COMMUNIST HISTORY
NETWORK NEWSLETTER
No 17, AUTUMN 2004

Introduction

Welcome to Issue 17 of the Communist History Network Newsletter. We would like to extend our thanks to all contributors and in particular to those who contributed to the financial costs of distributing the Newsletter. The next issue of the Newsletter will include an extended reviews section, in which we hope to include reviews of: Jean-François Fayet's political biography of Karl Radek; Reiner Tosstorff's study of the Profintern, Geoff Andrews's history of the final decades in the life of the British Communist Party; Norman La Porte's study of the German Communist Party in Saxony between 1924-33; and Agents of the Revolution, a collection of communist biographical essays edited by Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen and Andrew Flinn.

In addition to the print edition, recent issues of the CHNN are also available for download in both Word and .pdf format on the Newsletter website, where the full contents of all issues can also be read online.

The deadline for submissions for the Spring 2005 edition of the Newsletter is March 30 2005, and contributions are welcomed.

Editors CHNN
Government, International Relations and Philosophy
University of Manchester
Manchester
United Kingdom
M13 9PL
http://les1.man.ac.uk/chnn

Contents

Editors' introduction

Announcements

• British Communists in the DNB
• New 'Communist Lives' series
• Sally Belfrage papers
• Socialist History Journal website

Research Notes

• Women in the early CPGB: sources in the Bodleian Library', Matthew Worley

Thesis Reports

• 'The Communist Party of the United States and the Communist International, 1919-1929', Jacob A Zumoff
• 'The Politics of Working Class Communism in Greece, 1918-1936', Anastasis Ghikas
• 'West European Communism, Proletarian Internationalism and the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968-1969: A Comparative Study of the Italian and French Communist Parties', Maud Bracke
• '"The Past is Ours": The Political Usage of English History by the British Communist Party, and the Role of Dona Torr in the Creation of its Historians' Group, 1930-56', Antony Howe

Features

• 'Aksel Larsen and the CIA', Steve Parsons
• 'A House on Chausseestrasse', Archie Potts

Announcements

BRITISH COMMUNISTS IN THE DNB: As widely publicised in the press the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) was published in September 2004, both on-line and in a sixty-volume print version. This can be purchased at £7,500 (!), otherwise subscription details and other information is available at http://www.oxforddnb.com. Among the new entries on British communists identified on a preliminary word search are R. Page Arnot (by Anthony Howe), James Boswell (Julian Freeman) Reg Birch and Dick Brigginshaw (Geoffrey Goodman), Jack Braddock (Sam Davies), Bessie Braddock (Elizabeth Vallance), Stella Browne (Lesley A Hall), Desmond Buckle (Hakim Adi), J.R. Campbell and John Gollan (Monty Johnstone), Les Cannon (John Lloyd), Helen Crawfurd (Helen Corr), R Palme Dutt (John Callaghan), Alan Ecclestone (T J Gorringe), Dick Etheridge (Alistair Tough), William Gallacher, Marjery Newbold and J.T. Walton Newbold (Robert Duncan), Arthur Horner and Will Paynter (Hwyel Francis), Winifred Horrabin (Amanda L Capern), Margaret Hunter (Neil Rafeek), Allen Hutt, T A Jackson, Harry Pollitt and William Rust (Kevin Morgan), Claudia Jones (Marika Sherwood), Lewis Jones and T E Nicholas (Meic Stephens), Yvonne Kapp (Matthew McFall), Peter Kerrigan and Harry Wicks (John McIlroy), Hyman Levy (John Stewart), Mick McGahey (Robert Taylor), W H Mainwaring (Chris Williams), Tom Mann (Chris Wrigley), Abe Moffat (David Howell), Dora Montefiore (Karen Hunt), J.T. Murphy (Raplh Darlington), Sylvia Pankhurst (June Hannam), Wogan Phillipps (C V J Griffiths), Ernie Roberts (Frank Allaun), Shapurji Saklatvala (Mike Squires), John Strachey (Mike Newman) and Freda Utley (D A Farnie).

NEW 'COMMUNIST LIVES' SERIES: Matthew Worley writes: 'Given the burgeoning nature of communist studies, I.B. Tauris have agreed to establish a 'Communist Lives' series under the editorship of Matthew Worley. This will begin with an English translation of Aldo Agosti's biography of Palmiro Togliatti, and it is expected that future contributions will focus on such leading international figures as Thälmann, Gramsci, Thorez and Tito. The series will include translations, newly commissioned work and collections of essays; books will be considered on a case by case basis. Such a series will obviously be of major value to the study of international communism, and interest has already been high. Even so, for it to flourish it is necessary for a broad range of 'communist lives' to be covered.' Anyone wishing to contribute to the series should contact .

SALLY BELFRAGE PAPERS: The Tamiment Institute, an archival library of labour and radical research materials, is making available the papers of Sally Belfrage, a longtime friend and reader of Monthly Review who died in 1994. Belfrage wrote numerous books on the personal side of some of the important political events of her time, including life in the USSR in the 1950s, the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and the antinuclear and Irish freedom movements in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. She was the daughter of Cedric Belfrage, a frequent contributor to MR and a founding editor of the National Guardian. Her papers have joined his at Tamiment. The Tamiment Library's website can be found at: http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/.

SOCIALIST HISTORY JOURNAL WEBSITE: Launched in the autumn of 2004, the Socialist History Journal has a new dedicated website. The site contains full contents lists for all of the issues of the journal published by Rivers Oram since 1998; the back cover descriptions of each issue's theme; and full subscription and contact details for the journal and the Socialist History Society. In the coming months, some sample content from past issues will be available in .pdf format from the site; which will also host material related to the articles published in the journal. The site can be found at http://www.socialist-history-journal.org.uk

Research Notes

Women in the early CPGB: sources in the Bodleian Library

The papers of Graham Pollard form part of the Pollard-Johnson papers held by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Collected into twelve boxes, they contain materials relating to the CPGB throughout the 1920s. The bulk of the material relates to 1924-7, although there are relevant papers either side of those dates. Generally, the collection is based on the St Pancras Local Party Committee (LPC), and includes minutes of the LPC, circulars from the London District Party Committee (DPC), agitprop and the department for 'Propaganda amongst Women'. In connection to the LPC's work, however, there are also papers relating to the Left Wing Movement in St Pancras and Holborn, to the Westminster Women's Guild and the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerics (NAUSAWA), and to the CPGB's publishing relationship with Martin Lawrence. Interestingly, too, there are countless pieces of correspondence between party members, lists of party members (and addresses), lists of left wing fractions in local Labour parties, and details of press sales, collections (Russian Famine Relief) and party dues. Unfortunately, the papers are in very little order, with connected material being dispersed across all the boxes. The LPC minutes are kept together, and there are general files, but the material is really in disarray.

The following notes comprise a selection of extracts relating to women in the CPGB in the 1920s. Of particular interest are the questionnaires giving brief details of communist work among women in particular locals, but a selection of other documents is given as a flavour of the sort of material that can be found in the collection. Despite the abundance of materials at both national and district level to be found in the Moscow archives, this is evidently the most extensive and illuminating cache of CPGB branch materials surviving from the 1920s. As such it is of inestimable value to the party's historians.

