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The Introduction of the 'New Line' into the CPGB — Seen from the German Communist Opposition
In Special Supplement No 3 to Gegen den Strom (GdSt), January 1929, announcing the expulsions of Brandler and Thalheimer from the CPSU, there is an interesting article on the CPGB. Entitled 'CPGB for control of production. What is going on?', it points out that Rote Fahne (RF) had recently reported that the CPGB Central Committee (CC) had 'unconditionally' supported the Open Letter of the ECCI against the 'right' in the German Communist Party (KPD). The Open Letter had characterised propaganda for Workers' Control of Production in non-acute revolutionary situations such as the present as particularly reformist and liquidatory. The CPGB CC had expressly supported that evaluation, though - the RF kept silent about this — against a considerable dissenting minority. Nevertheless, the British representative in ECCI had supported the Open Letter and Stalin's Comintern line, too.
However, on 22 January, RF carried a detailed report of the opening of the 10th Congress of the CPGB. According to that report, J.R. Campbell, chairing, had characterised the tasks of the party in his opening speech as follows:
The CP demands the nationalisation without compensation under workers control of the key and other industries. The other parties seek nationalisation with capitalist control.
While a parliamentary group would be useful, the main task of the party must be the organising of factory workers for direct control.
This report of the CPGB's demands in regard to workers' control of production, said GdSt, corresponded in fundamentals to the view of the KPD Opposition. In regard to the question of nationalisation it went still further.
What one must now ask is: whether in the opinion of the ECCI and the KPD CC, an acute revolutionary situation existed in Britain (as according to the present CI line, only then must one propagandise control of production); or had the whole leadership of the CPGB gone over to 'Brandlerism' and could one now expect an ECCI Open Letter with the expulsions of the leading British comrades? Or had the leading ECCI people perhaps seen the errors of their ways in liquidating the line elaborated by Lenin for the CI in regard of the United Front tactic and control of production? Were they now retreating via the CPGB?
In GdSt no 23 (8/6/29), pp 11-12, there appeared an analysis of the British 1929 General Election. In no 24 (15/6/29) pp 9-10, there was the first part of an analysis of the electoral defeat of the British Communists and the leadership of the CI. In no 25 (22/6/29) pp 5-6, part two analysed the voting figures where the CPGB stood candidates. In no 26 (29/6/29), p 10, the critical analysis was brought to a close.
GdSt no 52 (28/12/29) contained Chapter 7 of M.N. Roy's Crisis in the Communist International devoted to the CPGB (available in English in Selected Works of M N Roy, ed. Sibnarayan Ray, volume 3, OUP, Delhi, 1990, pp. 341ff). Roy examined the recently held Eleventh CPGB Congress, as well as the historical roots for communism's weakness in Britain.
Before the congress a discussion occurred. The main feature of this discussion was the hunt for the 'right danger'. Though it turned out that this danger was difficult to get to grips with in the CPGB. Those accused of being the right deviation, and of sabotaging the 'new line', were themselves participating in the hunt for the 'right danger'. Even Cde. Rothstein, removed some time ago from the Politbureau as leader of the right wing, prior to the congress, wrote in the official organ of the party that 'right errors in the present period are unpardonable'. He spoke in the same tone at the congress. In vain, however. He was not re-elected to the new CC. The campaign against the 'right danger' in the CPGB, which has led to such a comedy must, in order to justify itself, nevertheless, have its prey. The ECCI apparatus has succeeded in forcing all dissentients onto the 'new line'. There is only one exception — Horner, who stood by his views and went down fighting. He warned the congress that 'the party had to carefully take note that it did not become a leadership without an army'. While declaring his opposition to the establishing of new 'revolutionary unions', Horner, who is the most prominent CPGB trade unionist, stated: 'As long as the mass of the workers are in the old unions, we must stay in them and should not run away from them to build new ones because we are offended'. In contrast to Horner, the other prominent trade unionist, Pollitt, capitulated, although he had come under suspicion of personifying the 'right danger'. Pollitt delivered the CC political report at the congress, that is, he appeared as the defender of the 'new line'. In the recently held party discussion Pollitt had, however, initially been attacked. Today it looks as if the whole party is mobilised against the 'right danger' which is thereby reduced to an abstract term. Everyone is furiously fighting against something that nobody is defending. Such things could only be staged in Britain — the classical country of opportunism.
