Communist Party of Britain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Communist Party of Britain
Leader Robert Griffiths
Founded 1988
Headquarters Ruskin House, Croydon
Ideology Communism,
Marxist-Leninism.
International affiliation Unknown
European affiliation None
European Parliament Group None
Official colours Red, Yellow
Website
http://www.communist-party.org.uk/Communist Parties
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The Communist Party of Britain, which claimed to have 941 members at its 2008 Congress[1], is the largest Communist party in the United Kingdom. The CPB does not organise in Northern Ireland, where the Communist Party of Ireland organises. Although founded in 1988 it traces its origins back to 1920 and the Communist Party of Great Britain, and claims the legacy of that party and its most influential members Harry Pollitt and John Gollan as its own.Contents [hide]
1 History
2 The Party's stance on existing socialist states and the USSR
3 Symbology
4 Organisation
5 The Party's ideology and main policies
6 Publications
7 Size
8 Headquarters
9 Communist University
10 Articles
11 References
12 External links
[edit]
History
The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) was formed in 1988 by a disaffected segment of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), including the editorship of The Morning Star, largely supporters of the "Communist Campaign Group" (CCG). The founders of the CPB attacked the leadership of the CPGB for allegedly abandoning 'class politics' and the leading role of the working class in the revolutionary process in Britain. The youth wing of the CPGB, the Young Communist League, had collapsed, and The Morning Star was losing circulation.
The next year, the leaders of CPGB formally declared that they had abandoned the party's programme British Road to Socialism. Members of the CPB perceived this as the CPGB turning its back on socialism.
Membership of the CPB was boosted after the dissolution of the CPGB in 1991 and its reformation as the "Democratic Left". Many members of the Straight Left faction who had stayed in the CPGB formed a group called "Communist Liaison" which later opted to join the CPB. Others remained in the Democratic Left or joined the Labour Party.
This split within the Communist Party of Great Britain was not the first. The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) was established in 1968 by a leading engineering union official, Reg Birch, who had been a prominent member of the CPGB and at that time a supporter of the Beijing line in the Sino-Soviet dispute. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, ideological differences between party members led to the establishment of the New Communist Party (formed in 1977), who also opposed 'eurocommunism'. The splitting up of the Communist Party of Great Britain resulted in bitter divisions, and the lack of unity between Communists in Britain has had a detrimental effect on the entire communist movement within the country.
The CPB was largely the creation of the "Communist Campaign Group" and one of its prominent leaders, Mike Hicks, was elected to the post of General Secretary when the CPB was founded in 1988. In January 1998 Hicks was ousted as general secretary in a 17 - 13 vote moved by John Haylett (who was also editor of the Morning Star) at a meeting of the CPB's Executive Committee. Hicks' supporters on the Management Committee of the Morning Star followed by suspending and then sacking Haylett, which led to a prolonged strike at the Morning Star, ending in victory for Haylett and his reinstatement. Some of Hicks' supporters were expelled and others resigned in protest. They formed a discussion group called "Marxist Forum" and continue to hold prominent positions at the Marx Memorial Library in London.
At the United Kingdom general election, 2001, the CPB ran six candidates whose total vote came to 1,003. This went up slightly in the May 2005 election when six CPB candidates polled a total of 1,124 votes (average 0.3 per cent a seat).[2] In the 2004 local elections, however, on one occasion a CPB candidate, Glyn Davies (Shotton, Flintshire), polled just over 21 per cent though his total vote was only 99. In the London Assembly election, 2008, it stood as part of Unity for Peace and Socialism, an electoral alliance with the British domiciled sections of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of Bangladesh and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).[1] UPS won 0.26 percent of the vote in the election[3]. The party did enjoy an electoral success in 2008 when Clive Griffiths, a former Labour councillor who joined the party, was re-elected unopposed to Hirwaun and Penderyn Community Council as a Communist[4]. In the 2009 European Parliament elections it was part of the No to EU – Yes to Democracy platform led by the RMT union.
The CPB has always been actively engaged in the labour and trade union movement in Britain. It is part of the Stop the War Coalition, with the movement's chair, Andrew Murray, being a Communist Party of Britain member. Another party member, Kate Hudson, is currently chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Prior to the formation of the Respect - The Unity Coalition, headed by George Galloway MP and supported by the Socialist Workers Party, the CPB engaged in a major debate about whether to join an electoral alliance with Galloway and the SWP. Those in favour, including General Secretary Robert Griffiths, Andrew Murray and Morning Star editor John Haylett, were however defeated at a Special Congress in 2004.
