Communist Party of Great Britain

British Marxist party founded in 1920, largely inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917. Its affiliation with the Labour Party (it had originally been intended as a branch of the Labour Party) ended in the late 1920s, when the organization was proscribed. The party enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly after Britain allied with the USSR during World War II. It had 18,000 members in 1939 and had two MPs elected in 1945, representing West Fife in Scotland and Mile End in London. The party was riven internally by the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and moved away from the USSR during the 1960s, particularly after the invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1968. Disbanded in 1991, the party was relaunched as ‘Democratic Left’, although some splinter factions still lay claim to the old name.

Many of the founder members of the Communist Party of Great Britain had belonged to socialist bodies, particularly to the Social-Democratic Federation. It had little parliamentary success. Its first member of Parliament, S Saklatvala, was elected for Battersea North in 1924 and sat until 1931. Willie Gallacher was elected in 1935 for West Fife and sat until 1950. P Piratin was elected in 1945 for Stepney but lost his seat in 1950.