Communists and the British Labour Party

Appendix: 1924 Statement on the Labour Government

The statement below was issued jointly by the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Executive Committee of the Communist International on February 6, 1924. It is reprinted from the March 29, 1924 issue of the Canadian Communist Party newspaper, The Worker.

A Labour government is in power in Great Britain. This is not the result of a victorious struggle of the working class against the capitalists. As before, the bourgeoisie reigns in Britain. Factories, mines, railways and banks are in its hands. Large colonies, as well as the army and the navy, are at its service. The Labour Party has come into power because the consequences of the criminal war instigated by the ruling classes of the whole world have proved too onerous for the British bourgeoisie to cope with. Having split into two hostile camps, it was compelled to let the Labour Party assume power.

But the Labour Party, which during the war supported the British bourgeoisie and after the war was unable to organize the working class for the defense of its own interests, receives this power from the hands of the bourgeoisie, and as a government depends upon the support of the Liberals.

And this is not all. For the Labour Government has in its ranks not only those who during the war recruited for the army and showed after the war their incapacity to conduct a decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie, but also people who even today adopt a bourgeois attitude and openly defend the interests of the exploiting classes.

All this does not augur well, either for the British working class or for the toiling masses of the British colonies which expect that the Labour Government will better their intolerable conditions and will carry on a bold fight for the realization of the tenets of socialism.

Comrades, the Communist Party has never concealed the fact that it does not believe in the real betterment of the position of the working class, or in the possibility of even a gradual realization of socialism, until and unless the working masses deprive the capitalists of all political rights and power, and establish a government resting on the support of and controlled entirely by, workers’ organizations. The Communist Party has never concealed its great distrust of the leaders of the Labour Party as well as of the entire Second International to which they belong.

But the Communist Party can distinguish between workers who honestly believe in the promises of the Labour Party, and the leaders who are ready to break these promises as soon as they have served their purpose of deluding the workers.

We know that the unemployed who voted for the Labour Party want the Labour Party to carry on the struggle for the prevention of the starvation of the unemployed victims of capitalism.

We know that the working class is intent on shifting the burden of taxation from the shoulders of the workers to those of the capitalists.

We know that the entire working class wishes to have close economic relations with Soviet Russia in the hope of assisting the Russian workers in their economic construction and, thus providing work for the unemployed in Britain.

We know that the workers behind the Labour Party are enemies of the oppressive colonial Empire in India and Egypt and are opposed to the whole capitalist policy of armaments which means new wars.

Therefore we appeal to the workers who support the Labour Party and welcome the Labour Government and we say to them:

The British Communist Party will support the Labour Government in all its efforts to improve the position of the working class and to lessen the peril of armament and war.

But at the same time, we tell you quite openly: the Labour Government, to retain Liberal support, will recede step-by-step from its promises unless you bring pressure to bear on it and unless you make it understand that every concession to the Liberals means rupture with you.

Therefore we call on you to organize joint demonstrations for the old demands of the Labour Party and to establish joint committees which will force the Labour Government to fight for:

1. Full maintenance for unemployed workers at trade union rates.
    
2. Nationalization of mines and railways with workers’ control over production.
    
3. Full freedom for Ireland, India and Egypt. Revocation of the policy of armaments. Credit for Soviet Russia. Scrapping of the shameful treaty of Versailles.

Workers of Great Britain, no government, even with the best intentions, will be able to better your positions, to break your chains, if you yourselves do not bring pressure to bear on the bourgeoisie and compel it to realize your growing power. We call upon you to close the ranks of the working class, to establish a United Front of labour and struggle. Only thus may the Labour Government not become another disappointment and another failure, but may open a new vista in the struggle of the British working class for emancipation.

[Part One]  [Part Two]  [Part Three]  [Appendix]