The Demise of the British Bolsheviks

November this year marked twenty-five years since the demise of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). 

This presents an opportunity for anyone looking back at the CPGB to reflect and reassess their politics. Their name notwithstanding, the CPGB were not in favour of doing away with capitalism, instead, operating as the British propaganda arm of the Kremlin. Without the Soviet Union, the CPGB had no purpose - a status in evidence when both were wound up in close succession by the end of 1991.

Their highly undemocratic maneuvering misled the British working class and ensured communism throughout the twentieth century was associated with dictatorship. Their tactics included breaking up opponents meetings and in argument, favoured personal slander. Their paper, the Daily Worker, endorsed the Soviet-Nazi pact and the atomic bombing of Japan. 

Their heroes, the Bolsheviks, once dismissed their Marxist critics to 'the dustbin of history'.  Having never taken power in Britain in the seventy-one years they existed, this is where the discredited CPGB now reside.

Jon D. White