Harry Pollitt

Pollitt was born on 22 November 1890 in Droylsden, Lancashire. He was the second of six children of Samuel Pollitt (1863–1933), a blacksmith's striker, and his wife, Mary Louisa (1868–1939), a cotton spinner, daughter of William Charlesworth, a joiner. Pollitt's parents were socialists, and his mother was a member of the Independent Labour Party before joining the Communist party when it was formed in 1920.^[1]

Three of his siblings died in infancy. The death of his younger sister Winifred particularly affected Pollitt, who said that he would "pay God out. Pay everybody out for making my sister suffer". Pollitt began work at the age of 12, alongside his mother. The suffering of his mother, who regularly worked standing in water wearing only wooden clogs, also particularly affected Pollitt, who later said that he "swore that when I grew up I would pay the bosses out for the hardships that she suffered". Pollitt later became a boilermaker and metal craftsman.^[1]

During the First World War, Pollitt was exempt from conscription as a skilled worker.^[2] Pollitt gained experience leading a strike in Southampton in 1915^[1][3] and later described being inspired by the 1917 October Revolution, saying it showed that "workers like me ... had defeated the boss class". By this time Pollitt was already a member of Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Socialist Federation and had gained experience with public speaking.^[1]

En septiembre de 1919, Pollitt fue nombrado organizador nacional a tiempo completo de la campaña Manos Fuera de Rusia para protestar contra la intervención aliada en la Guerra Civil Rusa , para la cual Pankhurst había obtenido financiación de Moscú. ^{[ 1 ] [ 4 ]} Pollitt se cansó de su trabajo de oficina y volvió a trabajar en el Puerto de Londres . Mientras estuvo allí, Pollitt ayudó a convencer a los estibadores londinenses de que no cargaran el carguero SS Jolly George  el 10 de mayo de 1920, ya que se dirigía con municiones para Polonia , que en ese momento estaba luchando contra la Rusia soviética en la Guerra Polaco-Soviética . ^{[ 5 ] [ 1 ]} Con el apoyo de Ernest Bevin , entonces un alto funcionario del sindicato de estibadores, los estibadores obligaron a los propietarios del barco a descargar su cargamento de municiones, y zarpó el 15 de mayo de 1920 sin ellas. ^{[ 6 ]} Pollitt no logró impedir el paso de otros barcos cargados de armas para Polonia, incluido el vapor danés Neptune el 1 de mayo de 1920 y dos barcazas belgas. ^{[ 7 ]}

En agosto de 1920, el Partido Comunista de Gran Bretaña (PCGB) fue fundado mediante un acuerdo que unificó a varias organizaciones de izquierda, incluido el Partido Socialista Británico , del cual Pollitt era miembro además de su membresía en la WSF. Pollitt, por lo tanto miembro fundador del partido, asistió a la "Convención de la Utilidad" fundacional del PCGB. ^{[ 8 ]} Al año siguiente, Pollitt visitó la Unión Soviética. Durante su visita, conoció y estrechó la mano de Vladimir Lenin , una experiencia que más tarde describió como el mejor día de su vida. ^{[ 9 ]} Según el número de octubre de 1921 de Freedom , a su regreso Pollitt declaró que había visto pruebas de que los anarquistas rusos estaban conspirando para restaurar el zarismo y habló con aprobación de la represión del anarquismo en Rusia. ^{[ 10 ]}

Pollitt was involved in a criminal case against five men he accused of kidnapping him in March 1925 whilst he was on his way to address a meeting of communists in Liverpool. According to Pollitt, he had been taken off a train and held in Wales over a weekend in order to prevent him reaching Liverpool, though treated mildly.^[11] The men, who were all members of the British Fascists, were acquitted by the jury following testimony that characterised the "kidnapping" as unserious and a denial from the head of the Liverpool branch of the fascist party that they had authorised any kidnapping of Pollitt.^[12][13] The Labour party conference that year passed a motion condemning the acquittal by the jury of those accused of kidnapping Pollitt as an example of class-prejudice, and calling for representation of workers on juries.^[14]

