Karlín and Kings Road: Two Different Worlds. A Comparison of the Political Success of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and Communist Party of Great Britain between the World Wars

Karlín and Kings Road: Two Different Worlds. AComparison of the Political Success of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and Communist Party of Great Britain between the World Wars bohumil Melichar KEYWORDS: Communist Party— Czechoslovakia— Great Britain— Interwar Period The year 1918 saw the last battles of the First World War. The millions of casualties and the destabilisation of the societies of both the defeated and the victorious powers raised the issue of aradical social change. Russia had collapsed, and the Communist Party members assumed power in the ongoing civil war, appealing to their ideological allies for acommon approach to the organisation of aworld revolution. In this period, the Czechoslovak and British sections of the Communist International (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia [CPC] and Communist Party of Great Britain [CPGB]) emerged. During the 1920s, they gradually established themselves in the political field of their nation-states and sought to rally supporters for arevolutionary change through the establishment of adictatorship of the proletariat. It is scarcely possible to imagine more different conditions for the functioning of aCommunist Party within the European Communist movement. Great Britain was aworld imperialist power, the cradle of the industrial revolution and capitalism as such, while newly emerging Czechoslovakia had been until recently apart of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, amonarchy without acolonial influence, where the industrial revolution was going hand in hand with the establishment of modern capitalism, and lagged far behind Great Britain.1 Britain had become not only the cradle of capitalism, but also of an ideology based on the premise of its systemic unsustainability. The canonical works of Marxism were based on empirical experience of the functioning of British society. Karl Marx wrote The Capital in the British Museum study rooms.2 Friedrich Engels was so shocked by the poverty of workers in his father’s factory that it spurred him to write an influential book, The Condition of the 1 Cf. David S.Landes, The Unbound Prometheus. Technological change and industrial development in Western Europe from 1750 to the present, Cambridge 1969, pp.41–123; Edward P.Thompson, The Making of English Working Class, London 2013 with Otto Urban, Kapitalismus ačeská společnost: kotázkám formování české společnosti v19.století, Prague 2003 or Jaroslav Purš, Průmyslová revoluce: vývoj pojmu akoncepce, Prague 1973. 2 See for example Gareth Stedman Jones, Karl Marx. Greatness and Illusion, London 2017. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 95 Working Class in England.3 When Lenin compiled the famous pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, he had been influenced by an analysis of British imperialism penned by J.A.Hobson.4 The Communist Manifesto clearly declares adirect causal nexus between the degree of capitalist development achieved in agiven society and the development of arevolutionary situation. Interwar Britain was still regarded, despite the exacerbating economic problems, as the workshop of the world. It was certainly much closer than the young Czechoslovakia to aSocialist revolution, viewed from the Marxist perspective, in terms of the development of capitalist production relations and imperial domination. The British Communists, who had fully accepted the ideological imperatives, saw their society as being ripe for arevolution. In their 1924 manifesto they said: “Great Britain is the oldest of the capitalist powers. Its economic organisation is most ripe for the transition to socialism. The centralisation and trustification of industry and banking are highly developed and ready for socialist ownership and control with minimal dislocation.”5 The Czechoslovak Communists shared this enthusiasm, declaring that the fall of capitalism was inevitable.6 The difference consisted in society’s willingness to participate in the revolutionary project. While CPC was able to stabilise its membership with 138 996 members by the year 1924, CPGB had only 4 371 members.7 The parliamentary elections in 1925 made CPC with again of 931 769 votes the second strongest political party in the state. The British Communist Party did not have more than one deputy in the whole time span who would have been elected directly for CPGB.8 Robert Roberts, an inhabitant of the working-class quarter of Salford in Manchester, whose milieu was strongly influenced by Engels’ work, remembered: “Marxist ranters from the Hall who paid fleeing visits to our street end insisted that we, proletariat, stood locked in titanic struggle with some wicked master class […] most people passed by; afew stood to listen, but not for long: the problems of proletariat, they felt, had little to do with them.”9 By contrast, Communists entered the working-class slums around Prague without much trouble to build their power base there.10 The de3 Friedrich Engels, Postavení dělnické třídy vAnglii, Prague 1950; see also Steven Marcus, Engels, Manchester and the Working Class, London 1974. 4 Vladimir I.Lenin, Imperialismus jako nejvyšší stádium kapitalismu, Prague 1949, p.15. 5 Draft Programme of the CPGB. To the Comintern, The Communist Review, June 1924, Vol.5, No.2. 6 In 1925 one of the magazines close to CPC stated: “We watch all this through the eyes of adoctor who is content because he sees his diagnosis is correct: all the symptoms of adisease are present. We say the capitalist order is dying…” see Výboj 15.5.1925. 7 Cf. Jacques Rupnik, Dějiny Komunistické strany Československa. Od počátků do převzetí moci, Prague 2002, p.85, with Andrew Thorpe, The Membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920–1945, The Historical Journal 43, 2000, no.3, p.781. 8 Andrew Thorpe, The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920–1943, Manchester 2000, p.7. 9 Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum. Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century, Manchester 1971, p.14. 10 Bohumil Melichar, Rudá Praha. Opříčinách volební úspěšnosti meziválečné KSČ, Master’s thesis, Faculty of Arts at the Charles University, Prague 2017, pp.146–165. OPEN ACCESS 96 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 scribed discrepancy between the expectations of the theoreticians of the Communist movement and the real power of CPBG, as well as the notable success of CPC, which would probably have surprised the creators of the Marxist ideology, brings up the following set of questions before the scholars: 1) Was afailure or success due to adifferent party organisation or movement tactics in the public space? 2) To what extent did the differing structure of the political field11 in Czechoslovakia and in Great Britain affect the possibilities of success of aradical leftist revolutionary programme? 3) What ensured the great stability of British society and, conversely, in what way did the stabilising factors in the young Czechoslovakia fail? The last of the questions seems to be crucial. Finding reasons for the success of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in comparison with an unsuccessful movement, and asociety highly resistant to left and right radicalism, could yield asignificant contribution to the debate over the successful establishment of the Socialist regime after 1945. The way to answering these scholarly questions is to perform asynchronous, individualising comparative analysis in the study of selected political entities. These are ideal research subjects because they are equivalent in both their goals and the ideological sources of the strategy and tactics used in moving in the political field that they received from the Moscow Centre of the 3rd International.12 Already, when drawing asuperficial comparison between the reality of interwar Britain and Czechoslovakia, the simple interpretative schemes collapse. The living standard of most of the working class members in Britain was not higher than that in Czechoslovakia, education was just as socially impenetrable, socially excluded areas surrounded major cities and industrial areas, and the unemployed had during the Great Depression asimilar experience in the British Isles and in the centre of Europe.13 It turns out that 11 The field in which the competitive struggle between the political parties took place fits the definition of Pierre Bourdieu: “Afield of power is aspace for power relations between different forms of capital, or endowed with one of different forms of capital to such adegree that they can control its field and be ready to fight whenever the relative value of those forms of capital is endangered.” Although Bourdieu excluded political reality from this scheme, it can be said that in the case of an interwar political arena those actors are individual political parties who tried through their activities to protect and increase in relative value acertain form of capital held by their members or voters. See Pierre Bourdieu, Teorie jednání, Prague 1998, p.39. For definitions of different forms of capital see Pierre Bourdieu, The Forms of Capital. In: John Richardson (eds.