Full text of "Communist policy for Britain : report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party"

See other formats

Communist

Policy

for Britain

REPORT

of the

iBth National Congress

HX of

Communist Party

W9 November, I94S

NO. 132

One Shilling

Chairman’s Address .. .. 1

Communist Policy for Britain:
Political Report, by H.

Pollitt .3

Reply to Debate, by H.

Pollitt .. .. ..29

Standing Orders Committee

Statement.36

Fraternal Delegates .. .. 36

Greetings to Congress .. 36
Roll of Honour .. .. 37

Executive Committee’s Report
to Congress .. .. .. 42

Credentials Report .. .. 42

The Executive Committee .. 43
Method of Election of

Executive Committee .. 43

Statutory Dates for

Congresses .. .. .. 43

Appeals Committee .. .. 43

Auditors .43

Financial Statement .. .. 44

Closing Speech to Congress,
by H. Pollitt .. ..45

Executive Committee

Resolutions:

Political Resolution .. 48

Transition, etc.51

Marxist Education .. .. 55

Party Organisation.. .. 59

Demobilisation . . .. 62

PAGE

Housing

Affiliation

Agriculture ..

A National Plan ..

Shipping and Ports

The B.B.C.

Atomic Energy

Education

The Daily Worker ..

Party Speakers

and

Literature..

India

Colonies

Indonesia

The Jewish Question

and

Palestine ..

Youth

Coal Production

Old Age Pensions ..

Local Government..

Wales

Scotland

Spain

Cultured Activities..

The Means Test ..

The Potteries Industry

Nurseries

Members in Forces

Amendments to Rules

Resolutions Referred fo

New

Executive Committee

r UiilVERSITY OF

Jondon, W.C.2, and

printed by Farleigh Press Ltd. (T.U.), Beechwood Works, Beechwood Rise,
Watford, Herts. CP/L/58/11/45.

CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS

By WILLIAM GALLAGHER, M.P.

Our Party occupies a very responsible position, not only in
relation to the Labour movement in this country, but to the
progressive forces throughout Europe and the world. Here at
this Congress we have representatives from many lands, where
our brother Parties in association with the progressive forces, are
battling hard and bravely, as they did in the days of the
liberation movements, to rebuild their countries from the ruin
and desolation of war. They look to this country for sympathy
and support. They must not look in vain.

At the General Election, our people, moving in a mighty
wave, swept the reactionary representatives of the landlords and
monopoly capitalists—the Tory Party—^out of power. They
returned for the first time a majority Labour Government.
They wanted, and they still want, peace, reconstruction in
Europe, and big fundamental changes in the economic system
of this country. If the Labour Government carries out the
mandate of the people, the Tory Party and all it represents is
finished for good.

The main responsibility for seeing that this mandate is
effectively operated will lie with our Party. We have got to
carry on continuous campaigns in the Labour movement, in the
trade unions, throughout the Co-operatives, in the factories,
everywhere throughout the country, in order to build up the
greatest measure of unity of all working-class and progressive
forces around the Labour Government. This is the one sure
way of strengthening the forces in Parliament for carrying out
the policy the people desire. It would be a calamity for the
working-class movement if the Labour Government failed to
do its job. We must see that it does not fail. We must
spare no effort to ensure a victory following the Election
commensurate wilh the Election victory, itself. ' ’ |

This is the job" that can be done by our Party, an(^‘by our
Party alone. The Labour rndvement is not b®ffefor,|.has not
got the machinery that can make great campaigns^ Opr Party
is built for that %^urpbse^' to ‘arouse ’ the rnasses anH'^giwe them

Chairman’!
Communis
Political
PoUitt
Reply t
Pollitt
Standing
Statemei
Fraternal
Greetings
Roll of 1
Executive
to Coni
Credential:
The Execi
M e t h o
Executi\
Statute
Congres
Appeals (
Auditors

and

Financial

.. 76

Closing S

.. 77

by H. Pollitt

.. 45

V.^UUUICU rtuiiviiica . .

.. 78

Executive Comm:

i 11 e e

The Means Test ..

.. 78

Resolutions:

The Potteries Industry

.. 78

Political Resolution

.. 48

Nurseries

.. 79

Transition, etc.

.. 51

Members in Forces

.. 79

Marxist Education ..

.. 55

Amendments to Rules

.. 79

Party Organisation..

.. 59

Resolutions Referred fo

New

Demobilisation

.. 62

Executive Committee

.. 80

68
68
69

)

1 UNIVERSITY OF ALbtrtfA j

|ondon, W.C.2, and

printed by Farleigh Press Ltd. (T.U.), Beechwood Works, Beechwood Rise,
Watford, Herts. CP/L/58/11/45.

CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS

By WILLIAM GALLAGHER, M.P.

This is the job; that can be dowe by our Party, anc^^by our
Party alone. The Labour movement is* riot bifeSt^for,|.has not
got the machinery that can make great campaigns^, O^ir Party
is built for that %^ufpbse, ‘ to arouse' the' niasses ai^'^g^'e them

effective political leadership. We should take note of our
campaigns during the War—-terrific campaigns, in all parts
of the country, with great central demonstrations in all of the
big centres particularly in Trafalgar Square, with deputations
from factories and from housewives to the House of Commons,
with masses of popular literature circulating week after week,
with the Daily Worker hammering home lesson after lesson
day by day—all of these activities were associated with, and to
a considerable extent the cause of, the great swing against
Toryism and for the Labour movement expressed at the General
Election.

Now, with even greater energy we must carry forward our
work, so that the masses, ever conscious, ever active, will
strengthen the resolution of the Labour Party in Parliament, and
thereby drive the Labour Government forward to a policy in
keeping with the needs of the people of this country and the
reconstruction of Europe.

These, with the many other questions that will come up at
this Congress, constitute the work that calls for immediate
attention by our Party. This Congress has a great opportunity.
We are meeting here with representatives from our brother
Parties, drawn from many countries, and we must show to them
that they can rely upon us and through us upon the people of
Britain for assistance in the hard battles that lie before them.

This Congress has a great opportunity of giving a lead to the
Labour movement, to the people of the country as a whole. I
am certain it will rise to the occasion, and will mark a new
stage in the great advance of the people of this country, in
association with the progressive peoples of all countries, towards
the realisation of the age-long dream of Socialism.

COMMUNIST POLICY FOR BRITAIN

POLITICAL REPORT

By HARRY POLLITT

This Congress has a right to celebrate one of the greatest
victories in the long struggle of the working class—the military
victory over fascism, which is also a blow at the most powerful
and reactionary enemies of the working class throughout the
world.

This is why the end of the war has been followed immediately
by renewed attempts on the part of capitalist reaction to preserve
and foster the remnants of fascism and to weaken the alliance
between Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union.

We can see these forces at work in the breakdown of ther
Council of Foreign Ministers, in the attempts to revise the Berlin*
decisions, in the attacks made by the British and American
Governments on the new democratic regimes in Eastern European
in the maintenance of brutal dictatorship in Greece by using the
armed forces of Britain, and above all, in, the attempts of the
British and American Governments to use the atomic bomb as
a weapon in the struggle of the old capitalist world to maintain
power at all costs, in face of the advancing might of the new
world of democracy and Socialism.

Already the old imperialist rivalries are asserting themselves-
in sharper forms. Leading capitalists in the United States—
which emerges from the war indisputably the strongest eeonomic'
power in the capitalist world—have used the ending of,
Lend-Lease as a weapon, against their British trade rivals so that
they may be in a better position to secure their own domination:
in world markets and sweep aside the political restrictions
imposed on them by British imperialism.

Meanwhile, the old British imperialist interests and imperialism
everywhere are being undermined by the rising movements for
colonial independence. They are meeting- that threat, in
alliance with their fellow imperialists in France, Holland and
the United States, with the most open violence and oppression,
particularly against the colonial peoples in Indonesia and
Indo-China.

Against all these forces of reaction, the forces working for
international co-operation and lasting peace have grown stronger.
Today the glorious strength of the Socialist Soviet Union stands
revealed to the whole world. In many European countries new
democratic governments have emerged that will no longer be the
pawns of rival imperialist powers but will become bastions of
social progress and democracy. There has been a tremendous
and splendid awakening of the colonial peoples. In Britain a
Labour Government and a large number of Labour majorities in
local Councils mean that reactionary forces have been turned
out of many of their former strongholds.

The Communist Party and the working class will intensify
their struggle for the unity of Britain, the United States and the
Soviet Union in solving the urgent problems of peace. This
great coalition has overcome the hostility of powerful reactionary
forces in war. If the leadership and unity of the working class
is still further strengthened, this great coalition can overcome all
the existing opposition and be enabled to build a lasting peace,
and secure new forms of international economic co-operation
which will assist in organising full employment.

There is no doubt about the main problems which are going
to demand the unity of the Labour and progressive movement in
Britain: the guarantee of lasting peace; assistance in the speedy
restoration of European economy; the quick demobilisation of
our armed forces; a solution of the urgent coal and housing
crises; the reorganisation of Britain’s key industries; our help to
the Colonial peoples to win their freedom from imperialist
exploitation, and the winning of a better and fuller life for the
working people of Britain.

The existence of a Labour Government provides opportunities
for the working class to make its full contribution to the
successful solution of these problems.

The Communist Party and the Labour Government

We shall be able to define more clearly what the attitude of
the Communist Party to the Labour Government should be, if
we note the important differences which exist now, as compared
to the situation when previous Labour Governments held office
in 1924 and 1929.

First, previous Labour Governments were in a minority in
Parliament. The plea of the minority position was ipresented as
the justification for a policy of complete capitulation to the

capitalists; they were terrified to interfere with Capitalism, even
to the extent of carrying out capitalism’s own declared policy.

The present Labour Government has a clear Parliamentary
majority and it is committed to a definite programme of
important reforms, including a series of measures of nationalisa¬
tion, which, while not yet the achievement of Socialism, will
represent a big step forward for the working class. The
fulfilment of this programme depends above all upon the mass
pressure of the Labour movement, both to defeat the resistance
of reaction, and to overcome the outlook of certain Labour
leaders, who still look to the capitalists and not to the working
class as the leading force in the nation.

Second, it can work in close alliance with the new Europe and,
above all, with the Soviet Union.

The Labour movement wants its Government to be a new
kind of Government, one that has decisively broken with
imperialism. Only so will it be able to win strong and powerful
allies in the Dominions, the new Europe, the U.S.S.R. and in the
freed colonial countries, and retain the unstinted confidence and
support of the working class of Britain. Only so can it
strengthen its relations with the progressive forces in America
and consolidate the lasting unity of the United Nations as a
whole.

The Communist Party will put forward at all times the policy
that it believes should be adopted at every stage of the struggle
against capitalism, and will give its full support also to the
Labour Government when it is fighting for carrying through its
General Election policy.

The Communist Party will never hesitate to criticise firmly and
strongly aspects of Labour Government policy which, either on
home or foreign affairs, are not in the best interests of the
working class and the nation. This criticism will strengthen the
fight against the Tories and all who stand in the way of the
policy the people voted for at the General Election being
operated with the least possible delay.

The fight for the operation of Labour’s policy demands the
strongest activity and organisation inside and outside of
Parliament, so that the whole political and industrial power of
the organised working class and its allies can be brought into the
struggle against capitalism.

The working class must be fully alive to the power and
influence of the Tory Party and its supporters. They occupy the

Icey position in industry, finance, press and radio, and will not
miss attempts either to water down Labour’s policy or to
sabotage it.

Just as the Tories call upon their allies in the ranks of the
employers, bankers and landlords to organise opposition and
pressure against the Labour Government, so must the
Government organise its allies in the factories, trade unions.
Co-operatives and in the Labour and Communist Parties to crush .
the Tory opposition.

The full achievement of the declared policy of the Labour
Government will be an important advance for the working class.
It will seriously weaken the power and influence of capitalism,
and help clear the way for great strides forward for the winning
of complete political power, thus enabling the working class to
carry out its historic mission—the establishment of Socialism.

Our Policy After Crimea

At this point it will be useful to deal with the character of the
political mistakes we made in formulating certain aspects of our
policy before and after the Crimea Conference.

Our fight for national and international unity during the war
was correct; the fight for unity of all the progressive forces in the
conditions of peace was also correct.

We were right when we made clear to our membership that we
•should recognise a new world situation where in the course of
the struggle against fascism, the international co-operation of the
capitalist and Socialist world had become a necessity if fascism
was to be defeated.

We were correct in showing that such an alliance would lead
not only to military victories, but to political victories which
would strengthen the position of the working class the world
over.

We had to fight against the defeatist school of thought which
treated the victory over fascism and the alliance of capitalist
countries with the Soviet Union as a mere incident and said the
outcome would only be “ the same as last time.”

The Communist Parties in Europe were fighting along similar
general lines of policy, and, like our own, were increasing their
influence throughout the Labour and progressive movements,
increasing their own membership and strengthening the entire
Labour movement.

In the United States, however, proposals were put forward by
6

Earl Browder which assumed a basic change in the character of
imperialism, denied its reactionary role, and held out a long¬
term perspective of harmonious capitalist development and class
peace after the war, both for the United States and the world.
It was from this analysis that the decision was taken to dissolve
the Communist Party in the United States.

We defended our American comrades when they were attacked
by the enemies of Communism in Britain, not because we agreed
with them, but because we felt it to be our duty to defend a
brother Party against the attacks of its enemies at a critical
period in the political situation in the United States.

The line of Browder did exercise a limited influence in our
Party, although in view of the statements of some comrades in
our pre-Congress discussion that the Executive Committee of
our Party succumbed to “ Browderism,” it is necessary to state
publicly that we resisted definite attempts to import Browder’s
basic ideas into our Party by some of our own comrades.

Our policy during the period of the anti-fascist war was quite
clear. First, to subordinate everything to winning the war.
Second, to ensure that the unity of the United Nations was as
strong in peace as in war. Third, to end Tory domination at the
General Election. Fourth, to secure the unity of the Labour and
progressive movement in Britain, so that the General Election
and the peace could be won in the interests of the people. Fifth,
to strengthen the Communist Party as a vital means of securing
these objectives.

It should be no matter for surprise that in a complex and
changing situation we did make political mistakes in the practical
application of our general line of policy.

It becomes clear, in the light of the Election results and the
political developments that had taken place, that the proposal
(put forward after the Crimea Conference) to form a Coalition
Government, including the Tories, after the Election, was a
political mistake.

It revealed an under-estimation of the growth of political
consciousness in the working class and the professional and
middle class sections of the nation. It exaggerated the degree of
the differentiation in the Tory Party and the support for the
Liberal Party in the country, and did not take fully into account
how quickly the reactionary forces would resume their old
political struggle against the working class and their own
capitalist competitors.

Now the struggle for the fulfilment of the decisions of the
Crimea Conference, on which the immediate future of world
peace and social progress depend, must be carried out by the
Labour Government. This will demand the fullest mobilisation of
the mass pressure and leadership of the whole Labour movement,
both against those in Government positions who seek to effect
a revision of these decisions on the one hand, and the open
opposition of the capitalist reactionary forces on the other hand.

But the mistakes we did make are infinitesimal compared with
the great and lasting character of the contribution that the
Communist Party made towards the winning of the war and
the opening of a new epoch for the British people—our fight
for increased production, for the opening of the Second Front,
against Munichism, for the purging of the State machine from all
pro-fascist elements, for increasing pay and pensions for nien and
women of the armed forces, for the "solidarity of the British and
Soviet people, for the ending of Tory domination in Parliament;
and the practical work done in the General Election, not only
in the constituencies which we fought, but in all others on
behalf of the Labour Party. All these represent great political
achievements, which played an important part in the development
of that lasting political understanding which brought Labour to
power, as the first steps towards even greater victories for the
working class over capitalism and reaction in the years
immediately ahead.

We will now turn to the question of what policy at home
and abroad should be carried through to ensure a bright and
happy future for the people of Britain. We do not propose
to deal with every detail of this, because so many aspects of
it are covered in other reports and resolutions.

BRITAIN’S FUTURE: HOME POLICY

With the end of the war the blunt issue now is:—Will the
resources of Britain continue to be used for capitalist profit or
will they be used to meet the crying needs of the people at the
expense of profit?

The British people now want to go forward to a new and better
Britain. They have shown in the General and Municipal
Elections their determination to secure this.

If today there is so much backwardness in the organisation
and methods of production in many sections of British industry.

this is the fault of the class who have owned and controlled our
industries and land in their own selfish interests. It is the fault
of those who used the profit they made out of the labour of
British workers, not to maintain and develop the productive
resources of this country, but to exploit millions of labouring
people in India, Africa and other parts of the world.

Today, the ownership and control of the means of production
in Britain are still in the hands of this class. The problems of the
economic revival of Britain, of the full use of Britain’s human
and material resources, are problems which this class can never
solve.

The experience of the war has shown our great power of
production, once our resources are fully used to serve and direct
the interests of the nation. Our working class, administrators,
technicians and scientists, with two hundred years of industrial
experience behind them, have the skill, initiative and ability to
solve all the technical difficulties in the way of raising the level
of production in British industry and agriculture, and thus make
possible a great step forward in the conditions of life for the
British people.

This means the use of Britain’s resources not only to give
full employment but to ensure that the products of our industry
and agriculture come more and more to the working people,
raising their standard of living and their conditions of work,
their health, their education and their enjoyment of leisure. Any
conception of an economic revival that puts profit first, or one not
directly based on a fuller life for the working people, will be
fought. It is not only politically wrong but in present conditions
can lead only to crisis and unemployment on a scale greater than
Britain has ever known.

With the end of the war Britain faces acute economic
problems. There are not only the pressing issues of recon¬
version but the special difficulties of the shrinking basis of British
imperialist economy accentuated by the war and the sharp world
trade antagonisms now opening up.

Never did a greater struggle against British capitalist interests
confront the people. A vast pent-up demand for production
and consumption goods exists in Britain and stricken Europe.

Labour’s job is to produce an over-all economic plan going
far beyond anything so far contemplated in the programme of
the Labour Government.

The bold measures to reorganise and modernise our industry,
transport and agriculture, as well as our foreign trade, must
be carried through without wavering and with the utmost speed.

This calls for the nationalisation of the key industries of coal
and power, steel and transport, and their re-equipment to
increase their efficiency and provide .the greatly increased output
required. It means also the nationalisation of banks and land,
and decisive changes in the whole of our financial policy.

It means driving forward for the modernisation of important
industries left in private hands, and placing Government bulk
orders for urgent social needs in order to guarantee continuous
production with an assured market.

It means Government control of prices, raw materials, and
essential supplies to safeguard the public interest and ensure
priorities for the most urgent jobs.

It means solving the problem of obtaining the necessary
foreign food and raw materials to get industry running on our
own resources, and a policy, in co-operation with other United
Nations, of 'international credit, trade and investment.

Given these bold steps to satisfy the people’s great needs,
rigorously fighting every effort of British capitalism to impede and
destroy this programme, there is no reason why a high level of
employment for the British people cannot be assured for the next
three or four years and the Government placed in a strong
position to combat the forces of economic crisis which will face
us when the replacement boom is over. One of the most serious
weaknesses of the Government is the lack of such a plan, and
the entire Labour movement must fight for it now.

For the satisfying of the people’s needs two essential features
df such a plan must be (1.) measures to increase wages decisively
at the expense of profits; (2) the development of a progressive
tax system and the bold and rapid carrying through of Labour’s
social programme.

We reject any theory that wages and living conditions for
the working people can be raised only if and when a great
increase in productivity has been attained. There is ample
scope for increasing wages and social services now at the expense
of profits. Indeed, as a result of the increasing productivity of
labour and the rise in prices, profits have been increasing,
relative to wages, over the last twenty years at least.

Again, we cannot accept any theory that our great social
programme cannot be carried through or must be slowed down
in any way bscause of export difficulties, or because United
States imperialism will not be so kind to us if we take bold
measures of soeial advance. Any difficulties arising from these
causes, will be the most speedily overcome, the quicker we carry
through the programme of revival for British industry which is
inseparably linked with raising our standard of life.

EXPORTS

On Britain’s foreign trade poshion Labour must make a
decisive choice. We are at the parting of the ways. The old
imperialist basis of British economy, the imperial tribute from
foreign and colonial investment, the exclusive shipping income,
etc., covering our excess imports largely rested on our position
as a colonial power. Labour must find a new policy, not try
to re-establish the old against the will of the Colonial peoples,
or a new trade war, which in. view of Britain’s backward
industry, could only be carried out with a policy of wage
reductions and slashing of home standards.

Labour must decisively reject the slogan of the imperialist
financiers and their economists, “Export or Die.” Tne British
people are not prepared to allow their economic and social
advance to be held back under the pretext that exports must
be increased at all costs along the traditional capitalist lines.

Of course we need some imports, and we must export to pay
for them. But if we try to solve the problems by an unbridled
competitive drive at the cost of the workers, as the monopoly
capitalists suggest, we shall soon find ourselves, not with higher
imports and exports, but with an economic crisis.

We Communists advance our alternative programme, a Labour
approach to Britain’s special problems.

