histories of the british communist party: a user's guide

Ldhour l-lisioyy Review. Vol. OS. N o . i, April 2003

HISTORIES OF THE BRITISH COMMUNIST PARTY: A USER'S GUIDE JOHN MCILROY Uiiii'crsity of'Manchester

ALAN CAMPBTXL Uiiii'cnify of Liverpool

The British Coiiiiiiiiiiist Pttity cotititttia to attract the auailiou of histoiiiUts who hai'c pwdiiccd iliiHTiU'in (tssi'ssinctits oJ il.< politics, organization, pcrsoiittcl and aaii'itics. This article critically rci'iVic.v ihc literature: the cotueiitratiott is on detailed studies which haiv appeared since the IQSOS. Il scrutinizes the apoloj^etic literatiire produced by party historiatis prior to, atid in response lo. the ciitical studies which appeared from the late ig^os. It explores this pioneerin^^ academic work:, now too frequently discouttted, before ad(hessin\i recent research often infonned hy reaction againsi it. 'The paper concludes that this revisionist approach tends to diiniuish the crucial Russiati dimension to Communist politics and neglects the decisive, primary, .strategic control Moscow exercised ami the distinctiiriiess oJ the party in British politics.

The creation of the (Communist Party (CPC'.B) in 1920- 1 reprt-SL-ntcd a triumph for British supporters ot a revolution whicli licld the promise of universal human emancipation. The bright hopes went unfultilled. On almost every criterion the party which collapsed in 1991 was a failure. Its membership only exceeded 50.000 in the special conditions of wartime; it never constituted a significant alternative to social democracy; it never had more than two MPs at any one time; even its 'Little Moscows' v>/ere few and tar between; in comparison with many other Communist paities. its inHuence was slender. It remains ot interest largely because of its role in the trade unions and, to some extent, in colonial struggles, and because of the light its activities shed on the labour movement. And because it was the representative in Britain of otficial Communism — atter ly^y, Stalinism — a worid movement which ruled millions, mobilized millions more and shared responsibility for the barbarism which di,sfigiired the twentieth centuiy. History has to recognize not only the CPGB's role in the cla,ss struggle but also its subservience to a Russian state which prioritized its own interests and played a part in discrediring socialism. Historians have to acknowledge both 'the selfless commitment' of the 'devoted and often forgotten militants who served the BritisJi working class as best they knew' and the complicity of Communists in Stalinisnfs crimes against humanity,' '"Stalinists" — a name we are proud to bear", J. R. Campbell told the party's i(j;?S Congress which elected the Russian autocrat by unanimous acclaim to its Presidium, asserting, as did Campbell's mature political career, his identification with what Edward Address correspondence to John Mcliroy. Department of Sociology. University of Mimcht-ster, Oxford Road. Manchester MI 3 ypL, UK. e-mail t]xo3(a)hverpQol.ac.uk. © 200? Society for the Study of Labour Ilistorv