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, New York 1986. 12 Concerning the theory of comparative approach in historiography see Milan Scholz, Komparativní přístup vhistoriografii atransnacionální historická problematika, Sociální studia. Fakulta sociálních studií Masarykovy university 1/ 2009, pp.71–75; Jürgen Kocka, Comparison and Beyond, History and Theory, Vol.42, No.1 Feb., 2003, p.40, and Theda Skocpol— Margaret Somers, The Use of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.22, No.2 (1980). 13 As for the living standard of the lower classes and possibilities of their members’ social advance cf. Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures. England 1918–1951, Oxford 1958, pp.100, 207, 235–269; Eric Hopkins, ASocial History of the English Working Classes 1815–1945, London 1980, pp.209–256 with Stanislav Holubec, Lidé periferie. Sociální postavení OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 97 adirect comparison between the suffering of the working class and the success of the radical left does not suffice to advance an adequate explanation. PARALELL DEVELOPMENTS UNDER THE WINGS OF THE COMINTERN The bloody battles in the trenches of the First World War and their outcome in the emergence of the Bolshevik regime in Russia, triggered, as has already been said in the introduction, achange in the worldwide workers’ movement. Both in Czechoslovakia and in Britain this represented afundamental experience for the radicalisation of the left and the material misery of society in the rear, and the battles that devoured awhole generation of young men. The British radical left staged its revolt against the Labour Party leadership during heavy arms industry strikes and protest actions against army recruitment. By the end of the war, Czechoslovakia was shaken by hunger strikes involving looting of shops and stopping work in key operations for the war effort.14 Growing trade union organisation manifested from the 1890s and the parallel bloating of trade union bureaucracy resulted in an expansion of their leaders’ influence. The nature of the central management of the British industry during the war, where the unions played an important role in the coordination of the war effort, further increased their influence. While the leadership of the trade unions tried to retain loyalty towards the state authorities, the protest potential of the membership increased at the local level. The strikes and demonstrations were being led by the Shop Stewards Movement, striving to tackle their supporters’ problems through direct action, along with such radical British organisations as British Socialist Party, Socialist League, Socialist Labour Party, and Independent Labour Party, which brought together the left-pacifist wing of the Labour Party. These formations and their supporters enthusiastically welcomed the October Revolution in 1917. The members of Socialist Labour Party even called themselves “British Bolsheviks”’. In Britain, there were 35 000 direct-action activists, while the Labour Party said its top priority was to prevent Russia from making aseparate peace.15 In Czechoslovakia the initiative was seized by the National Committee and the course of events led to the proclamation of an independent republic. The members of the Socialist Council (including the future leader of the Communist Party Bohumír Šmeral), who had played an important role in the organisation of strikes and unrest before the declaration of independence, also took part in the activities of the Commitakaždodennost pražského dělnictva vmeziválečné době, Plzeň 2009. Concerning the experience of unemployment cf. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, London 1989 (original 1933), pp.134–230; George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, London 1937, with Jakub Rákosník, Odvrácená tvář meziválečné prosperity. Nezaměstnanost vČeskoslovensku vletech 1918–1938, Prague 2008, pp.407–410. 14 See for example Richard Hyman, Rank-and-File Movements and Workplace Organisation, 1914–1939. In: AHistory of British Industrial Relations 1914–1939, Vol. II, Sussex 1987, pp.132–140. 15 John Callaghan, Socialism in Britain since 1884, Oxford 1990. OPEN ACCESS 98 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 tee.16 The combined efforts of the entire political spectrum to build anation-state kept the left formally unified but within the Czechoslovak Social Democrats the pressures exerted by young activists born in 1885–1900 who were campaigning for aSocialist Czechoslovakia intensified.17 One of them, Marie Švermová, recalled how the news of the Bolshevik Revolution affected her: “To us, the youth, the proletarian revolution meant asolution to all the problems. We saw in it the fullest sense of our lives. We heard how the workers and peasants took power in Russia. It is no exaggeration to say that we were determined to sacrifice everything [...].”18 The activists on the other side of Europe had avery similar experience. Rajani Palme Dutt had himself declared fit to join the army at his own request so that he could then demonstratively refuse to begin his military service, for which he was expelled from Oxford and sentenced to six months in prison.19 William Gallacher organised strikes and demonstrations in the Clyde region and Harry Pollitt enthusiastically distributed Lenin’s Appeal to the Toiling Masses in London docks. 20 Tom Wintringham embraced Communism as aresult of direct experience of trench warfare, an experience shared with Antonín Zápotocký and Klement Gottwald.21 The motivations of the activists to take up the idea of aworld revolution and the practice of protest basically tallied. Whilst Harry Pollitt and others convinced London’s port workers not to load war materiel on the British Expedition Corps ships as part of the “Hands Off Russia” campaign, Czechoslovak activists organised aboycott on loading war supplies on trains going to the Polish Army fighting the Bolshevik intervention.22 But, the process of establishing Communist parties was totally different. In Britain, negotiations began in 1919 between the leaders of the following small radical Marxist political groups: British Socialist Party, Socialist Labour Party, Workers’ Socialist Federation, South Wales Socialist Society, representatives of the Shop Stewards Movement, and Independent Labour Party. The negotiations over the acceptance of 21 Comintern conditions were protracted but eventually led to the adoption of the Communist Unity Convention and the manifesto “Call for Communist Party”.23 The 16 With regard to the socialist council and its participants see for example Jan Galandauer, Bohumír Šmeral 1914–1941, Prague 1986, pp.177–183. 17 Lukáš Fasora, Stáří kporadě, mládí kboji. Radikalizace mladé generace českých socialistů 1900–1920, Brno 2015, pp.137–200. 18 Marie Švermová, Vzpomínky, Prague 2008, p.39. 19 John Callaghan, Rajani Palme Dutt. AStudy in British Stalinism, London 1993, pp.9–18. 20 William Gallacher, Revolt on the Clyde, London 1936; Kevin Morgan, Harry Pollitt, Manchester 1993, pp.14–20. 21 Cf. Hugh Purcell, The Last English Revolutionary. Tom Wintringham 1898–1949, Sutton 2004, pp.1–17, with Karel Kaplan, Kronika komunistického Československa: Klement Gottwald aRudolf Slánský, Prague 2009, pp.7–12. 