Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)
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The origins of the CPGB (PCC) lie in the New Communist Party of Britain which split from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1977. Under the influence of a faction of the Communist Party of Turkey, a handful led by John Chamberlain attempted to rejoin the then CPGB. Few actually regained party cards but the grouping began to publish The Leninist, first as a journal, then as a more or less monthly paper. Chamberlain also edited "Turkey Today", an English-language monthly published by the Turkish communist faction that supported him.
Initially The Leninist appeared to be a Left Stalinist publication in its politics, but over time it mutated into something very different. This may be due to the relative openness of the group to the world outside the closed circles of the communist movement, or due to their isolation that forced them to confront the various Trotskyist groups, which make up the largest part of the far left in Britain. They entered into a series of exchanges with different far left groups, beginning with the Spartacist League.
After the break-up of the CPGB, the group declared their intention to reforge the Party on what they declared to be "firm Leninist principles". They organised an emergency conference, at which they claimed the CPGB name, but not its assets. They also changed the name of their paper, increasing its regularity to weekly.
By the early 1990s, the group was working closely with the tiny Revolutionary Democratic Group and the Open Polemic discussion magazine. They sought to deepen their links with a group of recent ex-members of the Socialist Workers Party who called themselves the International Socialist Group, not knowing this name was already in use by another group! The CPGB(PCC) described this process as communist rapprochement. The attempt failed as the ISG collapsed and Open Polemic briefly enrolled a few of its supporters in the CPGB(PCC), only for them to quit in a row over money. The RDG still publishes paid-for articles in the Weekly Worker.
One remarkable development in its history is its complete rethinking of the class nature of the former USSR, sometimes referred to as the Russian Question. Despite its Stalinist origins, the CPGB (PCC) developed an account highly critical of the former Soviet Union, seeing it as a bureaucratic society. Sharing this approach, non-members such as Hillel Ticktin — editor of Critique — have spoken at CPGB (PCC) events.
The party was for a short while embedded in the Socialist Labour Party, but left to join the Socialist Alliance, in which they came to work closely with the Alliance for Workers Liberty, and proposed a merger of their papers, rejected by the AWL. The two have since politically drifted apart.
In 2004 the CPGB(PCC) concluded that the Socialist Alliance was moribund in practice. The party enrolled into the Respect Coalition, hoping to influence the members of the Socialist Workers Party, its largest component. However, a minority disagreed with the tactic of working within Respect and formed a faction called the Red Platform. The new faction called instead for the CPGB(PCC) to rejoin a Socialist Alliance reform current called the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform. The Red Platform won their aim but the CPGB(PCC) majority continued to work within Respect. Members of the Red Platform subsequently left to create the Red Party in August 2004 over a disagreement about their views being published in the paper. The Socialist Alliance dissolved in February 2005. The Democratic Platform of the Socialist Alliance subsequently reformed as the Socialist Alliance (Provisional), which the CPGB(PCC) did not join.
The CPGB(PCC) membership has remained small, never exceeding 40. In mid-2004, a former member, speaking on an online discussion group, claimed the CPGB had only twenty six members, including those which left to form the Red Party. Since that, it has been made known that at least one other member has resigned from the group. The founder and leader of the group calls himself "John Bridge" and also writes under the nom de plume of "Jack Conrad". Some sources state that his real name is John Chamberlain.
Despite their size, in May 2006 the CPGB(PCC) paper claimed an on line circulation of over 25,000.
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