On 10 October 1925, Pollitt married Marjorie Brewer at Caxton Hall, Westminster. Marjorie Edna Brewer (1902–1991) was a communist schoolteacher; the marriage eventually produced a son and a daughter. His best man and witness was fellow CPGB activist and organiser Percy Glading, who would later be convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and imprisoned.^[15] A week later, Pollitt was one of 12 members of the Communist Party convicted at the Old Bailey on charges of seditious libel and incitement to mutiny. Pollitt was given a 12-month sentence as a previous offender, which he served in Wandsworth prison. Historian C. L. Mowat described the trial as "the chief instance of a purely political trial in the interwar years".^[16]

Pollitt travelled again to Moscow in October 1927, and attended a meeting at which the CPGB was roundly criticised for its failure to criticise the British labour movement. During the same visit, Pollitt met privately with Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin, who, over Pollitt's protests, ordered that the CPGB should abandon its "United Front" policy and campaign as widely as possible at the next election, even where the CPGB stood no chance of winning and would draw votes away from the Labour candidate, thus allowing the Conservatives to win.^[17] This policy of attacking other left-wing organisations was known as the "Class-against-Class" policy, and remained in place until 1932 when, as leader, Pollitt was able to get it relaxed for trade unions, though it remained in place for other parts of the left.^[18]

In addition to his role in the CPGB, from the early 1920s Pollitt served as national secretary of the British Bureau of the Red International of Labour Unions (AKA Profintern), an organisation aimed at countering the Amsterdam International and rallying militant trade unionists within existing unions to win those unions over to communism.^[19] The Comintern characterised the British Bureau as "not an organisation of unions, but only of revolutionary minorities of unions". On the founding of the National Minority Movement (NMM) in 1924, the British Bureau was folded into it and Pollitt was made its national secretary, a position he remained in until 1929.^[20] As secretary of the NMM, Pollitt opposed trying to form new communist-oriented unions aimed at replacing established unions under the "Class-against-Class" policy.^[21]

In 1929 the CPGB elected Pollitt General Secretary with Joseph Stalin's personal approval. Pollitt replaced Albert Inkpin, who had attracted disapproval from the Comintern by opposing the "Class-against-Class" policy and perceived softness towards others on the left.^[22] On his appointment, Stalin told him, "You have taken a difficult job on, but I believe you will tackle it all right".^[23] Pollitt was selected as he had impressed people both within the CPGB and in Moscow as a Comintern loyalist and effective organiser, particularly when representing the Comintern at a meeting of the Communist Party USA in March 1929.^[21] Pollitt stated that he saw his role as defending the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) "through thick and thin".^[24] Unlike Inkpin, Pollitt was willing to criticise the Labour party as "social-fascists".^[22]

Pollitt made clear in his public statements his loyalties to the Soviet Union and to CPSU General Secretary Joseph Stalin. He was a defender of the Moscow Trials, in which Stalin had his political and military opponents executed or otherwise disposed of. In the Daily Worker of 12 March 1938 Pollitt told the world that "the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress". The article was illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov, whose likeness would be retouched out of the photograph following his 1940 fall from favour and subsequent execution.^[25]

In 1934 Pollitt and Tom Mann, then-treasurer of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM), were summonsed on charges of sedition in relation to speeches they gave in Trealaw and Ferndale in Wales. Pollitt and Mann were both acquitted of all charges by Swansea assizes.^[26] The arrests took place on the eve of a meeting in Bermondsey which Mann and Pollitt were due to attend that was to be the culmination of the 1934 Hunger March.^[27]

Pollitt travelled again to Moscow in 1935. Whilst there he was invited to make a broadcast on the BBC radio programme The Citizen and His Government, commenting on the difference between the UK and the USSR. However, the invitation was withdrawn after opposition from the Foreign Office. He would not appear on BBC radio until the 1945 election.^[28]