In the first place, our dependence on imports can be greatly
reduced by the full use of our own resources, especially the
development of our agricultural production.

Secondly, the plans for the drastic modernisation of our basic
industries, coal, steel, transport, ship-building and cotton, will
place Britain in a position where her chemicals, machinery and
consumer goods can take a leading place on the world market.
The products that are most in demand today overseas are
especially those goods—machinery, locomotives, ships, lorries,

electrical equipment, chemicals and textiles—which Britain has
the skilled workers to supply.

Thirdly, exports can no longer be left to the free-for-all
scramble for profits by the capitalists. The Government must
ensure the grouping and planning of export orders, having in
mind the long-term needs and requirements of the purchasing
countries.

Fourthly, exports in payment for the necessary imports can,
m the long run, be secured only by developing the closest friendly
relations with other countries, especially with the Soviet Union
and the new progressive governments in Europe, fully operating
the Bretton Woods Agreement, and granting to colonial countries
the political freedom which is essential for their economic
development and prosperity. In this way new forms of inter¬
national economic co-operation can be established which will
not only enable the productive resources of the world to be
organised for the mutual benefit of all peoples, but also place
the Labour and peoples’ Governments throughout the world in
a stronger position to fight the dangers of a new economic crisis
in the capitalist countries.

WAGES

For six years the industrial working class has rendered
magnificent service to the nation. Now victory over fascism has
been won, there is a natural desire that peace shall also bring
its victories in the form of improved wages and working con¬
ditions, even though the workers fully understand that the
transition from a war to a peace economy is no easy path and
they are prepared to take this into account.

The ending of continuous overtime and reductions in
relatively high wartime piece-work earnings and bonuses in some
industries has brought the change sharply to the notice of the
workers, while at the same time the employers are doing their
utmost to force rates back to old levels which the workers will
certainly not accept after their war experiences. Decisive
improvements in wages and conditions are vital in all the low
paid industries if the reconversion programme is ever to be
carried through.

Our wages policy was formulated by our Congress last year.
The essential points were the demand for an all-round increase
and revised scales for each industry, based on a £4 10s. minimum,

equal pay for women, improved wages for age scales for young
workers; combined with strict control of prices and the remission
of taxation that bears heavily on the workers. We Communists
will be the foremost champions in the fight to improve wages.

In reply to the employers’ cry, “We can’t afford it,” we must
point out that the proportion of the national production taken
by interest and profit has risen each year during the war, and
that higher wages will be a powerful stimulus to improve the
technique and methods of industry and cut out the superfluous
middlemen in practically every section of trade, as well as provide
a steady and increasing market for the products of modern mass
produd'on.

In this connection, we call attention to the official report made
in the United States that the general level of wages could be
increased by 24 per cent without any increase in prices,' and to
President Truman’s statement along those lines.

The Labour Government must at once state its national plan,
both for production as a whole and with regard to wages. It
should immediately implement the Trades Union Congress
resolution on equal pay and call for the speedy presentation of
the Report of the Royal Commission on Equal Pay.

TRADE UNION POLICY

We have also to note the new important role that the trade
unions are called upon to play. Providing there is the closest
consultation by the Government with the Trade Union Congress
and the most sincere effort to obtain full co-operation of all
its affiliated trade unions, the organised trade unionists can
become the principal basis of Labour support against all the
activities of the class enemy. They can be the guarantee,
especially in industries that are to be nationalised or brought
under a measure of State control and guidance, that the full
co-operation of the workers through their shop stewards and
trade unions is obtained and provide the means through which
sabotage is defeated.

The Communist Party welcomes the growing mass movement
among the workers in industry to improve their conditions,
which can be a tremendous reserve of power and strength for
realising the programme of the Labour Government itself.

The recent marches of the building trade workers in London
and the strike of the dockers must, however, serve to warn the
Labour Government and the trade unions of the urgent need

for the whole movement to face up to new problems associated
with the wages and conditions of the workers. Increased wages,
economic reorganisation and social progress are all bound up
with each othei, and this fact has to be recognised by the
whole Labour movement and the Government.

There must be an immediate review of the whole procedure
for settling disputes, for speeding up negotiations, and for cases
referred to Arbitration Tribunals to be heard at the earliest
possible moment. There is equal urgency in demanding a change
m the composition of Arbitration Tribunals, so that they are not,
as at present, biased in favour of the employers.

The Trades Union Congress might consider calling a special
conference of trade union executive committees to consider
what can be done to meet the needs of tiie worxers in the new
situation.

The Communist Party will campaign to assist the workers,
men and women alike, to secure their just demands by every
means of mass pressure, winning the support of public opinion
by careful and convincing explanations of their case, and helping
to strengthen their organisations. It will defend the workers’
right to strike, knowing full well that no strike ever takes place
unless the sense of injustice and delay in meeting the workers’
claim is exceptionally deep and no other course seems open to
them. At the same time, the workers need to be on guard
against allowing provocative tactics of the employers to split
their own ranks.

The working class will demand that the Labour Government
shall deal boldly and fearlessly with any attempts on the part of
the employers either to reduce wages, worsen working condi¬
tions or close down factories as a means of embarrassing the
Labour Government. The full power of the Government must
be used, not only in defence of the workers’ conditions and
against those employers who seek to undermine working-class
standards, but for those basic improvements in pay, shorter
hours and longer holidays which are so closely bound up with
the drive for full employment.

The Communist Party will urge the workers to make the fullest
use of the trade union negotiating machinery so that there
may be the same steady increase in production for the needs
of the people that has been necessary in the production of the
munitions of war.

The Communist Party believes that the organised workers have
now developed such powerful trade union, factory and shop
steward organisations that, in co-operation with the Labour
Government, they can secure the workers’ demands with the very
minimum of industrial disturbances.

One word of warning, however. If the trade unions are to
play their part many of them will have to overhaul their own
organisations.

The executives of the unions, and active trade unionists, have
now the responsibility, .first of ensuring an active democratic life
among the membership at work and in the trade union
br nches, second, of finding the way to ensure proper reporting
and information to their members at every stage and consulta¬
tions with them before all important decisions are taken. Events
have also shown the importance of officials being elected by the
membership and subject to re-election at frequent intervals, of
annual policy conferences, of active district committees in all
unions—otherwise a wedge may be driven by the capitalists
between the higher officials and the membership and the unity
of Government and Labour movement may be seriously
undermined.

The Communist Party will as always do everything 'in its
power to increase the membership of the trade unions, it will
strive to ensure that every factory and office where its members
are employed are one hundred per cent trade union; it pledges
its members to set the personal example in their attendance
at trade union branch meetings, in strengthening factory
organisation, in working for the immediate fulfilment of the
Trades Union Con<^ress policy on Trade Union Unity, and in
general, in making the trade union movement the fighting
ch amnion of the interests of the organised workers and their
families.

Now we will turn to the question of what foreign policy
Britain needs to pursue if it is to remain a first-class progressive
Power in the world.

FOREIGN POLICY

Shall Britain go forward in association with the new rising
democratic forces of the world, along the path of international
democratic political and economic co-operation on the basis of
the joint leadership of Britain, the Soviet Union and the United

States, for the fulfilment of the decisions of the Crimea, San
Francisco, Bretton Woods, Cairo and Berlin Conferences? Or
will the old reactionary forces be allowed to influence the Labour
Government? Will they drag British foreign policy back on to
the old lines of imperialist rivalries, the balance of power, anti¬
democratic and anti-Soviet intrigue, the fostering of German
reaction, support for a NVestern bloc, intensified trade war, and,
as a result of all this, the outbreak of a new World War?

This is the choice that is open to our country and the Labour
Government. No one can watch the foreign policy at present
being carried through by the Government without concern and
alarm.

We of the Communist Party are convinced that the only secure
and prosperous future for Britain lies along the path of alliance
with the new world forces of democracy, social progress and
Socialism. The alliance of the three great Powers is going through
a critical testing time. The answering of the outstanding
problems is vital if lasting peace is to be assured.

But let there be no illusions. If such a policy is to be
successfully carried through, it demands resolute maintenance
of the close partnership of the three decisive powers in the
world—Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States of
America—in the leadership of the United Nations as a whole.

This is why we must regard the role of Britain at the London
Conference of Foreign Secretaries with such grave misgivings,
why we must work for the ending of the present deadlock and
demand immediate steps to re-establish closer co-operation
between Britain and the Soviet Union.

Britain’s future depends more upon the closest co-operation
with the Soviet Union than on any other single factor in the
international situation.

Such relations are not improved by any decisions indicating
lack of trust in the Soviet Union or “cards upon the table” talk.
The Soviet Union will never be blackmailed by the atomic bomb
or anything else. What the Chamberlains and Hitlers failed to
do no Anglo-American imperialist bloc will ever accomplish.
The British people serves warning on the Government: it will
never stand for such a bloc. Mr. Attlee would do well to note
only one nation still possesses the atomic bomb secret—and it is
not Britain. No country would suffer more than Britain if ever
this deadly weapon were used. Outstanding differences between
Britain and the Soviet Union must be solved.

The Soviet Union’s foreign policy is designed to ensure that
the peace that has been won at such a terrible cost shall be a
lasting peace, that the political and moral destruction of fascism
shall be attained, that never again shall Germany occupy a
position in which it can menace world peace, that the war
criminals shall be swiftly and justly punished, and Germany made
to assist in the restoration of countries which the Nazis devastated,
that the United Nations shall stand as strong and united in peace
as they were in war, so that peace and prosperity shall become
the fruits of victory for all who worked and fought for the
defeat of fascism.

The Government is endangering the whole future of the people
if it gives any countenance to the reactionary policies, either
from the Right or the so-called “ Left,” which seek to revise the
Crimea and Berlin decisions and aim at the restoration of German
economic power and monopoly capitalism—with all its dangerous
future war potential—and the preservation of the structure of
imperialist Japan.

Who, that hopes we have seen the end of war, dare ignore
the plain facts about the still remaining war potential of
Germany? A number of facts are at hand to expose the pretence
that German economy and industry are irrevocably destroyed,
and that nothing but ruin stares the German nation in the face.

Senator Kilgore was appointed by the United States to
investigate Germany’s remaining capacity for organising future
wars. -Here is an extract from his report:—

“ The Sub-Committee found that Germany’s vast indus¬
trial potential remains undamaged by war and that she
still has a world network of commercial relationships and
economic, political and espionage outposts which she could
mobilise for another war .... Germany is better prepared
now to implement her plot for world conquest than she was
at the end of World War I, and in defeat remains a major
threat to world peace.”

After the 1914-18 war the common people swore “Never
Again.” But it happened. British policy was not concerned with
permanently crushing German militarism, but with fostering a
German economic revival and building up German reaction as
its weapon for attack upon the Soviet Union.

We must demand an end of British policy which places Nazis
in administrative, economic and security organs in the British
zone in Germany, while refusing to allow hundreds of German

anti-fascist refugees in Britain to return to Germany and play a
vital part in the development of a new democratic Germany.
We must resist the carefully organised propaganda that it is
necessary to preserve the heavy industries of the Rhineland. We
must demand that every facility be given for the development of
free, anti-fascist trade unions and political parties and a
prosperous agriculture and light industry as the basis of a
peaceful German economy.

We must expose and fight those who so assiduously propagate
the creation of a Western bloc. The real aim behind all such
propaganda is a revival of the conception of the Four-Power
Pact of Munich. The real aim is the division of Europe, and
through this the revival of German imperialism as the bulwark
against the advance of democracy and Socialism in Eastern
Europe.

It is this concept of foreign policy which more than anything
else is behind the recent de Gaulle crisis. It is to the eternal
credit of the French Communists that they are fighting for a line
which means the future peace of Europe.

This policy of the Western bloc creates misunderstanding and
mistrust in the United States, for ultimately the Western bloc is
also directed against that country. It destroys the whole principle
of the collective security of peace. The formula of Western
European solidarity as against co-operation with the Soviet Union
and the new democratic Europe is the direct continuation of
Hitler’s policy of the “ New Order in Europe.”

The people did not fight this war to destroy the military, power
of fascism only, but to organise its political and moral defeat as
well. Britain’s name is stained by its present policy, especially
towards Greece, Indonesia and Spain. The Labour movement
has clearly demanded an end to the recognition of the Franco
Government by a Labour Government. The people demand that
the Greek anti-fascist movement shall not a day longer be
suppressed by British bayonets.

It is also necessary to issue a sharp warning against present
tendencies to treat Japan in the same way as Germany was
treated in 1918; that is to say, to leave the old imperialist
structure in+act, and even to seek to use Japanese militarism as a
buttress of “ law and order ” against the peoples of South-East
Asia.

Liberty and democracy are no special privilege for the British
people; they are for the peoples of all the Colonial countries as

well. Our British lads did not put on uniform to protect the
profit-making interests of imperialist exploiters in Asia, whether
British, Dutch, French or American, They did not join up to
shoot down their own comrades of other lands, who for so many
long years have put up such a magnificent fight for freedom
from imperialism.

Freedom for the colonies is the other side of the demand for
the destruction of the last vestiges of fascism in Europe. The
propagandists for the Western bloc regard the retention of the
imperialist stranglehold on the colonial territories as vital for their
plan. It is not only a Western bloc but a bloc of empires.

We are responsible for giving every assistance to the national
aspirations of all the Indian and Colonial peoples, and, at the
particular moment, the peoples of South-East Asia. We must
demand, and organise mass pressure to ensure, that the Labour
Government shall not use the armed forces under its control,
whether British or Indian, for the suppression of the rightful
struggle of these peoples for their freedom and independence
from imperialist oppression.

We warn the Labour movement that unless it compels the
Government to change completely its present foreign policy,
which is simply the continuation of the imperialist line of the
Tory Party and the reactionary monopoly capitalists, there
can be no fundamental social progress in Britain, and that the
whole future of this country is in grave peril.

It is fitting that at this stage we should now take up some
questions concerning democracy and Socialism.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM

The question of democracy lies at the very heart of the
international situation. Public attention has been focussed on it
because since the end of the war attempts are being made to
show that democracy exists only in Western Europe and America,
and that in the Soviet Union and the Balkans there exist forms of
government that are not democratic.

Alongside this type of propaganda another theory is also
advanced—that there is a Western Socialism and an Eastern
Soci lism. The first is alleged to be Socialism based on
democracy, and the second, Socialism based on dictatorship.

We believe it will not be long before we see how those respon¬
sible for the spread of these dangerous ideas begin to take

under their wing and most anti-democratic, anti-working-class
elements in Europe in general and Germany in particular.

There have been other occasions when the arch-reactionary
capitalist forces have made their fight against the advance of the
working class under the banner of democracy. We are not
surprised to see them once again encourauing certain Labour
leaders to become the standard bearers of their cause.

It is of vital importance to the future prosperity and peace
of Britain that the Labour Government should establish friendly
and close relations with the new Governments of liberated
Europe—with Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania.
Skilled foreign journalists covering the elections in these countries
have unanimously stated they are the first free and democratic
elections that have ever taken place in the Balkans.

Those Governments, which are now being ostracised and
opposed by the Labour Government on the ground that they are
undemocratic, enjoy the support of the vast majority of the
people in those countries. Already they have carried out great
agrarian reforms, nationalised a number of industries, introduced
radical democratic measures and brought their countries into good
relations with their neighbours for the first time in history.
These Governments are attacked, therefore, by those very
interests who want to see the undisputed sway of landlords and
capitalists established once again, and to use them once more as
bases against the Soviet Union.

Of course, when the people win democratic rights after
generations of savage repression, when they have seen the terrible
crimes committed by the Nazis and Quislings, and when their
country is half starving and devastated by war, then their
democracy may appear surprisingly unanimous to those who
have been sheltered. It may even appear to have some rather
rough edges, especially to those who have never had to fight
for democratic rights under a Nazi occupation or a native
fascism, and who therefore think history should happen smoothly
and tidily.

It is, therefore, necessary to say quite clearly that a country
like Yugoslavia, which gives the land to the peasants to work it,
is in many ways more democratic than one like Britain, where
hundreds of thousands of acres belong to a few rich families.

Such a country as Yugoslavia, which locks up and shoots its
fascists, is more democratic than one which lets them live and

plot in comfort in large country houses, where a Labour
Government refuses to publish the names of Nazi supporters
in Captain Ramsay’s Red Book, or the names of highly-placed
British supporters of Hitler found in the Nazi archives in
Munich.

The test the workers apply to a democratic government today
is. For whose benefit does it exist? For the people, or for their
enemies?

There are people in Britain even now who regard any revolu¬
tionary movement with horror just because it means the destruc¬
tion of the old forms of State and a new beginning with a new
class in power.

They forget that our existing democratic rights are themselves
based on a revolution in which by a long series of struggles, we
got rid of feudal land-ownership, the Divine Right of Kings and
the Star Chamber, and eventually won the right of trade union
organisation and the right to vote. These things could not have
been won without revolutionary struggle against the old type
of State power.

British people who are really proud of their own democratic
traditions should acclaim and support these new democratic
movements in Eastern Europe, just as our early trade unionists
and our intellectuals—Shelley, Wordsworth and William Blake
—welcomed the great French Revolution when all the
reactionaries in British society wanted to suppress it.

The advent of the Labour Government makes possible great
advances in democracy in Britain. It is a democratic advance
at this stage to nationalise certain industries with compensation
for the capitalists. We Communists quite agree that it is an
advance, but it is wrong to call it Socialism. If we
compare it with the immense, bold planning of recon¬
struction in the Soviet Union, where all the national skill
and ability will be used for the people’s needs and
nothing else, we shall understand that in the matter of
democracy we are only at the very beginning of our road. The
fact remains that no Labour Government in any part of the
world has yet achieved Socialism, the abolition of the exploitation
of man by man. Only in the Soviet Union under the leadership
of the Communist Party has a classless society been achieved.
That is the real difference between “ Western ” and “ Eastern ”
Socialism.

All this does not mean that we deny the importance and value
of democracy for the working class under capitalism. We
believe it is a weapon of tremendous importance in the struggle
to win a higher, a Socialist democracy, where the people not
only vote but control and administer things.

Marx and Engels understood this when they led the fight for
the industrial workers’ vote in the 1860s. No one understood
better than Lenin the restrictions of a Parliamentary democracy
in a capitalist country. Yet Lenin argued tirelessly to convince
the young British Communists that they must learn to use every
democratic opening, not just dismiss Parliament as a talking
shop, but use Parliamentary work to strengthen the Labour
movement and advance their revolutionary movement for
Socialism.

In returning a Labour Government and electing so many
Labour majorities on the local Councils, the workers are fighting
for an extension of democracy and a much more direct say in
the running of affairs. They want to reach a new type of
democracy in which the working class really. rule, and not a
democracy restricted by the power of wealth.

We know we shall have to face many conflicts with the
reactionary forces to reach this position, but we are confident
that the greaiy increased confidence and ability of the working
class will enable them to win. .

The country will not be transformed by a stroke of the pen
and then leaving it to the Civil Service and the police. The
organised workers, the people as a whole, must understand what
the plans are, what the difficulties are, and must be given the
chance to use their skill and initiative to overcome them. The
Labour Government must continually consult the people who
elected it so that criticism and suggestions can be made and
heeded in good time.

If the Labour Government is to carry out its policy, it will
have to i Tomote real democratic leadership and control in all
the decisive positions of the State machine, in the Civil Service,
Foreign Office and Armed Forces.

How can the Halifaxes and Leepers carry out a real democratic
foreign policy? How can people who fundamentally believe in
private enterprise carry out policies that involve the nationalisa¬
tion of the mines and the Bank of England?

How can a diehard Tory like Sir John Anderson be allowed
22

to continue as the Labour Government’s official in charge of
atom bomb research?

How can a Labour Government be truly democratic when it
refuses to grant democracy to the Colonial peoples?

The reorganisation of the State in a more democratic direction
is necessary to consolidate the gains of the working class, and
assist it in its future struggles against capitalism.

It is, however, also necessary to be clear as to what we mean
by Socialism. For many Labour leaders, the idea of So:ialism
—W;stern Socialism if you like—is one which leaves untouched
the fundamental question of abolishing the system of rent,
interest and profit, the exploitation of man by man. It does
not inc'ude the ownership of the means of production by the
people or the liberation of the Colonial peoples. Their conception
of Socialism is nationalisation with compensation. Profit is still
to go to a privileged class. This goes along with a conception
of “ gradualism ” in achieving socialist aims, which in practice
leaves the capitalist class free to overthrow democracy before
any fundamental changes are made. In their anxiety to secure
a fair crack of the whip for the capitalist class, these super¬
democrats forget that the capitalists have always used their power
to destroy democracy when it became dangerous to them. This
is not of academic interest to the Labour movement, it is of
vital importance.

