Edgar Hardcastle
Source: Socialist Standard, February 1942.
Transcription: Socialist Party of Great Britain.
HTML Markup: Adam Buick
Copyleft: Creative Commons (Attribute & No Derivatives) 2007 conference "Be it resolved that all material created and published by the Party shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs copyright licence".
When the Daily Worker was suppressed a year ago the Communists were opposing the war. Now their principle argument for the removal of the ban is that they could help the Government to increase production in a way that official propaganda fails to do. The Manchester Guardian (January 21st, 1942) reported speeches made by Daily Worker supporters at a lunch on the previous day: —
Both the editor of the paper, Mr. Rust, and an unnamed shop steward from a London factory dwelt on the bad effect which its suppression had, they said, on the workers and therefore on production. Mr. Rust said that they wondered what was behind the unexplained suppression of the "Daily Worker," and both speakers were sure that the removal of the prohibition on it would hearten the workers, increase their confidence in the Government, and raise production.
The New Statesman (November 29th, 1941) published the following by one of their regular contributors : —
A Communist friend put the matter like this. "The Government," he said, "take for granted that the 'Left' must support the war as long as Russia's in it. We must urge all possible production, and so we do." We are pledged to support Mr. Churchill—and so we are; even to the point of supporting Conservative candidates at by-elections when other candidates put up specifically as all-aid-to-Russia candidates. They think they have no reason to worry about the Left any more; why go to the bother of allowing the "Daily Worker" to appear? They are making a mistake.They are quite right about us. Communists will do all they can. But there are other Left groups who take a different line, who find it very difficult to support Mr. Churchill and who may turn, if left alone, and run after all sorts of Trotskyites' hares and I.L.P. red herrings. Such people take no notice of official propaganda. We are the only paper who.can influence those who think the whole war "hooey" anyway, or who are against fighting for the capitalist and so on. It's our job to convince them, but we cannot possiblv cover the field without the "Daily Worker."