meynell and for a time was editor of our paper, The Communist. A very nice and interesting fellow–no doubt about that but certainly never a revolutionary.

When I arrived, the executive were in the middle of a discussion. We had an extraordinary problem and no one was shirking the issue. The leaders of the party had been charged with: “Uttering and publishing seditious libel- conspiring to incite soldiers to mutiny- receiving Moscow gold.” A load of balderdash, of course, but it was clear to us the authorities were in deadly earnest and in the attack on the working class the Communists were to be the first for the Tory chopper. These people knew quite well who were best able to mobilise the working class for struggle, and so the leaders of the Communist Party were to be safely “got rid of” for a time.

After discussion it was decided to elect an acting executive and officials, and that no publicity would be given to this, because naturally the new leaders could easily follow the twelve into prison, so an entire silence was maintained. To my astonishment I was elected acting general secretary. This was a new role for me, and also in new conditions. Before, I was always one of those in jail looking out at the fight. Now I was outside and with a heavy responsibility.

Thousands of branches of the Labour Party, the trade unions, hundreds of trades councils, poured in protests to the Home Office against the arrests and demanding the twelve be released. Many trade union national executives, including the Miners’ Federation, protested in letter and person to the Home Secretary. It has always amazed me that, in circumstances where it is obvious that injustice has been done, certain people will make a stand yet at the same time remain blind to the political realities which cause such injustices. Of course we had to make preparations for the trial. Willie Gallacher, Johnnie Campbell and Harry Pollitt were to defend themselves to ensure that the politics of the case were adequately represented in Court. The others, Albert Inkpin, Wal Hannington, Bill Rust, Tommy Bell, Robin Page Arnot, Ernest Cant, Tom Wintringham, Arthur McManus and John Murphy were to be represented by Sir Hendry Slesser, M.P. and Mr. Arthur Henderson Jnr., instructed by W. H. Thompson.

The trial of the Twelve, which was held in No. 1 court of the Old Bailey and was presided over by Mr. Justice Rigby Swift, will go down in history as one of the biggest political trials of this century. It should also be recorded as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated in a British court of law.

On the morning the trial opened hundreds were waiting to get into the Court, many of them without hope, yet they stayed there all day getting bits of news of what was happening inside. The case for the prosecution was a regurgitation of the unfounded accusations brought against Albert Inkpin in the 1921 trial in connection with the sale of the pamphlet The Statutes of the Communist International; this, of course, to try to prove that the Communist Party was seeking to destroy the constitution of the British government by revolutionary means and (as also suggested in Court) probably to murder leading members of the government; and secondly, that the Communist Party was inciting the armed forces to disobey orders and thus violating the 1797 Mutiny Act. Pollitt pointed out in his defence that this Act had been passed by the government of Pitt to deal with an actual mutiny in the British Navy and was certainly never meant to deal with working men in a political trial in 1925. The accusation that the British Communist Party was receiving “Moscow gold” was one of the supposed trump cards of the prosecution, but it never trumped anything. The highest figure mentioned by the prosecution was £14,000, which Gallacher proved was the income from the sale of our newspaper; and if one took into consideration the contributions paid by the membership, then 5,000; the total income came to a much more substantial amount, and thus the sum of £14,000 was more than accounted for.

But no matter the poverty of the case for the prosecution, or the excellence of the case for the defendants, the case was prejudged before it started. The jury retired and in twenty minutes was back with a verdict of guilty. The proof that this was a prejudiced verdict can be seen by the action of the judge. Remember, according to the charges, the Twelve were guilty of sedition, incitement to mutiny, receiving money illegally and intent to destroy the British government by force. Yet Mr. Justice Rigby Swift was prepared to allow seven of the defendants to go free if they repudiated the Communist Party! Addressing the prisoners he said: “The jury have found you twelve men guilty of the serious offence of conspiracy to publish seditious libels and to incite people to induce soldiers and sailors to break their oaths of allegiance. It is obvious from the evidence that you are members of an illegal party carrying on illegal work in this country. . . . Five of you, Inkpin, Gallacher, Pollitt, Hannington and Rustwill go to prison for twelve months.” Then came

sos alache months, Handingaone and upon 80 ., Continuing, the judge said: “You remaining seven have heard what I have had to say about the society to which you belong. You have heard me say it must be stopped. … Those of you who will promise me that you will have nothing more to do with this association or the doctrine it preaches, I will bind over to be of good behaviour in the future. Those of you who do not promise will go to prison.” And there it was, men supposedly found guilty of the worst charges in the crime calendar were to be let off all they had to do was to cease being Communists. Very touching, but it gave away the aim of the whole trial, which was to try and destroy the Communist Party and so behead the working-class movement. To Mr. Rigby Swift’s chagrin the seven remained silent, and with a grunt he sent them all to prison for six months.

With the Twelve safely tucked away in Wandsworth Gaol and the attack against the working class mounting, I called a special extended executive meeting of the party for the weekend January 9-10, 1926. We invited party trade union leaders and representatives from every district. It was crystal clear that the government were about to challenge the trade unions and show them who was master. For the executive meeting I prepared the main report, which dealt with the imperative need for unity of the working-class forces to defeat the govern

ment’s offensive against the wages and living standards of the workers. I take three points from my speech to illustrate its general character:

“We must change the leadership of the labour movement.

We cannot leave McDonald, Thomas and the Labour right wingers to use the movement for the benefit of the [capitalists.”

We must build a definite left wing in the labour move-ment. This cannot be all Communist, but if it does not include Communists it ceases to be left.”

“There can be nothing in the nature of a revolutionary victory in this country unless we build a mass Communist Party.”

In line with this report we had a special report from Arthur Horner dealing with our work in the factories and the necessity of building Communist groups in the factories, working in unity with the Labour left. The resolution said on this:

“This enlarged Executive declares that the industrial crisis emphasises the correctness of the Party policy in insisting on militant groupings organised in factories, pits and depots.”

This meeting, the discussion and the hammering out of party policy, laid the basis for our work up to and during the General Strike of 1926. Because of our correct policy and the work of our members, despite our semi-legality, we were a real force during the general strike, uniting and leading the working class in many areas of the country.

The history of the General Strike is known and has been the subject of countless books, so I will not dwell too much on it.

The leadership of the trade unions could not possibly refuse the call to support the miners when the government made their challenge, but it was painfully obvious to the politically initiated that the trade union leadership had no belly for the

struggle. Yet what wonderful memories exist of those days!

There was the mammoth May Day march, a really wonderful demonstration of workers’ power. I marched that day with Tommy Bell who had just come out of prison after doing his six months. What must Tommy have felt, to leave a prison cell and participate in such a demonstration?

A few days later all means of manceuvre between the

T.U.C. and the government ceased. The government’s mind was made up, the hour of confrontation had arrived and the general strike was on. The great contention of the period was that it was not only a general strike but a national strike, and so in many parts of the country the workers actually began to run the affairs of the community. They controlled food distri-bution, gave out permits for transport of goods, and so on.

This happened mainly where the trade unions were led by Labour militants and Communists, and was quite prevalent in the coalfields.

During the strike there was an unquenchable thirst for news. The government published the British Gazette under the editorship of Churchill, and the T.U.C. the British Worker.

News of what was happening in the country was hard to come by, but in this regard our office at King Street was one of the best clearing houses. The most active news-bringers to London from the country were the scouts who came on their motor-bikes. Most of them were our fellows, and they not only deposited their news bulletins at the respective trade union Offices but also at King Street, where we engaged them in discussion and consequently got much more from them than the written news which was considered sufficient by the orthodox trade union people.

We published our own news of the strike from King Street which was, I think, the best and most objective of the news sheets published. The British Gazette, under Churchill, spewed out its anti-working-class, anti-Communist venom, and the British Worker was good and helpful but not nearly forceful enough in giving a lead to the strikers. We had real difficulties in getting our bulletins printed and published. Stencils were

cut in several places and printing was moved from place to place. The distribution was done mainly by women, who did wonderful work during the strike. In distribution, prams came in very useful and many a policeman was passed by a smiling mum with a chirpy baby in the pram sitting atop several quire of our news bulletins. But not all got past, and several of our women were arrested. Two I remember were Mariorie Pollitt and Sadie Span, but there were many more. There were many arrests during the strike, and Tommy Jackson, who was acting chairman of the party, found his way inside much to his disgust.

Despite the brave words of the British Worker, despite the militant mood of the working class, there was no effort by the trade union leaders to mobilise the workers for the struggle.

Instead the strike was turned into a playground. Football and cricket matches were organised, sports events and entertainments to pass the time. I repeat, to pass the time. I remember some years later trying to explain to a continental audience why this thing happened during the strike period, but the only response I got was incredulous looks. To them it did not make sense, and I could certainly see their point of view. The real reason, of course, was the firm determination by the trade union leaders to dampen down the fires of struggle. J. H.

Thomas and others were desperately afraid the strike would become a real political challenge to the government, and they were determined this would not happen. That is the only reason that explains why, after nine days, when the working-class challenge was really mounting and biting, the T.U.C. called off the strike.

It is this mentality and action that differentiates the reformist from the militant. The reformist says,

For the love of

heaven, keep quiet. God said it to the father. The father said it to the child. The teacher said it to the child. The child grows up with it. The gaffer says it to the worker. Keep your nose clean, don’t make any trouble. Be humble. Leave it to us, and everything will be all right.” The way of the militant is simple. Everything you get must be fought for. The harder

you fight the more you get, and to win political power is the

main aim.

The kind of thing that was happening during the nine days of strike was described in Lord Samuel’s autobiography. He was an important go-between, with the government on one hand and the T.U.C. on the other. I think he was a bloody old scoundrel, but at this time he had a reputation as a radical and he used it to the fullest. Many back doors were opened during the strike and discussions went on that the workers never knew about, and still don’t know. But the sum total of these was the sell-out of the interests of the working class and victory for the government and the employers.

In the aftermath of the strike the workers took a very heavy beating. Of course there was the promise of no recriminations, no punishments for the workers, but this was rubbish. Rail-waymen were put on two or three days a week and their wages were cut. Hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs altogether, and the militants were the worst off of all. They took the biggest beating, to teach them a lesson and to teach others not to be militant. The trade unions lost heavily in membership, and many unions exhausted their funds paying strike benefit. The labour movement was in retreat, no doubt about that, and so was our party as part of the labour move-ment. The history of the party shows that when the labour movement goes back so does the party and when the labour movement goes forward the party goes forward too. The general strike period was no different. Of the thousands of members we won during the nine days, the vast majority left when the strike was sold out.

On October 16-17 the Party Congress was called. The executive was re-elected and the policy of the party debated and decided on. We knew there would be a long climb back to restore confidence to the working class. We knew there would be a recession in the struggle, but there will always be workers who will fight against injustice no matter what the odds; and, just as important where the fight takes place, there will always be other workers who will come into the fight as

it develops. No matter how deep the wound the working class receives, it will always get over it. That much I know by all my experience. The problem often is to get over it in the quickest possible time.

I wasn’t sorry to have Inkpin, Gallacher, Pollitt and the others back in harness after their spell in prison. Men of their calibre were worth their weight in gold in the autumn of 1926.

I relinquished my acting general secretaryship with the greatest of pleasure, kidding Inkpin and the others that while they were inside and I was in charge we had trebled our membership, forgetting to mention the loss after the strike period.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 15: In Gaol Again.

HMP Cardiff.

In 1921 I was attending the Party’s National Executive in London. It was close to May Day and McManus, who was booked to speak at a May Day meeting in South Wales, said he could not go and asked me if I would like to take his place. “Sure,” I said, “I have never been to South Wales and it will be a new experience.” As it turned out it was.

I went down by train to Aberdare but before reaching there the train stopped at a small station and along the platform came a group of fellows shouting, “Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart!” I stuck my head out of the window and said, “That’s me.” “Can you do a meeting for the Party in Mountain Ash tomorrow night?” they asked. “Yes, I’ll be there.” So, after the meeting in Aberdare I travelled to Mountain Ash. The meeting was in a cinema and was crowded out. As usual at the time, the “splits” were in the boxes taking notes of my speech, but this happened at all meetings so I ignored them. The meeting finished and the local fellows said they were very pleased with the attendance and the effect. The repercussions were then still unknown.

I returned to London, and on the following Saturday, 7th May 1921, came the police raid on the party offices at King Street, Covent Garden, when Inkpin the general secretary was arrested. The raid was made without a warrant, under the Emergency Regulations Act. It was carried out by Detective-Inspector Parker, acting under the instructions, so he said, of the Director for Public Prosecutions.

During the raid all personnel in the office were rounded up from their individual rooms and brought to the general office on the ground floor of the building. The rooms were ransacked and, while this was going on, the homes of the office workers, even those of the girl clerks, were being searched. The police authorities certainly put on all the trimmings to build the raid up into a first-class political scare.

When Inkpin came into the general office and he exploded at Parker for the unwarranted intrusion into private property. “I demand to see your warrant to search these premises,” he said. “I don’t need a warrant,” replied Parker. “I am acting under the Emergency Regulations.” Parker then started to question Inkpin about the publication and sale of the Communist Party pamphlet called The Statutes of the Communist International. “Who wrote the book?” asked Parker. “What do you mean who wrote it?” said Inkpin. “These are the Statutes adopted by the 2nd Congress of the Communist International.” “Where did the books come from?” persisted Parker. “They came from Moscow, from the Communist International,” replied Inkpin. During the interrogation Inkpin again protested to Parker about the manner in which the police were acting, forcing their way into all the rooms in the building, sorting out files of correspondence obviously with the intention of taking them away. But Parker brushed this aside and kept on asking questions about the pamphlet The Statutes of the Communist International. Inkpin continued to answer truthfully this was a record of the decisions of the Communist International which was sent by the International not only to Britain but to most countries throughout the world.

Now Detective Inspector Parker might have been a good man at detecting crime, but he did not seem to have the elementary knowledge required to comprehend the simple working of an international body. Maybe, of course, he had had his instructions not to try to understand. Anyway, after fifteen minutes of this sham he stopped asking questions and started giving instructions. To Inkpin he said, “I am going to arrest you under the Emergency Regulations Act No. 19. I am further going to search the premises and take possession of anything I think fit under an order signed by the Chief of Police.” He then turned to another detective and said, “Mr Hole, here is the order,” and to “Inkpin, “Come with me.” “What, without a warrant?” said Inkpin. “None necessary,” was the reply and he turned to leave. It was then he spotted me standing in a corner trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, but obviously not succeeding. “Who is that man?” he barked. “That’s Mr Stewart,” said Inkpin. “Get his name and address, and the name and addresses of all the others.” And with that little lesson of how democracy works in this land of the free he turned, taking Inkpin with him, and disappeared out of the door.

The place was alive with police and plain-clothes men. I ran from room to room trying to salvage what I could, but the police ransacked the place, almost everything went, even to the paper and the stencils. There were a number of spare files of our paper Communist and I knew that McManus had some papers ‘filed’ away for safety. I said to the policemen who were carting all the material away for examination., “Here, take these away; they are only in the damned way here. You’ll be doing something useful then.” “We don’t need these,” was the reply, “we have files of them ourselves.” So that saved something. After the raid, in the evening, I went out to try and contact some of the Executive members.  I went to the Corner House in the Strand and luckily, I bumped into a few of them and learned that there was to be a meeting at Bill Mellor’s house later to discuss what we could do under the circumstances. After the discussion, I had an argument with McManus because I said I thought that Mellor was deciding to leave us-to get out. McManus said I was a fool, but I was eventually proved right; William Mellor, despite all his thunder and aggressive revolutionary phrases, was afraid of being on the wrong side of the police authorities, and a short time after left the party.

After the meeting, I was sent to get a lawyer for Inkpin, to Torrington square, to see WH Thompson, a lawyer who was on the left. I found him in a strange way. I was ascending the stairs to his place when a young fellow came running past me. Suddenly, he stopped and said, “Jesus Christ! Bob Stewart!” “The latter’s right,” I replied. “What brings you here?” This fellow had been a conscientious objector in Wormwood Scrubs when I was there, so we wore the same old school tie. I explained the position. He worked for WH Thompson. He said, “He’s not here but I’ll tell you where to find him.  He has gone to see his girl friend,” and he gave me the address. I found WH, explained the position, where Inkpin was- Snowhill Prison- and he assured me that I could leave everything to him. I returned to my hotel in Villiers Street, near the Strand, a good evening’s work done. As I entered two big fellows ‘took’ me, one on each side. “Your name Stewart, Robert Stewart?” one of them said. “Yes, a good Scottish name.” “Well, we want you, we have a warrant out for your arrest.” Naturally, I thought it was in connection with the raid on the party office, but as soon as I got to Cannon Row Police Station I discovered I was booked at the request of the Welsh police for speeches made in Aberdare and Mountain Ash. So, I was stuck in a cell, arrested for sedition. I was interrogated by an inspector, a very clever fellow, to his own way of thinking. “Ah! I know you,” he said. “I have heard you speaking in Dumbarton.” “Up on the rock?” I asked. “Sure, there was always a big crowd there.” There was never a meeting on Dumbarton Rock in all history, so I continued to kid him but he twigged it and finally closed up.

Next day I was taken to Wales, to the Abercynon Gaol where I rested the night, and the day after I went before the magistrate. He was an old fellow, sitting at his desk. “Your name Robert Stewart?” he asked. “Yes, but what’s going on?” I replied. “You’re in Court.” “What Court? Only you, me and a policeman?” “Yes, and you are remanded to the Assizes.” And that was the strangest court I was ever in, but then the Welsh do many things in strange ways. Back I went to the cell and the policeman said, “I want to take your fingerprints.” “Not mine, I am no criminal, I draw the line at that.” “We’ll see about that,” he said and went off but he did not return for the fingerprints.

In due course I was taken to the Assizes at Pontypridd. A bunch of snuffy magistrates, local publicans and others of that ilk. The prosecutor was a little fellow called Lloyd. The charges were seditious speeches. Little Lloyd had a real go. He built up a terrible case against me, and said I should be ashamed to call myself a British subject, I was an agitator coming into the district in troublesome times stirring up strife and hatred, saying the miners were being treated worse than German prisoners and that Jimmy Thomas was a traitor to the working class- which appeared to be sedition, I don’t know why. In passing I may add that the selfsame Mr Lloyd was some time later pinched for embezzlement , but I suppose that that would not trouble his loyalty to Britain. The witnesses said their piece. The local secretary, who was a canny lad named Foot, was very good. But the other party witness, Billy Picton, undid the good work. Billy was one of the aggressive type; good in an industrial struggle, but not much use in a court of law. Asked about my reference to miners being treated worse than German prisoners, he replied, “Well, it’s bloody true, isn’t it?” – not very helpful in a court in which the scales have already been loaded against you. In the long run the trial came to an end. The magistrate said a lot of wise words, then asked if there was anything known about a past record. Innocent like, of course. Then out came the dossier. Tried, court-martialled; tried, court-martialled, on and on. When he finished reading out the record, I looked at him and said quietly, “A good record.” The magistrate said that this sort of thing must not be allowed to continue, it would not continue, and so on. The sentence would have to be appropriate to the offence. I would be made an example. The sentence was three months’ hard labour. Three months’ hard. You can do that, as the old lags say, on the door knob.

Well, there I was inside again. In Cardiff Gaol. Interesting, because Cardiff being a big seaport the gaol is very cosmopolitan- men from all nationalities are inside and going around the ring at exercise you saw all colours and all kinds of men. For the first three days I sat sewing a pillow case. That was my hard labour, putting in stitches and pulling them out again. Of course, reading the Bible in between. This was the compulsory reading, but a very valuable book for left wing propagandists. One day the artisan warder came to see me. “What the hell are you sewing pillowcases for?” he demanded. “You’re a carpenter, aren’t you?” I told him what I thought about his pillowcases, his prison and his magistrates, but he only laughed. He turned out to be a good sort. He didn’t like clergymen and that was an instant bond between us. The prison chaplain at Cardiff and I could not get on. Charlie Chaplin we called him. This was because of the way he walked, not because of his humour. One day in my cell he said to me, “Mr Stewart, in cases of your kind, it is the wives and children I am sorry for.” I said, “Don’t you try telling my wife you are sorry for her, because if you do you will end up being sorry for yourself.”

The artisan warder stopped the pillowcases lark and took me down to the workshop. There was method in this because part of the prison was being demolished and an old oak floor was being scrapped. “Can you do anything with this, Jock?” he asked me, showing me a bit of the wood. It was a good bit of oak. “You could make some nice things with that,” I said. And I did- bookcases, hallstands, cupboards, small stools and many other pieces of oak furniture found their way into the warder’s home from the floor of the Old Cardiff Gaol. I am quite sure the government got none of it.

One day the warder gave me a shout when I was working. “Come here, Jock, I have a job for you.” So, I picked up my tools. “No, no,” he said, “all you need is an oil can. We’re going round to the execution chamber to oil the joints of the hanging apparatus.” Two men, sentenced to death for murder, were to be hanged the next day. “I’ll not oil your bloody hanging apparatus.” “What! You not in favour of hanging?” “Oh yes I would hand prison warders at a bob a time,” I said; “the trouble is they usually hang the wrong people.” “Well come and see how it works,” he said. So off we went to the execution chamber. He oiled the necessary places then gave me a demonstration of the proper way to operate it by pulling the lever and pointing to the drop. He seemed to take delight in it.

One day towards the end of my term, in came Jock Wilson, the Welsh Party Organiser, to see me; well, really to tell me something- that I had become a parliamentary candidate because Alfred Irons, the MP, had died. A by-election was pending at Caerphilly and the party had decided to contest their first ever parliamentary election as a party and I had been chosen as the candidate. Well, anyway, being in gaol, I couldn’t speak back. There had been quite a barney with the prison authorities. A report in The Communist appeared as follows:

We had expected difficulties to be put in the way of Robert Stewart’s Candidature in the Caerphilly mining constituency. They have already begun, and the Prison Governor has taken a hand. We wished to know when Stewart would be released for the purpose of the election campaign.

The party had sent a letter to the Governor of Cardiff Gaol in the following terms:

Dear Sir,

I should be very much obliged if you would kindly let me know on what date Robert Stewart, the National Organiser of the Communist Party, whom we understand to be present in Cardiff Gaol, will be released.

Yours faithfully

(signed) Fred H. Peat, acting secretary

Back came the reply:

HM Prison,

Cardiff

23rd July, 1921

In reply to your letter of inquiry it is regretted that the information asked for cannot be given.

I am your obedient servant

(signed) HJ Perwin

One night before the end of my time I was pleasantly surprised when the head warder came and asked if I would like to be released a day early. “Fine,” I said. But really the authorities were afraid of a demonstration, because when I had been taken from Pontypridd to Cardiff Gaol to start my sentence there was a bus load of policemen in the front and a bus load of policemen behind all the way. Certainly a good few tons of policemen to hold mine nine stones of communism. No doubt they were also taking no chances when I was leaving.

Out of the gaol, I went to Alf Cook’s house to discuss the political situation, and I had just arrived when a telegram was delivered from Moscow informing us of the death of Bill Hewlett in a monorail accident in Russia. It had been a bad accident and Jim Stewart of Lochgelly was also injured. So, I had the sad task of making arrangements for someone to break the news to Mrs Hewlett.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 13: The Birth of the British Communist Party

The Unity Conference, 1920. Bob Stewart in the front row seventh from the left.

I came out of gaol in April 1919 and entered an entirely changed world from the one I had left. The heroes had returned from the war to find the golden promises of a land fit for heroes to live in had not materialised. Many were unable to find work. Many, when they found it, got low wages on which they could not adequately provide for their wives and children. The housing shortage became a serious social problem as the soldiers, married during the war, tried to set up house with their war-wives and young children. The landlords, taking advantage of the shortage, found ways and means to raise rents.

Foresters Hall in Dundee.

The Dundee I came back to had all these problems and more. Lack of work, low wages, unemployment, bad housing and a housing shortage, and to add to the confusion, thousands of war disabled demanding work and maintenance. During the war our party had absorbed many facets of socialism into its policy, so we changed the name from the Prohibition and Reform Party to the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship. We ran meetings every Sunday night in the Foresters Hall. They were always packed out, with hundreds left outside. Invariably there was a queue to get in an hour before starting time to make sure of a seat. My Prison Rhymes now became a bestseller. So, with the money from the collections and the booklet we were doing very well financially.


We got a new hall, the Unity Hall we called it, relaid the floor, bought the best seats available and certainly made it one of the finest little halls in the city. Despite this veneer of success, it became evident to those of us who were thinking politically that we were not making any real political advance, and certainly not making the basic political progress towards socialist organisation that the economic conditions warranted.

While in prison I had written to the monthly paper of the Socialist Labour Party, The Socialist, on the question of unity and the necessity for the various social sects and parties to get together. The Russian Revolution had had a profound effect in Britain. In all the left groupings our thinking had changed or was in the process of changing.

In all the left parties the need for, and the road to, unity was being discussed. In fact, in July 1919, only a few weeks after I came out of gaol, meetings seeking to establish unity had been held in London. Members of the British Socialist Party, the Workers’ Socialist Federation, the Socialist Labour Party and the South Wales Socialist Society had taken part. Although our party was not present, I got to know later that while agreement was won on a number of political principles, there was a fundamental division on the question of the attitude to the Labour Party. The B.S.P. members made crystal clear their demand that any new united party must be affiliated to the Labour Party. The W.S.F, and the SouthWales S.S. said it was useless to approach the Labour Party. Thus early, at the very first meeting, battle lines on this supremely important political principle were taken up.

Early in 1920 I was doing a meeting in Aberdeen. When I finished, I returned to the house of Jimmy Gordon to find Tommy Bell and Arthur McManus waiting for me. They were working for a unity conference and, after a discussion, asked me to use my influence to get our party to attend. So, I put it to the party and after due consideration we decided to participate and I was sent as a delegate.

This conference was held in early April 1920, in the William Morris Hall in Nottingham. There were members from the main left parties there. The B.S.P., the W.F., the South Wales S.S. and the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship. The Socialist Labour Party had split on the question of “attitude to the Labour Party” and only a section were represented at Nottingham. Of the people I remember, there was John S. Clarke, Tommy Bell and Arthur McManus from Scotland, Willie Paul who was leading the S.L.P. section, Bill Gee, a perambulating propagandist well known in all parts of the country, Charlie Pentie from Woolwich, Jock McBain, a foundry worker, Bill Hewlitt from Wales who was tragically killed in an accident in Moscow in 1921, Tommy Jackson, and of course others.


We had a day’s discussion, forenoon and afternoon. We hammered things out as best we could, collated the points of agreement and decided to issue a manifesto. We then went for a walk and left Tommy Jackson to draft the document. When we came back, we found a dance band playing in one part of the place and Tommy Jackson sitting with the dance music bellowing all around, a few beer bottles at his elbow, discarded manuscripts littering the floor at his feet, beads of perspiration trickling from his forehead. But he had done the job. The Manifesto of the Communist Unity Group was drafted. We went over it, slight changes being made, and then adopted the document. So, from the Nottingham Conference the call for Communist Unity went out. The Manifesto declared, among other things: “To create this force…by unity of all elements scattered throughout the various groups and Parties as the first essential to the formation of a Communist Party in Britain.” The Manifesto had twenty-two signatories.

The Manifesto from the Nottingham Conference produced immediate results. It provided the yeast to ferment the unity discussions and drew the left elements closer together. It really paved the way for the next big step forward, the Communist Unity Conference which was held in London on July 31st and August 1st 1920, on Saturday July 31st in the Cannon Street Hotel and the following day in the International Socialist Club, 28 East Road, London E.C.

The Cannon Street Hotel where the Unity Conference took place in 1920.

The conference was summoned by a Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Unity Conference representing the Communist Unity Group, the B.S.P, and the South Wales Communist Council under the names of Arthur McManus, chairman, and Albert Inkpin, secretary. There were 152 delegates present holding 211 mandates. McManus was unanimously elected to preside.

Up to this time, when any discussions on unity had been held, many groups and individuals continued, after the discussions and decisions, to propagate their former minority viewpoints. Majority decisions were not being accepted. In order to get over this difficulty at the London Conference, it was agreed that “All bodies participating in summoning the conference are pledged to abide by its decisions on points of tactics and to merge their organisation into the new Communist Party. Representation at the Conference will be held to imply that branches, groups and societies represented will also accept its decisions and become branches of the Communist Party.”

This was accepted by the conference-a very big step forward at that time. With this understanding, the conference turned its attention to discussion and agreement on the main points of policy for the new party.

The first resolution covered the main aims of the party:

“The Communists in Conference assembled declare for the Soviet (or Workers’ Councils) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production. Declare the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means of combating counter-revolution during the transition period between capitalism and communism and stand for the adoption of these measures as a step towards the establishment of a system of complete communism wherein the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This Conference therefore establishes itself the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adhesion to the Communist International.”

In the discussion on this resolution, a number of speakers kept referring to the “use of the gun” as the real, and, for some, the only way to power. Naturally, after my prison experiences, this kind of talk irked me. In speaking to the resolution I said: “I do not want to stress too much the point being made about ‘men with guns’ but I do hope the sincerity of delegates not ‘gun-minded’ will not be questioned. Even the capitalist, powerful as he may be, will not be able to use guns except in so far as he can persuade the members of our class that our policy is detrimental to working-class interests. Whether guns come soon, late or not at all, there will be times when it is far more revolutionary to refuse to have anything to do with guns. I think the provisional executive which is to be set up by the conference will be far wiser to devote themselves to building up such organisation as will make it possible to win the maximum of our party policy with the minimum of violence.” On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat question I said: “I don’t know much about this, and I don’t think anyone else does here, but we know it is necessary and if the working class is to achieve power and we will require to do as the circumstances determine.”

It may be a strange thing, but I have invariably found that the people who want to “shoot it out’ are the worst stayers in the movement. They do not seem to be able to cope with the hard grind of day-to-day politics. Maybe, of course, that’s why they want to use guns.

This resolution, while causing a fair discussion, was passed unanimously, and then the conference turned to the subjects causing deep divisions in the left forces-attitude to the Labour Party and the advisability of parliamentary political action.

Tom Bell and a number of delegates were against having anything to do with parliament. In an appealing speech, Tom said: “Nothing can be hoped for from the Chamber of Parliament. Can Communist members of Parliament take the oath of allegiance? In all cases, Communists must hold their mandate from the party and not from their constituencies. The only Communist allegiance is to, communist principles not to royalty or decadent capitalism.”

He was followed by delegates who put much the same point of view, but some with harsher words.

I spoke on this resolution and, with several others, put the point of view that we could not divorce ourselves from parliamentary action, that we must use parliament. “Our job is to be where the laws are made.” I remember Ellen Wilkinson delivering a revolutionary speech for parliamentary action, saying: “A revolution must mean discipline and obedience to working-class principles.” Ellen finally landed up as a minister in a Labour government. She certainly used parliament, but I am afraid not for the revolutionary principles she espoused that day.

When the vote was taken, a large majority were for the resolution supporting parliamentary action by the new party.

A fierce, no-punches-pulled debate on the attitude of the new party to the Labour Party concluded the policy debates. The big battle was whether or not the new party should seek affiliation to the Labour Party; or rather, to put it in its correct context, whether to resume the affiliation to the Labour Party already standing in the name of the British Socialist Party which was the biggest section of the new Communist Party.


The conference had two alternatives: (a) to seek affiliation,or (b) not to seek affiliation.

Hodgson moved (a) and Paul moved (b). The B.S.P. speakers in the debate came down heavily for affiliation because they knew by practical experience the value of affiliation to the mass Labour Party. Paul, Bell and others were violently against. In fact, the day before the conference opened Tom Bell had written an article in The Call against affiliation, saying: “Never was the time more opportune for Communists to proclaim their open hostility to the utopian aims of the Labour reformists, and pursue an independent course.”

Many delegates put the point that the last thing the right-wing Labour leaders wanted was the affiliation of the Communist Party. I remember George Dear putting this point in a very skillful way. He referred to a speech made by Jimmy Sexton, secretary of the Docks Trade Union, at the Scarborough Labour Party Conference, where Sexton had said: “Here is the British Socialist Party with 10,000 alleged members, paying £50 a year affiliation fees. They monopolise the conference, get five speakers to the rostrum the first day, demand a bloody revolution and Jim Thomas’s head on a charger, and then foist Colonel Malone on us. What the hell do they want for fifty quid?”

There were no kid gloves used, and the protagonists were nearly equal. This also showed in the vote. One hundred were for affiliation, 85 against. It was then agreed the matter be dealt with by the new Executive and be reported to the next conference.

Arthur McManus- The First Chairman of the CPGB.
Albert Inkpin- The First General Secretary of the CPGB.

There were sixteen nominations put forward for the six positions on the Executive Committee. On an exhaustive vote, the following were elected: Fred Shaw 123 votes; I got 117; Dora Montifiore 115; Colonel Malone 106; W. Mellor 100, and George Dear 100. I must add here that Colonel Malone was the man who won some fame for himself by threatening to hang Winston Churchill from a lamp-post, for which he got six months hard labour. Arthur McManus was elected chairman and Albert Inkpin secretary.


The task set the Executive was to win further unity of the left movement and to take charge of the paper Communist, the official organ of the party. The headquarters were at 21a Maiden Lane, Strand, London.

During this conference in London a letter was sent by Lenin to the delegates. Lenin had taken a great interest in the attempts to forge left unity in Britain, in the problems of unity and in the tactics of the left groupings, as the letter from him to the conference shows:


Having received the letter from the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain dated June 1920 I hasten to reply, in accordance with their request, that I am in complete sympathy with their plans for the immediate organisation of a Communist Party in England. I consider the policy of Sylvia Pankhurst and the S.D.F. in refusing to collaborate in the amalgamation of the B.S. P., the S.L.P and others into one Communist Party, to be wrong. I personally favour participation in Parliament and adhesion to the Labour Party on condition of free and independent Communist activity. This policy I am going to defend at the second congress of the Third International on July igth in Moscow. I consider it most desirable that a Communist Party be speedily organised on the basis of the decisions and principles of the Third International and that the Party be brought into close touch with the industrial workers of the world and bring about their complete union.

N. LENIN
July 18th 1920.

In the first edition of the Communist, dated August 5th 1920, I gave my opinion of the London Conference.


“The value of the conference was its evident eagerness and sincerity; its old men were young and its young men did not lack wisdom. The Leftest of the Left and the Rightest of the Right showed an evident anxiety to keep the CPGB free from that ineptitude for action that has hitherto been not an uncommon feature in the debating stage of our growth. Minor differences were relegated to their proper position.”

But the major differences were firmly entrenched. The main one was the affiliation question, and after that, parliamentary action. In the first edition of The Communist, McManus also wrote his impressions of the London Conference, and showed that the deep divisions on affiliation were still dominant. He wrote: “The voting on the Labour Party was such as indicated a strong, evenly divided opinion on the question of affiliation, and while according to the result the minority are honourably expected to acquiesce to the decision, there is also the obligation placed on the majority to fully appreciate the character and strength of the minority.”


At the first meeting of the new Executive held in August, discussion on affiliation brought the motion that an immediate application be made to the Labour Party. An amendment was then moved that the application make clear the objects, methods and policy of the Communist Party as set forth in the resolution passed by the London Conference. Naturally the amendment was accepted, but no doubt the supporters knew where they wanted to be, as time proved. The Executive unanimously accepting that an application be made, the following letter was sent to the Labour Party. As it is now an historic document, I quote it in full.

August 10th 1920


Dear Sir,
At a National Convention held in London on Saturday and Sunday, 31st July and 1st August last, the Communist Party of Great Britain was established. The resolutions adopted by the Convention, defining the objects, methods and policy of the Communist Party, read as follows:


(a) The Communists in conference assembled declare for the Soviet (or Workers’ Council) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production; declare for the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means of combating the counter-revolution during the transition period between Capitalism and Communism; and stand for the adoption of these means as steps towards the establishment of a system of complete Communism wherein all the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This conference therefore establishes itself the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adherence to the Third International.

(b) The Communist Party repudiates the reformist view that a social revolution can be achieved by ordinary methods of Parliamentary Democracy but regards Parliamentary and electoral action generally as providing a means of propaganda and agitation towards the revolution. The tactics to be employed by representatives of the Party elected to Parliament or local bodies must be laid down by the Party itself, according to national or local circumstances. In all cases such representatives must be considered as holding a mandate from the Party and not from the particular constituency for which they happen to sit. Also, that in the event of any representative violating the decisions of the Party as embodied in the mandate which he or she has accepted, or as an instruction, that he or she be called upon to resign his or her membership of Parliament or municipality and also of the Party.


(c) That the Communist Party shall be affiliated to the Labour Party.


At a meeting of the Provisional Executive Committee held on Sunday last, we were directed to send you the foregoing resolutions, and to make application for the affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party.

Yours faithfully,
ARTHUR MCMANUS (chairman)
ALBERT INKPIN (secretary).


One month later came the reply from Arthur Henderson, then secretary of the Labour Party, saying the application had been considered by the National Executive of the Labour Party and he had been “instructed to inform you (the Communist Party) that the basis of affiliation to the Labour Party is the acceptance of its constitution, principles and programme, with which the objects of the Communist Party do not appear to accord”. This reply led to further correspondence in which the words “do not appear to be in accord with the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party” figured prominently. The Communist Party asked: “Does the Labour Party rule that the acceptance of Communism is contrary to the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party, or is it the methods of the Communist Party to which exception is taken?”

Arthur Henderson, secretary of the Labour Party. Not too keen on CPGB affiliation. Lenin wrote that he was “as stupid as Kerensky.”

Back came Henderson: “Your letter raises a definite issue-the obvious conflict between the fundamentals of the Labour Party constitution, objects and methods, and those of the Communist Party.” He then went on to quote the following from the article by McManus in the Communist:

“One impression I should like to make definitely clear as gathered from Sunday’s experience (the London Conference), and that is that those arguing for affiliation to the Labour Party did not urge for, nor contemplate working with the Labour Party. The antagonism to the Labour Party was general, but those for affiliation held the opinion that such antagonism would best be waged within their own camp.”

To a man of Henderson’s calibre, this was meat and drink in argument, and he went on to quote part of a previous letter from the Communist Party, which said: “You have made a definite refusal to our request for affiliation on the ground that our objects do not appear to be in accord with those of the Labour Party. To be frank, we never supposed they were. Our worst enemy will not accuse us of ever pretending they were.”

No doubt, looking back, many things were said in the correspondence that, to put it mildly, did not smooth the way to affiliation. Really, the big difference between the parties was one of methods, Henderson and the Labour Party contending that the Communists would use violent methods while the Labour Party would not. Yet the fact was that the Labour Party, and Arthur Henderson in particular, had just supported the most violent war in human history.

