V. I. Lenin

Reply To A Letter From The Joint Provisional Committee For

The Communist Party Of Britain [1]

I have received a letter from the Joint Provisional
Committee for the Communist Party of Britain, dated June 20, and,
in accordance with their request, I hasten to reply that I am in
complete sympathy with their plans for the immediate organisation
of a single Communist Party of Britain. I consider erroneous the
tactics pursued by Comrade Sylvia Pankhurst and the Workers’
Socialist Federation, who refuse to collaborate in the amalgamation of the British Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour
Party and others to form a single Communist party. Personally I am
in favour of participation in Parliament and of affiliation to the
Labour Party, given wholly free and independent communist
activities. I shall defend these tactics at the Second Congress of
the Third International on July 15, 1920 in Moscow. I consider it
most desirable that a single Communist party be speedily organised
on the basis of the decisions of the Third International, and that
such a party should establish the closest contact with the
Industrial Workers of the World and the Shop Stewards’
Committees, in order to bring about a complete merger with them in
the near future.

N. Lenin

8.7.1920

Endnotes

[1]
“Reply to a Letter from the Hoint Provisional Committee for
the Communist Party of ritain” was broadcasted and published
in English in The Call (No. 224, July 22, 1920), organ of
the British Socialist Party. The reply was also read to the
Congress of British Communists, which took place on July 31-August
1, 1920. —Editor