Scottish Communists

History is not neutral, nor should it be seen as in the past. A lot can be learnt about how to fight today's challenges by examining how previous generations went about fighting similar attacks from the ruling class. Many of these were struggles conducted in even worse conditions than we face today.

Most histories of the Communist Party (CP) in Britain have been written from a hostile right-wing or far-left stance. During the cold war that hostility turned into downright lies and distortion.

However this new, concise history seeks to redress the balance.

It reveals the commitment of members from pit villages in Scotland & Wales, car factories in the Midlands and in the offices, universities and docks of the south - voluntarily and at their own expense both in time and lost job opportunities.

Though small in number Communists have and continue to play an important role in the life of the labour movement and in the politics of Britain. This is especially so when it comes to theory, strategy and supplying highly politicised and politically cultured working-class actors at all levels of the trade union movement.

Its members were pioneers, from the first woman general secretary of a union, the first rank-and-file member of the TUC general council, the hunger marchers, the International Brigade volunteers, to the Savoy and London Underground gatecrashers, the Kinder Scout trespassers and beyond.

The CP must be the only party that the ruling class admits to having tried to smother at birth. Its leaders and activists have been harassed en masse, arrested, jailed and given hard labour. The party has been spied upon, its offices bugged and raided and its propaganda confiscated or destroyed.

Christopher Andrew's history of MI5, Defence Of The Realm, demonstrates the extent of the state's attempts to subvert this democratic workers' party. Half its pages are used to outline how far the ruling class was prepared to go to achieve its aims. But their assaults failed.

The CP worked tirelessly for and among the miners in 1926 and the subsequent General Strike, when more than half of those arrested were party members.

In the aftermath of the General Strike debacle it was Communists who organised the unemployed, going on through the Depression to lead the fight against pay cuts and scab unions.

From the early '20s and throughout the '30s, the party led the unemployed workers movement, giving hope and purpose to the most downtrodden.

The CP was prominent in exposing the evils of European fascism and its British tentacle headed by Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, opposing its poison in workplaces and on the streets, confronting the fascists at Olympia, and challenging BUF marches and rallies, culminating in the famous battles of Cable Street and Bermondsey.

Following the fascist uprising in Spain, the CP was quick to build support for the Spanish republic. It gave up its finest organisers to the armed struggle. Hundreds of volunteers were wounded and imprisoned, and 250 Communists died. They remain buried in Spanish soil, an inspiration to future generations of patriots, anti-fascists and internationalists.

Its experience in Spain put the CP in a unique position to advocate adequate air-raid precautions for British civilians. When war finally broke, it was Communists who forced open the Tube stations, saving thousands of lives. It was the party's work in the factories, winning workers to challenging management prerogatives and in some cases actively halting employer sabotage, that increased production to hasten the end of war.

After the victory over nazism in WWII the party's campaigns helped ensure the nationalisation of key industries such as coal-mining, transport and electricity as well as the creation of the National Health Service.

In the 1950s, despite the setback of Hungary and Khrushchov's denunciation of Stalin, the CP played an unparalleled part in building trade unions in new industries and workplaces.

With Communist input the Musicians Union organised workers at the BBC as well as in the radio big bands and classical symphony orchestras. It blazed the trail for comprehensive education, which was achieved in the late 1960s.

Party members emerged to lead some of the great professional associations in labour law, medicine and architecture and pioneered theory in social work and pris on and offender rehabilitation. Many CP cultural figures in the arts, literature and music were household names. Its historians made Britain the world centre for social history and historical research.

 Women members, who had pioneered the Women's Parliament during the war, now went on to lead the peace movement and press for equal pay legislation.

The CP also played an important role in combating the growth of racism from the late 1950s helping, through party member Claudia Jones, to establish the Notting Hill Carnival.

In the 1960s and '70s the CP played a key role in modernising and defending Britain's trade unions.

One example of the party's approach was the campaign at the Upper Clyde Shipyard in Glasgow.

Faced with closure, Communist workplace representatives could have simply argued for strike action. But the leadership of Jimmy Reid, Jimmy Airlie and Sammy Barr was far more ingenious. They opted for occupation, winning massive support within the community and across Britain, right up to Parliament. They totally wrong-footed the Tory government. The yards remained open.

The CP always sought to bring together day-to-day battles for reforms and the struggle for revolutionary change. The tension between these two political currents came to the fore at the crucial time of the Great Miners' Strike in the mid-1980s.

At the very moment the British labour movement needed a unified and progressive CP it fell under the sway of a group intent on its liquidation. They turned their backs on workers as a principal force for social change. They then broke up the party before themselves disappearing into political oblivion.

Fortunately others remained loyal to the core principles of Marxism, to the core principles of generations of members and to their great and very real achievements.

These people set about rebuilding ideas, membership, propaganda, branches, districts and national and industrial organisation.

And the hand of the CP was recently felt on the collar of those who cravenly invited David Cameron to address the TUC conference. Along with others in the labour movement, Communists helped to ensure that the invitation was withdrawn.

Following the great tradition of rural radical campaigning, the CP has helped to re-establish the Country Standard, first founded back in 1935. Its members continue to play important roles in the peace movement, including CND and the Stop the War Coalition.

The CP is still small in number but one cannot help thinking that it was made for times such as ours today.

In the 1930s the great Suffragette and Communist Helen Crawfurd stated in Labour Monthly:

"No knighthoods were presented to the fighting working class of our party, many of whom, slandered, attacked, persecuted, victimised, could neither get a job nor a roof to cover them during these eventful years.

 

"Working women, too, suffered in this persecution and attack. The barriers erected by the reformists were torn down by the workers who joined us in our campaign for the unemployed, for safety men in the pit, for feeding the hunger marchers, providing relief for Spain and volunteers for the International Brigade, in the fight against fascism and for peace."

Many of the party's battles were local, led by comrades in small factories, workplaces and on behalf of isolated communities. Today, stories of the party's campaigns either continue in local working-class folklore or have been forgotten. They are still crying out to be told.

Today we are yet again faced with a most vicious, sustained attack on our class and movement. An understanding of the past and a study of problems faced by previous generations of militants - and how they dealt with them - is vital. This is especially so for the many young people becoming active for the first time.

Whether you are a keen supporter of working-class history or a trade unionist faced with fighting to defend jobs and services, you will find this pamphlet a thoroughly enjoyable, informative and inspiring read.

Our greatest battles may still lie ahead, but we can arm ourselves now by learning the lessons of the past. This history is an important weapon in our arsenal.

Available from CPB, Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Road, Croydon CR0 1BD or online at www.communist-party.org.uk. Price £4 including P&P.

By Mike Walker

(First published in the Morning Star)