Editing Harry Pollitt (section)

==Early life==
===Childhood and early career===
Pollitt was born on 22 November 1890 in [[Droylsden]], Lancashire. He was the second of six children of Samuel Pollitt (1863–1933), a [[Blacksmith#Blacksmith's striker|blacksmith's striker]], and his wife, Mary Louisa (1868–1939), a [[Spinning (textiles)|cotton spinner]], daughter of William Charlesworth, a [[joiner]]. Pollitt's parents were [[socialism|socialists]], and his mother was a member of the [[Independent Labour Party]] before joining the [[Communist Party of Great Britain|Communist party]] when it was formed in 1920.<ref name="Beckett Enemy Within 27-28">{{cite book |last1=Beckett |first1=Francis |title=Enemy within : the rise and fall of the British Communist Party |date=1995 |publisher=John Murray |isbn=0719553105 |pages=27–28 |url=https://archive.org/details/enemywithinrisef0000beck/page/26/mode/2up?q=Pollitt |access-date=17 September 2021}}</ref>

Three of his siblings died in infancy. The death of his younger sister Winifred particularly affected Pollitt, who said that he would "pay God out. Pay everybody out for making my sister suffer". Pollitt began work at the age of 12, alongside his mother. The suffering of his mother, who regularly worked standing in water wearing only wooden clogs, also particularly affected Pollitt, who later said that he "swore that when I grew up I would pay the bosses out for the hardships that she suffered". Pollitt later became a boilermaker and metal craftsman.<ref name="Beckett Enemy Within 27-28" />

During the [[World War I|First World War]], Pollitt was exempt from conscription as a skilled worker.<ref name="LaPorte & Morgan">{{cite journal |last1=LaPorte |first1=N. |last2=Morgan |first2=K. |title=Kings among their subjects'? Ernst Thälmann, Harry Pollitt and the leadership cult as Stalinization |journal=Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: Perspectives on Stalinization, 1917–53 |date=2008 |pages=124–145 |doi=10.1057/9780230227583_7 |url=https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/173653807/LaPorte_Morgan_Kings_among_their_subjects_Ernst_Th_lmann_Harry_Pollitt_and_the_leadership_cult_as_stalinization_in_LaPorte_Morgan_and_Worley_eds_Bolshevism_Stalinism_and_the_Comintern_.pdf |access-date=15 September 2021 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-349-28252-4 |s2cid=147878826 |archive-date=15 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915131925/https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/173653807/LaPorte_Morgan_Kings_among_their_subjects_Ernst_Th_lmann_Harry_Pollitt_and_the_leadership_cult_as_stalinization_in_LaPorte_Morgan_and_Worley_eds_Bolshevism_Stalinism_and_the_Comintern_.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Pollitt gained experience leading a strike in [[Southampton]] in 1915<ref name="Beckett Enemy Within 27-28" /><ref name="Arnold-Baker 1020">{{cite book |last1=Arnold-Baker |first1=Charles |title=The Companion to British History |date=2001 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781317400394 |page=1020 |url=https://archive.org/details/companiontobriti0000arno/page/1020/mode/2up?q=Pollitt |access-date=15 October 2021}}</ref> and later described being inspired by the 1917 [[October Revolution]], saying it showed that "workers like me ... had defeated the boss class". By this time Pollitt was already a member of [[Sylvia Pankhurst]]'s [[Workers' Socialist Federation]] and had gained experience with public speaking.<ref name="Beckett Enemy Within 27-28" />

