24.10.1996

Communist Party Congress

From the Workers’ Weekly, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, October 22 1926

Comrade JR Campbell opened the discussion of the General Strike ...

“The General Strike was an outcome of the developments which had taken place in Great Britain over many years, and their effects on the working class of this country” ...

The workers were not aware of all that a general strike involved, although the will to fight was there ... Only two attitudes were possible - that of the Communist Party, which can be summed up in the word ‘preparation’, or that of the right wing which believed preparation was unnecessary, because they said such preparation would antagonise public opinion ...

“During the General Strike the illusions of democracy fell from the eyes of the workers. The state was revealed not as a neutral, but as a class body.

“We are arriving at a state of affairs when the workers cannot defend themselves without that act of self-defence becoming a political issue. This lesson must be hammered in.

“In future strikes we have to face the problems not only of an industrial stoppage, but of workers’ defence, the control of food supplies, propaganda in the forces...

“The next general strike will be led by revolutionaries, not by rabbits ...”

After comrade Campbell’s speech numerous delegates took up the discussion.

The main criticism was concentrated on the inadequacy of the organisational preparedness of the Party. Most speakers treated the Strike not so much from the point of view of its overwhelming political significance, but rather from its technical and trade union aspects.

While mistakes were frankly admitted and defects criticised, this Congress of workers straight from the class front revealed the unity of the Party on fundamental issues, and, by its wholehearted support of the central committee, knocked the bottom, for good and all, out of the legend that our Party has acted as “a brake on the revolution.”