One or two points of context, to begin with: the St Pancras LPC meetings were usually attended by between eight and twelve party members. Apart from Graham Pollard, the most regular attendees include Kay Beauchamp, Olive Budden, Dona Torr and Ethel Maddox. There are a number of married couples on local membership lists, including Elinor and Emile Burns and Amy and Tom Colyer. Other names cropping up are Ernie Cant, the district party organiser from 1923, and R W Robson, who succeeded him in July 1925. Robson was temporarily replaced by Harry White while overseeing the congress of the Communist Party of Australia in the winter of 1927-8.

The papers are held by the Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG.

The extracts

The Monthly Record of the London and Home Counties District Council of the Communist Party of Great Britain, No. 10, March 1922 (Box 6)
'The Women's Movement' by Minnie Birch. At present, little has been done by the CPGB with regard to the women's movement. Helen Crawfurd has been 'busy in the north', organising women's groups in several towns (Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Perth).

Letter from Ernie Cant as district organiser to all party locals, 21/8/23 (Box 8)
The letter informs all Locals that Helen Crawfurd is in charge of women's propaganda and is willing to address women's meetings in London. She would prefer Women's Coop Guilds, sections of the Labour Party or similar organisations. Locals should also let the DPC know if there is the possibility of forming women's groups to concentrate on work among women.

Letter from D. Mosley to K. Beauchamp, 11/1/26 (Box 10)
Letter of temporary resignation from the party due to financial reasons; he cannot afford to pay and travel in support of the party. His wage is £2/15/10 for man, wife and three children. Rent for one room is 14/- weekly, coal, wood and lamp oil comes to 8/6, milk is 4/- and bread 4/-. Mosley spends all his money on eating 'without wasting money on car fares or a packet of cigarettes to go to a meeting'. He is unable to clothe his children, and he owes Pollard 6/- and comrade Martin 2/' for Workers' Weekly.

St. Pancras LPC 'Report on Present Condition etc', 14/1/26 (Box 10)
Women's department: 'At present the members of the women's committee do not come on Tuesday but meet some other time, but Budden as women's organiser is present when she is not at District Women's Committee [sic].'

Minutes of the St. Pancras LPC, 24/2/26 (Box 1)
Reports that a women's council has been formed and the first meeting discussed affiliation to the National Minority Movement (NMM). The next meeting will discuss affiliation to Trades Council. Mrs Barker was elected as chair, but resigned. Olive Budden is the secretary, Mrs Hansen the LPC's women's organiser, with Budden assisting. Canvassing for International Women's Day is the main task on the agenda.

Minutes of the Organising Committee of the St. Pancras LPC, 16/12/26 (Box 1)
Reports that not much is being done with regard to women's work, and the committee will recommend to the LPC that Bessie Span takes it over. There is also talk of Mrs Boyd replacing Olive Budden.

St. Pancras Local Party Organiser's Report for the Period 8/4/27 to 21/6/27 (Box 11)
The report claims that the St. Pancras Local has 110 members, 30 of whom are 'active'. There are 40 women members [although the list in May numbers 33]. 75% of party members are also in a trade union. The Local has six area groups that meet regularly. 50 out of the 110 members attended the aggregate meeting.

Letter from Camberwell LPC [Evans] to London DPC Department for Work among Women, 2/8/27 (Box 11)
Mrs Valentine is in charge of work among women, but has domestic work to attend to. A report will be sent soon. At present, Mrs Cattermole is ill, and Mrs Wintringham has domestic work.

Letter from the West Ham LPC to the London DPC Department for Work among Women, 9/8/27 (Box 1)
A women's committee has been set up under Mrs G Smith, and it meets monthly.

Minutes of St. Pancras women's committee meeting, 7/9/27 (Box 11)
Thirteen present and a committee is elected to oversee relevant areas: Mrs. Hansen - Co-op and ICWPA; B[essie] Span - Factory group; E Maddox - LPC representative; K[ay] Beauchamp - NMM representative; Mrs Freedman - YCL representative; Mrs Collins - Board of Guardians. The committee decide that leaflets and papers should be sent to Brooks' piano factory and Kentish Town ASLEF Guild [Mrs Hamilton is a member of the latter]. Meeting are also to be organised outside the Board of Guardians and the Labour Exchange.

Letter from Lily Domb [the London DPC Department for Work among Women], 8/11/27 (Box 11)
The women's department in Bethnal Green 'has never functioned'. The reason is the fact that 'our women members are few'.

Letter from Mrs. Stibbins (Stepney Women's Department) to the London DPC Department for Work among Women, 12/12/27 (Box 1)

Party Questionnaires

Questionnaires from the London DPC Department for Work among Women to the LPCs, to be returned 15 December (1927) [Sent out 30/11/27 - London DPC Department for Work among Women to all Local Organisers].

(Box 1)

1. Name of Local: Stepney Local

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: A Women's Department

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: Mrs Stebins [Stibbins], 54a Bedford St., E1

4. When and where does the committee meet?: 54a Bedford St., every two weeks

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 8

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: No

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 2

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: 4 [2 Tailors and Garment Workers' Union; 1 Ladies Tailors' Union; 1 Shop Assistants' union]

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 4

10. Number in MM?: 3

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: No

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: [blank]

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 3 quires to 4 quires. Fifty regular readers

1. Name of Local: St. Pancras

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: Yes

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: Mrs. Maddox, 54 Mill Lane, NW6

4. When and where does the committee meet?: 17 Prince of Wales Crescent

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 4 (Hampstead)

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: [blank]

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 15 in coop (of whom 5 in Guilds)

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: About 13. Union unknown, Paper Workers', General Workers', National Union of Clerks', Shop Assistants', and Transport and General Workers' Union

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 16

10. Number in MM?: 8

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: One ASLEF (Hampstead)

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: 8

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: [blank]

[Written at the bottom of the sheet]: 37 women in the Local

1. Name of Local: West London

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: No

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: [blank]

4. When and where does the committee meet?: [blank]

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 7

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: A fraction of 4 in the Westminster Labour Party and Trades Council. A fraction of 3 in the Chelsea Labour Party and Trades Council. In both cases, the sections are very small but sympathetic to the party.

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 3

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: Mrs. Sweet is a member of the Fulham No. 1 NUGMW, where 3 other women attend. There is a fraction of 3 party members in the branch, which is receiving the full attention of the LPC. A new member of the Local is in the CSCA [Civil Service Clerical Association], but no details are known as yet.

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 6

10. Number in MM?: 6

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: No

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: Uncertain, about 7

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 36 prior to circular to women's guilds from district

1. Name of Local: Wood Green

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: No committee/comrade on the LPC

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: Mrs. D. Boggis, 16 Ecclesbourne Gardens, N13

4. When and where does the committee meet?: [blank]

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: None

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: Left Wing women in the Hornsey Coop Guild, and Left Wing are attending a women's discussion circle organised by women in the Local

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 8

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: 6, NUC [National Union of Clerks?], NATSOPA [National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants], SAU [?]

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 6

10. Number in MM?: 1

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: None

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: 6

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 12

1. Name of Local: West Ham

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: Yes

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: Mrs. G. Smith 7 Tavistock Road E15

4. When and where does the committee meet?: Committee meets monthly, no specific place

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 9

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: There is no separate fraction. Mainly by personal contact

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 5

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: Mrs. Glading, National Union of Women Teachers, Mrs. Mills, NUGMW, West Ham branch meets every Wednesday

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 3

10. Number in MM?: [blank]

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: There are no such guilds in this area

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: 8

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 3 quire per month

(Box 9)

1. Name of Local: Lewisham, Bromley

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: No

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: [blank]

4. When and where does the committee meet?: [blank]

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 6

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: There was a fraction but it has not been functioning for three months owing to fraction leader moving out of district. A new leader has recently been appointed.

