Adopted by the Communist International at its Fifth Congress in 1924, this resolution takes stock of Britain’s first Labour government, headed by Ramsay MacDonald, after six months in office and speaks to the orientation of the Communist Party.

‘Resolution on the British Labour Government’ from Communist International from Communist International. Vol. 2 No. 7. December, 1924.

The Labour Government of Great Britain is a bourgeois imperialist government and not a government of the working class. It is a devoted servant of His Majesty the King, of the Empire of the capitalists, independent of Socialism, independent of the Labour movement, and dependent upon the dominant class only. As agent of the bourgeoisie it continues the policy of imperialistic suppression and exploitation of the masses of India, Egypt, Africa and so forth, and gives support to the policy of defending capitalism, strengthening of British imperialism and carrying out the economic and financial colonisation of the countries defeated in the world war. It is not even a Labour Government in its composition, but a coalition government, made up of the leaders of the Second International who betrayed the workers in the war, and of Liberal politicians and Tory lords. In positions of the government, where the influence of the imperialists is most acutely felt, the old gang of imperialists are in office and in power.

The creation of the Labour government is not a peculiar British phenomenon. It is a product of the period of capitalist disintegration, wherein the old forms of capitalist government become incapable of solving the national and international, social, political and economic problems generated by capitalism. In this period the capitalist class resorts to a variety of means of defence, ranging from labourism (Socialist ministerialism) with its social pacifism, to fascism and all its forms, according to the sharpness of the class antagonisms and the relation between social classes. The Labour Government and the fascist government are the extremes of the methods used by the bourgeoisie to continue their dictatorship.

By their inability to solve the problems of post-war capitalism, the bourgeois parties in Britain sharpen class antagonism. With dissention growing in the ranks of their own parties and alarmed at new evidences of increasing class consciousness in the ranks of the workers, they agreed to the creation of the Labour Government by the time servers of the Second International.

This is not the workers’ government for which the British workers have toiled and sacrificed. Its six months’ record of activity stamps it as a government of working class betrayal. Under the cover of minor concessions–the apparent reduction in the cost of living, the abolition of the gap in unemployment pay, and volumes of pacifist promises–it has conducted a bourgeois imperialist policy as vigorously, and certainly with more success than its predecessors of the right wing of the bourgeoisie.

Towards the workers in Britain it adopted a policy of liberal toleration as long as they remained quiet and did not menace the capitalist class. Immediately they began actively to protest, the Labour Government set police spies to work in working class organisations, introduced blackleg labour in strikes, mobilised the police to dragoon the protesting workers, and prepared military measures against them, as in the railway strike. The miners did not even receive a mimmum wage. The Labour Government permitted the Liberals and Tories to defeat the nationalisation of mines and the miners’ minimum wage bills without the slightest effort to mobilise the working class against them. No attempt has been made to break the grip of the aristocratic officer caste on the military forces or otherwise to weaken this powerful weapon of British capitalism in its actions against the workers.

Under the cover of pacifist promises it has gone to the limit of its capacity to build cruisers and air fleets and it has adopted strenuous measures to perfect the war equipment for the butchery and enslavement of the workers. Under the cover of pacifism, this Labour government is preparing on behalf of the bourgeoisie a new slaughter exceeding in horror the mass murder of the so-called great war.

The struggle in the ranks of the working class against the Labour Government has become, therefore, a struggle for the protection of mankind from mass destruction.

As the custodian of British Imperialism, the Labour Government denies the elementary political rights of organisation to the Indian workers, condones their persecution and starvation, and supports with its authority the bombing, shooting and terrorism conducted against the masses of India, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Ireland remains in the grip of British imperialism, and hundreds of the working men of Ireland remain in prison with the consent of the Labour Government.

The Labour Government has become the administrator of the Versailles Treaty, and allied itself openly with American and French imperialism and the German bourgeoisie, to apply the Experts’ Plan for the more efficient enslavement and deeper degradation pf the workers of Germany. Even in its relations with the United Socialist Soviet Republics, it has proved the falsity of its claim to be custodian of the interests of the working class by its shameful support of the bond-holders and bankers against the workers and peasants of Russia.

While the Labour Government is thus defending capitalism at every step, it is trying to spread the illusion that it is pursuing a policy of strengthening the workers’ movement and saving mankind from war. The leaders of the Labour Party, and especially those of the Independent Labour Party, are the most powerful allies of the Labour Government in this treacherous work. If the Labour Party really represented the workers, it would, in spite of the opposition of the dominant class, use its influence to mobilise the masses for the struggle against British capitalism. But, blind to the realities of the class war, corrupted by the spoils of capitalist democracy, and dazzled by the electoral success, the Labour Party plays upon the prejudices of the most ignorant sections of the working class organisations, including the Labour Party itself, and surrenders them to the bourgeoisie without a semblance of a fight.

