The fall of the first Labour Government in 1924 sparked off a lively debate in the pages of Communist International. In early 1925 two analyses of the situation were published. The authors were R.P. Dutt, a prominent Communist Party theoretician, and A. Martinov, a member of the Executive Committee of the Third International.*
Dutt remarked on the fact that, despite its defeat, the actual vote gained by the Labour Party had increased by one million. This, he argued, indicated that the election of a Tory administration would in no way impede the development of the mass struggle. The situation, he continued, foreshadowed the collapse of Labourism and the emergence of the Communist Party as the 'alternative leadership'.
Martinov's theses were, in contrast, far more cautious. Noting the increase in Labour Party membership, he emphasised the tremendous hold of reformist ideas and theories inside the British working class. These illusions still persisted despite the pathetic performance of the first Labour Government. Dutt's proposals would, in Martinov's words, 'at once get it out of touch with the masses, and instead of becoming a mass workers party it would become a sect'. The approach to leftward moving workers should be on the basis of: 'fighting campaigns based on very definite lines....campaigns capable of welding together in the process of the fight the left elements and alienating them from the camp of Macdonald and Co.'. This was the way to separate [illegible] militants from those who merely mouthed a leftist rhetoric.
At this point J.T. Murphy intervened to criticise both Dutt and Martinov. Dutt replied and a final contribution from Murphy ended the debate (which was a public one) in July 1925. Because of the length of the contributions we can only grant relevant extracts from the whole debate, but for readers interested in delving deeper the numbers of Communist International in which the texts were published are 9, 12, and [illegible].
[illegible] important aspect of the debate is that it was held against the backdrop of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern. The President of this body was at that stage the ill-fated Zinoviev. After referring to the British party as objectively the most important section of the International, he made the following remark: 'We do not know exactly when the Communist mass Party of England will come, whether only through the Stewart-Macmanus [two leaders of the CPGB] door or through some other door.' This 'other door' was a reference to the left wing of the Labour Party and was a cause championed by Kuusinen, the Finnish Communist leader and a member of the International Secretariat. The 'Kuusinen theses', as they became known, were never adopted as official policy, but reflected the deep concern felt by the Comintern leaders at the weakness of the British section.
A by-product of the debate was the founding by the CP in March 1925 of the Sunday Worker, a paper aimed at the Labour left wing, the ILP, the Co-op and the Labour Colleges. The circulation of this paper reached 85,000 copies — three times larger than that of the official party organ, Workers Weekly. That this success had its impact is demonstrated in the contributions of J.T. Murphy.
The debate provides us with some interesting analogies. It is perhaps not so remarkable that many of the issues discussed by Dutt and Murphy are still widely debated by revolutionaries today. After all, the Labour Party (albeit in its period of decline) is still a massive obstacle to the development of revolutionary socialist consciousness within the mainstream of the organised workers movement. What is of interest, however, is the deep gulf which divides the concerns of Dutt, Murphy, et al from the central preoccupations of the CPGB today. Even a cursory glance at the new draft of the British Road to Socialism will demonstrate that the difference is a qualitative one.
— M.H.J., April 1977
*See [illegible] for glossary of names.
HOW A MASS COMMUNIST PARTY WILL COME IN
In the last issue of the Communist International, there were two important contributions by comrades R.P. Dutt and A. Martinov, dealing with the developments in the labour movement of Britain. Both articles are worthy of the closest possible study, especially by every member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The conclusions of both writers cannot be ignored by our Party.
Each writer sets out to diagnose the situation after the fall of the Labour Government and to answer the questions, 'What must the workers do about it?' and 'What must the Communist Party do?' Whilst there is a general agreement as to the nature of the present situation, there is a profound difference between them on the last question. There is a complete divergence on the estimate of the future of the Labour Party and the question of the development of the left-wing within it and our attitude towards such a phenomenon. It is necessary, therefore, to carry this discussion a stage further...