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Thompson termed 'one of the ultimate disasters of the human mind and conscience, A temiinus ofthe spirit'." Recollection of such matters is untashionable. Recent publications, produced in the context of a debilitated labour movement and a part>' declining or dead, its last years marked by the dominance of Euro-Communism and nostiilgic idealization ofthe Popular Front, might appear to be influenced by that climate and tlie dc niortui hoiio invoked by members defending Ufelong attachments. Certainly [he tendency of contemporarywriting has been to present a one-sided, generally positive picture of an organically British part\'. admiration for its leaders such as Campbell — dubbed the 'old master' and congratulated for compromising his integrity — and distancing from the troubling phenomenon of Stalinism and the Russian connection. The bent has been towards work which portrays CPGB politics as tiative radicalism and studies suggestive ofthe party's political independence trom Moscow."' The most recent historiographical essay uncritically celebrates this literature. Unabashed in its enthusiasm for the party, it atfirnis without substantiation — for none exists — that, with the opening ofthe archives, verities such as the Communist Internationa] (Comintern) was 'a tool of the Soviet state and subsequently Stalin .,. have been challenged and fundamentally revised'. It asserts — here is our first glimpse of a pervasive straw man — 'that neither Soviet nor Comintern influence should be seen as tohiF [our emphasis]. The 'crucial relationship between the CPGB and the Comintern has been radically revised', while recent writers, it is claimed, have successfully brought out 'the indigenous characteristics that forged a peculiarly British Communism'. The attitude towards academic work more critical of the party is, in contrast, disparaging. In dealing with the writings of activists, a contentious distinction is made between the work of CPGB historians, such as James Klugmann, once dismissed by Eric Hobsbawm as neither 'scholarly' nor 'serious', which now provides 'a valid introduction' while 'the non-CPGB lett sought political advantage rather than historical integrity'.^ The present paper provides an antidote and an alternative historiographical sketch. Discussing an intensely political party, it focuses on politics. It does not torget about the programme of that party or the implications a Britain modelled on the Soviet Union held for British workers. Nor does it pass over uncomfortable matters on the dubious grounds that the CPGB, like the British Union of Fascists, had Uttle likelihood of achieving power. We subscribe to a tradition in which the CPGB's role in the 1926 general strike or its support for the Hider-Stalin Pact are rather more significant for historians than CPGB 'factions' in jazz bands, although we are far from denying the interest ofthe latter. The social histoiy of a political party is important in its proper place: recuperating members' lived experience, it can only be uncoupled from the politics that infomied that experience at a cost to rigorous history. The CPGB's limited contribution to Marxist theory and culture are proper subjects for historical investigadon, We do not have the space here to do justice to the literature they have produced. Fou]- preliiuinary observations are in order. First, we cannot accept Hobsbawm's assertion that those who perceive sustained Russian hegemony over the political strategies ofthe CPGB proceed a priori, no more, at least, than Hobsbawm himseU proceeds a priori. in apparently reaching different conclusions,'" Nor can we accept that the issue is 'old hat' or irresolvable. On the contrary, it remains a significant historical problem which can be settled, at least to a large degree, empirically, by insistence on the supremacy of evidence.

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For example, our own views on the question have developed throiiy;h work in the archives. Second, we do not subscribe to the crude essentiahsni which asserts that Bolshevism automatically led to Stalinism. Rather, we see Bolshevism as a complex politics which held the potential for dirtereiu political paths. Stalinism constituted only one sucli path.' Third, we do not agree with the conclusion of a well-known text on Stalin's Russia: 'Tout comprendre, c'est pardonner.'^ To explain Stalinism in Russia or Britain is not to excuse it. Empathy is not sympathy. A scholarly approach does not entail removing political and moral judgement from the wTiting of histoiy. There is no reason why a critical stance towards the CPGB's politics and its subordination to a murderous desporism which broke nations, labour movements and human beings should lun infonn our overall approach, even it it does not necessitate its imprint on every page. Historical scholarship can play a role in remembering and warning. Finally, we do not believe that opposition to Stalinism, a position we share widi most historians, invalidates our analysis or judgements, any more than the attachments, political or sentimental, of other writers to the CPGB or to the Labour Party, disqualifies their conclusions. We cannot stand outside our values: the test is again the quality ot the evidence and how our judgements relate to chat evidence. What follows is in three parts. The contributions to party histoiy by CPGB cadres and their political antagonists are explored. If arguably they should not be judged in the same way as the work of professional historians, they are useful in demonstrating the approach to histoiy of the organization. Moreover, they disclose enduring themes, some of which continue to inform academic work. The second part examines academic contributions in three sub-sections. It is far from exhaustive. It devotes greater attention to recent, influential publications rather than well-reviewed landmarks from die 1950s to the 1970s and, because ot restrictions of space, neglects the periodical literature in favour of monographs. Finally, we conclude that the trajectory of work over the past fifteen yeai-s has combined an element of political revisionism with a move away from politics to a 'history from below', which can provide an escape from the real, often uncomfortable Russo-British world of what can never be reduced to .1 native, home-grown C^ommunism.

