Meeting with Harry Pollitt on British CP Tactics
Meeting Between Comrades Stalin and H. Pollitt, 31 May 1950
Meeting Between Comrades Stalin and H. Pollitt
31st May 1950
Present: Com. Malenkov and Pavlov (Interpreter).
Pollitt
says that he had had for the first time met Comrade Stalin
29 years ago, when Comrade Stalin
had expressed his wish to meet the future Secretary of the English Communist Party.
Comrade Stalin
answers that he remembers this and asks Pollitt what questions he has.
Pollitt
says that his questions of interest regarding tactics of the English Communists in the coming elections to Parliament have been sent in detail in his letter addressed to the CC AUCP (b).
Comrade Stalin
says
that he has received the letter of Pollitt. He, Comrade Stalin, considers the position of Pollitt concerning the tactics of the English Communists for the coming elections to Parliament as correct. It is necessary, says Comrade Stalin, in so far as possible not to permit a victory of the Conservatives. Certainly the Labour Party is better, though only a little bit better than the Conservatives. However, one should consider that the working class of England considers a Labour government as their government.
Comrade Stalin
asks whether the elections have taken place in
Dumbarton and whether the Communists had put up any candidate in the elections.
Pollitt
answers that the by-elections in Dumbarton have already taken place. The Communist Party did not put forward its candidates in these elections so that there may not be any division of votes that would have permitted the Conservative candidate to get through. The Labourites won the election in Dumbarton.
Comrade Stalin
asks would there have been re- elections in case the
candidate had received equal votes?
Pollitt
answers that re-elections are held in case the candidate elected in the main elections had died. The majority system of elections in England, observes Pollitt is extremely unfavourable for English Communists. The rightist parties in France are at the moment conducting a struggle for the introduction of a similar system in France.
Comrade Stalin
says
that within the English working class there are taking place certain processes that are seen but which are unnoticeable from the outside, that explain the fact that the Conservatives managed to amass such a large quantity of votes in the last elections.
To illustrate the processes taking place in the English electorate that are not observable for an outside observer, he, Comrade Stalin, could cite the fact that the results of the elections in 1945 in England were unexpected for Churchill and Eden as well as for Attlee and Bevin. Labourites as well as Conservatives have an apparatus, informing the leadership of the party about the mood of the electors. In 1945 Churchill was confident of his victory in the elections, and Attlee did not expect the victory of the Labourites. The information providing apparatus let them down. Apparently in 1945 in the mood of the electors there took place some hidden internal processes, as a result of which the Labourites unexpectedly emerged victorious. And at the present time too something is happening to the mood of the British working class.
Pollitt
answers, that in 1945 nobody expected the victory of the Labourites because every worker out of millions of English workers who had lived through the hard years of depression, when the Conservatives were in power, took a decision for themselves that they shall not permit the Conservatives to come to power.
Comrade Stalin
comments, that neither the leaders of the
Labourites nor the Conservatives could understand this.
Pollitt
answers that this happened because the leaders did not continue with the contacts with the masses of the English people. As also, during the war years the working people of England openly talked among themselves in bomb-shelters and in the Metro, where they used to take shelter from bombings that they shall never again permit the Conservatives to come to power.
Comrade Stalin
asks – how would Pollitt characterise the mood of the English working class.
Pollitt
answers, that the mood of the English working class could be characterised, firstly, a fear of the onslaught of unemployment in England, secondly, fear of war. Such mood is especially widespread among those workers who have not experienced the massive unemployment during the pre-war years.
Comrade Stalin
asks – why did the Conservatives get such a large number of votes?
Pollitt
answers that the number of votes cast for the Labourites on the last elections in industrial regions of England has grown significantly and on the whole as a party the Labourites got unprecedentedly more votes in the history of England.
Comrade Stalin
observes that none the less the Conservatives also got a large number of votes.
Pollitt
answers that Labour party got a record number of votes in the last elections. In 1945 the Labourites attracted the middle classes to their side. In 1950 the Labourites lost the support of the middle classes who were not happy with the taxes, rationing of benzene and other steps of the Labour government that hurt the interests of the small shopkeepers. However, the miners, ship-builders, workers in the heavy machine building industry, textile workers, metallurgists, they all together voted for the Labourites. All these sectors of the working class had experienced the years of depression during pre-war days when the Conservatives were in power. Now they think that the Labour government shall save them from the onslaught of a new depression. Similarly, this fact also requires attention that England has millions of voters who are between 25 and 35 years of age. These voters have never known unemployment, have not experienced on their own skin the effects of lock-outs and have not participated in the demonstrations of the unemployed. Their salaries today are higher than ever earlier. To the same one may add that factually at the moment there is no unemployment in England.