It is difficult to avoid feeling that there is here not only a conflict of views in relation to the development of the left-wing of the Labour Party, but a totally inadequate analysis of the process of change in the Labour Party and how the mass Communist Party is to be formed. Comrade Dutt denounces MacDonald, speaks of the decomposition of the Labour Party, the growth of an unreliable left-wing, and simply says the alternative is — a mass Communist Party. Comrade Martinov says quite correctly that comrade Dutt has skipped a whole historical phase in the life of the Labour Party. He says quite correctly, too, that the Communist Party must help in the development of a left-wing in the Labour Party. But this our Party has been saying continuously. The problem yet to be faced is — how is this left-wing developing and by what means can the Communist Party become a mass party.
On Measuring Our Party Strength
Comrade Martinov makes a big error in attempting to estimate the strength and influence of our Party by using the general election figures as a criterion. To compare the Party vote with the Labour Party vote is almost valueless. Only two Party candidates, comrade Stewart and comrade Tom Mann, ran on the clear Communist Party ticket. The others — Geddes, Saklatvala, Vaughan, Paul, Wall, Dunstan — were Communists running under local Labour Party auspices, in opposition to the Labour Party Executive's dictum and the London Conference decisions. The value of the votes cast is limited to a comparison only with the previous election results in the same constituency, and the number of fresh constituencies wherein a Communist appeared as a Labour candidate and the constituencies lost...
Hence any consideration of the votes cast for Communist candidates must be viewed from a totally different angle to that indicated by comrade Martinov. The 55,000 vote is no measure of our influence if directly compared with the votes cast for Labour as a whole. They indicate only that in a number of centres our Party has so far won local positions from the right-wing of Labour to the extent of being able to come out as the spokesmen of the whole labour movement in those localities. But this by no means shows the progress made in developing our influence in all the other centres where our candidates did not appear before the electors...
The fact of the matter is that there has been no real mass leftward movement in the Labour Party which could be harnessed to challenge the present leadership of the Labour Party. Comrade Dutt sees the Labour Party from the newspapers as one reading from afar, and impatiently dismisses the Labour Party as finished and calls up the only hope — a mass Communist Party, forgetting entirely that the Labour Party is a mass movement of which we are a part in spite of the efforts to crush us as a party. Comrade Martinov criticises our Party and its work in the Labour Party as if it was not there, although he is quite correct in his anticipation of, and in his emphasis upon, the importance of the left-wing of the Labour Party.
The Process Of Differentiation
But comrade Dutt's error is greater and more dangerous for our Party. When he says 'For the workers to trust it (the Labour Party) now to look after them in the coming period of reaction and oppression would be the height of open and self-confessed folly', he places the workers in an entirely false position and approaches the problem from an entirely sectarian standpoint. He assumes that the workers are already conscious of the weaknesses of the Labour Party leadership, are conscious that it is leading them to disaster, or how could this trust be described as 'the height of open and self-confessed folly'? The same sectarianism colours entirely his appreciation of the process of differentiation that has started in the Labour Party. Throughout he speaks as if we were not in the midst of it, as if we were a detached body watching the process from some neighbouring vantage ground, ready to step into the arena when the decomposition of the Labour Party leadership has gone far enough to permit the groping masses to discover the Communist Party. He sees the leaders, their speeches and writings are in the papers, classifies them admirably, tells us to hammer first one, and then another, now the 'left leaders' more than any other, but misses the actions of the masses while the process of differentiation is going on. This is not a Marxist line of approach to the problems before our Party or the working of this country...
The attempt to rid the Labour Party of the Communists has shaken it to its foundations, and given a tremendous impetus to the process of differentiation which everybody now sees before their eyes. Why the difference? Because we cannot speak of the decomposition of the Labour Party in the same way as we can speak of the decomposition of the Liberal Party at this stage. The Labour Party is not based upon a class that is losing power, but upon a class that is rising to power. To speak of the decomposition of the Labour Party is to speak of the decomposition of the trade unions which are its main support, and which are called upon by the very nature of the struggle which has given them birth to play an increasingly vigorous and militant role. The trade unions are certainly not decomposing. Nor let us be under any illusions concerning even the individual sections of the Labour Party. Those sections are increasing their strength week by week. Let us be quite clear, therefore, when we are talking and not confuse the leadership of the Labour Party with the masses of the Party. The masses may rid themselves of the MacDonald leadership, and those who carry the banner of Liberalism, but that does not mean the end of the Labour Party, but a stage in the differentiating process when the Labour Party is increasing in strength as the workers become more class conscious.
