Harry Pollitt
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Harry_Pollitt_1.jpg
In 1919 Pollitt was involved in the "Hands off Russia" campaign to protest against western intervention in the Russian Civil War. At the end of the war he joined Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers Socialist Federation, which became the Communist Party (British Section of the Third International). As a member of this group he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain when it was formed in 1920. Pankhurst soon left the party, but Pollitt remained. He was heavily influenced by the Communist intellectual Rajani Palme Dutt, and the two remained close allies for many years.
In 1925 Pollitt was jailed for 12 months for seditious libel. In 1929 the CPGB elected him General Secretary, a position he held, with a brief interruption during World War II, until 1956. He was then made Chairman, a position he held until his death four years later. Along with Dutt he was one of the leading figures in the party until his death.
Pollitt was always loyal to the Soviet Union and to its ruler from 1929, Joseph Stalin, although he sometimes made private protests to the Soviets about some of their actions, particularly during the Great Purge of the 1930s. In September 1939, however, he welcomed the British declaration of war on Nazi Germany. When this turned out to be contrary to the Soviet line (as Dutt had warned him it would be), he was forced to resign as party leader. He was reinstated in 1941 when the Soviet Union entered the war. In 1971, Pollitt's devotion to the Soviet cause and to international communism was acknowledged by Moscow when the Soviet navy named a ship after him.
Pollitt faced another crisis in 1956 when Nikita Khrushchev attacked the legacy of Stalin. Many members of the party resigned, and Pollitt was severely criticised for his long-time loyalty to Stalin. In 1957 the Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolution made the crisis in the party worse, and most of its intellectual figures (such as Doris Lessing and E. P. Thompson) resigned.
A plaque dedicated to the memory of Pollitt was unvelied by the Mayor of Tameside on the twenty-second of March 1995 outside Droylsden Library. He is also commemorated in the humorous song "The Ballad of Harry Pollitt".
External link
- Communist Party of Britain's comprehensive Harry Pollitt biography (http://www.communist-party.org.uk/index.php?file=history&his=HarryPollitt.txt)
- The Ballad of Harry Pollitt Lyrics (http://www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/introjs.htm?/~acsa/songfile/BALLADHP.HTM)