22 Cf. Mary Davis, Comrade or Brother? AHistory of the British Labour Movement, London 1993, pp.155–157; Francis Beckett, Enemy Within. The Rise and Fall of the British Communist Party, London 1998, p.11, with Martin Nechvátal, 15.5.1921— založení KSČ: ve službách Kominterny, Prague 2002, p.20. 23 James Klugmann, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Vol I., Formation and Early Years 1919–1924, London 1968, pp.13–41. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 99 establishment of CPC, on the other hand, resulted in aserious rift within the Social Democratic Party. Young activists belonging to the same generation as the founders of the British Communist Party urged older left-wing politicians to totally break with the reformist past. The conflict lines around accepting the Comintern conditions overlapped with the rejection of participation in the government in acoalition with the right-wing Agrarian Party, and the defence of the newly-created state against the advance of the army of the Soviet Republic of Hungary in the territory of Slovakia. The radical left organised ageneral strike in December 1920, and the situation quickly escalated to astruggle over the party assets in what became known as the struggle for People’s House (the seat of Social Democracy). The call for the December general strike led in Kladno and central Bohemia to workers’ sit-ins in the factories, and in Prague and other places clashes erupted with police units. In January 1921, Social Democratic Youth adopted the ECI’s conditions and established the Communist Youth Union. In March 1921, the so-called Kladno Comrades, activists arrested for agitation during the general strike in Kladno went on trial, including the top left-wing leader Antonín Zápotocký and editor Alois Muna, who essentially became acollective representation of the resistance of the Communists against the new republic. In May 1921, the Communist Party was established.24 The fundamental difference between the newly established CPC and CPGB lay in the size of these political parties. While CPGB brought together 5 125 activists after its founding, and its membership fell to 3 906 by the end of 1921, CPC enticed most of the members of the Social Democrats to its newly-built structures, leaving the latter in aprogramme vacuum.25 At the local level, the Social Democratic organisations were simply renamed as Communist, and opponents of the new policy were simply expelled.26 The first chairman of the Communist Party, during the current split, estimated that the left represented 350 000 members, and throughout the 1920s the party managed to keep 90 000–150 000 members.27 During the 1920s, both sides sought to gain aplace in the political field of their nation societies and to establish amajor party capable of revolutionising the work24 See Martin Nechvátal, 15.5.1921— založení KSČ: ve službách Kominterny, Prague 2002. 25 The Social Democracy was traditionally protected against aschism caused by Marxist ideology influenced by revisionist historians. The conflict resulted in search of aprogramme alternative towards the politics of CPC. The search for this alternative lasted throughout the 1920s. This did not mean the party lost political influence. On the contrary, it participated in most coalition governments formed in interwar Czechoslovakia. As for the programme debates see Martin Polášek, Revizionisté, progresivisté atradicionalisté. Programové debaty vČeskoslovenské sociální demokracii vletech 1924–1938, Brno 2013; and Jan Kuklík, Hledání cesty kdemokratickému socialismu. Kprogramovému vývoji Československé sociálně demokratické strany dělnické vprvní polovině 30.let. In: Zdeněk Kárník (ed.), Knovověkým sociálním dějinám českých zemí, Vol. III, Od války kválce 1914–1939, Prague 1998. 26 An example is given in the memoirs of amember of the Prague organisation. See Vzpomínka Marie Bajerové, Strana nás dovedla kvítězství. Vzpomínky komunistů, Prague 1961, p.25. 27 J.Rupnik, Dějiny Komunistické strany, pp.53, 85. OPEN ACCESS 100 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 ing class. Representatives of the Comintern followed the Marxist theory axioms and declared successful expansion of the British Communists’ influence as one of the priorities. This went hand in hand with material support for the British movement. Francis Beckett goes so far in his study as to claim that “without Lenin’s continuous encouragement, and the careful distribution of Soviet money among groups that had always been starved of funds, the Communist Party would not have existed.”28 With the help of this money, the party began building aparty structure from local organisations and factory cells to the top of the party, and maintained close contact with representatives of the Comintern.29 As for organisation, both parties essentially embraced the same principles.30 While there are no hard data on the level of CPC funding by the Comintern, it can be said that CPGB is likely to have received much more assistance per member. The Czechoslovak Communists successfully built anetwork of parallel organisations around the main body of the political party, bringing together children, youth, women and leftist intellectual circles.31 The British proceeded in asimilar way, and in response to high postwar unemployment, they gained an indirect influence over Wal Hannington’s National Unemployed Workers Committee Movement (NUWM), which became aparticularly important mobilising force in the 1930s.32 Shortly after the establishment of CPGB, its youth organisation Young Communist League was founded and directly linked through William Rust to the party leadership.33 In 1924, apro-Communist trade union organisation, National Minority Movement (NMM) directly funded by CPGB was established and it gained considerable influence in 1926. After the re-adoption of the gold standard the situation of the British heavy and textile industry that had been in trouble before aggravated so much that largescale redundancies were to take place. The strong British unions opposed this measure. In May 1926, they called ageneral strike and paralysed the country. Hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets of industrial cities, and the peace was kept by policemen in armoured vehicles. The strike was called off after nine days.34 28 F.Beckett, Enemy Within, p.16, 29 Concerning the degree of influence of the CPGB by the Comintern organs and frequency of personal and mediated contacts see Andrew Thorpe, The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920–1943, Manchester 2000. 30 Cf. for example Handbook on Local Organisation, London [1922]; Národní archiv Praha [National Archive Prague, hereinafter as NA Prague], fund (hereinafter as f.) ÚV KSČ, krajské oddělení Praha, box (hereinafter as b.) 2, Organizační zpráva ke konferenci I. kraje KSČ konané 13.9.1925. 31 B.Melichar, Rudá Praha, pp.28–37. 32 Matt Perry, Bread and Work. Social Policy and the Experience of Unemployment, London 2000, pp.104–117, and James Eaden— David Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920, New York, 2002, p.13, 33 Andrew Flinn, William Rust: The Comintern’s Blue-Eyed Boy?. In: Kevin Morgan and Alan Campbell (eds.), Party People. Communist Lives. Explorations in Biography, John McIlroy, London 2001, pp.81–83. 