SHAKING THE EMPIRE
HUGHES, EMKYS
SHAKING" THE EMPIRE The Amusing Antics of Britain's Communist Party in Convention By EMRYS HUGHES Tkt /eUtwthff tt*ry »f • Communist Congreu held in SeotUnd it a Might/ui pi*** •/ wtmm...
...According to this report the membership of the Communist party it now about 5,000, 66 per cent, 3,250 are full members and tha other 36 per centprobationary members...
...Although Glasgow is "seething with revolution" and Is apparently the stronghold of the Communist party there was barely a score of visitors in the gallery when the proceedings were opened, and whether (with the exception of Rev...
...For then a epectal bVanch of Local 100 was formed and a territory covering Long Island City and vicinity given to organise non-union shops,* This work has ¦already netted nine new union shops...
...practically none of tea writings ef Lenin before 1917 exist In Engliah...
...Practical" Conclusions The next great tatk of the Communist party, we are told, is to "Bolihevite" itself...
...Many of the strikebreakers have left the struck plants and some, have even lined up aa union members...
...The Public Baking Co., of 276 E. 2nd street, dote not employ members of the International Bakers' Union...
...There were about ISO delegates present when Comrade Polhtt began his, er the Presidium's, presidential address...
...Th* foot i* that we issued 10,000 conies and haven't yet sold them al...
...Immediate steps must be taken for the conversion of John Willie and Henry Dubb, which is to be done by securing "the publication of the unpublished Marxist elateiee and of at leant a representative selection of Lenin's works with tu.t* able annotations and commentaries, and completely revising and If neeessary rewriting the Manual ef Perty Training, in accordance with the lines laid down by tht Agitation Propaganda Department of the Comintern...
...or Fascist...
...Four members of the Praesidium were memof the Executive Council, nominated by the Executive Council, and the other three were ordinary delegates, also nominated by the Executive Council...
...How that is to he done was explained in • lent) thesis, "What la Bilttpiisiiiiar The trouble with the British CeeaV munist party is that "the Leninist training ef the IWty f* WsW fatee* tire...
...Tht agenda differed a great deal from that usually teen at Labor party or I. L. P. conferences...
...Ths Labor Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian told tha truth bluntly when he summed up the Con* ference aa having been "deadly dull, and hss only exhibited the ineffectiveness of the Communist party...
...The union appeals for the moral support of the public by insisting on the International Union Label...
...Comrade Campbell's pamphlet," he continues, "on hit caae last autumn is an outstanding example of OUF shortcomings in this respect...
...Groups are to be set up in tha factories, and once the annotations and commentaries era completed and the Agitation Propaganda Depart* ment is in full swing the mast Com* munist party will commence the extermination of the "bourgeoisie...
...This, however, Wat not the fault qf Willie Gallacher, who did his lest to cheer it up by playing the part of Billy Sunday and on the slightest provocation repeatedly stalking up tha "Internationale" instead of the "Glory Song...
...Comrade Pollitt is nathing like the desperate whiskered Bolshevik of the Daily Mail cartoons but could be passed off anywhere as an unemployed curate or a prosperous commercial traveller an a typical member of the bourgeolse...
...The proltUmt must get their backs into it...
...And so on, and so on, yards of It...
...A'TWd" Maanbarthip After that the Conference tattled down to serious business...
...A popular penny pamphlet dealing with the incident which led to the fall of the Labor Government, written by the central figure in that incident, should, have sold in its score of thousands...
...The next important item was the parade of the Greenock Battalion of the Red Army (Commander-in-Chief Geddet), a trflup of pretty little boys and girls, dressed as boy scouts and girl guides, only with red scarves distinguishing them from the orthodox variety...
...Deadly Dull" The Tory Prets paid so much attention to the Conference simply because it thought it useful for keep* ing the anti-Russian kite flying...
...The urgent task mutt he attended to...
...It wot inspired by lurid Herts* in tht Brititk press of th* drtadful things that might happen if th* Communist* w*r* p*rmitt*d to meet...
...There wai a report, however, of the party's activities during the past year...
...If it had not Men for tha Greenock battalion of the Red Army and the appearance of the foreign delegates (here the Communist party won heavily over Joynson-Hlaks on points) it would have been a flasco of dullness (even Saklatvsls went to steep) that not even the Dally Mall special correspondent could have written up...
...All this has forced the patty te whet the thesis cells "practical" conclusions...
...Compared with the speeches criticising the Labor Government at the I. L, P. Conference it was exceedingly mild, and it wai only when one saw it reported in cold print afterwards that one realised how desperate it was...
...7th Samara Cavalry and presenting them with a banner, in return for which the 7th Samaras (Cavalry) had given him a banner inscribed with the motto, forward, under ^the Banner of furled smidit more vociferous cheering, st the end ef which Willie Gallacher again struck up "The Inter nationals...
