From the Ted Grant archive
[Editorial notes: As we approach the eightieth anniversary of the election of the 1945 Labour government, the most radical in Labour’s history, it is worth noting that at that time, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB, founded in 1920 under the influence of Lenin), was an important ‘left’ party. It was, however, completely out of touch with the aspirations and the mood of workers.
The big majority of workers were radicalised by their experiences in the 1930s and by the war, and they were surging forward, soon to propel a Labour government into office with a huge majority. The ‘Communist’ Party, on the other hand, was controlled by Stalinists who had supported every twist and turn of Moscow’s foreign policy. Having supported the wartime ‘truce’ between, the Tories, Liberals and Labour, the CP, incredibly, tried to use its (fortunately limited) influence to argue for the continuation of the wartime coalition under Churchill.
It was clear in early 1945 that the war would soon come to an end. Representative of the three main victorious powers, Britain, US and the Soviet Union, met in February in Yalta, in the Crimea. Here, they agreed between themselves to carve up Europe and the world into “spheres of influence”.
As is always the case with such meetings, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, then US President, disguised their real intentions with mealy-mouthed platitudes about “peace”, “cooperation” and “prosperity”. This empty phraseology, being the ‘line’ coming from the Kremlin, was adopted completely by the CP in Britain.
This article, first published in the Socialist Appeal, in mid-April, 1945, was Ted Grant’s response to the stance of the CP].
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The statement of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party on the Crimea conference dated February 21, 1945, has aroused justified concern, apprehension and doubts among the rank-and-file members as to the correctness of the present, above all, the future policy of the ‘Communist’ Party leadership.
Nearly all class-conscious fighters in the ranks, who are worthy of their salt, regard with dismay the prospect of a continuation of the present party policy in the post-war period. And no wonder! The best fighters in the Communist Party were reconciled to the present policy of class collaboration because the leadership assured them that the struggle for socialism was only postponed till after the defeat of Hitler.
Now this statement of the Executive Committee has been issued on postwar policy, and it does not contain a single word about the struggle for socialism or the socialist revolution. On the contrary, the EC takes its stand, like Earl Bowder [the US CP leader – ed] and the American Communist Party, on the maintenance of capitalism and imperialism.
Lasting Peace
Comrades of the Communist Party, examine this statement and see what it really means. The Crimean conference has been described as opening out a period of permanent peace –
“The pledge to so work as to remove the political, economic and social causes of war is of historic important and significance, for to realise this would be to achieve an age-old dream of world humanity. The peoples want a lasting peace above all else in the world. They know that only through lasting peace can there be developed any real opportunities for establishing forms of international cooperation that will help in the speedy restoration of devastated Europe, meet the urgent needs of the peoples and help forward the backward colonial countries. Only through lasting peace can humanity forge ahead to new social victories over poverty, unemployment and insecurity and guarantee the same united use of the world’s productive forces in peace time as has taken place during the war.”
Marx and Lenin never failed to explain that the only way in which the “political, economic and social causes of war” could be eliminated was through the socialist revolution, and only by the socialist revolution. Lenin never tired of castigating those who argued that peace was possible under capitalism – especially in the age of imperialism.
What are the pledges of the perjured capitalist politicians worth in the face of stern reality? To unite fire and water would be far simpler than to gain peace and prosperity under capitalism. Pollitt and the other leaders [Pollitt was General Secretary of the CPGB – ed] know this only too well. This is not a complicated question, but the ABC of Marxism.
How many times did Lenin sternly attack the lies and illusions of the Social Democrats, who after the last war, put forward a policy of support for the League of Nations and ‘democracy’ as a means of achieving peace and progress. The only difference between then and now is that the Communist Party is even more reactionary and utopian. The Social Democrats never dared to say what the CP leaders are saying today: at least they paid lip service to socialism.
Under the heading “Alternative to Crimea” the letter paints a black picture if the policy of ‘Crimea’ is not carried out:
“The emergence of new forms of reaction in Europe and Britain. Delay in recovery in Europe. No effective forms of international economic cooperation, because where there is an unstable unrest, there can be no long-term planning to utilise the world’s resources in the interests of the peoples of the world. Political instability in Britain, and its effects at home and abroad.
“This is why we shall fight with all our strength for the carrying out of the policy of the Crimea Conference. This is why we shall fight against all the remnants of sectarianism both in our own party and in the Labour movement.”