34 See J.R.Florey, The General Strike of 1926. The Economic, Political and Social Causes of that Class War, London 1980; Laura Beers, “Is This Man an Anarchist?” Industrial Action and OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 101 However, miners from the most problematic areas refused to go back to work and continued the strike for nine months.35 During this period, both CPGB and NMM recruited new members and the public discourse was dominated by warnings against aBolshevik coup. During the trade unions’ crisis talks with the employers twelve CPGB leaders were arrested before the start of the strike, and hundreds of activists were arrested during the strike.36 The NMM leaders demanded transformation of the strike Councils of Action into Soviets and nationalisation of the industry. The editors of the Communist press and the authors of the pamphlets interpreted the events as follows: “[...] the British working class has entered into anew era, the era of mass struggle which can only culminate in an open revolutionary struggle.”37 The calling off of the strike was interpreted as abetrayal of Labour and of the traditional structures of the British trade unions. The British Communist Party recruited six thousand new members at the time of the strike, doubling its membership. The Czechoslovak Communists dreamed of organising ageneral strike after the adoption of the so-called New Strike Strategy promoted since 1929 by representatives of the Red Union International.38 In 1929, the leadership of the pro-Communist International All-Trade Union Association (IAUA) was expelled after refusing to subordinate the wage and other demands of the workers to strictly political goals leading to zero cooperation with other trade unions. This was followed by an attempt to call for apoint-blank refusal of forced labour, which was to begin in the North Bohemian textile area.39 This campaign came to nothing but whereas the strikes all but ceased in Britain in the 1930s, the Czechoslovak Communist activists tried to lead political strikes until 1934.40 The radicalisation of CPC’s progress in Labour-capital conflicts was the Battle for Public Opinion in Interwar Britain, The Journal of Modern History, Vol.82, No.1 (March 2010) and Morris Margaret, The General Strike, Harmondsworth 1976. 35 With respect to motivations and functioning of the miners’ community during the strike see this case study by Hester Barron, The 1926 Miners Lockout. Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield, Oxford 2010. 36 The Communist Party on Trial. W.M.Gallacher’s Defence and Judge Rigby Swift’s Summing-up, London [1925]. The 1925 trial was commented by J.T.Murphy in his article Straight from the Docks: cit.J.T.Murphy, Straight from the Docks, Workers’ Weekly, 4 December 1925. James Eden states that during the strike 25% of the members of CPGB were arrested. See James Eaden— David Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920, New York, 2002, pp.24–30. 37 Rajani Palme Dutt, The First British General Strike, The Communist International. Organ of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, London, No.21, 1926, pp.3–36— also published as apamphlet R.Palme Dutt, The Meaning of the General Strike, London 1926. 38 International press correspondence 20.12.1929, reprint of speech by E.Thällman and A.Lozovsky at 10th plenary session of Executive Committee of the Communist International. 39 Jan Mlynárik, Nová štrajková stratégia aštrajk severočeských textilákov roku 1929, Československý časopis historický 1966, pp.703–727. 40 James Eaden— David Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920, New York, 2002, p.30. OPEN ACCESS 102 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 part of the changes brought about by the introduction of the tactics of “class against class”. At the ninth plenary session of the ECI, athesis regarding the early arrival of the final crisis of capitalism was approved, and the individual party sections called for the taking of immediate steps to eliminate the Social Democratic political rivals.41 In 1929, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia underwent aradical generation change and its leadership now belonged to ageneration that had been the source of youth radicalism since the founding of the party. The aim was, in line with the thesis of social-fascism, to get rid of the legacy of Social democracy inside the party. Between 1929 and 1930 more than 120 000 members were expelled from CPC due to the demand for radical activism to be met by each member. Similarly, the number of members of CPGB decreased since 1927.42 In this period, the ideal leader was acharismatic, strong personality with aworking-class background. Both CPGB and CPC followed in the election of their leader the wider trend of the whole international Communist movement when they elected as their leader’s ideal representatives of the Bolshevist Communist movement. While Klement Gottwald was an illegitimate son of an agricultural worker and trained carpenter, Harry Pollitt was the son of atextile worker and ablacksmith inclined to alcoholism. Pollitt began to gain work experience in Manchester factories at the age of 12.43 Both surrounded themselves with intellectuals. The position of the second man in CPGB was held by an Oxford-educated doctor’s son, Rajani Palme Dutt. The same rung was shared in CPC by university-educated son of lawyer Jan Šverma, and agraduate of abusiness academy Rudolf Slánský.44 Whilst the purges in CPGB were relatively extensive, CPGB did not harbour any Social Democratic or Labour resentment due to the different process of party formation, and except for the retention of some members of the leadership and the departure of inactive members at the local level it did not undergo asimilar generation change.45 On the contrary, Pollitt’s leadership eventually succeeded in thwarting attempts by William Rust and his party faction, the Young Turks, the most vocal supporters of the Comintern line, to question the British interpretation of the class-to-class tactic. In the end, Rust left the party leadership in Lancashire in 1934.46 The sharp drop in CPGB’s membership figures was due to the gradual depletion of the protest energy of the participants in the general strike and miners’ lockout. After the changes in the leadership and in the party apparatus, both CPC and CPGB embodied all the defining attributes of aBolshevist Communist Party. These 41 The Programme of the Communist International Together with the Statutes of the Communist International, London and Wembley 1929. See also Kevin McDermott and Jeremy Agnew, Kominterna: dějiny mezinárodního komunismu za Leninovy aStalinovy éry, Prague 2011, pp.110–133. 42 Cf. J.Rupnik, Dějiny Komunistické strany, p.85; A.Thorpe, The Membership, p.781. 43 Cf. K.Morgan, Harry Pollitt, pp.1–2 and K.Kaplan, Kronika komunistického Československa, p.7. 44 Cf. J.Callaghan, Rajani Palme Dutt, pp.9–18; and M.Švermová, Vzpomínky, p.51; K.Kaplan, Kronika komunistického Československa, p.207. 45 Cf. for example J.Rupnik, Dějiny Komunistické strany, pp.90–98. 46 A.Flinn, William Rust: The Comintern’s Blue-Eyed Boy?, pp.91–92. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 109 levelled at ahegemonic competitor based on its reluctance to support the political unification of the working class.73 The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia did not merely succeed in defeating the Social Democrats in in the 1925 parliamentary elections; it was outdistanced from the overall leadership by only half apercentage point.74 On the other hand, the British Communists, in 1924, watched the formation of the first Labour government without any greater influence in Parliament. The party leaders apparently realised that their side was reined in by the bipartite system and incorporated into their programme in 1929 the demand to change the electoral system from majority to proportional.75 In 1924, their election campaign policy was based on clear support for the Labour Party and described its participation in the government coalition as undisputable progress in building class consciousness of the members of the British working class.76 This obliging move towards respect for the bipartisan system resulted even in socially excluded mining areas and well-known CPGB bastions called Little Moscows in local electors in municipal elections and workers’ union elections preferring local Communist leaders but in parliamentary elections supporting Labour.77 The leadership of CPGB even voiced its support for the Labour government so loudly that it played down the criticism branding them in the discourse as traitors of the working class, for which it was criticised by the Comintern.78 An analogous situation existed at the level of the trade unions and policies of the Communist parties in the workplaces. CPC and CPGB declared in concert that the top priority for their movement was to successfully penetrate the factories and effectively organise the workers. For this purpose, the party organisations should serve as the basis for the local organisational structure of both parties and trade unions working under the ideological leadership of the Red Trade Union International.79 In Czechoslovakia, the trade unions became constituents of the political and social pillars supporting the political parties. All political movements with aspirations to represent the class interests of the workers, from the National Socialists to the Communists, created their own trade union. The most powerful entity in the pluralist trade 73 The Communist Party and the Labour Party. All the Facts and All the Correspondence, London [192-?]