Comrade Stalin
again asks if at present there is no unemployment in England.
Pollitt
answers that the general quantity of unemployed in England at the moment consists of 350 thousand, while the unemployed in the main are the old people. The concentration of unemployed has the following distribution: Liverpool – 40 thousand; South Wells – 35 thousand; Scotland – 50 thousand; all these in the main are old people.
Pollitt says that the English workers obsessed by the danger of Conservatives coming to power, do not vote for the Communists as they do not want a division of votes of those candidates who are inclined against the Conservatives. English workers think that there is no sense in voting for the English Communists as the English Communists have no chance of coming to power.
Comrade Stalin
says, in any case in the mood of the electorate
certain changes are taking place that favour Conservatives.
Pollitt
answers, that taking recourse to all sorts of
demagogy the Conservatives have organised a strong youth movement.
Comrade Stalin
says
that certain sections of the English electors have been disillusioned from the Labourites. It is not just chance that the Conservatives got such large number of votes in the last elections.
Pollitt
answers that the middle classes have left the Labourites which the Conservatives captured to their side by promising change in a number of limitations including the rationing of benzene. Conservatives were also succeeded in gathering to their side a large number of votes by playing on the mood for peace among the people. As is well known, during the election campaign Churchill made the announcement that in case of the Conservatives being elected he will personally talk to the Soviet leaders. This trick of Churchill put the Labourites in confusion. Bevin very messily replied to this speech of Churchill.
Pollitt
said that some workers were influenced by the announcement of the Conservatives that with a more close relationship with the Americans, which they could support after coming to power, the English working class shall be guaranteed against unemployment.
Comrade Stalin
says
that such a strong union with the Americans, as that of the Labourites, the Conservatives never had. The Labourites are simply subservient to the Americans.
Pollitt
says that this is completely true. However, the Conservatives had announced during the last elections that they, if they come to power, would support the union with the Americans on conditions that are less harsh for England. Some electors believed the Conservatives as they thought that Churchill shall not so easily submit to the Americans.
Comrade Stalin
asked has the CP of England got its own Programme calculated for a long period.
Pollitt
answers that the CP of England has no such Programme.
Comrade Stalin
says
he would like to know how the English Communists would counter the Labourite plan of nationalisation of industry and the establishment of socialist society. It is important to give direction and an ideal to the English masses. The Labourites are giving a direction to the English masses.
Pollitt
answers that the Party Line is given in the brochure entitled ‘ British Road
to Socialism
’. Labourites have their Programme titled ‘
Labourites Believe in England’
and the Conservatives have titled their published Programme as ‘ The
Correct Path for Britain’.
Pollitt says that in their Programme the English Communists have put forward demands: pay enhancement, betterment of residential conditions, trade with the Soviet Union and with the countries of Peoples’ Democracies, and also demands nationalisation of all important branches of English industry under conditions that the representatives of the English working class should manage these.
Comrade Stalin
asks
how do the English Communists counter the Labourite plan of nationalisation. As much as we know, says Comrade Stalin, in branches of industry that have been nationalised by the Labourites, the capitalists have remained in their posts, their profits are rising, but the pay of the workers remains frozen. Do the English Communists criticise this situation?
Pollitt
answers that the English Communists do criticise the Labourites for this, considering the struggle against freezing of pay as their major line of struggle.
Comrade Stalin
states
that as he thinks, the Communist Party of England takes a very soft and completely unprincipled position in the struggle against the Labour Party. The English Communists should have told the Labourites that they, the Labourites, are not at all Socialist but the left wing of the Conservative Party. This is not done. This needs to be openly pronounced. English Communists must state that under the Labour government the capitalists feel very fine, that their profits grow. This one fact speaks out that the Labourites are building no socialism.
In England the workers want that they be involved in the management of the nationalised branches of industries. It appears that in the nationalised industries in England the capitalists continue to direct the economy and get huge profits. This situation is incomprehensible for the Soviet people who under nationalisation understand that if any branch of industry is nationalised, the capitalists are removed from there and it is managed only by the representatives of the working class. Soviet people cannot visualise any other nationalisation. In England, the capitalists continue to manage it and as a consequence, their profits grow.
Comrade Stalin
further
states that, in the elections the defeat of the Labour Party should certainly not be permitted, but one should criticise the Labour Party from the principles of socialism. Such criticism impresses the workers as the workers see that nationalisation brought about by the Labourites does not give them, the workers, any benefits and, on the contrary, secures for the capitalists all sorts of profits. It does not happen that the profits of capitalists grow and at the same time the conditions of the working class also improve. If the profits grow then the condition of the workers does not improve but goes down. This is how we, the Soviet people, understand this and the British workers shall also understand such agitation.
