CP-LP affiliation¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter delivers a polemical dissection of the Independent Labour Party’s (ILP) refusal to adopt a principled position on the Communist Party’s campaign for affiliation to the Labour Party. The core argument is that the ILP leadership, driven by cowardice and opportunism, maintains a deliberate silence on the issue to avoid alienating either the Stalinists or the Labour bureaucracy. The author contends that the ILP proceeds not from Marxist theory but from empirical, day-to-day improvisation, rendering it incapable of offering a coherent answer to any fundamental problem facing the British working class.
The chapter’s key claim is that the ILP leadership, under pressure from an indignant membership, has been forced into a retaliatory campaign against the CP, but only reluctantly and without principle. The evidence cited is the absence of any statement from the National Administrative Council (NAC) or authoritative individuals in the New Leader. The author argues that to oppose affiliation would appear anti-“unity,” while supporting it would offend the Labour bureaucracy; thus, the leadership chooses to ignore the issue entirely. This is presented as proof of “arrant cowardice” and a refusal to take a theoretically correct stand.
Historically, the chapter situates the ILP within a pre-revolutionary situation in Britain, arguing that the utopian programme of the ILP’s founders has been drowned by the class struggle. The party’s recent rise from obscurity is attributed not to its leadership but to the pressure of the masses and the development of events. The author asserts that the old membership, tested in the unions and factories, is beginning to recognise the inadequacies of the party’s policy, and that differentiation among new members is accelerating.
The polemic is directed squarely against the ILP leadership, named as Maxton, Smith, Padley, and Brockway, who are portrayed as pulling in different directions. The chapter also attacks the centrist character of the ILP as a whole, contrasting it with the Bolshevik method and the programme of the Fourth International. John McNair’s Jubilee article in the New Leader is quoted approvingly for its call to examine past errors, but the author dismisses it as empty rhetoric, since the ILP never actually undertakes such an examination. The chapter concludes with a prediction that the ILP will splinter at the first real crisis, and that only the banner of the Fourth International can provide a solution.