Editing Harry Pollitt (section)

==Leadership of the CPGB==
===Pre-World War II and the Great Purge===
In 1929 the CPGB elected Pollitt General Secretary with Joseph Stalin's personal approval. Pollitt replaced [[Albert Inkpin]], who had attracted disapproval from the Comintern by opposing the "Class-against-Class" policy and perceived softness towards others on the left.<ref name="Treacy 36">{{cite book |last1=Treacy |first1=Matt |title=The Communist Party of Ireland 1921 - 2011 |date=2012 |publisher=Brocaire Books |isbn=9781291093186 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DpT2AwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Harry+Pollitt%22+%22Albert+Inkpin%22&pg=PA36 |access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref> On his appointment, Stalin told him, "You have taken a difficult job on, but I believe you will tackle it all right".<ref name="McIlroy 189">{{cite journal |last1=McIlroy |first1=John |title=The Establishment of Intellectual Orthodoxy and the Stalinization of British Communism 1928-1933 |journal=Past & Present |date=August 2006 |issue=192 |page=189 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4125202 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |jstor=4125202 |archive-date=12 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612102503/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4125202 |url-status=live }}</ref> Pollitt was selected as he had impressed people both within the CPGB and in Moscow as a Comintern loyalist and effective organiser, particularly when representing the Comintern at a meeting of the [[Communist Party USA]] in March 1929.<ref name="Thorpe 144-145" /> Pollitt stated that he saw his role as defending the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU) "through thick and thin".<ref name="Durham 214">{{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 |pages=214–215 |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> Unlike Inkpin, Pollitt was willing to criticise the Labour party as "social-fascists".<ref name="Treacy 36" />
[[File:Rose Cohen_IMG_0437_1024.jpg|thumb|right|Rose Cohen, a CPGB member and friend of Pollitt, executed during the Great Purge]]
Pollitt made clear in his public statements his loyalties to the Soviet Union and to CPSU [[General Secretary]] Joseph Stalin. He was a defender of the [[Moscow Trials]], in which Stalin murdered or otherwise disposed of his political and military opponents. In the ''[[Morning Star (UK newspaper)#The Daily Worker (1930–1966)|Daily Worker]]'' of 12 March 1938 Pollitt told the world that "the trials in Moscow represent a new triumph in the history of progress". The article was illustrated by a photograph of Stalin with [[Nikolai Yezhov]], whose likeness would be retouched out of the photograph following his 1940 fall from favour and subsequent execution.<ref>Redman, Joseph "The British Stalinists and the Moscow Trials", ''Labour Review'', 3:2, March–April 1958</ref>

In 1934 Pollitt and [[Tom Mann]], then-treasurer of the [[National Unemployed Workers' Movement]] (NUWM), were [[summons]]ed on charges of sedition in relation to speeches they gave in [[Trealaw]] and [[Ferndale, Wales|Ferndale]] in Wales. Pollitt and Mann were both acquitted of all charges by [[Swansea]] assizes.<ref>{{cite news |title=SEDITIOUS- SPEECH CHARGES MANN AND POLLITT ACQUITTED |url=https://www.thetimes.com/tto/archive/article/1934-07-05/11/13.html |access-date=2 December 2021 |work=The Times |date=5 July 1934}}</ref> The arrests took place on the eve of a meeting in Bermondsey which Mann and Pollitt were due to attend that was to be the culmination of the 1934 Hunger March.<ref name="Hutt 253">{{cite book |last1=Hutt |first1=Allen |title=The Post-war History Of The British Working Class |date=1937 |publisher=Victor Gollancz |page=253 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.1251/page/n253/mode/2up?q=%22Swansea+Assizes%22 |access-date=2 December 2021}}</ref>

Pollitt travelled again to Moscow in 1935. Whilst there he was invited to make a broadcast on the [[BBC radio]] programme ''The Citizen and His Government'', commenting on the difference between the UK and the USSR. However, the invitation was withdrawn after opposition from the Foreign Office. He would not appear on BBC radio until the [[1945 general election (UK)|1945 election]].<ref name="Harker 81">{{cite journal |last1=Harker |first1=Ben |title=The Trumpet of the Night': Interwar Communists on BBC Radio |journal=History Workshop Journal |date=Spring 2013 |volume=75 |issue=75 |pages=81–100 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43299047 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/hwj/dbs035 |jstor=43299047 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

