New Communist Party of Britain
Encyclopedia
The New Communist Party of Britain is a communist political party
in Britain
. The origins of the NCP lie in the Communist Party of Great Britain
from which it split in 1977.
, who had been the CPGB's Surrey
district secretary for many years. French was born into a class-conscious
working class
family in 1920 and joined the Young Communist League
in 1934 at the age of 14. In 1941, during the World War II
, he was called up and served in the Royal Air Force
. Promoted to Sergeant in 1942, French was posted to Gibraltar
and later to North Africa
and Italy
. While on active service French wrote an article for Labour Monthly
about the problems facing the Gibraltarians
under war conditions
. In Algiers
he met Henri Alleg, a French communist journalist, who later joined the Algerian resistance against French colonialism and spent five years in prison for his activities. After postwar demobilisation, French's commitment to the communist movement led to his appointment as Secretary of the newly formed Surrey District Committee of the CPGB in 1950. He remained in that position until he resigned, together with other supporters, to establish the New Communist Party on 15 July 1977. Sid French was a member of the General and Municipal Workers Union (G&MWU) and an active co-operator. He was elected to the Political Purposes Committee of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society
(RACS) in 1967 and elected to the RACS Members' Council in 1968.
and the subsequent moves by the Nikita Khrushchev
leadership in the USSR to denounce Joseph Stalin
. The split
within the international communist movement that eventually polarised between the positions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
and the Communist Party of China
was not a major contributing factor and the groups that supported the Chinese position had little support within the CPGB. French remained staunchly loyal to the Soviet Union though privately he opposed the Khrushchev line. What he did have in common with those who eventually left to form their own organisations was a common belief that the CPGB's policy, known as the British Road to Socialism (BRS), was a major revision of Marxist-Leninist principles and was essentially a left social democratic and reformist programme.
In the eyes of French and like-minded observers, the CPGB leadership under John Gollan used the Hungarian crisis and the denunciation of what Khrushchev called Stalin's "cult of personality
" to weaken and divide the party as a whole. The British Road to Socialism, was first revised in 1957 - the start of a process culmination in 1977 which, for French, deprived it of all revolutionary content.
In 1966, the Daily Worker
was re-launched as The Morning Star
- French had been among those who had campaigned against this change. The CPGB leadership's decision to support the Dubček
leadership in Czechoslovakia
and oppose the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact
intervention in 1968 that led to Dubček's removal widened the divisions within the CPGB. But while there was a significant minority that supported the Soviet position throughout the party, only a small number, largely those in French's own Surrey district, supported the critique of the BRS. The Bexley branch of the CPGB openly defied the CPGB leadership. All its members were expelled in 1971, most establishing the Appeal Group
.
In 1964 Labour returned to power after 13 years of Tory
rule but the new government under Harold Wilson
pursued policies seen by many leftists as anti-union (including an attempt to introduce "In Place of Strife
" compulsory arbitration), while in Northern Ireland
the government was seen by many in the Catholic community as supporting its oppression following the collapse of the civil rights
campaign. The Tories, under Edward Heath
, returned to power in 1970 with policies even more unpopular with the British left, contributing to the largest number of strikes involving the greatest number of workers in British history. Miners' strikes in 1972 and 1974 featured widespread participation from the working class and other sectors. Heath was defeated in 1974 and in the eyes of many on the British left, the second Wilson government continued where it left off.
French and like-minded British communists saw the Wilson/Callaghan
government of 1974-79 as implementing "class collaboration
ist" policies and felt this was becoming more obvious to the working class, but believed the CPGB was incapable of presenting a clear revolutionary perspective, and had no capacity to rally workers on a mass scale against the capitalist offensive. French and others believed that at a moment of profound crisis for social democracy, their party was impotent and unable to wage a struggle for communist policies.
It was during this period of struggle and change that the CPGB declined at an alarming rate. It became more isolated from the people than at any other time in its history. The decline in membership and Morning Star circulation accelerated. The Young Communist League collapsed, while the growing crisis in the party also affected the credibility of its leadership as formerly senior and influential members left its ranks. In 1976, four of the party's top engineering activists resigned: Bernard Panter, Cyril Morton, Jimmy Reid
and John Tocher, who had all been members of the Political Committee. At the base of the party the crisis in organisation was even more clear. Thousands of members were no longer organised and many did not even pay their nominal 25p monthly dues.
