British Communist Research Articles

Music, archives, and colonial encounter in the Cold War: a case study from British Guiana

ABSTRACT How did musical activity intersect with imperialism and colonialism in the Cold War period (1948–89)? While musicologists have started to explore this question, most current research has focused on the role of the U.S.A. rather than declining European powers, and has frequently foregrounded those efforts at engagement and exchange that Christina Klein has termed ‘Cold War Orientalism’. With reference to the archival records of one Cold War colonial encounter in British Guiana, this article reveals a more disturbing strain of postwar cultural relations, one in which efforts at rapprochement were obstructed by imperial powers, and in which colonial cultural voices were denied or dismissed. At the same time, the article considers the surprising case of a British communist musician – Alan Bush – who, in spite of these barriers to encounter, was able to attempt a form of cultural hybridity in his opera The Sugar Reapers (1962–1965). Ultimately, this article demonstrates the importance of interpreting cultural artefacts like Bush’s opera as musical embodiments of complex colonial connections, and of exploring more deeply those Cold War encounters in which the imperial past was painfully present.

Stalin, the Comintern and the Popular Front in Britain, France and Spain, 1935–1939: Some Historiographical and Political Reflections

The Popular Front politics which governed Comintern policy 1934–1939 have been positively judged by historians of British Communism. The experience cannot be properly assessed without integration of its provenance in Soviet Stalinism and subsequent unfolding in France and Spain. This article reviews the literature, analyses the origins of the line and validates explanations which locate its roots in the search for solutions to the challenges fascism offered the Russian regime. Arguments that national parties had a significant hand in its creation and development are evaluated. The Popular Front’s break with earlier Marxism; its understanding of fascism; the class structure; alliances with the bourgeoisie; its suppression of working-class insurgency; its revival of nationalism; and the relation of its theory to legitimation of the interests and strategies of the Soviet elite, are critically discussed. The successes and failures of the policy are assessed and its afterlife sketched. A short-term, instrumental tactic, it remained part of the repertoire of Stalinism and informed national parties’ journey to reformism and Eurocommunism.

‘For peace and defence of the Soviet Union’: the leadership of British Communism in the Popular Front era, 1935–1939

ABSTRACT This prosopographical investigation of the Central Committee (CC) of the British Communist Party during the Popular Front era analyses the origins, occupations, political careers and destinations of the 47 Communists who served on the CC in these years. The transition from Third Period leftism to class collaboration found minimal reflection in the characteristics of the Communist leadership, which remained in line with those of the preceding cohort. The Popular Front group was slightly older, the percentage of women declined and attention to the middle class saw only marginal increase in the numbers that experienced higher education. There were more Scots, fewer English while turnover remained high. ‘Debutantes’ were younger and relatively raw compared with the ‘Continuation Group’ − 40% of newcomers had joined the CPGB during the Third Period. However, a ‘core’ whose CC service stretched back to the early 1920s and a ‘core of the core’ who endured into the 1950s ensured continuity. The integration of CC members into the party bureaucracy observed in earlier years was maintained: 75% of CC representatives occupied full-time posts. Previous articles provided life histories of the ‘Continuation Group’; the biographical focus here is on the ‘Debutantes’. But the majority of committee members were ‘practical’ working-class activists. Executors of policy, in the end they left theory and strategy to the Comintern and the Soviet elite.

The Missing Link? Western Communists as Mediators Between the East German FDGB, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and African Trade Unions in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s

