Changes

By the later 1960s and 1970s the party, bereft of MPs and a popular voting base, decided to concentrate on exploiting its influence within the trades union movement. This was to be relatively successful - members and sympathisers held several senior positions in the movement - but was to backfire spectacularly as popular disquiet at what was perceived as excessive and irresponsible trade union power was a major factor in securing the election of a [[Conservative Party]] government under [[Margaret Thatcher]] in 1979.

By the later 1960s and 1970s the party, bereft of MPs and a popular voting base, decided to concentrate on exploiting its influence within the trades union movement. This was to be relatively successful - members and sympathisers held several senior positions in the movement - but was to backfire spectacularly as popular disquiet at what was perceived as excessive and irresponsible trade union power was a major factor in securing the election of a [[Conservative Party]] government under [[Margaret Thatcher]] in 1979.

Conservative trade union reforms demolished the CPGB industrial strategy; reformist government in the Soviet Union was to bring and end to the Cold War and to the eastern bloc monolith itself. However, neither of these factors was decisive in bringing about the demise of the CPGB. Instead, it tore itself apart in a series of feuds between hard-line 'tankies'<ref>so called because they supported the use of Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia</ref> and reformist 'Eurocommunists'; eventually, the disputes were as much about control of the party assets and the party newspaper (by now renamed the [[Morning Star]] as they were about ideological differences.

Conservative trade union reforms demolished the CPGB industrial strategy; reformist government in the Soviet Union was to bring and end to the Cold War and to the eastern bloc monolith itself. However, neither of these factors was decisive in bringing about the demise of the CPGB. Instead, it tore itself apart in a series of feuds between hard-line 'tankies'<ref>so called because they supported the use of Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia</ref> and reformist 'Eurocommunists'; eventually, the disputes were as much about control of the party assets and the party newspaper (by now renamed the [[Morning Star]]) as they were about ideological differences.

==End of the CPGB==

==End of the CPGB==