Warring camps emerged within the party. Since the 1960s a secret faction known as the "Smith Group" and later as the "Party Group" had operated within the CPGB based around the theories of the Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci
. This provided the political base for the emergence of an open Eurocommunist faction in the early 1970s. The Gollan leadership sought to prop itself up by aligning itself with the Eurocommunist forces further to their right. Within that camp was an active faction that called itself the "Revolutionary Democratic Current".
On the other side, a group led by former CPGB student organiser Fergus Nicholson was emerging that later became "Straight Left
"; while French's Surrey District committee refrained from faction fighting which would have led to disciplinary action.
But the crisis came to a head the following year in the run-up to the Congress in November. The Gollan leadership had redrawn the British Road to Socialism aimed at - according to its detractors - adopting a social-democratic platform that sought the respectability and acceptance of academic and intellectual circles. The hardliners claimed it was the party's entrance fee into the reformist and social democratic traditions of the official labour movement. The publication of the draft and the beginning of the pre-Congress discussion period led to furious arguments within the party - with the majority saying that the new programme was about building a broad alliance for revolutionary social change, though implicitly or explicitly agreeing that the proposals broke with the Leninist tradition.
The Nicholson group argued that all the opposition should focus on making a stand at the November 1977 Congress. French led discussions with Nicholson and he was ready to go along with this strategy. But when it became clear that the party leadership was going to strike the first blow by expelling Sid French and a number of others in the Surrey district the formation of a new party became inevitable. On 15 July 1977 the New Communist Party was established at an emergency meeting in London called by French and other members of the Surrey district committee.
Support came largely from French's Surrey district stronghold though other supporters of his position, who had been contacted during the campaign against the new draft of the BRS, also joined immediately. But the decision to form the party in July had been made at the last moment. It took a further six weeks to organise the production of a party weekly, the New Worker, and issue the first pamphlet arguing the case for the new party.
The NCP failed to take many members in key districts of the CPGB, such as London, Scotland and South Wales in the run-up to the November CPGB Congress. There, Nicholson's supporters were overwhelmingly defeated and the new draft BRS adopted. The Nicholson group continued to oppose the CPGB leadership in an increasingly factional way while claiming that French's move had undermined the overall opposition at Congress. But the opposition had no chance of defeating the draft. Even if French's supporters had been at Congress their numbers together with Nicholson's group were still not enough to defeat the leadership bloc's support.
Some 6,000 members had left the CPGB by the end of 1977 in a membership decline that would accelerate throughout the 1980s. But only a fraction of them, put at around 700, joined the NCP.
became the first General Secretary of the NCP and Surrey
became its strongest area. The first national chairman was Joe Parker, a full-time official in the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths (NUSMWC) until he retired in 1982. Joe Parker stepped down as Party Chairman soon after but remained an active NCP member until his death in 2004.
French died in 1979 and was succeeded by Eric Trevett. Trevett retired from full-time Party work in 1995 but remains on the Politburo
of the Central Committee of the NCP as Party President, a post created in that year.
Like the rest of the British communist movement the NCP from the beginning had to deal with what they saw as ultra-leftism and right-wing deviation. All were defeated at congresses over the years and many were expelled for factionalism. In the early 1980s an extreme pro-Soviet faction called "Proletarian" was expelled. In the early 1990s another small group was expelled which later formed the Communist Action Group and "Open Polemic".
The party's 'Vote Labour Everywhere' strategy was changed in 2000 to support Ken Livingstone for London Mayor and this ultimately led to the biggest purge in the party's history. A vote at the central committee with a one-vote majority led to nine expulsions from the party of those opposed to the Livingstone decision for factionalism, and some subsequent resignations, including nine members of the central committee. The North West District was dissolved and altogether around 25 members were either expelled for factionalism or resigned from the party.