In answering these statements of Pollitt and the CP leaders we are compelled to argue the most elementary socialist propositions. These should be axiomatic for anyone claiming the most superficial knowledge of Marxism. Pollitt’s arguments are no better than the demagogy of the Tories, that capitalism is alright, but a few “bad men” are the cause of all the trouble. We are compelled to discuss, not communist tactics, but whether capitalism in progressive or not!
Hollow lie
The capitalists are fond of shouting about equality of sacrifice and the united endeavours of the whole population in the war. Every class-conscious member of the Communist Party knows what a hollow lie this is. What “united use of the world’s productive resources” has taken place during the war? The bosses have grown richer while the workers have made all the sacrifices. The “united use” of productive resources benefitted only the capitalists and not the working class. The “unity” was a unity of horse and rider – the capitalists riding on the backs of the workers.
Yet the CP faithfully echoes this capitalism propaganda.
And if capitalism could not prevent war, far less can it abolish poverty, insecurity and unemployment.
The capitalists themselves have no such illusions as are put forward by the leaders of the CP. “By their deeds shall ye know them” is the only sure method by which the workers can arrive at correct conclusions. The capitalists have already commenced their attacks upon workers’ conditions under the guise of “redundancy”. No real attempt has been made to solve the housing problem or any other of the serious and urgent problems confronting the workers. Here we see the real plans of capitalism.
The next section of the document dealing with the position in Britain is an indictment of the cynicism by which the leaders are endeavouring to deceive their own members and the working class.
“No country in the world needs the adoption of the Crimean policy more than Britain.
“It’s six years of war and all that has meant, its backward economy in comparison to that of America, carry with them most serious consequences if we are to enter into post-war markets with American and other countries. Consider the terrible prospects of attacks on wages, mass unemployment, curtailment of social services, and the grim future that would face the British people as a consequence of such a policy. This can only be avoided if the Crimean policy is carried through.”
Race for markets had already begun
As if the race for markets has not already begun! As if America has not already stripped Britain of her investments abroad! As if the phrases of the Crimea Conference are not intended to conceal the real situation and the aims of the victorious imperialists.
American has announced her programme of trebling her pre-war exports. Britain is trying to double hers. The competition between Britain and America will be far greater than the competition between Britain and Germany which led to the present war. To ask that the competition should cease is to behave like King Canute and demand that the tide should recede at command.
But now the CP leaders are demanding that the Labour movement should continue “national unity” and the coalition in the post-war period. They talk of the “new conception of democracy” that has grown up with the grim experiences in fighting fascism…the experience of the Greeks at the hands of Churchill and the ruling class perhaps? [This is a reference to the use of British troops to help suppress the Greek revolution in 1945 – ed]
Churchill and Eden
The real position of the CP is best indicated by their pretence that the Tories have changed their policy:
“It (Crimea) represents a victory for the anti-fascist over the pro-fascist policy which hitherto dominated in the Tory Party, revealed in the leading role adopted by Churchill and Eden, as the two present dominating personalities in the Tory Party in whole course of the war against fascism.”
Churchill the implacable enemy of the working class. Churchill who supported Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. Churchill who bared his fangs in Greece. Churchill who has always been a die-hard supporter of Big Business is presented as “progressive”.
To support Churchill is to support monopoly capitalism. To support the capitalists, the interests of the working class must be betrayed. It has taken the advanced British workers the experience of 50 years to realise that the Liberal and Tory Parties are parties of capitalism. From many bitter lessons they have learned the necessity for the independent struggle of the masses for Socialism. Now, in preparation for the greatest crisis of existence the Communist Party wishes to put the clock back in cringing capitulation to British capitalism.
Shamefacedly, the CP leaders dare not say openly and unequivocally to the workers that they want an agreement with the Tory and the Liberal capitalists; they try to cover up by the innocuous formula: “Labour and Progressive Government”.
The laws of capitalist development, given a capitalist basis, can no more be circumvented than the law of gravitation. But the role of the CP is to act like a bell-weather leading sheep to destruction.
Use “the nation’s” resources
The quotation from Harry Pollitt’s How to win the Peace, reproduced in the letter is an indication of this:
“After the war, the whole nation must unite against the reactionary sections of capitalism, who, for whatever motives, oppose the use of the nation’s resources to meet the nation’s needs. The people who have been strong enough to defeat Hitler will always be strong enough to defeat those who are prepared to go back to the old sterile policy of wage cuts, victimisation and unemployment; those who organise scarcity because they profit from it; those who are willing to plunge the nations back into the turmoil and menace of imperialist rivalries and war.”