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The Party's stance on existing socialist states and the USSR
The CPB's stance on the former Soviet Union is summed up in their manifesto, Britain's Road to Socialism;“ The Soviet Union made a tremendous impact on the struggle for freedom against imperialism across the world, rendering invaluable aid to the national liberation and anti-apartheid movements. Nor should it be forgotten that Soviet industrialisation, on the basis of state ownership and planning, made possible the defeat of fascism in the Second World War - thereby saving the whole of humanity from unprecedented tyranny.
The Soviet Union struggled to build its socialist system in a backward country, surrounded by hostile imperialist forces. The Soviet people were plunged into two devastating wars - the war of intervention immediately following the revolution, and the Second World War which was followed by the defence burden of the Cold War....
The effects of encirclement and invasion by hostile imperialist forces should not be underestimated...The 'siege mentality' provoked by imperialist aggression was a powerful factor giving rise to wrong policies...decisions were made which led to serious violations of socialist and democratic principles. More specifically, there developed an excessive centralisation of political power. State repression was used against people who failed to conform. Bureaucratic commands replaced economic levers as an instrument of planning... Marxism-Leninism was used dogmatically to justify the status quo. ”
In accordance to what is said above, the general consensus throughout the CPB is that the positive features of the Soviet Union and what the party continues to call the 'former socialist countries' outweighed the negative ones.
The CPB stands in solidarity with existing socialist states and has fraternal relationships with the Cuban, Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Parties.
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Symbology
Under the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998, which regulated the use of symbols on ballot slips and electoral material, the Communist Party of Britain is the only British political party entitled to use a stand-alone hammer and sickle in such cases. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which is also registered, uses a hammer and sickle within a five pointed star. The CPB tends to use the hammer and dove (adopted when the party was established in 1988) in conjunction with the hammer and sickle in publications and on other material, with the hammer and dove normally taking primacy.
The Party's official flag consists of a golden-outlined, five-pointed red star above and slightly to the left of a hammer and sickle design in red with a golden outline in the flag's canton. The words "Communist Party" appear in gold along the bottom of the flag.
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Organisation
The Communist Party of Britain describes itself as a "disciplined and democratic organisation" and operates on a model of democratic centralism. A highly simplified diagram for illustrative purposes showing the organisation of the Party appears to the right, with lower bodies electing higher ones.
The basic party body is the branch. These are normally localities (towns or counties, for example), although workplace branches also exist. In England, branches are grouped into coherent geographical areas and send delegates to a biennial District Congress which elects a District Committee for its area. Similarly, the Welsh and Scottish branches send delegates to their own national congresses where each elects a National Committee. These congresses also decide the broad perspectives for Party activity within their districts and nations.
The all-Britain national congress is also held biennially. Delegates from districts, nations and branches themselves decide the Party's policy as a whole and elect an Executive Committee (EC) that carries out a praesidium-like function, including decision-making and policy-formation whilst congress is not in session.
The EC also elects a Political Committee (PC) to provide leadership when the EC is not meeting. Advisory Committees also exist to provide in-depth information on an array of subjects, including committees dedicated to women, industrial workers, pensions, public services, education workers, economics, housing, rails, science technology and the environment, transport, Marxist-Leninist education, LGB rights, anti-racism, anti-fascism, civil service and international affairs.
The current general-secretary is Robert Griffiths, who was also a leading member of the Welsh Republican Socialist Movement (WRSM) in the 1970s. The WRSM was closely linked to the According to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission in the year ending December 31, 2004, it had an income of 75,692 (of which over half was membership dues) and expenditure of 72,150. It spent 37,871 on salaries. [5]
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The Party's ideology and main policies
The CPB describes itself as a Marxist-Leninist organisation, whose main policies are set out in the Alternative Economic and Political Strategy, the third section in the party's manifesto, Britain's Road to Socialism.
Within this document the party calls for:
An economy based on a combination of workers' co-operatives and state-owned enterprises run on behalf of the people.
The nationalisation of industry in order to boost the economy and raise general standard of living.
Massive investment by the state into key areas of the economy with the aim of ending unemployment and increasing production.
A substantial increase in social welfare spending in education, healthcare and recreational facilities.
A planned economy, said to be designed to increase the standard of living of working people.
The tax burden to be shifted onto the rich, with direct taxes on working people's incomes reduced.
The confiscation of wealth from the rich and windfall taxes on company profits.