One of the NCP's most famous members was the communist historian Ernie Trory (1913–2000) who founded the Crabtree Press whose imprint published his political and historical writings. Three major volumes, Between the Wars, Imperialist War and War of Liberation, all sub-titled Recollections of a Communist Organiser, cover unfolding political events from the Depression to the end of the Second World War.
The General Secretary is Andy Brooks
, a founder member of the NCP and a member of the Central Committee since 1979. He had previously been international secretary, editor of the New Worker and deputy general secretary.
The NCP has never stood candidates in general or local elections
and calls for support for the Labour
candidates. This policy was amended in 2000 to permit support for independent Labour candidates with mass support and the NCP backed Ken Livingstone
's successful bid for the London Mayorship
.
The NCP is an affiliate of the Labour Representation Committee
(LRC), a grass-roots membership organisation with around a thousand individual members and affiliates that was established in 2004. Five left Labour MPs are members of the LRC and the chair is John McDonnell
MP. The aim of the LRC is to set up socialist groups at every level of the Labour Party to confront "New Labour", oppose the war in Iraq, and resist privatisation and job cuts.
The NCP is also a supporter of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, a rank and file union committee supported by a number of left-leaning trade union leaders.
The NCP is opposed to the European Union
and the Treaty of Rome
and calls on its supporters to boycott the European elections.
The organisational structure of the NCP consists of Fractions
, Cells, District Committees, Central Committee
, and Political Bureau (Politburo
). The highest body of the party is the National Congress, which determines policy and elects the Central Committee.
It produces a weekly newspaper called The New Worker
. Content is written either internally, or comes from other sources, particularly organs of fraternal parties. It no longer has a theoretical journal, having ended publication of the New Communist Review in the mid-1990s following the death of its editor George Woolley. In the 1980s and early 1990s the NCP also published an Industrial Bulletin, Irish Bulletin and Economic Bulletin. It produces Internal Bulletin for members and supporters, as well as various pamphlets on different subjects.
's leadership of the Soviet Union in 1988 and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union
the party established relations with communist and workers parties throughout the world. In the 1990s Party Congresses adopted resolutions repudiating and denouncing Nikita Khrushchev
's anti-Stalin 20th Congress speech and defining its ideology around the "great revolutionary teachers of humanity, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin" and the "great revolutionary leaders of the struggling masses, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh".
In April 1992 the New Communist Party was one of the initial signatories of the Pyongyang Declaration
, along with 77 other communist, workers, socialist and progressive parties worldwide. Entitled Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism, the declaration was the first statement made by the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and to date has been signed by around 250 parties.
In 2003 the NCP adopted an entirely new rule book, with the aim of building a monolithic party and based on the principles laid down by the old Communist International.
The party is politically closest to what it sees as anti-revisionist
Communist Parties who would see the Soviet leadership from Nikita Khrushchev
onwards as stepping away from socialism. Internationally it supports Cuba
, China
, Vietnam
, Laos
and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The NCP regularly attends the international conferences organised by the Communist Party of Greece
(KKE), and May Day events organised by the Workers Party of Belgium
(PTB/PvdA).
In the UK, the NCP has very close relations with the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
, despite having major programmatic differences on the question of the Labour Party.
The NCP is also involved in the anti-war movement, and supports the Stop the War Coalition
demonstrations.
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The origins of the NCP lie in 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:...
from which it split in 1977.
Formation
The driving force behind the formation of the New Communist Party in 1977 was Sid FrenchSid French
Sid French was a British communist activist and organiser, former Surrey district secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the founding general secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain.-Early years:...
, who had been the CPGB's Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
district secretary for many years. French was born into a class-conscious
Class consciousness
Class consciousness is consciousness of one's social class or economic rank in society. From the perspective of Marxist theory, it refers to the self-awareness, or lack thereof, of a particular class; its capacity to act in its own rational interests; or its awareness of the historical tasks...
working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
family in 1920 and joined the Young Communist League
Young Communist League (Britain)
The Young Communist League is the name of both the youth wing of the former Communist Party of Great Britain and the current youth wing of the Communist Party of Britain ; an organisation that sees itself as the successor to the Communist Party of Great Britain.-Original Young Communist League...
in 1934 at the age of 14. In 1941, during the 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...
