03.08.1995

First edition

From The Communist, no1 vol 1, weekly paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, August 5 1920

THE CALL of our Russian comrades has been responded to and a united revolutionary Communist Party in this country is now an accomplished fact.

... Those delegates who filled the Great Hall of the Cannon Street Hotel on Saturday July 31 may rest assured that they took part in a gathering which will be regarded as constituting a definite landmark in the history of the social revolution in this country when it comes to be written.

... The invitation to be represented was extended only to those organisations which accept the fundamental bases of communist unity: (a) the dictatorship of the working class; (b) the soviet system; (c) the Third International.

The first resolution, defining general policy and formally constituting the Communist Party, was moved by comrade AA Purcell and, after one or two verbal alterations, was carried unanimously.

It read as follows:

“The communists in conference assembled declare for the soviet (or workers’ council) system as a means whereby the working class will achieve power and take control of the forces of production; declare for the dictator-ship of the proletariat as a necessary means for combating the counterrevolution during the transitional period between capitalism and communism; and stand for the adoption of these means as steps towards the establishment of a system of complete communism wherein all the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This conference therefore establishes the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adherence to the Third International.”