COMMUNIST HISTORY
NETWORK NEWSLETTER
No 3, April 1997

Introduction

Thanks again for all contributions to this Newsletter. The next one should appear in October 1997 and contributions are very welcome.

Kevin Morgan

Editor CHNN
Department of Government
University of Manchester
Manchester
United Kingdom
M13 9PL

Contents

Announcements

• Science & Society (Special Issue)
• New CPGB History Book Launch
• New Comintern Biographical Dictionary
• British Trade Unions 1940-79 Conference

• 'Radical Roots': Democratic Left Day Conference, Mike Waite

• Esmonde Higgins and 'The Nucleus': 1923-24, Terry Irving
• American Jewish Communists and the Birobidzhan Project, 1924-50, Henry Srebrnik
• The Introduction of the 'New Line' into the CPGB — as Seen from the German Communist Opposition,Mike Jones

• Danish Communism: Recent Books of Note, reviewed by Steve Parsons
• London Jews and British Communism 1935-45, Henry Felix Srebrnik, reviewed by Solly Kaye
• To Tilt at Windmills: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War Fred Thomas, reviewed by Tom Buchanan

• National Museum of Labour History: Margot Kettle Papers,
  Andrew Flinn

Announcements

SCIENCE & SOCIETY SPECIAL ISSUE: The CPGB special issue of Science & Society (Winter 1997) is now available and a limited number of copies are available at £5.50 including p&p. 

NEW CPGB HISTORY BOOK LAUNCH: Noreen Branson's History of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1941-1951 is to be published in May by Lawrence & Wishart. The book will be launched at 6 Cynthia Street, London N1 with Monty Johnstone as guest speaker, provisional date 16 May. Further details on 0171-278-4451. 

ORAL HISTORY: An updated and expanded biographical dictionary of the Comintern is in preparation. The editors are Peter Huber and Bernhard H. Bayerlein and their aim is to use newly accessible Comintern archives to provide a more detailed and fully authenticated record than was possible when B Lazitch and M M Drachkovitch published their earlier CI biographical dictionary some twenty-odd years ago. The editors are being assisted by an international team of specialists and the dictionary should finally include about 2,000 small biographies of about 12 lines and 100 fuller entries for important CI cadres.

BRITISH TRADE UNIONISM 1940-1979 CONFERENCE: A conference on 'British trade unionism: workers' struggles and economic performance 1940-79' is to be held at the University of Warwick, 19-20 September 1997. A number of the papers touch directly or indirectly on communist activities in the unions. Further details from Nina Fishman, 0171-354-0823.
 

Conference Report

Radical Roots

Some notes on this day of discussion may be of interest to readers of the Newsletter. 'Radical Roots' was not an academic conference, attempting objectivity. Rather it reflected and fed into current debates about the ways forward taking place within the organisation Democratic Left (DL), set up by those who carried the day at the final congress of the CPGB in 1991. The idea was to consider aspects of the post-war history of the CPGB in such a way as might help develop and sharpen understanding around some current issues which the left needs to explore. The chance of meeting this objective was improved by the organisers' decision to invite people who were never part of the communist movement to make some of the short inputs which started each session, as well as making space available to former CPGB members who had opposed the decision to wind up the old Party.

The opening session, on the CPGB and the unions, provided some of the liveliest debate of the day. Financial Times journalist Robert Taylor acknowledged the effective approach of Party trade unionists, and their achievement in 'punching above their weight'. Mike Power's focus was on how the CPGB had used the potential for developing trade union struggles which it enjoyed. Whilst praising communists' contribution to developing forms of serious activism, Power bemoaned the key failure of the CPGB in not really linking industrial struggles to wider issues, a point well emphasised in discussion by Graham Taylor who remembered how 'class struggle' was usually defined narrowly as struggle over wages and conditions. Power also focused on the contradiction between the wider approach which the Party developed of trying to work in unity with the people on the Labour left, whilst 'industrial comrades' were often campaigning against them on narrower issues. Power's fellow DL member Wolf Wayne took serious objection to some of Power's points, insisting in particular that the CPGB — and the 'wider labour movement' — had been 'right to fight' against the trade union reforms proposed in Barbara Castle's 1969 White Paper In Place of Strife. In discussion, Nina Temple described the distances which had existed between the Industrial Department and other components of the central Party leadership during the seventies: the Department was operating as a 'secretive Leninist organisation' at the same time as the Party was trying to reshape its structures and culture in the spirit of working for the Broad Democratic Alliance; the Needs of the Hour publication was produced by Department leaders without ever coming to what Temple defined as 'the political side of the Party'; and industrial organisers were more interested in keeping in touch with officials in the hierarchy of the unions rather than attempting to win large numbers of ordinary trade unionists to new positions. Overall, Bert Ramelson's period as Industrial Organiser was characterised as being dedicated to the creation of a manipulative, secretive and bureaucratic machine.