It is in the midst of this differentiating process that our Party, the Communist Party, grows from strength to strength. Comrade Martinov is wrong when he thinks our work has to be started. We have been in it all the time. Indeed, the very birth of our Party was an indication that the process of differentiation had already begun in the Labour Party. My complaint is not that the work has to be started, but that our Party has done so much work within the Labour Party on the lines which justify comrade Dutt's insistence upon the wiping out of the idea that we should aim at being merely a left-wing of the Labour Party, and a propagandist ginger group within the trade unions and the Labour Party. This is a weakness which must be eradicated, and one which the right-wing of the Labour Party is fast helping us to eradicate. Weakness as it may be, however, it has also been a source of strength and increased the difficulties of the Labour Party Executive in this expulsion policy. If our Party is to be criticised at all for its attitude to the left-wing elements in the Labour Party during the last twelve months, its most vulnerable point I think is the fact that we have devoted too much attention to the leaders who are designated 'left' and too little to develop the leftward moving workers in the Labour Party. We have appealed to this one and that one. Talked with the Clyde group in Parliament, etc., wrote encouragingly about them, and so on, but done nothing to bring together those rank and file forces of the Labour Party which have supported the issues we have raised, passed our resolutions, participated in our campaigns...
...to concentrate our attention upon them as [illegible] by comrade Dutt, and treat them as more [illegible] and worse than MacDonald and Thomas, would [illegible] means help us to defeat MacDonald and Co., or to [illegible] the masses into our Party. Much as we must keep ourselves clear of their weaknesses, they are not the centre of our attack or even the principal object of our concern. They are not our leading enemies, but the indicator of where friendship for our Party lies. Our concern is for the winning of the masses whose sentiments and aspirations these people are attempting to voice, and upon whom they depend for whatever position they hold in the labour movement...
The Coming Of The Mass Communist Party — How?
By continuing our demand for affiliation to the Labour Party as an independent workers' party concentrating within itself the interests of the working class and directing the workers against the bourgeois Liberal politics of the ILP, Fabians, and middle class politicians who have taken advantage of the opening of the gates of the Labour Party to individual membership to retard the development of the workers along their own independent lines. By keeping abreast of the changes now clearly manifest before our eyes in the Labour Party, as a mass movement grows, which is inevitably destined to be driven closer and closer to our Party. Our Party saw the change coming in the trade union struggles and has played its proper role in developing the Minority Movement. The Labour Party now manifests similar symptoms. Whereas last year we could only look to Maxton, Kirkwood, Hicks, Purcell, etc., as individuals with left tendencies, now we know that large numbers of workers in the Labour Party locals express themselves in support of the sentiments they express, and also know that the confusion in the minds of the comrades I have named and their colleagues prevents them harnessing these forces into an effective challenge to the existing leadership of the Labour Party. Four questions present themselves to our Party: Shall we help these masses to effectively challenge the leadership which they resent? or, shall we vigorously attack the prominent leaders who are typical of the movement, drive them further from us in the hope of a direct appeal to the rank and file to join us proving successful? or, shall the Minority Movement attempt to harness these forces? or, shall we permit them to drift and be content to issue calls for campaigns, with local manifestation of support and prevent the national left-wing bloc taking shape in the Labour Party?
There appears to me only one course to take, and that is the first. If we vigorously attack the 'left-wing leaders' we attack the mass with a similar outlook and drive them away from the Party. This is the course which permits the right-wing of the Labour Party to use the left as a safety valve, expressing revolutionary words, but leaving the deeds to be governed by the right-wing. The third is impracticable at the present moment because it is too closely following trade union tradition to immediately switch into the task of rallying the local Labour Parties to a united political policy. To pursue the fourth policy is to diffuse influence without harnessing it for effective national action, without developing and bringing to the front the leadership necessary to challenge the MacDonalds and Thomases.
