Left communist who broke from her mother's WSPU to stand with East End working women, buried among Ethiopian patriots
"The Bolsheviks have begun to desert communism." In her 1922 Open Letter to Lenin, Pankhurst broke with Moscow. Expelled from the CPGB for refusing to surrender the Workers' Dreadnought, she chose free debate over party discipline.
British suffragette, left communist and anti-colonial activist. Breaking from her mother Emmeline's WSPU to organise working-class women in the East End, she debated Lenin and turned council communist before devoting her final decades to Ethiopia's anti-fascist struggle.
Career timeline
- 1882Born in Manchester to Emmeline and Richard Pankhurst
- 1903–1914Full-time WSPU organiser — designed logo and banners, witnessed Black Friday 1910, organised nationwide suffrage campaign
- 1914–1918Founded ELFS, launched Woman's Dreadnought — anti-war and anti-conscription agitation, rent strikes and cost-price canteens
- 1918–1920Founded WSF, published Workers' Dreadnought — attended 2nd Comintern Congress, debated Lenin directly
- 1921–1924Expelled from CPGB; published Open Letter to Lenin — turned council communist, formed Communist Workers' Party
- 1935–1956Founded and edited New Times and Ethiopia News — opposed fascist invasion, shaped pan-African and anti-colonial opinion
- 1956–1960Moved to Ethiopia — adviser to Haile Selassie, fundraised for first teaching hospital, wrote Ethiopia: A Cultural History
- 1960Died aged 78 in Addis Ababa — Ethiopian state funeral, buried among patriots at Holy Trinity Cathedral
Stalin's personally approved CPGB General Secretary who led the party for 25 years
10 May 1920, Port of London. Pollitt convinced dockers not to load the SS Jolly George with munitions bound for Poland, then at war with Soviet Russia. The ship sailed empty on 15 May.
Founding member and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain for over 25 years, the most significant British communist of the 20th century. He persuaded London dockers to block munitions bound for Poland in the 1920 Hands Off Russia campaign. Appointed General Secretary with Stalin's personal approval, he was the party's secret 'Code Holder' in direct radio contact with Moscow. He supported the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and co-authored The British Road to Socialism, committing the CPGB to a parliamentary path. When Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, Pollitt refused to take down Stalin's portrait from his living room.
Career timeline
- 1920Founding member of the CPGB
- 1924–1929National Secretary, NMM & British Bureau of Profintern
- 1929–1939General Secretary, CPGB (first term)
- 1939–1941Removed as General Secretary; retained in Political Bureau
- 1941–1956General Secretary, CPGB (second term)
- 1956–1960Chairman, CPGB
International communist who founded the JCP, ran the Comintern's Pacific networks, and led the party for 24 years
On his arrival at JCP headquarters in January 1946, one newspaper reported that 'young girls in both kimonos and Western dress gathered like fans awaiting a star at the stage door.'
An international communist who helped found both the CPGB in London (1920) and the JCP in Tokyo (1922), he served on the Comintern Executive Committee and ran intelligence networks against Imperial Japan from the United States and China. From 1940 to 1945 in Yan'an, he led the Japanese People's Emancipation League, converting captured Japanese soldiers into communist forces, and after the war he crafted the JCP's 'lovable party' strategy of peaceful revolution, winning up to 35 Diet seats. As JCP Chairman from 1958 to 1982, he steered the party through the Anpo protests and the Sino-Soviet split, but in 1992 the discovery of his 1939 letter denouncing a comrade to the NKVD led to his expulsion from the party he had founded.
Career timeline
- 1915Joined Yuaikai (Friendly Society), editor of Labour and Industry
- 1920Founding member, Communist Party of Great Britain; London delegate
- 1922Co-founded the Japanese Communist Party; editor of Musansha Shimbun
- 1931–1940Comintern Executive Committee member; intelligence work in USSR, USA, China
- 1940–1945Led the Japanese People's Emancipation League in Yan'an; re-educated Japanese POWs
- 1946–1950Elected to House of Representatives; JCP Central Committee
- 1955–1958JCP First Secretary
- 1958–1982Chairman of the JCP Central Committee
CPGB founding member, chief theoretician for half a century, and pioneer of Marxist historiography on India
After Khrushchev's 1956 Secret Speech, Dutt told the CPGB Political Bureau: 'On Stalin's sun there were, unsurprisingly, some spots.' The Soviet system, he added, had 'demonstrated the ability of a socialist society to recognise and correct its mistakes.'
Founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and its chief theoretician for half a century, a Marxist historian and journalist. His Fascism and Social Revolution (1934) analysed fascism as an extreme form of monopoly-capitalist crisis, his India Today (1940) pioneered Marxist historiography on India, and he served as CPGB General Secretary in 1939–1941, replacing Harry Pollitt over the party's anti-war line at the outbreak of World War II.
Career timeline
- 1920Founding member, CPGB
- 1921–1974Founded and edited Labour Monthly (53 years)
- 1923–1965Member, CPGB Executive Committee
- 1924Alternate member, ECCI Presidium
- 1925–1935Comintern representative (Belgium & Sweden); supervised Communist Party of India
- 1936–1938Editor, Daily Worker
- 1939–1941General Secretary, CPGB
- 1943–1965Vice-chairman then Vice-president, CPGB