No matter how they may try to disguise it, the CP leaders want a Government in which Churchill, Eden and other reactionary Tories will play a prominent part. Their description of a ‘progressive’ is one who supports Churchill and Eden. They only difference between the present government and the government they want is one of a reshuffle of posts!
The leaders of the CP are too cowardly to declare this openly because of the disgust it would arouse within the ranks of the working class.
Empty phrases
“Collaboration” between bosses and workers has nothing in common with communist policy. All his life, Lenin taught that the interests of workers and the interests of capitalists were fundamentally opposed. Lenin castigated the treachery of the reformists in entering capitalist cabinets with plans of reforms, which he said remained plans of paper only. In Revolution of 1917, Lenin wrote:
“…what empty phrases these: ‘There is no place in the Government of Democratic Russia (the Popular Front Government of Kerensky) for a champion of interests of International Capital’. Is it not a shame that educated people should write such piffle?
“The entire Provisional Government (of Liberals and Labour leaders) is a Government of the Capitalist Class. The main thing is the class, not the individual. To attack Miliukov (Liberal leader) personally, to demand, directly or indirectly, his dismissal – is silly, for no removal of individuals will change anything, until different classes are put in power.
“It is pardonable for ignorant peasants to exact from the capitalist ‘promises’ to ‘live righteously’ and not capitalistically, to demand that the capitalists cease ‘championing the interests of capital’. But for the leaders…to adopt such methods means to nourish the illusory hopes placed by the people in the capitalists, hopes that are the most harmful and ruinous to the cause of freedom, to the cause of the Revolution.” (Pages 240/241).
Then again:
“To hope that the capitalist class would ‘mend its ways’ would cease to be a capitalist class, would give up its profits, is a fatuous hope, an empty dream, and in practice a deception of the people” (Page 248)
Never in the whole history of the working class has the ground been so favourable for a bold and decisive lead. All over Europe, all over the world, the working class is showing its desire to change the system which is responsible for the miseries of the war, for unemployment and insecurity, for fascism and reaction. The letter proudly proclaims:
“The Communist Parties, the world over, are in a stronger position than ever before with many leading Communists in positions of responsibility in European governments”
The workers in great numbers have swung over from reformist to what they believe is Communism in the shape of the Stalinist Communist Parties. But instead of giving a revolutionary communist lead, the CP leadership in all countries, including Britain, is pursuing a policy to the right of the old reformist organisations.
Comrades: remember the results of the Labour governments of 1924, 1929-31 when they depended on Liberal toleration. Not a single major measure in the interests of workers was carried out. And the CP now proposes that coalition, not only with the Liberals but with the Tories, can serve in the interests of the working class.
Labour government
In 1924 and 1929, the British Communist Party, still echoing some of the teachings of Lenin, correctly pointed out that even a majority Labour government could not carry out a programme in the interests of the working class. In order to educate workers, Lenin taught us it was necessary to advocate the pushing in power of the Labour Party, as the best means of convincing the rank-and-file Labour workers, through their own experience, of the futility of even a majority reformist government. But while advocating that Labour should take power independently of the capitalist parties, Lenin warned the Communists against sowing any illusions amongst the workers that their problems could be solved in any way by their reformist leadership.
Only by taking power into the hands of the working class and expropriating the capitalist class, will peace and plenty come to the workers of Britain and the world. This is the policy of Bolshevism.
We can help the workers of Europe, we can help the Soviet Union, we can serve the interests of the British workers only be waging an uncompromising struggle against British capitalism, only by fighting for a socialist Britain.
We appeal to all those members of the Communist Party who wish to remain true to their class to study the teachings of Marx and Lenin. Compare their teachings with the teachings of the Communist Party. We are confident that you can only arrive at one conclusion. The policy of the Communist Party is entirely opposed to the interests of the workers of the world, it has nothing in common with Communism. Our policy is the policy of Marx and Lenin, the policy of real revolutionary communism.
[Ted Grant (1913-2006) was the leading British Marxist theoretician in the postwar period and the political founder of the Militant tendency in 1964]
[Feature picture shows, left to right, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta conference. From Wikimedia Commons, here]