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 5

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: Only one woman in trade union branch and that never meets

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 1

10. Number in MM?: 6

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: No

12. Number of women in the ICWPA? [blank]

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 2 quires

[Written at the bottom of the sheet]: A women's department is being organised in this local immediately (W. Arnold).

1. Name of Local: Paddington

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: No

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: [blank]

4. When and where does the committee meet?: [blank]

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 4

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: [blank]

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 1

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: : One woman in the NUC [I think it's a C] Central London Branch, one woman in NATSOPA (clerical branch), one woman in [?] union and secretary of mixed Coop Guild (Hammersmith)

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 2

10. Number in MM?: 2

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: No

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: 4

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: [blank]

1. Name of Local: Croydon

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: No

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: [blank]

4. When and where does the committee meet?: [blank]

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: 2

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: Through Left Wing group

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 4

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: Nil

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 1

10. Number in MM?: 1

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: Yes, NUR only. No women party members in it

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: 6

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 12

[Note at the bottom]; Done at the moment by the propaganda committee
[Accompanying letter from Local organiser, 18/12.27]: 'Our women members in the main work exceptionally hard, and most of them can be counted as amongst the real active members of the party locally.'

1. Name of Local: Brighton

2. Is there a department for Work among Women?: No. There was until recently, but unable to to carry on, so have merged into agit-prop, although some women comrades are still collecting clothing for mining areas

3. If so, what is the name and address of the comrade in charge?: [blank]

4. When and where does the committee meet?: [blank]

5. Number of women in Labour Party sections?: None

6. Is there a fraction and what efforts are made to draw Left Wing women into the Party?: [blank]

7. Number of Women in Coop Guilds?: 5

8. Number of women in trade union branches in which there [are] also non-party women; please give full details of each such branch: 1 in NUGMW, very poorly attended, reactionary organiser

9. Number of women in trade unions?: 1

10. Number in MM?: None

11. Are there any NUR or ASLEF Women's Guilds in your area and are there any Party members in them?: 1 NUR 1 ASLEF No party member in either

12. Number of women in the ICWPA?: None

13. Average sale of the Working Woman?: 5 dozen

[Signed A. Pennifold]

Letter from Mrs Henrotte to London DPC [Department for Work among Women], 23/1/28 (Box 1)
Reason for non-attendance: 'I have two small children and a husband a musician, and it makes it rather difficult to make definite arrangements.' Normally, she can put children to bed at 8 o'clock and get to an evening meeting, but it takes longer to get to Great Ormond Street for a District women's committee meeting. She suggests that Mrs Smith from the West Ham Local replace her in the London DPC committee for work among women. We now have 18 women comrades in the Local, but the LPC has yet to call a meeting of us all.

Report of the Women's Delegate Conference, Friars Hall 4/2/28 (Box 11)
Attendance: 152 delegates, representing 9 Labour Parties, 10 Trades Councils, 6 women's sections, 9 trade union branches, 33 Coop Guilds, 25 communist parties, 7 YCLs, 3 ILPs, 3 Left Wing groups, 2 ICWPA, and 3 NUWCMs. Chair: Kath Duncan Elected Committee: Mrs Bramley (West London Trades Council); Mrs Leicht (Hackney Labour Party); Mrs Edwards (Teddington ILP); Mrs Kearns (Basildon and Bromley NUWCM); Mrs. Freedman (St. Pancras YCL); Mrs Maddox (West Hampstead Coop Guild); Mrs Neal (Treasurer of [N]LWM EC); Mrs P Neal (Watford CPGB); Mr Neville (Shop Assistants' trade union); Miss Smith (Poplar ICWPA; Mrs Thomas (Hackney women's section)

Letter from Phyllis Neal [Watford LPC] to the London DPC, 14/3/28 (Box 1)

Report on the Westminster Labour Party and Trades Council Women's Section, 20/3/28 (Box 1)
By Norah Brown. Those present included D Cox, N Cox, Mrs Roberts and N Brown (CPGB), and Mrs Lyth, Mrs Bramley, Mrs Lanfear, Mrs Smith and Mrs Fitzgerald.

Letter from Lambeth LPC to the London DPC Department for Work among Women, probably mid to late 1927 (Box 1)
A committee of four has been set up (three women, one man) to form a women's department. Mrs Fowler, a member of the LPC is in charge, and they meet every Monday.

Handwritten letter from the Poplar LPC to the London DPC Department for Work among Women, probably late 1927 (Box 1) Since Mrs Walker left [the party?], no comrade has taken on work in the women's department. Moreover, Mrs. Walker has now taken up the 'hobby' of 'scandalising the party's methods etc'. A new recruit, Mrs James, was elected to the women's department at the last LPC, and hopes to improve matters. Mrs James comes from the Suffrage movement, but Mrs Walker is spreading rumours that she was once connected to 'Scotland Yard man'. She now lives with G H Cole, but he is known to speak to Tories and Liberals, with the qualification that he is taking money from the capitalist class in the process. This information is not meant to condemn Mrs James, but as a record for the DPC.

Matthew Worley, University of Reading

'The Communist Party of the United States and the Communist International, 1919-1929'

This thesis examines the relationship between the communist movement in the United States and the Communist International (Comintern) from the movement's origins in the period after the First World War to the consolidation of a stable leadership in 1929. It is based on materials in the former Comintern archives in Moscow, communist publications, and archives of important labour leaders in the United States.

The early American communist movement, born out of a left-wing split from the American Socialist Party in 1919, was divided into several hostile organisations that understood very little about American politics, culture or society. In the party's formative years, the Communist International repeatedly intervened in the work of the American party. Far from hindering the party's understanding and appreciation of American conditions, this intervention helped transform the party from a marginal sect of isolated immigrants in the 1920s, to an important (if still small) part of American politics in the 1930s, especially amongst immigrants, blacks and organised labour. This intervention stemmed from the desire of the early Comintern, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, to create an international revolutionary communist movement. However, in the mid-1920s, as the leadership and ideology of the Russian Communist Party changed, the character of Comintern intervention also changed. Under the rubric of building 'socialism in one country', the Comintern now intervened more and more to create a stable, pro-Stalin leadership.

The first portion of this thesis, comprising the first four chapters, illustrates how between 1919 and 1923 Comintern intervention was necessary to politically and organisationally construct a party. The introductory first chapter examines the continuing debate about the relationship of the Communist Party to the Comintern, especially the two main schools of contemporary historiography. On the one hand, Theodore Draper (whose pioneering studies set the bar for future work on the subject) and others since have argued that the party was essentially a creature of the Comintern; on the other hand, 'revisionists' have emphasised the indigenous aspects of the communist movement. A central aspect of my argument is that both these schools are inadequate, and, in fact, it was the influence of the Comintern that forced the early party to understand American society.

The second chapter analyses the development of the party out of a left-wing faction in the Socialist Party. Although the Russian Revolution was popular amongst many socialist militants, not all immediately wanted to form a new party, and even those who did remained divided between several, mutually hostile small sects. The Comintern helped achieve unity amongst the competing groups by forcing them to form one communist party. This is the most clear example of how, without the Comintern's influence, American communism would have been still-born.

