Betrayal of the Left
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Template:Use dmy dates Template:Italic title Betrayal of the Left (full title: Betrayal of the Left: an Examination & Refutation of Communist Policy from October 1939 to January 1941: with Suggestions for an Alternative and an Epilogue on Political Morality) was a book of essays published on 3 March 1941 by the Left Book Club, edited and largely written by Victor Gollancz. The book had a preface by Harold Laski.<ref>Angus Calder,The people's war: Britain, 1939-1945. Panther Books, 1969 (p. 733).</ref>
Other contributions included two essays by George Orwell, "Fascism and Democracy" and "Patriots and Revolutionaries"<ref name="IHR">http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/perryMat.html Template:Webarchive Institute of Historical Research. Matt Perry. University of Sunderland</ref> that condemned the Communist Party of Great Britain for backing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and for taking a revolutionary defeatist position in the war against Nazi Germany. Betrayal of the Left also contained an essay by John Strachey attacking totalitarianism.<ref>Michael Newman, John Strachey, Manchester University Press, 1989 Template:ISBN (p.83).</ref>
It was particularly critical of the Communist Party-organised People's Convention of January 1941, the high point of the party's revolutionary defeatism during the period of Stalin's alliance with Hitler. It marked a decisive break by the democratic left from its 1930s alliance with the Communist Party.