It is the task of the Communist International and its section, the Communist Party of Great Britain, to rescue the working class movement from the reactionary leadership now dominating it; to destroy the illusions that still exist in the minds of the masses that their liberation can come through the gradual process of parliamentary reformism; to make clear to the workers that only through fierce class war and the crushing of the power of the bourgeoisie can they ever win their freedom from capitalist exploitation. For this purpose, and this purpose alone, the Communist Party of Britain must continue its struggle for affiliation to the Labour Party, and this struggle must be won by continuous battle with reformism all along the line.  In this struggle against the betrayals by the Labour Party, the leadership devolves upon the Communist Party of Britain. Already a serious fermentation is taking place within the broad masses who are discontented with the reactionary Labour Party leadership. Unofficial strikes are breaking out repeatedly against the will of, and in opposition to, the trade union bureaucracy. The Left-wing movement has now manifested itself even in the directing organs of the British trade unions. It has no clear-cut programme. It is timid and vacillating. Nevertheless, it represents the growing discontent amongst the workers against the old leadership.

Inside the amorphous Left-wing movement organised minority movements are taking shape. They have a clear­ cut programme, consist of revolutionary and disciplined workers and spread from district to district popularising the policy of the Red International of Labour Unions. Though ridiculed and denounced by the trade union bureaucracy, they are the first steps to organise the revolt of the masses against the treacherous leadership and are a guarantee that the revolutionary spirit of the masses is developing, and will, under the leadership of the Communist Party, rescue the working class movement from disaster. To win this victory, the Communist Party in Britain has (a) to support the Left­wing movement in all its actions against the trade union bureaucracy, its strikes, its propaganda, and combat all waverings within its ranks and without hesitating, to expose ruthlessly at the same time the ·weaknesses and inconsistences of that movement; (b) to strengthen the solidarity of the minority movement and unite it on a national basis, with a programme based upon the platform of the Reel International of Labour Unions; (c) to strengthen the minority movement by fighting for the creation of workshop committees, and thus lay the foundations of an industrial unionism with the shop committees as a basis of industrial organisation; (d) to struggle for the active participation of the British trade union movement in the international struggles of the proletariat.

The Communist Party must not neglect the needs and demands of the working class which are close to its daily life and which are powerful forces driving the working class to closer unity and a, higher degree of militancy. These are of special importance because of the significance of the fight against British capitalists in furthering the unity of the proletariat in the struggle.

The Communist Party should put forward the following slogans of immediate demands and wage an aggressive campaign for their realisation:

(a) A national miimum wage.

(b) Nationalisation of the mines with workers’ control.

(c) Houses for the workers, built by the workers without participation by the profiteers.

(d) For the unemployed: Application of the unemployed charter; minimum of £3 per week for heads of families.

The Communist Party must fight valiantly in the everyday struggles of the masses centring round these slogans and thus lead the workers in every action of the Labour movement.

The minority movements directed against the trade union bureaucrats and the popular struggles for the above reforms are important bases of the activity of the Communist Party, but our Party must not confine its work to these alone. The principle issues are (a) to arouse the working masses of Britain to fight against the false pacifism of the MacDonald Government which hides the preparations for new war; (b) to expose the imperialistic military and international policy of the Labour Government of His Majesty; (c) to launch a mass movement in complete agreement with the workers of Germany, as well as the countries of the Entente, against the Experts’ Report; (d) to fight against imperialist prejudices amongst the British workers in order to unite the class struggle of the working class of Britain with the revolutionary movement of the oppressed nations and masses suffering under the dictatorship of British imperialism. The slogan of this must be:

The Liberation of the workers of Britain depends upon the Liberation of the Colonies.

All these issues are part of the paramount issue of the struggle of the working masses for their emancipation. This victory can never be won, the dictatorship of the proletariat can never be established, without a mass Communist Party, a party which unites the masses on the basis of activity and ceaseless struggle against the bourgeoisie, and exposes the social traitors within the ranks of the working class.

A Fighting Mass Communist Party is the real answer of the working class to the bourgeois Labour Government.

Long live the Communist Party of Britain! Long live the Communist International!

The ECCI published the magazine ‘Communist International’ edited by Zinoviev and Karl Radek from 1919 until 1926 irregularly in German, French, Russian, and English. Restarting in 1927 until 1934. Unlike, Inprecorr, CI contained long-form articles by the leading figures of the International as well as proceedings, statements, and notices of the Comintern. No complete run of Communist International is available in English. Both were largely published outside of Soviet territory, with Communist International printed in London, to facilitate distribution and both were major contributors to the Communist press in the U.S. Communist International and Inprecorr are an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/ci/new_series/v02-n07-dec-1924-jan-1925-CI-grn-riaz.pdf