It is this difference in outlook which explains why at various
times in the past, and at the present time, sections of
the capitalist class have given support to certain Labour leaders,
believing that they could be used for the purposes of capitalism.
They have no such hopes about the Communists, whose policy
is based on the struggle against capitalism and who openly
declare their final aim to be the establishment of a Socialist
classless society, in which the exploitation of man by man for
private gain is abolished, with all the changes that follow from
this. We do not claim a monopoly of this aim. We believe
it is shared by all the best workers in Labour’s ranks, and it is
their duty and ours to keep it ever before our movement.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY

It was Marx and Engels who, one hundred years ago in the
Communist Manifesto outlined the special part the Communists
have to fulfil in the Labour movement. They wrote—

“The Communists have no interest separate and apart
23

from those of the proletariat as a whole. . . . The Com¬
munists are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced
and resolute section of the working-class parties of every
country, that section which pushes forward all others; on
the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass
of the proletariat, the advantage of clearly understanding
the line of march, the conditions and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement.”

These founders of scientific Socialism were the foremost
fighters of their time for the day to day demands of the people,
but their distinctive contribution to the developing Labour move¬
ment was that they were able to demonstrate the common
interests of the movement, sought to weld it into one united
whole, and with their great theoretical understanding showed
how this fight was part of, and had to be merged into, the struggle
for Socialism.

The British Labour movement is the product of a long and
complicated history. Its strength has always been the recognition
of the need to bring the great mass organisations, particularly
the trade unions, into politics. But from the very beginning,
the movement has been the scene of many internal political
conflicts between those reflecting the limited ideas of their
capitalist surroundings and those who sought to forge an
independent working-class policy for transforming society. Many
embittered battles had to be fought before even the Labour
Party was formed.

The vital need for a core of clear Socialist thinkers and
political workers to write and to give direction to the movement’s
work, and for organisations to train and develop such thinkers,
was deeply felt; otherwise there would be no effective common
policy overcoming sectional differences, there could be no way
of advance from victory on a wider front and towards Socialism.

The Fabians, the S.D.F., the B.S.P. and the I.L.P. all tried
in their various ways to supply this leadership, and bring the
younger trade unionists to Socialist understanding. But the
fatal weakness of all of them was their own lack of Marxist
outlook. In seeking to organise the Labour Party, a class
political movement of the workers, they tried to do so without
the consistent scientific class theory and aim of Marxism.

It was Tom Mann, Arthur McManus, Thomas Bell, Albert
Inkpin, and William Gallacher, M.P. and the organisations they

represented who in 1920, studying the experiences of the glorious
Russian Revolution of November, 1917, took the initiative in
forming a Communist Party in Britain. Experience had shown
them that a Labour movement could achieve its Socialist aims
only if the active Socialists in its ranks were organised into a
disciplined Party, armed with a consistent working-class theory,
enabling them to judge every event and struggle in relation to the
ultimate aim of Socialism, strong enough to resist the corruption
of Socialist ideas by the pressure of capitalism on certain Labour
leaders, and the disorganising and confusing part this enables
Social Democracy to play in the Labour movement.

The Communist Party has been, and is, the working-class
organisation within the Labour movement which has brought to
the front the common interests of the entire working class in
Britain and the world. Because of its clear understanding of the
“ line of march,” “ the conditions and ultimate general results of
the proletarian movement,” it was able to relate every struggle
for improvement of conditions to the aim of weakening the
capitalist class and the advance to political power and Socialism.

It is facts like these which must be studied by many Labour
workers, who understand that the working class must have good
organisation, pay dues regularly, see that decisions are
conscientiously carried out in a disciplined way, yet do not see
the need for this revolutionary Marxist theory.

Never did the Labour movement so require this theory as it
does today. Unless the movement is armed with this theory,
unless there is the scientific understanding of the movement of
history and politics based on the class struggle, the movement
will never win through to victory, keeping its energy and
enthusiasm and clear working-class line no matter how compli¬
cated the nature of the problems before it. Worse, the movement
may easily become the tool of the capitalist class in its efforts to
side-track and oppress the people. Unless it has a theory of its
own, the movement becomes permeated with the theories of its
opponents, the theories of the other side. You cannot, in practice,
lead a movement without ideas, either the ideas of capitalism and
imperialism or the ideas of Socialism. At this moment when
Labour is in power events every day are showing this is the issue
above all.

The Communist P^rty is a new type of Party, not only in its
theory and general outlook, but also in its organisation and
method of work. Seeing as its main task not only the struggles for

25 .

the immediate demands of the people but their development and
combination into the general fight for Socialism, the Party seeks
to advance the cause of the workers on every front.

It seeks to develop the working-class fight inside and outside
Parliament. It does not and cannot rest content to be merely an
electoral machine—it is active on all questions, inspiring mass
campaigns, and actions, organising its members for this activity in
the streets and towns, the factories, the offices and the pits.

Not by propaganda alone, but by dint of experience gained in
the factory to increase wages, or in the streets against the land¬
lords, the Communist Party has sought to advance the political
understanding of the people and thus increase their confidence
for the new stage of the fight.

It could do this only because it is an organised Party with
local, district and national leadership. Its members work under
the guidance of the Party, in an organised way—a leadership of
the people, closely linked with the people and with every section
of the movement. It increasingly brings to its ranks all that is
best in the movement, men and women able to combine the work
of all sections of the movement and direct their activities to the
single goal of Socialism.

Today its tasks and responsibilities are greater than ever and
we have sought to outline them in this Report.

The support behind the Labour Government would be
immeasurably increased through a firmly united Labour
movement. It is this fact which now makes the affiliation of
the Communist Party to the Labour Party one of the most
uigent questions. The chief political reason why the Com¬
munist Party should be affiliated to the Labour Party is that it
is essential to strengthen the Labour Party ' and the Labour
movement as a whole by the consistent class outlook of Marxism.

It is the recognition of this fact that has prompted some of
the most important trade unions in Britain to support this
policy. Added significance is given to this by the fact that these
are precisely the trade unions which took the first step towards
the creation of the Labour Party itself.

They now wish to see the Communist Party affiliated to the
Labour Party because they know that the contribution it has
made to the building up of workshop organisation, shop stewards
and trade unionism as a whole can be repeated on the political
field also.

It is also the desire of a large section of the middle class and
of the Armed Forces who voted Labour at the General Election.
They do not want to see the feuds and conflicts of the past
carried forward in the new conditions, which demand the fullest
unity of all sections of the workers’ organisations.

To win the affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour
Party will be a hard fight, for just as capitalist reaction never
gives up the struggle against the working class, so certain leaders
of Social Democracy seem unable to give up their struggle
against working-class unity and speedier developments towards
Socialism.

But whereas these leaders receive the support of the capitalist
class, the Communists receive the support of all the best, most
sincere and forward-looking forces within the Labour movement.
That is why we shall win in the end. In this respect the striking
victories of the Communist Party in the recent Municipal
Elections are an indication of a certain change in the political
situation in Britain. These events and the experiences of the
working class are bound to increase the influence and strength
of the Party in Britain.

The tasks before the Party call for unprecedented activity
on a mass scale. We have to unify the movement and inspire
confidence in the strength of the working class and its allies.
Obviously this can only be done by a Party which recruits to
its ranks the best elements of the Labour movement and in every
walk of life; a Party which gives them a lead in their day-to-day
problems and helps them develop their own organisation; gives
them the most thorough political education and training in
schools, classes, discussion circles and meetings, in inspiring
propaganda and in the daily experiences of the class struggle
itself; a Party able to study and learn from the experiences of
the whole Labour movement; one which can in 'a spirit of self-
criticism correct its own mistakes; a Party which can work out
an up-to-date s'rate^^y and tactics, which can helo to stren'r^hen
the Labour movement and weaken big business and reaction.
Such a Party is, and can only be, the Communist Party.

We will fight every tendency to dissolve the Communist Party,
or submerge its independent Marxist role in the Labour move¬
ment as a whole, and we will equally fight those who see the
Labour Party and the Labour Government as the main enemies,
and not capitalism.

It was the Communist discipline, understanding and political
'' training which enabled our brother parties under Hitler occupa¬
tion in France, Yugoslavia, Norway and Italy to organise, despite
fearful terror and mass executions, the tremendous movement of
resistance to fascism and to win the respect and confidence of
millions in these countries. That this confidence has been won is
shown by the fact that the Communist Parties in France and
Czechoslovakia are the strongest political parties, and that in
every country in Europe which suffered under fascism the
Communist Parties are playing an outstanding part in political
life. We are confident that they will build a new Europe from
the ashes of the old, a Europe that will march to Socialism. We
are confident also that the German Communist Party, of whom
so many thousands have perished in Dachau and Buchenwald,
will play its honourable part in the difficult task of purging
Germany of the economic, political and moral roots of fascism,
laying the basis for a new democratic Germany.

It is a Communist understanding, discipline and political
training which has enabled the Soviet Union, in less than thirty
years, to emerge from a backward, illiterate, agricultural country,
to a country of free and happy people and one of the two greatest
powers in the world. The Soviet Union has been able to save
mankind from Hitlerism, and to emerge from that fearful ordeal
stronger and more united than before. The Soviet Union is the
living example of what the common people can build, once they
are freed from the fetters of capitalism, of the tremendous energy
and creative power that Socialism can unleash in the “ little
man,” the nameless millions who never get the chance in our
society to show what they can do.

We here, by our activity, leadership, personal and collective
efforts, must build up a great mass Communist Party. We are
confident that the forces of democracy and Socialism are in the
ascendent, and that the British Labour movement as a whole
has the power to solve all the problems of peace in the interests
o^ the common people, that it can rally to its support all the
progressive sections of the nation. The Communist Party, in
leading the struggle for a happy and prosperous Britain, is
assured that this will still further strengthen workers’ democracy
and the mass movement for Socialism.

REPLY TO DISCUSSION

By HARRY POLLITT

I have to say, on behalf of the Executive Committee, how
much we valued both the pre-Congress discussion and the
discussion that has taken place at this Congress, because it
represents a collective effort at hammering out the correct policy
for our Party in a most difficult and complicated situation. .

We deliberately kept out of World News and Views for six
weeks any contributions by Executive Committee members to
Congress Discussion, because we did not want to give any
appearance of attempting to damp down the discussion or, to
use that much abused word in our Party circles, “ give comrades
a bashing.”

Something has been said here, both in the contributions and
in the amendments, about more democratic methods of
procedure. Due note will be taken of that fact; but this
Congress is being publicly reported, and I state the claim right
now that the Communist Party is the most democratically run
political organisation in the world. Its proceedings are fully
reported both to the District Secretaries of our Party as a whole
and in Reporting Back meetings in the Districts to tfie active
circle of comrades in those particular areas.

Through the leads given in the Daily Worker, the Weekly
Letters and the Political Letters, our ears may not be quite on
the ground, but they are a lot lower than is the case of the
other Parties. But we pledge that we will do whatever is
possible, to try to make further improvements on this.

On this question of Browder, I only want to make one or
two points. When the Communist International was dissolved
in 1942, we were all unanimously in support of that decision
because of the political maturity of every section of the
Communist Party. No one knew in this country anything about
Foster’s disagreement with Browder until the appearance of the
Duclos article. That is a statement of fact. We expressed our
disagreement with Browder’s line and, in my opinion, correctly
at that moment and in that situation. The American comrades
were in profound disagreement with the policy of our Party.
We refused to publish Browder’s book in this country because
we disagreed with its contents and the American comrades were
made aware of that.

If you consider that it is Communist leadership, that we should
tip you all off about circumstances of that description in the
most difficult stages of winning the war against fascism, so far
as I am concerned you have another think coming.

Browder’s policy was endorsed in January, 1944. It was not
criticised until April, 1945, by Comrade Duclos of the French
Communist Party. And it may well be that the Party with a
million member's will have its views listened to with more respect
than a Party of 50,000. .

And finally, to those of you who are so worried about this
problem, I must draw your attention to the fact that I have
not yet seen any criticism of the Browder policy in any of the
theoretical organs of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
—not an unimportant Party of the world!

Comrade Mcllhone said yesterday that there are more ways of
winning the peace than one. Absolutely true. And there are
still more ways of losing it, and we have heard some of those
ways expounded from this platform this morning. It is the
thought of being anxious to avoid losing the peace that is
dominating the thought of every Communist Party in Europe
at this moment and explains why stronger Communist Parties
than ours are fighting for a continuation of the National Front
and avoiding splits in the Labour movement. It explains how
they are seeking to utilise every differentiation in the ranks of
the capitalist class; explains too, something else, why they are not
ashamed to proclaim their pride in being French or Yugoslav and
stand out as the champions of the best traditions of these
countries, although we sometimes have so many hesitations of
saying we are British, and make formulations about Bevin having
led this country into disgrace.

It is that thought of winning the peace and not losing it, there¬
fore, that needs now to dominate the thoughts of our Party.
Especially those who so light-heartedly talk about strikes on
the one hand, or exaggerate the influence of this Party on the
other. And, comrades, when they expect criticism, let it be
self-criticism. Comrade Bill Rowe said that our error disarmed
the Communist Party and prevented it from assuming leader¬
ship at a critical period in the history of this country. If that
is true, it is peculiar that not a single Branch in the Party noticed
it. You were fighting for a correct political line of ending Tory
domination, and you did it, and ought to be proud of it.

Please remember that we did consult the Party membership on
the change of line; 7,850 members voted for the policy that
was suggested by the Executive Committee, 278 were against it,
and 556 were absentions. I looked over the reports of the
Party discussion last night, and it was astonishing to find
revealed how many of the 278 and 556 who abstained did so
because they were opposed to the Communist Party reducing the
number of its candidates in the General Election, and not to the
policy of a Coalition Government after the General Election.

After the Paris Insurrection in the 1870s, Marx, who had
some doubts about its wisdom, was the first to justify what he
described as the historic initiative of the masses. What we ought
to be triumphantly extolling, is not certain minor weaknesses,
but the tremendous historical initiative of the masses. We are
Marxists, comrades, and not magicians.

There is a basic reason why we were wrong in our estimation
of the left swing in the Labour movement. And I believe I can
give it to you in two minutes. It is not unrelated to the point
legitimately made about ears being closer to the ground. I
believe we failed to grasp this fact: that in the course of this
war, which was brought to the doorsteps and homes of millions
of people, in the air-raid shelters and in the cellars, in tubes and
fire-watching parties, the working class, -the professional and
middle classes were quietly thinking to themselves, saying a word
neither to their husbands, or wives, sons or brothers—but
thinking to themselves. They were thinking, in our lifetime
capitalism has only brought us poverty and unemployment, and
now it has brought us this war. And on the other hand, they
were thinking also of the miracles being performed by a Socialist
country through its Red Army, in the fight to make this war the
last war. That was what caused a basic political mental change
in the outlook of millions and led them to take that historical
initiative of which we had not taken due cognisance.

Comrades Mcllhone and McEwen expressed certain dangers
in their contributions that we need to guard against: first, an
over-estimation of the disillusionment with the Labour Govern¬
ment; and secondly, seeing foreign policy as the only thing
that the Labour Government is doing. And from it Bob
Mcllhone drew certain conclusions, or rather he didn’t draw
them but they drew themselves, which are not justified by events.

Nobody would be happier that I if I thought the influence
of this Party was as great as Mcllhone makes it out to be. But
I refuse to deduce wrong policies as a result of a wrong estimation
of the forces going to carry the policies through.

Look at the by-elections taking place. Are they revealing a
disillusionment with the Labour Government on home and
foreign policy? Of course they are not. The political instinct
of the masses is too sound. Never again is it going to be driven
into Tory reactionary channels by the reactionary policy of one
or other of the Labour leaders.

Don’t let us forget that the people of this country see
nationalisation of the coal industry and the Bank of England
and the reduction in income tax, as well as Greece and Indonesia,
and we are making a great mistake if we don’t grasp this.

Comrades complained that in the Political Letter of August 28,
1945, we did not go all out against the Labour Government on
the grounds of its foreign policy.

Comrades, the Labour Government only came to power in the
last days of July. Bevin made his speech in August. We made
a formulation in that Political Letter regarding that speech, and it
reads like this: “ Mr. Bevin’s speech does not correspond to
what the masses voted for at the General Election. The fight
against Tory reaction needs to be conducted on foreign policy
no less than on home policy; otherwise the programme for full
employment and social advance will be placed in jeopardy by
a wrong foreign policy.” I will defend that formulation in the
circumstances under which it was written, anywhere and at any
time.

Are we never going to learn? I have been in too many
campaigns which had as their main motive against, and not
sufficient with the main motive for, and comrades, especially the
younger comrades, in this Congress would be well advised to
assimilate that experience too.

Everything is not black in the realm of foreign affairs, despite
what Bevin is attempting to do, because there are bigger things
in England and other countries than Ernest Bevin.

The situation in Greece begins to change for the better. Bevin
begins to squeal now that he is being let down. He is going to
do a lot more squealing in the future, not because of wrong
slogans, but because of the growth of the mass movement. The
Greek -situation is changing for the better because of the amazing
strength of the Communist Party there, and because of the
support this Party in this country is giving to the Communist
Party of Greece.

Comrades must understand that one of our most vital duties
is to avoid isolating ourselves from this movement. There is
nothing easier in the world than to call people names. We have
paid a heavy price as a result of it in the past and we must be
prepared to avoid these political mistakes in the future. Our
job is to develop a mass movement, not on the basis of one
isolated aspect of a situation but on the basis of a constructive
line as outlined in the Executive Committee report, given on this
platform yesterday.

Comrades, please remember this fundamental fact: The
working class have built up something in the course of this
struggle against fascism that capitalism is never going to be able
to destroy. I repeat the words I quoted at the 1944 Congress,
the words of George Dimitrov in 1935:

“ Fascism, which appears as the result of the decline of capitalism, in
the long lam acts as a factor of its further disintegration. Thus fascism,

which has undertaken to bury Marxism, the revolutionary movement of the
working class, is, as a result of the dialectics of life and the class struggle,
itself leading to the further development of those forces which are bound
to serve as its grave-diggers, the grave-diggers of capitalism.”

That is the historic process which is now taking place,
intensified before our very eyes.

Our main fight, therefore, comrades, is not against the Labour
Government, not against Bevin—our main fight is against
capitalism and against the ideas of capitalists, ideas of
particular members of the Labour movement and the Labour
Government who are influenced by capitalism.

We also need to avoid the danger, because of an error in
March, of intensifying the error as a result of a wrong under¬
standing of the situation. What do I mean by this? Just this.
You will regret a policy that does not take into account the
fact that the capitalist class is not one reactionary mass. In
other words, it is still part of the policy of the Labour move¬
ment of this country to seek for allies where it can find them.
Our job is to know how to increase this differentiation.

I would like to read a quotation from a letter from Frederick
Engels to Kautsky, which -Kautsky suppressed and which did not
become available till 1925, although written in 1891. Kautsky
was criticising the German democratic party as being “ one
reactionary mass.” Engels criticised this, and went on, to say that
this formulation was

“ False, because it expresses an historic tendency, genuine in itself,
as an accomplished fact. . . .

“ We have no right to represent a tendency, which is gradually being
realised, as a fact already accomplished, and all the less so since in
England, for example, this tendency will never be fulfilled as an absolute
fact. When the upheaval comes here the bourgeoisie will still be ready
for all sorts of partial reforms. Except that to cling on to the partial
reform of a system already overthrown becomes sheer nonsense.”

I am mentioning this because it is necessary to state here that
there are important circles of capitalists in this country who
are profoundly disturbed at the policy of the Labour Govern¬
ment in relation to the U.S.S.R. They see that while this
country is becoming the home of anti-Soviet intrigue, the U.S.A.
is getting all the trade orders from the U.S.S.R. We shall see
how this pressure begins to exert itself, but it is part of our job
to fan it, to intensify it.

On the question of industrial disputes, comrades, you must
face the issue, as we presented it in the Report. We have nothing
further to say in relation to this matter.

I am going to face you with the direct issue and I do not
propose you shall get away with anything. You are either in
favour of the line of the Report, or of the line that has been
expounded here of mass strikes as the only way to realise the
workers’ demands. If the latter, I warn you, you are playing
with fire that can help to lose the peace and reduce this country
to ashes.

Nothing is easier in the present situation than strikes, and
our comrades should be much more guarded. We should be
ready to pay tribute to comrades like Scott and Horner and
Hannington, who in their difficult and responsible positions are
having to fight for the full utilisation of the machinery. You
can get a strike in the coalfields tomorrow, if you want it. Will
it advance the working-class movement of this country, or the
perspective of our nation being a first-rate nation in the family
of united nations? Do not make any analogies with the United
States: the economic system and basis are entirely different.

On the dock strike, I took the view that if our Party had been
compelled to stick its head out in difficult situations in the war
and compel our comrades to be stigmatised as strike-breakers,,
we are not called upon to repeat that in the days of peace, but
we would examine every dispute on its merits. The Daily
Worker reported the facts. It is true we gave no lead for ten
days, but that is no crime, because we considered that strike
ill-advised. We knew the doubtful forces which were at work—
not the Trotskyists, but the provocative tactics of the employers
and the inter-union rivalry. We are concerned with reaping the
harvest of our own work, and I pay my tribute to our docker
comrades who fought last summer to get the Charter now before
the employers, to become the official charter of the T. & G.W.U.
If some of our comrades were in difficulties on the docksides,
well, Communists are always in difficulties and we have to be
prepared to face them and to stand up against them.

