MIA > Archive > J.T. Murphy
From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 53 [31], 26 July 1923, pp. 554–556.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2022). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
It is impossible to do more than report the essentials of this conference at this stage and to comment on a few of its features.
The only storm scene of the Conference was provided by the re-appearance of the question of Communist Party affiliation and the retention of the Edinburgh resolutions passed at the previous Conference to make it impossible for the Communists to penetrate the ranks of the Labor Party even as trades Union delegates.
Apart from the struggle on these issues the conference registered a sweeping movement towards the “right”. From the moment Mr. Webb propounded in his opening speech the theory of gradual growth through capitalism to socialism via the Fabian route, to the cheap sneers of Mr. Macdonald in the closing stages of the Congress against the resolutions of protest concerning the treatment of subject races within the British Empire, the Conference was subject to the leaders’ overbearing consciousness of their prospects as a Labor Government. They declared “We are on the threshold of power”. Entranced by the vision they proceeded to eliminate and decry everything which might be deemed a working class measure or a direct challenge to capitalism. These things they managed adroitly by selecting men to move resolutions the very essence of which was a flat contradiction to everything with which they had been associated. Lansbury, known everywhere as associated with Republicanism, was quickly called on to queer the pitch for anyone who might be led to believe that labor would interfere with the monarchy. Bob Williams was called on to lamely defend the gross neglect of the Party on the question of the Rand murders. And so they trimmed their sails towards the spoils of office, shedding every semblance of proletarian loyalty that they possibly could.
Thus the official lead swept onward to all outward appearances triumphant. But the struggle on the issue of the position of Communists and the Communist Party in relation to the Labor Party, compelled other modifications which I will indicate before dealing with the Communist question.
Last year at Edinburgh the Labor Party flashed a resolution through in support of the Social Revolutionaries in Russia. Although another was included in the Executive Report this year, it was never mentioned. Nor did Mr. Macdonald venture to tread even ever so lightly upon the claims of Georgia, although again a resolution was down for reference. Nor did Mr. Henderson dare to make the same references to “Religious persecution in Russia” that he made at Hamburg. This silence is as significant as the tongue in cheek resolutions on the monarchy, the Rand and the Subject Races of the Empire. It means that there was a stronger element at the conference prepared to challenge them than what they wished to be publicly known. It means that the figures so widely broadcasted concerning Communist defeat are not true indications of Communist strength or influence either in the Conference or outside. This I will proceed to show.
The card vote figures on the affiliation of the Communist Party were 366,000 in favour, 2,880,000 against. On the face of these figures which, let it be noticed, are characteristic of almost all votes cast on any anti-official resolution, the Communist Party has increased its vote by about 100,000 since the Edinburgh Conference. Now let us analyse the votes a little. There are two kinds in a Labor Conference, one the vote of local Labor Parties and Trades Councils, the other the bloc vote of the unions. It is the latter which counts heavily. For example Mr. Hodges casts on behalf of the Miners nearly 1,000,000 votes, Mr. Cramp, on behalf of the National Union of Railwaymen casts between 300,000 and 400,000 votes. All the Unions meet separately before the Conference and decide how their votes are going to be placed. On this question the Miners’ voted 66 against affiliation and 50 for affiliation, but all the votes went against. In the N.U.R., through the absence of one delegate, all the votes went against the Communist Party as was proven when the conference decided on the question of granting the Labor Whip to Newbold. Then the voting of the Railwaymen was 3 to 3 and so in the conference the Railway men did not vote at all on that question. These incidents relating to the biggest unions show how unrepresentative is the published card vote. Last year the Communist Party had only seven members present, this year 30. In addition to the scores of union branches sending resolutions in support of Communist Party affiliation it has to be recorded that two unions were giving national support, viz., the Distributive workers with nearly 100,000 votes to cast and the Clothing Workers with nearly 50,000 votes. Both were absent through disputes. In addition, 48 local Labor Parties and Trades Councils, many of which are of great importance to the Labor Party, were pledged to support Communist Party affiliation.
If other evidence is required to demonstrate the growth of the influence of the Communist Party and the reason for the leaders putting the soft pedal on their criticism of the Workers’ Republic, the withdrawal of Clause (b) of the Edinburgh Resolutions should suffice. It is this clause which was used to exclude the Communist as representatives of the Unions from the Labor Party Conferences, local and national.
It was obvious that 36 delegates would take more throwing out than 7. It was equally clear that such an action would be in flat contradiction to a large body of opinion in the Labor Party. But it was also known that in the event of any attempt to exclude them from the Conference there would be a revolt among the unions. The Labor Party Executive in their keenness to destroy the Communists had interfered with the right of the unions to elect their own delegates according to their own constitution. On the night before the opening of the Conference the Labor Party Executive sent round to the Union Conferences an intimation to the effect that the E.C. would put forward a resolution to withdraw Clause (b) of the Edinburgh amendments to the Constitution. In the Conference the following day Bromley of the Locomotive Engineers and Firemen intimated that if any of his union members had to leave because they were Communists, he would have to withdraw the whole delegation of his union. Brownlie of the Engineers was placed in the same position. The Communists stayed and have accordingly won a considerable victory.