AbstractIn the interstices of Cold War rivalries and anti-colonial agitation in late 1950s Africa, African workers came into the focus of African nationalist politicians, Western leftists, colonial regimes and state socialist states alike. They were a small, but influential group, increasingly organized in trade unions and capable of bringing whole economies to a halt. European communists on both sides of the Iron Curtain saw these workers not only as part of an inceptive working class but also debated their role as a potential key force in global anti-capitalist revolution – if they had the right concepts. But how could trade union representatives, particularly those ones from Eastern Europe, actually get in touch with their African counterparts? Based on archival materials of the East German Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (FDGB), this article discusses East-West-South connections in labor education with a special emphasis on the role of Western trade union officials working for or affiliated to the communist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). Drawing on their international experience, personal networks and linguistic skills, French and British communists established and intensified links between African trade unions and WFTU affiliates like the FDGB in the 1950s and early 1960s. Their influence facilitated and shaped these East-South connections. First, through their networks in West Africa, Western communists enabled the WFTU and the FDGB to internationalize their concepts of trade union education and integrate it into African political structures. Secondly, we examine the African Workers’ University in Conakry, an East-West-South joint venture between the West African Union Générale des Travailleurs d'Afrique Noire (UGTAN) and the WFTU, where trade unionists from the entire African continent attended courses between 1960 and 1965 and where European communists broadened their horizons while often holding on to rigid views. Thirdly, the article examines how European trade union functionaries talked about African course participants behind closed doors—building on the transcripts from a 1963 WFTU gathering on education for African trade unionists. Emphasizing their insider knowledge, French communists with experience in African trade union education called for innovative pedagogical concepts including a more practice-related education which acknowledged the heterogeneous conditions in different countries. However, they also promoted Eurocentric stage theories and saw a need to “discipline” Africans. The article concludes that the cooperation between actors from East, West and South rested on some shared assumptions, but encounters also led to reconceptualizations and realizations of ideological and practical constraints in international labor education.

The leadership of British Communism, 1923–1928: pages from a prosopographical project

ABSTRACT The importance of leadership in awakening and guiding the working class was emphasised at all levels within the parties which saw themselves as indispensable to socialist revolution. It was fundamental to the philosophy of the Bolsheviks, the Comintern and the early British Communist Party (CPGB). The executive committee (EC) which directed the work of members was broadly representative of the CPGB leadership. The 39 activists who served on the EC between 1923 and 1928 are examined in relation to their origin, age, ethnicity, gender, education, occupation, political antecedents and future destination. Attention is paid to their partners, who were also relevant actors, if frequently marginal to the historiography. The leadership cohort was overwhelmingly British-born, half were English, a third Scottish, male and white. It was predominantly proletarian, 75% of the group were manual workers, although 20% came from middle-class backgrounds and 12.8% were classified as intellectuals compared with 5% of party members. Over 46% of party leaders worked in skilled trades and more than 35% had a background in metalworking. This contrasted with the CPGB as a whole where colliery workers predominated; only a little over 10% of leaders were miners. The mean age was 36.4 years and most had received only an elementary education. Almost 90% joined the CPGB in 1920–1921 with former members of the Socialist Labour Party disproportionately represented in the leadership. Turnover was significant: over 40% served on only one or two committees. Conversely almost 50% sat on four or five. Their partners were more ethnically diverse and like other family members benefitted from Soviet and party patronage in employment. This pioneering prosopography concludes with biographical profiles of the 20 leaders who were not part of the ‘core’ of representatives who registered four or five appearances on the executive from 1923 to 1928. More than half of this ‘peripheral’ group subsequently departed not only the EC but the CPGB itself.

Communist International and Independent Labour Party of Great Britain in 1933 — Early 1934

The article is mainly based on the archival data, Comintern publications and British periodicals. The author examines the relations between the leaders of the III, Communist, International and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1933 — the beginning of 1934. A. Prokopov paid much attention to the analyses of public correspondence between the leaders of the Communist International and the ILP, he also investigates some secrete recommendations (related to the ILP) which the authorities of the Comintern had sent to the chief members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). On the basis of the information from these sources the author could make a conclusion that the policy of the Communist International in Britain in 1933 — the beginning of 1934 was mainly directed to secure affiliation of the ILP to the Comintern in the capacity of a sympathizing party; moreover, Moscow also tried to unite the ILP and the CPGB framed in one party. The main aim of these plans was to eliminate the far left party (ILP) which was competing with the CPGB and to strengthen the position and to enlarge numbers of British Communists in the most favorable, as in Comintern believed, circumstances, when the British state was still suffering many problems caused by the world economic crisis (1929—1933). A. Prokopov also investigates the reaction of the chief members of the ILP towards these actions of the leaders of Comintern.

