Communist Party (Britain): Difference between revisions

Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Britain; Plaid Gomiwnyddol Prydain
Abbreviation	CPB
General Secretary	Robert Griffiths
Founded	1988
Newspaper	Morning Star
Youth wing	Young Communist League
Political orientation	Revisionism
International affiliation	IMCWP
Website
	https://www.communistparty.org.uk
Twitter	@https://twitter.com/cpbritain
YouTube channel	https://www.youtube.com/c/CommunistParty

VisualWikitext

Revision as of 15:19, 12 January 2023

Not to be confused with Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist), Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist), or New Communist Party of Britain.

The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) is a revisionist communist party in the United Kingdom.^[1]^[2] It is one of the largest communist parties in Britain. It claims the legacy of the original Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), which was dissolved in 1991. The CPB believes itself to be a continuation of the CPGB and officially considers its founding year to be 1920, not 1988.

Britain's Road to Socialism

The party's program is Britain’s Road to Socialism (BRS), which was first published by the CPGB in 1951. It was iteratively revised by the CPGB, then subsequently the CPB, who published its ninth and latest edition in 2020.^[3] The Young Communist League and the Morning Star are bound to follow the program.

Since its first edition the BRS has been a revisionist program. In the first edition it put forward the erroneous views that a non-violent parliamentary road to socialism (not revolution) was the way for British workers to gain power,^[4]^[5] and a erroneously regurgitated understanding of Lenin's thesis of imperialism, particularly on the question of peace.^[6]^[7] The essence of these anti-Marxist ideas have endured into the latest version of the program.

Fundamentally, the program sets out a strategy to win socialism in three stages.

In the first stage, the CPB seeks to unite workers in a "popular democratic anti-monopoly alliance" built upon the labor movement. This would lead to the election of a "left government ... based on parliamentary majorities of Labour, socialist, communist and progressive representatives, and strengthened by the election of left majorities in Scotland and Wales." From here, the party envisages a left government which "will need to work closely with – and be held to account by – the labour movement and the ... popular democratic anti-monopoly alliance."^[3]

In the second stage, once a left government has been elected, the CPB sets forth that the state apparatus will try to continue operating in the "interests of the system for which they were designed". To overcome this, the government would have to introduce "extensive changes in recruitment, staffing and management policies within the civil and diplomatic services, the judiciary, the police, the secret services and armed forces". This will be achieved by "parliamentary means" supported by regular "democratic endorsement by the people in elections and referendums."

This is in absolute contradiction with Marx's teaching on the state,^[1] as outlined in The civil war in France. Changes in "recruitment, staffing and management policies" show a failure to assimilate one of the main teachings of the Paris Commune, ie that:

[T]he working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.^[8]

The third stage proceeds to explain that the party's Left-Wing Programme (LWP) of policies would "make inroads into the wealth and power of the monopoly capitalists," and describes methods by which opposition to the program could be overcome.

Based on this program, in 2017 the CPB threw its weight behind Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, abnormally choosing to not fields candidates for the general election.^[9] This is based on the BRS's call for the formation of a "left-led government"; Jeremy Corbyn was seen as a "left-wing" leader able to bring this about. This is in spite of the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is a social democrat.^[10]

The program, from its first edition by the CPGB up to the latest edition by the CPB, have been extensively criticised by the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)^[1] and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee),^[11]^[12] each accusing it of revisionism – each from different perspectives.

Electoral program

Councils

The CPB recommends creating councils that own public housing and run leisure, sporting, and culture clubs and public transportation.^[13]

Education

The CPB supports investing in community-run libraries. It advocates for schools to be secular and under control of elected local authorities.^[13]

Scotland and Wales

The CPB wants Scotland and Wales to have their own parliaments instead of being controlled from London.^[13]

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 “The ideas of the 1951 BRS stand in glaring opposition to Marx’s most fundamental teaching on the state, deduced from the living experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, and summed up in his work The Civil War in France, which reached the conclusion that the proletariat could not simply lay hold of the ready made apparatus of the bourgeois state and wield it for its own purposes.”

Ranjeet Brar (2022). Britain’s Road to Socialism?: 'Marx’s teaching on the state' (p. 17). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-07-1
↑ “On the question of the Soviet Union the current BRS says “The collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism was a severe setback from which Communists have had to draw many lessons. Those societies certainly had many faults – not least their restriction of democracy – which contributed to their downfall”.

While on the need for the forceful revolutionary overthrow of British imperialism it states “decisive advances towards socialism can only be achieved by mobilising the mass of the people in support of an intermediate alternative economic and political strategy which aims at securing full employment, a general improvement in living standards, a wide expansion of democracy and a genuine policy for peace” unfortunately the CPB are among those today misleading the workers by claiming that peace can be achieved without revolution, which obviously means that imperialism, according to them, does not lead to war. This is anti-Leninist rubbish which flies in the face of common sense (at least the 1951 version did not have the example of the Pinochet coup in Chile staring them in the face to show what happens to ‘Left’ governments who try to use bourgeois parliamentary methods to advance socialist orientated policies peacefully).”