The third chapter examines how the Comintern forced the party to take advantage of the opportunities for legal work. Whilst the US has had its share of bloody anti-labour repression, including the wartime persecution of radicals that decimated the socialist movement and the post-war 'Red Scare' that temporarily forced the party into illegality, the Comintern leadership recognised that the as a general rule, American communists could organise openly, unlike their comrades in more repressive countries. This was especially true after the Red Scare repression abated. However, many early communists in the US, like their counterparts whom Lenin polemicised against in Left Wing Communism, made illegal work a point of political principle and considered legal organising opportunist. The Comintern, which wanted to maximise the effectiveness of their American followers, waged a struggle with the leadership of the party to emerge from the underground without having any illusions in the benevolent nature of American capitalism. In this sense, the Comintern leadership helped their American comrades better understand American reality.

The fourth and fifth chapters examine the early party's interventions into the labour movement. Most historians have emphasised the party's labour work in the 1930s whilst ignoring the pervious decade. These chapters argue that, in fact, in the early-1920s, in part because of the prestige of the Bolshevik Revolution, the party had a real influence in the labour movement. Here, again, the Comintern was important: besides their aura from the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks made their American comrades intervene into the labour movement, despite the hostility of the anti-communist American Federation of Labor (AFL) leadership, instead of dismissing it as reactionary. Early communists in the labour movement, including Earl Browder, James P Cannon, and William F Dunne, helped direct the party's labour work, both vis-à-vis the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and, later, in the much larger, if conservative-led, AFL. In fact, the party recruited a number of left-wing syndicalists, including some from the IWW such as William 'Big Bill' Haywood, and, perhaps more spectacularly, the leading AFL radical, William Z Foster. By the mid-1920s, thanks to the Comintern's intervention and Cannon and Foster's leadership, the party was able to become a real, if small, factor in the labour movement. The next chapter examines the party's disastrous work in the mid- and late-1920s, when, amidst an anti-radical backlash, the communists became isolated and lost much of their previous support. This chapter examines the (rather confused) communist participation in the political and electoral campaings of organised labour, including the Farmer-Labor movement and the subsequent campaign of Robert La Follette. Second, the chapter examines the party's activities in specific industries.

However, by the mid-1920s, the nature of the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International was changing, reflecting the bureaucratisation and conservatism of Soviet Russia under Stalin and his allies. The effects of this transition are explored in the sixth, seventh and eighth chapters. The sixth chapter examines the 'double-edged sword' of 'bolshevisation'. It argues that while bolshevisation is correctly seen by historians as stalinisation, especially through the elimination of factions and putting the party on record as opposing the opposition in Russia, in the United States at the time, many leading American communists did not view it as such. This was because, from their viewpoint, the organisation of the party left much to be desired. The party had inherited from the left-wing of American socialism a structure based on immigrant federations, which had essentially a monopoly on work amongst immigrant milieus. Many of the language federations saw themselves almost as autonomous organisations that happened to be allied with the English-language party instead of under the latter's control. This was especially true for the Finnish Federation: in 1922, the federation published three daily newspapers, and in 1925, some 6500 of the total party membership of 16300 were Finns. Furthermore, the party had, since its inception, been wracked by internecine factionalism that seemed to threaten the party's very existence - in general, the grouping led by James P Cannon and William Z Foster versus that led by C E Ruthenberg, James Pepper and Jay Lovestone.

The 'monolithic' party that bolshevism appeared to offer seemed, to many early communists, a necessary step in forging a revolutionary communist party. The Comintern, based on its general authority from the Bolshevik Revolution and its specific history in assisting their American comrades, was increasingly able to determine more and more of the party's internal questions. However, by this point, Comintern intervention, far from 'bolshevising' the party, reinforced the party's problems. In the coming period, the party, bereft of needed guidance, drifted rudderless. Thus at sea, it was subject to both the tides of Comintern policies and the winds of American politics in the anti-radical 1920s. For its part, the 'bolshevised' Comintern, increasingly under the sway of Stalin, began to intervene more and more heavily into the party, disfiguring its politics more and more as the factional battles became less political and more brutal. The seventh chapter examines this factional welter and the Comintern's interventions. During this period, internecine factionalism, increasingly devoid of a political basis, tore the party asunder, and sapped its ability to intervene in society. The Comintern continued to intervene, but largely to play one faction off against another.

The eighth chapter analyses the conclusion of this factionalism. In the aftermath of the 1928 Sixth Comintern Congress, the party leadership purged first its left, trotskyist wing, led by Cannon, and within the year, the right, proto-bukharinite, wing, led by Lovestone (who had until recently been the head of the party). The Comintern then installed a pliant leadership, under the leadership of Earl Browder that finally ended factionalism and carried the now stalinised party into the 1930s. Cannon, along with a handful of supporters, went on to organise the American trotskyist movement, which, in the late 1930s, became the Socialist Workers Party. Lovestone's group floundered for several years, until its founder-leader decided to give up the ghost and eventually became a key player in the world of CIA involvement in the labour movement. Under Browder's leadership, the party had come full circle. By the 1930s, despite its impressive growth during the Great Depression, the party was firmly under the political control of the stalinist Comintern.

The final chapter analyses the changing communist perspective on the 'Negro Question', from ignoring black rights to championing the right of Southern blacks to independence. This chapter argues that of black oppression has been central to American capitalism, and that the labour and socialist movements have needed to address this question in order to advance. However, it explains, the working-class movement historically has either ignored black Americans, or, even worse, been racist itself. The chapter examines how the early socialist movement maintained, at its best, a 'colour blind' attitude of ignoring the systematic oppression of black people, and how this attitude was carried over in the left wing of the Socialist Party and, later, into the early communist movement. Nonetheless, the Bolshevik Revolution energised many blacks living in the US, especially those from a Caribbean background who were attracted to bolshevism for its anti-colonial character. The chapter examines the development of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), a Harlem-based organisation of West Indians, which eventually joined the Communist Party. Then, the chapter analyses the struggle waged by former ABB cadre and other black communists to get the party leadership to take up the fight against black oppression - a struggle that found resonance in Lenin and Trotsky's Comintern leadership. The example of the 'Negro Question' provides the clearest example of how the intervention of the Comintern made the American communists more 'American', and forced them to address one of the most important issues facing the American labour movement. This laid the basis for communists in the United States becoming known as staunch fighters against racism, as seen in the Scottsboro defence case and the struggles in the 1930s. Here, the Comintern, acting on pressure from pioneer black communists, played an absolutely crucial, and positive, role in the development of the party. The final portion of the chapter analyses the origins and contradictory nature of the 'black belt' theory of the existence of a separate southern Black Nation.

Jacob A Zumoff, University of Massachusetts-Boston

'The Politics of Working Class Communism in Greece, 1918-1936'

This PhD thesis was successfully completed at the University of York in 2004.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relatively unknown territory of labour movement and working-class communism in Greece as they developed in the years between the First and Second World Wars. Based on an extensive range of primary sources, including state archives and the archives of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), it examines previously unidentified aspects of communist politics in Greece, drawing on the experience of the country's two main industrial centres with relatively large working-class concentrations: that of Kokkinia in Piraeus and that of Kavala in Northern Greece or Macedonia.

The first chapter provides the historiographical context against which the arguments of the thesis are developed, and emphasis the exceptional weakness of the existing literature on communism in inter-war Greece. Chapters 2 and 3 then provide the economic and political framework respectively for the development of the working class and the organised labour movement in Greece. Chapter 2 is concerned with the social and economic factors which can be identified as the preconditions for the emergence of working-class radicalism. Chapter 3 assesses various methods of incorporation by which the labour movement was confronted, and offers initial pointers regarding the extent to which various sections of the working class managed to respond to and deal with these challenges, or failed to do so. Chapters 4 and 5 then deal with the KKE at national level, including the question of its relationship with the Communist International. Chapters 6 to 8 comprise case studies dealing with the development of labour and communist politics in the localities of Kokkinia and Kavala. Chapter 9 provides a summary and a set of conclusions to the study.