The 'trade unions' session ran half an hour into the time allocated for what therefore became a hurried discussion on 'internationalism and race' — a detail which in itself can perhaps be taken as a comment on the enduring priorities of activists in this tradition. Nevertheless, varied inputs from Chris Myant on the lost world of left wing international solidarity work, from Trevor Carter on the experience of black activists within the British communist movement, and from Kate Hudson lamenting the passing of the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall and the CPGB, all raised interesting points and stimulated useful discussion.

New Times editor Rosemary Bechler opened a session on 'forms and cultures of organisation' with reflections on how political organisations might shape themselves around theories of knowledge, social change and conflict resolution which have been increasingly considered on the left in recent years, but have not yet led to changes in established patterns of practice and culture. Steven Twigg, the secretary of the Fabian Society and a Labour parliamentary candidate, focused on the points of contact, difference and similarity between the Fabian and communist traditions, in a way which suggested how the history of the CPGB politics might best be understood comparatively, in counter-point to studies of other Labourist, left and liberal traditions.

Relations between the CPGB and Labour were also a focus of the final session, aimed at identifying the shifting landmarks and various compasses which guided and confused Party activists in its last fifteen years. The discussion was opened by Steve Munby, key author of the 1996 DL pamphlet Arguments towards a Democratic Left, a publication which represents the organisation's first substantial attempt to move towards programmatic positions and includes some assessments of the record of the Communist Party in its latter years. He focused on the 'success' which the CPGB had in the seventies, 'which was a disaster', and on the 'failures' of the CPGB in the eighties, many of which were 'very useful'. The seventies 'success' was the strategy of communists helping to develop the Labour left, particularly through getting the Labour Party to adopt CPGB sponsored resolutions via the trade union block votes which Ramelson's machinery helped manipulate. Munby's point here was that a number of communists bore some of the responsibility for the rise within the Labour Party of the sectarian leftist politics which coalesced around Benn in the early eighties, and which became a factor in Labour's crushing 1983 general election defeat, and in the SDP split.

Conversely, some of the 'failures' of the eighties gave rise to useful consequences. The split in the CPGB was caused by and created space for the development of critiques of left fundamentalism and analyses of Thatcherism and of post-Fordist 'new times', associated in particular with the magazine Marxism Today which folded at the beginning of the nineties. Although he did not overplay this point, or make it in a sectarian way, Munby was surely correct to state that these communist-sponsored analyses are amongst the motors of the projects of modernisation and renewal which have shaped the Labour Party over the last ten years or so, and in so far as this is the case the main political tendency in the eighties CPGB can be considered to be continuing to enjoy a positive 'posthumous influence' on mainstream politics. Munby provided an important counter-balance to widespread understandings of the relationship between Marxism Today and the Party by pinpointing the ways in which a significant number of communist activists were at the forefront of forming the 'revisionist' and iconoclastic views then taken up and developed in the magazine... the story of the Party in the eighties was not only one of a widening gap between the intellectuals opening their glossy magazine to non-Party journalists and style gurus on the one hand and old fashioned card carrying cadre on the other: promising networks formed which brought together (comparatively) younger activists acutely aware of the crisis of all aspects of the communist political tradition, but also aware of the need to continue to develop and explore the possibility of new ways forward.

Nina Fishman described how she had journeyed from a point of considerable distance from the CPGB in the early seventies, when she was horrified by the CPGB's 'Euro-sceptic' politics, through to a stimulating and fruitful association with the Party in its last days and with DL now. Although some at the meeting felt resentment at her questioning of their motives for staying in the Party through the seventies and eighties, the main point of her input was taken as being that it was entirely possible to come towards the politics which DL is expressing now from backgrounds other than having been in or around the CPGB.

Willie Thompson, editor of Socialist History and author of the recent The Left in History (Pluto Press), gave what he described as a more 'prosaic' account of CPGB politics in the seventies and eighties than Munby or Fishman. His contribution succeeded in refocusing the day's closing discussion on the issues of what actually happened to the politics and organisation of the Party towards its end. Debates continue on whether and how any of the fragile remnants of communist analysis and practice might provide some of the 'radical roots' of an effective left politics for today and tomorrow.

Mike Waite, Socialist History

Democratic Left day conference:
Radical Roots, London, 14 December 1996

Work in Progress

Esmonde Higgins and 'The Nucleus': 1923-24

Esmonde Higgins makes a couple of brief appearances in Kevin Morgan's Harry Pollitt, most significantly as a member of 'the nucleus', that shadowy group of intellectuals, led by Pollitt and the Dutts, that aimed to capture the leadership of the British Communist Party [1]. I have an interest in Higgins as his 'biographer in the making'. In Australian libraries [2] there are very good sources for Higgins's life in the Party and the Labour Research Department (LRD), mainly his almost weekly letters to his parents and his sister, but strangely almost no letters have survived for the last thirteen months before his return to Australia in May 1924 — the period when he would have been active in 'the nucleus'. Hence this note, written in the hope that it may jog the memory of researchers with a better knowledge of the CPGB's sources than I have.

