ABSTRACT
Harry Pollitt was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) between 1929 and 1956, except for a break of two years between 1939 and 1941. He was probably the most influential British Marxist of the twentieth century, although Rajani Palme Dutt, the Marxist intellectual, and Tom Mann, the trade union leader, could make some slight claim to that title. Although occasionally inclined to reject the lead of Moscow, as in the case of its advocacy of opposition to the Second World War, Pollitt was normally a faithful representative of the views of the Communist International (or Comintern), and of Joseph Stalin and his successors. Indeed, after Pollitt resigned as General Secretary of the CPGB in 1956 he reiterated that he supported Russian actions in Eastern Europe and was a faithful supporter of the Soviet Union.
