have to be treated like dummies? Do we have to accept the party line on such problems as the cult of the individual, Tito etc., without adequate explanation, because it is claimed that not enough information is available'.
Willie Gallacher followed, describing Stalin as ‘a quiet unassuming comrade’. H e reassured delegates that ‘all of us can make mistakes, some slight, some serious’, before uttering the bewildering analogy that ‘Comrade Stalin was the steel sprung mattress around which the best comrades gathered’. MacFarlane, from Maudsley Hospital Branch, read out a resolution criticising the ‘series of excesses which appear to have been committed by Stalin and his a s s o c i a t e s . T h i s resolution made a qualitative shift towards criticism of the British leadership, deploring ‘the complete failure of the EC...to admit to the British public the responsibility of the Party for its uncritical support of all aspects of Soviet Policy since 1934’. MacFarlane demanded ‘full acceptance by the EC of Khruschev’s account of the errors and crimes of Stalin’ and attacked its ‘failure...to admit its share of responsibility for such gross violations of Communist principles’. The Maudsley resolution expressed ‘its most serious dissatisfaction with the Party leadership in its handling of the present critical situation’.
Khruschev had identified 1934 as the beginning of the Stalinist period of terror following the assassination of Kirov.^^^ Khruschev, however, had omitted to mention the first five-year plan, collectivisation and the exile of most of the early leading Bolsheviks which had all occurred before this date. Peter Fryer nevertheless, agreed with him. After insisting that ‘we should base our policies and our conclusions only on facts, as revealed and tested by science’. Fryer held rigidly to the period between 1934 and 1953’ as the years of ‘the cult of the individual and the substitution of one-man rule’.^^^ Like Khruschev, Fryer reduced the problem to one of the cult of the individual, ignoring the role of others within the Soviet leadership whose personal position had depended upon their association with Stalin’s methods. McLaherty of Glasgow referred to this question of individual versus collective responsibility, saying ‘it would have been better had Stalin died at that earlier period because another leader would have been found’. A n d r e w Rothstein took up the possibility of Stalin’s early death asking, obscurely, that
Ibid
W . Gallacher, Speech to Closed Session’, no.2. Ibid.
M cFarlane [Maudsley Hospital Branch], Speech to Closed Session’, no.3. Ibid.
Khruschev, ‘The Crimes of the Stalin Era’, 21.
P. Fryer, ‘Speech to Closed Session of 24^ Congress’, no.Sa. McLaherty, Speech to Closed Session’, no. 10.
‘comrades consider this question...from the point of view of the class struggle’. Pollitt, rounding up the debate on Sunday evening, pledged the British leadership to a continuing commitment to defend the Soviet Union at any price’. R e f e r r i n g to the CPGB leadership’s persistent support for Stalin, Pollitt posed the, presumably rhetorical, question to delegates, asking ‘in such a situation what would you have done?’.^^^
After the 24*'’ Congress
The Dailv Worker published a transcript of Pollitt’s opening speech on the day before the closed s e s s i o n . T h i s did not engage with the secret speech, but talked of ‘the amazing new perspectives now opening up for the Soviet people’. Peter Zinkin wrote a report on the following Monday, entitled ‘Frank Criticism is Congress Keynote’. P e t e r Fryer was more concerned with reporting Gollan’s standing ovation, as he called ‘for unity in action with Labour’, than the debate about Khruschev’s speech/^’ Although members did not see a copy of the speech until the Observer published it on 10 June, Pollitt wrote a long article for World News at the end of April and beginning of May.’"*^ This could be interpreted as evidence that the leadership was not attempting to repress the speech. It does not, however, explain why they did not publish Russell’s report. What seems likely is that the closed session and Pollitt’s article represented attempts to forestall the impact of Khruschev’s candour upon members. Much of the debate following the Congress, focussed upon the question of the British leadership’s honesty, rather than on the broader political questions about Stalinism raised by the speech. H. Silver wrote ‘it is not a minor question of whether we did or did not know what was going on in the last twenty years - the entire question of whether British Communists think for themselves, are prepared to discuss and apologise openly and honestly is involved’.
Again, Pollitt’s article began by pointing out that since the Comintern had been dissolved, the British Party had not been a member of Cominform. Like
A. Rothstein, ‘Speech to Closed Session’, no.14. H. Pollitt, ‘Speech to Closed Session’, no.21.