The eventual 'withering away' of the socialist state, and the complete emancipation of the working class through to the higher phase of communism.
The importance of democracy and freedom in everyday life, and the placement of particular emphasis on the freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
The full separation of church and state, with religion treated as an entirely private matter.[6][7]
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Publications
The CPB and the Morning Star are not organisationally linked, as the paper is owned by a co-operative of its readers and other groups including many trade union organisations. A few years ago an internal dispute within the CPB spilled over into the Morning Star, whose journalists went on strike against "management". The editorial line of the Morning Star must, however, reflect Britain's Road to Socialism, the CPB's programme endorsed by the co-operative's annual general meetings, although considerable latitude exists in relation to the Morning Star's coverage of parties other than the Communist Party and the Labour Party. In particular, the paper reflects a wide range of left and progressive views in its features and letters pages. CPB members of the are expected to abide by one of the party's rules that Party members must read and do all they can to increase the circulation of the newspaper.
The CPB publishes the free Communist News, a regular newsletter for its members and Communist Review, a theoretical and discussion journal for members and non-members, costing 2. The International Department of the CPB also publishes Solidarity.
In addition to this, it has also published numerous pamphlets and booklets, including but not limited to:
A World to Save - the Party's response to environmental issues
Defeat New Labour - the Party's aims at defeating New Labour policies within the labour movement
No to the Euro - the Party's reasoning against the introduction of the single European currency in Britain
Women & Class - the Party's attitudes towards female issues
Britain's Road to Socialism - the Party's complete programme (see above)
What We Stand For - the Party's basic introduction to its principles
Wages, Price & Profit - one of Karl Marx's works, published by the party's Economic Committee
Halting the Decline of Britain's Manufacturing Industry by the Morning Star's economic expert, Jerry Jones, published by the party's Economic Committee
Manifesto of the Communist Party - one of Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels works, published by the party's Political Committee
Case for Communism - by the Party's International Secretary John Foster, covering the rise of Anti-Communism and the record of socialist countries
Education for the People - the Party's attitudes towards developments in the Education system
The Future of Pensions - How we can ensure a decent retirement for all by the Morning Star's economic expert, Jerry Jones, published by the party's Economic Committee
There is also a journal produced by the Young Communist league, called Challenge.
[edit]
Size
The CPB claimed that it had some 830 members at its Congress in 2004, at its congress in May 2006 said this number had risen to 902 and by the end of the year (in its annual statement of accounts) it had 923.At November 2007,membership had risen to 1026 but at its Congress in 2008 it reported that its UK membership was 941. As with most left organisations, the CPB's small size is disproportionate to much of its influence particularly in the trade union movement, and organisations such as the Stop the War Coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
According to the party's accounts for the year 2005[8], it had income and expenditure around the 100,000 mark, of which 34,000 is spent on staff salaries.
[edit]
Headquarters
At the beginning of November 2004, the CPB and its youth organisation, the YCL, moved out of its temporary headquarters in Camden, North London after receiving notice to quit because of redevelopment. The building was owned by AKEL, the Cypriot communist party. Ruskin House in Croydon was chosen as the new Party headquarters, with its long history in the progressive movement as centre of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and also local Labour Party and co-operative groups. The CPB rents the top floor of four offices at Ruskin House which also allows it plenty of room to hold its congresses and other important meetings, including an annual industrial cadre school and the Communist University of Britain.
[edit]
Communist University
The CPB's Communist University movement has developed since the Welsh and British communist university events in 2004. The Communist University of Britain has become an annual three-day event from 2005, joined by weekend universities in Scotland and Wales in 2006 and with plans for a Communist University of the Midlands - to be organised jointly with the Association of Indian Communists (Marxist) - in 2007. Among the speakers at the Communist University of Britain at Ruskin House in November 2006 were Labour MP John McDonnell, National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers general secretary Bob Crow, CND chair Kate Hudson, Communist Party USA vice-president Jarvis Tyner, French Communist Party economist Paul Boccara and Palestine Liberation Organization ambassador Dr Noha Khalef.
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The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPB(M-L)) is a British communist political party. The small party was formed in 1968 by Reg Birch as a split from the Communist Party of Great Britain, siding with the Communist Party of China. Originally planned as the "British Marxist Leninist Organisation", the party published the Worker from 1969 until 2000, when it became Workers. In 1976, the Communist Workers' Movement split from the CPB(M-L), later joining its main British rival, the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain.