Comrade Stalin
says
that without a Programme meant for a long period of time, the Party cannot grow, develop and increase the number of its supporters among the working class.
English Communists are accused in England that
they have put before themselves the aim of establishing Soviet power in England. The English Communists must respond to this in their Programme that they do not want to weaken the Parliament, that England shall reach socialism through its own path and not through the path traversed by Soviet power but through a democratic republic that shall be guided not by capitalists but by representatives of peoples’ power i.e. a coalition of workers, working intelligentsia, lower classes of the cities as well as farmers. Communists must declare that this power shall act through the Parliament.
Comrade Stalin
continued
to say that the Communists in Anglo-Saxon countries are inclined to concentrate their forces on current everyday tasks of purely practical character and not looking far ahead. This shortsightedness of narrow practicality has led to the Communist parties in Anglo-Saxon countries being weak. The Communist Party of England should provide to the English people a perspective of a long term development of England and her future.
Comrade Stalin
continued to state
that it should be pointed out in the Programme that only a coalition of the working class, working intelligentsia, lower strata of the cities and of farmers can guarantee to the English people peace, increase in salaries and the supply of raw material for English industries and markets for English goods. If the English Communists give this perspective to the English people and shall propagate their programme without demagogy then the best among the working class shall return from the Labourites to the side of the Communists.
Comrade Stalin
said
that the talk should be of a Peoples’ Democratic path for the movement of England to Socialism and not of the Soviet path but of that path on which the countries of Peoples’ Democracy are moving towards socialism.
Pollitt
said that English Communist Party has no such programme that could open before the English people the perspective for the future of Britain.
Comrade Stalin
said
that among the workers there are thinking people who would like to listen to the British Communist Party regarding where the CP of England wants to take England. If the English Communists prepare such a programme opening a perspective of development of England to Socialism then such a programme shall be understood and supported by the English working class.
Comrade Stalin
continued to
state that such is our opinion about the working of the CP of England and that he, Comrade Stalin, has expressed it as a matter of advice. It is the job of the English Communist party to decide how to proceed further. If Pollitt could postpone his departure so that the main points of the programme could be put on paper, then he, Comrade Stalin, and other leading comrades from the CC AUCP (b) could see the document prepared by Pollitt and would be able to give advice.
Pollitt
announces that he is fully in agreement with what Comrade Stalin has
said about the Programme. However he, Pollitt, thinks it to be imperative that such a document is collectively prepared in England together with other comrades from the English Communist Party, in particular, as he desired, together with Dutt.
Comrade Stalin
said that this certainly was good. However, he, Comrade Stalin does
not propose that Pollitt prepare the draft of the Programme immediately. It would be desirable if Pollitt could put in writing the major formulations of the programme so that one could be convinced that he, Comrade Stalin, and Pollitt properly understood each other.
Comrade Stalin
said
that in their programme the Communists of England should also respond to the accusations that they are trying to destroy Britain. Communists must make it clear that it is not they but the Conservatives and Labourites who are destroying Britain. He, Comrade Stalin, is convinced that the British Communists not only should not destroy Britain but must strengthen it on its own basis, putting to an end the present abnormal mutual relations between peoples that are now under the British Empire. We, continued Comrade Stalin, also had colonies in the East and South of Russia. However, we established a new relationship; a relationship of friendship with the erstwhile colonial people of Russia and today, not one of the earlier Russian colonies wants to exit from the Soviet Union.
Comrade Stalin
continued to say that the English Communists are shying away from these questions. However, these must be answered.
Comrade Stalin
asks as to what are the left Labourites like Platts-Mills, Pritt and others.
Pollitt
answers that Platts-Mills, Pritt, Hutchinson and Solly are people who vote for the Communists. They try to join the Communist Party but he, Pollitt, restrains them from doing so. Desirous to similarly join the Communist Party is the well known physicist Professor Bernal who is conducting very big and very useful work for the struggle for peace in Britain. He, Pollitt, has also not recommended Bernal to join Communist Party.
Comrade Stalin
asks as to why Pollitt does this?
Pollitt
answers that enlisting such persons who command high influence in such strata of the people which the Communist Party is not in a position to influence. If Bernal, Pritt and others join the CP then they as members of the CP may lose their influence.
Comrade Stalin
says
that for such persons the English CP could establish an institution of sympathisers. Among the sympathisers there could be persons who do not fully agree with the Programme of the CP but sympathise with it as a whole. The institution of sympathisers could also act as verification of those who want to join the Party as its members. We have, continued Comrade Stalin, an institution for the Candidate members of the Party. We sometimes verify the candidates over a period of ten years before accepting them as members of the Party. Candidates and sympathisers are not so linked as members of the Party. This is why he, Comrade Stalin, would recommend introducing the institution of sympathisers.