Let this Congress b)e clear. Our line was to advise the dockers
to go back to work, to call for the intervention of the Govern¬
ment, a speed-up in the hearing of the case, the democratisation
of the Dockers’ Section of the T. & G.W.U., and for the
recognition of the dockers’ shop stewards as the A.E.U. recognise
their shop stewards. It was a positive line and it needs figating
for; and because, comrades' get chased in fighting for it—all
right—it is not the first time and it won’t be the last.

Do not be under any illusions. Supposing our Party had come
out and supported the dockers’ strike, would that have been
enough? When this Party goes into action, it goes into action;
and if it had been supporting the dockers’ strike it would have
had to call for sympathetic strike action of all transport workers

for an extension of that strike. Would that have done the
dockers any good? We deny it.

On the plea that the £4 10s. is too low, I put it frankly to this
Congress: I ask any trade union official here to deny what I now
say, that if we could get that £4 10s. minimum it would be a
blessing and a godsend to millions of workers, railwaymen,
shipbuilders, agricultural workers, etc. Comrades, you can make
it £5 or £10: demands and programmes are important, but what
is more important still is the mobilisation of the working class
to achieve their demands. The working class is a sensible class,
and it has never organised to fight for what it conceives to be
impossible.

My last word is this, in relation to building our Party, I want
to sweep away all the alibis.

You can talk about objective and subjective factors as long
as you like. You can talk about under-estimations and over¬
estimations as long as you like. But the fundamental reason
why our Party does not grow is that you comrades do not want
it to grow! T hat is the reason! The Party wants to be a narrow
Party, it wants to be a Party of exclusive Marxists. It resents
hundreds and thousands of new members coming into the Party.
Yes, I apply this test to all of you. It is not how many members
the other fellow makes for the Party: it is how many members
you personally are making, all of us here. It is the welcome we
extend to the comrades when they are in our ranks. I tell you,
you have a policy provided in the report that will enable our
Party to stand out as the champion of the British people, and of
Britain, and put us on the political map.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE STATEMENT

In view of the publicity given to a statement by Comrade Rust in
relation to Mr. Bevin, the Standing Orders Committee asked Comrade
Pollitt to make the following statement on the official policy of the
Communist Party: —

The attitude of the Communist Party to the Labour Government and its
policy at home and abroad is that laid down in the Political Report, and
the Congress Resolution which has been unanimously adopted by this
Congress.

The phrase used by Comrade Rust was not an expression of the views
of the Executive Committee.

In particular reference to foreign policy, the Political Report adopted by
Congress declared the following:

“ We warn the Labour movement that unless it compels the Government
to completely change its present foreign policy which is simply the
continuation of the imperialist line of the Tory Party and the reactionary
monopoly capitalists that there can be no fundamental social progress in
Britain, and that the whole future of this country is in grave peril.”

The Communist Party is, therefore, pledged to work for fundamental
changes in the policy of the Labour movement, brought about by the
pressure and determination of the Labour movement as a whole.

FRATERNAL DELEGATES

Austria, Hans Winterberg
Ceylon, Dr. Wickermasinghe
China, Ten Fa
Cuba, Flavio Bravo
Czechoslovakia, Lieben
France, Marcel Cachin and

G. Cogniot

Germany, W. Koenen

Holland, P. de Groot
India, Mirajkar
Ireland, W. McCullough
Norway, K. Kviberg
Poland, Miss Zofia Jaworska
Spain, S. Martorell
Syria and Lebanon

Nicolas Chaoui

GREETINGS TO CONGRESS

Messages of greeting to the 18th National Congress were received
from: the Communist Parties of Australia, Austria. Belgium. Denmark,
Finland, Greece, New Zealand, Palestine, United Slates of America,
Yugoslavia; the Labour-Progressive Party of Canada ; the United Socialist
Party of Iceland; and also from Fritz Dahlem, Mrs Elsie Mann and
Ivor Montagu.

ROLL OF HONOUR

The delegates stood in honour of the memory of comrades in the Forces,
Merchant Navy and on the Home Front, who had 'been killed by enemy
action during the war. The following is a list of those of whom the
Executive Committee has been notified.

Aarons, George, Paddington.

Adams, Bill, Sgt. Air Gunner, Littlehampton.

Adams, C. R., Major (Italy, 1944), Oxford
Agate, Stan, Civil Defence, London, 1944.

Aiken. Paratrooper (Arnhem, 1944).

Airlie, John, Ft,/Sgt., (Italy, 1944), Govan Y.C.L.

Alexandrides, Michael (London, 1944), Cypriot.

Alright, Bert, War Reserve Policeman (London, 1944), Bethnal Green.
Anderson, Fred, Private (Normandy), E. Newcastle.

Ansell, a.. Pilot (Germany, 1942), Tottenham.

Ansell, Harry, Ft./Sgt. (HollandX Tottenham.

Archer, Charles, Radio Operator, M.N. (1941), N. Kensington.,

Arthur, Derek, CpL, R.A.C. (Normandy, 1944), Sheffield.

Arundale, Len, Gunner (Malta), Stepney.

Bailey, Bert, Trooper (Italy, 1944), Sheffield. '

Bailey, H. H. (Italy, 1943), Chiswick.

Banks, Les, War Worker (Factory, 1944), Gillingham.

Barker, Aubrey A., Lieutenant ^Holland, 1944), London student.

Barker, W., Colchester.

Barnes, M. D., Sub-Lieutenant, Huddersfield.

Baxter, Tom, Bethnal Green.

Benjamin, Jack, Private (London, 1944), Bethnal Green.

Berman, Beryl (Scotland, 1943), Leeds.

Bird, Geoff (Arnhem), Harrow Weald.

Bloomfield, Mick, R.A.F. Sgt. (1943), Stepney.

Bond, Tom, Sgt., Garndiffaith.

Boon, Edward, R. Tank Corps (Anzio, 1944), Liverpool.

Boss, Kenneth, Capt. (1945), Luton.

Brooks, Roy, Sgt. (N. Africa, 1942), Bristol Y.C.L.

Brewster, Pete, R. Marines (Antwerp, 1944), Wembley.

Burlay, Alan.

Braham, Michael, Private, Stepney.

Branson, Clive, Tr. Sgt. (Burma, 1944), Battersea.

Brattman, John, Private (Burma, 1944), Stepney.

Breed, Arthur, Cpl. (Burma, 1944), Romford.

Byrne, John, Private (D-Day, France, 1944), Govanhill.

Cannon, Henry, R.A. Anti-Tank (Merry Alosta), Wood Green Y.C.L.
Cavill, Edward, Sgt. Gunner, R.A.F. (Essen, 1943), Hull.

Cartridge, J. A., P./Officer (Essen, 1943), Dudley.

Chanovitch, B., Bethnal Green.

Chillingworth, Bert, L./Cpl. (Italy, 1944), Hornsey.

Chapman, A. D., A.B., Harrow.

Chipchase, K., R.A.F. Aircrew (Bomb.), Harrowgate.

Clarkson, Alastair, Airborne Div. Lt. (Arnhem, 1944), Edinburgh students.
Clements, John A., Ft./Sgt. (Germany, 1945), Southall.

CORRY, Bert, Merchant Navy (Battle Atlantic, 1942), Manchester.
CocKREN, Len, Ft./Sgt. (Mediterranean, 1944), Smithfield.

Cohen, Ellis, R.N. (Crete, 1941), Exchange (Manchester).

Corbett, Danny, S. Southwark.

Coshall, Arthur.

Crake, G. G., R.A.F.. E. Grinstead.

Cree, Hugh, Stoker (1941), Govanhill.

Crossland, Vincent, Bevin Boy (Lofthouse Colliery), Wakefield.
Crowe, R. Ft./Sgt. (Berlin), Dundee.

Cummings, Hamilton, Paisley.

Davenport, Sgt., R.A.F. (Germany, 1945), London (?).

Davies, R., Sgt., Maesteg.

Davies, R., Wireless Op. Sgt., R.A.F. (Denmark), Wandsworth Y.C.L.
Davis, Dick, R.A.F., Streatham Y.C.L.

De Barr, F., Sgt., Chelmsford.

Dick, Hugh, R.A.F. Navigator (Duisburg), Shoreditch.

Dewey, Dick (France, 1945), Nottingham.

Donald, William, R.A. (San Marino), Newcastle.

Donovan, Clarence, R. Navy, Treherbert.

Draper, Len, Signalman, R.N., Southgate Y.C.L.

Duff, Alan, Lt., R.A.C. (Germany, 1944), Cambridge student.

Duffy, John, M.N. (1941), Buckhaven.

Edmeades, S., A.B., R. Navy (English Channel, 1943), Gravesend.
Elliott, Jack, Buxton.

Elliott, John, Private (Germany, 1945), Gorton.

Elliott, K., Ft./Sgt. (Italy, 1942), Wakefield.

Evans, kon, Ft./Sgt. (Tobruk, 1942), Romford.

Eyesackers, E.C., A.R.F. (1940), Holborn.

Feldman, Les (P.O.W., Germany, 1944), Leeds.

Ferguson, Walter, Ft./Sgt., Glasgow.

Fidgett, N., Barkingside.

Finch, C., West Ham.

Fink, Sidney, Civil Defence (London), Finsbury.

Fisher, David (India, 1942), Broxburn.

Forshaw, H., Flying Officer, Rochdale.

Fox, Jack, R.A.P.C., Tredegar.

Francis, David (India), Finsbury.

Gallacher, John, Acting Ft./Lt. (1944).

Gallacher, P. D., 2nd Lieut. (France, 1944).

Garbett, Adam, Private (Tobruk, 1942), Dundee.

George, Leslie, Private (N. Africa), Sussex.

Gilbert, R., Private, Twickenham.

Girling, J., Ipswich.

Glass, Alwyn, Guardsman, Neath.

Goldman, Harry, R. Navy (Ship sunk D-Day), Leeds.

Goldstein, L.. Fusilier (Sicily, 1943), I'.fo d.

Goldthorpe, Ken, Ft./Officer (Europe, 1945), Wembley.

Gorham, R., Private, Battersea Y.C.L.

Graham, N., Carlisle.

Grant, Alee, Sgt. (France, 1944), Brechin.

Greavett, Robert, L./Bdr. (Libya, 1941), Worthing,

Grocock, Harry, R. Navy, Birmingham.

Gross, Herbert (Italy, 1944), Stepney.

Gordon, Robert. Coatbridge.

Gollan, R., Edinburgh.

Gollan, W., Sgt., Ed.nburgh.

Gunner, Ernest, Sgt., Acton.

Halse, W., I.ieut. (D-Day, 1944), Oxford student.

Harbart, Sidney, Paratrooper (Normandy, 1944), Stepney.

Haydn-Jones, Horace, Private (Italy), Rhondda.

Hayes, W. D. C. M., Sgt., Chelmsford.

Head, Oliver, Private (Salerno, 1944), Southall.

Hinks, Joe (Jap Prisoner of War, died in captivity in Sumatra).

Hole, Mervyn, R.A.F. Sgt. (1944), Deal.

Howie, Neil, Abeideen.

Hoyland, Denys, Lieut.l(Italy, 1944), Roehampton.

Hughes, Mervyn, Oxford.

Hutchins, Graham, R.A.F., Tredegar.

Jefferson, R., Signalman (Germany, 1944), Burnley. ,

JoFFE, W. (1944), Hackney.

Johnstone, Andy, Private, Glasgow.

Jones, H. L., Private, Forth.

Kahle, J., R.A.F. (Crete, 1944), Harrogate.

Kay, Philip, Sgt./Pilot, Soho, Westminster.

Kaye, Morry, Cpl., R.A.F. (Missing 1944), Stepney.

Keighley, Jack, Tpr. (Falaise Gap. 1944), Bridlington/Dulwich.

Kelly, A.B. (1944), Chis'Aick.

Kibbey (Burma, 1944), West Ham.

King, Jack, Ldg. Seaman, Leyton.

Knight, F., Private (Solium, June, 1942), Openshaw.

Kominsky, M., Private, Stepney.

Lang, Tommy, Airdrie.

Lawton, John, R.A.M.C. (Italy), Student.

Lawton, J., Captain (Doctor), (France, 1944), Highgate.

Lazarus, L., Bethnal Green.

Leondieu, George (London, 1944), Cypriot.

Lerner, Nat, Hackney.

Lewfs, Dave, Leeds.

Longley, Edward, R. Signals (India, 1945), Portsmouth.

Lord, William, Officer, R.A.F. (1945), London student.

MacGuire, T., Sgt. Paratrooper (1943), Greenock.

McKenzie, Harry, M.N. Gunner, Aberdeen.

McKenzie, Kenneth, Gunner (London, 1943), Dundee.

McKinner, Alex, L./Sgt. (Garglianne, 1944), Kilmarnock.

McLoughlin (Missing, Singapore), Pollokshaws.

Martin, George, Private (Italy, 1943), Felling.

Mead, W. E., Cpl., Southwark.

Mereday, James, West Ham.

Michael, Simon (London, 1944), Cypriot.

Millichamp, Dennis, Sgt. Pilot (Over Europe, 1944), Nottingham Y.C.L.

Mills, George, Private (Tunis), Tottenham.

Mills, Harold V., Trooper (Italy), Dorchester.

Miranda, Lew (D'-Day, 1944), Central Hackney.

Moiseiwitch, Danny, R.A. (Anzio, 1944), Hackney Y.C.L.

Mole, Wilfred, Private (Italy, 1944), Kettering.

Mollekin, H. R., Driver-Operator, K.R.R.C. (Italy, 1944), N. Kensington.
Morgan, Glyn, Gunner, Cross Hands.

Morrell, S., Sgt. (Battle of Britain), Sheffield.

Morton, D., Trooper (Holland, 1945), Wakefield.

Moss, Sid (London), Bethnal Green.

Musaphia, Joe, Stepney.

Nagley, Sid (Holland), Leeds.

Nahumram (1942), Cambridge Student.

NapleY, Sid, Private (B.L.A., ,1945), Leeds.

Nicholson, Mobile Bdg. Worker (London, 1944).

Nilen, P. N., Sub-Lieut., R.N., Wood Green.

Norton, John, King’s Lynn.

Osborne, E., Flying Officer (1944).

Pickles, S., Sgt., Manchester.

Plackett (1944), Northampton.

Plater, Jack, Driver, R.A.S.C. (November, 1944), Potters Bar.

PoLLOK, James, Lieut., Springburn.

Power, Bill (France, 1944), Romford.

Pragnell, R. F., Driver (Arnhem, 1944), Salisbury.

PuDDiFOOT, Fred, R.A.F., Stepney.

Queen, J., L./Cpl. (N.W. Europe theatre, 1944), Falkirk Y.C.L.

Rasberry, Edie, King’s Lynn.

Reed, Alex, Private, Springburn.

Reed, D., Lieut. (N. Africa, 1943), Lincoln.

Reissman, Bernard, Private (Italy, 1943), Stepney Y.C.L.

Robson, H., Private, Maidstone.

Roilly, Jock, Stowmarket.

Rosenberg, Harry, S. Hackney.

Rosenfield, Monty, Cpl. (Italy, 1944), Manchester.

Ross, Arthur, Paratrooper, Hounslow.

Rowe, William, R. Navy, Bognor.

Rubens, Albert, Private (Africa, 1941), Leeds.

Sarson, Gerald, Ft./Sgt., Ilford.

Sayer, T., Private (Italy, 1944), Chatham.

ScROGGiE, Edward (London, 1944), Islington.

ScROGGiE, Lucy (London, 1944), Islington.

Segal, Stan, Private (1941), Islington.

Selby, Fred, Sgt., Richmond.

Shalks, Charles, R.A.O.C., Tees-side.

Silk’man, Humphrey, Private, Stepney.

Sisley, Sgt. Bomb Aimer (June, 1944), Islington E.

Slingsby, Ben, Private (Italy, 1944), Burnt Oak.

Smith, Alex (London, 1944), St. Pancras.

Smii'h, Harry, Sgt. Pilot (November, 1943), Gloucester.

Smith, Henry, Westminster.

Solomon, M., R.A.F. (Over Germany, 1945), Coventry.

Stein, Albert, Tank Corps (Italy, 1944), Holborn.

Stemp, Ron, Pilot Officer, Fenge.

Sterman, Ben, S. Southwark.

Stapley, Ernest E., Sgt. Rear Gunner (June, 1944), Hornsey.
Summers, J'. (London, 1944), Hammersmith.

Symonds, John (D-Day, 1944), Oxford student.

Taylor, Cecil, Private (Anzio, 1944), Nottingham.

Temperley, Harry, M. Navy, Stanley.

Thomas, H. J. (February, 1944), Rhondda.

Thompson, Frank, Major (Bulgaria, 1944), Oxford student.
Todd, John, Paratrooper, Hamilton.

Tribe, N., L./Cpl. (El Alamein, 1942), Maidstone.

Turner, Reg, King’s Lynn.

Valuer, Bill (Italy, 1943), Chiswick.

Wain, J. B., Driver (Normandy, 1944).

Wallace, M., Student.

Waters, E. W., Lieut. (Anzio, 1944), Dorking.

Watt, James, Private (Normandy, 1944), Dundee.

Ward, Jack (1943), Mitcham. '

Watson, Jack, F./Officer (1944), Hornsey.

Watson, P., R.A.F. Air Crew.

Webster, Frank, B.L.A., Leicester.

Whitehead, Capt. (Tunisia), Hull.

Wheeler, John, F./Lieut. (England, 1945), Hampstead.
WiLLCOCK, Tony, F./Officer (France,, 1945), Cambridge student.
Williams, Douglas, Treherbert.

Williams, Rev. D. L. (1944), Chiswick.

Zamani/ Bert, Finsbury.

Zentman, Private, Soho, Westminster.

Zimmerman (D-Day, 1944), Leeds Y.C.L.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE’S REPORT TO CONGRESS

The section of the Executive Committee’s Report (page 14) headed
The Science Committee, was referred back by Congress for further
consideration of the organisation and work of Party scientists.

CREDENTIALS REPORT

Number of Delegates—Full Rights .. .. .789

Representing

429 Branches

108 Borough/Branch Committees (London)

12 District Committees

Composition

Male ..

608

Female

181

Age Groups—Average Age 34

Up to 20 years

Up to 40 years

326

„ 25 „

127

„ 50 „

143

„ 30 „

136

Over 50 ,,

Occupations

Transport and Docks

Clothing and Textiles

Mining

Agriculture

Building, etc...

Press and Printing ..

Engineers

212

Clerical

Distributive

Housewives

Professional ..

Miscellaneous

Full-time Party and T.U. ..

Unemployed

Membership

OF Party

Up to 1 year

123

Up to 10 years

123

,, 2 years

„ 15 „

„ 3 „

100

„ 20 „

„ 4 ,,

Over 20 „

» 7 „

181

Trade Unions

T. & G.W.U.

C.A.W.U., N.A.L.G.O. and

N.U.G.M.W.

Clerical Unions

A.E.U., E.T.U. Engineering
and Allied ..

188

N.U.M., etc.

N.U.D.A.W., S.A.V. and

N.U.R., A.S.L.E.F.

and

Distributive

N.U.A.W. Agriculture

Transport Unions..

NATSOPA, ^N.U.J., Printing

A.U.B.T.W., A.S.W.

and

and Press ..

Building Unions ..

N.A.F.T.A., N.U.B.S.O.,

N.U.T., A.Sc.W. and

Pro-

Clothing and Textiles

fessional Unions ..

Miscellaneous

Delegates in Unions

Members of Co-operative Societies

625

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
The following were elected to the new Executive Committee:

S. Abbott

J. Gollan

G. Allison

W. Hannington

Kathleen Beauchamp

Esther Henrotte

S. Blackwell

Arthur Horner

E. Bramley

John Horner

Isabel Brown

P. Kerrigan

Elinor Burns

Joan McMichael

Emile Burns

G. Matthews

J. R. Campbell

I. Montagu

G. Carritt

A. F. Pap worth

I. Cox

P. Piratin

P. Devine

H. Pollitt

R. P. Dutt

Tamara Rust

W. Gallacher

W. Rust

G. C. T. Giles

J. Scott

METHOD OF ELECTION OF EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE

On a recommendation from the Standing Orders Committee of the
Congress, it was agreed to establish a Commission consisting of one repre¬
sentative from each District, plus five from the new Executive Committee.
The District representatives to be appointed at the first District meeting
following the Congre§s. The terms of reference of the Commission to be:
to consider and report to the Executive Committee within six months on
the method of election of the Executive Committee at future Congresses.

The Executive Committee, after considering the Commission’s report to
submit its proposals to the branches for approval and operation at the next
Party Congress.

Note. —This resolution was adopted and resolutions Nos. 1-8 sent in
by branches to the Congress, dealing with the method of electing the
Executive Committee, were referred to the Commissipn.

STATUTORY DATES FOR CONGRESSES

In connection with various resolutions which had been before the
Standing Orders Committee on the Party Congress, the following statutory
dates were adopted:

An Annual National Congress shall take place during the last week of
February.