Attempting to place the Greek experience within a wider international context, the thesis examines whether models that have been applied to western societies with liberal regimes and long labour traditions can be applied to the study of communism in a country like Greece? In the Greek case, the limited degree of industrialisation played an important role not only in defining the shape of in the emerging shape of working-class politics, but also its timing. The lack of strong pre-existing labour traditions, combined with emerging ideological doctrines that had not existed in the nineteenth century but proved decisive in the beginning of the twentieth, were critical factors affecting the character of labour politics in Greece in the interwar period. Additionally, the timing of industrialisation was such an important factor in the Greek case because it largely coincided with an unresolved national question. The case studies accordingly turned up evidence that such factors as the idea of 'national trauma'; important national and ethnic identities among workers of refugee origin, as well as the political complexities of newly annexed national territories like Kavala, all played an important role in shaping the nature of labour movement politics. In the thesis, these features are examined alongside themes of development and regime change, and the existence of a state that was not representative in character, but which both possessed and exercised a very considerable repressive capability.

One of the most challenging aspects of the thesis was the re-evaluation of longstanding 'myths' and accepted conclusions regarding the KKE widely reproduced in the existing literature. These include the unidirectional power relationship within the party working from top to bottom; the relationship with the Comintern (and the issue of a single, internationally applicable periodisation of Comintern history); the character of inner-party crises, the dichotomy between 'stalinists' and 'trotskyists', and others. These are re-examined under the prism of previously unseen material from the KKE archives, as well as from local party branches and testimonies of party members, activists and sympathizers.

In addition, the thesis touches upon a number of qualitative characteristics of the development of the KKE, with particular emphasis on the party's membership composition and on key moments and turning points in its development. It assesses how party members responded to state oppression and how far they managed to extend their influence in a hostile environment, through which organisations and with what degree of effectiveness.

The thesis gives special attention to the development of communist politics at a grassroots, community level, as opposed to an overview of developments based entirely at national leadership level or the level of the international communist movement. The interplay between formal party politics and what communists did in the community provides a valuable analytical tool for explaining the growth of communist politics, going beyond objective factors, such as the growth of industry or variations in wages and living conditions, and focusing on the interaction of various factors of incorporation and emancipation. This interaction was never one-sided. Although the state was capable of drawing on a variety of resources, such as legislation, clientism and active oppression, communists and organised labour had the capacity, in various degrees, to adapt and respond to them. Within that context, there are cases when communists manage to forge new forms of identity and values that become increasingly hegemonic at the community level, as the Kavala case demonstrates. In other cases, communists created enclaves of radicalism which, while not yet hegemonic, serve as an influential platform for the promotion of communist politics and ideas, as signaled in the second case study of Kokkinia. The distinct cultural dimension, in other words, the processes through which experience was channelled into radicalism - or, conversely, conservatism or apathy - constitutes one of the key themes in this study.

In this lies part of its wider significance. National and international communist politics provide a backdrop against which local labour struggles and local communist initiatives took place, but are not alone sufficient to explain local dynamics, notably the divergent experiences of communists in different localities. This comparative analysis of two local experiences has shown that local social structures, in which ethnic patterns were a crucial factor, combined with local political traditions, are critical in explaining the varied experiences of communist activists operating in different milieus.

Anastasis Ghikas

'The Past is Ours'

'"The Past is Ours": The Political Usage of English History by the British Communist Party, and the Role of Dona Torr in the Creation of its Historians' Group, 1930-56'.

This PhD was successfully completed at the University of Sydney, Australia in 2004.

This thesis provides a detailed re-evaluation of the Historians' Group of the CPGB, in particular the origins of the group, its relationship to Dona Torr, and its purpose. It also considers the influence of the members on later historical writing both in the English-speaking world and elsewhere. Though some previous studies have treated 'the Group' as a homogenous entity, or concentrated on a handful of academic stars, it had well over 100 members. Many were Oxbridge graduates; some wrote little (or in some cases nothing). Nonetheless, as Eric Hobsbawm has noted, they contributed actively to discussions and they often aided the researches of others. Systematic examination has made it possible to clear away misconceptions about their religious and socio-economic backgrounds, revealing networks of people, generational differences, dominant university recruitment grounds and the wide range of undergraduate historical discussions.

The thesis begins with the earlier context of the members of the Group, in the interwar period. We find that the party had little or no use for English history until directed to it by the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935. For its first fifteen years, the party's stock of symbols and iconic events tended to be strongly influenced by Soviet examples and history was usually only used when it was about continental revolutions, especially the Paris Commune. After Moscow changed the line, the party made growing use of English historical themes in its propaganda. To appeal to a wider pool of potential allies, home-grown symbols, and idealised images of native proletarian heroism, were added. The theatrical and writing experts Randall Swingler and Montagu Slater also organised increasingly thematic historical pageants with costumes and singing. They had assistance from a committee chaired by Torr and aided by students such as Max Morris, who worked on draft scripts. The historians did research for the 1939 Chartist Centenary, the 'Heirs to the Charter' Pageant, and with associated Daily Worker articles. The internal debate asserting the value of such history was largely conducted by members of the Writers' Group, with figures such as Jack Lindsay and Edgell Rickword being most prominent. This was the most public strand of the campaign to assert that the party was the 'heir' to all previous British radicals and rebels, culminating in the major Chartism Pageant in 1939.

From 1936 the party's education effort was revolutionised by Victor Gollancz. His Left Book Club operated at both sophisticated and popular levels, and was a stunning success. His close alliance with the party enabled its ideological intervention in the form of Emile Burns and others who vetted a stream of useful books which met a strong demand for new interpretations aimed specifically at British audiences. For historians, no Club text was more important than A L Morton's People's History of England, for the party it was also a key work outlining a useful line on English History. It precipitated organised discussions by budding academic historians at Oxford, Cambridge and London universities. The burgeoning leftist and anti-fascist student groups began organising wide-ranging college study classes infused with key tenets of marxism-leninism, and key figures wrote articles and reviews critiquing establishment historical approaches for the new journal Modern Quarterly. The thesis discusses the relation of these publishing ventures to other historical activities at that time, and how these formed part of the agenda for the post-war Historians' Group.

Alongside this and to some extent co-ordinating it, was the party's Education Department, a 'Peoples' University' and a 'Faculty of History', all based at Marx House and led by Robin Page Arnot and Douglas Garman, with Torr as a frequent party lecturer. With perhaps around ten or so university historians, they formed the 'Marxist Historians' Group' in September 1938, with a 'History Bureau' for propaganda. From these earlier debates came the beginnings of a more systematic and thorough-going marxist analysis of Chartism and labour history. This collided with the views of hardliners such as Jurgen Kuczynski backed by Rajani Palme Dutt. This shows a striking independence, even defiance, on the part of Torr and her allies.