, he was called up and served in the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
. Promoted to Sergeant in 1942, French was posted to Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
and later to North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. While on active service French wrote an article for Labour Monthly
Labour Monthly
Labour Monthly was the magazine of the Communist Party of Great Britain .-Authors published:* Alexander BogdanovLabour Monthly was the magazine of the Communist Party of Great Britain .-Authors published:...
about the problems facing the Gibraltarians
Gibraltarian people
The Gibraltarians are a cultural group native to Gibraltar, a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterranean sea.- Origins :...
under war conditions
Military history of Gibraltar during World War II
The military history of Gibraltar during World War II exemplifies Gibraltar's position as a British fortress since the early 18th century and as a vital factor in British military strategy, both as a foothold on the continent of Europe, and as a bastion of British sea power...
. In Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
he met Henri Alleg, a French communist journalist, who later joined the Algerian resistance against French colonialism and spent five years in prison for his activities. After postwar demobilisation, French's commitment to the communist movement led to his appointment as Secretary of the newly formed Surrey District Committee of the CPGB in 1950. He remained in that position until he resigned, together with other supporters, to establish the New Communist Party on 15 July 1977. Sid French was a member of the General and Municipal Workers Union (G&MWU) and an active co-operator. He was elected to the Political Purposes Committee of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society
Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society
The Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society was a consumer co-operative based in south east London; taking its name from the royal munitions works at Woolwich....
(RACS) in 1967 and elected to the RACS Members' Council in 1968.
Divisions within the CPGB
Divisions within the CPGB had emerged following the Soviet intervention to quell the Hungarian uprising in 19561956 Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....
and the subsequent moves by the Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
leadership in the USSR to denounce Joseph 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...
. The split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
within the international communist movement that eventually polarised between the positions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
and the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
was not a major contributing factor and the groups that supported the Chinese position had little support within the CPGB. French remained staunchly loyal to the Soviet Union though privately he opposed the Khrushchev line. What he did have in common with those who eventually left to form their own organisations was a common belief that the CPGB's policy, known as the British Road to Socialism (BRS), was a major revision of Marxist-Leninist principles and was essentially a left social democratic and reformist programme.
In the eyes of French and like-minded observers, the CPGB leadership under John Gollan used the Hungarian crisis and the denunciation of what Khrushchev called Stalin's "cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
" to weaken and divide the party as a whole. The British Road to Socialism, was first revised in 1957 - the start of a process culmination in 1977 which, for French, deprived it of all revolutionary content.
In 1966, the Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
was re-launched as The Morning Star
The Morning Star
The Morning Star is a left wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social and trade union issues. Articles and comment columns are contributed by writers from socialist, social democratic, green and religious perspectives....
- French had been among those who had campaigned against this change. The CPGB leadership's decision to support the Dubček
Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...
leadership in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and oppose the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
intervention in 1968 that led to Dubček's removal widened the divisions within the CPGB. But while there was a significant minority that supported the Soviet position throughout the party, only a small number, largely those in French's own Surrey district, supported the critique of the BRS. The Bexley branch of the CPGB openly defied the CPGB leadership. All its members were expelled in 1971, most establishing the Appeal Group
Appeal Group
The Appeal Group was a small group of Marxist Leninists who broke away from the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1971 on the basis that the CPGB had abandoned revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and that, after many attempts, it was impossible to change it from within except by breaking the rules...
.
In 1964 Labour returned to power after 13 years of Tory
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
rule but the new government under Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
pursued policies seen by many leftists as anti-union (including an attempt to introduce "In Place of Strife
In Place of Strife
In Place of Strife was a UK Government white paper written in 1969. It was a proposed act to alter the functionality of trade unions in the United Kingdom, but was never passed into law....
" compulsory arbitration), while in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
the government was seen by many in the Catholic community as supporting its oppression following the collapse of the civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
campaign. The Tories, under Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
, returned to power in 1970 with policies even more unpopular with the British left, contributing to the largest number of strikes involving the greatest number of workers in British history. Miners' strikes in 1972 and 1974 featured widespread participation from the working class and other sectors. Heath was defeated in 1974 and in the eyes of many on the British left, the second Wilson government continued where it left off.
