James Klugmann
Encyclopedia
Norman John Klugmann generally known as James Klugmann, was a leading British Communist writer
who became the official historian of the Communist Party of Great Britain
His sister Kitty Cornforth was also a committed Communist, marrying Maurice Cornforth. Harry Hodson, in his memoirs, recalls visiting the Klugmann family home and recounts of James Klugmann, that “His background was impeccably bourgeois; ”
Educated at The Hall School, Hampstead, Gresham's School
and Trinity College
, Cambridge (at both of which he was a friend and contemporary of the spy Donald Maclean
), Klugman joined the Communist Party
of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1933 whilst studying at Cambridge
, where he won a double first.
Klugmann was at pains to deny any connection with spying during his lifetime and a long period of secret service surveillance on him threw up no obvious proof. He had however been on the fringes of such activity, which no doubt gave rise to suspicion, along with his university friendships of some of those who were involved in espionage.
In 1935, Klugmann gave up an academic career to become Secretary of the World Student Association, based in Paris, travelling widely across the world. This role, which involved the building of the Popular Front against fascism, first attracted the attention of the British Security Service. MI5’s description of James for its operatives, which was put on file around 1938, said: “Height about 5’ 8”, light build, broad brow, small featured face, fuzz of greyish hair, probably wears glasses, not remarkably Jewish but rather foreign appearance”
as a private in 1940 but, having a natural flair for languages, he was soon transferred to the Special Operations Executive
(SOE), who apparently ignored his communist sympathies. (It was claimed by the official historian of SOE that when Klugmann was recruited into SOE by Brigadier Terence Airey
, MI5
reported that he was not known to them. In fact, the relevant files had been destroyed at Wormwood Scrubs
by a German air raid.) In February 1942 Klugmann was posted to the Yugoslav Section of SOE as an intelligence and coordination officer, based in Cairo. Klugmann became critical of the Serb Royalist leader General Draza Mihailovic, who was the chief beneficiary of British aid and support in the resistance movement in Yugoslavia. Klugmann's reports influenced thinking at the Political Warfare Executive
, Secret Intelligence Service (M16), the Foreign Office, and BBC. He suggested that the Communist leaderTito
and his partisans were killing more Germans than Mihailovic's Cetniks despite smaller numbers. The Partisans deliberately provoked retaliation by killing German soldiers in outlying posts. The Germans would then select random villagers and execute them; this brutal response boosted partisan recruitment.
Churchill
switched his support to Tito (see Yugoslavia and the Allies
). Some eight understrength Wehrmacht divisions and Bulgarian and Croatian Ustase units were employed in Yugoslavia during 1943 and 1944 fighting the partisans. Yugoslavia was the only country during World War II
that liberated itself with little military assistance from the Allies. Although this move was one favoured by Stalin
, Tito and Stalin later fell out and became bitter critics. Klugmann rose to the rank of major, an unlikely outcome given his general disposition. He was under constant surveillance, suspected of being an NKVD agent along with Guy Burgess
, Donald Maclean
and Anthony Blunt
, whom he knew at Cambridge. However, no proof was ever found. During his time in SOE and later whilst a civilian in UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) in Yugoslavia he supported Soviet aims.
One of the most active and overt British communists of his generation, Klugmann became an influential left-wing journalist
after the war and wrote the first two volumes of the official History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, which was continued by Noreen Branson
. He also wrote the controversial From Trotsky
to Tito justifying, to a British communist audience, policy towards Tito's Yugoslavia
.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
who became the official historian of the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
Background and Early Career
Born Norman John Klugmann, in 1912, he later adopted the name James and dropped the second n in his surname. His father was a tobacco pipe merchant, with a strong Jewish accent and the family lived in a Victorian house on Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, London.His sister Kitty Cornforth was also a committed Communist, marrying Maurice Cornforth. Harry Hodson, in his memoirs, recalls visiting the Klugmann family home and recounts of James Klugmann, that “His background was impeccably bourgeois; ”
Educated at The Hall School, Hampstead, Gresham's School
Gresham's School
Gresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school in Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...
and Trinity College
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
, Cambridge (at both of which he was a friend and contemporary of the spy Donald Maclean
Donald Duart Maclean
Donald Duart Maclean was a British diplomat and member of the Cambridge Five who were members of MI5, MI6 or the diplomatic service who acted as spies for the Soviet Union in the Second World War and beyond. He was recruited as a "straight penetration agent" while an undergraduate at Cambridge by...
), Klugman joined the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1933 whilst studying at Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, where he won a double first.
Klugmann was at pains to deny any connection with spying during his lifetime and a long period of secret service surveillance on him threw up no obvious proof. He had however been on the fringes of such activity, which no doubt gave rise to suspicion, along with his university friendships of some of those who were involved in espionage.
