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Harry Pollitt (1890-1960) was the long-serving General Secretary of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB), holding the post from 1929 until 1956, with an interruption between 1939 and 1941. Pollitt was brought up in an impoversished background in Droylsden, near [[Manchester]] in north-west [[England]] and his mother was a member of the [[Independent Labour Party]]. He became a member of the Workers' Socialist Federation, one of the groups which merged to form the CPGB in 1920.  

'''Harry Pollitt''' (1890-1960) was the long-serving General Secretary of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB), holding the post from 1929 until 1956, with an interruption between 1939 and 1941. Pollitt was brought up in an impoverished background in Droylsden, near [[Manchester]] in north-west [[England]] and his mother was a member of the [[Independent Labour Party]]. He became a member of the Workers' Socialist Federation, one of the groups which merged to form the CPGB in 1920.  

Although a kindly man in private, and capable of inspiriong sincere affection from political friends and adversaries alike, Pollitt was scrupulously loyal to the Moscow-dictated 'party line' in his public pronouncements, defending the Moscow Trials of the 1930s and the Stalinist purges even though these claimed the life of Rosa Cohen, to whom he had proposed marriage (unsuccessfully) several times in the early 1920s.  

Although a kindly man in private, and capable of inspiring sincere affection from political friends and adversaries alike, Pollitt was scrupulously loyal to the Moscow-dictated 'party line' in his public pronouncements, defending the Moscow Trials of the 1930s and the Stalinist purges even though these claimed the life of Rosa Cohen, to whom he had proposed marriage (unsuccessfully) several times in the early 1920s.  

In September 1939 Pollitt welcomed Britain's declaration of war on [[Nazi]] [[Germany]], but was forced to backtrack and recant when Moscow declared that the [[Second World War]] was an 'Imperialist conflict'. He was ousted as General Secretary, but was reinstated in 1941 when, following Germany's invasion of the [[Soviet Union]], the [[Comintern]] made another U-turn and declared the war a popular war of resistance to Fascism. Thereafter the CPGB took an ultra-loyal line in Britain, urging increases in industrial production and condemning strikes, to such an extent that its Trotskyist enemies in the [[Revolutionary Communist Party]] dubbed it 'His Majesty's Communist Party'.

In September 1939 Pollitt welcomed Britain's declaration of war on [[Nazi]] [[Germany]], but was forced to backtrack and recant when Moscow declared that the [[Second World War]] was an 'Imperialist conflict'. He was ousted as General Secretary, but was reinstated in 1941 when, following Germany's invasion of the [[Soviet Union]], the [[Comintern]] made another U-turn and declared the war a popular war of resistance to Fascism. Thereafter the CPGB took an ultra-loyal line in Britain, urging increases in industrial production and condemning strikes, to such an extent that its Trotskyist enemies in the [[Revolutionary Communist Party]] dubbed it 'His Majesty's Communist Party'.