In such an abnormal atmosphere as that which dominated the congress of the CPGB, a serious treatment of all the problems facing the party was impossible. Not a few comrades hid their real views behind radical phrases. They were forced into it through fear of the ECCI apparatus. That was clearly apparent at the congress. A closer look at speeches held by some of the leading comrades shows that their agreement with the 'new line' was superficial. It also shows that the party had an extremely unsatisfactory grasp of the problems facing it. Nevertheless, a party which only has a few thousand members and 'absolutely no roots in the factories' (Pollitt's report at the congress) will be forced into the adventure of a struggle for power by the international leadership. That will surely not contribute towards the development of a mass communist party in Britain, but rather, destroy the little that has been achieved.
The objective conditions in Britain are very favourable for the development of a mass communist party. The recognition by the party leadership of the errors made is a welcome subjective factor, which also serves this development. The inner life of the party is in motion. The old stagnation is breaking down. There is no clearly crystallised right or left tendency in the party. We often observe deviations to the left or to the right by the same comrades. Right from the start, Pollitt was an enthusiastic adherent of the 'new line', as it was formulated at the 9th ECCI Plenum. As the international apparatus decided to break the resistance of the so-called right leaders (Campbell, Rothstein, Bell, etc) through a drastic change of the party leadership, Pollitt was chosen as the coming man. Suddenly, at the 10th Plenum, he took a position which brought him into suspicion of 'right deviationism'. All the calculations of the international apparatus were overturned by this somersault by Pollitt. Though behind his apparent foolishness was hidden method. The main content of the 'new line' — the setting up of new unions — was not clearly visible at first. As an active trade unionist Pollitt took up a critical attitude towards the 'new line' as its real kernel emerged at the 6th [CI] Congress [in 1928]. Now he undertakes another turn, though if one takes a critical look at his speech at the congress, one can see that his heart is not in the issue. Another example is [J.T.] Murphy. During the whole time he was a passionate defender of the 'new line' and candidate for the party leadership. He ruthlessly exposed 'right deviations' in everyone. In September this year, Murphy proposed that the communists should advance concrete demands at the coming Labour Party conference. The secretariat of the CC, composed of comrades accused of right opportunism, accused Murphy of right deviationism because of this proposal. In defence of his proposal, Murphy explained that the 'right' secretariat, owing to its opposition to partial demands, had fallen into an ultra-left deviation. These are not isolated cases. They characterise the situation in the whole party. The leading party cadre has broken with the old opportunist tradition, but are still not yet clear about the replacement line. The recognition of the errors made will be of no use if they become the starting-point for new errors in the opposing direction. And that is precisely what is occurring now in the CPGB.
Roy goes on to state that although the leadership of the CPGB had not been ideal, 'the main reason for the backwardness of the party is not only caused by that, but is to be found in the specific situation of the country and in the peculiar traditions and the structure of the labour movement determined by it. In fact, the faults in the leadership of the CPGB itself can be found in the specific situation of the country.'
Roy then sketches out the situation in which the Labour Party emerged. He sees the belief in change coming through reforms. Strikes do not, as in earlier times, question political power. British workers believe in parliament not so much as an illusion but more as a superstition. The dissatisfaction with the liberalism of the trade union leaders and parliamentary-cretinism takes on the form of anarcho-syndicalism. He then looked at Hyndman's Social Democratic Federationn, which never rose above being a propaganda sect to become a part of British political life. Anarcho-syndicalism became strengthened during the upturn of struggles in 1918-19. The Socialist Labour Party represented what Roy sees as the third tendency which made up the CPGB, which he sees as characterised by dogmatic Marxism, sectarianism, and a form of anarcho-syndicalism. According to Roy, Lenin developed the tactic of the CPGB's relationship to the Labour Party as a way of overcoming anarchistic sectarianism, syndicalist romanticism and petty bourgeois anti-parliamentarianism. However, the tactic revived, at the same time, a portion of the dying opportunist tradition. In their hands the tactic became one of supporting the Labour Party in order to drive it into revolutionary struggle against capitalism, instead of liberating the masses from parliamentary cretinism. Cured of one infantile sickness, that of left-wing communism, the CPGB now tended to fall into the other and go too far in that direction.