Comrade Stalin
asks as to what position the English Communists have in the Trade Unions and in the Cooperative movement.
Pollitt
answers that the Communists have some position in the cooperative movement but this is not significant as the cooperative organisations as a norm do not permit election of Communists in leading positions. In the Trade Unions the English Communists have, and continue to hold, a sufficiently wide field of activities.
Comrade Stalin
asks if the Cooperative Party puts forward its candidates in the Parliament elections.
Pollitt
answers that the Cooperative Party puts forward its candidates in elections in agreement with the Labour Party.
Comrade Stalin
comments that in this manner the Cooperative Party in fact is a branch of the Labour Party.
Pollitt
supports this comment.
Comrade Stalin
says
that it is imperative to break this link between the Cooperative and the Labour Parties so that the Cooperative Party became more independent and more objective.
Comrade Stalin
says
that there are indications that the system of rationing on some categories of goods in England causes harm to the workers. During the war there was such a system of rationing in the Soviet Union. The prices of some so rationed goods in the Soviet Union were lower and the people liked it. However, the norms of the supply of goods were never high. This is why the workers were compelled to buy supplementary supplies from the free market where the price of the products were a number of times higher than in the chain of state trading. When the workers calculated their budget, they were convinced that the rationing system was very harmful for him. The state then changed the system of rationing but without limiting the supply of products. After this the state started to reduce the price of various products and at present the worker may buy any amount of products on reasonable price.
Comrade Stalin
asks
if the English worker is not compelled to buy supplementary products from the free market as the distribution of products as per norms is not sufficient as the British norms of distribution of such products as meat and butter are quite low.
Pollitt
answers on the whole the English worker does not buy his products from the free market as for him and his family the products supplied as per norm are sufficient though the norms for such products as meat and butter in fact are extremely low. The matter, however, is that the price of rationed commodities go on continuously rising. This is especially so after devaluation. The prices of those commodities are sharply rising whose distribution is no longer covered by rationing. For example till the month of May this year when oranges were given on cards, the price of oranges was 8 pence per pound. In the beginning of May rationing of oranges was abolished and its price increased three times. Sometimes back the government changed rationing on confectionery and sugar. This led to the situation that in shops the prices of confectionery and sugar increased.
In the beginning of May
similarly the government withdrew the rationing on fish and as a result the price of fish sharply increased. The house-wives organised a boycott of the fish vendors and did not buy fish from them at such prices. After three days after the announcement of the boycott the shopkeepers were compelled to reduce the price of fish.
Pollitt said that in the light of the facts stated by him the rationing system in Britain is not unpopular.
Comrade Stalin
commented that the rationing system is not a healthy step.
Pollitt
said that he considers the rationing system as a type of game of dice in itself that the Labour government is playing.
Comrade Stalin
said that he has no more questions to ask Pollitt.
Pollitt
asks if he has correctly understood that Comrade Stalin approves
of the tactics of the English Party for the coming elections as he, Pollitt, put it in his note addressed to the CC A-UCP (b) as he, Pollitt, expects the elections to the Parliament to be held in September.
Comrade Stalin
answers that he considers the tactics, put forward by Pollitt in the note as correct.
Pollitt
says that unfortunately he has not kept a copy of his note for himself.
Comrade Stalin
promises to give copy of the letter of Pollitt to him.
Pollitt
asks if it will be proper for the CP to give first place to the struggle for peace in its election campaign.
Comrade Stalin
answers
that it will be proper in so far as the discussion is about foreign policy. Besides this, in the field of internal affairs they should speak out for the improvement in the living conditions of the working class.
Pollitt
thanks Comrade Stalin
for
the discussion and for the good advice that he gave. He, Pollitt, is fully in agreement with what was said by Comrade Stalin
about
the Programme. The draft of such Programme he, Pollitt, shall certainly prepare though he thinks that it would be better if it is done in England. After a month he, Pollitt, shall send the draft of the Programme to Moscow.
Comrade Stalin
answers that this could be done.
While taking leave of Comrade Stalin, Pollitt said he is confident that the English workers desire that he, Pollitt, say to Comrade Stalin: Big thanks to you Comrade Stalin for all that you have done for finishing the Second World War, for victory in the Second World War and all that you are doing at the present moment for the preservation of peace.
Comrade Stalin
said that it would be good if the English people supported the efforts of the Soviet government for the protection of peace.
Pollitt
says that he will do everything that he can to this end.
The discussion continued for one hour and twenty minutes.
Noted by (Signed) V. Pavlov
RGASPI, Fond 558, Opis 11, Delo 287, Listy 41-56.