Higgins was born in Australia in 1897. He became a socialist and radical nationalist while attending Melbourne University, and a Sinn Fein sympathiser (his father was born in Ireland) and Communist at Balliol College in 1919-20. His closest friends at this time were Andrew Rothstein and Tom Wintringham, and with the latter he spent part of the summer of 1920 working in Moscow. He and Wintringham went to London in April 1921 to assist the Left during the miners' strike, and they later shared digs in London. By the middle of the year Hig (as he was known in these circles) was working at the LRD, where for the next two years he was part of a group (including Hugo Rathbone) funded by the All-Russian Co-operative Society to prepare a monthly economic and political bulletin. His letters at this time describe in great detail and with remarkable self-awareness the life of a Communist romantic. 'You can't guess how earnest and how chock full of gusto I feel, or how bloody fatuous and scornful of the lack of all results so far', he wrote to Pollitt [3]. Always another meeting to attend, another report to write; always the disappointment of limited results; but none of this could outweigh the exhilaration of clandestine revolutionary work, and the warmth of comradeship, for Higgins.

From the point of view of the Dutts and Pollitt, Higgins had the right credentials for 'the nucleus'. He had no connections with any of the pre-Bolshevik forces that had formed the Party. He was bright. He was modest, with no political ambitions, at least not in the British Party. And he was loyal and self-sacrificing. But these virtues also meant that he had no roots in the British revolutionary movement. So, what could he do for 'the nucleus'? In a ship-board diary, written while returning to Australia, he tried to sum up his recent experiences: on the Workers' Weekly he had sub-edited for 12 months and contributed about 1000 words per issue for 15 months; on the Russian Information Review he sub-edited for nine months. He had written 600 words every week for two months as the industrial correspondent for the Labour Press Service. There were occasional pieces by him in The Communist Review and the Labour Monthly [4] This suggests that his main role was journalistic. But was there more? In this connection, an undated and unaddressed letter in his Papers is worth considering. It is clearly from the period of 'the nucleus', because it mentions the Workers' Weekly. Internal evidence suggests that it is to Harry Pollitt, and it has the same bantering, familiar, self-deprecating and slightly deferential tone that Hig adopted towards Harry in other letters. Slightly abbreviated, the letter says:

Here are the minutes — laborious, but inelegant, bloody.

I now know more or less what I want to suggest as a proper arrangement of intercourse between the TU Section, the Press Section, and the WW. I didn't this afternoon. I am off soon to splash in Somerset House again, so I'll put it in writing for you.

First, there's one thing that's been tickling me. It's that I feel you'd have no bloody excuse not to be more energetic and productive as secretary of the TU Section than I as sec. of the Press Section. I'm not trying to cry, but to suggest that I should get regularly more close to the work your Section is doing. The Press Section, apart from what [it?] is supposed to read in Journals is turning its own guts out (or ought to be). The stuff which comes into you may be overwhelming and may three-fourths of the time be tripey, but surely live, and, in a sense, fresh. So, I want to suck in a little blasted interest in industrial doings of the moment through the muck which comes to your Section, as well as to read earnestly and methodically the bloody Gerald, and a clump of journals...

That ought to ease the position for the Weekly, as well as for the accursed Press Section. If I suck your blood, and systematically ponder over things which seem timely and insistent, I ought to be able to give the Weekly a better chance on that side of its starved existence and, especially, to make better play with the damned good stuff which comes in to be written up. But, at the same time, will you help strenuously to knock the idea into Murphy that at each Industrial Committee we must put our heads together and settle what things must be done — not by the Industrial Committee — for the Weekly; that the Committee should consider one of its prime functions is, not just to use the Weekly for the appeals for the benefit of the Committee, but to feed the Weekly, or at least to suggest that it should be fed, with industrial stuff that the Weekly should have; and that the business of planning what to throw at the Weekly should after all depend mainly on Murphy himself?

I am willing quite to act as a go-between and to take the game quite seriously, but I am a babe in experience, a muddle-headed oaf with no possible initiative, and an unmercifully slow worker at everything. So, there's a huge reason for mobilising the whole Committee, especially for planning and suggesting and using its head...