Annual District Congresses shall take place at the end of November.

Annual Branch Meetings shall take place in January.

APPEALS COMMITTEE

The following were elected:

J. Cunnick. J. Shields.

G. Hardy. H. Stevens.

R. W. Robson. R. Stewart.

D. Ross

AUDITORS

L. S. Dunstan and W. Holmes were elected as Auditors.

17. INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER, 1944.

Cl rH

XMOCO COCl

CCCO'?J<OCO dr

CO OT) O »C) o c
LCutJrHlCCO

S ft

fft o

'll

c ga
a ce

U ^

;

3 Sgg
,1

• M • S'

^ 2 ro

S-S g • C5 S

Eqj i=* 2 ®

A -(-i ^ bj} oQ fn ^

® -‘3.2 03 c5_2

ra § s S o^J.'S O'”

sJ o

6 M
"S w
bTO

§2

^1 - M

S >, O

•S?

c3 s: o.q
p, ,5f^^

oi (0.2 '^h

■s ■=-s^

!h S cS

2 o

Wro

.- o
fi. &

^ I §.

S o •

2 « =

§ 5 ■“ •
SO J ■

mi.®

= , o -o ,S :

) J, a ra II

^ = «-

io.si »2

“ ||
x<
U1

B ^

I ■1-2

« O I

a o '

> la «WO

d O Ub
CO C3 o

•= ; ^

ft £2^3^^^
a 2 o o o

liflgO

C Or^ © O ^

TO ® "^ {-* © X5 9

ft S o .
P 0-2 ^ ft ft-

ra S

S ft

■5 oj

: ft i!

^i1 ^asS^og

^ Q ft

^ P'

r' '

= |5i^.^26pQ

« « o

CO S O

tt S ^

flS jJT ^

® la

® 3

» c a
« 2 a
</} ca v)

We have examined the above Income and Expenditure Account, and certify that it is correct.

WALTER HOLMES. '1

> Auditors.

2l9t September. 1945. __ G. CRANE. J

CLOSING SPEECH TO CONGRESS

By HARRY POLLITT

We come to the close of what, in my opinion, has been the best,
most representative and most political Congress we have ever held.

I am sure that Comrade Cachin will not have failed to note the splendid
difference between this Congress and the Manchester Congress he attended
in 1924.

However, I think that now our Party has grown to such importance in
the political life of the country, our next Congress will have to be
organised differently, and that it must be a five-day Congress, giving
more time and opportunity for discussion and formulation of policy.

We now aim to make the future Congresses of the Communist Party
as equally outstanding and important in the life of this country as those
of the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress.

The average age and industrial composition of the Congress prove
that we have a Party which, armed with the decisions of the Congress,
is equipped to achieve tremendous advances for the working class and
the nation.

We have endorsed resolutions on Home and Foreign policy, that if
carried out can create a new and splendid future for our country. We
have understood our obligations to the Colonial peoples, and have adopted
a number of important decisions on urgent political issues of our day.

We are at the beginning of a new gigantic period in the Labour move¬
ment of this country, and I ask the comrades to read carefully the Penort
presented on behalf of the Executive Committee in order to grasp firmly
the strategical and tactical lines laid down. We will judge each event
on the political and industrial fields as it arises and make our decisions
accordingly. But I commend to every delegate the deepest study of
the points made by our Comrade Arthur Horner in his magnificent
contribution to our Congress this morning. Some of our young comrades
are thinking of the experiences in the last war and immediately after.
We will always defend the workers’ right to strike, and emphatically I
repeat, we will judge each situation on its merits. But remember, it is
sometimes easier to lead strikes than to win them.

We have paid particular attention to two questions, which are indis¬
pensable for the successful carrying through of our policy. First, the
need for an enormous extension of Marxist education and self-study.
Second, the strengthening and building of the Communist Party.

Your new Executive Committee has to face tremendous responsibilities
to the Party. It calls for your complete confidence in us to do the job.
It needs all the help and assistance you can give. At the same time
I give you this pledge: that it will keep every- District and Branch fully
informed of its decisions, with adequate and full explanations as to why
these decisions have been reached.

You comrades, too, have serious responsibilities. You have been elected
to represent your comrades at the most important event in the life of
a Communist Party—the Party Congress. Upon how you report the
Congress, set the example in popularising its decisions, making them
understood, winning conviction for them, depends how quickly in the
factories, trade unions. Co-operative movement and localities, we lever
the great British Labour movement into action.

We are now in a new period of world history, one pregnant with
tremendous possibilities. We have just emerged from six years of ghastly
war. It is not easy to make swift adjustments in thought and action, or
to forget the old and see the new.

I thought many times during the war how much easier the work would
be when peace was won. But life doesn’t work out that way, and for
Communists, with our make-up and our mental outlook, there are never
any easy times, either before or after the revolutionary conquest of power
has been carried through. There are always new fields to conquer and
new battles to be won. We Communists are always on the march.-

Yet at all times we need to make sure that the line of march is correct.
That is why there is new and urgent need to study Marxism-Leninism.
Inevitably during the war there was a falling off in study^ reading and
thinking in every Communist Party in the world. That is why just now
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is making such extraordinary
efforts to intensify the study of Marxism-Leninism. But if it is considered
necessary there, it is even more necessary in Britain, where the working
class, led by the Communist Party, has still to win power.

In our studies, however, it is not enough to read or learn by heart
and then mechanically quote, without thinking of what is new, and what
relation the quotation has to the given situation. The test of our study
and thinking over the basic principles of Marxism, is how far and how
quickly it helps us in present conditions to grasp the next link in the
chain, as the result of the stimulus to political thought and action that
should spring from this study.

May I say how glad we are to note so many comrades present as
delegates from the professions. They can play a great role in strengthening
the alliance between the working class and sections of the middle and
professional classes. We have noted their great vigour and critical
approach, and we welcome it.

You have brought into being many new Branches in towns cut off
from the great industrial centres. But excuse me if I offer a word of
advice. You also must keep your ears close to the ground, especially
the ground in the surrounding rural areas, because while you have much
to teach the working class, always remember, you have stiff more to
learn from it.

The Press has tried, and will try, to make capital out of our critical
discussions and sharp exchanges of opinion. How little they understand
that self-criticism always strengthens and never weakens a political party
of the type of the Communist Party. I recall how Lenin flayed those
who wanted Party Congresses to be Mutual Admiration Gatherings.
Allow me to read to you what he said on this point after the London
Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903:—

“ I cannot help remembering a conversation of mine at that Congress
with one of the ‘ Centre ’ delegates; ‘ What a depressing atmosphere
prevails at our Congress,’ he complained to me. ‘ All this" fierce
fighting, this agitation, one against the other; these sharp polemics;
this uncomradely attitude.’ ‘ What a fine thing our Congress is,’ I
replied to him. ‘ Opportunities for open fighting. Opinions expressed;
tendencies revealed, Groups defined. Forward—That's what I like.
That’s life’.”

(Lenin; One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,)
46

And our Congress, too, has developed new life and new great oppor¬
tunities for our Party, if only we will it to be so and know how to use
them.

Build the Communist Party; pride in the Communist Party, as reflected
in our personal and collective winning of new members.

Comrades, the most moving experience in my life, was when I stood
before Lenin’s open grave in 1924 and heard Joseph Stalin say these words:

“ There is nothing higher than the title of member of the Party
whose founder and leader is Comrade Lenin.”

Even • if I did not then grasp the full significance of that proud phrase
because of youth and inexperience, I soon did believe it, and believe it
now more passionately than ever before.

I call on you to do the same now, and prove it in deeds by winning
thousands of new people—not “ one hundred per centers,” but the
sympathisers as well; those who will work, and those who will pay
and who feel they cannot do more.

People -are people. We have to understand this, to learn from them
as well as teach them, to try and make more sustained efforts to find
what comrades can and want to do.

Especially do I hope that we shall see in our recruiting that special
attention is given to winning the young men and women of this country
for Communism; The average age of 34-36 years at this Congress is a
splendid and inspiring thing. You have the ball at your feet and you
will be able to shoot with the speed and accuracy that even the Russian
Dynamos might envy when once you yourselves are filled with an assur¬
ance of your own power and your own strength. Especially win young
people and let us all pledge ourselves- to do much more to help build
up the Young Communist League and a mass sale for its splendid paper,
Challenge.

We can be proud so many Communist Parties have honoured us and
made us feel our responsibilities to the world so keenly by sending so
many fraternal delegates and messages.

We can be glad that in London, where Marx and Engels wrote “ Workers
of the World, Unite!” the presence of our comrades has still further
strengthened the bonds of international solidarity, and I am sure the
international effects of this great Congress will also make themselves felt.
For just as international unity has been established on the industrial field
in the World Federation of Trade Unions, so now we must work, to
secure international political unity as well.

Here in your name ws salute Dolores Pasionaria, General Secretary
of the Communist Party of Spairi, who bn December 9th will celebrate
her fiftieth birthday and her twenty-five years’ membership of the
Communist Party.

So, Good Luck, comrades!

We now go to it on the basis of a policy that can bring peace and
happiness to the British people and freedom to other peoples as well as
to ourselves. Our class is not terrified by atomic energy. Our class is
going to conquer and use its inexhaustible resources to lighten our labour
foi man, woman and child, and bring into their lives greater adventure and
greater happiness. In the realisation of these aims we shall be in line
with the best traditions of our movement and our country, and enable
the working class to go forward to working-class democracy and Socialism.

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY CONGRESS

POLITICAL RESOLUTION
Proposed by the Executive Committee

The Eighteenth Congress of the Communist Party, meeting after the
military defeat of fascism and Labour’s election victory, declares that the
working people of Britain can only safeguard their victories by a deter¬
mined struggle to complete the moral and political defeat of fascism,
and to carry through Labour’s full programme at home against the
resistance of the land-owners, bankers and monopolists.

The electoral defeat of Toryism and return of a Labour Government,
pledged to a programme of far-i^eaching social and economic reforms,
has demonstrated the will of the British people to end once and for all
the dominance of the old reactionary ruling class, build lasting peace
and go forward to a new social order. New anti-fascist democratic
governments have come to power in Europe. The Communist Parties in
all countries are greatly increased in strength, and in many cases the
basis is being laid for a united Party of the working class. The triumphant
achievement of the first Socialist State, the Soviet Union, in war as in
peace, has given inspiration to the peoples, and its influence is a powerful
factor on the side of peace and democratic advance. The formation of
the World Trade Union Federation, sixty millions strong, expresses, the
increased strength of organisation, solidarity and consciousness of common
purpose of the world working class. In Asia and Africa the Colonial
peoples are pressing forward their demand for full freedom and better
conditions of life. All over the world the peoples are demanding that
victory over fascism shall be followed by lasting peace, the fulfilment of
democracy, the ending of poverty and insecurity, and the use of the
great productive resources and modern technique for the benefit of all.
The goal of Socialism is inspiring millions as never before.

On the other hand, although fascism has been defeated in the military
field, its social and political destruction has to be completed. Already
the old reactionary forces are at work to undermine the victory, to weaken
the unity of the democratic nations, to spread anti-Soviet intrigues, to
rebuild reaction in Germany and Europe, as in Japan and Asia, and thus
prepare the way for a third world war. The imperialist rivalries of the
monopoly capitalists threaten the task of international reconstruction, and
press towards a new era of intensified world economic conflict and crisis.
Entrenched monopoly in Britain resists social and economic change, and
demands lowered standards of the working people in order to promote its
aims of trade war. The changed world economic position of Britain and
the backwardness of technique and equipment, consequent on years of
neglect and decay, require radical measures of reconstruction. Within the
Labour movement unity has still to be achieved; and the dangerous
influence of reformism, which opposes unity and surrenders to capitalist
policies, requires to be overcome. Hence it is necessary to warn against

any illusions that either the military victory over fascism abroad or the
electoral victory over Toryism at home has already solved the main
pioblems and opens out a straight and easy road to the final victory of
Socialism.

The period before us will be one of deepening social and political
struggles, which will require new and intensified effort of the working
class and all progressive sections of the people, and throw special respon¬
sibility on the political leadership by the Communist Party,

Congress endorses the Political Report presented on behalf of the
Executive Committee by Comrade Pollitt, and pledges the activity of the
Party in the coming year for the fulfilment of the aims set out in the
Report,

Expressing its full confidence in the Labour movement's readiness to
fight for these aims, Congress declares that they can only be won if the
movement insists on its declared policy being carried out loyally by the
Government,

It calls attention particularly to the wrong foreign policy of the
Government, which, in relation to Greece and Spain, in its hostility to
the Soviet Union and the new Peoples’ Governments in Europe, as well
as in its attitude to. the Colonial peoples, is continuing Tory policy,
weakening the unity of the Three Great Powers, holding back the forward
movement of the people, and endangering peace and economic co-operation
between the nations.

In calling the Labour movement’s attention to this situation. Congress
declares that it will be a disaster for the British people if, owing to the
reformist and anti-democratic tendencies of some of the leading members
of the Government, the present foreign policy is continued. This is why
it is essential for the Labour movement, while fully supporting the
Government against the Tories and helping it in every way to carry
out Labour’s programme, also openly to criticise and oppose policies which
are against the best interests of the working class.

Congress therefore pledges its efforts, in common with the large and
growing section of the Labour movement which has already shown its
concern over the reactionary foreign policy being pursued, to secure a
reversal of this policy.

In accordance with these aims. Congress sets out the following decisive
immediate objectives before the working class and people of this country
for the coming period:

HOME POLICY

1. Fulfilment of the Labour Party electoral programme, and full support
of the Labour Government for the fulfilment of this programme, including
nationalisation of coal and power, transport, and iron and steel; a vigorous
housing programme; and extension of health, education and social services.

2. Speeding up of demobilisation; and limitation of the armed forces
to the level necessary for the occupation of Germany and Japan and
fulfilment of international obligations under the peace treaties.

3. Planned conversion of industry from war to peace, through the
operation of the control of supplies, prices, investitient and location of

industry, so as to ensure full use of resources, including fullest agricultural
development, and maximum production of peace-time goods; and Govern¬
ment initiative in promoting large-scale schemes for the modernisation
and re-equipment of the main industries.

4. All-round increase of \vages, to bring the rates of real wages up
to the level of the increase in productivity; minimum wages of £4 10s.;
equal pay for men and women; reduction of hours to 40 per week;
guaranteed week, and fortnight’s holiday with pay.

5. Raising of social standards through the extension of social services
and increase of the rates of benefit, including increases of family
allowances.

6. Extension of democracy through democratic electoral reform, reform
of local government, and closest association of the trade unions and
co-operative movement with the Government’s reconstruction programme.

FOREIGN POLICY

1. The ending of the present deadlock. Firm co-operation of Britain,
the Soviet Union and the United States in the leadership of the United
Nations for the maintenance of peace; maintenance and strengthening of
the British-Soviet Alliance.

2. Fulfilment of the Crimea, Moscow and Berlin Agreements for the
destruction of fascism; prevention of new German aggression, and
strengthening of democracy in Europe.

3. Full support for the new democratic anti-fascist Governments in
Europe, and withdrawal of support from reactionary near-fascist and pro¬
fascist regimes, as in Greece, Spain and Portugal.

4. Democratic settlement in the Far East on the basis of destruction
of Japanese fascism and imperialism, and support for representative
democratic governments in China and in the liberated countries of
South-East Asia; no use of British forces to re-impose the imperialist
system of colonial subjection on the nations of South-East Asia.

5. Recognition of the right of the Indian people to independence and
to determine their own future through a sovereign Constituent Assembly
elected by universal suffrage.

6. Promotion of international economic co-operation through ratification
of the Bretton Woods agreement, and participation in joint schemes for
assistance in reconstruction and planned productive development through¬
out the world.

LABOUR MOVEMENT

1. Unity of the political Labour movement through close co-operation
of the Labour Party and the Communist Party, electoral agreement, and
affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party.

2. Strengthening of the trade union and co-operative movement and
100 per cent payment of the political levy.

3. Improvement of democratic machinery in the trade union movement,
removal of all disruptive bans and discriminations, and equal democratic
rights for all trade unionists paying the political levy to participate in
the political Labour movement.

Resolution on

THE TRANSITION FROM WAR TO PEACE ECONOMY

Proposed by the Executive Committee

The success of the Labour Government in grappling with
the problems of Britain’s economic situation after the war and
the change over from war to peace will require a positive
economic programme for planned productive development, full
employment, raising social standards and promoting large-scale
schemes for international economic development

It will be necessary to resist the reactionary offensive which
seeks to exploit the difficulties of the present economic position
in order to put through policies for lowering real wages and
social standards and cutting down programmes for social reform.
This type of proposed solution would only lead to the same
disastrous consequences as after the last war.

The positive economic programme for which the Labour
movement will need to fight in the change-over from war to
peace will require, besides the nationalisation of key industries,
retention of the controls over investments, raw materials and
prices, drastic reorganisation and technical re-equipment of the
main industries, planned location of industry, and active parti¬
cipation in international economic reconstruction through
assisting the development of productive resources in the back¬
ward areas of the world.

It will also involve carrying out in conjunction with the trade
.unions a positive policy on wages, prices and production. This
policy must include higher wages, equal pay for equal work,
and the reduction of hours to 40 per week.

Conversion Problems •

The swift achievement of Labour’s programme is only pos¬
sible on the basis of the speediest possible demobilisation of
the armed forces and the most rapid reconversion of industry
to peacetime purposes. A dilatory release of man-power
involves a slowing down of any successful transition from war
to peace economy.

While there is not likely to be any lack of demand for either
consumers’ or capital goods, active steps will be necessary to
prevent pools of unemployment developing during the transition.
These could arise through:—

Lack of foreign produced raw material for our industries,

due to our foreign trade difficulties.

Insufficient peace-time factories in the former depressed
areas.

Obstruction of private enterprise by capitalists—

1. their refusal to undertake essential production;

2. perpetuation of monopolist practices;

3. obstructing entry of labour into civilian industries by
paying starvation wages;

• 4. provoking strikes.

Lack of jobs in certain areas while industry is being re-tooled.

Pre-war jobs in certain less essential occupations not avail¬
able for certain groups of workers.

What To Do

It is necessary for the State to give peace-time industry a
stimulus by placing orders for^—

All kinds of building material and equipment to be subse¬
quently sold to municipalities.

Textile goods for the foreign trade.

Material for Colonial Development Schemes.

It could also bring the great industries requiring re-equipment
and replacement—coal, cotton, wool, transport and electrical
supply—into closer co-operation with the engineering industry,
so that orders can be placed on a priority basis with the
minimum of delay.

The Government, in conjunction with the nationalised Bank
of England, and utilising the machinery of control of investment,
will need to play an active part in promoting the fullest
modernisation and technical re-equipment of the main industries.

The Stale can attack monopoly practices, not only by per¬
fecting its price controls (basing the prices fixed on the costs
of the efficient firms) but by using Government factories to
compete with private enterprise (as is proposed in relation to
the production of housing parts) and by giving preference to
non-ring firms in the location of industry and by other means.

Foreign Trade and Materials

Essential to the speedy overcoming of the foreign trade diffi¬
culties is the rapid modernisation of the country’s equipment
and the maintenance of full employment. The higher the
efficiency of industry, the greater the possibility of the country

finding a ready market for its products abroad. At the present
moment, the Government is negotiating with the United States
Administration for a measure of economic assistance. It is
essential for the British Government, while pursuing these nego¬
tiations, to embark on a series of measures which will contribute
to the solution of Britain’s foreign trade problem, while paving
the way for a wider economic co-operation between all countries.

These measures should include:—

The increase of home production to take the place of
goods formerly imported from abroad. This can best take
place through a further expansion of agriculture and by the
development of British manufacture of goods hitherto
imported.

The conclusion of commercial and financial agreements with
overseas countries for the mutual expansion of trade. Special
attention should be paid to agreements with the Soviet Union
and the new democratic countries of Europe.

The increase of Britain’s export trade, in which most of
the main manufacturing industries, and not merely those
classified as export industries, should be called upon to play
their part.

Immediate ratification of the Bretton Woods plans for the
international Monetary Fund and International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development.

Promotion of schemes, either through the International
Bank, or through inter-governmental agreements, for the par¬
ticipation of British industry in assisting the development of
the productive resources in countries with a low level of
technical development. This will require a radical change in
the colonial system.

Wage Policy

A smooth change-over will be facilitated if the Government
has a co-ordinated policy on wages, prices and production and
explains it to the people.

This policy must be based on the principle that there can
be no freezing of wages and that improved conditions and
increased production must go together.

We urge a minimum wage of £4 10s.; equal pay and opportunity
for women; guaranteed week; an annual fortnight’s holiday with
pay and payment for all statutory holidays; and reduction of
hours to 40 per week with no reduction in pay.

The Government should directly assist the unions in the lower
paid consumers’ industries, with a view to securing such im¬
provements in wages and conditions as will attract labour to
those industries. Special regard must be paid to improving the
position of the low paid women workers.

