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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
THE Communist Party of Great Britain, like the Communist Parties of most other European countries, was founded shortly after the Russian Bolshevik revolution. It was unique among the Communist Parties of the major countries in being the result of an amalgamation of small revolutionary groups rather than a product of the schism of a large existing organization. The British Labour Party did not split as a result of the Russian revolution: the Communist Party grew up out of elements which for the most part had had a separate existence on the Labour Party's left wing.
page 41 note 1 Printed in Lenin on Britain (1934), pp. 243–7.
page 42 note 1 Lenin, , Selected Works (1947), ii. 622Google Scholar.
page 42 note 2 Bell, T., Pioneering Days (1941), pp. 194 fGoogle Scholar.
page 42 note 3 An interesting parallel is provided by the high proportion of Irishmen who joined the Democratic Federation (later, Social-Democratic Federation) at the time of its foundation in 1880–1, when ‘coercion’ was the issue.
page 43 note 1 For the process by which the C.P.G.B. established full control over the L.R.D., see Postgate, R. W., Socialist Review, 04 1934, pp. 6–18Google Scholar.
page 43 note 2 A frank admission of the Communist control at the outset was made by Hannington, W. in World News and Views, xxx. 320Google Scholar.
page 44 ntoe 1 C.P.G.B., Constitution and Rules (1921)Google Scholar.
page 44 note 2 E.C.C.I., Fourth Congress of the C.I. (1923), p. 289Google Scholar.
page 44 note 3 Glasgow Herald, 30 August 1922; Murphy, J. T., New Horizons (1941), pp. 88 f., 183 fGoogle Scholar. Murphy acted as his secretary.
page 45 note 1 C.P.G.B., Report on Organisation (1922), p. 14Google Scholar.
page 46 note 1 Gallacher, W., The Rolling of the Thunder (1947), pp. 33fGoogle Scholar.,
page 46 note 2 Murphy, J. T., op. cit., p. 197Google Scholar.
page 47 note 1 E.C.C.I., Fourth Congress of the C.I., p. 61Google Scholar.
apge 47 note 2 Daily Herald, 6 September 1924.
page 47 note 3 Labour Party, Annual Conference Report (1925) pp. 181–9Google Scholar.
page 47 note 4 E.C.C.I., From the Fourth to the Fifth Congress (1924) p. 31Google Scholar.
page 48 note 1 Report of National Minority Conference (1924), p. 8.
page 48 note 2 National Minority Movement, Conference Report (1925), p. 31Google Scholar.
page 48 note 3 I am grateful to Mr. Murphy for information on this point.
page 48 note 4 Communist Papers (Cd. 2682), pp. 54–6. H.C. (1926), xxiii. 585Google Scholar.
page 48 note 5 Communist Papers, pp. 56–8, 61–3. The money probably came through the Moscow Narodny Bank in London, which in 1927 and 1928 was transmitting even larger sums: see Russian Banks and Communist Funds (Cd. 3125). H.C. (1928), xii. 275Google Scholar.
page 49 note 1 Mentioned as such in Communist Papers, p. 69.
page 49 note 2 E.C.C.I., The C.I. between the Fifth and Sixth World Congresses (1928), p. 30Google Scholar.
page 49 note 3 International Press Correspondence [hereinafter Inprecorr], xii. 446.
page 49 note 4 Worker's Weekly, 2 July 1926; Worker's Life, 13 December 1929.
page 50 note 1 For a realistic account of the relations of the C.I. and the C.P.S.U. see Sorge, Richard in Willoughby, C. A., Sorge: Soviet Master Spy (1952), pp. 127–33Google Scholar.
page 50 note 2 Valtin, Jan, Out of the Night (New York, 1941), pp. 322, 337, 341Google Scholar; Willoughby, , op. cit., p. 60Google Scholar.
page 50 note 3 Petrovsky was on duty in England in 1924, according to Fischer, Ruth, Stalin and German Communism (1948), p. 400Google Scholar. For a tribute to him from the British party see Inprecorr, viii. 1744Google Scholar.
page 51 note 1 Inprecorr, ix. 1140.
page 52 note 1 Inprecorr, vi. 347 (Lozovsky, )Google Scholar; vi. 364 (Braun); vi. 816 (Stalin).
page 52 note 2 See, e.g., C.P.G.B., Report of the Control Commission to the Party Congress (1924)Google Scholar.
page 53 note 1 Inprecorr, ix. 1075.
page 53 note 2 The phrase is Arnot's, Page, from his article ‘Ten Years of the C.P.G.B.’, Daily Worker, 11 08 1930Google Scholar.
page 53 note 3 Inprecorr, viii. 249.
page 53 note 4 E.C.C.I., Communist Policy in Great Britain (1928)Google Scholar.
page 53 note 5 E.C.C.I., op. cit., p. 192Google Scholar.
page 54 note 1 For the activities of C.P.G.B. agents in India, see Meerut Communist Conspiracy Case Judgment (Simla, 1932–1933)Google Scholar; Spratt, Philip, Blowing Up India (Calcutta, 1955)Google Scholar.
page 54 note 2 Communist Papers, p. 83.
page 54 note 3 Inprecorr, viii. 1744.
page 55 note 1 Inprecorr, ix. 884.
page 56 note 1 Inprecorr, ix. 1363 f.
page 56 note 2 Inprecorr, ix. 873.
page 56 note 3 Inprecorr, ix. 1139 f.
page 56 note 4 C.P.G.B., Resolutions of the Eleventh Congress (1929), p. 40Google Scholar.
page 57 note 1 Worker's Life, 26 July 1929; Communist Review, i. 568–78.
page 57 note 2 Inprecorr, x. 47.
page 57 note 3 Resolution of the Polit-Secretariat of E.C.C.I., Inprecorr, ix. 1126Google Scholar.