French and like-minded British communists saw the Wilson/Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...
government of 1974-79 as implementing "class collaboration
Class collaboration
Class collaboration is a principle of social organization based upon the belief that the division of society into a hierarchy of social classes is a positive and essential aspect of civilization.-Class collaboration under capitalism:...
ist" policies and felt this was becoming more obvious to the working class, but believed the CPGB was incapable of presenting a clear revolutionary perspective, and had no capacity to rally workers on a mass scale against the capitalist offensive. French and others believed that at a moment of profound crisis for social democracy, their party was impotent and unable to wage a struggle for communist policies.
It was during this period of struggle and change that the CPGB declined at an alarming rate. It became more isolated from the people than at any other time in its history. The decline in membership and Morning Star circulation accelerated. The Young Communist League collapsed, while the growing crisis in the party also affected the credibility of its leadership as formerly senior and influential members left its ranks. In 1976, four of the party's top engineering activists resigned: Bernard Panter, Cyril Morton, Jimmy Reid
Jimmy Reid
James "Jimmy" Reid was a Scottish trade union activist, orator, politician, and journalist born in Govan, Glasgow. His role as spokesman and one of the leaders in the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-in between June 1971 and October 1972 attracted international recognition...
and John Tocher, who had all been members of the Political Committee. At the base of the party the crisis in organisation was even more clear. Thousands of members were no longer organised and many did not even pay their nominal 25p monthly dues.
Warring camps emerged within the party. Since the 1960s a secret faction known as the "Smith Group" and later as the "Party Group" had operated within the CPGB based around the theories of the Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
. This provided the political base for the emergence of an open Eurocommunist faction in the early 1970s. The Gollan leadership sought to prop itself up by aligning itself with the Eurocommunist forces further to their right. Within that camp was an active faction that called itself the "Revolutionary Democratic Current".
On the other side, a group led by former CPGB student organiser Fergus Nicholson was emerging that later became "Straight Left
Straight Left
Straight Left was a left-wing newspaper. The phrase was also the generic name given to a political faction of the Communist Party of Great Britain who disagreed with the leadership's emerging Eurocommunist politics, and were responsible for the production of the newspaper...
"; while French's Surrey District committee refrained from faction fighting which would have led to disciplinary action.
But the crisis came to a head the following year in the run-up to the Congress in November. The Gollan leadership had redrawn the British Road to Socialism aimed at - according to its detractors - adopting a social-democratic platform that sought the respectability and acceptance of academic and intellectual circles. The hardliners claimed it was the party's entrance fee into the reformist and social democratic traditions of the official labour movement. The publication of the draft and the beginning of the pre-Congress discussion period led to furious arguments within the party - with the majority saying that the new programme was about building a broad alliance for revolutionary social change, though implicitly or explicitly agreeing that the proposals broke with the Leninist tradition.
The Nicholson group argued that all the opposition should focus on making a stand at the November 1977 Congress. French led discussions with Nicholson and he was ready to go along with this strategy. But when it became clear that the party leadership was going to strike the first blow by expelling Sid French and a number of others in the Surrey district the formation of a new party became inevitable. On 15 July 1977 the New Communist Party was established at an emergency meeting in London called by French and other members of the Surrey district committee.
Support came largely from French's Surrey district stronghold though other supporters of his position, who had been contacted during the campaign against the new draft of the BRS, also joined immediately. But the decision to form the party in July had been made at the last moment. It took a further six weeks to organise the production of a party weekly, the New Worker, and issue the first pamphlet arguing the case for the new party.
The NCP failed to take many members in key districts of the CPGB, such as London, Scotland and South Wales in the run-up to the November CPGB Congress. There, Nicholson's supporters were overwhelmingly defeated and the new draft BRS adopted. The Nicholson group continued to oppose the CPGB leadership in an increasingly factional way while claiming that French's move had undermined the overall opposition at Congress. But the opposition had no chance of defeating the draft. Even if French's supporters had been at Congress their numbers together with Nicholson's group were still not enough to defeat the leadership bloc's support.
