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The Anti-Colonial Politics and Policies of the Communist Party of Great Britain: 1920-1951
The Anti-Colonial Politics and Policies of the Communist Party of Great Britain: 1920-1951, Wolverhampton, PhD, 1997.
From 1924, the Comintern devolved responsibility for anti-colonial work within the territories of the British Empire to the small and relatively immature Communist Party of Great Britain. The Party was greatly facilitated in this weighty task by the inclusion among its membership of a number of dedicated and informed activists with a special interest in colonial issues, who were instrumental in the establishment and operation of various anti-colonial initiatives within Britain and the British Empire.
In its examination of the policies and practical measures taken by the British Communist Party to promote colonial liberation in the period under review, this thesis highlights the work of Communists such as Shapurji Saklatvala, Clemens and Rajani Palme Dutt, Emile Burns and Ben Bradley. Saklatvala, for example, was active during the inter-war years in the British-based Indian Labour Bureau, the Oriental Seamen's Union, the British branch of the Indian National Congress and the Workers' Welfare League of India, in addition to directing the bulk of the Party's work with Indian students studying in Britain. British Communists also played an important role in conceiving and organising the 1927 Brussels Congress — a highly successful initiative which brought together colonial nationalists and sympathetic Western opinion — and formed the largest contingent at the conference. Together with 'fellow traveller' Reginald Bridgeman, Party members formed the bedrock of the British League Against Imperialism, the organisation launched at Brussels, which served as a focus for anti-colonial agitation and information and provided a useful contact-point for colonial activists in Britain.
During the inter-war years, the Party's activities tended to focus on India — Britain's 'Achilles heel' — and the study reflects this priority. It records the work of those CPGB emissaries who were sent to India during the 1920s with instructions to organise Indian labour and co-ordinate the activities of the Indian left, and assesses the impact of their subsequent arrests and trial in Meerut. The CPGB was able to use the Meerut Conspiracy Trial as an example of British repression of Indian trade unionists, maximising publicity by nominating one of the gaoled Indian Communists, Shaukat Usmani, as the Party's candidate in the British Parliamentary elections of 1929 and 1931. The thesis also notes the efforts of the CPGB to minimise the damage done to its carefully nurtured relationship with left-leaning Indian nationalists like Nehru by the sectarian policies of the 'Third Period'. The Party developed its own distinctive analysis of the Indian economy during the 1920s and managed to retain a policy of co-operation with the Indian bourgeoisie up to and after Indian independence.
The very different case of British colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, where nationalist movements were still in their infancy in 1951, is considered against the background of the deepening Cold War. Here, the CPGB struggled to establish even rudimentary contacts, belying the Government line which attempted to link every instance of colonial unrest to 'Communist subversion'. Although the Party's criticism of the British Governments' colonial policies was substantially reduced between 1941-1947 — mainly in deference to the foreign policy interests of the Soviet Union — attacks resumed with the escalation of East-West tension. In particular, British Communists exposed the exploitation inherent in the Attlee Government's Welfare and Development programme for Africa. It was a position which, together with its domestic stance on opposing racism, won the Party respect among colonial nationalists.
In trying to establish the scope and nature of the CPGB's anti-colonial work, the thesis is necessarily concerned to some extent with the sympathetic periphery of individuals and organisations that came into the Party's orbit. One line of inquiry, which examines the claim that the implementation of the 'Popular Front' policy during the 1930s cost the Communist movement support among black activists, concludes that the policy in fact enabled the CPGB to develop co-operation with non-communist anti-colonial activists and groups operating in Britain. Thus the forms of political activity considered in this work range from the purely agitational and propagandistic to the directly interventional. In tracing these activities, the research makes extensive use of the archive of the CPGB, much of which has only recently become available, in an attempt to shed light on this important, but largely neglected, area of Communist politics in the twentieth century.
Jean Jones
Please note: a copy of this thesis is being deposited in the National Museum of Labour History. Jean Jones has also published accounts of the LAI and of the anti-imperialist activist and Meerut defendant Ben Bradley. These can be obtained for £2.50 each, including p&p, from: Socialist History Society, 50 Elmfield Rd, London SW17 8AL.
