Letter to Reg Groves, November 14, 1933

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After the British Municipal Elections

British Section

Dear Comrades:

The municipal elections in England are extremely important in that they are symptomatic of the colossal growth of the Labour Party, and the decline at least in their relative influence of both the ILP and the Communist Party. In a situation that is exceptionally favorable for its revolutionary wing, the Comintern is not growing stronger, but weaker. This is not a national but an international phenomenon. The elections in Norway and Switzerland indicate the same tendency. These facts fully confirm the diagnosis we made following the victory of fascism in Germany. The Comintern is going to ruin far more swiftly than the parties of the Second International, and this is quite understandable, considering how the directly revolutionary way out of the situation in Germany has been called into question. The Social Democracy is temporarily experiencing yet another influx of recruits. In the end, these fresh masses will explode the Social Democracy from within and lay the foundation for the construction of a genuinely revolutionary party. But for this to happen the left wing, starting with the Bolshevik-Leninists, will have to have a correct policy.

The so-called British Communist Party is a corpse to which anything tying itself will be doomed to rot. As far as we are able to determine, the ILP is increasingly threatened by this danger. Instead of turning toward the Labour Party it has turned toward the Comintern.

True, one can object that the ILP just recently broke away from the Labour Party, and that we evaluated this as a step forward. That is absolutely correct! And of course we are by no means suggesting now that the ILP go back into the Labour Party and submit to its discipline.

Such a policy would be a complete betrayal of the revolutionary tasks facing the British proletariat. But it is perfectly obvious that the ILP will be able to do serious revolutionary work only if it becomes a lever of revolutionary influence upon the masses inside the Labour Party and the trade unions.

It should be clearly understood that a liaison between the ILP and Communist Party under the present conditions will not save the latter, but will bring about the certain destruction of the former. The leadership of the Comintern has completely failed to understand, and is incapable of understanding, the lesson of the recent great events. The Stalinist bureaucracy essentially no longer even pays any attention to the great historic tasks, which require the winning over of the proletarian majority. These bureaucrats, fighting for their posts and their salaries, are only concerned about somehow shoring up their livelihood, by snatching away a hundred or a thousand workers from the ILP. The immediate duty of the Bolshevik-Leninists is to turn the ILP away from the Comintern and toward the Labour Party. This cannot be done, however, without our taking a clear and distinct position ourselves on the question of the Communist Party. For this reason, we are looking forward to hearing from you what conclusions your organization has drawn for its own activity from the recent municipal elections.