. 74 For the parliamentary election in 1925 see Zdeněk Kárník, České země véře První republiky, Bd. I, Vznik, budování azlatá léta republiky (1918–1929), Prague 2000, pp.370–382. 75 Class Against Class. General Election Programme of the Communist Party of Great Britain, London 1929. 76 Communist Parliamentary Policy and Electoral Programme, London 1922, pp.5–6, and J.T.Murphy, The Labour Government— What We Must Do, The Workers Weekly, 15 February 1924. 77 Stuart Macintyre, Little Moscows. Communism and Working-class Militancy in Interwar Britain, London 1980, p.180. 78 See A.Thorpe, The British Communist Party, pp.75–82. 79 Cf. NA Prague, f. ÚV KSČ, krajské oddělení Praha, b. 1, Návrh organizačního řádu KSČ prováděcího ustanovení. Pro delegáty IV. sjezdu KSČ; Draft: Constitution of the Communist Party of Great Britain, London 1932, pp.4–8; Handbook on Local Organisation, London [1922]. OPEN ACCESS 110 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 union system remained the Czechoslovak Trade Union Association (OSC) with close ideological and personal ties to Social Democracy, from which the Communist International All-Trade Union Association (IAUA) divided by splitting. The fission process proceeded similarly at the party level. Following an unsuccessful attempt by the Left faction to dominate the OSC leadership, the radicals were expelled and established their own entity. Of the individual social-democratic professional associations, up to 30% of the membership left.80 Negotiations during labour and capital disputes at the local level took place on the basis of the creation of short-term coalitions between workers’ leaders organised in individual trade unions, and only then by negotiations with the employers. The British trade union movement, on the other hand, was asingle, centrally managed organisation led at the highest level of the Trade Union Congress. Within the framework of the war economy, British trade union leaders were given an opportunity to participate, together with government representatives and business owners, in the management of industries. The postwar crisis accelerated the process of centralising the British unions. In the first half of the 20th century, two mammoth trade union were established: Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMW). In 1926, General Labour Workers Union brought together 27 trade union congresses in different industrial sectors. The bargaining potential of the British trade unions was enhanced by the formation of strong alliances of these centralised institutions that were able to put pressure not only on the owners but also on the central government. The Triple Alliance played acentral role in the postwar wave of strikes and unrest, and the 1926 general strike was led by the General Council.81 By their nature, the institutional approaches to the solution of the dispute between labour and capital copied the structure of the bipartite system of the structuring political field. Negotiations were conducted between aunited organisation of workers, linked personally and organisationally, with its political representation in the Labour Party and representatives of capital in sympathy with the conservatives. Whereas the Czechoslovak form of the working-class representation in the public space had acharacteristic tendency of splitting along the lines of particular interests of the individual segments of workers, for the actors in the British bipartisan reality the disunity was afundamental threat. Both the Labour Party and the Trade Union Congress functioned as an umbrella, bringing together various political and organisational actors who preferred aradically different solution. While in the unions the source of radicalism was the rank-and-file movement leaning on shop stewards, in the Labour Party the radical wing was active in the Independent Labour Party, the British Socialist Party, and the Socialist League. The British Socialist Party, with the ambition to create acompletely independent platform, broke away from the Labour 80 As for the form of trade union organisation in interwar Czechoslovakia see František Čapka, Odbory včeských zemích vletech 1918–1948, Brno 2008, pp.65–134, and Josef Kotek, Odborové hnutí zaměstnanců, Prague 1930. 81 See Chris Wrigley, The Trade Unions Between the Wars.In: AHistory of British Industrial Relations 1914–1939, Vol. II, Sussex 1987; See also L.Beers, “Is this Man an Anarchist?”, pp.30–60. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 111 Party, but in 1914 it faced marginalisation and sought away to re-affiliation.82 The number of factions within these large organisations caused tensions and attempts to question the decisions of the central organs. These pressures, however, were attenuated to maintain unity. While the Czechoslovak Communists had an opportunity to defeat their rivals in the struggle for leadership in the representation of the working class, the British Communists only hoped to maximise their participation in the workings of the Labour Party and trying to transform it from within. The fact that the Communists had acertain potential for destabilising the Labour Party is substantiated by the general strike events. In 1925, when reaching the highest level of consensus was becoming increasingly difficult, the Labour Party’s congress decided to deny the right to individual membership in the Labour Party to Communists who held both the CPGB and the Labour Party card.83 The ability of the Communists to inflame the situation before and during the general strike was not underestimated by the state security forces which reacted by arresting almost all the party leadership and persecuting radical orators during the strike.84 Asignificant shift in the movements of the two Communist parties in the political fields of individual national societies was the application of the thesis about social-fascism in the late 1920s, overlapping with the eruption of the Great Depression. The Social Democrats and the National Socialists opened up new opportunities for criticism of the Communist Party, which deepened the steadily critical discourse towards its rivals. Identified with the government circles, the Social Democrats were branded by the Communists as the main bearers of fascism: “The Social-Fascists sit in the government and have their snouts in the trough because they defend the domination of capital against the proletariat. The Communists are persecuted and rot in prisons because they lead the proletariat in the struggle against the domination of capital.”85 The radical generational change in the Communist Party described above consisted of the ideological axiom of party cleansing itself of the legacy of the Social Democracy. The rigid application of the thesis about social-fascism was aclear priority for the party’s leadership, notwithstanding the isolation in which CPC gradually found itself, and was maintained with the help of the elimination of party dissent, pointing to the inability of this doctrine to mobilise asufficient force against the growing importance of the fascist movements.86 82 H.Pelling, AShort History of the Labour Party, p.25. As for the rank-and-file movement see Richard Hyman, Rank-and-File Movements and Workplace Organisation, 1914–1939. In: AHistory of British Industrial Relations 1914–1939, Vol. II, Sussex 1987. 83 This was arepeated attempt to purge the Labour Party of Communists doing fraction work. See H.Pelling, AShort History of the Labour Party, p.54 and Hugo Dewar, Communist Politics in Britain. The CPGB from its Origins to the Second World War, London 1976, pp.37–40. 84 See J.Eaden— D.Renton, The Communist Party, New York, 2002, pp.24–30. 85 NA Prague, f. KSČ, ilegální tisk, b. 1, Rudé právo. Ústřední orgán Komunistické strany Československa, 5.11.1933. 