The Socialist Labour Party and the Leadership of Early British Communism

Abstract

The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) contributed a small number of members to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) founded a century ago, compared with the considerably larger British Socialist Party (BSP). Nonetheless, some historians have claimed leading SLP members, well-versed in Marxist theory, proved to be excellent leadership material and figured disproportionately in directing the early CPGB. ‘Bolshevisation’ of the party in the mid-1920s saw them crowded out by opportunist ex-BSP activists more amenable to Moscow, with a deleterious impact on the CPGB's theoretical clarity and political fortunes. Absorption in mundane activity blunted the former SLPers’ theoretical edge and ‘will to revolution’. A statistical analysis of compositional trends on the CPGB Executive Committee, 1920–1928, combined with examination of the 19 ex-SLPers who sat on it and of major ex-SLP protagonists, confirms they punched above their weight, not just initially but through the 1920s. However, the turning point was not ‘Bolshevisation’ but the onset in 1929 of Stalin's leftist Third Period. There is scant evidence that former SLP representatives were replaced in the leadership by former BSP activists. The idea of conflicting SLP and BSP political identities persisting beyond the party's ‘bedding down’ period is exaggerated and fails to facilitate understanding of CPGB development during its first decade.