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Jean Jones's review of
Claudia Jones, A Life in Exile
I am very grateful for Jean Jones's very thorough review of 'my' book on Claudia Jones [Newsletter, July 2000]. I use the quotation marks because there are chapters in the book by Donald Hinds and Colin Prescod, and hence their names should have appeared on the book as joint authors.
I wish to take issue with some of Jean's comments. Surely, it should not have taken the rise of fascist and racist organisations and their murderous rampages in the mid-1950s, for the CPGB to take up the issue of racism. The issue had been there for a long time; the National Minority Movement was well aware of it, for example, over twenty years previously. Furthermore, the Comintern had castigated the party for not having dealt with its 'white chauvinism', also in the 1930s. The Black members received some support from the local party in their anti-racist struggles in Cardiff in the 1930s. And one only has to look at the imperialist post-war statements by party leaders, which continued to see the colonies as providers of primary produce and consumers of British manufactured goods, to understand just how ignorant the party leadership was of the issues of imperialism and racism.
Yes, Claudia did arrive at a problematic time in the party's history. But one only has to look at the welcome John Williamson received, and his incorporation in the party structure, to understand just how much Claudia was sidelined. Williamson, whose status in the US party was, I believe, lower than Claudia's was not given a menial job as a typist!
Yes, by most accounts, Manchanda was a difficult person. But Claudia's association with him did not begin for some time after her arrival — and her ill-treatment by the party was immediate, except for the aid she received with finding accommodation and with immediate hospital treatment.
That Manchanda did not permit the party to erect a gravestone to Claudia may have been churlish. But given how he would have understood the party's treatment of Claudia, one can surely understand that he did not want to permit the party to 'claim' her after her death!
I am glad that Jean found an obituary, which I had obviously somehow missed. Mea culpa. I shall have another look. That I missed Williamson's oration I can understand, as I would not have looked at theWorker two weeks after her death.
I wonder whether Jean or other researchers can tell me where to look for evidence of the CPGB's support for Fenner Brockway's efforts to introduce an anti-discrimination bill, or its early work with the MCF [Movement for Colonial Freedom] (ie before it took it over — as I have been given to understand) and with trade unions over racial discrimination?