Some 6,000 members had left the CPGB by the end of 1977 in a membership decline that would accelerate throughout the 1980s. But only a fraction of them, put at around 700, joined the NCP.
The New Communist Party
Sid FrenchSid French
Sid French was a British communist activist and organiser, former Surrey district secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the founding general secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain.-Early years:...
became the first General Secretary of the NCP and Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
became its strongest area. The first national chairman was Joe Parker, a full-time official in the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths (NUSMWC) until he retired in 1982. Joe Parker stepped down as Party Chairman soon after but remained an active NCP member until his death in 2004.
French died in 1979 and was succeeded by Eric Trevett. Trevett retired from full-time Party work in 1995 but remains on the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
of the Central Committee of the NCP as Party President, a post created in that year.
Like the rest of the British communist movement the NCP from the beginning had to deal with what they saw as ultra-leftism and right-wing deviation. All were defeated at congresses over the years and many were expelled for factionalism. In the early 1980s an extreme pro-Soviet faction called "Proletarian" was expelled. In the early 1990s another small group was expelled which later formed the Communist Action Group and "Open Polemic".
The party's 'Vote Labour Everywhere' strategy was changed in 2000 to support Ken Livingstone for London Mayor and this ultimately led to the biggest purge in the party's history. A vote at the central committee with a one-vote majority led to nine expulsions from the party of those opposed to the Livingstone decision for factionalism, and some subsequent resignations, including nine members of the central committee. The North West District was dissolved and altogether around 25 members were either expelled for factionalism or resigned from the party.
One of the NCP's most famous members was the communist historian Ernie Trory (1913–2000) who founded the Crabtree Press whose imprint published his political and historical writings. Three major volumes, Between the Wars, Imperialist War and War of Liberation, all sub-titled Recollections of a Communist Organiser, cover unfolding political events from the Depression to the end of the Second World War.
The General Secretary is Andy Brooks
Andy Brooks
Andy Brooks is the general secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain. He was formerly a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and joined the NCP upon its foundation in 1977. He has been a member of the NCP Central Committee since 1979...
, a founder member of the NCP and a member of the Central Committee since 1979. He had previously been international secretary, editor of the New Worker and deputy general secretary.
The NCP has never stood candidates in general or local elections
Elections in the United Kingdom
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: United Kingdom general elections, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, elections to the European Parliament, local elections and mayoral elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday...
and calls for support for the Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
candidates. This policy was amended in 2000 to permit support for independent Labour candidates with mass support and the NCP backed Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
's successful bid for the London Mayorship
Mayor of London
The Mayor of London is an elected politician who, along with the London Assembly of 25 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Greater London. Conservative Boris Johnson has held the position since 4 May 2008...
.
The NCP is an affiliate of the Labour Representation Committee
Labour Representation Committee (2004)
The Labour Representation Committee is a British socialist pressure group within the Labour Party and wider labour movement. It is often seen as representing the most left wing members of the Labour Party.-Overview:...
(LRC), a grass-roots membership organisation with around a thousand individual members and affiliates that was established in 2004. Five left Labour MPs are members of the LRC and the chair is John McDonnell
John McDonnell (politician)
John Martin McDonnell is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington since 1997; he serves as Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Labour Representation Committee, and the "Public Services Not Private Profit Group"...
MP. The aim of the LRC is to set up socialist groups at every level of the Labour Party to confront "New Labour", oppose the war in Iraq, and resist privatisation and job cuts.
The NCP is also a supporter of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, a rank and file union committee supported by a number of left-leaning trade union leaders.
The NCP is opposed to the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and the Treaty of Rome
Treaty of Rome
The Treaty of Rome, officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, was an international agreement that led to the founding of the European Economic Community on 1 January 1958. It was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany...
and calls on its supporters to boycott the European elections.
The organisational structure of the NCP consists of Fractions
Fraction (politics)
A parliamentary group, parliamentary party, or parliamentary caucus is a group consisting of members of the same political party or electoral fusion of parties in a legislative assembly such as a parliament or a city council. Parliamentary groups correspond to party caucuses and conferences in the...
