Dora B. Montefiore
Source: Editions Sociales, Paris, 1980, p. 918
Transcription: Ted Crawford
HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). 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.
The speeches and extracts here were taken from the proceedings of the Congress of Tours. Montefiore’s intervention was in the evening session on the 5th day, 29 December 1920. It was translated by the transcriber, ERC.
Chair:
Before calling on our comrade Pressemane I inform you that citizen Montefiore of the English Communist Party wants to say a few words. I will call her now.
Citizen Montefiore:
I bring you the fraternal greetings of the Communist party of Great Britain. At the same time I have the great pleasure of congratulating the French Communist which is about join the III International and like us in England, to form a Communist Party.
Our Party was formed in September, it has been recognised by Moscow as the “hub” party charged with bringing together the different Communist groupings in England, Scotland and Wales. In January we will have a big conference to which different elements will come and we hope we will then form a large Communist party.
One of our difficulties was to know whether we should stay in the Labour Party or leave it. Lenin advised us to stay in. We were divided on this issue, some comrades wanted to stay in and others to leave it. It was a bit like here and there was much discussion on this question. In any case we did this for some time. But as soon as we formed the Communist Party, we asked the Labour Party if we could affiliate to them. They discussed the matter and then rejected us.
Thus we are not traitors but solely and whole heartedly part of the left. Because of all these disputes it was very difficult to form our party. But eventually we have. Today I regret not having by my side our Chairman MacManus[1] who wanted to come here but the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie denied him a passport.
We hope that in the future the English and the French Party will grow, they will march on together and thus we will succeed in making this great world revolution to create a new world.
Chair:
In your name from all, in the name of the New French Communist party, we thank citizen Montefiore who will take our fraternal greetings to the New English Communist party.
A delegate from the floor:
And to the Labour Party as well.
Chair:
Let is hope that united in the 3rd International we will see different sections coming from every point in the world and that we will found the one and only International.
Comrade Pressemans has the floor.
1. Called “Manes” in the record and note describes him as coming from the Shop Steward movement. — Note by transcriber.