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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.
Communist Party of Britain Plaid Gomiwnyddol Prydain | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | CPB |
| General Secretary | Robert Griffiths |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Newspaper | Morning Star |
| Youth wing | Young Communist League |
| International affiliation | IMCWP |
| Website | |
| https://www.communistparty.org.uk | |
 Twitter | @https://twitter.com/cpbritain |
 YouTube channel | https://www.youtube.com/c/CommunistParty |
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The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) is a Marxist-Leninist party in the United Kingdom. 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, 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. The Young Communist League and the Morning Star are bound to follow the program.
In essence, 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."[1]
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,[2] 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.[3]
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.[4] 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.[5]
Electoral program
Councils
The CPB recommends creating councils that own public housing and run leisure, sporting, and culture clubs and public transportation.[6]
Education
The CPB supports investing in community-run libraries. It advocates for schools to be secular and under control of elected local authorities.[6]
Scotland and Wales
The CPB wants Scotland and Wales to have their own parliaments instead of being controlled from London.[6]
References
- ↑ CPB Executive Committe (2020). Britain’s road to socialism. [PDF] Manifesto Press Cooperative. ISBN 978-1-907464-43-0
- ↑ 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
- ↑ “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 - ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Communist Party of Britain (2022). The Communists' Manifesto. [PDF] Ruskin House.