In conjunction with the unions, it should review the nego¬
tiation and arbitration machinery. Arbitration machinery
should be set up on a local and regional basis, in order to ensure
the speedier handling of local grievances.

Price Control

Attempts on the part of the employers to undermine the price
controls will grow in the transition period and can best be met
by making the control machinery more effective and extending
its range.

It is particularly necessary to continue the food subsidies and
even to increase them as rationed supplies increase.

The extension of the utility principle and a closer control
of prices and standards is particularly necessary in the textile,
clothing and furniture industries.

' Price control is menaced by the growing disparity between
controlled and uncontrolled prices and the time has come to
extend control to all goods and services where profiteering is
evident.

Location of Industries

The formation of stagnant pools of unemployment in the
former depressed areas can best be overcome by the Govern¬
ment speeding up the location of new industries in those areas.
It must use its controls over finance and materials and acquire
other powers if necessary, in order to compel industry to settle
in those areas.

It must ensure that the industry is of such a character as to
employ all available labour, i.e., the settlement of certain types
of light industry usually operated by women is not sufficient
for areas in which there is a lack of jobs for male labour.

Temporary Unemployment

Workers who are rendered temporarily unemployed should
be given .a basic wage until a new job becomes available.

Those whose peace-time job is not immediately available
should be encouraged to take a temporary job at trade union

rates and should be given first preference when their trade or
industry opens up again.

The various industrial training schemes must be speeded up
to train the demobilised, or workers who want to equip them¬
selves for a better job than pre-war.

The Trade Unions and the Government

The close co-operation of the Government with the trade
unions will be essential for the success of its economic policy.

The unions must help the government to carry out its policy
on every level, from the workshop to the Regional Boards.
The unions must be prepared to offer the most concrete assist¬
ance to the new Working Parties in the consumers’ goods
industries, helping them with positive suggestions.

In particular the Government and unions should work to¬
gether to strengthen the workshop organisations and to secure
their fullest co-operation in the transition from war to peace.
The close co-ordination of the shop stewards, factory com-
mittees^ and other negotiating bodies of the first instance with
the production and efficiency committees is of the highest
importance.

The wartime gains of the workers—the guaranteed week and
the right of appeal against dismissals—must be continued in
new forms when the Essential Work Order expires.

The Government and the People

Labour’s policy cannot be carried out by Government
administration alone. It demands the co-operation of workers
and technicians in every industry. It involves a fight against
backward and sabotaging employers—a fight which must be
fought out in every factory, pit and building site.

Only the closest co-operation between the Government and
the people, above all between the Government and the Trades
Unions (of manual workers, administrative workers and tech¬
nicians), the Co-operative Societies, and the Associations of
Scientists, can secure a smooth transition from war to peace
and a full implementation of Labour’s programme.

Resolution on
MARXIST EDUCATION

Proposed by the Executive Committee

The present political situation in Britain demands the widest
extension of Marxist education—that is, of education in the
theory of scientific socialism, on the basis of the teachings of

Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and embodying the experience
of the international working-class movement and the results of
modern scientific research.

The strength and vitality of Marxist-Leninist theory have been
borne out by the whole course of modern history, and especially
by the experience of the world war of liberation against fascism.

It is only by means of the principles and methods of Marxism
that we can understand and solve the difficult problems of
modern social and political development.

The interest of the people in social, economic and political
matters, the desire for knowledge and discussion of affairs, is
outstanding. Millions previously untouched have been drawn to
the organised working-class movement. The example of the
Soviet Union, both in its peaceful triumphs of socialist construc¬
tion, and in the foremost part it has played during the war, has
been the chief among many factors that have aroused a new
interest in Marxism. Many members of the Labour movement
are dissatisfied with the traditional reformist outlook and are
seeking new policies. For the first time wide masses of workers,
as well as professional people, eagerly desire knowledge about
Marxism and the Marxist point of view.

It is the job of the Communist Party to carry forward the task
of Marxist education, and to introduce Marxist ideas and
methods into the Labour movement.

But the pressure of capitalist theory is strongly felt. In every
sphere of policy, national and international, sharp questions
arise, and the battle for the future of Britain is refiected in the
conflict of ideas. The most intensive campaign is being conducted
by the organs of capitalist propaganda to confuse public opinion
and to secure the adoption of policies contrary to the interests
of the working class.

Because the Labour movement in this country lacks a clear
theoretical basis, this propaganda finds its reflection within the
Labour movement. And in the present period of great social
and political changes, when the masses of the people are seeking
to move forward to the goal of Socialism, it is especially
important to combat the illusions and harmful theories of Social
Democracy.

Hence it is essential that the active fighters of the Labour move¬
ment should be equipped with a clear understanding of the
fundamentals of Marxist theory in order to assist in solving the
problems before them and to combat and defeat the manoeuvres
of the workers’ enemies.

The Rules of the Communist Party provide that “ Members,
with the assistance of the Party, shall strive to improve their
political knowledge and understanding of Marxist theory, to
equip themselves to take an active and helpful part in the
working-class movement, and win support for the aims and
policy of the Party.”

This Congress calls the attention of all Party Committees and
members to the importance of paying systematic attention to the
carrying out of this Rule.

The basis for growing understanding of Marxist theory must
always be self-study of the Marxist classics. It is therefore
necessary to ensure that the classics are available to all Party
members, and that material is issued designed as an introduction
to the study of the classics and bringing them to bear on current
problems.

Steps must also be taken to encourage the publication of more
Marxist studies of British history, institutions and political,
economic and social conditions. And Party members working
in the various fields of natural science, history and the social
sciences, philosophy and art, should put forward and develop
the Marxist approach to these subjects, and carry on polemics
especially against all current idealistic presentations.

The content of our Marxist educational work must combine
the study of Marxist theory, the accumulated experience of the
working-class struggle, with the application of this theory to the
problems and controversies of the struggle today.

In order, then, to help and strengthen the self-study and
individual work of Party members, the Executive Committee is
instructed to build up organised educational activities throughout
the Party.

For this purpose full plans for courses of elementary and
advanced Marxist education should be worked out, to cover all
the main aspects of Marxist teaching; and syllabuses and text¬
books should be issued in due order so that classes can be
organised to ensure members to cover the whole course in a
specified time. Correspondence courses should also be made
■available on the same subjects.

It is necessary to ensure: —

(1) That classes and lectures are organised at frequent
intervals by every Branch of the Party;

(2) That schools are organised by our District Committees,
including day and week-end schools.

(3) That the number of National Schools is increased,
drawing into them more workers from industry, women,
and comrades demobilised from the forces; with a view
to the earliest possible organisation of a continuous
National School,

It is necessary also to ensure the regular publication of study
outlines, syllabuses and text books for both individual and class
study, and to organise correspondence courses.

The Communist Party, however, cannot be content with
improving the Marxist understanding of its own members. It is
essential also to carry Marxism into the whole Labour movement,
as the only way to combat the penetration of capitalist ideas and
strengthen the movement’s confidence and determination. Marx
House has done valuable pioneering work for Marxist education,
especially through its Educational Commentaries and Syllabuses
and mass lectures, but it has lacked any wider educational
machinery for organic contact with the general body of the
organised Labour movement.

The broader forms of working-class educational organisation
and activity, as. they have so far developed through the National
Council of Labour Colleges, the Co-operative Education Com¬
mittees, the Workers’ Education Association and the W.E.T.U.C.,
as well as more recently the separate educational schemes of
particular unions, still reach in the aggregate only the fringes of
the Labour movement. The entire range of working-class educa¬
tional organisation and activity is weakened by sectional divisions
and rivalries, notably the long-standing feud between the
N.C.L.C. and the W.E.A. An even more serious weakness is that
the content and standard of teaching vary considerably, is only
over a small extent influenced by Marxism, and is in some cases
anti-Marxist in character.

The time is ripe for a new initiative to strengthen and extend
the entire field of working-class education, to work for closer
co-operation and unity between the various organisations engaged
in this field, and to extend the influence of Marxism throughout
the field of working-class education.

It must be the responsibility of the Communist Party to
participate in and assist in every way the broad development of
working-class education, and to strengthen the work of tnose who
are striving to give it a Marxist content. It is the duty of Party
members therefore to;—

(1) Strengthen and extend all existing forms of working-class
educational organisation and activity by direct participa-
58

tion, and assisting in the promotion of classes, provision
of tutors, etc.;

(2) Participate actively in the democratic control of these
organisations and their work through the trade union,
co-operative and other bodies on the basis of which these
organisations are built up and governed, and to stimulate
interest of the trade union branches, district committees
and executives and co-operative societies in the educational
field;

(3) Strive to ensure that the spirit and influence of Marxist
teaching is continuously extended thioughout these educa¬
tional organisations, in their classes and syllabuses, and to
combat direct anti-Marxist teaching;

(4) Work for closer co-operation of all forms of working-clars
educational organisation and activity, with the aim to
build up, with the support of the entire Labour movement,
a broad united and democratically controlled working-class
educational movement, within which Marxism will be able
to exercise an increasing influence and eventually win its
rightful place as the recognised theory of the working-class
educational movement.

Congress, recognising that both the present struggles of the
working class and its future victory in the fight against capitalism
and for a social’st Britain depend on the v/hole movement being
inspired with the consistent class outlook of Marxism, pledges the
Party to carrv out the practical tasks outlined in the Resolution
and to fight i nceasingly against capitalist and social-democratic
ideas which are constantly undermining the strength and con¬
fidence of the working class.

Resolotion on

PARTY ORGANISATION
Proposed by the Executive Committee

This Congress endorses the general line of the Memorandum
on Party Organisation issued by the Executive Committee in
March after full discussion and endorsement by our Branches and
District Committees.

•It calls attention to fact that this Memorandum was produced
after an examination of Party organisation throughout the
country, in which certain major problems were revealed. These
showed themselves most acutely in the decline in the life and
activity of our factory groups and branches, and in the fact that
although annually since 1942 we had been able to recruit several
thousand members, we had not been able to register any net
increase in membership because of the fluctuation and loss of
membyrship which each year’s card exchange revealed.

This Congress recognises that the ending of the war in Europe,
the General Election, the defeat of Japan, the large-scale
industrial adjustments, particularly in the war industry, and the
Municipal Elections, have all had a retarding effect on the
successful operation of these decisions. Moreover, out of
experience gained since the Memorandum was issued, it is
necessary to place particular emphasis on certain weaknesses
which need a special effort if they are to be overcome.

Congress calls for a very great strengthening in our industrial
work, and immediate systematic attention by all responsible Party
committees to the election of Factory Committees in every job
and factory, pit, mill, rail centre and transport depot where we
have members. Every effort must be made to free our most
capable industrial comrades for undertaking work on these
Factory Committees, and where necessary such comrades
should be allowed to become members of the branch where they
work.

These Factory Committees have the duty of organising
monthly meetings of the members employed in their enterprises
and encouraging all possible forms of Communist work.

We ask for attention to the serious weakness in our organisa¬
tion caused through the frequent changes in our Branch
Secretaries and Committee members. We call for a determined
drive to ensure that some of our most experienced and able
comrades are available for staffing the Branch Committees. We
warn,against the tendency to operate mechanically the proposal
to divide large Branches when there are not sufficient capable
comrades to staff the new Branch Committees.

We demand a new appreciation in the Party of the Branch and
Branch Committees, recognising that we can only get the great
increase in public campaigning at present so urgent if we greatly
improve the character of our Branch leaderships. We want to
see more .responsibility and initiative and authority on (he part
of our Party Branches to make their own decisions on local
affairs, in such a way as to develop the application of our general
policy.

We emphasise the responsibility of Branch Committees for
continuously maintaining contact with and increasing their know¬
ledge of the Branch membership. We believe that the fluctuation
and loss of membership already mentioned arises not from
hostility or lack of sympathy for our policy, but mainly from the
fact that thousands of members do not easily find a place in our
organisation into which they can fit. We call on the Party to
eradicate any conceptions that still exist which are opposed to
the building of a mass Party. We place the utmost importance
on the organisation of an efficient system of dues collectors and
call upon all our branches to fight the idea sometimes expressed

that such work is a waste of valuable time. On the contrary,
we make special mention of the splendid work done by
conscientious dues collectors.

We call attention to the section of the Memorandum dealing
with the approach to Party members, and aimed at embracing
forms of political activity which carry us far beyond those
sections of people influenced by us in the past. We stress the
fact that increased activity from our members does not arise by
order nor by directive, but by example, personal conviction and
increased Marxist understanding.

There is need to ask all our Party Committees to pay particular
attention to the views of their members, particularly encouraging
all possible initiative and the development of Communist work
by every member amongst those people with whom they are
naturally in contact.

Finally, we summarise again the Party structure:—

(i) The Party Branch as the basic unit of the Party, with

Factory Committees, and in the larger Branches, Ward
or other Groups.

(ii) City or Borough Committees, where necessary.

(iii) Area Committees, where necessary.

(iv) District Committees.

(v) Executive Committee.

Congress warns against the tendency, to see further organisa¬
tional changes as a solution to existing problems. What is now
needed is the operation of the Organisation Commission’s report
in full, so that the organisational changes are accompanied by
closer attention to work in industry, closer contact between
Branch Committees and members, and the encouragement of
initiative in carrying out our policy in every sphere of activity.
At the same time. Congress recognises the need, on the basis
of our experience over the past period, to consider further some
outstanding problems of Party organisation which need more
detailed consideration. The most important of these is the
character and method of leadership by Party leading committees
from Executive to Branch.

To examine those questions further, this Congress proposes
that the new Executive Committee should appoint a Commission
with terms of reference to include the character and methods
of leadership by Party leading committees from the Executive
Committee to the Branch, the financial work of the Party, pre¬
parations and conduct of the Party Congress, and other matters
r-^ferred to it by the Executive Committee from this Party
Congress. This Commission to report to the Executive
Committee, and the Executive Committee to submit findings
to the membership.

Resolution on

DEMOBILISATION

Proposed by the Executive Committee

We are proud and glad to welcome back the men and women who
are now returning from the Forces to their homes and families and to
their colleagues and friends in the factories, fieMs and mines.

While we recognise that forces will still be required as occupation
troops in Germany and Japan until fascism has been completely destroyed,
we must express our deep concern at the present slow rate of demobilisa¬
tion. At the same time Congress repudiates the line of Mr. Churchill
and his Tory colleagues who try to turn the justified feeling of dis-
sa'^'sfaction into an assault on the Labour Government.

We be’ieve that the principal reasons for the slow rate of demobilisation
are the dangerous and wrong foreign policy of the Government and the
s’owness in carrying through a comnrehensive plan for the reconversion
of industry to the needs of peace. These are the main reasons why the
Government has proposed the indefensible high figure of 2+ million men
still to be under arms in June, 1946. This figure must be cut drastically
to the minimum necessary for fulfilment of our international obligations,
limiting occupation forces in Germany and Japan and their reinforcements.

By adopting a friendly attitude to the newly-emerging democratic
Governments in Europe, by agreeing to the just demands for self-govern¬
ment of the people of India, Indonesia, Burma, Malaya and Indo-China,
where British troops are being used against the interests of the peoples
of those countries and the British people, the rate of repatriation and
demobihsation could be immeasurably speeded up.

We believe that the trade union movement should be ready to accept
the soldier tradesman as worthy to join his craft comrades in industry,
and that with the assistance of Resettlement Committees, which should be
set up in the factories under the guidance of the shop stewards, men
and women from the Services will readily find their place in industry
and in the trade union movement, and will not be left as pawns to be
used by the employers against their working-class colleagues in industry.

But demobilisation, however fast, must still be fair as between man
and man. We are firmly convinced that the age-plus-service principle must
be strictly adhered to. We are concerned at the disparity in the rates
of release as between the Services and as between trades within the Services.
While we understand that regrouping and retraining of certain technicians
and tradesmen may lead to some slight disparities, we are not satisfied
that the present holding back of groups and trades is necessary. This
ho'ding back tends to defeat the purpose of the age-plus-service principle.

Together with the demand for a drastic revision of the Government’s
estimate, we call for an immediate review of all service establishments,
so that the Service Chiefs and office-holders should not hold on to one
sing’e man or woman whose services cannot be genuinely and usefully
employed on military duties, and not as unpaid Industrial auxiliaries or
as strike breakers.

We also call on the Government to remove the financial and other
penalties on the Class B releases, so that, by the removal of these barriers,
encouragement will be given to the skilled personnel in the Forces to
accept such release and speedily play a part in the reconstruction of Britain.

While awaiting demobilisation, men and women in the Services should
be given better opportunities to prepare for civilian life by improved
facilities for technical and trade training, and should be freed from the
petty indignities and stupidities of . blanco-ing, primary training and
unnecessary fatigues.

We protest at the treatment which our men are meeting abroad, especially
in the Far East, whilst awaiting shipping for demobilisation and repatria¬
tion. Some of the transit camps have not adequate accommodation and
the food and sanitary arrangements are not good. We demand that these
matters should be remedied at once.

We consider that present gratuities are inadequate and should be
increased, and that all tanks should receive equal gratuities, and that
payment of same should be speeded up; we would also urge that the
present clothing allowance to women on demobilisation should be increased
to £25.

We protest that the rates of pensions payable to disabled ex-Service men
and women are grossly inadequate, and we demand that they be imme¬
diately increased to 60/- per week for the 100 per cent assessment.

Resolution on

HOUSING

This Congress records its support for the Government’s principles that
the housing needs of working- people m.ust be satisfied first and that
Local Authorities shou'd be the main house-building agency. It welcomes
the promise of legis’ation giving Local Authorities compulsory powers
to acquire land rap'dly while negotiations proceed regarding purchase p ice,
and to introduce a Bill during this parliamentary session to deal with
Land Prices, Compensation and Betterment, but points out that nationalisa¬
tion of the land is the best solution of the land problem, inch dlng the
adoption of a proper national policy of planning. It also welcomes the
effort to be made to organise the mass production of building materials.

At the same time it regrets that the Government has so far fai'ed to
take the drastic, sweeping and vigorous measures which the critical housing
shortage demands, on the lines of policy expressed by the Labour Party
and the Trades Union Congress.

The provision of the necessary number of new homes in the minimum
possible time is not only the Government’s primary duty; it is also a
central question of the whole national post-war production programme.
The speed with which a huge house-building plan is started and carried
through will determine the level of production and degree of expansion
in a host of other industries.

It is precisely because this Congress is aware of the vast nature of
the task and of the legacy of difficulties left by a series of Tory Govern¬
ments and the war, that it emphasises the ineffectiveness of half-measures,
and reaffirms the policy in the Resolution on Housing passed at the 17th
Congress of the Communist Party and elaborated in the Communist Party’s
Housing Memoranda.

Congress therefore calls on the Government:—

1. To adopt the target of four million new homes as the agreed urgent
need of the people in town and countryside, and the time Lmit or uve
years in which to carry it out.

2. To invite the representatives of the building workers’ and technicians'
trade unions to participate, as the miners are doing in the coal campaign,
in the organisation of a National Housing Campaign. The compulsory
establishment upon each building site of Joint Production Committees
consisting of representatives of the operatives, employers and technical staff.

3. To set up a Ministry of Housing, organised on the basis of present-
day needs and problems, together with a network of Regional Housing
Administrations consisting of representatives of all building forces and
agencies at Regional level, responsible to the Ministry, and possessing
powers to lead the housing campaign in the areas in which they operate,
and to make available to Regional Committees, supplies of surplus military
equipment (lorries, bulldozeis, etc.) for the rapid clearance and develop¬
ment of building sites.

4. To secure the necessary whole-hearted co-operation and required
numbers of building workers and technicians by supporting the present
demand of the building workers for an immediate increase of wages
of skilled operatives to 3/- an hour and corresponding increases for
labourers, and the abolition of all grades, making one Grade A, the
rate for the whole country, with bonuses for production based on a
guaranteed 40-hour week, a minim.um of two weeks’ holiday with pay
every year, adequate accommodation for directed workers, improved
canteen facilities, etc.

5. To provide loans to Local Authorities at a maximum interest rate
of 2 per cent.

6. To organise mass production in Government factories, together with
bulk ordering and purchase by the Government from private manufacturers
of houses, parts of houses, building materials, components and fittings for
sale to Local Authorities; strict control of price and quality, with adequate
powers of investigation into the process costs of manufacturers.

7. To meet the problem that the building industry is largely made up
of small contractors lacking both the experience and the equipment needed
to tackle large-scale building operations, it is necessary to give help to
enable the use of the most up-to-date methods and machinery.

Congress therefore welcomes the appointment by the Government of
a Scientific Committee to investigate prefabrication and to recommend
the most suitable methods as well as the best alternative materials to
those in customary use. This work should be speedfd up. It is
the firm opinion of Congress that tiaditional forms of building alone will
not produce the houses at the rate and speed demanded by the people’s
needs. At the same time, it is of the opinion that even before these
investigations are completed, mass production on a scale far greater than
is at present contemplated of a num.ber of partly and completely
fabricated house types, conforming to minimum standards of accommoda¬
tion and construction, should be put in hand without further delay.

