Betrayals bring decline in CP

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urof Wort Sparse turnout on CP Another decline in membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain was its annual Congress last week.

The CP has dwindled in strength by another 4,694 do a new low of 20,599.

As for the party's daily paper, the good news was that circulation of the Morning Star has fallen by only 363 as against a decline last year of 1,863. But the bad news was that last year's Congress- had voted to 'increase sales by 3,000!

McLennan, speaking for the dominant "Eurocommunist" wing of the party, explained the decline by referring to:

"the differences in the international Communist movement, armed conflict between socialist cracy in socialist counts demoYet the split down the middle of the CP on these issues was exposed by the vote on an East Midlands amendment:

It proposed to remove the part of the main resolution referring to the "socialist countries" , and to insert as the reason for the loss of membership: unemployment day of action *the fact that we have not done enough to publicise the achievements of the socialist countries-the most convincing argument for socialism and for the Communist Party."

This amendment was only defeated by 165 votes to 114.

. The emergence of these two counterposed positions reflect the dual pull on the Communist Slavish defence The one is represented by the East Midlands amendment, and flows from the slavish defence of the actions of the Kremlin bureaucracy as it manoeuvres on a world scale in defence of its power and privil eges.

The other pull, reflected in the policies of the CPGB leadership, is from the British capitalist class in crisis, and the necessity to draw closer in collaborationist alliances with the capitalists if the existing balance of forces-"peaceful coexistence" _ is to be preserved.

Of course neither position offers an independent road forward for. the working class in Britain or internationally.

Significantly neither the CPGB leadership, nor the "left" critics referred to the betrayals of working class struggles CP leadership as a factor party's decline.

Nor did any delegate speak out against the party's reactionary, nationalist policy of "protecting" British capitalist industry. through Import And in the debate on party democracy there- was nobody with the nerve to seek the right of oppositional minorities to organise as factions within the Instead there was a resolution which sought the right to conduct discussions in the precongress period "across the boundaries of the party organisation".

This was defeated by 212 votes to 71, having been vigorously attacked by Executive spokesman Reuben Falber.

In the same debate newly-elected Executive member lan MacKay attacked what he called "An almost religious obsession about ridding the party of its Stalinist heritage; when the party celebrates in the main 60 glorious years of struggle".

MacKay will not be disappointed. The party's squalid Stalinist heritage will, of course, remain intact.

Later on, speakers complained that the media was influencing the elections for the Party's Executive. This was shown by the fact that media "regulars" Vishnu Sharma, Mick McGahey and Tess Gill knocked General Secretary McLennan into fourth place in the poll! elected once again, no-ane was _ erecter having led any struggles over the last year, which-at Garners, in the shipyards, at British Leyland and elsewhere-has brought another crop of CP sell-outs in the tradition established since the Communist movement was taken over by Stalin in the 1920s.

For Trotskyists, dedicated to the revolutionary struggle for socialism, the decline, splits and crisis of the Communist Party is a welcome development.

We can with confidence hope and predict that as the class struggle advances, the CP's decline will accelerate and the Morning Star will be driven out of business.

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reported by General Secre- tary Gordon McLennan at

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