Maneuver on the Left

There is a happy hobnobbing among politicians in Winston Churchill's Britain which cuts across most party lines. Tories, Liberals and Laborites govern together; Tories, Liberals and Communists speak for the same things from the same platforms. But top Laborites and Communists neither speak nor drink together. Labor's leadership, in fact, has decreed that no Laborite shall appear on the same platform as a Communist.

Last week Britain's biggest Communist, Harry Pollitt, asked that the Communist Party be allowed to affiliate with the Labor Party. Canny Harry's letter to Labor's Secretary James S. Middleton: "The Communist Party is fully prepared to accept all the obligations of being affiliated to the Labor Party and to carry out loyally all decisions reached at its annual conference." Ostensibly the Communists were willing to become good Laborites. Actually they would carry on as good Communists, while working overtime trying to influence the Labor Party.

Shrewd Harry Pollitt made his request at a time when Communist prestige is growing in Britain, not only because of Russia's great fight, but because the present British Communist line is anti-strike and pro-production for Russia's and Britain's Armies. If submitted to a Labor Party convention, the request might get a sizable approving vote.-

But with Labor's leaders still entertaining a robust distrust of British Communists, there was little chance of a Labor convention voting on the Communist request. Harry Pollitt was well aware of this when he wrote his letter last week. But Harry Pollitt had a purpose: the Communists are now on record in favor of unity on the Left, and this may win them new adherents--at Labor's expense.

-In 1936 25% of the Labor Party's convention voted in favor of a request similar to Pollitt's.

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