In view of the serious dilapidations which have taken place due to
age and neglect in many houses, and to the landlords’ evasion of their
responsibility for keeping them fit for habitation. Local Authorities should
be urged by the Minister of Health to use their powers of repairing houses,
and of recovering from the landlords the expenses incurred.

In conclusion, this Congress warns the Government that it will be judged
not only on (he standards of housing it lays dov/n, but also on the
speed with which it provides a sufficient number of new houses for the

people. Congress calls on the Labour movement, and in particular on
the building workers, to invigorate the Government’s policy, so that
housing needs are satisfied in the way, and at the rate, and at the rents
required to meet the people's urgent needs.

Resolution on
AFFILIATION

This Congress confirms the Party’s determination to fight for the unity
of the Labour movement, and believes that the time is opportune to press
for affiliation to the Labour Parly as an essential step in this direction.
We believe that in the course of the campaign for affiliation the Party
should:

Conduct a more vigorous exposition of our Party policy in contrast
to the policy of “ reforming ” capitalism, vigorously support all
progressive action of the Labour Government, and expose by out¬
spoken and constructive criticism and action, all reactionary policy at
home and abroad.

Resolution on

AGRICULTURE AND WORK IN THE RURAL AREAS

Congress reaffirms the lines of agricultural policy set out in the Com¬
munist Party’s Memorandum on Agriculture. We welcome the statement
on agricultural policy recently put forward by the Labour Government,
which provides a basis for future development. But we urge upon the
Government the necessity of formulating at once a national plan for crops
and livestock, aimed at securing a considerable increase over the present
level of production.

We draw urgent attention to the fact that the June 4 Agricultural Returns
showed an alarming fall in the acreages of crops for direct human consump¬
tion, and call for immediate emergency measures to check and reverse this
tendency. Such measures must include:—

(a) An immediate drastic stepping up of the sugar beet and potato
acreage targets for 1946.

(b) A campaign to secure a bigger acreage of wheat for 1946, by
encouragement of the sowing of spring wheat, the restoration of the
acreage wheat subsidy from £2 to £4 an acre, and some increase in
the price of wheat.

(d) A vigorous propaganda campaign to explain to the farming com¬
munity the urgency of the situation.

It is further urgently necessary that the claims of the farm workers for
higher wages and better conditions should be met in full. At the present
time there is a serious decline in the number of workers employed on the
land. And on the basis of the guarantees now made to the farmers,
the farm workers also must be guaranteed a decent standard of life.
We, therefore, wholeheartedly support the demand of the National Union
ot Agricultural Workers for a minimum wage of £4 10s. a week. The
Women’s Land Army, moreover, should be maintained, and better wages,
conditions, tiaining and opportunities for promotion be provided, together
with the gratuities on the same scale as those in the Women’s Services.

Pending nationalisation of the land, urgent steps must be taken by
the Government to improve the capital equipment of agriculture. In
particular, special a'd is needed for small farmers to enable them to
become more efficient, including the provision of cheap credits, and
the encouragement of farmers’ co-operation in the provision and use of
machinery, as well as in marketing and the purchase of requirements.

As well as wage increases, a national campaign for the improvement
of living conditions and amenities in the villages of Britain is essential.
Such a campaign calls for a great mobihsation of the Labour movement
to break the hold of the Tories on the County and Rural and Urban
District Councils in the rural areas. These remain at present the preserve
of the country gentry; and in many cases Council seats have not even
been contested by the Labour movement.

Ene-getic steps must be taken by the Divisional Labour Parties, the
co-operatives, the trade unions, and the Communist Party in the rural
areas, to find and to agree upon candidates for contesting every seat
, for these Councils. Members of the Communist Party, the Labour Party,
the trade unions and the co-operatives must be brought forward as
candidates, and agreement reached in every case as to the most suitable
candidate to contest each seat.

In the past, even when the rural elections have been contested by the
Labour movement, there has been little election campaigning—no literature,
meetings, ejection addresses, canvassing. Next spring this weakness should
be made good by the most energetic campaigning by the whole rural
Labour movement. The Communist Party, both locally and nationally,
needs to prepare special publications dea’ing with the rural elections.

One ot the main difficulties facing rural workers in contesting these
Councds is the time a-^d expense necessary for travel and attending
Council meetings and Committees. We press for the payment of full
expenses and loss of earnings to Rural and Urban District and County
Councillors.

In preparing for these elections, we urge the whole Labour movement
to support as the main programme:—

Rural Hoasirg—Speed up the building of new houses to be let at
rents rural workers can afford to pay. Abo'ition of the tied cottage, and
all new rural houses to be built in village communities and not in isolated
positions. Provision of a piped water supply, sanitation and electricity
to all rural houses; and a flat rate to be established for electricity all over
the country, ending the abnormally high ra^es charged in rural areas.

Education.—Provision of new school buildings, with the provision of
central schools for rural areas, giving the same educational standards as
in the towns.

Health.—Provision of clinics and improved health services, enlargement
of County hospitals, and provision of new hospitals when necessary.

Culture and Recreation.—Provision of village halls and community
cent'es, democmtically cont' olled libraries; and playing fields.

Transport.—Better transport.

Finally, as the indispensable conditions for the development of all this
work. Congress calls upon the Executive Committee to give much more
attention to Party work in the rural areas, producing special literature,
organising campaigns and helping small branches and isolated members
to build up a powerful Communist Party organisation in the countryside.

Resolution on
A NATIONAL PLAN

The need for a National Economic and Industrial Plan for Great
Britain is urgent and pa:amount.

Whilst welcoming the efforts now being made by the Government to
increase efficiency in a number of the most backward industries, we
believe the policy of dealing with the question of the location of industry
in a piecemeal manner is inadequate. There is also a serious lack of
co-ordination between Departments, and, as already recognised by
Government spokesmen, an inevitable result of these deficiencies must be
that local pockets of unemployment will develop.

Without a National Plan, based upon the fullest democratic consultation
between Government Authorities on the one hand and Local Authorities
and the elected representatives of both sides of indu try on the other, such
pockets of unemployment may well lead to the development of new
derelict areas.

Congress proposes that the Government should immediately establish a
Central Planning Commission with responsibility and powers to prepare
and secure the operation of a National Plan, setting out clearly aims and
targets and the means for their achievement.

Resolution on
SHIPPING AND PORTS

Congress pledges its full support for, and to publicise, the proposals
advanced in the International Seafarers’ Charter, and deplores the lack
of public spirit shown by British shipowners in their attempt to make
the discontinuance of War Risk Bonus an excuse for an attack on the
wage rates of the merchant seamen.

We pledge our support equally to the efforts now being made by the
Dockers’ Trade Unions to secure more satisfactory wages and conditions
of employment for port workers and to improve methods of port
administration.

Realising the vital part played by the shipping industry and the ports
in the economic life of Britain, we urge the Government, in view of the
attitude shown by the employers, to maintain the existing controls in
these industries until such time as comprehensive post-war schemes can
be introduced. "

Congress also draws attention to the need for our Party branches in
all ports to give consistent attention to the problems of seamen and of
port workeis, so as to assist them in overcoming the difficulties with
which th'-y are faced and in their struggles for improved conditions of
life and gi eater security.

Resolution on
THE B.B.C.

This Congress expresses its great concern and alarm at the anti-Soviet
and anti-democratic bias increasingly shown by the B.B.C. broadcasts and
treatment of news during recent months. It draws attention to the serious
danger this threatens to the interests of the British people in view of the
fact that the B.B.C. is a complete broadcasting monopoly and is not
responsible to Parliament for its activities and expressions of opinion,

which are nevertheless regarded abroad as the views and policy of the
British Government.

The existing form of B.B.C. Charter enables the B.B.C.’s activities to
operate beyond the reach of public criticism and outside the influence of
Parliament. We therefore urge that when the B.B.C. Charter comes
before Parliament for renewal next year, the B.B.C. shall be made
responsible to Parliament through a Cabinet Minister, thus facilitating some
degree of British democracy being expressed in the B.B.C.’s treatment of
news and opinions.

Resolution on
ATOMIC ENERGY

Congress recognises that the discovery of methods of release and
utilisation of atomic energy has opened up for mankind tremendous new
possibilities in the conquest of natural phenomena, which must be fully
and rapidly exploited in the interests of social progress and world peace.

It deplores the attempts now being made to utilise this discovery for
narrow reactionary and national purposes. It warns the Governments
of Britain and the U.S.A. that such attempts, while foredoomed to failure,
arc already seriously imperilling that international co-operation which alone
can avert the danger of a Third Wot Id War.

Congress calls on the newly-elected Executive Committee to launch a
nation-wide campaign to demand immediate sharing of the atomic bomb
secrets between the Big Three and that the ultimate control of the atom
bomb be vested in the Security Council of the United Nations.

Resolution on
EDUCATION

This Congress calls upon the Government to expedite the implementation
of the Education Act of 1944, by:

Speeding up the entry of trainees into ,the Emergency Training Scheme,
and that facilities be given for mothers of young children to be included
into the scheme.

More speedy release of teachers from the forces.

Placing of school building on an equal piiority with housing, and
foi the immediate modernising of existing school buildings.

We regret the action of the Government in postponing school-leaving
age of 15 years until 1947, and demand that immediate action be taken
to enable school-leaving age to be raised at once.

We consider the terms of the Act can best be fulfilled by the wide use
of the Multilateral school, and Congress calls for pressure on the Local
Authorities for the provision ot Nursery Schools, with proper and adequate
equipment and trained staffs.

We consider also that additional financial assistance from the National
Exchequer to local Authorities is essential to secure the full and speedy
implementation of the Act.

Resolution on

THE “DAILY WORKER”

This Congress greets the formation of the People's Press Printing Soc’ety
Ltd. The splendid response which this Co-operative venture has evoked,
indicates the widespread realisation of the need for broadening the base

and increasing the power of the Daily Worker, so that it can fulfil its
vital role in the crucial period ahead.

The carrying through of Labour's election programme depends in no
small measure on the strengthening of the Press favourable to the
Government, but vigilant, critical and able to express in the liveliest way
the feelings and aspirations of the mass movement.

The prospect of the early publication of the new full size Daily Worker,
competing in technique and readership appeal with the best that the
capitalist press can offer, will be welcomed enthusiastically by all workers
and progressive peop’e. The Society offers the trade unions, co-operatives
and the working class movement as a whole a great instrument of press
power.

Congress calls on the whole Party to carry through a great mass
campaign in support of the Soc’ety and Paper. It urges every member
to become a shareholder, and to press the advantages of Society member¬
ship on workmates and friends and in every organisation with which he
or she is associated.

It further calls for an immediate effort to increase the present reader-
ship and to popularise the plans of the Co-operative Society, so that as
soon as the newsprint position allows of the publication of the new paper,
the aim of halLa-million circulation can be rapidly realised. It also
emphasises the importance of increased support for the paper's Fighting
Fund.

The Communist Party, which played so great a part in building up the
Daily Worker, which inspires pride and confidence among tens of
thousands of men and women in all parts of Britain and among our
Forces all over the world, pledges its wholehearted support for the further
development of this great weapon as a militant organ of the working class
movement.

Resolution on

PARTY SPEAKERS AND LITERATURE

This Congress urges the Executive Committee to take steps to ensure that
our propaganda reaches wider sections of the people, and in particular:—

(1) to use National speakers more frequently in the smaller Branches
and new areas, which should also have priority 'in supplies of
Party literature.

(2) to produce a greater variety of short, cheap pamphlets or Specials
suitable for door-to-door selling; "

(3) to include among these the following subjects: our Socialist aims,
in their application to Britain ; the attitude of the Party on
important current questions; Building and other industries;

(4) to see that the method of treatment and style of writing is popular,
avoiding jargon and stereotyped phrases, while at the same time
making clear our Marxist principles and the special role of our
Party.

Congress also considers that Branches should give more encouragement
to Book Clubs and the organisation of libraries.

Resolution on
INDIA

The new world situation brought about by the military defeat of
German and Japanese fascist-imperial-ism, -in the attainment of which the
Indian peoples played a vital part, opens up new perspectives and new
possibilities for the Indian peoples.

The newly-elected Labour Government in this country is now faced
with fresh opportunities and responsibilities to fulfil its pledges to
negotiate the settlement of India’s future on the basis of the recognition of
India’s right to treedom.

This Congress expresses dissatisfaction with the proposals made by
Mr. Attlee on behalf of the Labour Gover.nment on September 19, 1945,
because they do not constitute a decisive step towards such a settlement.
Congress declares that it is necessary to break entirely with the policies
for India inherited from previous Governments, and in particular to
abandon as a basis for negotiation the Cripps offer of 1942.

An essential condition for giving practical effect to Labour’s desire to
give Indians the right to frame their own democratic constitution lies
in the calling of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly based
on adult franchise.

Unlike the “ constitution-making body ” proposed by the British
Government, the Constituent Assembly must be created by direct election
and not through the existing Provincial Assemblies, and it must include
democratically-elected representatives from the Indian States, and not
nominees of the Princes. Such a Constituent A sembly, being truly a
reffection of the national aspirations of the Indian peoples would not only
make a practical reality of Indian independence, but would ensure the full
fruits of that independence would be enjoyed hi' hte working masses of
India and not solely by tne privileged vested interests. Ihe Constituent
.Assembly must, of course, be a sovereign body whose decisions would be
unchallengeable by any other authority.

To make possible the calling together of such a Constituent Assembly,
Congress urges, the Labour Government to arrange immediate'y for the
preparation of electoral lists based on adult franchise for the whole of
India, to release without delay all political prisoners, and to withdraw all
bans and orders restricting freedom of movement, speech and association.

To deal with the immediate and urgent social and economic problems
which are nowjcausing tremendous distress in India, Congress urgest that
interim representative governments be established in the Provinces to
function until the results of the Provincial elections are known ; and that
immediately after tthe Central Assembly elections, a responsible Govern¬
ment at the Centre, composed of representatives of the leading political
parties and minorities, be set up.

Independence for India will mean India taking her place alongside all
those other countries throughout the world which are advancing along the
road to freedom and democracy. A subject India will make impossible the
achievement of tasting peace, prosperity and happiness in the world. It is
in the interests of all peoples, and of the British people in particular,
that India should become a free and sovereign country.

The Communist Party pledges itself to do all in its power to ensure
the carrying out of this policy.

Resolution on
COLONIES

This Congress welcomes the growth and strengthening of the national
liberation movement in the Colonies during wartime. The Colonial peoples
played an important and far-reaching part in the war against fascism,
sacrificing many of their best sons in the struggle and undergoing serious
economic privations. Especially we note with pride the glorious part
played by our comrades in Burma. Malaya and the Far East Colonial
countries, whose heroic armed resistance to the armies of Japanese occu¬
pation, in close collaboration with the Allied Armies, materially helped
to bring about the speedy defeat of the Japanese without great loss of
lives to the Allied forces.

The wartime exnerienc^s of all Colonial peoples have strengthened their
confidence in their ability to determine their own future and their con¬
viction of the justness of their demand for the right of self-determination.

This Congress re-aflRrms its be'ief in the equality of all peoples, the
right of all nations to choose their own form of government and the
necessity to end the exploitation of one nation by another. We therefore
call upon the Labour Government, in accordance with the traditions of
the Labour movement, to extend to all peoples the rights of equality and
freedom which were promised in the Atlantic Charter and at Teheran.
We call upon the Labour Government to break sharply and decisively
with Tory policies of imoerialist explo'tation. which have imroverished
the colonial territories and denied them their elementary civil liberties.

Congress places on record its dissatisfaction at the use of British armed
forces in an attempt to'suppress the national movements in Indo-China
and Indonesia, and at the refusal of the Governor of Burma to recognise
the right of the Burmese Resistance Movement to speak for the Burmese
people. Further, the constitutional changes now proposed for Colonies
such as Nigeria and Cey’on in no way meet with the clearly expressed
wishes of the people of those countries.

We ask the Labour Government, therefore, to outline a clear policy
foi the achievement by the Colonial peop'es of equal and free status
amongst the nations of the world. And, in addition and as an immediate
step:—

(a) to secure the repeal of all laws restricting freedom of speech,
movement and assembly.

(b) to repeal all laws that discriminate politically or economically
against the population, or sections of the population, in the Colonies.

(d) To grant every facility and assistance to the Colonial peoples in
forming their trade unions and co-operative organisations.

(e) to draw up, co-ordinate and put into effect plans for the economic
and industrial development of the backward colonial economies which
will have the effect of stimulating world trade and lessening the threat
of unemployment. It is essential that all such industrial development
should be controlled -by, and in the interest of, the indigenous popula¬
tions and not for the benefit of foreign combines and monopoly
interests.

A great responsibility rests upon the Communist Party to arouse the

Labour movement, by its clear socialist presentation of the colonial issue,
to an understanding of the community of interest that exists between the
British people and the subject Colonial peoples in the fight against
imperialism and for a world in which all nations shall be free and equal.

Resolution on
INDONESIA

The Communist Party strongly protests against the use of British

and Indian troops in the interests of the great Anglo-Dutch monopoly

concerns to re-impose colonial slavery on the peoples of South-East Asia,
in defiance of* the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of
the United Nations Organisation.

We owe a duty to the Armed Forces of Britain in the Far East, who
joined up to defeat Japanese fascism and not in order to be used along¬
side Japanese forces to suppress the struggle of other nations for freedom.
Their demobilisation is being prolonged by the Labour Government’s
policy in South-East Asia.

We owe a duty to those British seamen of the “ Moreton Bay,” who
have helped to save the honour of the British Labour movement by

opposing the transport of troops and war materials to Indonesia. It is

an action in line with the traditions of the immortal “ Jolly George,” and
is an example to be followed by all British workers who are asked to
produce or transport war materials to Indonesia. We demand that neither
they nor their dependants shall suffer financial loss or victimisation because
of their splendid action.

We demand an immediate cessation of hostilities, and negotiations
with the Indonesian Republican Government on the basis of full
recognition of the right of the Indonesian people to self-determination and
independence.

The Communist Party calls for a reversal of the policy of the Labour-
Government in Indonesia and Indo-China, and for all Labour and
progressive organisations to exert their strongest possible pressure upon
the Government to secure this.

Resolution on

THE JEWISH QUESTION AND PALESTINE

This Congress solemnly places on record its profound horror at the
crimes committed by the fascists against the Jewish people in Germany
and the Nazi-occupied countries, and it expresses its deep sympathy to
the one-and-a-half million Jewish people of Europe who -have survived
this horror.

Congress recognises that anti-Semitism, a weapon used by the ruling
class to split the progressive forces, can only be conquered by the
attainment of true political and economic democracy for all the peoples,
including the Jewish communities in each country. It welcomes the steps
already taken by the new democratic governments in Eastern Europe,
where anti-Semitism has taken deep roo., to assist in the resettlement and
rebuilding of ihe Jewish communities, and to outlaw racial discrimination.

Congress urges the Government to seek the immediate outlawing of
racial discrimination and communal libel in accordance with the declared

aims of the United Nations to complete the moral and ideological
destruction of fascism.

In the meantime, while welcoming the Government statement agreeing
to permit the entry into this country of limited categories of refugees,
Congress is concerned at the failure adequately to relieve the sufferings
of the displaced Jews still in camps in Germany, and is of the opinion
that the following steps should be taken immediately to secure the mental
and physical rehabilitation of these men and women, and to render them
fit to consider and determine their future: —

1. To provide adequate medical aid and relief measures, and to remove
all the displaced personnel from the camps to proper houses, if
necessary taken over from the present German population.

2. To organise special relief teams under U.N.R.K.A. to include
representatives from the countries of origin of these people, and
representatives of Jewish relief organisations.

3. To organise in co-operation with all other democratic countries the
immediate entry into these countries of those displaced persons in
Germany who are unable to return to their homes and wish to come
to those countries, and to provide transport facilities.

Congress recognises that the urgent humanitarian needs of the displaced
Jewish people call for immediate relief, but expresses its concern at the
manner in which the needs of these people have been used by Zionists to
obscure the real character of the fight of the Jewish communities through¬
out the capitalist world for democratic rights in their own countries, and
to cover up the Zionist demands for unlimited immigration to Palestine so
that a Jewish majority there might create a Jewish State under the
protection of British imperialism against the will of the Arab peoples.
Congress refutes the Zionist plea that the problems of world Jewry will
be solved by the creation of a Jewish State.

Congress is reminded that Britain, to protect its imperialist interests,
is concerned to retain the control of Palestine as a strategic centre covering
the Middle East and Suez, and while it gave the Jews the Balfour
Declaration in contradiction to its pledge to secure Arab independence,
British imperialism is primarily interested in neither Jew nor Arab.
Palestine today is the cockpit of imperialist rivalry in the Middle East,
and the future peaceful development of Palestine cannot be considered
apart from the wider questions of the Middle Eastern countries, which
must be the concern of the United Nations organisation, and not the
preserve of British or Anglo-American interests.

Neither the 1939 White Paper, which was an imperialist device to
preserve strategic interests against Nazi influence in the Arab countries,
nor Bevin’s statement of November 13, 1945, offers any solution to the
Arab and Jewish people. Although Bevin's statement resisted Zionist
pressure and recognised that the Jewish question must be solved on a
world scale, Anglo-American enquiry will not achieve this end.