So, will you please see if you can:

1. help to turn the attention of the Industrial Committee, and especially of Murphy, more and more to the needs of the poor bloody WW;

2. keep the double needs of the Press Section - hitherto a bloody whited sepulchre - and the industrial side of the WW very close to the point while you are knocking about with any kind of work which can in any way be useful;

3. put up with my buggering you about and your papers?

…And — one thing — always remember that for the Weekly the result intended is never notes or diminutive articles, but news which can be made into propaganda by headlines, and adjust your suggestions and jottings to that notion.

You can't guess how earnest and how chock full of gusto I feel, or how bloody fatuous and scornful of the lack of all results so far.

See you at 4. Can you not be late? The reason is that I'm scared of those brats. They regard me somehow as a convenient buffoon. And they'll start a rough-house at once if there's no one more dignified knocking round. I want the conversation to become extraordinarily improving, to make them jump at the notion of them getting rid regularly of the paper, and generally change their whole bloody manner of life. For Christ's sake come ready to manoeuvre this.

I'm not coming to the Dept. After Somerset House I'm going back to do things at home. It's not worth coming here. Olive said I was to fix with you where to feed before Gadzooks. I'll leave it to you.

Thanks,

Hig [5]

The letter is about the proper relationship between the revolutionary press and the revolutionary leadership of the industrial struggle. It appears that Higgins was secretary of the Press Section, and that he was writing to the secretary of the Trade Union Section. He mentions also a larger entity, the Industrial Committee, presided over by J T Murphy. Higgins seems to be part of the Industrial Committee. If this Committee is the same as the Industrial Department, set up after the party's Fifth Congress at Battersea, it is surprising to find Higgins, a young middle-class intellectual from the Antipodes, participating in such a key area of party work. It might be pertinent, however, to note that, when Higgins returned to Australia, the security service considered him to have credentials as an industrial revolutionary. Another part of the puzzle might be the lengthy, unpublished analysis of the Dock Strike of 1923 that Higgins wrote for the British party in 1933. Bearing in mind the special role of the Workers' Weekly in this struggle (a daily edition was published), we can see what Hig was driving at in his argument with Murphy and the Industrial Committee about the kind of relationship needed between the trade union strategists and the party press.

But what were these 'Sections'? Who or what was 'Gerald'? Or 'gadzooks'? If Pollitt was the recipient of this letter, is it not surprising that Higgins, however jokingly, seeks to advise him of how to relate to the Party's press work? Readers with thoughts about these questions, or references to sources, might like to contact me.

Terry Irving, Department of Government
University of Sydney, Australia 2006

fax: 61 2 9351 3624; email: terryi@sue.econ.su.oz.au

1.	Kevin Morgan, Harry Pollitt, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1993, p.33; see also p.121. [ Back ]
2.	Higgins's papers are in the Mitchell Library, Sydney (ML MSS 740); his sister Nettie was an important literary figure, and her papers are in the National Library of Australia, Canberra (Vance and Nettie Palmer Papers, NLA MS 1174). His uncle was Judge H B Higgins, of the Arbitration Court and the High Court of Australia, described by his biographer as 'the rebel as judge' (John Rickard, H B Higgins, Allen and Unwin Australia, Sydney, 1984); his nieces Aileen and Helen Palmer, both became Communists; Helen Palmer broke with the Party in 1956 and edited the 'revisionist' journal Outlook between 1957 and 1970. [ Back ]
3.	Undated, E M Higgins Papers, 740/7, ff 475-478. [ Back ]
4.	J N Rawling Papers, N57/174, Butlin Archives of Business and Labour, Australian National University, Canberra. [ Back ]
5.	Higgins Papers, op.cit., 740/7 ff475-478. [ Back ]

American Jewish Communists and the Birobidzhan Project, 1924-1950

I have begun research on a book in which I will examine the history and political activities of two left-of-centre American Jewish movements whose main aim was to provide support for the Soviet project to establish a Jewish socialist republic in the Birobidzhan region in the far east of the USSR. The first of these groups, the Organisation for Jewish Colonisation in Russia, or Yidishe Kolonizatsye Organizatsye in Rusland, known by its transliterated acronym as the ICOR, was founded in 1924, and was active within the Jewish immigrant working class milieu; its members were to a large extent first and second generation Yiddish-speaking Jews of east European origin. Apart from aiding Jewish settlers in Birobidzhan, other major components of the ICOR's politics revolved around the defence of the Soviet Union, which, it claimed, was in the process of solving the 'national question' and eliminating anti-Semitism; the struggle against fascism, especially, after 1933, in Nazi Germany; and opposition to Zionism, an ideology deemed inimical to the Jewish working class. As well, the ICOR championed the political views and advanced the goals of the Communist Party of the USA on behalf of policies which it perceived as beneficial to the Jewish working class.