The CPB(M-L) sided with Enver Hoxha in the Sino-Albanian split, and came to support the Soviet Union for a period in the 1980s, before dropping this line over Gorbachev's reforms.
More recently, the CPB (M-L) has developed a national line for Britain. The party is strongly opposed to the European Union. Like the New Communist Party of Britain, the CPB(M-L) said Vote Labour in elections to bring about the removal of the Thatcher government. After she was ousted, it reverted to its line of 'Don't vote, organise'.
CPB(M-L) has an extremely low public profile, with its members focusing on work in the labour movement.
It should not be confused with the Communist Party of Britain, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), nor with the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
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The Communist Party of Scotland (CPS), also known as Prtaidh Co-Mhaoineach na h-Alba, was established in 1991 when the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was disbanded and re-formed as the Democratic Left think-tank. Many Communists in Scotland disagreed with this decision and instead set up the CPS, with its headquarters in Partick, Glasgow. Some 280 former members of the CPGB in Scotland joined the new party including Mick McGahey, who had been a leading member of the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1970s and 1980s. Former CPGB General Secretary Gordon McLennan is also associated with the party.
The current national secretary of the CPS is Eric Canning. The CPS has fought no parliamentary elections, but has been supporting the Scottish Socialist Party in recent times. The CPS does not feature much on the Scottish political landscape, but they do continue to sponsor a councillor, William Clarke, in Fife. Annual membership is 10 waged and 5 unwaged.
They support Scottish independence and Eric Canning is honorary convenor of the Independence First (IF) movement which is campaigning for a referendum on Scottish independence. The party seems to be inactive of late.
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New Communist Party of Britain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Dutch party, see New Communist Party-NCPN.New Communist Party of Britain
Leader Andy Brooks - General secretary
Founded 1977
Headquarters London
Ideology Communism,
Anti-Revisionist Marxism-Leninism
International affiliation International Conference of Communist and Workers Parties
European affiliation None
European Parliament Group None
Official colours Red, Gold
Website
www.newworker.orgCommunist Parties
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The New Communist Party of Britain is a communist political party in Britain. The origins of the NCP lie in the Communist Party of Great Britain from which it split in 1977. It should not be confused with the Communist Party of Britain which was established in 1988.Contents [hide]
1 Formation
2 Divisions within the CPGB
3 The New Communist Party
4 Ideology
5 See also
6 References
7 Articles
8 External links
[edit]
Formation
The driving force behind the formation of the New Communist Party in 1977 was Sid French, who had been the CPGB's Surrey district secretary for many years[1]. French was born into a class-conscious working class family in 1920 and joined the Young Communist League in 1934 at the age of 14. In 1941, during the World War II, he was called up and served in the Royal Air Force. Promoted to Sergeant in 1942, French was posted to Gibraltar and later to North Africa and Italy. While on active service French wrote an article for Labour Monthly about the problems facing the Gibraltarians under war conditions. In Algiers he met Henri Alleg, a French communist journalist, who later joined the Algerian resistance against French colonialism and spent five years in prison for his activities. After postwar demobilisation, French's commitment to the communist movement led to his appointment as Secretary of the newly formed Surrey District Committee of the CPGB in 1950.[2] He remained in that position until he resigned, together with other supporters, to establish the New Communist Party on 15 July 1977. Sid French was a member of the General and Municipal Workers Union (G&WMU) and an active co-operator. He was elected to the Political Purposes Committee of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (RACS) in 1967 [3]and elected to the RACS Members' Council in 1968.[4]
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Divisions within the CPGB
Divisions within the CPGB had emerged following the Soviet intervention to quell the Hungarian uprising in 1956[5] and the subsequent moves by the Khrushchev leadership in the USSR to denounce Stalin. The split within the international communist movement that eventually polarised between the positions of the Soviet Party and the Communist Party of China was not a major contributing factor and the groups that supported the Chinese position had little support within the CPGB. French remained staunchly loyal to the Soviet Union though privately he opposed the Khrushchev line. What he did have in common with those who eventually left to form their own organisations was a common belief that the CPGB's policy, known as the British Road to Socialism (BRS), was a major revision of Marxist-Leninist principles and was essentially a left social democratic and reformist programme.