In 1935, Klugmann gave up an academic career to become Secretary of the World Student Association, based in Paris, travelling widely across the world. This role, which involved the building of the Popular Front against fascism, first attracted the attention of the British Security Service. MI5’s description of James for its operatives, which was put on file around 1938, said: “Height about 5’ 8”, light build, broad brow, small featured face, fuzz of greyish hair, probably wears glasses, not remarkably Jewish but rather foreign appearance”
Career in Yugoslavia with Special Operations
He had joined the Royal Army Service CorpsRoyal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...
as a private in 1940 but, having a natural flair for languages, he was soon transferred to the Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
(SOE), who apparently ignored his communist sympathies. (It was claimed by the official historian of SOE that when Klugmann was recruited into SOE by Brigadier Terence Airey
Terence Airey
Lieutenant-General Sir Terence Sydney Airey, KCMG, CB, CBE was an officer in the British Army.-Family and education:Airey was the son of Sydney Airey...
, MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
reported that he was not known to them. In fact, the relevant files had been destroyed at Wormwood Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs
Wormwood Scrubs, known locally as The Scrubs, is an open space located in the north-eastern corner of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London. It is the largest open space in the Borough, at 80 ha , and one of the largest areas of common land in London...
by a German air raid.) In February 1942 Klugmann was posted to the Yugoslav Section of SOE as an intelligence and coordination officer, based in Cairo. Klugmann became critical of the Serb Royalist leader General Draza Mihailovic, who was the chief beneficiary of British aid and support in the resistance movement in Yugoslavia. Klugmann's reports influenced thinking at the Political Warfare Executive
Political Warfare Executive
During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....
, Secret Intelligence Service (M16), the Foreign Office, and BBC. He suggested that the Communist leaderTito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and his partisans were killing more Germans than Mihailovic's Cetniks despite smaller numbers. The Partisans deliberately provoked retaliation by killing German soldiers in outlying posts. The Germans would then select random villagers and execute them; this brutal response boosted partisan recruitment.
Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
switched his support to Tito (see Yugoslavia and the Allies
Yugoslavia and the Allies
In 1941 when the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, King Peter II formed a Government in exile in London, and in January 1942 the royalist Draža Mihailović became the Minister of War with British backing. But by June or July 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had decided to withdraw support from...
). Some eight understrength Wehrmacht divisions and Bulgarian and Croatian Ustase units were employed in Yugoslavia during 1943 and 1944 fighting the partisans. Yugoslavia was the only country during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
that liberated itself with little military assistance from the Allies. Although this move was one favoured by Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Tito and Stalin later fell out and became bitter critics. Klugmann rose to the rank of major, an unlikely outcome given his general disposition. He was under constant surveillance, suspected of being an NKVD agent along with Guy Burgess
Guy Burgess
Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War...
, Donald Maclean
Donald Duart Maclean
Donald Duart Maclean was a British diplomat and member of the Cambridge Five who were members of MI5, MI6 or the diplomatic service who acted as spies for the Soviet Union in the Second World War and beyond. He was recruited as a "straight penetration agent" while an undergraduate at Cambridge by...
and Anthony Blunt
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt , was a British art historian who was exposed as a Soviet spy late in his life.Blunt was Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Surveyor of the King's Pictures and London...
, whom he knew at Cambridge. However, no proof was ever found. During his time in SOE and later whilst a civilian in UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) in Yugoslavia he supported Soviet aims.
Post-war career
Klugmann remained a devout Communist all his life and went on to play a significant role in the CPGB becoming responsible for the Education branch. After his wartime service, he became a member of the executive committee of the British Communist Party and editor of Marxism Today. Michael Straight (later owner and editor of The New Republic and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts), an American who had studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and who had become friends there with Blunt, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgesst described Klugmann as "a warm-hearted and compassionate intellectual whose commitment to Communism left him no time for such minor preoccupations as taking a bath or cleaning his fingernails."One of the most active and overt British communists of his generation, Klugmann became an influential left-wing journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
after the war and wrote the first two volumes of the official History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, which was continued by Noreen Branson
Noreen Branson
Noreen Branson was a communist activist, and historian of the Communist Party of Great Britain. She worked for the Labour Research Department from 1938, until her death, editing its magazine for 28 years....
. He also wrote the controversial From Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
to Tito justifying, to a British communist audience, policy towards Tito's Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
.
Books by James Klugmann
- The History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: Formative and Early Years 1919-1924 (Vol. 1) ISBN 0-85315-372-8
- The History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: The General Strike 1925-26 (Vol. 2) ISBN 0-85315-374-4
- Wall Street's Drive to War (Communist Party, 1950)
- From Trotsky to Tito (Lawrence & Wishart, 1951) ASIN B0006DBG3G
- The Peaceful Co-existence of Capitalism and Socialism (People's Publishing House 1952) ASIN B0007K14QM
- Dialogue of Christianity and Marxism (Lawrence & Wishart, 1967) ASIN B000G9OYD4
- What Kind of Revolution?: A Christian-Communist Dialogue (Panther, 1968) ISBN 0-586-02580-4
- The Future of Man (Communist Party of Great Britain, 1971) ISBN 0-900302-20-8
- Marxism Today: Theoretical and Discussion Journal of the Communist Party (Communist Party of Great Britain, 1975) ASIN B0006DLHUI