The early British Communist leaders, 1920–1923: a prosopographical exploration

ABSTRACT The members of its governing Executive Committee constituted the national leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Prosopographical analysis which employs both quantitative and qualitative methods is utilized to explore the origins; age; education; occupations; experience and affiliation; party career; and destination of 47 of 48 members of the committee who held office between 1920 and 1923. The survey presents, in many cases for the first time, details of their background and activity. Against previous assertions of youthfulness and Scottish and Welsh influence, it demonstrates the majority were born in England before 1890 and that while almost two-thirds were skilled workers or miners, a fifth worked in white-collar occupations. There were high rates of turnover and discontinuity: more than 80% of representatives served briefly and 71% were never re-elected after 1923. Up to half were no longer in the party by the end of the decade and only four remained in its leadership after 1932. Mini-biographies of the 33 Communists whose leading role was restricted to ‘the long foundation period’ confirm the weakness and frequently ineffective and confused nature of its leadership as well as the significant difficulties faced by early British Communism.

The Socialist Labour Party and the Leadership of Early British Communism

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.

Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968–71 by Parker David (review)

SEER, 98, 2, APRIL 2020 388 technocratic future — the ‘combat readiness’ of East European states in case of Western attack was open to doubt. And military defence of frontline borders with NATO had, after all, been the very purpose behind the Warsaw Pact, from 1955 onwards. Department of Humanities Matthew Stibbe Sheffield Hallam University Parker, David (ed.). Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968– 71. Bacquier Books, Holmfirth, 2017. 436 pp. Illustrations. Timeline. Notes. Index of letters. £14.99 (paperback). David Parker, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leeds, presents us with a collection of correspondence between his late father, Leslie Parker, and a doctor in Czechoslovakia, Paul Žalud, who spent the Second World War in the United Kingdom but subsequently returned to Communist Czechoslovakia out of a sense of duty. Although the two never met one another, they developed an intimate correspondence lasting from 1968 until 1971, the year that Leslie Parker passed away. The letters exchanged between the men represent a valuable contribution to our understanding of life in Communist Czechoslovakia during the first years of Soviet occupation and the onset of so-called ‘normalization’. In addition, Parker’s criticisms of capitalist society and injustices are insightful. Parker was a veteran member and functionary of the British Communist Party, whereas Žalud was a disillusioned Czechoslovak ex-Communist doctor (he left the Party in 1941) struggling to salvage his career and provide for his family in the provincial city of Ústí nad Labem. Their letters are reprinted here largely in their original format, and organized chronologically. There is a short introduction at the beginning and some reflections by the editor at the end of the volume. The exchange of letters was initiated by Parker after Žalud published a letter in The Times dated 14 July 1968 (published 19 July 1968) in reaction to their coverage of the pre-occupation Prague Spring. Žalud disagreed with The Times on why hard-line Communists in the Soviet Union persisted in their belief that the liberalization measures adopted by Czechoslovak party leader, Alexander Dubček, during the first half of 1968 were part of an imperialist Western conspiracy to undermine the Soviet bloc. Žalud referred to Karl Popper’s ‘conspiracy theory of society’ in order to explain Soviet thinking in his attempt to correct the impression made by The Times that the Soviet leaders felt the way they did because they were ‘prisoners of Marxist doctrine’. The point made by Žalud was that Soviet thinking had nothing in common with true Marxist REVIEWS 389 doctrine. The editor refers to some unpreserved initial correspondence initiated by Parker criticizing Žalud’s stance. When Žalud responded in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion, which occurred in August, Parker apologized and the friendly correspondence began. The first letter in the volume was sent from Žalud to Parker on 28 October 1968. Žalud mentioned that thirty thousand Czechoslovaks had already left for the West and that the Czechoslovak Communist Party was still struggling to preserve the sovereignty of the occupied country, but that the Soviets were interfering wherever possible. In his reply, Parker wrote of the social ills facing Britain and other Western countries. He also mentioned that Communists in Britain and other Western countries were torn by the question of whether antiimperialism meant always agreeing with Soviet foreign policy. Finally, Parker stated that the existence of the Communist countries in Europe was a good thing because ‘if they were to go, the salvation of humanity would be put back possiblycenturies’.Žalud’sreply(thefinalletterof1968inthevolume)tookissue with Parker’s notion that the success of the socialist revolution was sufficient to end ‘man’s exploitation by man’ by stating: ‘The expropriation of the means of production and the verbal declaration that the proletariat has been raised to the position of the ruling class is by no means a fool-proof device to do away with exploitation.’ The letters exchanged in 1968 demonstrate the differences in perception between Parker, an individual with Communist beliefs in a free country, and Žalud, who lived in Communist Czechoslovakia and experienced first-hand difference between Communist theory and practice. Over the course of 1969, twenty letters were exchanged. Parker initially wrote with the...

