MIA > Archive > J.T. Walton Newbold
From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 28, 22 March 1923, p. 225.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2021). 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.
Comrade Newbold of the English C.P. described the situation in Great Britain: there is no probability of an effective intervention on the part of the masses of British workers at the present juncture. After two years of unprecedented unemployment, there are still 400,000 registered unemployed. The trade unions are weakened, and the employers utilize every strike for the purpose of drawing cheap labor from the army of unemployed. This, of course, is no excuse for the hypocritical tactics of trade union leaders of the description of Frank Hodges, who do not think at all of revolutionary action conjointly with the workers of other countries.
The old Conservative Party, accustomed to rule, and infernally cunning, has brought about the union between England and America, under Bonar Law’s leadership. France, on the other hand, is comparatively isolated. So long as capitalist society continues to exist, British imperialism will never renounce its ambition of world domination, it merely waits for its chance. The British workers are dissatisfied. Their class consciousness is awakening. For the first time in history millions of votes were cast for the Labor Party. But this signifies no more than the millions of voles for German social democracy in 1914. British imperialism is declining. But at the present time the great mass of British workers still think imperialistically; they consider themselves members of a ruling class, and for this reason we cannot promise anything for the CP of England which we are not in a position to fulfil.
Last updated on 10 August 2021