July 10th, 1949
Dear Comrade Mathews,
You inform me that the Political Committee rejects my request to place the recent correspondence between the Party and myself before the Communist Information Bureau on the ground that the latter “is not a Court of Appeal to whom questions of this kind can be referred.”
I would like to point out that since I am not appealing against anything I fail to see how you got the opinion that I regard the Communist Information Bureau as a “court of appeal.” I solemnly assure you, I do not. I regard the Communist Information Bureau as the focal point for disseminating Communist ideological thought, an outlet for the accumulated experience of the most experienced Communist Parties, hence a place to be looked to for guidance, for fatherly advice.
It was in this spirit that I asked permission of the Party to place before the Bureau my questions on the State, your answer–that is, the answer of the Political Committee”and my comment on that answer. To me, the fact that such a leading member of the Party as Comrade Campbell, the responsible Editor of the Daily Worker, is allowed quite openly, without the slightest interference, to put forward views on the nature of the State alien to Marxism, to say that capitalism is capable of National planning in the interest of all, proves beyond reasonable doubt that Comrade Campbell’s views are not his alone. The answers given to my questions corroborate this belief.
Since ours is a young Party, lacking the historical experience necessary to produce a grounded Marxist Party, in view of basic errors in practice arising from our theoretical weaknesses–the position we adopted during the war, reducing the class struggle to one of agitation for the opening of a second front, instead of taking full advantage of favourable circumstances to sharply increase the workers’ share of surplus value; our belief that a qualitative change had taken place in the subjective attitude of the British working class toward social democracy, hence the time was ripe for the formation of a Mass Party; our belief that Nationalisation, under capitalism “removed the Nationalist industries from direct control by the capitalist class,” hence our feverish insistence two years ago to use our influence among the workers, through our near-control of the Shop-Steward movement, to increase production, to tone down strike struggle–in view of such gigantic errors I asked for permission to place this matter before the Communist Information Bureau, confident that they would know how to deal with the problem, wisely and well. In this light I again ask the Party’s permission to place all material before the Bureau.
P.S. Should the workers have succeeded in forcing sharp gains during the war this fact would have intensified the class struggle once the war was over and changed conditions, less profit, forced upon the employers the job of reducing once more the workers’ cut, and would inevitably have exposed the Labour Party.