In the eyes of French and like-minded observers, the CPGB leadership under John Gollan used the Hungarian crisis and the denunciation of what Khrushchev called Stalin's "cult of personality" to weaken and divide the party as a whole. The British Road to Socialism, was first revised in 1957 - the start of a process culmination in 1977 which, for French, deprived it of all revolutionary content.[6]
In 1966, the Daily Worker was re-launched as The Morning Star[7] - French had been among those who had campaigned against this change. The CPGB leadership's decision to support the Dubek leadership in Czechoslovakia and oppose the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact intervention in 1968 that led to Dubek's removal widened the divisions within the CPGB. [8]But while there was a significant minority that supported the Soviet position throughout the party, only a small number, largely those in French's own Surrey district, supported the critique of the BRS. The Bexley branch of the CPGB openly defied the CPGB leadership. All its members were expelled in 1971, most establishing the Appeal Group.[9]
In 1964 Labour returned to power after 13 years of Tory rule but the new government under Harold Wilson pursued policies seen by many leftists as anti-union (including an attempt to introduce "In Place of Strife" compulsory arbitration), while in Northern Ireland the government was seen by many in the Catholic community as supporting its oppression following the collapse of the civil rights campaign. The Tories, under Edward Heath, returned to power in 1970 with policies even more unpopular with the British left, contributing to the largest number of strikes involving the greatest number of workers in British history. Miners' strikes in 1972 and 1974 featured widespread participation from the working class and other sectors. Heath was defeated in 1974 and in the eyes of many on the British left, the second Wilson government continued where it left off.
French and like-minded British communists saw the Wilson/Callaghan government of 1974-79 as implementing "class collaborationist" policies and felt this was becoming more obvious to the working class, but believed the CPGB was incapable of presenting a clear revolutionary perspective, and had no capacity to rally workers on a mass scale against the capitalist offensive. French and others believed that at a moment of profound crisis for social democracy, their party was impotent and unable to wage a struggle for communist policies.
It was during this period of struggle and change that the CPGB declined at an alarming rate. It became more isolated from the people than at any other time in its history. The decline in membership and Morning Star circulation accelerated. The Young Communist League collapsed, while the growing crisis in the party also affected the credibility of its leadership as formerly senior and influential members left its ranks. In 1976, four of the party's top engineering activists resigned: Bernard Panter, Cyril Morton, Jimmy Reid and John Tocher, who had all been members of the Political Committee. At the base of the party the crisis in organisation was even more clear. Thousands of members were no longer organised and many did not even pay their nominal 25p monthly dues.[10]
Warring camps emerged within the party. Since the 1960s a secret faction known as the "Smith Group" [11]and later as the "Party Group" had operated within the CPGB based around the theories of the Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci. This provided the political base for the emergence of an open Eurocommunist faction in the early 1970s. The Gollan leadership sought to prop itself up by aligning itself with the Eurocommunist forces further to their right. Within that camp was an active faction that called itself the "Revolutionary Democratic Current".
On the other side, a group led by former CPGB student organiser Fergus Nicholson was emerging[12]that later became "Straight Left"; while French's Surrey District committee refrained from faction fighting which would have led to disciplinary action.
But the crisis came to a head the following year in the run-up to the Congress in November. The Gollan leadership had redrawn the British Road to Socialism aimed at - according to its detractors - adopting a social-democratic platform that sought the respectability and acceptance of academic and intellectual circles. The hardliners claimed it was the party's entrance fee into the reformist and social democratic traditions of the official labour movement. The publication of the draft and the beginning of the pre-Congress discussion period led to furious arguments within the party - with the majority saying that the new programme was about building a broad alliance for revolutionary social change, though implicitly or explicitly agreeing that the proposals broke with the Leninist tradition.
The Nicholson group argued that all the opposition should focus on making a stand at the November 1977 Congress. French led discussions with Nicholson and he was ready to go along with this strategy. But when it became clear that the party leadership was going to strike the first blow by expelling Sid French and a number of others in the Surrey district the formation of a new party became inevitable. On 15 July 1977 the New Communist Party was established at an emergency meeting in London called by French and other members of the Surrey district committee.
Support came largely from French's Surrey district stronghold though other supporters of his position, who had been contacted during the campaign against the new draft of the BRS, also joined immediately. But the decision to form the party in July had been made at the last moment. It took a further six weeks to organise the production of a party weekly, the New Worker, and issue the first pamphlet arguing the case for the new party.[13]
The NCP failed to take many members in key districts of the CPGB, such as London, Scotland and South Wales in the run-up to the November CPGB Congress. There, Nicholson's supporters were overwhelmingly defeated and the new draft BRS adopted. The Nicholson group continued to oppose the CPGB leadership in an increasingly factional way while claiming that French's move had undermined the overall opposition at Congress. But the opposition had no chance of defeating the draft. Even if French's supporters had been at Congress their numbers together with Nicholson's group were still not enough to defeat the leadership bloc's support.
