21.09.1995

The refusal

From 'The Communist', paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, September 23 1920

THE DECISION of the executive committee of the Labour Party not to accept the affiliation of the Communist Party should have important consequences.

... The view of the Third International, made quite clear in the various theses, is that it is the duty of communists to work where the masses are. That may mean going into reactionary organisations ...

What now? Obviously we are in a strong position. We can tell the masses that their reactionary leaders are afraid of our views and afraid of our presence at their meetings ...

The Third International is unhesitatingly of the opinion that there should be one Communist Party in Britain. In Britain it has seemed as if every individual socialist who differed, or imagined he differed, from anyone else had to have a little party of his or her own. When the Communist Party was formed in August it looked as if we had come near to the end of that kind of conduct, but last Saturday, at a conference held in Glasgow, it was decided to form a Scottish Communist Labour Party!

If it is true that Labour Party affiliation has stood in the way of complete unity - personally I do not believe it - then the refusal to accept the Communist Party has removed the obstacle. We can now have complete unity. Every communist who accepts the programme of the Third International, who is prepared to put the success of a strong, disciplined, well organised party before his own particular fancies - every communist in fact who is a communist - should now busy himself with the task of getting all the elements together and making the British movement a real part of the International.