When Pollitt's personal friend Rose Cohen, to whom he had proposed marriage on a number of occasions,^[29] was put on trial in Moscow in 1937 during Stalin's Great Purge, the CPGB opposed efforts by the British government to get Cohen released, describing her arrest as an internal affair of the Soviet Union. Pollitt privately tried to intervene on her behalf, but by the time he did so she had already been shot.^[30] Pollitt placed himself at risk by questioning Cohen's arrest in this fashion, as Béla Kun had, under torture, identified him as a "Trotskyist" and "British spy", though Osip Piatnitsky had refused to confirm these accusations when arrested by the NKVD in 1937.^[31] Twenty years after Cohen's death, Pollitt requested information from Moscow about whether she was still alive, stating, untruthfully, that there was press interest in Britain about her whereabouts.^[32]

In contrast to Pollitt's concern over Rose Cohen, when CPGB member Freda Utley tried to get Pollitt to intercede with Moscow on behalf of her Russian husband, who was arrested and died in a labour camp in 1938, Pollitt refused.^[31] Pollitt also failed to intervene to help George Fles and his wife, Arcadi Berdichevsky and his wife, and a number of other British communists who were arrested by the NKVD and tortured, shot, or imprisoned in the Gulag during Stalin's purge.^[33]

Pollitt defied Moscow by opposing the introduction of conscription in Britain when it was introduced in 1939.^[34] Pollitt's opposition to conscription led to protests from the French Communist Party, which had supported conscription in France.^[35]

Durante la Guerra Civil Española de 1936-1939 , Pollitt visitó el país cinco veces, pronunciando discursos en cada ocasión ante el Batallón Británico que formaba parte de una de las Brigadas Internacionales que apoyaban al bando republicano . ^{[ 36 ]} Pollitt también participó en la aprobación o el veto de las solicitudes de voluntarios británicos para unirse a las Brigadas Internacionales. Uno de esos vetos fue contra George Orwell , a quien Pollitt consideraba políticamente poco fiable. ^{[ 37 ]} A Pollitt también se le encomendó la tarea de escribir cartas de condolencia a las familias de los comunistas británicos muertos en España. ^{[ 38 ]}

En agosto de 1937, Pollitt intervino en una disputa entre el mando del batallón británico sobre tácticas, la fiabilidad de las tropas republicanas españolas que habían combatido junto al batallón y otros asuntos. Ordenó el regreso a Gran Bretaña de los cinco miembros principales del batallón implicados en la disputa (Tapsell, Cunningham, Aitken, Copeman y Williams). Copeman y Tapsell, que habían criticado a las fuerzas y tácticas republicanas españolas, recibieron la orden de regresar a España, mientras que Cunningham, Williams y Aitken recibieron la orden de permanecer en Gran Bretaña. ^{[ 39 ]}

Desde 1933 hasta noviembre de 1939, Pollitt mantuvo contacto por radio con Moscú como el "portador de códigos" del CPGB. El contacto cesó cuando renunció como líder del CPGB, y el código secreto utilizado para comunicarse con él fue cambiado, aunque se restableció en 1941. ^{[ 40 ]}

From 1931, Olga Gray, an MI5 agent, infiltrated the party, and was for a time Pollitt's personal secretary. In Operation MASK (1934–1937), John Tiltman and his colleagues of the Government Code and Cypher School were able to crack the code and decrypt radio messages between Moscow and some of its foreign parties, such as the CPGB. They revealed the Comintern's close supervision of the Communist Party and Pollitt, as well as the substantial financial support the CPGB received from Moscow. Among other things, Pollitt was instructed to refute news leaks about a Stalinist purge. Some messages were addressed to code names, while others were signed by Pollitt himself. In his transmissions to Moscow, Pollitt regularly pleaded for more funding from the Soviet Union. One 1936 coded instruction advised Pollitt to publicise the plight of Ernst Thälmann, a German Communist leader who had been arrested by the Nazis and who later died at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Pollitt replied that he was "having difficulties" getting British statesmen to make public declarations supporting Thälmann but that they promised they would speak privately with German officials in London. In one of the more amusing dispatches, Pollitt (1936) informed his Soviet contact about a recent visit to France to make campaign appearances for candidates from the French Communist Party. "At great inconvenience went to Paris to speak in the election campaign". Pollitt went on to complain that he "kept sitting two days and comrades refused to allow me to speak. Such treatment as I received in Paris is a scandal."^[41][42][43]