The arguments with which one justifies the 'new line' show precisely how falsely the old policy was understood and utilised. Cde. Thomas Bell is a typical member of the 'old guard'. Originating in the Socialist Labour Party, he knew the three volumes of Capital by heart, and as a result has been one of the theoretical leaders of the party since its foundation. Suspected of right deviations himself, he enthusiastically participates in the hunt for the 'right danger'. In the latest issue of the party's theoretical organ he writes a contribution entitled 'The Crisis in our Party and the Way Out'. Here he says, among other things: 'The old tactic of bringing about a United Front from above has become impossible. Now we have to organise the struggle of the workers against the trade union bureaucracy and Labour Party, ie against the social-fascist apparatus. Stop flirting with the "left" leaders!'. In these few short and clear sentences the whole history of the past is related. The tactic of the communists to support the Labour Party was interpreted and carried out as a 'measure of the United Front from above'. The solemn declaration that from now on one should organise the struggle of the workers against the trade union bureaucracy, etc, signifies that the tactic until now was in the opposite sense, namely to join with it, and with its agreement to organise the struggle — to drive it into revolutionary struggle. That was obviously a false, if not opportunist, interpretation of the tactical line recommended by Lenin.
The significance of the former tactical line was not that one was able to force MacDonald to lead the struggle against the king and parliament, or that one could convert Purcell into a propaganda- instrument for communism. But used unconsciously exclusively as a means for realising the communist programme, this policy created such illusions. Indeed, the very radical sounding main slogan of the new line, 'Revolutionary Workers Government', has the same fault. What should workers, never having had it explained to them that a government without parliament is possible, imagine by that? Quite logically, a Labour government (obviously with parliament and MacDonald) with a revolutionary programme, at best with Murphy instead of MacDonald! All the mistakes of the past can mainly be attributed to the fact that the CPGB has never had its own programme taking into consideration the specific situation of the country. Even today it still does not have such a programme. Without that it will be driven into the cul-de-sac of anarcho-syndicalism, which was always the antithesis of reformism in Britain.
In looking at the content of the 'new line' in Britain, Roy pointed out that the CI was seeking a scapegoat for the errors made in Britain only among the CPGB leaders.
On account of the opportunist tradition, ideological backwardness and political inexperience in the CPGB leadership it was always given that errors in advancing Lenin's tactic would be possible. It was the task of the International to assist. That did not occur. Every mistake made by the CPGB leadership was made with the agreement and approval of the CI. Actually, in some cases, it was directly due to the influence of the CI that the worst excesses occurred in the use of the Leninist united front tactic. One cannot allow the tragic experience of the Anglo-Russian Committee to go unmentioned when examining the CPGB's problems. When Zinoviev went into opposition, he demanded the dissolution of this organ of ineffective diplomatic negotiations. However previously, when chairman of the CI, he went so far as to claim, at a world congress, that possibly Purcell and Hicks would be the instruments whereby the British proletariat could be won for communism. How could one expect that the young, weak and tiny CPGB would keep to the Leninist tactical line, when the Russian leaders continued international diplomatic negotiations with the British trade union bureaucrats, even after their shameless betrayal in the 1926 General Strike? Only after the Anglo-Russian Committee was broken up by British initiative, did the Russian CI leaders suddenly discover that something was not right in the CPGB. Until then the CPGB leadership had had the complete confidence of the CI. Even their weighty errors regarding the General Strike were approved, inasmuch as they were not condemned sharply by the ECCI. The ECCI tolerated the politics of the 'old guard', which hindered the influx of new blood into the party leadership. After it made the belated discovery that the CPGB leadership was not perfect, the Russian leaders fell into the other extreme and forced onto the CPGB the 'new line', which represents an ultra-left deviation from the Leninist tactic.
Roy goes on to say that the CPGB attitude towards the Labour Party cannot stay the same as in 1920. He sees the 1926 betrayal and the Labour Party preparing to purge the communists from all its organs as decisive factors. The CPGB should not operate as the left-wing of the Labour Party any longer. Roy sees the 9th ECCI Plenum resolution on this question as still containing some right tendencies, with the campaign for CPGB affiliation to the Labour Party continuing. However, the 'new line' takes on a positively dangerous form in regard to the trade unions, as it was formulated at the 6th CI Congress and the 4th RILU Congress. The 10th ECCI Plenum formulated the 'new line' in an unequivocal call for the setting up of 'revolutionary trade unions', and this policy was forced onto the CPGB at its recently held congress.
Although those previously characterised as the 'right danger' in the CPGB leadership had capitulated before the ECCI, Roy sees in their statements that they do not accept the 'new line' regarding the setting up of breakaway trade unions. The conditions under which such unions should be set up are such as to make it practically impossible. Only Horner expressed opposition to it at the congress, though Roy sees in comments by Campbell and Bell, in spite of going along with the 'new line', a lack of conviction. If there is no resistance to the 'new line', Roy concludes, the CPGB will be completely destroyed.
