The Comintern, Communist women leaders and the struggle for women's liberation in Britain between the wars: a political and prosopographical investigation, part 1

The literature on Communist women is sparse and touches tangentially on the lives of female activists, even those who participated in the Communist Party leadership. This is the first part of a two-part article which examines 15 of the 18 very unusual women who figured on the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) between 1920 and 1939. It outlines Communist perspectives on women's liberation documenting their roots in the Marxist analysis associated with Frederick Engels, August Bebel and Clara Zetkin, pioneered in the Second International and the German Social Democracy (SPD), taken up by the Bolsheviks, and adopted in the early 1920s by the infant Comintern. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses displayed by this theoretical tradition and its critique of its rival, feminism. It traces attempts to translate it into practice in Britain thwarted by the resilience of conventional consciousness and the development of Stalinism. In that context, the article adopts a prosopographical approach. It provides a statistical survey of the leading women who made up a mere 13% of CC membership between the World Wars. High turnover hindered female cadre building; 83% of our subjects served only a single term. The cohort was more middle-class than male CC representatives or women in the party at large. While 60% had Communist partners, in a surprising 70% of these cases the woman was more prominent politically. Children and family did not preclude high levels of activism and greater loyalty to the CPGB measured by longevity of party membership than their male CC counterparts. The second part of the paper explores the lives and careers of individual women leaders

Towards a prosopography of the American communist elite: the foundation years, 1919–1923

A prosopographical study of the early central committee members of the Workers Party of America

The leadership of British Communism, 1923–1928: pages from a prosopographical project

The importance of leadership in awakening and guiding the working class was emphasised at all levels within the parties which saw themselves as indispensable to socialist revolution. It was fundamental to the philosophy of the Bolsheviks, the Comintern and the early British Communist Party (CPGB). The executive committee (EC) which directed the work of members was broadly representative of the CPGB leadership. The 39 activists who served on the EC between 1923 and 1928 are examined in relation to their origin, age, ethnicity, gender, education, occupation, political antecedents and future destination. Attention is paid to their partners, who were also relevant actors, if frequently marginal to the historiography. The leadership cohort was overwhelmingly British-born, half were English, a third Scottish, male and white. It was predominantly proletarian, 75% of the group were manual workers, although 20% came from middle-class backgrounds and 12.8% were classified as intellectuals compared with 5% of party members. Over 46% of party leaders worked in skilled trades and more than 35% had a background in metalworking. This contrasted with the CPGB as a whole where colliery workers predominated; only a little over 10% of leaders were miners. The mean age was 36.4 years and most had received only an elementary education. More than 90% joined the CPGB in 1920–1921 with former members of the Socialist Labour Party disproportionately represented in the leadership. Turnover was significant: over 40% served on only one or two committees. Conversely almost 50% sat on four or five. Their partners were more ethnically diverse and like other family members benefitted from Soviet and party patronage in employment. This pioneering prosopography concludes with biographical profiles of the 20 leaders who were not part of the ‘core’ of representatives who registered four or five appearances on the executive from 1923 to 1928. More than half of this ‘peripheral’ group subsequently departed not only the EC but the CPGB itself

The Comintern, Communist women leaders and the struggle for women's liberation in Britain between the wars: a political and prosopographical investigation, part 2

This is the second part of an article which explores and contextualises in revolutionary theory and practice the lives and careers of a highly unusual group of women, many hitherto hidden from history, who took a leading part in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) between 1920 and 1939. The first instalment discussed the historiography and outlined a prosopographical approach to the subject. It traced the theory of women's liberation which informed the early Comintern and its national affiliates from its roots in the work of Engels, the German Social Democratic Party and the Second International; outlined developments in CPGB policy on the question over two decades; and presented a statistical analysis of 15 of the 18 women who figured in the party leadership between the wars. This second instalment provides mini-biographies of these Central Committee (CC) members. It examines their origins, ethnicity, religion, education, occupation, previous affiliations, political attitudes and career in the CPGB. Recuperation confirms that the group as a whole embraced Communism as a break with earlier women's politics – including those with direct experience of the suffrage movement. They rejected feminism but exhibited little interest in Marxist theory beyond Comintern pronouncements. Committed to the party and the policies of the Soviet Union as it moved from Lenin to Stalin, they were practical organisers and agitators who, on the whole, respected conventional gender roles. They exercised the right to be politically active, even in the face of domestic commitments, and engaged in the general activities of the party as well as specialist work with women. But they offered no explicit critique of the family, prevailing sexual mores or the subordination of women members within the CPGB

