By the end of the 1920s, the party’s industrial base had been practically destroyed, with the bulk of its members now unemployed. The policies of the “third period” from 1928 onwards, had drastically reduced the numbers and influence of the Communist Party in the labour movement. However by 1935, a new “right turn” was adopted by the Comintern, which put forward a policy known as the Popular Front. The policy was based upon the alliance of workers and “progressive” capitalist parties to fight against fascism. This was the very opposite to the workers’ United Front originally put forward by the Communist International under Lenin, which was based upon the alliance of workers’ organisations. While the United Front could be summed up as “march separately, and strike together”, the Popular Front policy was “march together, but get cut down separately!” From then on, the leaders of the Communist Parties turned 180 degrees, and sought Popular Front pacts on every occasion.
On the Continent, such electoral agreements brought to power Popular Front governments in France and Spain during 1936. However, whenever the workers took independent action, the Popular Front governments acted as a gigantic break on the movement. For example, when French workers carried out a series of sit-in strikes, they were denounced by the Blum government in the name of “law and order”. The same was true in relation to Spain.
In Britain, a campaign for such a Popular Front government was launched by the Communist Party, and attracted a layer of Labour Lefts around the Socialist League. Whereas the “third period” policies had drastically reduced the Communist Party’s influence, particularly in the trade unions, their turn towards Popular Frontism and the fight against fascism, saw a revival in their support. The abandonment of sectarianism allowed them to connect with the workers, albeit on an opportunist basis. The effects of the Depression, the rise of Hitler and the successes of the Soviet Union’s Five Year Plans, pushed a section of workers and intellectuals towards the CP, and began to restore their flagging fortunes.
The growth in Communist Party influence, however, provoked the trade union bureaucracy into taking a number of witch-hunting measures against them. As early as March 1934, the TUC General Council attempted to undermine the CP by issuing its infamous “Black Circular”, which ordered Trades Councils to ban delegates who were Communists and called on unions to modify their rules to exclude them from office. Even so, after protests from the rail unions, Transport Workers, Woodworkers, Engineers, Distributive Workers, Painters, Electrical Trades and others, the TUC Congress only narrowly endorsed this witch-hunt by 1,869,000 votes to 1,274,000. With Ernest Bevin as the chairman of the TUC and Hugh Dalton as chairman of the Labour Party, both organisations drew ever closer together. Subsequently, using the union bloc vote, the left policy of the Labour Party was brought into line with the right-wing policy of the TUC, which now firmly supported the National government’s rearmament programme.
In February, there was a mass demonstration against cuts in unemployment benefit, which forced the government to backtrack and restore benefits to their original levels. The Times editorials even wrote of “the spirit of 1926” being abroad again. In the same year, Baldwin took over the premiership from MacDonald, although he still remained in the Cabinet as Lord President of the Council. MacDonald’s last action as prime minister was to offer knighthoods to both Arthur Pugh and Walter Citrine – which they gratefully accepted – in recognition of services rendered to the ruling class.
By the time of the 1935 local elections, Labour had recovered its lost ground and its vote had risen to 1929 levels. By the time of the 1935 general election, the Labour vote climbed to 8,326,000 (as against 6,648,000 in 1931 and 8,380,000 in 1929) and the party gained 154 seats. The Conservatives and National Liberals still commanded the majority with 420 seats, while the Liberals trailed far behind with only 21 seats. At the behest of the unions, Clement Attlee replaced George Lansbury as leader of the Labour Party.
In July 1936, the British Labour movement was again rocked by the attempted coup of General Franco against the Spanish Republican government. This provoked uprisings of the working class throughout the length and breadth of Spain and sparked off a ferocious three-year civil war. In Catalonia, the workers seized the factories, and this could have been the beginning of an all-Spanish revolution, had it not been for the actions of the reformist, anarchist and Stalinist leaders. The beleaguered Spanish Republic appealed for assistance against the fascists, but the European powers, including the French Popular Front government, adopted a policy of “non-intervention”. At the same time, the fascist powers, despite paying lip service to “non-intervention”, were busy supplying weapons to Franco’s fascist armies.
In Britain, the National Council of Labour “regrettably”, but pitifully, took a similar line, supporting the “non-intervention” as agreed by Her Majesty’s Government and the other powers. By such folding of arms in the face of Franco, it was hoped that international tensions would somehow be reduced, if not avoided altogether! The TUC Congress overwhelmingly endorsed this position in September 1936 by 3,029,000 votes to 51,000. Despite this, the CP and the ILP, in particular, organised support for the Spanish Republic in the form of the International Brigades made up from anti-fascist volunteers from several countries. Hundreds of class-conscious workers were enrolled from all parts of Britain to fight fascism in Spain. Many of those brave fighters who went did not return. During the Civil War, out of the 2,762 British volunteers, 1,762 were wounded and 543 killed. One of the best eyewitness accounts of the Brigades in Spain is George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, originally published in 1938, which gives a graphic account of the revolution and its plight.