, Cells, District Committees, Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, and Political Bureau (Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
). The highest body of the party is the National Congress, which determines policy and elects the Central Committee.
It produces a weekly newspaper called The New Worker
The New Worker
The New Worker is the weekly newspaper produced by the New Communist Party of Britain and the first edition came out a few weeks after the NCP was founded in July 1977...
. Content is written either internally, or comes from other sources, particularly organs of fraternal parties. It no longer has a theoretical journal, having ended publication of the New Communist Review in the mid-1990s following the death of its editor George Woolley. In the 1980s and early 1990s the NCP also published an Industrial Bulletin, Irish Bulletin and Economic Bulletin. It produces Internal Bulletin for members and supporters, as well as various pamphlets on different subjects.
Ideology
The NCP began to internally criticise Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's leadership of the Soviet Union in 1988 and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
the party established relations with communist and workers parties throughout the world. In the 1990s Party Congresses adopted resolutions repudiating and denouncing Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's anti-Stalin 20th Congress speech and defining its ideology around the "great revolutionary teachers of humanity, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin" and the "great revolutionary leaders of the struggling masses, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh".
In April 1992 the New Communist Party was one of the initial signatories of the Pyongyang Declaration
Pyongyang Declaration
Pyongyang Declaration was a declaration signed by communist, workers, socialist and progressive parties, on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Kim Il-Sung in April 1992. It is entitled 'Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism...
, along with 77 other communist, workers, socialist and progressive parties worldwide. Entitled Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism, the declaration was the first statement made by the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and to date has been signed by around 250 parties.
In 2003 the NCP adopted an entirely new rule book, with the aim of building a monolithic party and based on the principles laid down by the old Communist International.
The party is politically closest to what it sees as anti-revisionist
Anti-Revisionist
In the Marxist–Leninist movement, anti-revisionism refers to a doctrine which upholds the line of theory and practice associated with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, and usually either Mao Zedong or Enver Hoxha as well...
Communist Parties who would see the Soviet leadership from Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
onwards as stepping away from socialism. Internationally it supports Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The NCP regularly attends the international conferences organised by the Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of Greece
Founded in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party on the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(KKE), and May Day events organised by the Workers Party of Belgium
Workers Party of Belgium
The Workers' Party of Belgium is a Marxist political party in Belgium. It is one of the few parties that operates as a single Belgian party...
(PTB/PvdA).
In the UK, the NCP has very close relations with the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain is a British communist political party. It was originally named the Communist Party of England , until it was reorganised after rejecting Maoism. The party's thinking is based on the politics of Hardial Bains, who died in 1997...
, despite having major programmatic differences on the question of the Labour Party.
The NCP is also involved in the anti-war movement, and supports the Stop the War Coalition
Stop the War Coalition
The Stop the War Coalition is a United Kingdom group set up on 21 September 2001 that campaigns against what it believes are unjust wars....
demonstrations.
See also
- List of Communist Parties
- List of political parties in the United Kingdom
- List of participants at International Conference of Communist & Workers' Parties 1998-2005
Articles
- The Case for Communism - NCPB
- On the 121st anniversary of Stalin's birth by Andy Brooks
- Arab National Liberation and the communist movement by Andy Brooks
- Oliver Cromwell and the Good Old Cause by Andy Brooks
- 30 Fighting Years of the New Communist Party of Britain
- Statement of the NCPB and the RCPB (ML) on Zimbabwe
- International Socialism, September 1977 "The Crisis in the British Communist Party"
- Radio Free Europe 1 December 1965, "THE BRITISH COMMUNIST CONGRESS"
- Radio Free Europe 17 November 1971, "PRO-SOVIET REBELS HEAVILY DEFEATED AT BRITISH CP CONGRESS"
- GRAHAM STEVENSON "The YCL 1966-1980 - anatomy of decline"
- Christian Science Monitor "British Far Left grapples with Soviet Collapse"
- Statement of the NCPB and the RCPB(ML) on Libya