Activists The hrst sketch of CPGB histoiy by a Communist appeared over six issues of the Daily Worker in August lyjo, to commemorate the party's tenth anniversary. It was written by Robin Page Arnot, a zealous supporter of the Comintern and later historian of the British miners. If he was less than candid about matters such as Comintem subventions, he was not completely reticent about the International's influence in forging a new party from the 'opportunist mire' and 'left deviations' of its predecessors. Arnot paid tribute to the Comintern's guidance of the CPGB over orientation to the Labour Party, adoption of a United Front strategy and 'bolshevisatitin'. The CPGB was the instrument of histoiy which guaranteed a Soviet Britain and progi-ess was seen as culminating m the ultra-left Third Period. Arnot noted the origins of Third Period politics in the Comintem and was frank about the initial refusal of innovation by a CPGB leadership which singularly failed to perceive 'the development of the trade unions and the Labour Party towards socialfascism'. He affirmed the Coinmtern's triumph and the change of leadership secured at

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the Hjnj Leeds CongTes.s, concluding: 'The Party stands as the sole representative ofthe revohitionary working class confronting the triple alliance of capitalist state, employers' organisations and Social-Fascist Trade Union Bureaucracy.'' Tiie first extended history appeared in iy37. It was written by Tom Bell, a CPGB leader through the lyios and a casualty ofthe Third Period. Like Amoc, Bell was relatively forthright about the policy tunis and their provenance, and the rampant sectarianism of 1929-33. The book, which uncomfortably reminded the party of its recent ultra-leftism, had the misfortune to appear at the zenith ofthe Popular Front. While it revealed little ot the detail of the CPGB's links with Moscow or its internal life, it was scill judged unedifying reading for members and potential partners and a godsend for opponents. I^arts of the text could 'perpetuate "Orders from Moscow" myths', while its languagt- and approach were 'hkely to do the gi'eatest dissei'vice to the Unity Campaign [and] repel many people who are now more than ever accessible to our message'. The Tliird Period would not lie down: Bell's book was withdrawn after a succn-ssful libel action by Sam Elsbui-y, a former leader of the CPCiB's United Clothing Workers' Union and one of iy29's forgotten casualties.'" Instead, the party pushed the work of Bell's critic, the leading journalist Allen Hutt, who insisted that CPGB history must reflect the party's political needs and be set in the British context,, an enduring rallying cry for activists and academics. Bristling with Britishness and zeal for the Popular Front, yesterday's sectarian declaimed: 'to isolate the story of the Communist Party from that of the British Labour Movement as a whole inevitably implies a naiTow sectariati approach at a time when the diametrically opposite attitude is acutely felt to be essential'." Hutt endeavoured to enact the Popular Front on the page. In a vokimc appropriately published by the Left Book Club, he integrated the CPGB into the British labour tntn'ement. painfully at times given his evidence ot the hostility ofthe Labour i^arty and tlic TUC. in pursuit of a plea for unity against fascism and the Natiotial government. The history ofthe CPGB constituted a subordinate, sanitized thread in the narrative. Hutt was quickly overtaken by the changing imperatives ot Russian foreign policy. By its twentieth anniversary in 1940, the party had deserted his dehning struggle between democracy and fascism for Stalin's view that there was little to choose between British democracy and Hitler. If Hutt fell short of 'the most exacting canons of research and scholarship' he prescribed for party historians, his successor Amot, in a second essay, demonstrated scarcely a scintilla of 'the customary candour' which Hutt had attributed, without irony, to the CPGB.'" Fortified by two spells as CPGB representative in Moscow where he had deplored 'incorrect' approaches to the Moscow trials, Amot announced tliat his Tiiviily Years was not 'an historical record' but 'an account of the policy ofthe Communist Party". He proceeded to demonstrate that it was neither. Already pervasive themes of party history, the necessity for 'unity', the CPGB as its apostle, the Labour Party its antagonist, are sustained; the text reads as if the party had pursued the United Front unremittingly since 1920. The Third Period vanishes like Trotsky h"on) a Stalinist photograph: the narrative jumps frotn 1923 to the Charter campaign of 193 J and then to 1933. Silences and evasions constitute the CPGB as a party fbmied in response to British conditions, reacting directly to British events; the Comintern is mentioned only twice. Spain and Munich receive lengthy treatment but the text is silent on the Hitler-Stalin

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Pact and the Russian invasions of Poland, the Baltic states aud Finland. The chantije to opposing the war in 1939 is heralded as vindicating everything the party had stood for snice iy20.'"'