Torr and Garman worked at the party publishing house, Lawrence and Wishart, and they commissioned Christopher Hill's English Revolution intending it to be a central party text in celebrating the tercentenary of 1640-1940 with associated articles and pageantry. The war, with attendant mobilisation and bombing, disrupted this effort. On this issue too, the historians were assailed by fierce critiques from Kuczynski and Dutt. There were several articles and letters on the topic, but in addition to this published debate, Hill recalled attending full scale meetings in his army uniform to argue with Dutt and his allies. Hill attempted to trump their attacks by citing more up-to-date Soviet sources. The disagreements and numerous theoretical areas opened up for future research, were the foundation for, and set the agenda of, the post-war Historians' Group. True to his earlier track record, Dutt was never an ally of the Group. Perhaps uniquely the party gave academic historians access to its publishing house, its newspaper and journals, and sponsored party education classes on aspects of history, as well as recondite debates on the ancient world and slavery, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the English Revolution, and chartism.

The role of Dona Torr has been underestimated. Assessing the party purposes of Torr is essential to any analysis of her relationship to the historians from both the pre-war and the post-war periods. As well as Torr, this thesis examines the work of Robin Page Arnot and Douglas Garman. Collectively their expertise and work was impressively wide-ranging. They were at various times in their lives: writers, linguists, publishers, editors, leading party educators, Comintern functionaries, marxist scholars, translators, and historians. However, their influence and role as facilitators of historians in the party has not been studied before.

For Tom Mann's eightieth birthday in 1936 there was a new almost biographical emphasis in the usual 'proletarian' celebrations. In this context the party had Torr write a booklet about his life. This was her first work of history, published in 1936. It is a carefully crafted work, full of useful marxist-leninist parallels suitable for party trainers. Mann was the best known party icon with broad appeal in the labour movement and there were many joint-party celebrations of his life. Mann was often publicly linked to party leader Harry Pollitt, in an effort to wrap him in Mann's past glories. Mann was deliberately raised to the Central Committee to fit Dutt's clearly articulated notions of politically useful biographical propaganda. Thereafter, Torr devoted her spare time to a fuller biography, Tom Mann, criticised in the thesis by Hobsbawm as 'hagiography'. But this was its intent - it was to accompany Edward Thompson's William Morris, and a planned work on Eleanor Marx by Allen Hutt. These works were part of a trilogy in the wider agenda of establishing the party's native roots, to bury the taint of 'Moscow Gold'. But her regular ill health, possible dementia, and the breaking up and reworking of the manuscript into an over-ambitious multi-volume work, almost totally derailed the project. Her closest friends in the Historians Group acted to ensure that at least one volume appeared in 1956.

Torr was acknowledged as the mentor for the Group well before her death in 1957. Thompson singled her out as partial co-author of his first major book, William Morris. In 1954 an impressive list of historians contributed to Democracy and the Labour Movement: Essays in Honour of Dona Torr, in which Christopher Hill asserted: 'So fertile has she been of ideas that a whole school of Marxist historians has grown up around her, fostered by her unfailing interest and aid.' John Saville initiated and edited this collection and spoke highly of her. Of those closest to Torr as 'pupils', few had done research degrees at university, and they had unusually close intellectual relationships with Torr, as a de facto PhD supervisor. However, Hobsbawm was one of the few Group members doing a research degree, and he was never close to Torr. In his 'memoir' of the Historians' Group, Torr just rated a fleeting mention, and in his recent autobiography, Interesting Times, he does not mention her at all. The accolades of her other 'pupils' indicate that Torr was considered by them a very important figure, yet she has hitherto received little scholarly attention. Although the records relating to her are fragmentary, she makes a fascinating case study of a woman cadre of the CPGB and the thesis examines how, and upon whom, she exerted an abiding influence, and what limitations there were on this influence. Her role as a labour historian is also discussed, as is the claim that she was a precocious proponent of what later became known as 'history from below'.

Another context is kept closely in mind - this was the era after 'bolshevisation' and so the pro-Soviet atmosphere was very important. Indeed key figures such as Torr, Hill and Maurice Dobb, visited the Soviet Union and deeply imbibed marxist-leninist orthodoxy. While an important limiting factor, it was not as simplistic as often portrayed. The many subtleties in the huge assortment of the works of Lenin opened out varied theoretical and historiographical lines of enquiry. Lenin has been completely ignored by analysts of the Group, but in this thesis his major writings are given their due. So too is the narrower Stalin-era version of the doctrine as exemplified in the notorious Short Course, which directly related to historical work in several cases. The pre-capitalist historians such as Rodney Hilton and Hill were particularly influenced by several of his major works on the peasantry. Although Hill's work is not a prime focus here, there were fierce debates in the pages of Dutt's Labour Monthly during 1940-41 over how to interpret his English Revolution and also over aspects of the 'impoverishment of the working class' thesis. Many top figures such as Torr, Dobb, Garman, Burns, Arnot, Dutt, and Kuczynski were involved in one or both of these debates. These largely set the agendas of the post-war Historians' Group.

Antony Howe

Aksel Larsen and the CIA

It has long been rumoured that Aksel Larsen, the former long-running communist leader in Denmark, made contact with the CIA following his expulsion from the party in 1958.[1] A connection, some have claimed, continued after the establishment of the Socialist People's Party (SF), which he headed until his death in 1972. Initially these rumours were dismissed as without substance by SF members, although already in 1982 autobiography of Holger Viveke ? a close ally of Larsen who had followed him out of the Communist Party (DKP) to become a leading figure in the SF ? specific mention was made of such an approach by the CIA. He writes that, armed with a pistol, he was asked to be present at a clandestine meeting where a CIA agent offered Aksel Larsen unlimited financial help. The pistol was handed to Viveke by Larsen's wife, as the ex-DKP leader was fearful that the Russians might try to assassinate him. The American interest in Larsen was, according to Viveke, understandable given his extensive firsthand knowledge of the inner circles of the Soviet Union and european communist parties. Aksel Larsen refused point blank the offer of money as: 'There were thousands of Danish workers, who would help him and the new party.' (Bagbord Om - Erindringer fra et godt liv, p127). Ironically, the same Holger Viveke was unmasked in 1992 as a KGB contact,[2] although whether this predated the foundation of the SF (which he had been asked to infiltrate) or if he had joined later is an issue of dispute.

The first scholarly biography of Aksel Larsen published in 1993 includes, in addition to the meeting described by Viveke, details of a letter sent to Larsen dated 29 November 29 1958 from Radio Liberty in Germany with an offer of some form of joint co-operation. Although the radio station assured Larsen that it had no connections with Radio Free Europe and was an independent media, it was well known that Radio Liberty's transmitter was financed by the CIA. The proposition was turned down in no uncertain terms, with Larsen declaring: 'My work consists of being politically active among the Danish people and fighting for socialism in Denmark not by radio or other means engaging in political agitation among the Soviet people.' (from a letter to Radio Liberty 6 December 1958 as quoted in Aksel Larsen - en politisk biografi by Kurt Jacobsen, p557). Kurt Jacobsen is of the opinion that the clandestine meeting was one in fact connected to the offer made by Radio Liberty and that the 'CIA agent' was a representative of the radio station. This though, Jacobsen writes, was not the end of the CIA connection and he confirms the sensational press reports from 1976 'based on unnamed Danish intelligence sources' that in 1958, using a bugged public telephone box (close to both the Soviet and American embassies and suspected of being used by Soviet agents) Larsen telephoned the CIA station chief in Denmark saying he was willing to give information on Danish and international communism. Following this the CIA summoned one of their experts in european communism to formulate and put questions to Larsen at a number of secret meetings that took place just outside of Copenhagen.