Subaltern Histories

Abstract Bill Schwarz reviews the work of the South Asian Subaltern Studies historians of the 1980s and 1990s. Formed in the afterlives of the British Communist Historians Group of the 1940s to the 1970s, the Subaltern Studies collective determined to understand what that inherited historiographical paradigm would look like if the question of colonialism were located at its core. He asks also why it was that the History Workshop approaches to history, which began from a similar starting point and sought to recast how history was conceived – emphasizing less colonialism than gender/sexuality – were relatively deaf to the kindred historical project, when each approach was grappling with similar conceptual issues.

Was the Left’s Thunder Stolen? Soviet Short Films on British Wartime Screens

Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the United Kingdom witnessed a dramatic surge in support of and interest in its new Soviet ally against the Nazis. The British government began to help the Soviets, but was widely perceived to be doing too little. The Ministry of Information attempted to counter this impression, showing the government’s support for Russia, while at the same time trying to ensure that this support remained under governmental control and did not fall into the hands of British Communists. While scholarship has devoted a great deal of attention to the diplomatic dimension of Anglo-Soviet wartime relations, there has been little written about issues of culture and propaganda, which played a crucial role; likewise studies of cinema in wartime Britain have paid scant attention to the British wartime reception of Soviet film. During the first years of the Anglo-Soviet alliance, however, short films in particular proved an especially important medium for the communication of the British government’s complex policy on Soviet Russia: it was attractive with audiences for its combination of immediacy with authenticity, but also attractive to governments as a reliable transmission belt for a carefully calibrated message. As such, analysis of shorts with specific analysis of the key films: Salute to the Soviet, 100 Million Women enables us to reassess the claim that the Ministry of Information really succeeded in stealing the thunder of the Left, and reconsider the effects this policy had on British society.

Withdrawn as Duplicate: Subaltern Histories

Abstract Bill Schwarz reviews the work of the South Asian Subaltern Studies historians of the 1980s and 1990s. Formed in the afterlives of the British Communist Historians of the 1940s to the 1970s, the Subaltern Studies collective determined to understand what that this inherited historiographical paradigm would look like if the question of colonialism were located at its core. He asks also why it was that the History Workshop approaches to history, which began from a similar starting point and sought to recast how history was conceived – emphasizing less colonialism than gender/sexuality – were relatively deaf to the kindred historical project, when each approach was grappling with similar conceptual issues.

Some lost worlds of Eric Hobsbawm: interviews with a communist historian: 1990-2001

By common consent one of the finest historians of his generation, Eric Hobsbawm was also a longstanding member of the British Communist Party. In particular, his formative years as a historian spanned the period from the popular front communism of the 1930s to the post-war Communist Party Historians' Group. The background and activities of the Historians' Group have been described many times, including by Hobsbawm himself. Nevertheless, in these interviews recorded between 1990 and 2001 Hobsbawm opened up regarding the role of key networks and personalities that did not always figure in accounts like his autobiography Interesting Times. Notably among them are Dona Torr and John Morris, the historian of the classical world with whom Hobsbawm launched the journal Past and Present at the height of the Cold War.

Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: a historical controversy revisited

ABSTRACT‘Bolshevization’ and ‘Stalinization’ have been used variously by historians of American and British Communism to designate and date the processes by which the Comintern and national parties were subordinated to Soviet policy. Despite their pervasive influence on the American and British left, this literature reveals little curiosity or consensus about the politics of Bolshevism and Stalinism, their history and relationship, indeed, these labels have sometimes been employed inexactly and interchangeably. In some narratives, Bolshevization dates from 1924 and was completed from 1929. In others, the Comintern and its affiliates were Stalinized from 1924, in still others, from 1929. The historiography of the Soviet Union, in contrast, includes forensic interrogation of Bolshevism and Stalinism, their meaning, periodization and consequences as well as the continuities and disjunctures between them. This work has been overlooked by historians of the American Workers’ Party and the British Communist Party. The present article assesses both literatures. It utilizes insights from Sovietologists to argue that Stalinism constituted a politics and practice connected with but distinct from Bolshevism. Reviewing Comintern and party history, it proposes a specific periodization. State Bolshevism, 1919–1923, saw subjugation of the American and British parties to Russian imperatives. Incipient Stalinism, 1924–1928, witnessed restructuring of the politics of subordination. From 1929, Stalinization accomplished a distinctive subordination. It enthroned a politics and practice foreign to that of Lenin and the Bolsheviks which endured, through different phases, until the 1950s.

General Election in Britain in 1922 and Plans of Russian Bolsheviks and British Communists

The author of this article (which was written mainly on the basis of archival data) could show that in 1922 Bolsheviks exerted the decisive influence upon the elaboration of the electoral policy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). The main Bolshevik recommendations for the British communists were the following: to propagandize the communist ideas during the elections and to support the Labour candidates in the hope that they would demonstrate their incapability (after the formation of the government) to defend the interests of common people, and this would make it possible to strengthen the influence of communists among the workers. The official documents of the CPGB reflected readiness of the communist leadership to implement Moscow advices. But in reality the British communists could not implement all recommendations of the Bolshevik party. One of the major causes of this was the fact that majority of communist candidates relied on the support of the Labour Party and that why they tried not to stress the attention of the electorate on the communist ideas.

БРИТАНО-АМЕРИКАНСЬКИЙ НАПРЯМ В СТРАТЕГІЇ ІІІ ІНТЕРНАЦІОНАЛУ В 1941-1943 РР. (ЗА МАТЕРІАЛАМИ «ЩОДЕННИКА» Г. ДИМИТРОВА)

On the basis of diary entries of the Secretary General of the Third International G. Dimitrov, documents of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, and documents of Soviet foreign policy, the author analyzes the characteristic features of the discursive model of the strategy and tactics of the Third International in 1941-1943, especially its activities in the field of propaganda regarding the Communist Party of the USA and the Communist Party of Great Britain during the first period of the German-Soviet war of 1941-1945 and in the process of the formation of the Anti-Hitler coalition. The role of the CPUSA and CPGB in the process of consolidating democratic forces in the struggle against Germany and its allies, the features of their activities in the framework of the discursive model of the Third International of 1941-1943, are characterized. The place and significance of the CPUSA and CPGB in the context of the Comintern’s strategy of providing comprehensive assistance to the USSR in the war with Germany, the deployment of the partisan movement and the Resistance movement in occupied countries, and the establishment of relations with the governments of F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill for a quick end to the war. In the course of the study, the main areas of activity of the American and British Communist Parties, the preservation of distance in cooperation with national governments and especially the intelligence and counterintelligence bodies of the Allies during 1941-1943, were established. A separate place in G. Dimitrov’s recordings is occupied by the problem of opening a second front in Europe in 1942 and propaganda issues related, first of all, to the signing of the British-Soviet and American-Soviet agreements, the problems of their coverage in newspapers and on the radio.

