The anti-colonial politics and policies of the Communist Party of Great Britain: 1920-51

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the anti-imperialist politics of the CPGB in the period 1920-1951. It looks at the policies and practical measures taken by the CPGB to promote colonial liberation both within the British Empire and (as a cause) at home in Britain. In particular, it examines the Party's activities in India and on behalf of the Indian nationalist, socialist, and trade union movements. It also considers the very different case of British colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, where nationalist movements were only in their infancy in the period under consideration. Thus the forms of political activity considered in this work range from the purely agitational and propagandistic to the directly interventionary. The work also considers the theoretic context of Communist activity in regard to the colonies. But since this is well-trodden ground the thesis is more concerned to establish what the CPGB attempted to achieve and how it set about achieving it. In trying to establish the scope and nature of the CPGB's anti-colonial activities, the thesis is necessarily concerned, to some extent, with the sympathetic periphery of individuals and organisations the came into the Party's orbit. This research is the first to make extensive use of the archive of the CPGB (much of which has only recently become available) in relation to this important, but largely neglected, arena of Communist politics in the twentieth century.