"The revolutionary programmes of British Communism" (2008-01). Lalkar.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 CPB Executive Committee (2020). Britain’s road to socialism. [PDF] Manifesto Press Cooperative. ISBN 978-1-907464-43-0
↑ “On the question of overthrowing the bourgeoisie the 1951 BRS had also lost its way claiming such things as the British people “can transform capitalist democracy into a real People’s Democracy, transforming Parliament, the product of Britain’s historic struggle for democracy, into the democratic instrument of the will of the vast majority of the people” and “The path forward for the British people will be to establish a People’s Government on the basis of a Parliament truly representative of the people” and further “A people’s Parliament and Government which draws its strength from a united movement of the people, with the working class as its core, will be able to mobilise the overwhelming majority of the people for decisive measures to break the economic and political power of the big exploiters”. After this non-violent revolution clap-trap there is, of course, no mention of the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

"The revolutionary programmes of British Communism" (2008-01). Lalkar.
↑ Ranjeet Brar (2020). Britain’s Road to Socialism?: 'The original sin of the BRS' (p. 12). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-07-1
↑ “The 1951 BRS first put forward the idea that “a third world war is neither necessary nor inevitable” claiming that the peoples united action “can be decisive for peace”. It is interesting to note that many of the revisionists, usually among the first to attack Stalin, claim, presumably to prove that neither they nor their cherished programme are revisionist, that Joseph Stalin either wrote the 1951 BRS or told a Labour Party delegation to the Soviet Union that he approved of it, we will let comrade Stalin answer that particular fiction, in one of his last works, Economic Problems Of Socialism In The USSR written around 1951-2 he, tackling exactly the above notions, says “What guarantee is there, then, that Germany and Japan will not rise to their feet again, will not attempt to break out of American bondage and live their own independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee.

“But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.

“It is said that Lenin’s thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true.”

"The revolutionary programmes of British Communism" (2008-01). Lalkar.
↑ Ranjeet Brar (2022). Britain’s Road to Socialism?: '(Mis)understanding imperialism' (p. 35). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-07-1
↑ “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”

Karl Marx (1871). The civil war in France: 'The Paris Commune'.
↑ Robert Griffiths (2017-04-17). "Communists say: Vote Labour Everywhere for a Left-Led Government" Young Communist League.
↑ “There is nothing in Corbyn’s political and economic propositions, nothing in his foreign and internal policy stance, that could be described as truly socialistic, in the Marxist understanding of that term. Corbyn is not a Marxist.”

The Rise and Fall of Project Corbyn (2020) (pp. 20-22). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-01-9
↑ Jack Conrad (1991). Which Road?. [PDF] November Publications. 874123 00 4 ISBN 1 874123 00 4
↑ Jack Conrad (2022-06-16). "Our own programme" Weekly Worker.
↑ ^13.0 ^13.1 ^13.2 Communist Party of Britain (2022). The Communists' Manifesto. [PDF] Ruskin House.

[:1-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 “The ideas of the 1951 BRS stand in glaring opposition to Marx’s most fundamental teaching on the state, deduced from the living experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, and summed up in his work The Civil War in France, which reached the conclusion that the proletariat could not simply lay hold of the ready made apparatus of the bourgeois state and wield it for its own purposes.”

Ranjeet Brar (2022). Britain’s Road to Socialism?: 'Marx’s teaching on the state' (p. 17). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-07-1

[2] “On the question of the Soviet Union the current BRS says “The collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism was a severe setback from which Communists have had to draw many lessons. Those societies certainly had many faults – not least their restriction of democracy – which contributed to their downfall”.

While on the need for the forceful revolutionary overthrow of British imperialism it states “decisive advances towards socialism can only be achieved by mobilising the mass of the people in support of an intermediate alternative economic and political strategy which aims at securing full employment, a general improvement in living standards, a wide expansion of democracy and a genuine policy for peace” unfortunately the CPB are among those today misleading the workers by claiming that peace can be achieved without revolution, which obviously means that imperialism, according to them, does not lead to war. This is anti-Leninist rubbish which flies in the face of common sense (at least the 1951 version did not have the example of the Pinochet coup in Chile staring them in the face to show what happens to ‘Left’ governments who try to use bourgeois parliamentary methods to advance socialist orientated policies peacefully).”

"The revolutionary programmes of British Communism" (2008-01). Lalkar.

[:2-3] 3.0 ^3.1 CPB Executive Committee (2020). Britain’s road to socialism. [PDF] Manifesto Press Cooperative. ISBN 978-1-907464-43-0

[4] “On the question of overthrowing the bourgeoisie the 1951 BRS had also lost its way claiming such things as the British people “can transform capitalist democracy into a real People’s Democracy, transforming Parliament, the product of Britain’s historic struggle for democracy, into the democratic instrument of the will of the vast majority of the people” and “The path forward for the British people will be to establish a People’s Government on the basis of a Parliament truly representative of the people” and further “A people’s Parliament and Government which draws its strength from a united movement of the people, with the working class as its core, will be able to mobilise the overwhelming majority of the people for decisive measures to break the economic and political power of the big exploiters”. After this non-violent revolution clap-trap there is, of course, no mention of the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

"The revolutionary programmes of British Communism" (2008-01). Lalkar.

