20.07.2011
Affiliation tersely rejected
A tactical question for the new CPGB
Affiliation to the Labour Party had been a key debate at the Communist Unity Convention, the founding congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain, over the weekend of July 31-August 1 1920. It was endorsed as Communist Party policy by 199 votes to 85.[1]
One month after the party’s application to affiliate was submitted, the Labour Party’s negative reply was received. This was published in the CPGB weekly, The Communist, in an article that underlined that affiliation was a tactical question for the new party. It also raised the prospect of the CPGB challenging Labour in the ballot box.
Ourselves and the Labour Party
One of the first items that had to be considered by the executive committee of the Communist Party ... was the resolution in favour of affiliation to the Labour Party. This was done in the communication embodying the whole of the objections, methods and policy of the party as decided upon at the convention ... [Later] it became known that the decision of the [Labour Party] executive was against our application and that a reasoned statement would be forwarded to us ... we print it here:
September 11 1920
Mr Albert Inkpin, secretary, Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Party
Dear sir
Your letter of August 10, in which you inform me that at a national convention held in London on Saturday and Sunday July 31 and August 1 last, the Communist Party was established, was placed before the national executive of the Labour Party at their meeting at Portsmouth on Wednesday last, the 8 inst.
My executive fully considered the resolutions adopted by the convention defining the objects, method and policy of the Communist Party, as set out in your letter. They also considered your application for the affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party.
After full consideration of the resolutions and your request, it was resolved that the application be declined, and I was instructed to inform you that the basis of affiliation to the Labour Party is the acceptance of its constitution, principles and programme, with which the objects of the Communist Party do not appear to be in accord.
Arthur Henderson
secretary
The reply, it will be seen, is a definite refusal to our request for affiliation on the ground that our objects “do not appear” to be in accord with those of the Labour Party.
To be quite frank, we never supposed they were. Our worst enemy will not accuse us of ever pretending they were. But we thought the Labour Party was a body so wide in its scope, so eclectic in its outlook, that it could embrace in its ranks every section of the conscious working class movement, and even give them freedom to express their particular point of view from its platform. Such a procedure would, of course, be illogical in any party which was tied down theoretically to a rigid line of policy; but we conceived the Labour Party as something different from this; as something that was striving to express politically the half-formed aspirations and ideas of the surging mass of organised workers in this country.
In such a party we conceived we held a place. Perhaps we were mistaken. We prefer to think the executive of the Labour Party is mistaken. But certain it is that, affiliation or no affiliation, the Communist Party will not depart by a hair’s breadth from its pursuit of those objects which it has set out to attain, whether they meet with the approval of the Labour Party or not.
The Communist Party is a political party striving to use parliament - while parliament exists - as one among other means for helping forward the social revolution, whose consummation is the sole object of its existence. Inside the Labour Party our power to fight elections whenever or wherever we thought fit would unquestionably be hampered. Those of us who advocated affiliation were prepared to forego this freedom in return for the greater opportunity we obtained of a hearing for our views among sections of the workers who really count in this country. Outside the Labour Party we lose the opportunity, but gain the freedom. We can fight where we like, and whom we like. We can oppose Labour candidates as freely as we oppose ordinary capitalist candidates and, since the Labour Party executive admits that our objects are not in accord with their own, they cannot have the slightest cause for complaint. So be it. It is their funeral, not ours.
It is not clear yet whether the embargo will be held to apply locally as well as nationally. In accordance with the resolution in favour of affiliation carried at the convention, our branches, where affiliated, have been advised to hold on until action is taken compelling them to withdraw. Whether such action will be taken we do not know, but we expect our branches to act in accordance with instructions, which will be issued, from time to time, by the Provisional Executive. In any case, whatever happens, this matter must be considered in its proper perspective as a comparatively minor matter of tactics, and judged accordingly. It is the communist principle that counts, and from that we will not swerve.
This decision will serve but to consolidate our ranks. We appreciated the loyalty of the comrades who accepted the finding of the convention in favour of affiliation to the Labour Party, although disagreeing from it, and did not waver. In the day of non-affiliation the others will be no less loyal.
The Communist, September 16 1920
The rejection, conveyed in a single bland sentence, was not the end of the matter, however. The CPGB demanded the Labour leadership come clean and explain to the working class its political reasons for excluding the communists. The Provisional Executive Committee’s reply, containing a series of questions to the Labour leaders, was also included in an article in same issue of The Communist.