The second group, the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, or Ambijan, was founded in 1934 as a popular front group catering the American-born, English-speaking, middle-class Jews, in line with the decisions then being made by the Communist International to seek broader alliances in the face of the increasing menace of Nazism and fascism. Ambijan was for that reason more liberal and inclusive in its orientation than was the ICOR, which made little secret of its pro-Soviet and left-wing outlook. Ambijan avoided ideological debates revolving around the establishment of socialism in the Soviet Union; instead, it emphasised the need for rescue and rehabilitation efforts on behalf of Jews threatened by fascism in Europe. Nonetheless, there was an overlap in the leadership of the two organisations, and both were controlled by Communists. In 1946 the two organisations merged; they survived another four years before disbanding in the face of US government harassment during the early years of the Cold War.

I hope to shed light on some of the following questions: How prominent were the ICOR and Ambijan in the wider political arena? What might we conclude about their successes and failures? Did they pursue aims congruent with Jewish values or did their allegiance to the Communist movement place limits on their freedom of manoeuvre? How did they respond to internal challenge or dissent? Such research might help determine whether the ICOR and Ambijan were first and foremost Jewish movements or whether they pursued an agenda ultimately shaped by non-Jewish — in their case, Soviet — concerns.

Henry Srebrnik
University of Prince Edward Island

Department of Political Studies
University of Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown
PEI
Canada, C1A 4P3
fax: (902) 566-0512; email: hsrebrnik@upei.ca

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.

Mike Jones, Chester

Some Recent Books

Danish Communism: Recent Books of Note

The literature on one or another aspect of the history of Danish Communism continues to grow and has of late taken increasing sustenance from archival sources in the former Soviet Union. One of the first serious scholars to utilise the Moscow archives was Kurt Jacobsen who wrote two books on the early history of the Danish Communist Party — DKP — (charting its journey from syndicalist origins to 'bolshevisation'). Jakobsen is mainly concerned with untangling the complicated web of relationships between the founding leaders of the Party, the up-and-coming 'bolshevised' generation of Danish Communists and of course the Comintern's role in the unfolding events. Mellom København og Moskva (Forlaget Tiden, 1989) deals with the period from 1919-1929 and Moskva som medspiller (Forlaget Tiden, 1987) is focused on the developments leading to the DKPs electoral breakthrough (ie the attainment of its first parliamentary representation — a meagre two MPs in 1932) and Aksel Larsen's rise to power in the Party. At the time Jacobson was a member of the Danish Communist Party and his two volumes, published by the DKP's publishing house, caused something of a stir as he broke with what had been the official Party practice of 'painting Aksel Larsen in a negative light'. In fact, Jacobsen clearly spelled out Aksel Larsen's crucial role in the Danish Communist Party's progress in the early 1930s when it achieved not only parliamentary representation but a significant presence in the organisation of the unemployed and a little later in the trade unions. More recently and naturally flowing on from this work Jakobsen has written an enormous, and much acclaimed biography of Aksel Larsen — a man who was the DKP's General Secretary from 1932-56 and continued to dominate left-wing politics after he parted ways with the Communist Party as a result of the absolutely central role he played in the formation of the Socialist People's Party — SF — in 1958/59 (he remained SF's leader until his death in 1972). Again, Jakobsen has written a fairly conventional political history, in this case political biography, and concentrates on describing Larsen's position within the fractional disputes within the DKP's leadership and his relationship with the Comintern/Moscow. However, given Aksel Larsen's dominant role in the DKP's history and the really very extensive use which has been made of the various archives in Moscow, Jacobsen's biography Aksel Larsen — en politisk biografi (Vindrose, 1993) is an essential work for those studying Danish Communism.

Apart from Jakobsen the other historian who has contributed most to the study of Danish Communism is Morten Thing. Thing has written and edited numerous books and articles on individual Danish Communists and on aspects of DKP history (if one was to give a single name to the historian of Danish Communism it would be Morten Thing). His massive two volume work (1088 pages) on intellectuals in the Danish Party, Kommunismens Kaltur — DKP og de intellektuelle 1918-1960 (Tiderne Skifter, 1993) is, in contrast to the titles referred to above, not concerned with the twists and turns of the 'Party line', fractional struggles among Party leaders and the impact of the Comintern. It is a cultural history of Danish Communism — of those communists outside of the industrial arena who were involved in what can be loosely termed intellectual activities. A wealth of detailed information is given of Party members involved in theatre, architecture, literature, music, painting, infant pedagogy, sexual education etc — their contribution to their own professional fields, the way they interpreted their Communism (and Socialist Realism) and their attitude towards Society practices. Throughout its pages it is superbly illustrated with photographs and examples of propaganda and art work produced by Communist intellectuals in the years in question. These brief words can hardly do justice to such a thought-provoking work. Some have criticised Thing's magnum opus on the grounds that it gives a distorted picture by leaving out of consideration non-Communist intellectuals and leaves the impression "that Communism (though not the DKP) was the dominating force in the Danish Cultural life and debate of the period". Although there may be some truth in this there can be no doubting after reading the two volumes that the influence and impact of Communism and the DKP on Danish authors, artists and others was very considerable (proportionally greater than in Britain). Morten Thing's most recent book, in the form of a collection of biographical essays of 10 Communists, complements his Kommunismens Kultur by going into more depth some of the best known cultural figures associated with the DKP (it followed in the wake of a series of radio broadcasts he gave on individual Communists). The title is Portrætter af 10 kommunister (Tiderne Skifter, 1996) and is a collection of previously written magazine and journal articles which have been re-worked for publication. Included as a final essay is a piece on the role of biography for historians and a defence of biographical writing which includes the psychological dimension. Thing is keen to argue that historians should not attempt in a superior way to discard the private from the public persona.

