The Communist Unity Group (CUG) was a small

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

organisation in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. The origins of the group lay in the Socialist Labour Party (SLP). The SLP was a

De Leonist De Leonism, also known as Marxism-De Leonism, is a Marxist tendency developed by Curaçaoan-American trade union organizer and Marxist theoretician Daniel De Leon. De Leon was an early leader of the first American socialist political party, ...

group, but in support of the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

, it decided to participate in unity negotiations with the other British communist groups – principally the

British Socialist Party The British Socialist Party (BSP) was a Marxist political organisation established in Great Britain in 1911. Following a protracted period of factional struggle, in 1916 the party's anti-war forces gained decisive control of the party and saw t ...

(BSP) and the

Workers Socialist Federation The Workers' Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Under many different names, it gradually broadened its politics from a focus on women's suffrage to eventually become a left comm ...

(WSF). To this end, it formed a Unity Committee in January 1919. This committee included many prominent members of the SLP: Tom Bell,

Arthur McManus Arthur MacManus (1889– February 27 1927) was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician. Biography Early years Arthur MacManus was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1889, later moving to Glasgow, Scotland, with his parents. Political c ...

J. T. Murphy John Thomas Murphy (9 December 1888 – 13 May 1965) was a British trade union organiser and Communist functionary. Murphy is best remembered as a leader of the communist labour movement in the United Kingdom from the middle 1920s until his resigna ...

and William Paul, all of them proponents of a united

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

. The main difficulty in the negotiations was the BSP – the largest group – were affiliated to the Labour Party and wished any new communist party to be so, or at least that former BSP members could maintain their individual affiliations, a position vehemently opposed by the SLP and WSF. As discussions broke down, the Unity Committee proposed that the issue could be avoided by holding a vote on Labour Party affiliation one year after the formation of a communist party, reasoning that once the party was formed, BSP members would conclude they did not need to remain part of Labour. Not only was this proposal unsuccessful, but the SLP executive publicly repudiated and dissolved the Unity Committee, and decided against further unity negotiations. The main figures of the Unity Committee – with the exception of Murphy – continued to attend the unity negotiations unofficially, and in April 1920 they organised a separate conference alongside the SLP conference. This event was not well attended, but the Committee had now moved in opposition to the SLP and directed the conference to constitute itself as the Communist Unity Group. The CUG adopted a policy of negotiated unity with parliamentary agitation but opposition to the Labour Party. A small number of SLP branches joined the CUG, but the group drew fewer members than they had hoped. However, around two thirds of its members were from the SLP. The group attended the Foundation Congress which formed the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

on 1 August 1920. Although the convention approved Labour Party affiliation by 100 votes to 85, the CUG joined the CPGB, initially becoming its second largest component.

References

*''The British Communist Left 1914–45'', Mark Hayes (International Communist Current) {{UK far left Defunct communist parties in the United Kingdom Political parties established in 1920 1920 establishments in the United Kingdom