‘As imperialistic as our masters’? Relations between British and Irish communists, 1920–1941

ABSTRACTSoon after its formation, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was tasked by the Communist International with assisting their Irish comrades to develop their organisation. This article outlines the relations between British and Irish communists from 1920 to 1941 and argues that, notwithstanding the selfless work of some British communists, the CPGB on the whole exhibited a patronising and paternalistic demeanour towards the Irish that failed to consider the latter’s perspective on an equal footing to its own, even in their own affairs. This attitude, combined with its position within the heart of the British Empire, is indicative of ‘cultural imperialism’.

The Connolly Association, the Catholic Church, and anti-communism in Britain and Ireland during the early Cold War

ABSTRACTDuring the Cold War era, the Connolly Association, an Irish republican socialist political organisation in Britain close to the Communist Party of Great Britain, was seen by British Communists as a potential means of winning recruits amongst Britain’s growing post-war Irish community. This view was shared by the Catholic Church, which, amidst the broader ideological atmosphere of the Cold War, placed an increased emphasis on anti-communism in the early post-war years. This article will discuss clerical opposition to the Connolly Association in early Cold War Britain and Ireland, drawing chiefly on diocesan archives and Catholic periodicals.

A Spy in the House of Art: The Marxist Criticism of Anthony Blunt

Anthony Blunt's writings on the visual arts have not received as much scholarly attention as they deserve, not least because Blunt's reputation was seriously tarnished by the revelation that he had worked as a Soviet spy. This article examines the writings on art which Blunt produced under the influence of Marxism in the 1930s. Among its central concerns is Blunt's attitude towards the Soviet ideas about culture which did so much to shape British communist criticism between the wars. It is argued that Blunt's response to Soviet aesthetic orthodoxy was a curiously ambivalent one. On the one hand, Blunt went far beyond any other British writer in welcoming the Soviet belief that artists should take their instructions from the socialist state. On the other hand, while posing as an apologist for the Soviet doctrine of Socialist Realism, he was clearly unimpressed by existing examples of socialist art and seemed suspicious of the way in which Socialist Realism had been theorised by Soviet critics. His lukewarm response to Socialist Realism was expressed directly in his writings on contemporary painters and more obliquely in his historical work on the visual culture of the Renaissance. By the same token, in spite of trotting out formulaic condemnations of surrealism, abstraction and other modernist forms, Blunt was unhappy with the Soviet prohibition on modernism and found it difficult to conceal his belief that painters had much to learn from modern art. In the final analysis, Blunt's ambivalence towards Soviet theory gives his work a highly representative quality. Like many other British Marxist critics of his time, Blunt took Soviet ideas as his starting point but often developed them in unexpected and sometimes unorthodox ways. His work serves as a valuable reminder that British communist criticism between the wars was never merely a pale reflection of Soviet orthodoxy.

‘The Trojan Horse’: Communist Entrism in the British Labour Party, 1933–43

Entrism – the infiltration of political organisations by competitors – is typically associated with Trotskyism. Large-scale Communist entrism in the British Labour Party has been neglected by historians and reference in the literature is slight and impressionistic. Archival material permits reconstruction of a sustained attempt by the Comintern and British Communists to subvert Labour Party policy between 1933 and 1943. Documenting the development and dimensions of Communist entrism, this article establishes that, by 1937, 10% of Communist Party (CPGB) members were operating secretly inside British Labour, campaigning to change its policy on affiliation and engineer a Popular Front. Biographies of 55 such Communists provide new data and permit a typology of entrist activity. The episode sheds new light on Popular Front initiatives and the extent of genuine support for them within Labour. It illuminates the conspiratorial side of Stalinist activity at a time when the CPGB presented itself as a conventional British party.