===Communist campaigner===
[[File:The Soviet Union 1970 CPA 3964 stamp (Harry Pollitt and Freighter 'Jolly George').jpg|thumb|left|A [[Postage stamps of the Soviet Union|USSR stamp]] of 1970 commemorating Harry Pollitt and his role in preventing the SS ''Jolly George'' from carrying arms to Poland]]
In September 1919, Pollitt was appointed full-time national organiser of the [[Hands Off Russia]] campaign to protest against [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]], for which Pankhurst had obtained funding from Moscow.<ref name="Beckett Enemy Within 27-28" /><ref name="Laybourn & Murphy 42">{{cite book |last1=Laybourn |first1=Keith|author1-link = Keith Laybourn |last2=Murphy |first2=Dylan |title=Under the red flag : a history of communism in Britain, c. 1849-1991 |date=1999 |publisher=Sutton Publishing Ltd |isbn=0750914858 |page=42 |url=https://archive.org/details/underredflag00keit/page/n42/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=17 September 2021}}</ref> Pollitt tired of his desk-bound job and went back to work in the [[Port of London]]. Whilst there, Pollitt helped convince London dock workers not to load the freighter {{SS|Jolly George}} on 10 May 1920, as she was bound with munitions for [[Poland]], which at that time was fighting against [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]] in the [[Polish–Soviet War]].<ref name="Freeman">{{cite book |last1=Freeman |first1=Martin |title=Trade unions |date=1991 |publisher=Bell & Hyman |isbn=9780713527018 |page=30 |url=https://archive.org/details/tradeunions0000free/page/30/mode/2up?q=Poland |access-date=15 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="Beckett Enemy Within 27-28" /> With support from [[Ernest Bevin]], then a senior official in the dockers' union, the ship's owners were forced by the dockers to unload her cargo of munitions, and she sailed on 15 May 1920 without them.<ref name="Ramsay 51-54">{{cite book |last1=Ramsay |first1=James Ullman |title=Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921, Volume 3 The Anglo-Soviet Accord |date=12 March 2019 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691656076 |pages=51–54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=81iYDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Jolly+George%22+%22OHMS%22&pg=PA51 |access-date=18 October 2021}}</ref> Pollitt failed to prevent a number of other ships laden with arms for Poland, including the Danish steamer ''Neptune'' on 1 May 1920, and two Belgian barges.<ref name="White 41-42">{{cite book |last1=White |first1=Stephen |title=Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution |date=17 June 1979 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=9781349042999 |pages=41–42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSuuCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Jolly+George%22+%22Bevin%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA41 |access-date=18 October 2021}}</ref>

In August 1920 the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB) was founded by an agreement unifying various left-wing bodies, including the [[British Socialist Party]], of which Pollitt was a member in addition to his WSF membership. Pollitt, thus a founding member of the party, attended the CPGB's founding "Utility Convention".<ref name="Morgan 20">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |page=20 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ |access-date=17 September 2021 |archive-date=3 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211003172338/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Harry_Pollitt/gi3oAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 |url-status=live }}</ref> The following year Pollitt visited the Soviet Union. During his visit, he met and shook hands with [[Vladimir Lenin]], an experience he later described as the greatest day of his life.<ref name="Morgan 34">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ |access-date=17 September 2021}}</ref> According to the October 1921 issue of ''Freedom'', on his return Pollitt stated that he had seen evidence that Russian anarchists were plotting to restore Tsarism and spoke approvingly of the suppression of anarchism in Russia.<ref name="Durham 207">{{cite journal |last1=Durham |first1=Martin |title=British Revolutionaries and the Suppression of the Left in Lenin's Russia, 1918-1924 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=April 1985 |volume=20 |issue=2 |page=207 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/260531 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Sage Publications, Inc.|doi=10.1177/002200948502000201 |jstor=260531 |s2cid=159699014 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Pollitt was involved in a criminal case against five men he accused of kidnapping him in March 1925 whilst he was on his way to address a meeting of communists in Liverpool. According to Pollitt, he had been taken off a train and held in Wales over a weekend in order to prevent him reaching Liverpool, though treated mildly.<ref name="New York Times 1925">{{cite news |title=KIDNAP BRITISH RED LEADER; " Fascisti" Believed to Have Held Harry Pollitt Prisoner. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1925/03/16/archives/kidnap-british-red-leader-fascisti-believed-to-have-held-harry.html |access-date=28 May 2023 |work=New York Times |date=16 March 1925}}</ref> The men, who were all members of the [[British Fascists]], were acquitted by the jury following testimony that characterised the "kidnapping" as unserious and a denial from the head of the Liverpool branch of the fascist party that they had authorised any kidnapping of Pollitt.<ref name="The Daily Advertiser 1925">{{cite news |title=Abduction of Pollitt |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143360428?searchTerm=Pollitt%20Kidnap |access-date=28 May 2023 |work=The Daily Advertiser |date=4 April 1925 |page=4}}</ref><ref name="Toowoomba Chronicle 1925">{{cite news |title=Kidnapping Charge |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/253924862?searchTerm=Pollitt%20Kidnap |access-date=28 May 2023 |work=Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette |date=25 April 1925 |page=7}}</ref> The Labour party conference that year passed a motion condemning the acquittal by the jury of those accused of kidnapping Pollitt as an example of [[Class discrimination|class-prejudice]], and calling for representation of workers on juries.<ref name="Gloucestershire Echo 1925">{{cite news |title=Communism |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000320/19251002/139/0006 |access-date=28 May 2023 |work=Gloucestershire Echo |date=2 October 1925 |page=6}}</ref>