The first policy is the only policy we can pursue with any hope of success, with any hope of developing into a mass Communist Party. The fears of many Party comrades that such a policy is dangerous to us does not alter the fact that [illegible] near to us, who are being attacked by the capitalists and the reactionaries as Communists, how shall we win the workers who are farther away from us than these? How can we explain this phenomenon in the labour movement other than as a historic process of the working class finding its way towards a clear working class policy of which the Communist Party is the embodiment? We should welcome this process as the guarantee of our Marxian conclusion that a mass Communist Party will be formed in Britain as in every other country where capitalism has to be conquered by the working class. The only way our Party of to-day can prove that it is the real beginning of a mass Communist Party is seen in the measure it understands this process and shows itself capable of handling it. The 'left' forces are coming nearer to us and our task is not only to win them still nearer, but to set before them the fact that they can never carry through the revolutionary tasks for which they profess sympathy until they have joined with us in the making of a party equal to all that revolution will demand of it — a party formed not simply for parliamentary and propaganda purposes, but a party with its foundations in the factories, its units the factory groups, its purpose to lead in strikes, demonstrations, elections and in every phase of the political struggle, culminating in the seizure of power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is this latter kind of party we are striving for in the efforts we are making to transform our Party on to the factory group basis.
But the 'left' movement in the Labour Party does not understand this yet. It has only got to the stage when it feels itself in sympathy with much for what we stand. All the implications of this they do not yet appreciate. But there are many political questions upon which we can fight together whilst maintaining our own political valuation of them and frankly explaining to them where we think they are wrong. Upon these issues we can form a united front, not simply a platform front, but a national organised fighting front...
To suggest that such a movement provides an alternative to our Party and functions as a barrier between our Party and the workers is to mistake through impatience the nature of the movement and to forget the kind of party that must be created for revolution. This movement is a movement of masses not ready for the Communist Party, but getting ready through experiences which we must help it to understand as we travel with it. If it is suggested that out of it a new Communist Party will be formed on the sly, then there is something remarkable about such a movement, and something radically wrong with our Party. Such reasoning will not meet the situation...
The Labour Party to-day has by no means finished its course. The working class is only at the beginnings of its revolutionary experience and education. The Labour Party will grow in numbers and strength as the working class in increasing numbers awaken to political consciousness. In the process, especially as the conditions of the workers become more difficult, the question of the ways and means of struggle will come increasingly to the fore until the bourgeois politics which dominate it today are cleansed from its ranks. This fight is already on. The attack on the Communist Party is the attack of bourgeois politicians to prevent the crystallisation of working class politics (which are fundamentally revolutionary) in the labour movement. They will split the labour movement, disrupt it, use constitutions, smash constitutions to achieve their object. We, on the contrary, fight against splits in the workers' organisations, and become the one party fighting for united working class action against capitalism. It is through this process and by these means that the mass Communist Party grows from the foundations of the Labour organisations of this country.
J.T. Murphy
THE BRITISH WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT, THE LEFT WING & THE COMMUNIST PARTY
'The British working class is becoming gradually revolutionised. Slowly, but surely, the ground is being prepared for the creation of a real mass Communist Party in England. Small though the British Communist Party is at present, it is assured of a great future. The disintegration of the Labour Party is now inevitable. The dissatisfaction with the Right leaders is bound to increase. The time is not far off when the British Communist Party will lead under its banner large masses in the camp of the British trade union movement. The next most important task of the Comintern is to create a mass Communist Party in Britain.' — Zinoviev: 'Seven Years' in The Communist International, No.6, Nov. 1924.
The decisive change in the British working class movement since the fall of MacDonald has now developed over six months. A number of big events have taken place, and several controversies have arisen as to our line. In view of the Glasgow Congress [May 1925] of the Communist Party, it is important to estimate the results achieved and the stage reached, bearing in mind the two dominating factors which (as indicated in the quotation given above from comrade Zinoviev) govern our tasks in the present period in Britain:
1. Disintegration of the Labour Party; i.e., separation of the working class forces from bourgeois leadership and the growth of a class struggle opposition.
2. Creation of a mass Communist Party....
The question has been put as one of 'for' or 'against' assisting and supporting the development of a Left-wing Opposition. But on this there is not, and never has been, any controversy. The Party line has been clear on this for the past two years and more. The real question only begins after this has been taken for granted. The fundamental question is how this process of development through the Left-wing Opposition is to lead to the mass Communist Party and, more particularly, what must be the role and action of the Communist Party within the Opposition in order that we may reach to the mass Communist Party....
To lay down 'Helping the Left-wing' as the whole statement of the Party's task in the present process is to reduce the Party to a simple element of the Left-wing and to omit entirely the distinctive task of the Party. But it is this distinctive task of the Party (which may even sometimes involve 'attacking prominent leaders' at the same time as supporting the Left-wing in general) which must be clearly laid down, and on which the whole process through the Left-wing to the mass Communist Party depends.
The Problem of the Labour Party — what is the Role and Future of the Labour Party in relation to the Development of the Mass Communist Party?
This question, which has not yet been plainly brought out, will be found to lie at the root of the whole problem. Comrade Zinoviev, in the above quotation, speaks of the 'inevitable disintegration' of the Labour Party. In my own article I spoke of the 'decomposition of the Labour Party in its old form' (i.e., as an alliance between bourgeois leadership and trade union masses). Comrade Martinov speaks of our liquidating the Labour Party. On the other hand comrade Murphy emphatically insists that the Labour Party is not decomposing ('Can it be described as a process of decomposition of the Labour Party? Assuredly not. Rather it is a process of clarification.' 'The fierce discussions raging throughout the Labour Party are not the signs of decay but the manifestation of life and vitality') and on this basis declares that 'the mass Communist Party grows from the foundations of the Labour organisations of this country.'
What is the implication behind this apparent opposition? Partly it is simply confusion of expression. The 'disintegration', 'decompositions', 'liquidation', which comrade Murphy attacks, is of the Labour Party as a Liberal or Menshevik workers' party, i.e., of its present character, basis and leadership — a consummation which comrade Murphy desires as much as any. The 'vitality' which he so loudly proclaims is of the masses — which nobody denies. But partly there is a real difference of view implicit which goes to the root of our outlook on the development of the British working class movement, and which it is necessary to examine in more detail....
The essential character of this outlook is that the Labour Party is treated as a basic permanent factor of the British working class movement. The Labour Party is not treated simply as a stage, a battleground, an expression of the pre-revolutionary phase of the working class advance, which is bound to break up, as the workers advance to the revolution. The Labour Party is treated as actually advancing into the revolutionary period, becoming a revolutionary organ — 'increasing in strength as the workers become more class conscious.' [illegible] significant. It means that the Labour Party inevitably becomes the centre of our outlook and propaganda. The Communist Party inevitably passes to a subordinate place in our treatment, and becomes an adjunct of the Labour Party. The whole effect and drive of our propaganda becomes to build up the confidence of the masses around the Labour Party, with the hope and implication that the Communist Party may eventually become its leader. This fundamental subordination to the Labour Party becomes the essential character of the daily propaganda of the Party.
Can we accept this outlook? A consideration of objective conditions will show that we cannot...
We must, therefore, count on the future probable split and break up of the Labour Party as an objective factor. To miss it out of our calculations, to give simply an idyllic picture of an evolutionary continuous development of the Labour Party to revolution — the Labour Party 'increasing in strength as the workers become more class conscious' — is to give a false and misleading picture of the line of development, which gives a complete misunderstanding of our tasks and can become the cover of a complete opportunist identification with the Labour Party....
The revolutionisation of the Labour Party inevitably means its disappearance, or even, as comrade Martinov says, its 'liquidation.'....
The uncritical presentation of the Labour Party as the essential organ of the working class, as the future revolutionary organ once the existing leadership is overthrown, leads to a fundamental continual approximation to the Labour Government and continual blurring of fundamental differences between the Communist Party and the Labour Party, and a continual underestimation of our revolutionary tasks. Most of this is simply weakness of expression and confusion of thought, which is natural in a young party and not yet politically serious. But there does exist a definite tendency towards identification with the Labour Party, based on this fundamental misconception of the future role of the Labour Party and the line of revolutionary development, which has to be treated seriously. To treat the necessary fight against this as 'sectarianism' is a misunderstanding....
The British working class movement is undergoing a process of revolutionisation as a result of the fundamental change in British conditions.
But revolutionisation demands a revolutionary transformation of the whole movement.
The eventual form of the new movement is inevitably, by universal experience, the mass Communist Party working through the widest mass organisations of the trade unions and the factory committees...
The first stage of change is the development of a limited Opposition within the old movement....
The limited Opposition which develops within the shell of the old movement is of tremendous importance, because it represents the rise of new forces, the advance of the working class towards revolution, the elements of the future revolutionary mass movement.
But it cannot of itself move forward to its goal. It is still politically bound. Its first old leaders and spokesmen are still linked and tied in many ways to the old movement. These bonds must be broken by conscious action on our part. They cannot simply be broken by the 'natural process of events', the 'development of the struggle', the 'necessities of action', etc. All experience proves this, not least the all-important experiences of the two previous 'unrest' periods of 1911-14 and 1917-20...
Thus the task of the Party in the present period, in relation to the problems raised by the new developments of the British working class movement and the rise of the Left-wing, is two-fold:
1. To stimulate and help forward every advance that is revealed within the existing working class movement towards class consciousness and class activity, to assist in developing, organising and strengthening the Left-wing forces and to unite with them in the battle against the Right-wing leaders, and to work for and take part in the formation of a united Opposition Bloc on the basis of the class struggle.
2. To conduct at the same time, and in the midst of this developing movement of class struggle, an unceasing ideological fight for our fundamental revolutionary [illegible]
To omit either aspect of this two-fold task is to fail in our task. To state that our task is simply to 'support the Left-wing' or to 'form a United Front with the Left-wing' is an inadequate statement. The Left-wing is not for us an objective in itself, but a means. The objective is the revolutionisation of the working class.
R.P. Dutt
THE COMING OF THE MASS COMMUNIST PARTY — A Reply to R.P. Dutt
...The policy I have outlined is not a policy of 'merely helping the Left-wing.' It gives a very definite and specific line for the development of the Communist Party as an independent party, contrasting the Labour Party with the Communist Party both in regard to its political line and its structure. It states concretely that one must continue to demand affiliation to the Labour Party, tell the Left-wing of its weaknesses, and how we must work with them.
The United Front And The 'Left'
If comrade Dutt will refer again to my article and read he will find that I state specifically a number of political issues upon which we can form a united front with the Left-wing as a means to the development of our Party — a programme of action which has been adopted by our Party. For example I wrote, 'there are many political questions upon which we can fight together whilst maintaining our own political valuation of them and frankly explaining to them where we think they are wrong. Upon these issues we can form a united front, not simply a platform front, but a national organised fighting front. For example, are there not many Labour Parties who will agree with us in fighting for a new Treaty with Soviet Russia, for the rights of trade unions and political organisation of the workers in the colonies and dependencies of the British Empire, for scrapping the Versailles Treaty and the Dawes Report, for international trade union unity, for the Parliamentary Labour Party to be subordinated to the Labour Party Executive, and not vice versa; for a Labour Government to be selected and controlled by the Labour Party, for the Communist Party affiliation and equal rights of the Communists in the Labour Party and trade unions; for the nationalisation of banks, mines, railways, with workers' direct labour, etc.'....
It is quite correct to describe, and no one quarrels with the description that the structure of the Labour Party is a 'primitive' form of political organisation, but to argue quite mechanically that because the Norwegian Party split or the German Social-Democrats split, or the Italian or French Socialist Parties split, therefore, the British Labour Party will split at exactly the same stage on exactly the same issue is wrong. It would also be wrong to say the British [illegible] not split. Certainly I do not say that such will not be its fate. But what I have said, and what I repeat, is that the Labour Party is passing through a process of differentiation, in which the political thinking is becoming clearer, and that through this process, which accompanies the widening and deepening of the class struggle, the mass Communist Party will come into being through our winning of more and more workers to the ranks of our existing Party, through a proper application of the united front tactics.
The ultimate fate of the Labour Party I did not discuss. It was not in question. But approaching the Labour Party historically and analysing the process of differentiation [illegible] on within it, I indicated the lines upon which our Party could reap the results of this process and develop into a mass Communist Party, not through basing its policy upon splits, but by striving to so revolutionise it that the workers cast off the right-wing leaders and elect left leaders and Communists and come under the hegemony of our Party. This is by no means subordinating our Party to the Labour Party. [illegible] of making the Labour Party the basis of all [illegible] activity. But so long as the Labour Party remains a [illegible] composition of the trade unions and Labour organisations, [illegible] escape the task of drawing them into the path of [illegible] struggle, as the means of defeating the [illegible] leaders. It is not our task to split the Labour Party, [illegible] a split may be forced upon the Labour Party by the [illegible] but certainly not by us. The task of [illegible] the 'whole movement' means also the leftward [illegible] of the Labour Party, which comprises every [illegible] of that movement. The Communist [illegible] and our Party as a section of the International have undertaken this task on the basis of uniting the workers in struggle. This policy does not leave out of account the possibility of a split, but gives us a firm, determined line should a split occur, and that is — once again pursue the united front policy as a means of winning the masses, and winning those who remain under the leadership of the right-wing....
There is no alternative to the mass Communist Party to lead the working class to Communism, but at what stage the Labour Party will vanish and leave the field entirely to the mass Communist Party is another proposition.
The Leftism Of Dutt
Comrade Dutt is troubled with a leftist outlook in this regard. He is obviously afraid of the Labour Party treading on the revolutionary path. He is scared almost to death at the prospect of the Communist Party ever getting its representatives on to the Labour Party Executive. He holds his hands up in alarm and shouts: 'The Labour Party is treated as actually advancing into the revolutionary period, becoming a revolutionary organ — increasing in strength as the workers become more class conscious.' The effect of this outlook is tremendous and significant, indeed it is terrifying. But not half so bad as a Communist leader developing the leftist kink. Listen again: 'The trade unions and the Labour Party are the shell within which develops the movement of the masses towards the new revolutionary struggle. But neither the trade unions nor the Labour Party is capable of conducting the revolutionary struggle.' Have we not heard this before? Is it not an echo of the old SLP, the IWW, the leftists of the Comintern Congresses who were unable to realise that it is only as the masses enter the path of revolutionary conflict with their unions and their 'electoral machines' (Labour Parties) that they learn the inadequacy of these instruments to secure and complete their victory? It is due to the shattering of illusions in the minds of the masses through actual experience that the development of the mass Communist [illegible] struggles separate and apart from the trade unions and Labour Parties. These latter are not brick buildings, but living combinations of human beings. They are neither 'shells' nor dance rooms in which the masses whirl about, but actually the masses conducting activities under limitations created by themselves. When in the course of struggle these workers find those limitations or constitutions standing in the way, they bend or break these limitations. For example, the Labour Party constitution was not formed for strike action. But 1920 saw a joint Congress of Action to conduct strike action against war on Russia. Was this not a revolutionary action?....
We are thus face to face at this stage with not a mere split in the labour movement, but the whole labour movement being pushed over to the left. Contrast the resolutions on the Trades Union Congress agenda with those of the Labour Party Executive. Can anyone doubt, with the preponderating weight of the unions in the Labour Party, that the line of struggle upon which the trade unions are being forced, and which now finds expression in its sharper class war declarations, will not force themselves upon the Labour Party? The Labour Party as the political expression of the unions cannot help but feel this pressure; it must feel the effect, and is feeling the effect. So much is this the case that everyone who has eyes to see is witness to a terrific struggle in the Labour Party between the middle class incubus, the thorough reactionaries such as Thomas, and the working class forces, who are increasingly in sympathy with the CP. This struggle may split the Labour Party, and yet it may not. Contrary to a split, it may cast off a number of leaders and pitch them into the Liberal Party or the Tory Party, or out of political life entirely...
What do these developments say to us? They tell us that whatever splits here may be lying ahead of the Labour Party, there is also the possibility and probability of the whole labour movement swinging leftward under the pressure of the deepening class antagonisms. I do not mean to suggest for a moment that Thomas and Co. will become revolutionary, but because they have no other social basis than the working class, they will travel with the working class along the path of revolutionary struggle in order to betray the revolution even as Ebert and Co betrayed it in Germany. For, let us make no mistake about it, the trade unions and the Labour Party must enter the revolutionary struggle, whatever their defects, because they cannot escape it. This is neither underestimating the role of the Communist Party nor the factory committees....
What then should be our line of action? Should it be that of working for a split in the Labour Party, because Thomas, Clynes and MacDonald refrain from splitting away from the trade unions and thus become identified with strike action and the like, as in the recent miners' dispute? Not in the least, but by keeping abreast of the struggle, by leading it along its logical and inevitable path, bringing them face to face with the masses before the realities of the fight, we shall expose them to the workers until the workers drop them out of the Labour Party and the labour movement...
Pursuing this course, our Party can face the question of splits, or no splits, in the Labour Party quite unperturbed.
We are for the revolutionising of the Labour Party and the trade unions, and against splits. Splits at this stage of revolutionary history are the answers of the reactionaries to the demands for the revolutionary struggle. Our slogan is — Workers, Unite for Battle! This is the basis of our strategy and tactics, and not the 'inevitability of splits'. The 'decomposition of the Labour Party' and the liquidation of the Labour Party of which comrades Zinoviev and Martinov speak are the sequel to the successful application of our policy along the lines I have indicated, and which our Party is pursuing.
The two-fold task of our Party enunciated in conclusion by comrade Dutt is simply a rehash of the policy I had already outlined and translated into concrete propositions. The skittles he sets up concerning the future of the Labour Party now prove to be skittles indeed, for the exercise of his leftist proclivities. His approach to the problems of our movement in his two articles is not the approach of a Marxist, but that of an intellectual, who has lost touch with realities.
J.T. Murphy
BIOGRAPHICAL GLOSSARY
R.P. DUTT (1896-1974): One of the few intellectuals to join the Communist Party on its foundation, Dutt came to prominence in 1922 as chairman of the committee which supervised the [illegible] of the party. A member of the CP's executive committee from 1922 to [illegible], he played a leading role with Pollitt in smashing opposition to the ultra-left lunacy of the Third Period and [illegible] followed every twist and turn of the Kremlin's line with slavish [illegible].
A. MARTINOV (1885-1935): A right-wing Menshevik before 1917, and [illegible] Martinov only joined the CP in 1923. Became known chiefly as Stalinist theoriser of the 'progressive' role of the bourgeoisie, especially in relation to the 'bloc of four classes' in China.
J.T. MURPHY (1888-1966): A wartime leader of the Shop Stewards Movement who joined the Communist Party at its foundation and served on its leadership until 1932, when he was expelled for alleged 'opportunism'. Author of Preparing for Power.
'CLYDE GROUP': This was the label given to a number of Labour Party MPs elected from the Clydeside constituencies, led by James Maxton and considered to be the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
RAMSAY MACDONALD (1866-1938): Founder with Keir Hardie of the Independent Labour Party, and leader of the Labour Party from 1911 up to the War, whereupon he resigned on pacifist grounds. In 1922 he became Leader of the Opposition and then Prime Minister of the first Labour Government in 1924. In the crisis of 1931 he, and a minority right wing, broke with the Labour Party and joined a coalition with the Tories. After being ignored for many years he is now being rehabilitated by the Tory press — a fact not totally unrelated to the present political situation in Britain.
J.H. THOMAS (1874-1949): An accomplished trade union leader, and a Labour MP from 1910, he served as Colonial Secretary in the first Labour Government. Both in 1921 and 1926 he played a key role in undermining support for the miners, and was chosen by MacDonald as a Cabinet member in 1929, subsequently following his leader into the National Government. One of his sons became a Tory MP.
G. ZINOVIEV (1883-1936): At the time of these articles he was President of the Communist International. At first a staunch supporter of Stalin, Zinoviev later joined the Trotskyist opposition in 1926, whereupon he was removed from his post and then expelled from the Russian Communist Party in 1927. However he recanted in 1929 and was eventually re-admitted, but in 1936 he was purged in the Moscow Trials and executed.
THE SLP: The Socialist Labour Party emerged from the Social Democratic Federation in 1904 as supporters of the theories of Daniel de Leon. They advocated the founding of new industrial unions, combined with the 'capturing' of the electoral machinery. The SLP was influential in the strikes during the First World War and in the Shop Stewards Movement. Many of its members joined the Communist Party when it was formed in 1920 — one such was J.T. Murphy.
THE IWW: An American revolutionary industrial union founded in 1905, which at its height had 200,000 members in 1917. Although invited to join the Communist International it refused on the grounds that it was 'political', whereas the IWW was 'industrial'.