Outside of academia, Ole Sohn, the former-General Secretary of the DKP, who finally solved the mystery of the leading Danish Communist Arne Munch-Petersen's disappearance, in his book Fra Folketinget til celle 290 (Vindrose, 1992) — gives an account, on the basis of archive sources in Moscow, of how Munch-Petersen fell victim to the purges in the Soviet Union in 1937 and has continued to utilise his access/links with archives/archivists in Russia in his writing. In Der var bud efter dem Fire skæbnefortællinger fra 30 ernes revolutionære miljø (Vindrose, 1994) Ole Sohn has concentrated on recounting the stories of five Communists, active in the 1930s — one of whom acted as a Comintern courier, another one who became involved in the ISH and Wollweber-organisation etc (the accounts vary, some contain new and interesting snippets of information, others are a bit more pedestrian). His newest book, Den højeste straf (Vindrose, 1996) is now in the process of being published and as with the Munch-Petersen book is a detailed account of a Dane of Christian Communist persuasion who was liquidated in the Stalinist purges — this time, however, he was not a leading DKP official or involved in Comintern activities, but an industrial worker caught up by the romance of helping to 'build socialism' as opposed to just being a wage slave in the West. Again, Ole Sohn seems to have been able to achieve access to NKVD/KGB archival sources (is this unique?)

Finally, it should be mentioned that there is a vast sub-genre of literature which is often of great relevance in the study of Danish Communism and that is to do with Denmark in the period of Occupation during the Second World War and the growth of the resistance movement. Due to limitations of space it is impossible for me to deal with this area of study, apart from drawing attention to the extremely informative and honest autobiography of one of the key Communists during the Occupation who was active in organising an illegal press and establishing an overall governing resistance council (Danmarks Frihedsiad): Kommunist under besættelsen by Borge Hommann (Vindrose, 1990).

Steve Parsons, Sønderborg Gymnasium

London Jews and British Communism 1935-45

Henry Felix Srebrnik, London Jews and British Communism 1935-45, 272 pp., Vallentine Mitchell, 1995, £35 (hb), £17.50 (pb)

This book is a detailed exposition of the rise, decline and fall of the Communist Party in Stepney, East London. With ninety-four pages of notes and bibliography out of a total of 258 pages it must be acknowledged that the author has done his homework.

He describes the work of the Communists in the East End and recognises the failure of any other political organisation to help the people with their many and acute problems. In this he goes into great detail: the slum housing, the rapacious landlords, the backroom and backyard workshops, the rise of fascist activity, the intense concern as the Hitler menace grew, the campaign to aid democratic Spain and the opposition to this from the catholic hierarchy of the Stepney Labour Party and borough council. On all these issues the Communist Party led the campaigns and won significant victories - quite unique in the history of the people's struggle.

Before World War Two there were nearly a quarter of a million people in Stepney, of which there were estimated to be 80,000 Jews. Overwhelmingly they were engaged in the traditional trades clothing, furniture, small shopkeepers, with many employed in the small backyard workshops of which there were literally hundreds. Just like many of today's immigrant groups they were bitterly exploited, by employers and by landlords, and very few knew what rights they had (where they existed) and how to use them.

After the First World War, many joined trades unions. There was a Jewish Furniture Workers Union which conducted its business in Yiddish. It had its own banner inscribed with Hebrew letters. This union later amalgamated with the National Furniture Trades Association and became known as the No 15 branch, renowned for its militancy during the whole of the 1930s and after. The there was a Jewish Bakers' Union and I can remember the loaves from Kossoff's bakery which carried a little label 'Baked by Union Labour'.

Jewish people were mainly concentrated in three areas of Stepney — Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Mile End, with a little overspill into Bethnal Green and Bow. There was little movement into other areas and I hardly ever during my ten years' residence in Stepney, ventured into Wapping or Shadwell or Limehouse, and I was typical.