86 An example of expelling opponents of the Social-Fascist thesis was the Guttman Affair, see J.Rupnik, Dějiny Komunistické strany, pp.103–114. OPEN ACCESS 112 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 The failure of the Labour Party to solve the problems caused by the Great Depression reflected the practice of its functioning as an institutional umbrella. The issue of unemployment generated further tension between the central party leadership and the Independent Labour Party offering Keynesian recipes for tackling the crisis. In realistic politics, the Labour Party’s steps were based on orthodox economic tools typical of the right.87 Strengthening of the inner scission line led to expulsion of the whole Independent Labour Party in 1932.88 But, the Communists were unable to make use of this suggestion of arift in the Labour Party because they were restrained by policy application by resolutely refusing to cooperate with any version of reformism. Although CPGB’s criticism of the Labour Party was not based on avocabulary as radical as that used by CPC, it could be said that this was aclear move for which the CPGB leaders had acquired imaginary ammunition after the strike was called off by the Trade Union Council. In the congress proceedings the new party line came to the following conclusion: “Later, after the first meeting, the main programme of the reformists was focused on the reconstruction and stabilisation of declining capitalism, which industrial peace advocates hope to achieve.”89 The opposition role of the Labour Party in 1925–1929 was described by CPGB as direct collaboration with Stanley Baldwin’s conservative cabinet leading to betrayal of the striking workers in 1926, support for the imperialistic policy, and even protests against the Chinese Revolution.90 Aturnaround in the direction of reuniting the Communists with their reformist rivals came with the application of the unified front tactics in the mid-1930s. For the CPGB representatives, the practical pursuance of the new policy involved an attempt to affiliate with the Labour Party, which was again rejected.91 The leadership of the Communist Party decided to take asimilar step by starting adiscussion with the Social Democrats about afuture merger of the two parties.92 The struggle for aunited front was not wholly successful in Britain or in Czechoslovakia. While CPGB activists blocked streets and engaged in violent clashes with the British Union of Fascists, the Labour Party shied away from such astyle of political leadership and tried to fight against fascism at the parliamentary level. However, many local Labour Party parties decided to endorse the anti-fascist CPGB actions, and acertain form of aunited 87 M.Perry, Bread and Work, pp.83–86. 88 M. Davis, Comrade or Brother?, pp.210–213. 89 The New Line. Documents of the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain held at Bermondsey, London on Jan. 19th–22nd 1929, London 1929, p.16. 90 Reg Groves, Four Years of Labour “Opposition”. ACommunist Examination of the Labour Party’s Record in the House of Commons from 1925 to 1929, London 1929. 91 Concerning the principles of the Unified Front laid down by the CPGB see The Programme of the Communist Party adopted at the XIII Congress 2 February 1935, London 1935. As for the failure of the affiliation talks see J.Eaden— D.Renton, The Communist Party, pp.53–55. 92 Vítězslav Sommer, Revoluce nebo spolupráce?: KSČ aotázka sjednocení levice před VII.kongresem Kominterny 1934–1935. In: Zdeněk Kárník— Jiří Kocian— Jaroslav Pažout— Jakub Rákosník (eds.), Bolševismus, komunismus aradikální socialismus vČeskoslovensku VI., Prague 2009. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 113 front was created from below.93 Asimilar effect had achange in the CPC policy, which ceased to designate as the main source of fascism the Social Democracy and regarded it as an external threat.94 Both political entities were forced by the threat of war to make effective unifying efforts. It is evident that the structure of the political field had asignificant influence on the success or marginalisation of the two Communist movements. However, acounterfactual reflection on ascenario involving the mass indoctrination of the Labour Party’s grassroots by aMarxist doctrine spread by the British Communists brings us to the question of why CPGB was unable to significantly influence the living world of the workers. The penetration of Communist activists into the community life of the workers dependent on family relations, local ties and friendship proved much more successful in Czechoslovakia than in Britain.95 The reasons for these differences cannot be deduced from the structure of the political field, and it is necessary to capture the function of the notional symbolic pillars of society in the distribution of opportunities for social advancement and collective representations. THE EMPIRE AND THE CROWN AS ASYMBOL OF STABILITY VERSUS THE WEAKNESS OF MASARYK’S CULT The stability of British society was based, among other things, on Britain’s power position within the Western world. The Empire, which was in its heyday during the postwar peace talks, had anotable function in distributing opportunities for social advancement in the British Isles and became acollective representation of the British system’s strength. Metaphorically speaking, it was an outlet for releasing social tension outside of the political centre. Maintenance of the bureaucratic apparatus and naval power offered people with inconsistent social status enough opportunities to migrate and lead anew life in different parts of the world.96 Between 1920 and 1929, 1 185 952 people departed from Britain to live in the Empire or in the USA. Between 93 M.Davis, Comrade or Brother?, p.214; F.Beckett, Enemy Within, pp.60–64. 94 See for example Gottwald’s speech delivered at the 7th Party Congress: Protokol VII. Sjezdu Komunistické strany Československa, 11.–14.4.1936, Prague 1967, pp.38–43, 48–52. 95 The Communists only succeeded on the local level in selected areas. See S.Macintyre, Little Moscows. Key study on the social practice of KSČ penetrating the poor districts in Prague see B.Melichar, Rudá Praha. pp.146–165. For similarities in the everyday functioning of the Czechoslovak and British working-class communities cf. R.McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, pp.100, 207, 235–269, 106–205 with S.Holubec, Lidé periferie. 96 For the sociological theory of inconsistent social status see Jadwiga Šanderová, Sociální stratifikace, Prague, 2004, p.75. Career opportunities were in the bureaucratic apparatus of the imperial administration and the army necessary to defend the occupied territories. As for options for members of the working class making their mark in the British army see Nicholas Mansfield, Exploited Workers or Agents of Imperialism? British Common Soldiers in the Nineteenth Century. In: Billy Frank, Craig Horner and David Stewart (eds.), The British Labour Movement and Imperialism, Cambridge 2010. OPEN ACCESS 114 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 1915 and 1930 18.7 million Britons left Europe.97 The effect of asocial outlet in relation to imperialism was described by Hannah Arendt as an alliance between capital and the mob: “The people who became permanently unemployed were for society as superfluous as owners of superfluous capital. During the nineteenth century they were aware that these unemployed were areal threat to society, and their exports helped the people of Canada, Australia and the United States [...] gold-diggers, adventurers and the urban poor emigrated to the Black Continent together with capital from industrially developed countries. From now on, the mob created by the massive accumulation of capital accompanied the creators on exploratory journeys during which nothing but investment opportunities were discovered.”98 It should not be forgotten that the movement of the population was not one-way. In the interwar period, migration of colonial populations into the centre of the Empire increased, and the collective representation of the open world helped to maintain agenerally shared consensus in the British Isles. Stuart McIntyre describes his studies on Communist mining enclaves in several cases of emigration of local Communist leaders to more favourable regions of Great Britain or the Empire or the United States to avoid discrimination on the part of employers.99 Alternative possibilities of career advancement could satisfy the potential dissent or at least filter it out to the periphery. The imperial possessions offered citizens not only opportunities for migration, but also, figuratively speaking, they were able to feed them. An economy based on unfair exchanges of raw materials and finished products allowed the British heavy and textile industry to flourish. Imperial expansion thus raised the living standards of the workers in Britain proper. Only in the combination of the idea of an open world and the creation of jobs in the mother country can we understand the well-known notion of Cecil Rhodes, who claimed that in order to save the United Kingdom from abloody civil war, it must acquire new lands for settling its surplus population and providing new markets. This notion became an indirect definition of social imperialism.100 The growing economic independence of the key British colonies, however, meant achange in the functioning of the market, plunging these sectors in the interwar period into agrave crisis that led to the intensified activities of the trade unionists in 1926.101 Yet, the economic importance of the Empire, as demonstrated by the Great 97 Marjory Harper— Stephen Constantine, Migration and Empire, Oxford 2010, pp.2–10. 