The early British Communist leaders, 1920–1923: a prosopographical exploration

The members of its governing Executive Committee constituted the national leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Prosopographical analysis which employs both quantitative and qualitative methods is utilized to explore the origins; age; education; occupations; experience and affiliation; party career; and destination of 47 of 48 members of the committee who held office between 1920 and 1923. The survey presents, in many cases for the first time, details of their background and activity. Against previous assertions of youthfulness and Scottish and Welsh influence, it demonstrates the majority were born in England before 1890 and that while almost two-thirds were skilled workers or miners, a fifth worked in white-collar occupations. There were high rates of turnover and discontinuity: more than 80% of representatives served briefly and 73% were never re-elected after 1923. Up to half were no longer in the party by the end of the decade and only four remained in its leadership after 1932. Mini-biographies of the 33 Communists whose leading role was restricted to ‘the long foundation period’ confirm the weakness and frequently ineffective and confused nature of its leadership as well as the significant difficulties faced by early British Communism

The Socialist Labour Party and the leadership of early British Communism

The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) contributed a small number of members to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) founded a century ago, compared with the considerably larger British Socialist Party (BSP). Nonetheless, some historians have claimed that leading SLP members, well-versed in Marxist theory, proved to be excellent leadership material and figured disproportionately in directing the early CPGB. ‘Bolshevisation’ of the party in the mid-1920s saw them crowded out by opportunist ex-BSP activists more amenable to Moscow, with a deleterious impact on the CPGB’s theoretical clarity and political fortunes. Absorption in mundane activity blunted the former SLPers’ theoretical edge and ‘will to revolution’. A statistical analysis of compositional trends on the CPGB Executive Committee, 1920–1928, combined with examination of the 19 ex-SLPers who sat on it and more detailed exploration of major ex-SLP protagonists, confirms they punched above their weight, not just initially but through the 1920s. However, the turning point was not ‘Bolshevisation’ but the onset in 1929 of Stalin’s leftist Third Period. There is scant evidence that former SLP representatives were replaced in the leadership by former BSP activists. The idea of conflicting SLP and BSP political identities persisting beyond the party’s ‘bedding down’ period is exaggerated and fails to facilitate understanding of CPGB development during its first decade

The leadership of American communism, 1924–1929: sketches for a prosopographical portrait

A prosopographical study of all members of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of America from 1924 to 1929

'The Trojan Horse': Communist entrism in the British Labour party, 1933-43

Entrism – the infiltration of political organisations by competitors – is typically associated with Trotskyism. Large-scale Communist entrism in the British Labour Party has been neglected by historians and reference in the literature is slight and impressionistic. Archival material permits reconstruction of a sustained attempt by the Comintern and British Communists to subvert Labour Party policy between 1933 and 1943. Documenting the development and dimensions of Communist entrism, this article establishes that, by 1937, 10 per cent of Communist Party (CPGB) members were operating secretly inside British Labour, campaigning to change its policy on affiliation and engineer a popular front. Biographies of fifty-five such Communists provide new data and permit a typology of entrist activity. The episode sheds new light on popular front initiatives and the extent of genuine support for them within Labour. It illuminates the conspiratorial side of Stalinist activity at a time when the CPGB presented itself as a conventional British party

Bolshevism, stalinism and the comintern: a historical controversy revisited

‘Bolshevization’ and ‘Stalinization’ have been used variously by historians of American and British Communism to designate and date the processes by which the Comintern and national parties were subordinated to Soviet policy. Despite their pervasive influence on the American and British left, this literature reveals little curiosity or consensus about the politics of Bolshevism and Stalinism, their history and relationship, indeed, these labels have sometimes been employed inexactly and interchangeably. In some narratives, Bolshevization dates from 1924 and was completed from 1929. In others, the Comintern and its affiliates were Stalinized from 1924, in still others, from 1929. The historiography of the Soviet Union, in contrast, includes forensic interrogation of Bolshevism and Stalinism, their meaning, periodization and consequences as well as the continuities and disjunctures between them. This work has been overlooked by historians of the American Workers’ Party and the British Communist Party. The present article assesses both literatures. It utilizes insights from Sovietologists to argue that Stalinism constituted a politics and practice connected with but distinct from Bolshevism. Reviewing Comintern and party history, it proposes a specific periodization. State Bolshevism, 1919–1923, saw subjugation of the American and British parties to Russian imperatives. Incipient Stalinism, 1924-1928, witnessed restructuring of the politics of subordination. From 1929, Stalinization accomplished a distinctive subordination. It enthroned a politics and practice foreign to that of Lenin and the Bolsheviks which endured, through different phases, until the 1950s