...Exit the Red Army, leaving* Comrade Geddet to make a speech announcing that he.had been in Russia reviewing the...
...The party membership, It says, is a "very fluid membership, that is to say, a constant stream tf workers coming into the party and a constant stream going out" There is no return of affiliation fees given in the report...
...The strikes In the various sections are continued with renewed vigor...
...The r|nk and nit, however, were allowed to elect their own tellers...
...If any such method were adopted at Labor party conferences what a howl would go up from the Communist papers...
...The Campbell Pamphlet The crass silliness of the Morning Post's conception of the influence of the Communist party and the hypocrisy of the tremendous outcry made at the last election that tha Communists had elaborate plana for corrupting the British Army, Navy and Air Force is clearly shown in the tame statement made by the secretary that the aalea of Communist party literature are "woefully below what we have a right to expect...
...The rank and die evidently did not elect the Praeiidium, tht body of aeven who went on the platform and to whom the management of the Conference waa entrusted...
...Contributions sre not coming in as they should," snd "some of the local secretaries and treatureri," saya tht secretary ir the current number of the Workers' Weekly, "appear to believe that there is a secret hoard somewhere at headquarters that obviates the necessity of paying national dues or settling their Workers' Weekly and literature accounts...
...Tht press table had instructions te give a full report of .the "strong stuff," and did the beat it could...
...After giving an account of this pre** prtpagmmi* th* writer proceed* t* consider tea action* of tht conference...
...The party requires to develop quite a new tone in the locals'and to make them warm and attractive to the new recruits...
...Any Capitalist journalist who read the reports presented to the Conference must have realized what ridiculous nonsense is talked about tha strength of ihe Communist party, and that if the Communist party is the only menace to Capitalism, that Capitalism is safe...
...Bakers Continue Strike Successfully Tht strike which the Bakers* Union of New York have been carrying on for months are showing good results...
...Thert were a humber of paptrt circulated, but these did not include and balance sheet...
...The leaders mads speeches...
...Richard Lee) they were Scotland Yard detectives disguised as Fascist...
...If ths production of long elaborate theses made up of phrases Ilka "par* manent antagonisms" and "temper* ary stabilisations" is going to win the British working elasses to Socialism, then the 'Communist Party of Great Britain It first every time...
...No collection waa taken...
...disguised as Scotland Yard detectives it was impossible to say...
...We art told, toe, that "experience tince the last party Congrats hat shewn that in several locals internal troubles over personalities have considerably weakened tha party in those localities...
...The boy, natural boy that he was, couldn't remember the long rigmarole about Leninism and the slogan which he had learnt off, but succeeded in making the brightest speech of the Conference, end the little girl making an appeal to the Communist party in Parliament to draw attention to the fact that tha Greenock magistrates had refuted to permit thsm to parade the streets...
...AS one looked round the hell it wee hard to realise that thia waa the great Conference that had inspired such terror...
...Thereafter CeanaaW Geddet pronounced the Communist Doxology and retired...
...He has a Cockney accent and hia voice hardly carried to the back ef the small hall...
...It it a far bigger asset to *ho Daily Mail than it is to Moscow, and It will be a had day for the Daily Mall when Moscow wipes it out as a bad debt...
...Surely this desperado is "the mildest mannered man...
...That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat...
...There were long theses which took the place of resolutolns, and apparently thert was no opportunity for branches ef the Communist party discussing amendments...
...The Red Army Next came fraternal , delegates from the Young Communist League (membership, 10,000,000 roughly), the National Unemployed Committee, and the one fraternal who has succeeded in dodging Joynson Hicks (the Canadian delegate, Comrade Moriarty), who was cheered vociferously, Willie Gallacher leading the Conference' in singing " The Internationale...
...SHAKING" THE EMPIRE The Amusing Antics of Britain's Communist Party in Convention By EMRYS HUGHES Tkt /eUtwthff tt*ry »f • Communist Congreu held in SeotUnd it a Might/ui pi*** •/ wtmm titm journalism...
...The "Praetidium" And the Rank and File The firit item on the agenda waa the election of the Praeiidium...
...Also toast of the atet* import, ant writings of Marx, Eagels, and Xautaky are still unpublished hi Great Britain, and Teh, horrors...
...On the whole it was a more statesmanlike speech than that delivered last year by ex President Macmanus when he announced his intention of capturing the leadership of the Labor party...
...Ths Daily Mall announced that a special, copious report of the speeches et the Conference is being stnt Off to Moscow, Moscow should have sited up the British Communist, party by now...
...Tha I. L. P. and the Labor party, says the thesis are engaged in"un» adult*rat*d effort* for th* preservation of Capitalism...
Vol. 2 • July 1925 • No. 29