Congress recognises, however, that as a result of the operation of the
Mandate, a community of 600,000 Jews has grown up in Palestine, who,
under the protection of the Mandate, have carried out considerable
economic development, and have developed their own way of life there,
which must be free to develop in peace and in harmony with the Arabs.
It must be noted that the Arab masses have not materially benefited by this

development. Arab agriculture has not been developed, but a new
landless Arab proletariat has been created. The Arab masses see the
Zionists as the cause of their poverty and fear the economic domination
of the Jews.

Congress believes that a just and democratic settlement of the problem
of Palestine can only be achieved by the abolition of the Mandate and
the recognition of the national independence of Palestine under a
democratic regime which assures freedom and equal rights to Arabs and
Jews. A free and independent Palestine is the only condition in which
full Arab-Jewish unity will flourish. This unity will be developed in the
joint struggle of the Arab and Jewish people to solve the grave economic
problems now facing Palestine, by joint struggle to end the Zionist policy
of Jewish exclusiveness in industry and agriculture; by ensuring a more
even development of Arab and Jewish industry; by ending the present
bureaucratic regime and fighting for democratic elections of local
authorities.

Congress welcomes the limited but growing signs of Arab-Jewish
co-operation on the trade union field, and in the recent joint actions to
secure improved working conditions.

The question of any further immigration into Palestine must be subject
to agreement by the Arabs and Jews of Palestine.

Congress believes that with co-operation between Arab and Jews, the
Arab peoples of Palestine would be ready to agree to the immigration
of some of the displaced Jews of Europe.

It calls on the. Jews and Arabs of Palestine to co-operate in seeking
this solution, and in particular calls on progressive Arabs and Jews to
resolve their differences and unite to this end.

Resolution on
YOUTH

This Congress, recognising the need for and value of a Youth move¬
ment, urges all Branches of the Party to pay increasing attention to the
establishment and development of branches of the Young Communist
League. Only by this strengthening of the Young Communist League,
and in no other way, can we fulfil our responsibility to Youth, and carry 1
forward our Party’s fight for the strengthening of all democratic Youth
organisations, and for the ultimate uniting of all Socialist Youth.

Resolution on
COAL PRODUCTION

This Congress, realising that coal is urgent to the reconstruction of
the country, and conscious that coal production this winter will be a
test case for the Labour Government, welcomes the lead given by the
Minister of Fuel and Power and the National Union of Mineworkers.
We are confident that the miners will do everything possible to reach
the targets set, and, in pledging the full support of the Communist Party,
we call upon every Communist miner to set an example by his personal
work in the pits.

Congress further recognises that the efforts of the whole Labour move¬
ment are needed to support the demands of the miners, to throw its

weight behind the measures taken by the Government and the miners
to avoid a coal crisis, and also to carry through a Fuel Economy campaign.

Congress, however, gives due warning to the Government that its
reluctance to provide adequate rates of compensation in the new Bill is
causing widespread discontent and can, if not remedied forthwith, seriously
affect the campaign for increased output and successful nationalisation.

The appeal for more coal will meet with a much more ready response
if the Government:—

Speeds up the supplies of belting, machinery and spare parts;

Gives an immediate pledge to the miners as to when it will introduce
the 5-day week, two weeks’ holiday with pay, and retiring pensions;

Meet the reasonable demand of the National Union of Mineworkers
for 55/- a week for injured miners;

Takes immediate steps to extend the medical services so that
adequately staffed and equipped health centres are established in the
mining areas;

Takes special measures to provide more training facilities for new
entrants to the mines; and

On this basis induces ex-Service miners to return to the industry.

Resolution on
OLD AGE PENSIONS

This Congress pledges its fullest support for the Old Age Pensioners’
Charter. While congratulating those M.P.s who are endeavouring to secure
more measure of immediate relief. Congress calls upon the Labour Govern¬
ment and the Ministry of National Insurance for the rapid introduction of
Pensions of 30/- per week for all men and women of sixty years or over,
without a Means Test.

Resolution on
LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This Congress recognises that the increasing responsibilities for the educa¬
tion, health and well-being of the people cannot be placed on the already
overburdened and out-of-date structure of local government, with its
overlapping boundaries, multiplicity 6f authorities and joint authorities,
and inadequate and unfair financial system. It believes that in order to
remove anomalies, to ensure the utmost efficiency and economy in adminis¬
tration, to secure the scientific planning of essential services and industry,
with properly balanced and closely integrated urban and rural populations,
the time has come for a complete overhaul of the existing structure of
local government, based on a democratic two-tier system of regional and
district authorities, with provision made for the corporate expression of
the smaller population neighbourhood units of ward and parish.

This Congress therefore considers that the setting up of the Boundaries
Commission, with its present terms of reference, is inadequate, and calls
on the Government to set up an Inter-Departmental Committee, consisting
of the Government Departments concerned, local authorities, M.P.s and
experts, as suggested in the Memorandum on Local Government Reform
presented by the Executive Committee to the Minister of Health in October,
1945, with the following terms of reference:—

i. To survey the implications of current and pending legislation on

the major social services;

ii. To survey J;he proposals made by various responsible public bodies
and political parties for local government re-organisation.

iii. To report on proposed changes in local government structure, bearing
in mind the equal need for efficiency to meet the ne\v stage of
administration of social services, and for democratic structure and
control.

This Congress calls on all Districts of the Party to consider these
proposals and examine their application to their own areas, with a view
to assisting in the work of such an Inter-Departmental Committee.

In the meantime the Party must ensure that the present Authorities
are made as effective as possible. To this end, it should encourage the
fullest participation of the local Labour and trade union movement in the
work of the Council, and should insist that local authorities should be
given power to recompense councillors where loss of earnings is occasioned
by the performance of their civic duties.

Resolution on
WALES

This Congress welcomes the Government proposal to reform the pro¬
cedure of the House of Commons in order to speed the achievement of
Labour’s progressive aims. It strongly urges the necessity to consider, as
part of the process, the immediate appointment of a Secretary of State
foi Wales with similar functions as now exist for Scotland, and the
preparation of measures for the establishment of a Welsh Parliament
for Welsh Affairs, and a Scottish Parliament for Scottish Affairs.

It further demands that the whole of Wales be scheduled as a Develop¬
ment Area, so as to prevent the North as well as South Wales again
becoming a depressed area; and to exercise its power to retain war-time
industries for peace-time production, and for the compulsory direction
of industry to Wales.

Resolution on
SCOTLAND

Congress calls upon the Government for immediate action to tackle
the special economic problems of Scotland, now arising acutely as a result
of reconversion and the switch-over to peace-time industry. The closing
down of the M.A.P. Establishments and the Scottish Aircraft Industry,
the long delay in deciding the future of Rolls-Royce, Hillington, Prestwick,
Rosyth and many other industrial units, the serious position especially
in Lanarkshire with rapidly rising unemployment has produced uncertainty
and concern among the Scottish people for the future.

While Scotland’s basic industries, after some adjustment, are likely to
be fully employed in the next period, no firm plans have come from the
Government for the development of new light industries, urgently needed
before the war, and doubly needed now.

While three R.O.F.s and the two R.N.T.E.s are being retained, in the
main they will employ nothing like their war-time numbers. While it
seems that a future is assured for Prestwick and Congress welcomes the
new industries so far started, and the new industrial estates contemplated,
these measures are completely inadequate to employ the necessary numbers.
Few modern factory units were built during the war with the result there
is a serious danger that the new light engineering, aircraft, motor, electrical,

radio and consumption foods industries will again by-pass Scotland in the
next months because of the lack of modern factory space, thus intensifying
in the post-war period Scotland’s pre-war legacy 'of lop-sided economic
development and creating consequent unemployment.

Congress calls on the Government for immediate proposals for
Scotland's economic future, for light, industries capable of absorbing at
least 100,000 workers, for an immediate tackling of the serious Lanarkshire
position. It demands an immediate Government decision on the retention
of the aircraft industry. It regards the provisions of the Distribution of
Industry Act as completely inadequate and demands that the Government
take powers to direct industry to Scotland. Pending this, it demands a
standstill in the further closing of factories.

Such a Government plan for Scotland should not only include the
immediate provision of light industries but also firm proposals for the
development and modernisation of basic industries, vital for capital recon¬
struction in Britain. It must state the Government programme for Ship¬
building for the next five years, the rapid scientific development of
Scotland’s coal resources, the modernisation and extension of the clothing
industry, immediate proposals for the future of the jute industry, and
long-term proposals for a prosperous Scottish agriculture.

Congress calls for the creation by the Government of a Scottish Planning
Commission to facilitate Scotland’s economic development and to swiftly
carry out such a plan, the creation of a Scottish Department of the Board
of Trade and a Scottish Department of Labour. Regular meetings of
Scottish M.P.s are all vital to ensure a concerted attention in Parliament
to Scotland’s special problems.

Congress expresses its extreme concern at the slowness in tacklin£
Scotland’s special problems and stresses the urgency for immediate action
by the Government on such proposals. .

Resolution on
SPAIN

This Congress welcomes the decision of the World Trade Union
Federation calling on the Governments of the United Nations to break
relations with Franco.

We urge the British Government at once to take steps to break off
diplomatic relations and end all economic support for the fascist Govern¬
ment of Franco.

At the same time, we call on our Government to recognise the legal
Spanish Government and to give it every encouragement to become fully
representative of all sections of the real Spain outside the fascists.

Having in mind the great increase in the Franco terror, particularly the
recent executions, imminent death threat to Santiago Alvarez and Sebastian
Zaparain, and the news of new arrests of anti-fascists, we call on the
Government to make the strongest possible representations to Franco to
stop the arrests, release the prisoners and end the terror.

Finally, we demand that our own Government ends the present intoler¬
able situation in this country by immediately setting free all the Spanish
Republican prisoners already detained for many months in prisoner-of-war
camps here, although all of them are anti-fascists and most have a splendid
record in the struggle against fascism, and grant them safe transit to the
country of their choice.

Resolution on
CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

That this Congress is concerned at the slow growth of our Party and
attributes some part of the responsibility for this to the sectarian outlook
still prevailing in some sections of the Party. To change this, it is essential
that our members take a lively interest in all questions in which the people
are interested, including social, art, music, literature, entertainment and
sport. We must strive to end the feeling, which undoubtedly exists, that
members of the Communist Party should be interested only in political
activity, because such an attitude helps to isolate the members from
local life.

We suggest that our Party should give its support to cultural activities
and that its branches and area organisations should develop entertainment
and sport alongside their political work.

Resolution on
THE MEANS TEST

That this Congress calls upon the Government to withdraw Part 2
of the Unemployment Act (1934) (that part which imposes a Means Test
upon all receiving an allowance from the Unemployment Assistance Board)
as such a Means Test is just as inhuman and homebreaking under a Labour
Government as it is under a Tory Government.

Resolution on

THE POTTERIES INDUSTRY

The Communist Party is aware of and deplores the conditions that
exist in the Pottery Industry and demands that the Factory Acts of 1938
be brought into immediate operation. To do this the majority of the
factories would have to be rebuilt, and, if we are going to reduce the risk
of silicosis, this must be attended to now. When the first routine
examination of 3,185 workers in this most dangerous trade was carried
out in 1931 to 1932, it was found that 1 in 10 showed definite evidence of
silicosis, whilst people who had worked in the industry 20 years, the
proportion was 1 in 3. Since that time there has been an average of
nearly 50 deaths from Pottery Silicosis every year in the Stoke-on-Trent
District.

We approve of the reconstruction policy of the National Society of
Pottery Workers as set out in their report on the reconstruction of the
Pottery Industry, and we pledge our support in the carrying out of this
policy.

We welcome the setting up of the working party in the Pottery Industry^
whilst recognising that the prime responsibility for putting forward a policy
in the best interest of the workers rests with the trade union within the
working party. The Union's ability to do this depends upon the active
support given to it by the workers in the industry. The Communist Party
pledges to assist the workers in giving their support.

Resolution on
NURSERIES

In order that women may play their full part in the building ot the
new Britain, this Congress considers that, in addition to the retention of
Nurseries for babies of working mothers, it is necessary to supply care
before and after school hours for children of school age, and therefore
urges the Labour Government to consider this on a national scale.

Resolution on
MEMBERS IN FORCES

This Congress urges all Branches of the Party to increase their
contacts with members in Forces, especially because of the difficult time
many will have in serving in peace-time Army.

AMENDMENTS TO RULES

Proposed by the Executive Committee and adopted by Congress

Rule 3(b) Proposed to reduce the levy for the Central Election
Fund in the case of unemployed members, housewives and
old-age pensioners, to 2d. per quarter.

Rule 7(a) now reads as under:

“ Districts shall be constituted by the Executive Committee in
suitable geographical and industrial areas. An annual District
Congress shall be convened by each District Committee, and
composed of delegates from all Branches in the District in
accordance with their numerical strength, on a basis determined
by the District Committee in consultation with the Executive
Committee.”

Proposed to add the following words:

“In Districts where Area or Borough Committees exist,
representation from these bodies can be decided at the discretion
of the District Committee.’’

Rule 7(c) now reads:

“ The District Committee, in agreement with the Executive
Committee, may constitute Sub-Districts and determine the
constitution and function of the Sub-District Committee.”

Proposed to substitute the following:

” The District Committee, in agreement with the Executive
Committee, may constitute and provide for the election of Area,
City or Borough Committees, and determine the constitution and
function of these bodies.’’

Rule 8(a) now reads:

“ Branches shall be organised on the authority of the District
Committee, to include members living or working in the Branch
area.”

Proposed to substitute the following:

“ Branches shall be organised on the authority of the District
Committee, and comprised of all members living in the area
defined.”

__—V. Miciii establish Party groups in

facrories,' mines, and other industrial, transport or commercial
undertakings, for Party members working therein, and Ward or
other area groups for other members.”

Proposed to substitute the following:

“ The Branch Committee shall be responsible for ensuring the
organised political work of Party members, through Factory
Committees and full meetings of the members, in factories, mines,
and other industrial, transport and commercial undertakings, as
well as in the Wards and streets. In the case of large enterprises,
the direction of ihe work may be undertaken by the Borough,
Area or District Committee.”

RESOLUTIONS REFERRED BY CONGRESS
TO THE NEW EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

1. Resolutions on organisational matters to be considered by the
Organisation Commission.

260-262 Biennial Congress.

277-278 Congress Preparations.

282 Factory representation at Congress.

283 Area Committees’ representation at Congress.

285 Information on Executive Committee candidates.

288 Election of Officers.

291 Party Office organisation.

292 District or Regional organisation.

293-294 Constituency organisation.

295 Problems of small branches.

304-305 Party Card.

317 Political Letters.

Other Resolutions referred to the Executive Committee.

26 U.N.R.R.A.

33 U.S.S.R. Elections.

69 S.E.A.C. and Indian Income Tax.

85 National Parks.

121 Domestic workers.

124 Camborne-Redruth and the Distribution of Industries Bill.

152 Rating System.

167 Research. ^ .

168 Monopoly.

175 By-elections.

184 Young Pioneer Movement.

219 Monthly Theoretical Journal of Marxist Teaching.

226 New Marxist Classic or Symposium.

231 History of British Communist Party.

245 Daily Worker : Articles on Social Democracy and Marxist
Policy.

249 Party Badge.

254 Popularising of Executive Committee members.

255 Communist Party and Co-operative Movement.

289 Place of next Congress.

Communist publications; books and pamphlets dealing
with the British Labour movement, and progressive
literature of all types, may be obtained at the
following bookshops:—

Belfast: The International

Bookshop, 20 Church Lane.

Birmingham: Key Books, 115
Dale End, 4.

Bradford: People’s Bookshop,
60 Thornton Road.

Brighton: People’s Bookshop,
161a North St., Brighton, 1.

Bristol: West of England

People’s Bookshop, 8 West
Street, 2. Kingswood Book¬
shop. 45 Regent Street,
Kingswood.

Cambridge: Maclaurin’s Book¬
shop, 1 Rose Crescent.

Cardiff: South Wales Book¬
shop, 110a Queen’s Street.

Chatham: Progressive Book¬
shop. 277 Hign Street.

Cheltenham: People’s Book¬
shop, 80 High Street.

Coventry: The Bookshop, 39
Jordan Well.

Edinburgh: The Progressive
Bookshop. 37 Lothian Road.

Exeter: People’s Bookshop, 8
New Bridge Street.

Glasgow: Collet’s Bookshop, 15
Dundas Street, C.l. Clyde
Books. Ltd., 3 Bothwell
Street. C.2.

Gloucester: People’s Bookshop,
124 Barton Street.

Ipswich: 16 High Street.

King’s Lynn: Modern Book¬
shop. 7 Tower Street.

Leeds: Progressive Bookshop,
45 Woodhouse Lane.

Liverpool: Progressive Book¬
shop, 18 Norton Street.

Manchester: Collet’s Bookshop,
13/15 Hanging Ditch. Pro¬
gressive Bookshop, 7 John
Dalton Street.

Middlesbrough: Modern Books,
64 Borough Road.

Morecambe: Tom Platt & Son,
34 Queen Street.

Newcastle-on-Tyne: People’s

Bookshop, 122 Westgate Rd.

Nottingham: The Bookshop,
90 tipper Parliament Street.

Oxford: The Bookshop, 36
Hythe Bridge Street.

Plymouth: The Bookshop, 3
Whimple Street.

Portsmouth: People’s Book¬
shop. 338 Pratton Road.

Reading: People’s Bookshop,
83 London Street.

Sheffield: Sheffield Bookshop,
85 Carver Street.

Stroud: People’s Bookshop, 45a
High Street.

Swindon: Progressive Book¬
shop. 73d Commercial Road.

Worcester, Modern Books, 29
Lowesmoor.

Wrexham: The Bookshop, 30
Temple Row.

LONDON: THAMES BOOKSHOPS, LTD.
ACTON: 2 Church Road High Street.
CAMDEN TOVN: 45 Parkway
EAST LONDON: 20 Whitechapel High Street.
HARROW: 360 Station Road.

HAYES: 83 Station Road.

PECKHAM: 91 Peckham High Street.
TOOTING: 28 Mitcham Road.

or from

CENTRAL BOOKS LTD.

2-4, PARTON STREET, LONDON, W.C.I

Send 2d. for full list of progressive literature and special
subscription offers.

Omitted from page 4 of cover:

WEST OF ENGLAND: 28 Upper Maudlin Street. Bristol 2. Bristol 20194.

Date Due

249 Party Badge.

254 Popularising of Executive Committee members.

255 Communist Party and Co-operative Movement.

289 Place of next Congress.

CommL'P

with thl=!f
literatu
followin g-

Belfast:

Booksh

Birmingh
Dale Ej-.l
Bradford
60 Tho]
Brighton

161a N.

Bristol:

People’
Street,
shop,
Kingsw.

Cambridg
shop, 1
Cardiff:

shop. 1

Chatham i

shop, 2'

Cheltenha
shop, 8
Coventry:

Jordan
Edinburg!
Book

yi^VERSITV LIBRARY

Lt:

"“j

LJ lati

Cj ool
I

HX 632 A1 W9 no. 132

World communism in the 20th
century.

Glasgo
Dund
Book
Street]
Glouces
124
Ipswich
King’s
shop.

0172047A MAIN

Send

WEST OF El

District Addresses where you pan join the Communist Party
or keep In touch If transferred:

Cumberland:

3 Earl Street,

Carlisle.

Devon and Cornwall:

3 Whimple Street,
Plymouth.

Plymouth 27391 I

East Anglia:

Museum Chambers,
Museum Street,
Ipswich.

Ipswich 3682

East Midlands:

First Floor,

46 Bridlesmith Gate,
Nottingham.
Nottingham 40779

Hants and Dorset:

133 St. Mary Street,
Southampton.
Southampton 2692

Kent:

277 High Street,
Chatham.

Chatham 4086

Lancs, and Cheshire:

10 Piccadilly,

Manchester.

Manchester Central 3537
London:

I 33 Clerkenwell Green,

E.C.I.

Clerkenwell 7404

Midlands:

115 Dale End,
Birmingham, 4.
Birmingham Central 8171

North-East Coast:

3 I Oxford Street,

Newcastle-on-Tyno.
Newcastle 23238

Scotland:

68 West Regent Street,
Glasgow, C.2.

Glasgow Douglas 1437

South-East Midlands:

9 Manchester Street,

Luton.

Luton 2672

South Midlands:

38 Little Clarendon Street,
Oxford.

Oxford 3260

Sussex:

I, la Ship St. Chambers,
15 Ship Street,
Brighton.

Brighton 2363

Tees-Side:

64 Borough Road,
Middlesbrough.
Middlesbrough 3480

Wales:

9 St. Andrew's Crescent,
Cardiff.

Cardiff 5351

Yorkshire:

63 Great George Street,
Leeds.

Leeds 28675

16, KING STREET

COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C.2
Temple Bar 2l5i-5