to break with the Government's policies!
Г questions I understand that this decision could place me in a sort of limbo... attacked by at least some of the left who fail to comprehend my dilemma.' Red Weekly understands Jimmy Reid's problems only too well. He has been defeated twice as parliamentary candidate for Dumbartonshire Central, once as candidate for the Scottish seat on the Executive of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, and is heading for another defeat as Scottish secretary of the AUEW. He sees his memebrship of the Communist Party rasies more important AUEW. He sees his membership of the Communist Party hanging like an albatross round his neck in the advancement of a political career. But Reid's resignation from the Communist Party raises more important questions than the fate of one individual. Why has the 'folk hero' of the partv. re-elected to the National Exec utive onlv last November decided that there is no future for him in the CP?
His resignation occurs at a time when the Communist Party is attempting to present a new 'democratic' face to British society, and, in common with its sister parties in Western Europe put more distance between itself and the Kremlin. More and more these parties are becoming indistinguishable in programme from the social democratic parties in these countries Reid does not disagree with the politics of class collaboration of the 'antimonopoly alliance' with capitalists,summed up in the CP programme The British Road to Socialism. However, in pursuit of the strategie alliance that it seeks with the left bureaucracy, the CP increasingly negates any reason for its separate existence from the Labour Party. Letters in Comment, the fortnightly journal of the CP, have suggested that the CP should in effect liquidate itself and regroup as a left current in the Labour Party. Given that the CP is at present unwilling to do this, it is not surprising that individuals like Reid decide to solve this 'dilemma' in person, not even bothering to make a fight for their position in the party ranks.
Reid's resignation is part of the writing on the wall for the British Communist Party. Their strategic aith of advancing to power by capturing the labour bur eaucracy via the trade unions will always be won hands down by the Labour Party. The impact on the CP's membership will be devastating as they ask: 'Why are we building a second-rate reformist party?' That in reality was the question Reid asked himself. His answer was to leave for greener pastures.
101SLS. asites and demanding that inc Goi ernment nationalise the building debates) that should they fail to win a vote for rejection of the