In the postwar years, Arnot continued to dabble in ersnt::: history. His ef^brts were recognized in 1956 by his appointment to write the party's official history. Hobsbawm, in a rare excursion, claimed that the CPGB's roots were as British as those of any other party. Harry Pollitt was as t>'pical of British tradition as George Lansbury, while part)' discipline w.is like something out ot 'The Archers': it operated in the same way as pressurising villagers 'to contribute to the church bazaar'.'"^ As critical academic studies began to appear, CPGB intellectuals built fortifications and counter-attacked, Rajani Palme Dutt deployed against Heniy Pclling not party policy but the honest, courageous CPGB rank-and-filer, situated niHes trom Moscow, at the heart of the local labour movement: that was what British Communism was all about, Tlie part\-'s roie in aiiti-capit;ilist struggles was emphasized,, its sensitivity to Russian policy discounted, its continuity with a pre-1920 British socialism, which Dutt had once savaged, wa,s now stresseci. " The publication in 1966 of Leslie Macfarlane's study ofthe CPGB to 1929 prompted further apologetics. Dutt isolated the fundamental difficulty, the attempt 'to explain everything by ehe supposed machination of the Comnumist International'. He attempted to deny, clien diminish Moscow funding, simultaneously asserting its legitimacy in teniis ot international solidarity' and comparing ic with donations made by Bntish labour to the Russian Social Democrats before 1917. He was ar pains to minimize CPGB obedience to the Comintern, cicmg the vote against the colonial resolution at the 1928 World Congress and two rather more shadowy protests, over deification of Stalin and the operation ofthe Soviet 'security organs', which put the party in a good light. Suppressing the salary he had received from the Comintern, Dutt employed caricature to ridicule the idea that he iiad been 'the paid agent of some outside agency, carrying out the instructions of his paymaster'. And he further overplayed his hand, going so far as to boast in relation to 1929: 'no heateci discussions in Moscow could one whit diminish the absolute democratic sovereigntv' of our Party in the election of its leadership"."' His efforts to coiistruct a conventional British organization were supplemented by Andrew Rothstein, a victim of the 1929 purge, who stretched credulity and contradicted his own direct experience by stating that in neither Lenin's nor Stalin's time was the Comintern dominated by the I^ussians.'^ Their critics retorted that indeed there were differences between London and Moscow: they were 'comparatively trivial ones'. The Russians never had the difTiculties with the CPGB they had with other European parties.'" Providing chapter and verse on the CPGB's changes of line, Macfarlane observed of Dutt's handful of cases of British dissidence, 'such examples must not blind us, however, to the fact that in the last analysis the Comintern determined the broad lines of policy which all member Parties had to follow'.''' He justified his charge that L^utt was 'talking nonsense' over national sovereignty by citing tlie twenty-one conditions of affiliation which spelt out Comintern sovereignty over its British affiliate as well as providing details of fmancial subsidies. Brian Pearce ridiculed Dutt's attenipts to assimilate Moscow goid to the 'occasional fraternal gift' that the Labour Party made to tlie Russian Social Democrats before the revolution, while Peter Fi-yer recalled that tbe whole party, including Dutt himself, had changed position on colonial matters once the Comintern had spoken,""