I cannot understand why the author refers in a number of places to 'Jewish-Irish antagonisms'. I never noticed these and I lived in Stepney. And it was never the subject of conversation. I think he is really referring to the antagonism between Jewish and Catholic groups on the local Stepney Council and Labour Party where 'Tammany Hall' politics were rife and the leaders were power brokers who used every trick in the trade to keep control. But the mass of the Jewish people knew little of this and were largely uninvolved on the political scene until Communist activity changed all that.

The author recognises this, but I was irritated at the way he kept referring to 'the Irish'. Many councillors were of Irish descent whose grandfathers and great grandfathers came to help build the great docks in Victorian times and stayed to live and work there. Hence they were to be found mainly in Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse, the riverside areas. But after two or three generations it is surely wrong to describe them as 'Irish'. He wouldn't describe me as Lithuanian because my mother was born there!

Chapter Four deals with the opposition to fascism and anti-semitism. Srebrnik writes 'In Stepney, the Jewish communists stood for opposition to fascism and all forms of racial prejudice. As Solly Kaye has since recalled, "The Stepney party was the leadership of the Stepney people, it led the agitation, led the propaganda, led the campaigning' against fascist incursions such as those of Mosley's BUF."' This calls for a correction. Although the Stepney party had a majority of Jews in its membership, all members played their part, Jews and non-Jews. Names? Ted Dickens, Joe Cowley, Pat Coleman and Ted Kirby were a few of the docker comrades who played a leading role in the fight to stop the fascist march through the East End on 4 October 1936, the Battle of Cable Street.

On the other hand, the author also writes that: 'Labour politicians, in contrast, were strangely quiescent concerning these matters...' Bearing all this in mind, one wonders why the author says: 'One important reason for Jewish attraction to the Communist Party in Britain was the CP's self-appointed role as a steadfast opponent to all manifestations of domestic fascism ...'

Henry Srebrnik also describes the work of the Communists in organising and leading the struggle against slum landlords, which at one stage involved ten thousand tenants in a borough-wide rent strike, many non-Jews as well as Jews, and broke down some of the isolation. The strike was successful and with the movement expanding into Bethnal Green and Poplar, the whole political character of the East End was changing.

The same kind of leadership was provided in the pre-war campaigns for deep-bomb-proof shelters, and the early part of the war for improvements in the primitive conditions in shelters like the vast 'Tilbury' off Commercial Road. And it was action by Stepney people that forced the government to agree to the use of underground stations as shelters for the people of London.

By 1945 the population of Stepney had dropped to 79,000. But the pre-war experiences and experience of the war itself reflected in the support given to communists in the first post-war elections. Phil Piratin was elected as MP for Mile End. Twelve communists were elected to the borough council and two, Ted Bramley and Jack Gaster, to the London County Council.

But the population change was relentless. The massive bombing, the slum clearance, the improved economic position of the children of former immigrants, led to many moving away from Stepney, often to the suburbs and beyond, resulting in lost support. And the new residents lacked the experience of the old. By 1948, with developments in the Soviet Union and the establishment of the State of Israel, sympathy for the Communist Party eroded. Many Jews believed that Israel would now provide them with the security they were seeking.

It is clear that in writing the book, the author's objective is to prove that what he calls 'ethnicity' prevails over all other influences. It is true that events since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have shown that the grip of ethnic and religious ideas are far stronger than we thought. It reinforces the Marxist maxim that 'ideas live longer than the material conditions that gave rise to them'.

The book is interesting, a good read and a good record of how the Communist Party won the leadership of a large proportion of the people of Stepney.

I am not so sure about its conclusions!

Solly Kaye
Stepney and Tower Hamlets
Communist councillor 1956-1971

To Tilt at Windmills

Fred Thomas, To Tilt at Windmills: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War, xiii + 181pp, Michigan State University Press, 1996, £26.20 (hb)

Fred Thomas served in the British Anti-tank battery of the XV International Brigade from his arrival in Spain in May 1937 until the repatriation of the Brigades in the autumn of 1938. Twice wounded in action and forced to spend long periods in hospital, he fought in three pitched battles at Brunete, Teruel and the Ebro. His brave and perceptive memoir, based on a diary kept throughout this period, forms an unusual and arresting addition to the literature of the Civil War. As he wryly reflects, many other volunteers have produced far more detailed accounts without access to any form of personal written record from the time. The text cuts between recollections of the author's return to Spain in 1981 with other veterans, lengthy diary extracts and reflections on his experiences in the Civil War.

