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Cold War, Crisis and Conflict
John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis And Conflict: The CPGB 1951-68, (London, Lawrence & Wishart, 2003), pp320, ISBN 0-85315-958-0.
I was embarrassed when a man I admired invited me to join the British Communist Party (CPGB). I was 18 and even though I had read Burns, Kettle, Morton, Pascal, and others, I claimed I did not know enough about communism and declined. Put simply, I was glad to campaign against German rearmament but worried about events in Sofia, Budapest and Prague. Only a few years later, my would-be recruiter was a Labour MP and he is still leading a local authority in 2004. This book brings back the memories: the plucky Albanians terrorised by the Trotsky-Titoites; the hero Kim Il Sung, the Slansky gang; Peter Mandelson's grandfather and the other right-wing Labour leaders; and Ralph Samuel being roughly treated by American troops in Austria on his way to the 1951 World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin.
Callaghan starts with a comprehensive survey of the CPGB's activities and reveals its remarkable range of activities. It certainly punched above its weight! Perhaps he overestimates its relative success here and there, as in the case of the sales of communist literature. Some party members bought extra copies out of their own money to meet their targets.
Who were these communists and why did they join? They were drawn from all walks of life but they were more likely to belong to the NUT (National Union of Teachers) than to the seamen's union (p34). And they were more likely to be organised in area branches rather than factory branches (p36). Callaghan comments: 'it is doubtful that a bigger concentration of people dedicated to books was to be found anywhere in the country. Wanting to understand the world was one of the driving forces of Party members.' (p25) Yes, many found in marxism an explanation of class society and the certainty of future redemption. Christians looking for a secular alternative were among them. Many who were vaguely left-wing for whom the Labour Party was too much part of the Establishment looked to the CPGB. Some were Labour activists disillusioned with their leaders. Others were workers with personal experience of injustice in the mines or the failing cotton industry. Some were ex-servicemen who had learned to hate the system in the forces. Jews and emigrants from the colonies found the anti-racist message attractive. Some were lonely misfits looking for the warmth of a 'church'. No doubt many remained despite their growing doubts because they felt it would be cowardly to leave, convinced that there was nowhere else to go (p55). Yet turnover of membership was high and many did go and made do with the Labour Party. This made it easier for the leadership to maintain its power. Because of the party structure, 'the membership was virtually atomised by the manifold impediments to discussion between branches.' (p43)
Chapter two covers the crisis within the CPGB as there was ever more bad news from the 'Socialist Camp', from 1948 to 1956. The sudden denunciation of Tito in 1948 as an 'imperialist lackey', did not cause too much fallout. He was small, Uncle Joe was larger than life. Radio Moscow likened Tito to Göring and, at a distance, in his white uniform, there was a resemblance (as I found out in 1955)! It was distressing as more and more traitors were exposed. Some thought it inconceivable that with so many top traitors the system could have survived. Others took a different view. As one Labour, 55-year-old, working class woman said to me in Bolton, in 1952: 'Shoot the buggers! Have we not had our traitors? MacDonald, Mosley and the others!' She had not read Maurice Edelman, James Klugmann or anyone else. She would have shot Churchill, friend of Mussolini, enemy of the working-class! If he was so much against the Soviet Union, there must be some good in it! However, the leadership of the CPGB should have known better than workers in Bolton. Some of Stalin's victims were their friends – as was the case with Rosa Rust and Rose Cohen (p79). They supported the CPSU on every occasion including the second Soviet military intervention in Hungary (p71). The result was that, by April 1957, the party had suffered severe losses including most of its prominent intellectuals and half of the Young Communists (p76).
As Callaghan points out, however, the 1950s were not all bad news for communists. The decolonisation of the European empires went rapidly forward. Big communist parties were present in France and Italy. Mao's China was internationally recognised. Fear of nuclear war increased and opposition to nuclear weapons (covered in chapter four). Fear of West German 'revanchism' remained strong. In Britain, despite the relative prosperity, there was a growing perception of economic decline. In 1956, Khrushchev's 'secret speech', although shocking, could be seen as a hopeful sign: at last the CPSU was turning to a more democratic approach and the programme that followed offered hope to Soviet consumers (p206). Even Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, acknowledged Soviet economic progress (p207). Soviet space achievements took the world by surprise (p78). 'Mr K', with his homely wife, was a man with whom one could do business. The Anglo-French Suez operation also helped the CPSU and its allies.
It's worth recalling that most people in these years left school without qualifications, yet the CPGB had countless intellectuals. As mentioned above, I certainly benefited from their contributions. My headmaster pressed on me the works of Quintin Hogg and Douglas Hyde to keep me on the straight and narrow! It was an East German communist, with impeccable anti-nazi credentials, who finally did the trick by giving me Orwell's 1984. That was in July 1953. Callaghan is good on communist cultural activity and examines how the CPGB shot itself in the foot by attempting to force all its intellectual stars on to the Zhadanov line (p95). The Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-funded body, became attractive to intellectual defectors.
Callaghan gives credit to the CPGB as the first party to take up anti-racism and gives some interesting examples of anti-immigrant activities in the unions (p107). But with its campaign against 'Coca-Cola colonisation' it was in danger of racism of another kind. Chapter six more than adequately traces the CPGB's electoral failure. There is a good chapter on the CPGB's struggles in the unions especially the FBU, AEU and ETU where its militants were often under attack from former communists aided, in some cases, by the Catholic Church and the Establishment. MI5 is not mentioned. It would be interesting to read what its infiltrators thought of all these developments. Did they influence the CPGB at all? Peter Wright gives us a glimpse in his Spy Catcher.
Callaghan deals well with the CPGB's difficulties over Czechoslovakia. He tells us, only 'a minority of branches supported the Soviet invasion' of 1968 (p301). He is, however, rather brief in his handling of the Sino-Soviet conflict (p290).
Sadly, in my view, in their desperate need for hope and an example of success, the CPGB leaders failed to understand the nature of Lenin's seizure of power, in October 1917, and what followed in Russia. Having made that mistake they could never extradite themselves from the Soviet bear's embrace (p289). Thus they not only failed to build up an alternative to Labourism, they actually made it much more difficult for others to try. The same was true of their comrades throughout Europe. They actually aided the rise of fascism, because the reality of bolshevism frightened so many people, just as later, the reality of nazism pushed a generation into the arms of the communists climaxing in 1942-4. After that, the ground was less favourable for 'communism'. Although Callaghan argues well that a marxist party independent of the CPSU would not have done better than the CPGB, I am not entirely convinced of this. True, like the CPGB, any such party would have faced the unfair electoral system, the wrath of the media and the loyalty of the mass of workers to Labour. The widespread belief in the myth of this 'scepter'd isle' and its world importance, also limited the scope for alternative parties. Yet there have been many who sought alternatives to British capitalism but were put off by the language, style, methods and, above all, foreign affiliations of the CPGB.
John Callaghan has consulted an impressive number of people and lists a great many sources. He gives us a generally sympathetic view of CPGB members. The book benefits from biographical notes on about 80 individuals and a select index of names. Regrettably there is no general index. Callaghan presents to us a book that will be very useful for those interested in left-wing politics during this period and beyond.
