J. T. Murphy
Source: Workers’ Life, July 15, 1927
Publisher: Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Moscow, Monday
In his report to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, Tomsky said that particular significance was attached to the Anglo-Russian Committee in view of the international situation. For this reason a number of concessions had been made to the British General Council, though Tomsky had definitely refused to surrender his right to freedom of speech.
At a preliminary meeting in Berlin on June 17 the British representatives came, not to discuss the question of war but to simply discuss Tomsky’s interview with Workers’s Life on the Trades’ Union Bill, which, said Citrine and Hicks, was “interference in British affairs.”
The Russian representatives, however, insisted on the necessity for the struggle against war and protested against the General Council’s failure to call the Anglo-Russian Committee. It was more harmful to postpone the meeting than to refuse openly to call it. The General Council’s procrastination showed insincerity and lack of good faith, and could only mean that the General Council wanted to break up the Committee. The workers wanted to be clear: Does or does not the Anglo-Russian Committee exist? Why is it inactive? And who is responsible for this inactivity?
The British representatives gave no plain reply to this.
Continuing, Tomsky said that the Russian worker had helped the miners, despite the General Council, to the extent of £1,000,000 and would he]p all workers’ whenever and wherever help was needed. “Let the workers of Britain,” he said, “and the workers had helped the miners, despite the and the policy of the General Council. We are not afraid of their judgment.