The diary itself offers a soldier's view of the Civil War (above all the lack of 'grub, mail and fags') and provides only spasmodic insight into the wider conflict. While there are graphic accounts of the battles and of the Spanish landscape, much of it is concerned with the practicalities of heaving artillery around battlefields to avoid detection. As Paul Preston points out in his preface, these descriptions are so detailed that they can be followed with a map: not, however, with the rather unhelpful maps that accompany the book. The diary offers surprisingly little insight into human relations inside the unit, or the author's own emotions. The deliberately literary style in which the diary was composed also detracts from its immediacy: even in the midst of battle Thomas had time to write complete sentences. The diary extracts have not always been well edited, and there is occasional confusion between the original entry and authorial hindsight. One, for instance, reads:

'25th April — an entry of which I am very fond — told I must get my backside in the sun to heal the wounds'.

From a historian's point of view it is to be hoped that the entire manuscript of the diary will be deposited for the benefit of researchers.

These reservations aside, however, it must be said that the book provides a marvellous insight into the thoughts and feelings of an ordinary volunteer in a war that he and his comrades, at times, only dimly understood. Fred Thomas is very candid about the 'abysmal ignorance' of Spanish affairs shared by most volunteers — the internecine conflict on the streets of the Catalan capital in May 1937 is reduced in the diary to 'Anarchist trouble in Barcelona delaying our departure'. He is similarly frank about the shortcomings of the Political Commissar system, and the general standard of military leadership in the Brigades. While personal bravery was never in doubt amongst the commanders, he notes, 'military expertise was too often sadly lacking'. Promotions were 'arbitrary, even whimsical' and often politically motivated. The book deals particularly poignantly with the mental torment inflicted on the international volunteers in the final days of their active service in the battle of Ebro. They knew that the International Brigades were to be withdrawn and that personal safety beckoned, but the shifting balance of fortunes in the battle forced them to remain in line. Fortunately Fred Thomas, and his diary, survived to write an understated but powerful book that points the way to a more candid and self-critical account of the experience of the International Brigaders.

Tom Buchanan
Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

Archival News

Margot Kettle Papers

The most recent addition to the archives of the National Museum of Labour History are the papers of the late Margot Kettle (née Gale) which have been kindly deposited by her son, the Guardian journalist Martin Kettle. This collection (CP/IND/KETT) consists of the manuscripts and extensive research materials for two unpublished books which Margot Kettle wrote in the 1980s.

The first, 'Recollections of a Younger World', concerns the lives and motivations of youth and student activists in the 1930s. This is very much an oral history, with the testimonies of those interviewed given in full. In the introduction she described her intention as being:

...to focus on individuals, some quite obscure, some who have become quite well-known, who grew up active in one way or another in the left or leftish campaigns of the time. A grass roots account.

Elsewhere she explained that she had been inspired to write this history because of her annoyance with the way that:

...the clever dicks in the media treated the political experiences of the Thirties as if it were simply a matter of gay spies in Cambridge (CP/IND/KETT/3/1)

and she wished to redress the balance.

The raw material includes full transcripts of her interviews with Jack Allanson, Frank & Peggy Apprahamian, Alec Baron, Maisie Bolton, Bill Carritt, Ianthe Carswell, Sheila Carter, Marian Fagan, Henry Ferns, Chris Freeman, Elsie Gollan, Hugh Gordon, Margot Heinemann, Eric Hobsbawm, Tony James, Lena Jager, Arnold Kettle, Victor Kiernan, Oscar Lewenstein, Norman Lindrop, James Livingstone, Betty & George Matthews, Christopher Meredith, Michael Orrom, David Pitt, Brian & Joan Simon, Jessie & Murdoch Taylor, Marie Teller, Reg Trim, Jon & Winifred Vickers, Mary Waterson, Hugh & Phyllis Williams, Ted Willis, Meg Wintringham and John & Margaret Wynne.

The other manuscript is a biography of John Gollan, written in consultation with his widow Elsie Gollan. Gollan's long career as a full-time communist worker began in the 1930s, when he was secretary of the Young Communist League. Subsequently he was assistant secretary of the CPGB and assistant editor of the Daily Worker before succeeding Harry Pollitt as party general secretary from 1956-1976. Margot Kettle's working papers include interviews and correspondence with many of the previously named activists as well as other prominent party members. Their recollections relate to their memories of Gollan and also to important and contentious areas of party history. The biography also draws on Gollan's own political papers, available as part of the Communist Party archives held by the NMLH.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Kettle deposit is that Margot Kettle was not a disinterested researcher but an active participant in many of the events and movements she describes, and a friend and acquaintance of many of those whom she interviews. Particularly in the 1930s and the 1940s she was very involved in the League of Nations Union, the youth peace campaigns and student politics at the highest level. (An interview regarding this period of her life can be found in CP/HIST/2/7.) What little is lost in terms of historical objectivity is more than made up for by the intimacy of her knowledge of the events she is recording.

Andrew Flinn
National Museum of Labour History

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