[5] Ranjeet Brar (2020). Britain’s Road to Socialism?: 'The original sin of the BRS' (p. 12). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-07-1

[6] “The 1951 BRS first put forward the idea that “a third world war is neither necessary nor inevitable” claiming that the peoples united action “can be decisive for peace”. It is interesting to note that many of the revisionists, usually among the first to attack Stalin, claim, presumably to prove that neither they nor their cherished programme are revisionist, that Joseph Stalin either wrote the 1951 BRS or told a Labour Party delegation to the Soviet Union that he approved of it, we will let comrade Stalin answer that particular fiction, in one of his last works, Economic Problems Of Socialism In The USSR written around 1951-2 he, tackling exactly the above notions, says “What guarantee is there, then, that Germany and Japan will not rise to their feet again, will not attempt to break out of American bondage and live their own independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee.

“But it follows from this that the inevitability of wars between capitalist countries remains in force.

“It is said that Lenin’s thesis that imperialism inevitably generates war must now be regarded as obsolete, since powerful popular forces have come forward today in defence of peace and against another world war. That is not true.”

"The revolutionary programmes of British Communism" (2008-01). Lalkar.

[7] Ranjeet Brar (2022). Britain’s Road to Socialism?: '(Mis)understanding imperialism' (p. 35). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-07-1

[8] “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”

Karl Marx (1871). The civil war in France: 'The Paris Commune'.

[9] Robert Griffiths (2017-04-17). "Communists say: Vote Labour Everywhere for a Left-Led Government" Young Communist League.

[10] “There is nothing in Corbyn’s political and economic propositions, nothing in his foreign and internal policy stance, that could be described as truly socialistic, in the Marxist understanding of that term. Corbyn is not a Marxist.”

The Rise and Fall of Project Corbyn (2020) (pp. 20-22). [PDF] CPGB-ML. ISBN 978-1-913286-01-9

[11] Jack Conrad (1991). Which Road?. [PDF] November Publications. 874123 00 4 ISBN 1 874123 00 4

[12] Jack Conrad (2022-06-16). "Our own programme" Weekly Worker.

[:0-13] 13.0 ^13.1 ^13.2 Communist Party of Britain (2022). The Communists' Manifesto. [PDF] Ruskin House.

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@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 Based on this program, in 2017 the CPB threw its weight behind Jeremy Corbyn's [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], abnormally choosing to not fields candidates for the general election.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Robert Griffiths|newspaper=Young Communist League|title=Communists say: Vote Labour Everywhere for a Left-Led Government|date=2017-04-17|url=https://ycl.org.uk/2017/04/24/communists-say-vote-labour-everywhere-for-a-left-led-government/}}</ref> This is based on the BRS's call for the formation of a "left-led government"; Jeremy Corbyn was seen as a "[[Left-Right Political Spectrum|left]]-wing" leader able to bring this about. This is in spite of the fact that [[Jeremy Corbyn]] is a [[Social democracy|social democrat]].<ref>{{Citation|year=2020|title=The Rise and Fall of Project Corbyn|title-url=https://thecommunists.org/2020/08/15/news/book-rise-and-fall-of-project-corbyn/|page=20-22|quote=There is nothing in Corbyn’s political and economic propositions, nothing in his foreign and internal policy stance, that could be described as truly socialistic, in the Marxist understanding of that term. <i>Corbyn is not a Marxist.</i>|pdf=https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3.cpgb-ml.org/ProjectCorbyn.pdf|publisher=[[CPGB-ML]]|isbn=978-1-913286-01-9}}</ref>
-The program, from its first edition by the CPGB up to the latest edition by the CPB, have been extensively criticised by the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)]]<ref name=":1" /> and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)]],<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Jack Conrad]]|year=1991|title=Which Road?|title-url=https://archive.cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Which%20Road.pdf|pdf=https://archive.cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Which%20Road.pdf|publisher=November Publications|isbn=1 874123 00 4}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=[[Jack Conrad]]|newspaper=[[Weekly Worker]]|title=Our own programme|date=2022-06-16|url=https://www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1399/our-own-programme/}}</ref> each accusing it of revisionism - each from different perspectives.
+The program, from its first edition by the CPGB up to the latest edition by the CPB, have been extensively criticised by the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)]]<ref name=":1" /> and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)]],<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Jack Conrad]]|year=1991|title=Which Road?|title-url=https://archive.cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Which%20Road.pdf|pdf=https://archive.cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Which%20Road.pdf|publisher=November Publications|isbn=1 874123 00 4}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=[[Jack Conrad]]|newspaper=[[Weekly Worker]]|title=Our own programme|date=2022-06-16|url=https://www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1399/our-own-programme/}}</ref> each accusing it of revisionism – each from different perspectives.
 == Electoral program ==