Understanding the formation of the Communist Party of Britain

Abstract

This article deals with the foundation of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), a 1988 split from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), which was overseen by a group around Tony Chater, whom had earlier been involved with splitting the Morning Star newspaper away from the CPGB. The CPB was unsuccessful in uniting its preferred constituency, party trade unionists; and appears to have alienated many CPGB oppositionists due to its tactics and agitation for a split. It did manage to group together wider layers of people who had been oppositionists in the old CPGB as the 1990s wore on but, by the middle of the decade, this process had pushed initial leadership figures such as Mike Hicks, Mary Rosser and others into hostility towards those who were perceived to have been oppositional rivals in the 1980s. Thus, the divisions in the CPGB at the foundation of the CPB cast a long political shadow.