The discussions centred on questions of overall strategy and tactics, alongside Larsen's personal knowledge of the situation in the Soviet Union, in eastern europe and inside the communist parties of western europe. Through his research Jacobsen dates the contacts as occurring later - between 1 May 1960 and 16 November 1960. Jacobsen argues that the decision to give information to the CIA would not have been an easy one for Larsen, for although he no longer felt duty bound to be loyal to the Soviet party leadership he still considered the USSR to be a socialist society and the USA to be the dominant imperialist power whose actions were hostile to socialism the world over. Why then did he take such a risky step? If he had been found out at the time, his political career would have been ended overnight. The idea that he did it for revenge or for money is dismissed - instead Jacobsen believes it was a straightforward 'life insurance policy' on the part of Aksel Larsen. He took the possibility seriously that he might be liquidated by the KGB (as was later discovered he had an extensive collection of international and Danish newspaper cuttings from 1959-61 on a turncoat KGB agent, in which he described his work in killing Soviet defectors in western europe). He therefore went to the CIA to tell them what he knew ? this would have convinced the Russians that any assassination would have had very serious repercussions and anyway it would be like 'shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted'. Another reason for helping the CIA may have been that he wanted to demonstrate to the powers that be in the west that the SF was not a communist front organisation and that it would abide by the rules of the Danish constitution.

Thus by 1993 the question of a link between Aksel Larsen and the CIA was no longer the stuff of rumour or something based on unnamed sources but was established as factually correct (although the transcript of the recorded telephone conversation has still not been made public). Moreover, in the early 1990s the CIA agent who met up with Larsen was identified and has subsequently written a letter confirming that he acted as a direct link to high-level Agency operatives who came to Denmark especially just to meet him. He has though requested that his name be withheld until the Agency gives its permission for him to openly speak of these matters. At this stage, Larsen's association with the CIA was still believed to be relatively short-lived, and entered into in 1960 through fear and in the interests of self-preservation. However, in the first months of 2003 the issue once again become newsworthy, and became a political weapon used by the extreme rightwing in the parliament to discredit the present day left. One MP stated in no uncertain terms that Aksel Larsen had been 'a double agent'[3] (sic) working for the KGB and the CIA, and implying that the left in Denmark was innately inclined to treacherous behaviour.

Then a couple of weeks later, a document was leaked to a major Danish paper ? the minutes of a meeting that took place in March 1968 in the US Embassy between Larsen, the leader of the SF, and four American officials. As far as I am aware, the minutes have not been published in their entirety but have been used as the basis for a number of articles with all-in-all five or six different short direct citations from the document in question (some of these being quotations of what Larsen is supposed to have said). The meeting was clandestine and at a time when the SF had taken a decision to end all communications with the American diplomatic personnel in protest at the Vietnam War. According to the published quotes, the meeting was not a one-off affair and is proof: 'that the co-operation [between Aksel Larsen and the CIA] had been far more intensive and protracted [than previously supposed post-1993]. Aksel Larsen maintained a regular contact right up to the end of the 1960s with CIA people in Denmark, which functioned behind the backs of the Danish authorities. There was also possibly money in the picture that could have ended up in the party coffers of the SF.' (Politiken, 9 February 2003, 'Årelang SF-kontakt med CIA' - 'SF contact with the CIA lasting years'). As to the contents of the discussions, Larsen is said to have warned of the 'syndicalists, anarchists, Maoists and Communists' seen to be behind the newly established Venstresocialisterne (Left Socialists - a split off from the SF in 1967) and of the infiltration by maoists of the SF's sister party in Norway. He explained the role of the SF in Danish politics as 'functioning as a buffer between the Social Democrats and the Communists. Without the SF the Communists would make progress and the Social Democrats would be powerless in the face of the Communist Party's expansion', and 'if there is one thing I want to achieve, it is to have prevented the spread of communism in Denmark' (the minutes as cited in Politiken, 11 February 2003, 'Baggrund: Aksel og amerikanerne' - 'Background: Aksel and the Americans'). Larsen also spoke of international relations: suggesting that all the eastern european countries were dissatisfied with the Soviet Union with the exception of the GDR, the most stalinist of the regimes and it was for this reason that Denmark should not give it diplomatic recognition. It was also his view that the Soviet Union had great need for an agreement with the USA, given their economic troubles and problems with China and that the only thing holding up matters was the war in Vietnam.

The attempted 'damage limitation' by Aksel Larsen's successor as leader of the SF, Gert Petersen ? that the reported meeting was little more than the ordinary sort of encounter with 'diplomats' all political leaders in Copenhagen are involved in - appears disingenuous. That said, his rejection of the suggestion that money changed hands seems more reasonable, given the permanently perilous state of SF finances and the fact that nothing in the material so far published supports this contention. There are currently two official investigations underway focusing on internal political life in Denmark during the cold war years, both of which are expected to produce comprehensive reports in the near future.[4] Presumably the Aksel Larsen-CIA link will be further scrutinised, and it is to be hoped that if there is any evidence of American money being used to finance the 'third way' (pre-Blair) of the SF, then it will be made public.[5] Clearly Aksel Larsen's disaffection from the communist movement was of a greater intensity than had been previously thought, although some will argue that it gives further credence to the image of Larsen as a cynical political manipulator motivated above all by extending his own personal power. The episode shows that the cold war continued to distort internal political development in Denmark after 1956 ? the CIA operated in the country contrary to the Danish constitution (a breach of law overlooked by successive Danish governments); while the founder and leader of the Socialist People's Party had a close secret relationship with the CIA stretching over nearly 15 years.

Steve Parsons

Notes

1.	Following the end of the war, the CIA was intimately involved in the setting up of a Stay Behind/Gladio organisation in Denmark, known by the Danish name of Firmaet (the Firm). It was this organisation that bugged the flat of a leading communist couple, the communist MP Alfred Jensen and his wife, and released confidential information that they gathered to the press — encouraging paranoia within the DKP leadership and stoking the fires of the party split in the period 1956-58. Transcripts of what was said in the Jensens' flat over many years were regularly sent to the United States. An important work on the Danish intelligence service, the Social Democrats, the OSS/CIA and origins of the Firmaet is: Obersten og Kommandøren - Efterretningtjeneste, sikkerhedspolitik og socialdemokrati 1945-55 (Gyldendal 1995) by Wilhelm Christmas Møller. [ Back ]
2.	Holger Viveke was 'exposed' by Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB defector — however, his importance as a possible source of information to the Soviet Union has been deliberately exaggerated. See 'Fra DUPI til dubiøst' by Preben Wilhjelm, Politiken, 25 Feb 2003. [ Back ]
3.	No one else has ever suggested that Aksel Larsen was a 'double agent' — what has been claimed is that he first worked for the Russians, including 'misusing' his position as an MP to pass on confidential material to the Soviet authorities, and then the Americans (behind the back of the sitting Danish government). [ Back ]
4.	Unfortunately the official investigations have been increasing politicised since the new right-wing government assumed power a few years ago — there are clearly some who are less interested in sober research and more enthused by the opportunity to smear the left and strengthen a traditional 'cold war warrior' interpretation of the post-war period. [ Back ]
5.	The birth of the Socialist People's Party (SF) is of significance in the development of the post-1956 western european left - an anti-stalinist revolt within a communist party which crystalised in the establishment of a non-communist party to the left of social democracy, with a parliamentary presence. In the parliament/folketinget the SF replaced the DKP: 1945 - DKP 18 MPs; 1947 - DKP 10 MPs; 1950 - DKP 7 MPs; 1953 - DKP 7/8 MPs; 1957 - DKP 6 MPs; 1960 - DKP zero MPs. (The DKP only regained parliamentary representation in 1973 as a consequence of its involvement in the anti-Vietnam war movement and campaign against Danish membership of the Common Market). 1960 - SF 11 MPs; 1964 - SF 10 MPs; 1966 - SF 20 MPs; 1968 - SF 11 MPs; 1971 - SF 17 MPs. [ Back ]

