CHAPTER IX.
"LEFT" COMMUNISM IN GREAT BRITAIN.
In Britain there is as yet no Communist Party,[1] but there is a young, extensive, potent Communist movement, rapidly growing among the workers, which entitles one to entertain the brightest hope. There are, moreover, several political parties and organizations (the British Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the South Wales Socialist Society, and the Workers' Socialist Federation) which are desirous of forming a Communist Party and which are carrying on negotiations among themselves to that effect. In the Workers' Dreadnought (Vol. vi, No. 48, February 21, 1920), the weekly organ of the last above-named organizations, edited by Comrade Sylvia Parkhurst, she publishes an article "Towards the Communist Party." The article describes the course of negotiations between the four above-mentioned organizations regarding the formation of a single Communist Party on the basis of affiliation to the Third International, acknowledgment of the Soviet System instead of parliamentarism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It appears that one of the chief obstacles to the immediate creation of a single Communist Party is the difference of opinion on the question of participation in Parliament, and on the affiliation of the new Communist Party to the old professionalist Labor Party, composed of Trade Unions, opportunists, and social-chauvinist. The Workers' Socialist Federation, as well as the Socialist Labor Party,[2] are against participation in Parliament and Parliamentary elections; they are also against affiliation to the Labor Party, disagreeing in this respect with all, or a majority of,
