WAR
The year was 1941, war had broken out in 1939 and of course made a great impact on everyone's lives.
As a member of the Young Communist League I was involved in the political scene and took part in much discussion within the Young Communist League on the question of the policy put by Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, regarding the outbreak of war.
Pollitt argued that the war with Germany was from the outset, a war against fascism and racism. As far as Pollitt was concerned it was a case of democracy or fascism. The fact that the British and French imperialists declared war in their own interests did not change the fact that their action was taken under pressure from their own people to take steps to stop the march of fascism in Europe.
On September 2nd 1939 the Communist Party of Great Britain issued a manifesto in which the Party declared support for the war and all measures to secure the victory of democracy over fascism. The manifesto made the point that the removal of the Chamberlain Government and the election of a new Government dedicated to the defeat of fascism was the way ahead.
In a pamphlet, "How to Win the War" Pollitt analysed the events that led to war, the aid to fascism in Europe and the refusal to come to a Collective Security Agreement with the Soviet Union. The political line of Pollitt's pamphlet and of the manifesto of September 2nd was approved by the membership.
Two weeks later, on 14th September 1939, Moscow Radio broadcast a statement that included the following; "There is no doubt in the minds of the Soviet people that this war is an imperialist and predatory war for a new redivision of the world, a robber war kindled from all sides by the two imperialist groups of powers".
This faced the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain with a dilemma. The manifesto of the Communist Party of Great Britain issued on September 2nd and the statement from Moscow issued by the Communist International were contradictory. The one calling for support by the British working-class for the war as being anti-fascist, the other declaring absolutely that this was an imperialist war, and therefore should not be supported.
The Central Committee, at its meeting on 24th September 1939, after much discussion, decided to adjourn until 2nd October. At that meeting R. Palme Dutt presented the report of the Political Bureau which proposed that the September manifesto should be withdrawn and the policy of the Communist International, which characterised the war as an imperialist war, should be adopted.
Harry Pollitt and J.R.Campbell voted against the motion and for the September manifesto.
On 11th October the Party announced that Pollitt had been removed from the position of General Secretary. As a leading Communist, Pollitt accepted the decision taken by the Central Committee, saying "I shall give the decision my fullest support and work for the Party in any way the Central Committee may decide".
Those days at the start of the Second World War were full of activity. We met to discuss our attitude to the war and the disagreement between Pollitt and some of the leadership of the Party. I remember thinking when Chamberlain declared war on Germany, that at last action was being taken to stop the fascist menace. The policy that Harry Pollitt put forward in his pamphlet "How to Win the War", was accepted at first as the correct line because the mass of the people wanted action to be taken to stop the march of fascism. So when the policy of the Party was changed to opposition to the war, it caused a lot of heart searching amongst the Party Comrades. But the period of what came to be known as the "Phoney War", showed that the British ruling class were more concerned with protecting their imperial interests against the expansionist aims of German Imperialism and with the attempt to turn the war into a war between Germany and the Soviet Union in order to be able to "pick up the pieces" after the conflict was over, thus "killing two birds with one stone". The threat to the British Empire from emerging German imperialism, and the ever present threat of the spread of Socialist ideas from the Soviet Union, would, according to this theory, be wiped out without Britain being directly involved. As we now know, and the left-wing forces in the country said at the time, that was not to be.