Some 6,000 members had left the CPGB by the end of 1977 in a membership decline that would accelerate throughout the 1980s. But only a fraction of them, put at around 700,[14] joined the NCP.[15]
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The New Communist Party
Sid French became the first General Secretary of the NCP and Surrey became its strongest area. The first national chairman was Joe Parker, a full-time official in the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths (NUSMWC) until he retired in 1982. Joe Parker stepped down as Party Chairman soon after but remained an active NCP member until his death in 2004.
Sid French died in 1979 and was succeeded by Eric Trevett. Eric Trevett retired from full-time Party work in 1995 but remains on the Politburo of the Central Committee of the NCP as Party President, a post created in that year.
Like the rest of the British communist movement the NCP from the beginning had to deal with what they saw as ultra-leftism and right-wing deviation. All were defeated at congresses over the years and many were expelled for factionalism. In the early 1980s an extreme pro-Soviet faction called "Proletarian" [16]was expelled. In the early 1990s another small group was expelled which later formed the Communist Action Group and "Open Polemic".
The party's 'Vote Labour Everywhere' strategy was changed in 2000 to support Ken Livingstone for London Mayor and this ultimately led to the biggest purge in the party's history. A vote at the central committee with a one-vote majority led to nine expulsions from the party of those opposed to the Livingstone decision for factionalism, and some subsequent resignations, including nine members of the central committee. The North West District was dissolved and altogether around 25 members were either expelled for factionalism or resigned from the party.
One of the NCP's most famous members was the communist historian Ernie Trory (1913-2000) who founded the Crabtree Press whose imprint published his political and historical writings. Three major volumes,Between the Wars, Imperialist War and War of Liberation, all sub-titled Recollections of a Communist Organiser, cover unfolding political events from the Depression to the end of the Second World War.[17]
The current General Secretary is Andy Brooks, a founder member of the NCP and a member of the Central Committee since 1979. He had previously been international secretary, editor of the New Worker and deputy general secretary.
The NCP has never stood candidates in general or local elections and calls for support for the Labour candidates. This policy was amended in 2000 to permit support for independent Labour candidates with mass support and the NCP backed Ken Livingstone's successful bid for the London Mayorship.
The NCP is an affiliate of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), a grass-roots membership organisation of over 500 Labour Party members, affiliates and supporters that was established in 2004. Eight left Labour MPs are members of the LRC and the chair is John McDonnell MP. The aim of the LRC is to set up socialist groups at every level of the Labour Party to confront "New Labour", oppose the war in Iraq, and resist privatisation and job cuts.[18]
The NCP is also a supporter of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, a rank and file union committee supported by a number of left-leaning trade union leaders.[19]
The NCP is opposed to the European Union and the Treaty of Rome and calls on its supporters to boycott the European elections.
The organisational structure of the NCP consists of Fractions, Cells, District Committees, Central Committee, and Political Bureau (Politburo). The highest body of the party is the National Congress, which determines policy and elects the Central Committee.
It produces a weekly newspaper called The New Worker. Content is written either internally, or comes from other sources, particularly organs of fraternal parties. It no longer has a theoretical journal, having ended publication of the New Communist Review in the mid-1990s following the death of its editor George Woolley. In the 1980s and early 1990s the NCP also published an Industrial Bulletin, Irish Bulletin and Economic Bulletin. It now currently produces Internal Bulletin for members and supporters, as well as various pamphlets on different subjects.
[edit]
Ideology
The NCP began to internally criticise the Soviet Gorbachev leadership in 1988 and following the collapse of the Soviet Union the party established relations with communist and workers parties throughout the world. In the 1990s Party Congresses adopted resolutions repudiating and denouncing Khruschev's anti-Stalin 20th Congress speech and defining its ideology around the "great revolutionary teachers of humanity, Marx, Engels,Lenin and Stalin" and the "great revolutionary leaders of the struggling masses, Mao Zedong,Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh".
In April 1992 the New Communist Party was one of the initial signatories of the Pyongyang Declaration, along with 77 other communist, workers, socialist and progressive parties worldwide. Entitled Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism, the declaration was the first statement made by the international communist movement since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and to date has been signed by around 250 parties.[20]
In 2003 the NCP adopted an entirely new rule book, with the aim of building a monolith party and based on the principles laid down by the old Communist International.[21]
The party is politically closest to what it sees as anti-revisionist Communist Parties who would see the Soviet leadership from Nikita Khrushchev onwards as stepping away from socialism. Internationally it supports Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The NCP regularly attends the international conferences organised by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE),[22] and May Day events organised by the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB/PvdA).
