Harry Pollitt

But at this time, he was more involved in and identified with the shop steward movement on the Clyde.

Harry Pollitt, a man who was to go on to become General Secretary of the party for many, many years, gained a growing reputation as a courageous fighter and a militant speaker for socialism.

Theodore Rothstein Who had spent years in Britain as a refugee from Tsarism, but an active theoretical leader in the SDF and the BSP, returned soon after the war to his Soviet homeland.

His son, Andrew Rothstein, was unfortunately a foundation member of the Communist Party of Britain.

Initially, when the Second World War erupted, from the British point of view, in September 1939, the party took what I consider to be a knee-jerk reaction.

It sided, um, with those who were opposing the Nazis and said, "Right, we must support the war effort at all costs." A matter of mere weeks later, the Comintern met on the question, and that party policy had to be reversed under direction from the Comintern.

It meant that the existing leadership under Harry Pollitt were forced to resign and were not actually reinstated until the nature of the war changed.

In other words, rather than being a war against fascism, this was an imperialist war on both sides.

There's n- not, that's not a coincidence that it's in the working-class stronghold of the Mile End.

Minnie herself campaigns for the election of communist leader Harry Pollitt to Parliament, so she's actually hands-on involved in that election campaign.

So during this campaign effort, which they tried several times, um, unsuccessfully through the 1930s Uh, 1940s, moving into Wales in 1945.

But this is actually how Minnie meets her husband, Harry Oberman, uh, and the pair, actually marry in 1941, is, is a direct result of her activities in the Communist Party and trying to get people elected to Parliament.