Pollitt also tasked Gray, whose class background would make her less conspicuous aboard an ocean liner than the CPGB's mostly working-class membership, with delivering money, instructions, and a questionnaire to a contact in India. The strain of this mission caused Gray to resign as Pollitt's secretary, though she remained in touch with Percy Glading, and in 1937 provided evidence that led to the conviction of Glading on spying charges.^[44]

Los miembros del CPGB, incluido Harry Pollitt, fueron objeto de continuos esfuerzos de vigilancia por parte de los servicios de seguridad británicos durante las décadas de 1930, 1940 y 1950. Estos incluyeron la colocación de un dispositivo de escucha en sus oficinas de King Street en 1942. ^{[ 45 ] [ 46 ]} El MI5 también tenía una fuente no identificada cercana a Percy Glading que les informaba regularmente sobre las actividades de Pollitt (incluida la insatisfacción de Pollitt con Reg Birch ), mientras que tanto el MI5 como la Rama Especial tenían fuentes en las celebraciones del 60 cumpleaños de Pollitt. ^{[ 47 ]}

Con el estallido de la guerra entre el Reino Unido y la Alemania nazi a principios de septiembre de 1939, a pesar del pacto Molotov-Ribbentrop , Pollitt acogió con beneplácito la declaración de guerra británica contra la Alemania nazi , abogando por una "lucha en dos frentes", que implicaba la "derrota militar de Hitler y la derrota política de Chamberlain " en su panfleto Cómo ganar la guerra , que también mostraba ambivalencia respecto al rearme. ^{[ 48 ]} Cuando esto resultó ser contrario a la línea de la Comintern recibida de Moscú el 14 de septiembre, y reiterada por el representante del CPGB en la Comintern el 24 de septiembre (tal como Rajani Palme Dutt , quien lo sucedió como secretario general, le había advertido que sucedería), se vio obligado a dimitir. ^{[ 49 ]} En noviembre de 1939, Pollitt había renegado de su anterior postura a favor de la guerra, afirmando que al apoyarla había "caído en las redes del enemigo de clase". ^{[ 50 ]}

Durante 1940-41, bajo instrucciones de Moscú, ^{[ 51 ]} el partido siguió una política de "derrotismo revolucionario". Esta estrategia partía de la premisa de que los objetivos del Partido Comunista podían acelerarse acelerando la derrota de Gran Bretaña en la guerra contra la Alemania nazi. ^{[ 51 ]} Douglas Hyde afirmó que la actitud de quienes defendían esta política era considerar "la derrota casi inevitable de Gran Bretaña [...] como una magnífica oportunidad". ^{[ 52 ]} Pollitt criticó las políticas bélicas del gobierno de Chamberlain, describiéndolas como un intento de explotar la guerra contra el "fascismo de Hitler" para "imponer ciertos aspectos de ese mismo fascismo a los trabajadores". ^{[ 53 ]} La postura antibelicista del CPGB durante 1939-41 fue citada posteriormente por J.S. Middleton , junto con la percibida falta de independencia del CPGB respecto a Moscú, como motivo para rechazar la solicitud de Harry Pollitt de afiliar al CPGB al Partido Laborista. ^{[ 54 ]}

Por instrucciones de Georgi Dimitrov en Moscú, Pollitt permaneció en un buró político de seis miembros tras su destitución. ^{[ 55 ]} Fue restituido como líder del CPGB después de que Alemania invadiera la Unión Soviética en 1941 , nuevamente en respuesta a instrucciones recibidas de Moscú. Moscú también revocó la postura anterior de Dutt de criticar al gobierno de Churchill y caracterizar la guerra como una lucha por el socialismo, respaldando en cambio la postura de Pollitt de ofrecer pleno apoyo al gobierno de Churchill y evitar exacerbar la opinión antisocialista. ^{[ 56 ]} Sin embargo, Dimitrov tenía dudas sobre la fiabilidad de Pollitt y, en 1942, cuestionó lo que consideraba su «extraño comportamiento» al permitir lo que creía que era la infiltración de los servicios de seguridad británicos en el CPGB, afirmando que no sabía si Pollitt lo hacía «deliberadamente» o si «la inteligencia inglesa se estaba aprovechando de su falta de vigilancia». ^{[ 46 ]}