After the question of Communist affiliation had been decided, the Conference rejected, by 2,227,000 to 219,000 votes, a motion to extend the Labor Whip to Newbold in Parliament. Next came the discussions arising out of the Executive Report and the Chairman’s address. The latter was in marked contradistinction to the former, which embodied the report of the Hamburg Conference. The first clause of the new Cockney International declares for the class struggle. Succeeding statements approved of extra-Parliamentary action via the Rome resolution. The report came home to roost. The committals of the Labour Party at Hamburg were totally forgotten, whilst the Hamburg Conference and its confusion were entirely omitted from the leading speech of the Conference. It was a thoroughgoing British Constitutional Fabian Speech: in short, Mr. Webb’s speech, and in flat contradiction – to the retiring Chairman’s speech at last year’s conference. On that occasion Mr. Jowett declared:
“The old order in industry and commerce can only be re-established if the worker will consent to lower his standard of living to have sufficient balance to pay the colossal sums of interest on war debt, watered capital, fabricated bankers’ credits and inflated rents. It is no use now expecting to remove this massed collection of evil imposition by gradual ameliorative reform. We can make little impression on it that way in the lifetime of a generation. Besides, it is like mowing ripe thistles. As you cut down this year’s crop, you scatter the seeds of the next.
“It is the new social order we want. Nothing else will prevent tie degradation of labour now. But the Government and all the other forces at the disposal of capitalist ascendancy, including the Press, insist on maintaining the old order. Hostile legislation, and the sequestration of public funds to pay the debt charges make our work on public bodies increasingly difficult.”
Thus Mr. Jowett in 1922. And now Mr. Webb in 1923:
“For the Labour party, it must be plain, Socialism is rooted in political democracy; which necessarily compels us to recognise that every step towards our goal is dependent on gaining the assent and support of at least a numerical majority of the whole people. Thus, even if we aimed at revolutionising everything at once, we should be compelled to make each particular change only at the time, and to the extent, and in the manner in which ten or fifteen million electors could be brought to consent to it. How anyone can fear that the British electorate, whatever mistakes it may make or may condone, can ever go too fast or too far is incomprehensible to me. that, indeed, is the supremely valuable safeguard of any effective democracy.
“But the Labour party, when in due course it conies to be entrusted with power, will naturally not even want to do everything at once. Surely, it must be abundantly manifest to any instructed person that, whilst it would lie easy to draft proclamations of universal change, or even enact laws in a single sitting purporting io give a new heaven and a new earth, the result, the next morning, would be no change at all, unless, indeed, the advent of widespread confusion. Once we face the necessity of putting our principles first into bills, to be fought through Committee clause by clause; and then into the appropriate administrative machinery for carrying them into execution from one end of the kingdom to the other – and this is what the Labour party has done with its Socialism – the inevitability of gradualness cannot fail to be appreciated.”
After this the conference came back to the report with sharp challenges from the Communists re Russian and Ruhr Policy.
Mr. J.R. Clynes was severely castigated for his cowardly attack on Russia in the Financial Times during the Anglo-Russian crisis. But Mr. Webb refused to go into the matter when the article was produced. Then Comrade Pollitt weighed in on the Ruhr question as follows:
“I wish to refer back the pages dealing with the attitude of the International towards the Ruhr, and that it be taken as a vote of censure on the Executive Committee.
“The German workers are fighting between two enemies, German Fascism and French Imperialism. We should not betray them but help them. Let this Conference compel the Executive to participate in great international demonstrations.
“Everywhere the Labor Party must organize mass demonstrations at home and rouse the masses to action, to get the British troops withdrawn. It must work for an international general strike as a means of helping the German workers to win their struggle.”
The Conference next passed a composite resolution on foreign policy. This dealt with the new International, the Ruhr, Reparations and Peace, and Russia. When one compares it with the Hamburg Conference resolutions, it is seen how much was withdrawn under the fire of criticism from the Communists.
Then a pious resolution was passed in protest against the increase of British air forces and a declaration was made therein that this increase was a preparation for new wars. But the Conference gave not a single moment to the preparation of the workers for action against war.
The debate on disarmament resolutions and the treatment of subject races within the British Empire reveals Imperialism and social patriotism absolutely rampant. Comrade Longstaff, a Labor Party representative from Barrow, moved a resolution of protest against the treatment of subject races. Comrade Tanner, seconding the resolution, said:
“Why does British Imperialism oppress native races. Because their subjection is necessary to the dominance of British Finance Capital. If our pious horror means anything, it means that Labor must stand for the complete independence of all subject peoples.”
Ramsay MacDonald got up to reply, sweating piety and indignation. His indignation was due to the fact that Barrow is not represented by a Labor Member of Parliament! Longstaff retorted that they had already had a Labor representative, and because he had not fought for the workers he had lost the seat. MacDonald collapsed.
On disarmament two resolutions were moved. One called upon the Government to convene an international disarmament conference. This was passed. The other called on the Labor Party in Parliament to vote against all military estimates. It should be remembered that on the recent debate on Naval Estimates in the House of Commons, the Parliamentary Labor Party came to an arrangement to regard Naval Estimates as non-controversial. This was done to facilitate Labor MPs absence for May 1st Labor Demonstrations.
The motion to oppose Military Estimates was defeated. The Labor Party is therefore free to vote war credits in defence of the Empire.
A variety of minor parliamentary domestic questions were afterwards machined through the Conference.
As if to throw into sharp relief the remoteness of the leaders from the actual every day struggle of the masses, the Conference had hardly closed when a spontaneous dock strike spread from port to port.
The Railwaymen were in national Conference faced with demands for reductions. The Boilermakers had been locked out for more than 2 months. The Miners had been let down by the Government, their national Conference was at hand and not a single proposal had been put forward to help the masses to fight together. Dazzled by the vision of a Parliamentary majority the workers were thought of only in relation to votes.
Thus the British Imperial Labor Party winked at its Cockney International, bowed low to the Empire, shook hands with the middle class and turned deaf ears to the cry of the workers.
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