98 Hannah Arendt, Původ totalitarismu, Bd. I-III, Prague 1996, p.235. 99 S.Macintyre, Little Moscows, pp.99, 106. 100 For the Communist movement Lenin’s theory of social imperialism was most influential. See Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Prague 1949, pp.74–75. The concept of social imperialism was returned to modern historiography by the Bielefeld School and subsequent debate about the Sonderweg concept. See for example Jürgen Kocka, German history before Hitler: The debate about the German Sonderweg, Journal of Contemporary history, Vol.23, January 1988, and Geoff Eley, Defining Social Imperialism: Use and Abuse of an Idea, Social History, Vol.1, No.3 (Oct. 1976). See Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke, From Empire to Europe: Britain in the world economy. In: Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries and Paul Johnson (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Volume II., 1870 to the Present, Cambridge 2014. 101 See K.H.O’Rourke, From Empire to Europe. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 115 Depression, was not altogether diminished. In the ongoing protectionist economic war between the individual Western economies, the most-favoured-nation clause within the Empire allowed the markets for British merchandise to expand by leaps and bounds.102 By its global nature, however, the Great Depression brought about the fundamental problems of the stability mechanism based on the open world. The wave of unemployment reached both the US and the countries of the British Empire. The existential problems of the unemployed, whom the system could not absorb, created aprotest potential that the British Communists could exploit. Mass demonstrations and hunger marches showed ablind spot in the integration of the working class through Imperial rule and the bipartisan political system. The consequences of the Great Depression in the form of the mass of the unemployed living in the streets of the British cities and the hungry farmers in the imperial system highlighted the fission lines and became awatershed in the history of the British Empire.103 In the interwar period, however, the Empire still functioned as acollective representation of the strength and stability of the country. The British Empire Exhibition held in 1924, which became apopular celebration of global British success, was visited by more than 20 million Britons.104 While scepticism about the Imperial project was growing in intellectual circles, the press, radio and film spread its original symbolic mission, described by Eric Hobsbawm as follows: “[...] generally, imperialism has encouraged the masses, and especially the potentially discontent, to identify themselves with the imperial state and nation, and so unconsciously to endow the social and political system represented by that state with justification and legitimacy.”105 From this, Mary Davis developed the thesis that the British Empire was the cause of identification of the British working class with the social reform policy of the Liberals and later the Labour Party.106 102 For Britain, for tackling this crisis the Ottawa Conference in 1932 was vital as it agreed minimum customs duties throughout the Empire and asingle high customs tariffs for the competition in areas outside the interests of the Crown. For the customs war triggered by the new wave of protectionism in the 1930s see Jakub Rákosník— Jiří Noha, Kapitalismus na kolenou: dopad velké hospodářské krize na evropskou společnost vletech 1929–1934, Prague 2012, pp.147–168. 103 Eric Hobsbawm interpreted the sharp drop in the prices of raw materials and commercial crops as aspecial circumstance for the formation of apolitical alliance between the elites of the subject countries and the general populations that led in many places (for example, in India) to the creation of amass national movement. See Eric Hobsbawm, Věk extrémů. Krátké 20.století 1914–1991, Prague 1998, pp.223–224. 104 Niall Ferguson, Britské impérium. Cesta kmodernímu světu, Prague 2007, pp.335–343. 105 Eric J.Hobsbawn, The Age of Empire 1875–1914, New York 1989, pp.69–73. 106 M.Davis, Comrade or Brother?, p.157. Asimilar thesis is advanced by Geoffrey Field. See Geoffrey Field, Social Patriotism and the British Working Class: Appearance and Disappearance of aTradition. In: International Labour and Working-Class History, No.42, Tradition and the Working Class (August 1992), p.22. Ross McKibbin holds that the influence of imperialism is afactor that caused the British workers to have reservations regarding Marxism. See Ross McKibbin, Why There is No Marxism in Great Britain?, English Historical Review, Vol.99, No.391 (April 1984), pp.316–317. OPEN ACCESS 116 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 An apt metaphor for the reality of Czechoslovak society is that of apressure cooker.107 Although the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was alarge empire before the First World War, it lacked overseas possessions, and the ruling circles could not exploit the size of the state to provide favourable opportunities for potential dissent. The increasingly influential nationalist movements created alternative elites as they had become an institutional instrument able to offer avision of the future to individuals experiencing the most life’s difficulties with an inconsistent social status. The Czech National Movement for Language Equality and then for complete independence can be interpreted as an expression of the Czech language middle-class struggle for recognition, career opportunities and participation in power.108 The monarchy, however, lacked an outlet that would filter out this class conflict, and all of its energy was directed against the central government. In the early 20th century the Czech working class organised in the Social Democracy was split between Marxist class identity and national identity, resulting in the projection of the vision of asocially just world into the reality of afuture independent state.109 The breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918 meant the creation of Czechoslovakia as an independent state. This founding act can be perceived as an accomplishment of the efforts of ahundred years in the national movement, which in its mass phase integrated all the social strata and their political representation. However, the national unity and cooperation between all the political entities, as manifested in the work of the National Committee in October 1918, began to come apart rapidly. The various components of the national movement were beginning to pursue their visions and trying to get the greatest possible share of power. An unarmed struggle began over the nature of the Republic, which eventually led to the emergence of the already mentioned power cartel at the level of government policy. At the symbolic level, the collective representation of stability was to be the charismatic leader of the national movement, the First President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. Masaryk, as the leader who secured the nation’s own independent state, was to become agenerally recognised authority figure.110 The image of awise, elderly yet vigorous professor was to become the collective representation of the young Republic. Amodest, equanimous and highly principled man with aperfectly harmonious 107 Advancing globalisation with increasing global migration naturally affected the Czech Lands and by extension Czechoslovakia. Unlike the Britons, however, the Czech migration was limited by the language barrier and the absence of apossibility for appointing middle-class malcontents to the Imperial administration. As for migration of Czechs to different parts of the world see Jaroslav Vaculík, Češi vcizině 1850–1938, Brno 2009. 