The great taboo
The action of the national executive of the Labour Party in refusing affiliation to the Communist Party has caused considerable stir in all sections of the working class movement.
It is no exaggeration to say that it has forced the question of communism into a position of prominence such as years of ordinary propaganda could not have achieved. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Labour Party executive has compelled their followers, as individuals, to take sides on a matter which otherwise they might have avoided. For that we are profoundly grateful. Communism will not suffer from the discussion. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose from such a course. But it is a good thing for comfortable Labour MPs to be forced to drag their tactics, principles and actions into the light of day, and defend them before the common people.
The Provisional Executive of the Communist Party has instructed the secretary to send the following reply to Mr Arthur Henderson’s communication refusing our application:
September 23 1920
Dear sir
Your letter ... stating that the Labour Party executive had declined the affiliation of the Communist Party was considered at the last meeting of our Provisional Executive. In reply, we were directed to request that the reasons for this decision be more explicitly stated, in order that the relations of the two bodies may be more clearly defined and understood.
The affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party is declined on the ground that its objects “do not appear to be in accord” with the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party - a decision which, as you have no doubt noted, had been warmly applauded in the columns of the capitalist press. But the working men and women of this country, to whom both the Labour Party and the Communist Party appeal, will look for a more reasoned explanation of this decision than is given in your letter of September 11.
The object of the Communist Party, as set forth in the resolutions of our national convention already sent you, is “the establishment of a system of complete communism, wherein the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled”. Does the Labour Party executive rule that the acceptance of communism is contrary to the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party?
Or is it the methods of the Communist Party to which exception is taken? Those methods are the adoption of “the soviet (or workers’ council) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production”, and the establishment of “the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means for combating the counterrevolution during the transition period between capitalism and communism”. Does the Labour Party executive decisively and categorically reject the soviet system and the dictatorship of the proletariat? Does it propose to exclude from its ranks all those elements at present in the Labour Party who hold these means to be necessary in order to achieve the political, social and economic emancipation of the workers, and does it impose acceptance of parliamentary constitutionalism as an article of faith on its affiliated societies?
The Communist Party in deciding to make application for affiliation to the Labour Party did not suppose that the whole of its principles, methods and policy would find acceptance on the part of those who at present constitute the executive of the Labour Party. But it understood the Labour Party to be so catholic in its composition and constitution that it could admit to its ranks all sections of the working class movement that accept the broad principle of independent working class political action, at the same time granting them freedom to propagate their own particular views as to the policy the Labour Party should pursue and the tactics it should adopt.
And, having regard to the past history of the Labour Party, particularly during the war and since the peace, that belief was justified. Since when has the practice of the Labour Party changed in this respect? Is the affiliation of the Communist Party declined because it claims the same measure of freedom as has been granted to responsible leaders of the Labour Party during the last six years? And do the members of the ILP,[2]
who constitute a large section, if not an actual majority of the Labour Party executive, deny the Communist Party the liberty of action inside the Labour Party that was claimed and exercised by them and their organisation during the period of the war?
These are questions that arise out of your letter of the 11th inst. They are questions we are entitled to submit, and feel justified in asking for a reply to.
Yours fraternally
Arthur MacManus, chairman
Albert Inkpin, secretary
The Communist, September 30 1920
So the affiliation issue provoked widespread discussion amongst working class militants and the pro-establishment politics of the leaders of Labour stood exposed. These leaders were well aware that the new CPGB was not intended as some tame debating society and feared its influence in their ranks. To increase their pain, the CPGB demanded consistency from the Labour Party tops: their party presented itself as an inclusive united front of all those who “[accepted] the broad principle of independent working class political action” - so what was the problem? Clearly, the sticking point was that the early Communist Party intended “at the same time … to propagate [its] own particular views as to the policy the Labour Party should pursue and the tactics it should adopt”: in other words, a genuine communist attitude to the united front, in contrast to the opportunist non-aggression pacts of that our contemporary revolutionary left are prone to.
Further correspondence and renewed applications were to ensure that the CPGB kept the affiliation issue alive and made itself a permanent thorn in the side of the venal Labour leadership.
Notes