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The issues in contention might have served as useful reference points setting an agenda for the official histoi-y. Instead, the two volumes which appeared in 1969, covering 1920—6, almost completely ignored them, as well as the rich but inconvenient archival evidence made available in Moscow. Their author, James Klugmann, who succeeded Amot and whose best known earlier work was die hatchet-job, likewise commissioned by the leadership, From Trotsky to Tifo. was a trusted appimilchih. Klugmann opted for the silences of Amot rather than the denial and distortion of Dutt, As Hobsbawm remarked, Klugmann was 'paralysed by the impossibility of being both a good historian and a loyal functionary'.^' He evaded all the difficult issues. The Comiiiteni's influence in the creation of the party and its sustained impact on its policy is absent or subordinate. There is only one dismissive reference to subsidies and the central assertion is once again that: 'The Communist Party was not in any seme a foreign creation four emphasis]/" From the lyyos, the CPGB Historians' Group around Our History developed studies of party activists which bore the imprint of the fashionable 'history from below', although 'ordinal^ members' still published cover-ups of episodes which placed the CPGB in a bad light, such as the dubious role of activists in the Spanish Civil War. There was a more open climate. Where Klugmann's work was widely criticized, the two succeeding volumes by Noreen Branson, covering 1927—51, brought party history some way out ofthe world ot Stalinist mythology. Publislied in 1985 and 1997, the books have been commended for their relatively frank confrontation of difficult issues such as the Third Period, the Moscow trials and their reconstmction of the activities of CPGB members in the labour movement and society. They remain inadequate on a range of issues, from the nature ofthe Popular Front to the provenance ofthe Cold War, from the pro-Nazism of 1940 to the antiGermanism of 1945, from the treatment ofthe ILP and the Trotskyists to the issue ofthe CPGB spies."' Finally, the party concerned itself sporadically with the production of inspirational autobiography, of which Pollitt's Sm>iii\i My Time is the best known. As we might expect from their provenance — George Hardy's These Stormy Years, admittedly the extreme, was suggested by the Comintern functionary, Manuilsky, and guided by Klugmann •—there is litde honesty and less revelation in these sanitized sagas. If the CPGB remained uneasy about the T — the party, not the individual, made histoiy — biography, with its attendant dangers of critique, exposure of human frailty or self'-exaltation. was also treated flistidiously. The best known, John Mahon's Harry Pollitt. is a massive eulogy, simultaneously Victorian memorial and Stalinist panegyric."'^ As might be expected, 'counter party hi.stor\''. the subversive revelations of fonner members attracted intense opprobrium. Some contain valuable infonnation and useful insights although they have to be scrutinized with care, a point underscored by academics sympathetic to the CPGB who appear to fail to apply similar scepticism to the testimony of party activists."'' Until the 1980s, party history lacked historical integrity. It was a reflex of party policy. Ill the early years, it had no difficulty in acknowledging the party's subsidiary role as a section ofthe Comintern, although it stressed that body's leadership was international not Russian. But on subsidies, as on spying, it was increasingly defensive. The Popular Front years represented a watershed. Sanctified by wartime moves to the right, consecrated by the [952 adoption ofthe British Road to Sodalism — in ironic summation ofthe real origins of CPGB politics, it was partly drafted and vetted by St.ilin — .1 dominLint. politically instmmental theme emerges. This is a normal, indigenous British party, substantially