A House on Chausseestrasse

In October 1948 Bertolt Brecht and his wife, the Austrian born actress Helene Weigel, returned to Berlin after spending fifteen years in exile. Back in February 1933 Brecht had been in a Berlin hospital on the night the Reichstag was set on fire, as the prelude to Hitler's seizure of power, and this probably saved him from being rounded up by Nazi stormtroopers and put in a concentration camp. He slipped away to Prague the next day and eventually made his way to Denmark, where he lived for six years. After brief spells of residence in Sweden and Finland he travelled across Russia to Vladivostok then made his way to California, where for six years he eked out a living on the fringes of the Hollywood film industry. On 30 October 1947 he was hauled before the US Congress's House Committee on Un-American Activities, then investigating communist influence in the American film industry. Experience had taught Brecht that it was unwise to hang around when trouble loomed and the next day he left for Switzerland. A year later he made his decision to live in the eastern sector of Berlin. Ideologically Brecht was drawn to the Soviet zone and some of his old communist friends now had jobs there and they welcomed him back. Brecht and Helene Weigel were given permission to form their own theatrical company - the Berliner Ensemble - and they began to perform Brecht's plays. The Brechts lived for a time in the Adlon Hotel until they were allocated a villa in the prestigious Weissensee district of the city.

In October 1953 the Brechts moved to 125 Chausseestrasse, a three-storey building in the centre of East Berlin. Brecht occupied an apartment on the first floor and his wife moved into an apartment on the second floor of the same building. When Bertolt Brecht died in August 1956 his widow moved to an apartment on the ground floor. She faithfully preserved Brecht's apartment and its effects, and used the vacated second floor to house the Bertolt Brecht Archive, containing the playwright's correspondence and manuscripts. After Helene Weigel's death in 1971 her apartment was preserved and the building - to be known thereafter as the Brecht-Weigel House - was retained as a memorial to the famous couple. It is currently funded by a grant from the German Federal Government.

The house was built in 1840 and Brecht's apartment contains a large room, formerly a sculptor's studio, which Brecht used as a study and conference room. The room is sparsely furnished with desks and chairs, and has a bookcase along one wall containing books in several languages, including some volumes obviously collected during Brecht's stay in the USA, such as a biography of Joe Hill and several books on American folklore. Somewhat surprisingly there is a long run of old Penguin crime fiction paperbacks on Brecht's shelves. The room also contains various items of theatrical memorabilia associated with Brecht's plays. The Brecht-Weigel House is not open directly to the general public but it can be viewed by appointment, with parties limited to eight people. On learning that we were a British group the curator arranged for an English-speaking guide to conduct us around the house. Researchers wishing to use the Brecht Archive are also expected to book an appointment.

The window of Brecht's study overlooks the Dorothea Cemetery. Established in 1763 this cemetery contains a section known to Berliners as the 'French Cemetery' because it was the burial ground used by the city's Huguenot community. The main cemetery contains the graves of the philosophers Fichte and Hegel, and the architect Schinkel. When Brecht died in 1956 he left a request that he be buried in the Dorothea Cemetery and his grave is marked by a boulder bearing only his name. When Helene Weigel died she was buried beside her husband and her grave is also covered by a rough stone enscribed 'Helene Weigel Brecht'. After the burial of Brecht the Dorothea Cemetery became a kind of VIP's burial ground for the German Democratic Republic's leading cultural figures including the writers Johannes Becher, Heinrich Mann, Anna Seghers and Arnold Zweig; the Dada luminary and inter-war photomontage exponent, John Heartfield, and the composers Hanns Eisler and Paul Dessau.

The building next door to the Brecht-Weigel House is currently hidden by scaffolding and plastic covers as it undergoes refurbishment. This house is the property of the Stauffenberg family, relatives of the man who attempted to blow up Hitler in July 1944. The Stauffenbergs lived in the west after the war and their property in Chausseestrasse was requisitioned by the East German authorities. In the wake of reunification the Stauffenbergs have successfully reclaimed their property and called in the builders to carry out renovations. This house was not the home of Count Claus von Stauffenberg, who planted the bomb that failed to kill Hitler, his Berlin residence survives in the leafy Wannsee district in the former British zone of the city. Von Stauffenberg and the other bomb plotters, who were executed in the courtyard of the old German War Ministry in the Bendlerstrasse, are commemorated by a plaque on the site and a permanent exhibition in the Museum of the German Resistance located in the Bendler Block itself. Together with the rebuilding of synagogues and restoration of Jewish cemeteries destroyed by the Nazis, the opening of the Jewish Museum, and the building of the Holocaust Memorial no one can accuse modern Berlin of trying to airbrush the Nazi period out of its history.

It is a short walk from the Brecht-Weigel House to the Berliner Ensemble. The original theatre was opened in 1892 and was then called the Schiffbauerdam. In 1928 it staged the world premiere of Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera. The theatre was severely damaged in a bombing raid but rebuilt after the war and in 1954 Brecht and Weigel were appointed its directors. After Brecht's death Helene Weigel carried on the Brechtian tradition at the 'Schiff' for another fifteen years. In her own words she gave up acting when she found she no longer had the strength to pull the wagon in Mother Courage, however she retained an iron grip on the company until her last gasp. After the death of Helene Weigel the rights to Brecht's plays passed to the Brecht children, Stefan and Barbara. Stefan Brecht chose to remain in the USA but Barbara moved with her parents to Berlin, where she still lives. She keeps a firm control on what rights are granted to which theatres and carefully monitors productions of Brecht's plays to see that they conform to her father's ideas.

Both Brecht and Weigel were communists, although Brecht was never a card carrying member of the German Communist Party (KPD) or its East German successor the Socialist Unity Party (SED). Helene Weigel, on the other hand, was a party member and could usually be relied upon to follow the party line. Brecht was always something of a marxist maverick but because of the special position he held in the cultural life of the GDR he was allowed considerable latitude in expressing his views. He was on friendly terms with Wilhelm Pieck, the old Comintern stalwart who became the GDR's first President, but his relationship with the SED leader Walter Ulbricht was never close or cordial. The Brecht-Weigel directorate was given a free hand to, quite literally, run its own show and the result was a period of great theatre.

The Berliner Ensemble no longer receives a state subsidy: it has to survive by attracting audiences and it manages to do this. Plays by Brecht are still included in its repertoire and people flock to see them. However ageing theatregoers who remember the Brecht-Weigel productions of the fifties and sixties claim that something is missing from contemporary performances of Brecht's plays, and maybe they are right. Perhaps the Brecht-Weigel partnership did produce something special. In the same way there are veteran theatre-goers in this country who look back with nostalgia on the Old Vic's productions of 1944-48 when Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Sybil Thorndike trod the boards at the grand old theatre in the Waterloo Road. Golden ages never last, but the work of great dramatists does and Brecht's plays are still popular with modern German theatre audiences. A visit to the Brecht-Weigel House, followed by a stroll around the Dorothea Cemetery, rounding off with an evening at the Berliner Ensemble is a must for any Brecht buff visiting Berlin.

Archie Potts

Acknowledgement: I am grateful for the assistance provided by the Curator and staff of the Brecht-Weigel House, Chausseestrasse 125, 10115 Berlin-Mitte.