After Operation Barbarossa, Harry Pollitt became a strong supporter of the opening of a second front in Europe against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies.^[57] Pollitt also urged Jawaharlal Nehru to moderate his demands for Indian independence for the duration of the war.^[58] When strike action was proposed during the war, Pollitt was opposed to it as it would damage the war effort. Pollitt's adherence to an electoral truce unilaterally called by the CPGB after Operation Barbarossa led to instances of CPGB campaigning in favour of Conservative candidates in wartime by-elections.^[59]

As the CPGB's membership of the Comintern had been a barrier to affiliation with the Labour Party, Pollitt took the opportunity given by the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943 to apply again to affiliate with the Labour Party. However, this was again rejected by Labour's central committee, who again cited the CPGB's previous opposition to the war against Nazi Germany.^[54] At the 1945 general election, Politt's CPGB pursued a "Progressive Majority" strategy, and sought to coordinate its electoral strategy with the Labour Party, though the Labour Party did not reciprocate. As a result, rather than putting up 50 candidates as had been proposed, the CPGB put up candidates in only 21 seats, of whom only two were returned.^[60]

Pollitt supported the 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia, characterising it as the work of "millions of lads" who were "led by their Shop stewards" to overthrow capitalism.^[61] During 1948 Pollitt also condemned the Marshall Plan, calling it a war plan,^[62] and called for Ernest Bevin, the then Foreign Secretary, to be dismissed over what he described as the deliberate prolongation of the talks on the Marshall Plan and the economic impact of Bevin's policies.^[63]

In 1951 the CPGB adopted The British Road To Socialism as their party programme, replacing For Soviet Britain. The programme, which was championed by Pollitt, committed the CPGB to independence from Moscow, and a constitutional or parliamentary (as opposed to revolutionary) path to power. Additionally, it stated that the CPGB was committed to decision-making through internal party democracy. In spite of these commitments, the programme had actually been personally dictated to Pollitt by Stalin in a series of secret meetings in the Kremlin.^[64]

On the death of Stalin, Pollitt wrote that he had been "the greatest man of our time". He went on to say that "[n]ever before in the history of humanity ha[d] there been such universal grief" as the people of the world "mourned him with tears in their eyes and with deep uncontrollable sorrow".^[65] Pollitt was also a member of the guard of honour at Stalin's funeral.^[60]

The advent of Nikita Khrushchev presented the CPGB with problems. The CPGB had followed the Moscow line to attack Tito's neutralist government in Yugoslavia; however, when Khrushchev visited Belgrade in 1955, the CPGB was forced to recant these attacks. Pollitt faced another crisis when Khrushchev, in his 1956 Secret Speech, attacked the legacy of Stalin. Pollitt's embarrassment was heightened by the fact that he had been present in Moscow for the party congress at which the speech took place, but along with the other foreign delegates had been excluded from the session at which it had been given.^[66]

Pollitt, suffering from worsening health in his final years, resigned as General Secretary in May 1956, with John Gollan succeeding him, and was appointed CP Chairman. When Khruschev's denunciation of Stalin was formally made public the following month, Pollitt stated that he was "too old to go into reverse and denigrate a man he had admired above all others for more than a quarter of a century". Pollitt also refused to take down a portrait of Stalin that hung in his living room, saying that "He's staying there as long as I'm alive".^[60][67]

The Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution of November 1956 made the CPGB crisis worse, particularly as the party had taken the position that the Eastern Bloc countries, of which Hungary was one, were allowed to do what they pleased.^[66] Pollitt supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary, stating that it had "saved Hungary from fascism".^[67] Most of the party's intellectual figures, including Doris Lessing and E. P. Thompson, and many ordinary members resigned. Others, for example Eric Hobsbawm, chose to stay in the party to try to reform it.^[45]

In 1959, when British communist journalist Alan Winnington (whom Pollitt had recruited to the CPGB) became disillusioned with Chinese politics, Pollitt arranged for him to travel from China to East Germany, where Winnington spent the remainder of his life as an author and film actor. Winnington was extremely grateful, and after Pollitt's death he described him as "the greatest Englishman I have known."^[68]