tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post5038205681290955582..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Branch Meeting: The CPGB and the Trade UnionsPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-10470495726369969682007-07-25T00:17:00.000+01:002007-07-25T00:17:00.000+01:00Hello Phil, interesting discussion of CP in the un...Hello Phil, interesting discussion of CP in the unions. Its a good blog. <BR/>Andy F, MrseysideAndy Fhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05758747271335137037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-41043005346169713942007-06-13T13:14:00.000+01:002007-06-13T13:14:00.000+01:00Phil,Interesting stuff. However, some of the point...Phil,<BR/><BR/>Interesting stuff. However, some of the points made in your intro are factually questionable.<BR/><BR/>"And given the CPGB moved more to workplace-based branches after the war, this exacerbated the submerging of its politics into routine trade unionism." <BR/><BR/>It is true that CPGB activists merged themselves in routine trade union work. However, CPGB workplace branches actually declined after the war (despite congress resolutions and nagging from the leadership). It was a key facet of many of the CPGB's revolutionary oppositions down the years (some Maoist, others not) that the Party practically downgraded such branches because it was committed to an electoral road and not one that sought to utilise the workfloor as an alternative centre of power. Maybe partly true but another reason was that if you just merged yourself into mundane trade unionism at the expense of your politics (what politics you had left after becoming wedded to Labourism) there was no need for a Party branch to do that. Often CPGB members worked as individuals or as small union clots. <BR/><BR/>"The party's ultra-leftism did not rally the masses to its banner, instead it isolated itself from the class."<BR/><BR/>Yes, partly true, but Pollitt (and militants such as Horner) led a strong rearguard action in favour of remaining in the 'refomist unions' rather than forming red unions. <BR/><BR/>Nina Fishman's book on the CP and trade unions is good on this, as is Kevin Morgan's book on Pollitt. <BR/><BR/>I wrote this review, which could be of interest:<BR/><BR/><BR/>http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/630/review.htm<BR/><BR/>Best wishes,<BR/>Lawrence Parkerlawrencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17706182770232755411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-26038509182696659122007-04-23T18:36:00.000+01:002007-04-23T18:36:00.000+01:00Well yeah, but the subject is possibly the most im...Well yeah, but the subject is possibly the most important one for socialists to study, as for all their weaknesses, the CP are the most significant socialist force to have worked within the structures and traditions of the british labour movement.<BR/><BR/>I think you need (and comrade S) to look a lot more positively at the minority movement, and the way the CP worked in the 1920s, and also much more positively at the way the party worked to rebuild shop floor organisation during the 1930s (a pertinent lesson for today). It would be far from true that the CP's industrial work was "top down" during that period.<BR/><BR/>Even when looking at the 1950s to 1970s, the CP's commitment to broad lefts also included building substantial networks of militants in combine committees, etc. Don't forget that it was largely the CP who scuppered the Industrial Relations Act, by industrial strength.<BR/><BR/>Where there was a strategic failure was not in the nature of their trade unions base, but that they refused to mobilise that base sufficiently against incomes policy under Wilson and Callaghan. I don't think that by the CP failure was inevitable, nor do I think the failure of the shop stewards movement to defend itself was inevitable, even after the CP leaderhsip failed the test.<BR/><BR/>As Geoff points out above, the general approch of the CP was ater replicated wiith some success but on a smaller scale by the Militant. And that would not have been a controverisal point to make to the Millies in the 1980s, so it is interesting that the SP today has a different starting point.ANhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-56990505320849380662007-04-23T13:26:00.000+01:002007-04-23T13:26:00.000+01:00Well as you may have spotted Andy I'm by no means ...Well as you may have spotted Andy I'm by no means an expert on CP trade union history. But like most on the left that doesn't prevent me from indulging my two pennies worth on CPGB-related matters. <BR/><BR/>This post is a report on a lead off given by a comrade on the CP and the unions. If something is ommitted from the piece it's either because brother S didn't mention it or I couldn't remember it. <BR/><BR/>On the CP having a top down approach to trade unionism, I wouldn't (and don't think I did) suggest it was top down in every circumstance. Circumstances differed across unions. But based on my own reading of CP history (Willie Thompson, Francis Beckett, the odd Weekly Worker piece, and an old Workers' Power pamphlet on trade unionism) that was the overall thrust of CP industrial strategy - to mobilise workers to back/put pressure on official union structures to take action, a position entirely congruent with the top down British Road to Socialism.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-39802834404573543022007-04-22T13:45:00.000+01:002007-04-22T13:45:00.000+01:00This is a bit of a bizarre post Phil.To describe t...This is a bit of a bizarre post Phil.<BR/><BR/>To describe the minority movement and CP rank and file politics as having such limited influence, you need to ignore (as you do) the phenomenal success for the "busman's punch", and the CP's success among engineering aprentices, and elsewhere.<BR/><BR/>Now was the triumph of the third period ultra-leftism ever complete in the CP, for example the national unemployed workers movement largely avoided those errors.<BR/><BR/>It wiould also seema travesty to describe CP influence as being entirley top down, becasue they had a significant layer in lay bodies such as combine committes, etc, and in engineering and the car industary thriri strength was much more through the shop floor than in the officials.<BR/><BR/>But mostly, your assessmetn that the SP's influence in the unions is even a shadow of a suggestion of a small version of the CP's, is just plain wrong. The CP didn't punch above its weight, that really was its weight!<BR/><BR/>Some 30000 members even by 1970, represetning an importnat leading layer in the shop stewards movement.<BR/><BR/>I would strongly recommend to anyone intersested the book by Brian Pearce and Michael Woodhouse, which brings together a number of articles published by the SLL during the 1960s: "A History of Communism in Britain", (London: Bookmarks) 1995 [originally published 1969].ANhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-89944705431573760902007-04-20T00:50:00.000+01:002007-04-20T00:50:00.000+01:00The trots were the communists of the early 1920s.I...The trots were the communists of the early 1920s.<BR/><BR/>Interesting post.Frank Partisanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03536211653082893030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-75478503997324493512007-04-19T17:48:00.000+01:002007-04-19T17:48:00.000+01:00For a rather more balanced role of the CPGB in 192...For a rather more balanced role of the CPGB in 1926.<BR/><BR/>http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/629/strike.htm<BR/><BR/>Curious how today's trots think they are in advance of Communists in the 1920s. Delusional, to say the very least.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-8304837729838990132007-04-17T14:21:00.000+01:002007-04-17T14:21:00.000+01:00I find it strange that you don't mention Broad Lef...I find it strange that you don't mention Broad Lefts, neither in the CP nor in your own BLOC sense. Both are of some importance<BR/><BR/>The impetus for the CP's broad leftism came from their isolation - roughly speaking due to Hungary and the vote-fixing debacle in the electricians' union (both issues related to some extent. This was why Jack Jones - and Hugh Scanlon of the engineering workers -achieved their victories.<BR/><BR/>Then in the 1980s came the Broad Left Organising Committee (BLOC) which comprised a number of Militant-dominated broad lefts, (plus a few independent groupings like the Socialist Teachers Alliance. It seemed to me that Militant had aquired a whole layer of people who were replicating some mistakes of the CP. One example,albeit from slightly earlier (1982?) was the betrayal of the Oxford and Birmingham strikes (I think it was DHSS) whilst Militant controlled the CPSA.<BR/>Anyway, you might not accept my interpretation :-) but your party has been through the experience at some level in the pastAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com