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independent of Moscow, primarily responsive to British priorities. It was democratic and an integral component ot the liritisli labonr movement. The rest was enmity and Cold War conspiracy theory. Despite its origins in apologetics and institutional needs, this approach has proved influential, not least among academics. It failed to acknowledge working-class and radical anci-Stalinism and tbund little resonance in the discourse of the labour movement of which the CPGB claimed to be an integral part. Labour Party and trade union histories rarely accord the CPGB the role its owti histoiy grants it, as scrutmy of a variety oi texts, trom Cole and Postgate to Pellmg, Flanders and C'legg discloses."'" As Michael Burleigh remarked, questioning stereotyping of opponents of otficial Communism as 'right wing' atid 'cold war' ... 'mainstream democratic socialists, not to speak of Trotskyist sectarians, had an honourable record in exposing the nightmare that was the Soviet Union ... Atter all, many of these people had first hand experience of dealing with Stalinists in tiieir local political contexts ... Ernest Beviti remarked after his tlrst meeting with Molotov: "'But they are just like the bloody Cotnnumists!"'''^ Political collaboration with the CPGB leadership was for Bevin an impossibility, for he could clearly see, coiitrii Dutt. that, unlike the Labour Party or the ILP, it did not make its own decisions on matters of political importance. •I'ollitt", he remarked to Pollitt's annoyance, 'was in a different position tiiLin any other leader because he was tied to Moscow'."" It was a well-taken poitit: not only Feiiner Brockwa\, Stafford Cripps and Victor Gollancz. but thousands ot ordinary socialists, had to learn tbe lesson tbat, while it niii^bt be possible to work with rank-and-tilers on a limited basis, the CPGB was an unreliable ally because it lacked political sovereignt\' and systematically endorsed the HuctLiating dictates ot a foreign tyranny. Before 1939 the labour movement had constRicted its own conunonsense history of the CPGB. Based on direct experience, it was accepted, with different emphases and difterent conclLisious. trom the top to the bottotn and t'rotn the left to the right of tbe movement. In lys.S the TUC General Council remembered that it had chronicled 'even- twist and turti of Communist tactics over a period of 35 years'."'' Its verdict, bolstered by sustained, overwhelniijig anti-CPGB votes at Congress from the iy2os to the ly.sos — although it should be stressed there was always vocal minority opposition — was damning. It was based on tour objections: the CPGB organized caucuses inside the unions, based on their own programmes to win elections and transform union pohcy; the CPGB was a profoundly utidemocratic organization whose policies were supervised and ulrimately controlled by Moscow; on diat basis the CPGB alternately vilified and curried tavour with union leaders; ttie CPGB's ascent to power, however unlikely — eternal vigilance is the price of treedom — would lead to the destRiction of democracy and free trade unions. Reviewing CPGB policy since 1920, the General Council retlected: 'None of these switches in tactics have been treely decided by British Communists themselves ... These changes of policy have been determined at the instigation of bodies outside these shores and later rubberstamped by Communist Part\' conferences.'"^" For all its talk of LJnited Frotits, the party was a fair-weather friend; 'For the Communist Party is not a political party in the normal sense. It must never get out of step with the other Communist parties of the world. If it does it gets in trouble with its masters in Moscow.*'" To insist that the CPGB's acrobatics were not part ot working-class memory is obtuse. A left-wing, rank-and-file delegate to the 1949 TUC, referring to 'the anti-working class activities of the Communist Party', stated: 'We do not want to be dragged behind a Party who in March 194s were prepared

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to tell the British people chat their economic salvation in the post-war period lay in a coalition headed by Winston Churchill." At the same Congress, the general secretar)', Vincent Tewson, recalled the party's change of line on the war in October 1939: ',,.we shall never forget that act of treason',"^" The Labour Party, noc just the leadership but the majority of often left-wing delegates — again we must not forget the minority who beheved they could collaborate — shared this approach. Delegates at conferences noted: They were in this position signed, sealed and delivered, mind, body and soul to accept whatever instructions they got from Moscow ... The fundamental opposition to the Communist Party is this. They are governed and controlled and financed from a foreign country ... When were the Comnumist Party on the left? ,., I do not accept the view that the ComniLinist l';irt\ is on the ictt. During the last few weeks British politics have seen anothL-r oi thdse slurp turns that have now become the fannliar characteristic of tlie Communist Party and made it .m object of cynical bewilderniLMit. In i(;34 they would liave nothing to do with Labour. In lyjy they were helping tJiem in, WIILK can you do with such mountebanks?'"'

The ILP suniiiied up its bitter experience in 1940: 'The aviliniial inconsistent cha}i' for more rigorous archival work, abandonment ot enclosed studies largely based on Communist testimony and the need to relate Communists to the labour movement in a fashion which confronts what they had in common and what they had in conflict with other activists. There is above all the need to critically rehabihtate the centrality of politics and Russian domination, and further explore the processes by which Stalinization was achieved.^'' The view that we cannot write history, or even social history, which acknowledges this framework is special pleading for a sanitized Bntish perspective, one which the evidence cannot justify. As socialists and historians searching for understanding and renewal, we can only endorse Edward Thompson's injunction of 'a continuing and unequivocal critique of every aspect of the Stalinist legacy'.'" The CPGB is not exempt from this. For British scholars it is central to it.

Ackiiowfledgements We wish to acknowledge the support of ESRC Award R000237924 with this research which was part of our work on the Communist Biograpliical Project, University of Manchester.

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References E, Hobsbawm. Ra'ohititVhnivs. London. Wciilenfeld and Nicoison, 1^73, p. 11, " 15th Congress of the CI'GU. National Museum of L;ibour Histow (NMLll), Manchester. CIVC'.ENT/O4/O7; E, l\ Thompson. The Porciiy of Thtvij ,iiiil Other HiSiiys.. London, Mt-rhn, 1978. P- 3.5 1A. Thorite. TIic BW//,;// Cviuiiiinisl Piirly ami hU-^stoiv, u)jo-n)4h Manclifstcr UinvLTsity Press. 2000, pp, 242. 168. M. Worley. 'Refl^'ctions on recent British CoiniiiLuiist I'aity history'", Hisloricdl .Mdiciidii.^iii. 4, njyy. Fora bibliography until the iyXos, see A, J, M.icKeiuie, 'C'i>mmunism in Britain: a bihliogiMphy', Biilicliii oJ ihe Soa'cly for ihe Snidy of Labour Iliswry. ^(K uj^i. Perhaps the best guide co more recent publications is the annual bihliop-aphy published in Laiwiir History Review (LHRj. ^ Worley, "ReHections', pp.244, -4:i- -57- 24T-2; Hobsbawm, Revohitioiidnes. p, 10, '' E. Hobsbawm, review ofThoipe, British Comiiniiiist Party, Political Quarterly, 77, 4, 2001, p. 52_i. ^ See. for example. S. Cohen, 'Bolshevism and Stalinism', in R . Tucker (cd.), Stuliiiism. Essuys in Historical Interprctatioti. New York, Norton, 1977; G. Boffa, The Staliti Pliciioirinwii, Ithaca. Cornell University Press, ii)S2: P. Campeanu. Tlie Oni.''"-' ofSmliiiisiii. From Lfiiiiiist Rei'ohiiioii to Sluliiiisl Society. New York, Shaipe. lySCi; C. Gill, Tlie ()ri_^iiis of the Sialitiist Politidil System, C;;imbridge University l'ress. lyyo. C Ward. Stalin's Russia. Arnold, lyyy. p, 264. R. Page Arnot, 'Ten years of the Communist Party of Great Britain', Daily Worker, s - i ; August iy.io. See also T. Bell, 'Ten years of the CPGB', Coiitmiinist Reiiicit; August ly.io. '" T. Bell, Tlie British Commimisl Party. A Short Histor)', London, Lawrence and Wishait, :')}j: A. Hutt. 'How not to u'rite Communist history'. Labour Monthly. |UIK" 1937. pp. 3S3, 38-;; A, Elsbur)', "St.ilinist comipdon exposed". F/^'/u. May ]y3S. " Hutt. 'Communist bistoiy', p, 3X2; A. ilntt. T7;c Post-n>(ir Hi.'Hory ofihe Bm/,s7i U-'orkin^ii Class, London. Gollancz, 1937. '" Hutt. 'Communist history", p, }Hz; Hutt, Pon-ii'tir History, p. 242, '"* R. Page Aniot. Twenty Yam. Tlie Pohcy of ihe Cotnitininst Party of i'.reat Rriniin from its foundation. London. Lawrence and Wishart. iy40, p. z. '•* R. Page Amot. T h e first thirty years'. Liboiir Monthly. August iy>o: E. Hobsb.iwm, 'The Brirish Communist Party'. Political Quarterly, 25, i, 1954. pp. 30, 43. '"• R, Palme Dutt. "Honour to whom honour: soine reflections on Comniunist Party histor\'*. Labour .Monthly. April ly.sy; H. Pelling, The British Comnninist Party. .An Hhrorical Profile. London. A ik C Black, lysy. ^'' Daily Worker (DWl, 7 April ii- Cf'rare are even the most extreme admirers (within the Labonr Party or tlif TUC) ofthe USSR who had the slightest sympathy for either rhe Third Internationai or its British subsidiary' (A, J. Williams, Lahoiir and Riis,m, Tiie Attitiidi ofriie Lai>oiir Party to tin- I ^SSR, 1^24-34, Manchester Universit>' Press. lyS^. p. 37). "''* Scottish ILP, 'No United Front with Communists', Sew Leader, 4 April 1940. "*' M, Woodhouse and B. Pearce, Essays on tiie History of Coniiniiiiism in Britain, London, New Park, iy7_S. For critical Marxist attempts to understand Stahnism, see, for example, L. Trotsky, Tlic Rci'oliuion Betrayed, London, Faber, 1937; T. Clilf, Staiinia RiLisia. A Marxist Anaiysis, London, Michael Kidron. iy_S.S: M, Shachtman, Tlie Bureaiicniric Rt'i'oimion. New York, Llonald Press, [962: I. Deutscher, Tiic lhifiiii.^iicd licwhuioii, Rii.isia !gij—ii^6j. Oxford University Press, iy67; E, Mandel, Beyond Pcrcsiioiiiii. Londoti, New Left Books, lySS; H. Tickcm, The Ori\^ins of ihc Crisis in liie USSR, New York, Sharpe, I9y2. Recent academic writers on the ('PCJll have demonstrated little interest in the nature ofthe system its members served, ^''J, Hinton and R. Hymaii, Trade Unions and Rerohnioii, The Indmlrial I'ohlics of tiic Eariy (l^oinnniiiifl Party, London, Pluto Press, 1975. ^^ G, Aldred, Coiniiiiniisiii. The Story of tiic Conininnist i'arly, CJlasgow, Strickland Press, iy43, p. S. •'* A, Thorpe, 'ComintL-rn "control" ofthe Communist Pait}' of Creat Britain, 1920-43', Enjilisii Historical R-emw, 113, 452, lyyiS, p. ('137; Burleigh, Tiiird Reich, p. 20. Cf \i late product ofthe cold war', K, Morgan, Agains! Fasci.iiu and War, Unpiiira and Coiiiinuilics in Bririsii Coniininnst Polilics. igj^-41. Maiuhester University Press, iySy, p. 7, See A. Reid, "Class and politics in the work of Henr\' IVlling". Unpublished paper, University ot Salford, 2001, •*'' B, Pearce, review of Pelling, Labour Review, December 1958, p, 56. While his focus was international, all historians ofthe CPGB seeking to transcend the parochial remain indebted to another child ofthe 1950s, E, H. Carr's A History of Sovie! Russiii. London, Macmillan, 14 volumes, 1950-7^; and E, H. Carr, The T\i'ilight oj Coniiiitcni, London, Macmillan, 19X2. •*" Macfarlane, British Coiinniinist Party, "" W, Kendall, The Hciviiirionaiy .Morcnienr in Britain. iQoo-u}2i, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1909, p. xiii. •*"" P. Latham, 'Methodologicd approaches to Communist Party history', Onr HistoryJimmai, 3, 197^, p, i; J. Hinton, review of Kendall, Biiiit'tin of tiie Socieiy for the Study of Labour History, nj. lyfiy, •"^ R. Martin, C'ommitnism and tiw Trade Unions, 1924—X3- A Study of iiie National Minority Moi'eiiu'iit, Oxford, Clareiidon Press, i 9i')9; S. Macintyre, A Proletarian Science, Marxism in Britain, igi ~— i j , Cambridge University Press, iyS3; R, Challinor, The Ori^tm of Bririsii Bolshevism, London, Croom Helm, 1977; S, Macintyre, Little Moscows, Comniiniisni and iVorliin, .-I History of Commnnisni in Britain, Stroud, Sutton. 1999. Nor should F. Beckett. Enemy Within. The Rise ami Fall of the British Commutiist Party, London, John Murray. 1995. ^ readable journalistic account, be overlooked. G, Andrews, N. Fishman and K. Morgan (eds). Opening the Books. Essays on the Sodal and Cultural History of the Briii.' workplace branches in a time of militancy, iy56-79. part 2: testimonies and judgements'. Historical Sludies in Industrial Relations, 12, 2001; J. Mcliroy and A. Campbell. 'The Scots at the Lenin School: an essay in collective biography'. Scottish Labour History. 37. 2002; J. Mcliroy and A. Campbell, 'Coalfield leaders, trade unionism and Communist politics: exploring Arthur Homer atid Abe Moffiit". in S, lierger. A. Croll and N, LaPorte (eds). Towards a Comparative flistory of Coaifieid Societies. Aldershot. Ashgate. 2003: j . Mc[lroy and A. Campbell. 'Beyond Betteshaiiger: Order 130s and conHict in the Scottish coalfields during the Second World War', torthcommg. Thompson. Poverty, p, 3S2. Submitted: zo April 2002 Accepted: 11 August 2002