108 As for the concept of the nation as an alternative elite movement see Miroslav Hroch, Vnárodním zájmu: požadavky acíle evropských národních hnutí devatenáctého století ve srovnávací perspektivě, Prague 1999. 109 As for the relation between national identity and class identity within the prewar Social Democratic movement see Jakub S.Beneš, Workers and Nationalism. Czech and German Social Democracy in Habsburg Austria, 1890–1918, Oxford 2017. 110 Regarding Masaryk’s life story see for example Alain Soubigou, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Prague 2004; see also Andrea Orzoff, Battle for the Castle. The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914–1948, New York 2009. OPEN ACCESS bOHuMIl MElIcHar 117 personal life was presented as amodel to all the social strata. Aprofessor who worked his way up from ahumble background, portrayed with equal elegance at military parades mounted on his white horse or sitting at his desk, was to become apersonification of the state. The president occupied an exclusive position in the public space. His birthday celebrations were to become manifestations of anational society consensually recognising the president’s political merits and his personal qualities.111 The importance of this man at the level of symbolic representations, maintaining the social consensus, clearly underlined the successful attempt of the constructive political representation to embody Masaryk’s cult in the Collection of Laws. On his 80th birthday, the following law was passed: “T.G. Masaryk deserves credit for the creation of the State. This statement will be eternally hewn in stone in both Chambers of the National Assembly.”112 We can view the building of Masaryk’s cult as acollective representation of the stability of the Czechoslovak Republic, perceived analogously to the symbolic meaning of the British sovereign. The image of the royal family was shaped through new mass media, as was the image of the British Empire as awhole. The sovereign’s private life, cosmopolitan outlook, and the political role of the unifier who managed to steer clear of controversial issues dividing society, all of this made the King acollective representation of abasic consensus superior to particular collective interests.113 Both the Czechoslovak president and the British Royal Family were to be aclass-neutral representation of national ideas. The British Communists attempted to attack the basic pillars of British society’s stability from their anti-systemic position. To them, the existence of the Empire certainly did not exemplify the size of Britain; on the contrary, they claimed it was atool to make aprofit from the work of British labourers to be channelled to armaments, the army and wars of aggression waged in order to subjugate an increasing number of workers around the world, atool for corrupting the weak class of British skilled workers and hiding the overall repressive nature 111 See T.G. Masaryk. Rukověť pořadatelům oslav jeho narozenin, Prague 1926; T.G. Masaryk. Rukověť pořadatelům oslav jeho 75.narozenin, Prague 1925 and President Masaryk. KJubileu sedmdesátých narozenin, Prague [1930]. The president’s life story was present in public space thanks to an influential book by Karel Čapek who took downs his memories. The memoirs began to be published in 1928. See Karel Čapek and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Hovory sT.G.Masarykem. Věk mladosti, Prague 1928; Karel Čapek and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Hovory sT.G.Masarykem. Život práce, Prague 1931; Karel Čapek and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Hovory sT.G. Masarykem. Myšlení aživot, Prague 1935; see also Dagmar Hájková, “Dokud člověk jí klobásy, tak neumře.” Oslavy narozenin T.G.Masaryka. In: Dagmar Hájková— Luboš Velek (eds.), Historik nad šachovnicí dějin. Kpětasedmdesátinám Jana Galandauera. Prague 2011, pp.218–235. 112 Act of 26 February 1930 on the meritorious work of T.G. Masaryk, Collection of Laws and Ordinances of the Czechoslovak State, 6.3.1930, p.55. For the pollitical and social content of the passing of the Act see for example Z.Kárník, České země véře První republiky, Vol.II, pp.70–72. 113 R McKibbin, Classes and Cultures. pp.7–15; R.McKibbin, Why There is No Marxism, pp.312–314. OPEN ACCESS 118 WISOHIM/ESHP 27 of the system.114 In their policy statement, they offered the voters abolition of monarchy and hereditary titles.115 The strength of these two stabilising elements of the British Society illustrates the marginalisation of CPGB on the British political scene. The Czechoslovak Communists were much more successful with their anti-system discourse. It should be noted that the building of Masaryk’s cult met with acertain response in Czechoslovak society and the working class was not immune to this symbolic communication. This is suggested by asociological-pedagogical poll carried out among Prague apprentices, who named Masaryk most often in aquestionnaire about their life paragon.116 Masaryk’s legacy was strongly accentuated by the Czechoslovak Social Democrats whose ideologists included Masaryk among their idea sources for his interpretation of Marx’s Capital.117 However, the image of the President of the Republic suffered from aweakness, the revolutionary origin of the newly established state. As the leader of the national movement Masaryk had to offer avision of the future state and his rivals could easily criticise him as apolitical figure unable to deliver on his promises. The principal butt was the inability of the establishment to put into practice Masaryk’s theoretical construction of asocialising democracy. In his book titled World Revolution he presented his vision as follows: “Iam not against socialisation— socialisation and not mere nationalisation or state oversight— in some sectors: Iam for socialising railways and means of communication in general, water, coal, etc.; Iimagine socialisation as agradual, developmental, prepared education of workers and people who manage production and exchange .... But, first and foremost, we must complete the incomplete social legislation, in particular, improve and standardise social insurance, and more particularly, unemployment insurance.”118 The discrepancy between the reality of the Czechoslovak society in which class distinctions deepened as aresult of the Great Depression and this vision exposed the president to leftist criticism. The Communist press certainly did not spare Masaryk: “…where are the promises of Masaryk that there would be neither poor nor rich people in the republic, that large estates, mines and factories would be expropriated...”119 Indirect evidence of the fact that in Czechoslovakia there was ademand for radical criticism of the central power, 114 As for the criticism of imperialism by CPGB see for example Rajani Palme Dutt, Free the Colonies!, London 1931; Rajani Palme Dutt, Empire “socialism”, London 1925; The Colonial Question. AStudy Syllabus for Workers, London [1931]. 115 This demand appeared in the party programme in 1924 and in 1929. Draft Programme of the C.P.G.B. to the Comintern, The Communist Review, June 1924, Vol.5, No.2; Class Against Class. General Election Programme of the Communist Party of Great Britain, London 1929. 116 S.Holubec, Lidé periferie, pp.147–149. 117 As for the ideology of the Czechoslovak Social Democrats see Martin Polášek, Revizio nisté, progresivisté atradicionalisté. Programové debaty vČeskoslovenské sociální demokracii vletech 1924–1938, Brno 2013. 118 Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Světová revoluce, Prague 1927, p.510. 119 NA Prague, f. ÚV KSČ, ilegální tisk, b. 1, Bolševik. Ilegální orgán Komunistické strany Československa, 5.11.1929. OPEN ACCESS