In the UK, the NCP has very close relations with the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), despite having major programmatic differences on the question of the Labour Party.
The NCP is also involved in the anti-war movement, and supports the Stop the War Coalition demonstrations.
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The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (RCPB-ML) is a British communist political party. It was originally named the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), until it was reorganised after rejecting Maoism. The party's thinking is based on the politics of Hardial Bains, who died in 1997. Born in India, Bains travelled the world founding anti-revisionist communist parties.
Like other Bains-inspired parties, the then CPE(ML) took the Chinese side in the Sino-Soviet split, thus being endorsed by Albania, then allied with Maoist China, and opposing both the capitalist West and the Soviet bloc. As a result, it supported the Three Worlds Theory promoted by Beijing. However, during the deterioration in Sino-Albanian relations, it increasingly sided with the Party of Labour of Albania. It developed party to party relations with the Party of Labour of Albania and renounced Maoism.
The party has had notable links with the progressive music milieu with avant-garde composers such as the late Cornelius Cardew and Michael Chant being leading members.
The party has a system of collective leadership. Its current National Spokesperson is Chris Coleman.[1]
It is a small party, with less than 30 members, and is closely related to the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and now has good relations with the New Communist Party of Britain. It produces a daily internet newspaper called Workers' Daily Internet Edition (WDIE), and has a bookshop in south London named John Buckle Books[1] (named after the RCPB(ML) founding general secretary) and is active in promoting solidarity with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In 2004, the party declared electoral support for the Respect Coalition, but RCPB(ML) calls for an end to the system that brings parties to power and calls on workers' and peoples' collectives to intervene directly in the political process. The party therefore supports candidates of the alternative to the political system of the bourgeoisie.
The party's logo is a black hammer and sickle within a yellow star on a red background.
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The Communist League of Great Britain is an anti-revisionist group in the United Kingdom.
It origins lie in the Communist Party of Great Britain, where a faction formed around Bill Bland. Initially Maoist, it joined the majority of the Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity in 1965 to form the Action Centre for Marxist-Leninist Unity, publishing Hammer or Anvil.[1] In 1967, this was renamed the Marxist-Leninist Organisation of Britain. Soon after, the group ceased supporting Mao, instead supporting Enver Hoxha - although Hoxha himself was aligned with Mao. Renamed the "Communist League of Great Britain" in 1975, its ideological position was strengthened with the Sino-Albanian Split.
The group remains active to the present day, but has become less prominent since Bland's death. As an anti-revisionist organisation, it is highly supportive of Stalin and works within the Stalin Society.
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Revolutionary Communist Group (UK)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Revolutionary Communist Group is a communist organisation in the United Kingdom. It evolved from the "Revolutionary Opposition" in the International Socialists (forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party) during the early 1970s. The grouping was an undeclared and therefore, under the terms of the IS Constitution, an illegal internal faction. It was described by the leadership of IS as the "right opposition". The group was strongly influenced by Roy Tearse, who was once the Industrial Organiser of the wartime Revolutionary Communist Party but not a member of IS.
When the leading figures of the "Revolutionary Opposition", the name itself only first appearing in print in their appeal document, were expelled from the IS its members met to decide on their course of action, and disagreements between Tearse's allies, many based in Bristol, and the majority of the faction around David Yaffe rapidly surfaced. The result was that Tearse's friends formed the Discussion Group which led a quiet life for a number of years inside the Labour Party before dissolving. Meanwhile Yaffe and his comrades proceeded to found the Revolutionary Communist Group.Contents [hide]
1 Early years
2 Irish and South African solidarity work
3 The 1990s
4 Today
5 External links
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Early years
In January 1975 the RCG began publishing a theoretical journal called Revolutionary Communist[1] in which it espoused an ultra-orthodox view of crisis theory, a theme they had already addressed in the IS when challenging the work of the theoreticians of that group. They developed Marx, Engels and Lenin's analysis of the labour aristocracy, and showed its relevance for politics in the period after the Second World War. Their conclusions led them to call for no vote for the Labour Party. In so doing they broke totally from Trotskyism.
