Harry Pollitt

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Harry Pollitt on a Soviet postage stamp

Harry Pollitt (born November 22, 1890 in Droylsden , Lancashire , † June 16, 1960 by sea from Australia to England) was a British Communist and from 1929 to 1939 and 1941 to 1956 General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain .

Life

Childhood and youth

He was born as the son of the blacksmith Sam (uel) Pollitt and the weaver Maria Louisa (Louise) as one of six children (three died as children due to the living conditions) in Droylsden near Manchester in the Lancashire region. His mother, whom he adored, educated herself politically and was a member of the Independent Labor Party (ILP) ( Independent Labor Party ). From her came the impetus that made him a politically thinking and acting politician .

At the age of 12 he started to work and had an apprenticeship as a boilermaker with 53 hours per week. At the end of his training, he becomes a member of the union , to which he remains an active member for life. Gradually he became active in trade union work. Despite this double burden, he continued his education from 1909 at the evening school of the Manchester School of Technology .

The way into the labor movement

At the age of 16 he was involved in the work of the ILP through his mother . From 1907 he became a member and later secretary of the local socialist movement " Openshaw Socialist Society (OSS) " (Openshaw is now part of Manchester). With the founding of the British Socialist Party (a Marxist party), the OSS is absorbed into it and Harry becomes the department secretary there at the age of 21.

During the First World War he worked at the shipyard in Southampton . He welcomed the Russian October Revolution and went to London in 1918, where he became the union's shop steward. From 1919 he became a leader in the " Hands off Russia " campaign, which, with many strikes, prevented British troops from participating in the Entente interventions . This made him known across the country. In 1920 he was involved in the founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) (the Communist Party of Great Britain) and was elected to the Executive Committee two years later. In 1922 he took part in the Labor Party conference as a delegate from his union .

In 1925 he married Marjorie Brewer, a teacher and active in the labor movement like him. Four days later, he and 11 other CPGB leaders were sentenced to 12 months in prison for defamation of the state. He uses his three-hour speech to present the CPGB's positions on communism . Active political commitment was rewarded in 1929 when he was elected general secretary of the party. Under his leadership, the party had a membership of 18,000 by 1939, and by 1943 there were at times 53,000.

Fight against fascism and the Second World War

With the rise of fascism, he oriented his work and that of the party to the struggle against fascism. During the Spanish Civil War he made five visits to Spain with the British Battalion to support the British volunteers.

With the end of the war in Spain, he concentrated his work on the fight against German fascism. He saw the appeasement policy (example of the Munich Agreement ) of the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as a national disgrace and described it as "... the greatest and most shameful surrender to peace, freedom and democracy. The peace of the world was not secured, it was made by Hitler taken into protective custody. "

But the policy of the Soviet Union with the Hitler-Stalin Pact plunged him even more into crisis . This and disputes in the CPGB over the evaluation of the political situation in Europe led Pollitt to resign from his post in 1939. At the beginning of the Second World War he had wanted to support the struggle of England, but the leadership of the party saw this as a pure conflict between imperialist states. With the attack on the Soviet Union , however, that changed again and Pollitt was again General Secretary of the party. In 1942 he organized a mass rally in Trafalgar Square in support of the Second Front .

Politics after 1945

After 1946 he looked for ways to collaborate and even merge with the Labor Party, which was violently rejected by them. He was heavily involved in drafting the 1951 party program " The British Road to Socialism ". The associated policy approaches have anticipated Eurocommunism . After the Second World War, Pollitt was on many international trips at the invitation of various left parties and movements. This made him one of the most famous communist representatives outside the Eastern Bloc. Due to many illnesses, he resigned his office as general secretary in March 1956. He died in 1960 on the way back from a lecture tour in Australia.

Honors

  • In 1971 the Soviet Union named a ship in his honor.
  • A plaque of honor at the Droylsden library was unveiled in his honor in March 1995 by the Tameside District Chief .
  • There was a very popular mocking song about him during his lifetime - The Ballad by Harry Pollitt .

literature

  • Kevin Morgan: Harry Pollitt . Manchester University Press, Manchester 1993, ISBN 0-7190-3243-1 . ( Review by John F. Naylor, American Historical Review , Vol. 100, No. 1 (Feb. 1995), p. 166.)

Web links

Commons : Harry Pollitt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Entente was an alliance of capitalist states with the aim of bringing intervention troops and war material to support the White Army in Russia and to put down the Russian October Revolution.
  2. ↑ The Ballad of Harry Pollitt
personal data
SURNAME Pollitt, Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British communist
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Droylsden , Lancashire
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1960
Place of death at sea: between Australia and England