After the correspondence, the Labour Executive decided to place the question on the agenda of the next Labour Party Conference. This took place on Tuesday 21st June, at Brighton. The affiliation question came up in the form of a resolution from the Norwood Labour Party, which said:

“That this Conference, whilst appreciating the difficult position of the National Executive Committee when called upon to deal with the application of the Communist Party for affiliation, owing to the various shades of opinion in the Labour Party which they represent, this Conference of the National Labour Party, in the interest of unity of the earning sections of the community who are opposed to the capitalist system, agrees to accept the affiliation of the Communist Party on the condition that the constitution of the Labour Party is accepted and the rules of the Communist Party are in conformity with the same.”

This was moved by W. A. Hodgson and seconded by Duncan Carmichael of the London Trades Council. An amendment “That the request for affiliation be not accepted was moved by Bert McKillop of the Social Democratic Federation and seconded by W. J. Brown of the Clerical Officers Association, Civil Service.

In a debate, A. J. Cook and Herbert Smith of the Miners Federation, and Bob
Williams of the Transport Workers supported the resolution, while Manny Shinwell and Fred Bramley of the Furnishing Trades spoke against. The debate was very unreal. It did not deal with policy. The speakers for the resolution did not adequately show the need for affiliation to strengthen the left political forces and to win a more working-class policy. They tended to appeal to the right wing to accept unity. No one spotlighted the glaring evidence that the right wingers were afraid of affiliation because it meant the strengthening of the left wing of the Labour Party.

Naturally the right wingers played on this weakness, talked of “the methods of the Communist Party”, “acceptance of violence by the Communist Party”. Arthur Henderson, who was then Labour Party secretary, gave a most hypocritical performance in summing up for the National Executive. Just before the conference, a by-election had taken place at Woolwich. The Labour candidate was none other than Ramsay McDonald. During this by-election the Communist Party had issued a leaflet, part of which was quoted by Henderson to prove that the Communist Party were not to be trusted and would not support Labour candidates. The leaflet said: “The Communist Party feels it cannot allow the decision to run Ramsay McDonald to pass without comment… While the coalition candidate stands for capitalism in all its manifestations … the Labour Party candidate also stands for capitalism in all its manifestations.” Henderson made use of this in 1921to show that the Communists would betray the Labour Party. Yet ten years later Ramsay McDonald proved the Communists completely correct, when he betrayed the British working class, tried to destroy the Labour Party and deserted to the Tory National Government. Such was the
verdict of history.

On the Wednesday morning, after Henderson had spoken, the Previous Question was moved. The voting resulted in 4,115,000 for, 224,000 against. So ended the first round of the question that was going to continue to push its way to the forefront of British politics and is still with us today.

At a meeting of the Communist Party Executive Committee in November, arising from a report on the work of the Third International, the need to further extend the organisation of the Communist Party was agreed upon, and a decision taken to organise a further Unity Conference. Discussion with a number of left groupings who had not been present at the London Conference took place. Among these was the Communist Labour Party. One of the leaders of this Party, Willie Gallacher, had been in Moscow at the time of the London Conference. In discussions with Lenin, Gallacher’s thinking on scientific socialism had changed and Lenin had got him to promise that on his return to Britain he would work for the unity of the working-class movement and for a united Communist Party.

A joint committee to prepare for the conference was formed, to compile the agenda and draw up the basis of representation! A manifesto was produced under the signatures of McManus and Inkpin of the C.P.G.B, J. V: Leckie of the Communist Labour Party, George Peat of the Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committees and E. T. Whitchead of the Communist Party B.S. T.I. (British Section Third International). The manifesto read as follows:

Comrades,

We address this statement and appeal to you in the hope of clearing away for all time the differences of opinion which have served to keep us apart in the past, thereby preventing the consolidation of the revolutionary forces in this country.

It is not our purpose to explain or justify those differences but simply to record the fact that our task has been much simplified by the decisions of the recent congress of the Third International. These decisions prescribe for the world movement the basis upon which such efforts as ours should be founded and constitute a clear and definite demand that a united Communist Party shall be established in Britain.

To this end the following organisations have assented to the proposal for the formation of a united Party, and have elected representatives to the above committees: Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Labour Party, Communist Party (B.S.T.I.), Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committee (in a consultative capacity), and the left wing group of the I.L.P. (in an informative capacity).

The Committee has set about its task and has held a preliminary conference. We appreciate that the heartiest co-operation is essential if the united Party is to contain all the features which mark a real live revolutionary organisation. To this end we seek such assistance and urge that all the groups and bodies not in touch with the proceedings should communicate at once with the secretary, when the fullest information will be supplied. In the meantime we would counsel the closest observation of what is being done thus ensuring that when the National Convention takes place about the end of January the results will justify the hopes we place in the Convention.

The Bull and Mouth Hotel in Leeds. Later renamed the Victory Hotel and the location of the the 1921 conference where the CPGB was formalised. Demolished years ago, there’s now a Gregg’s on the site.

This appeal was the forerunner to the Leeds Conference, which was held in the Victory Hotel, Leeds, on the 29th January 1921. Jack Tanner was voted into the chair. There were 170 delegates.

Two resolutions were on the agenda, a unity resolution which was moved by Leckie and seconded by Watkins, and a merging resolution, which was moved by Gallacher and seconded by Paul. There were none of the fierce polemics which had raged at the London Conference, and the proceedings took place in a quiet and orderly atmosphere. A new Executive was appointed which had representatives from the former parties, and there were also representatives selected on a geographical basis. McManus was elected as chairman of the party and Inkpin as secretary.

It can be truly said that from the Leeds Conference the foundation of the British Communist Party was laid. Then the wagon began to roll.