The early years of the RCG saw the group lose a large part of its initial membership. For example in September 1975 the Birmingham branch decamped in order to join the Workers' Socialist League. In time another minority in the RCG gave rise to the 'Revolutionary Communist Tendency' led by Frank Richards, a pseudonym for University of Kent sociologist, Frank Furedi. They were expelled in November 1976. They claimed to stand on the RCG's original politics which they alleged the tendency around David Yaffe had abandoned. They developed into the Revolutionary Communist Party.
The RCG recognised the progressive role played by some of the traditional communist parties such as the South African Communist Party and from that position developed into a more orthodox communist grouping supporting the socialist revolution in Cuba.
Whilst other far-left parties in the UK welcomed the demise of the Eastern Bloc and then of the Soviet Union, the RCG argued that these events were counterrevolutionary and constituted a setback in the class struggle internationally because many national liberation movements and socialist states in the Third World were supported by the Soviet Union and the Comecon. The RCG believed that while the Soviet Union was a socialist state, as a result of both internal developments in the Soviet Union itself and the reactionary role of working class parties (social democratic and communist) in the imperialist countries, the revolution degenerated and the communist party became an elite party separate from the working class. These developments laid the foundation for the counterrevolution between 1989-91.
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Irish and South African solidarity work
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the RCG became heavily involved in support for the Irish national liberation struggle, working with the Prisoners Aid Committee, Sinn Fin and the Troops Out Movement (TOM), and focussing particularly on support for Irish republican prisoners held in British prisons. The analysis which the RCG developed through this work, on the role of national liberation movements in opposing imperialism, laid the foundations for much of its later positions, and its relationship to the rest of the British left. Unlike many other left organisations, the RCG consistently argued that British troops had no progressive role to play in Ireland, and called for total support for the Republican movement in the struggle against British imperialism. Their involvement with the prisoner support groups established a tradition of outspoken support for prison struggles which has continued to the present, with a page of every issue of their newspaper dealing with prison conditions and struggles. In 1990, when prisoners at Strangeways took over the prison in protest at conditions, the RCG was active together with other groups supporting them on the outside, and later published a book, 'Strangeways: A Serious Disturbance', largely written by prisoners and former prisoners.
During the 1980s, the RCG's most notable activity was its participation in the non-stop picket of the South African embassy in London calling for the release of Nelson Mandela. This was organized by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group, within which the RCG played a leading role alongside elements of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, the Humanist Party and members of the Kitson family. City AA, as it became known, had been founded by Norma Kitson, the wife of the South African Communist activist David Kitson who served 19 years and 5 months in prison in a South African prison for his work in the National High Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress.
City AA was eventually expelled by the national leadership of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, over differences centering on City Group's insistence on making the link between British support for apartheid in South Africa, and racism within Britain.
Another significant campaign during the 1980s was the Viraj Mendis Defence Campaign, against the deportation of one of the group's members to Sri Lanka. This developed into a high profile national campaign involving people from left-wing groups such as the RCG, local residents of Manchester, and extending to church leaders and Labour Party Members of Parliament.
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The 1990s
In 1995 the RCG set up Rock Around the Blockade (RATB), a solidarity organisation with the Cuban Revolution. As well as campaigning on issues such as the US economic blockade and the Cuban Five, and sending political solidarity brigades to Cuba, RATB raised funds to take sound systems out to Cuba. These were used with young people in cultural and political work, and the RATB has donated five sound systems over a ten year period.
By the end of the 1990s, three members of the RCG who had alleged that the leadership was bureaucratic and failing to train the membership in Marxism-Leninism were asked to leave or resign because of what were described as their reactionary ultra-left views. One example of the division was over the September 11th attacks in 2001, which the three people who left viewed as a victory against imperialism. They left to form Communist Forum, often known by the name of their newsletter, Fightback. They have ceased to be active.
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Today
Following the start of the Palestinian second intifada in September 2000, in October the RCG joined a group which had begun to picket Marks and Spencer in Manchester over their support for Israel, and helped to spread this to other cities. Over the next six years pickets of Marks and Spencer were held in places including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Newcastle, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Durham, Rochdale, Nottingham, Leicester, across London, Stratford[disambiguation needed] and Brighton. Throughout this period the flagship store on Oxford Street in London was picketed weekly, and in many other places pickets were sustained on a regular basis.
In 2005 and 2006, the RCG stepped up their work in solidarity with asylum seekers, supporting the setting up of UNITY, an asylum seekers' union, in Glasgow, and helping to establish Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) in Newcastle and Gateshead and the North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG) in Manchester.
The newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Group, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI)commemorated 25 years of publication with issue Number 182 December 2004/January 2005. The paper is still published every two months.