On 10 October 1925, Pollitt married [[Marjorie Brewer]] at [[Caxton Hall]], Westminster. Marjorie Edna Brewer (1902–1991) was a communist [[schoolteacher]]; the marriage eventually produced a son and a daughter. His [[best man]] and witness was fellow CPGB activist and organiser [[Percy Glading]], who would later be convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and imprisoned.<ref>{{cite book|last=Davenport-Hines|first=R.|title=Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain|year=2018|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|location=London|isbn=978-0-00-751668-1|page=157}}</ref> A week later, Pollitt was one of 12 members of the Communist Party convicted at the [[Old Bailey]] on charges of seditious [[libel]] and incitement to mutiny. Pollitt was given a 12-month sentence as a previous offender, which he served in [[HMP Wandsworth|Wandsworth prison]]. Historian [[C. L. Mowat]] described the trial as "the chief instance of a purely political trial in the interwar years".<ref name="Morgan 54">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |page=54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22incitement%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA104 |access-date=26 September 2021}}</ref>

Pollitt travelled again to Moscow in October 1927, and attended a meeting at which the CPGB was roundly criticised for its failure to criticise the British labour movement. During the same visit, Pollitt met privately with [[Joseph Stalin]] and [[Nikolai Bukharin]], who, over Pollitt's protests, ordered that the CPGB should abandon its "United Front" policy and campaign as widely as possible at the next election, even where the CPGB stood no chance of winning and would draw votes away from the Labour candidate, thus allowing the [[Conservative Party (United Kingdom)|Conservatives]] to win.<ref name="Beckett 39">{{cite book |last1=Beckett |first1=Francis |title=Stalin's British victims |date=2004 |publisher=Sutton |isbn=9780750932233 |page=39 |url=https://archive.org/details/stalinsbritishvi0000beck/page/38/mode/2up?q=%22Pollitt%22 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref> This policy of attacking other left-wing organisations was known as the "Class-against-Class" policy, and remained in place until 1932 when, as leader, Pollitt was able to get it relaxed for [[trade union]]s, though it remained in place for other parts of the left.<ref name="Laybourn & Murphy xvii">{{cite book |last1=Laybourn |first1=Keith |last2=Murphy |first2=Dylan |title=Under the red flag : a history of communism in Britain, c. 1849-1991 |date=1999 |publisher=Sutton Publishing Ltd |isbn=0750914858 |page=xvii |url=https://archive.org/details/underredflag00keit/page/n19/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=17 September 2021}}</ref>

In addition to his role in the CPGB, from the early 1920s Pollitt served as national secretary of the British Bureau of the [[Red International of Labour Unions]] (AKA Profintern), an organisation aimed at countering the [[Amsterdam International]] and rallying militant trade unionists within existing unions to win those unions over to communism.<ref name="Darlington 96">{{cite book |last1=Darlington |first1=Ralph |title=The Political Trajectory of JT Murphy |date=1998 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=9780853237334 |page=96 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8wTtLu_LMVkC&dq=%22National+Minority+movement%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA110 |access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref> The Comintern characterised the British Bureau as "not an organisation of unions, but only of revolutionary minorities of unions". On the founding of the [[National Minority Movement]] (NMM) in 1924, the British Bureau was folded into it and Pollitt was made its national secretary, a position he remained in until 1929.<ref name="Darlington 108-110">{{cite book |last1=Darlington |first1=Ralph |title=The Political Trajectory of JT Murphy |date=1998 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=9780853237334 |pages=108–110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8wTtLu_LMVkC&dq=%22National+Minority+movement%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA110 |access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref> As secretary of the NMM, Pollitt opposed trying to form new communist-oriented unions aimed at replacing established unions under the "Class-against-Class" policy.<ref name="Thorpe 144-145">{{cite book |last1=Thorpe |first1=Andrew |title=The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-43 |date=2000 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719053122 |pages=144–145 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O91RAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22RILU%22+%22NMM%22+%22POLLITT%22&pg=PA83 |access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref>