The Communist Party and the New Party

Abstract

The New Party was never at the centre of the concerns of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). However, the CPGB had to take a line on the new organisation when it was formed, and tried to use it to smear Labour and Independent Labour Party politicians as enemies of the working class. As the 1931 political crisis unfolded, the New Party became increasingly an irrelevance at the side of the much more tangible threat of the National government, although communists did campaign against Mosley in late 1931. Ultimately, the New Party was significant for the communists because it seemed to offer some vindication of the ‘class against class’ line; because it suggested that the CPGB was not always wrong in its analysis; because it led to increased attention to the party's youth movement; and because it led to the leading left-wing polemicist of the 1930s, John Strachey, working with the CPGB for almost a decade.

Keywords:

• British Communists
• British Fascists
• New Party
• Oswald Mosley
• John Strachey
• 1931 crisis

Notes

 [1] The Times, 29 October 1931.

 [2] See, for example, Pelling, British Communist Party; Branson, History of the Communist Party; Laybourn and Murphy, Under the Red Flag; Thorpe, The British Communist Party; Eaden and Renton, The Communist Party; Gallacher, Last Memoirs; Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester (hereafter LHASC), Cox papers, CP/IND/MISC/2/3, Idris Cox, ‘Reflections’ (unpublished autobiography). For an exception, see Worley, Class Against Class, 274.

 [3] All membership figures taken from Thorpe, British Communist Party, 284.

 [4] Communist Review, June 1929.

 [5] J. R. Campbell, ‘The Outlook’, Communist Review, November 1929; Thorpe, ‘The Industrial Meaning of “Gradualism”’, 84–113.

 [6] Thorpe, British Communist Party, 166.

 [7] LHASC, CPGB Political Bureau minutes, 5 February and 8 January 1931; Enlarged PB minutes, 12 February 1931.

 [8] Murphy, ‘Editorial’, Communist Review, February 1931; Dutt, Fascism, 202.

 [9] Murphy, ‘Significance of the Llandudno Conference’, Communist Review, November 1930.

[10] Murphy, ‘Editorial’, Communist Review, January 1931.

[11] Murphy, ‘The Growth of Social-Fascism in Britain’, Communist Review, January 1930.

[12] PB minutes, 26 February 1931; Thorpe, British Communist Party, 175–9; Fishman, ‘Horner and Hornerism’, 122–42; McIlroy and Campbell, ‘The Heresy’, 105–18.

[13] LHASC, CC minutes, 14–15 March 1931.

[14] LHASC, Dutt papers, CP/IND/DUTT/29/02, CC resolution, ‘The Political Situation and the Tasks for the Party’, 20 March 1931.

[15] Scottish DPC resolution, ‘The Political Situation and the Tasks of the Party’, in PB minutes, 9 April 1931.

[16] PB minutes, 30 April 1931; Fishman, ‘Horner and Hornerism’.

[17] PB minutes, 9 April 1931.

[18] Jones, Unfinished Journey, 255–6.

[19] McCarthy, Generation in Revolt, 16, quoted in Martin, Communism, 142.

[20] PB minutes, 16 April 1931.

[21] CC minutes, 30 May 1931; CP/IND/DUTT/29/02, Dutt to CC, 26 May 1931; PB minutes, 18 June, 9 July 1931; ‘Editorial’, Communist Review, July 1931.

[22] Murphy, ‘Editorial’, Communist Review, September 1931 and October 1931.

[23] Enlarged PB minutes, 27 August 1931; LHASC, Communist Party papers, CP/CENT/CIRC/70/03, circular, ‘An open letter to member of the party’, 28 August 1931 and ‘To be read and discussed at all district and local party committees’, 23 September 1931.

[24] CC minutes, 19–20 September 1931.

[25] For more on this, see Thorpe, British Communist Party, 181–3.

[26] Thorpe, The British General Election, 270.

[27] Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, Moscow (RGASPI), 495/4/142, fos. 1–9, minutes of political commission of ECCI political secretariat, 28 September 1931; CPGB, general election manifesto, in Communist Review, November 1931.

[28] J. Shields, ‘The ILP—The Enemy of the Workers’, Communist Review, November, 1931.

[29] Pollitt papers, CP/IND/POLL/10/2, Pollitt, election address, Whitechapel and St George's, 1931; J. Shields, ‘The ILP—the enemy of the workers’, Communist Review, November, 1931, Whitechapel and St George's Division Election Special, 1931.

[30] PB minutes 12 October 1931; The Times, 20 and 27 October 1931; Jones, Unfinished Journey, 269.

[31] CP/CENT/CONG/04/02, London DPC leaflet, ‘Nobody Loved Him Except Hitler and Mussolini So He Became a Fascist: Mosley's Record’, n.d. (Feburary 1937).

[32] Thorpe, British Communist Party, 184–201; Groves, The Balham Group.

[33] PB minutes, 26 November 1931.

[34] Dutt, Fascism, 266.

[35] Beckett, Enemy Within, 44.

[36] Fishman, British Communist Party, Chapter 7 and passim.

[37] PB minutes, 5 March 1931.

[38] CC minutes, 14–15 March 1931. Inprecorr (International Press Correspondence) was the official newspaper of the Comintern.

[39] CC minutes, 14–15 March 1931. Inprecorr (International Press Correspondence) was the official newspaper of the Comintern; CC resolution, ‘The Political Situation and the Tasks of the Party’, 20 March 1931.

[40] For an early example, see Scottish DPC resolution, ‘Resolution on Party Organisation’, in PB minutes, 9 April 1931.

[41] See CP/CENT/CIRC/70/03, circulars, ‘Youth Recruiting Campaign’, 24 July 1935; ‘Work Amongst Youth’, 29 November 1935.

[42] Morgan, Harry Pollitt, 84; Callaghan, Rajani Palme Dutt, 145; Laybourn and Murphy, Under the Red Flag, 90–1.

[43] PB minutes 5 March and 4 June 1931.

[44] CC minutes, 14–15 March 1931.

[45] Circular, ‘An Open Letter to Member of the Party’, 28 August 1931.

[46] PB minutes, 12 October 1931.

[47] Thorpe, British General Election, 190–2.

[48] Mosley, My Life, 293–4.

[49] Nicolson, Diaries, 21 September 1931; Jones, Unfinished Journey, 269; The Times, 20 October 1931; PB minutes, 27 July 1931, show that between 50 and 60 per cent of members were then unemployed. CC minutes, 19–20 September 1931, show that the percentage of recent recruits who were unemployed in London, Sheffield and Tyneside were 58, 66 and 75 per cent respectively.

[50] PB minutes, 12 October 1931.

[51] The Times, 27 October 1931.

[52] Rosenhaft, Beating the Fascists?, 26 and 79–84.

[53] Thomas, John Strachey, 120 and 136; Thompson, John Strachey, 108.

[54] Thomas, John Strachey; Newman, John Strachey ; Thompson, John Strachey. A useful recent study of Strachey's thought appears in Beech and Hickson, Labour's Thinkers, 100–17.

[55] Mosley, My Life, 330.

[56] Thomas, John Strachey, 121–7.

[57] Gallacher, Revolt on the Clyde, 248–69; Murphy, New Horizons, 123–4; Bell, Pioneering Days, 213–26.

[58] Strachey, Menace of Fascism, 161.

[59] Strachey, Menace of Fascism, 164.

[60] Thompson, John Strachey, 170; Beech and Hickson, Labour's Thinkers, 105–6.

[61] Mirsky, Intelligentsia, 20–1, quoted in Collini, Absent Minds, 128.