When Pollitt's personal friend [[Rose Cohen (communist)|Rose Cohen]], to whom he had proposed marriage on a number of occasions,<ref name="Thorpe 615">{{cite journal |last1=Thorpe |first1=Andrew |title=Stalinism and British Politics |journal=History |date=October 1998 |volume=83 |issue=272 |page=615 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24424503 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Wiley|doi=10.1111/1468-229X.00089 |jstor=24424503 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> was put on trial in Moscow in 1937 during Stalin's [[Great Purge]], the CPGB opposed efforts by the British government to get Cohen released, describing her arrest as an internal affair of the Soviet Union. Pollitt privately tried to intervene on her behalf, but by the time he did so she had already been shot.<ref name="Newsinger 39">{{cite book |last1=Newsinger |first1=John |title=Hope Lies in the Proles: George Orwell and the Left |date=2018 |page=39 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt21kk1wk.7 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21kk1wk.6 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Pluto Press |jstor=j.ctt21kk1wk.6 |archive-date=27 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927094445/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21kk1wk.6 |url-status=live }}</ref> Pollitt placed himself at risk by questioning Cohen's arrest in this fashion, as [[Béla Kun]] had, under torture, identified him as a "Trotskyist" and "British spy", though [[Osip Piatnitsky]] had refused to confirm these accusations when arrested by the [[NKVD]] in 1937.<ref name="Newsinger 564-565">{{cite journal |last1=Newsinger |first1=John |title=Review: Recent Controversies in the History of British Communism |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=July 2006 |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=564–565 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036403 |publisher=Sage Publications, Inc. |doi=10.1177/0022009406064670 |jstor=30036403 |s2cid=154979764 |access-date=15 September 2021 |archive-date=15 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915143338/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036403 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Twenty years after Cohen's death, Pollitt requested information from Moscow about whether she was still alive, stating, untruthfully, that there was press interest in Britain about her whereabouts.<ref name="Newsinger 149">{{cite book |last1=Newsinger |first1=John |title=Hope Lies in the Proles: George Orwell and the Left |date=2018 |page=149 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt21kk1wk.7 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21kk1wk.6 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Pluto Press |jstor=j.ctt21kk1wk.6 |archive-date=27 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927094445/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21kk1wk.6 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In contrast to Pollitt's concern over Rose Cohen, when CPGB member [[Freda Utley]] tried to get Pollitt to intercede with Moscow on behalf of her Russian husband, who was arrested and died in a labour camp in 1938, Pollitt refused.<ref name="Newsinger 564-565" /> Pollitt also failed to intervene to help George Fles and his wife, Arcadi Berdichevsky and his wife, nor a number of other British communists who were arrested by the NKVD and tortured, shot, or imprisoned in the [[Gulag]] during Stalin's purge.<ref name="Beckett 66">{{cite book |last1=Beckett |first1=Francis |title=Stalin's British victims |date=2004 |publisher=Frank Cass |isbn=9780750932233 |page=66 |url=https://archive.org/details/stalinsbritishvi0000beck/page/66/mode/2up?q=%22Pollitt%22 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref>

Pollitt defied Moscow by opposing the introduction of [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|conscription in Britain]] when it was introduced in 1939.<ref name="Morgan 239">{{cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Militarism and Anti-Militarism: Socialists, Communists and Conscription in France and Britain 1900-1940 |journal=Past & Present |date=February 2009 |issue=22 |page=239 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25580923 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press|jstor=25580923 }}</ref> Pollitt's opposition to conscription led to protests from the [[French Communist Party]], which had supported conscription in France.<ref name="Morgan 104">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |page=104 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Conscription%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA104 |access-date=26 September 2021}}</ref>

===Spanish Civil War===
[[File:David Guest meets Harry Pollitt in Spain.png|thumb|Pollitt ''(right)'' meets [[David Guest (communist)|David Guest]] in Spain]]
During the 1936–39 [[Spanish Civil War]] Pollitt visited the country five times, each time giving speeches to the [[British Battalion]] that was part of one of the [[International Brigades]] supporting the [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Republican side]].<ref name="Baxell 300">{{cite book |last1=Baxell |first1=Richard |title=Unlikely warriors : the British in the Spanish Civil War and the struggle against fascism |date=2012 |publisher=Aurum |isbn=9781845136970 |page=300 |url=https://archive.org/details/unlikelywarriors0000baxe/page/300/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref> Pollitt also played a role in approving or vetoing applications from British volunteers to join the International Brigades. One such veto was against [[George Orwell]], who Pollitt believed to be politically unreliable.<ref name="Newsinger 57">{{cite book |last1=Newsinger |first1=John |title=Hope Lies in the Proles: George Orwell and the Left |date=2018 |page=57 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt21kk1wk.7 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21kk1wk.7 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Pluto Press |jstor=j.ctt21kk1wk.7 |archive-date=28 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728040303/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21kk1wk.7 |url-status=live }}</ref> Pollitt was also tasked with writing letters of condolence to the families of British communists killed in Spain.<ref name="Baxell 159">{{cite book |last1=Baxell |first1=Richard |title=Unlikely warriors : the British in the Spanish Civil War and the struggle against fascism |date=2012 |publisher=Aurum |isbn=9781845136970 |page=159 |url=https://archive.org/details/unlikelywarriors0000baxe/page/158/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref>

In August 1937, Pollitt intervened in a dispute between the leadership of the British Battalion regarding tactics, the reliability of Spanish Republican troops that had fought alongside the battalion, and other issues. He recalled the five leading members of the battalion involved in the dispute (Tapsell, Cunningham, Aitken, Copeman, and Williams) to Britain. Copeman and Tapsell, who had been critical of Spanish Republican forces and tactics, were ordered to return to Spain, whilst Cunningham, Williams, and Aitken were ordered to remain in Britain.<ref name="Baxell 235-237">{{cite book |last1=Baxell |first1=Richard |title=Unlikely warriors : the British in the Spanish Civil War and the struggle against fascism |date=2012 |publisher=Aurum |isbn=9781845136970 |pages=235–237 |url=https://archive.org/details/unlikelywarriors0000baxe/page/236/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref>

===Communications with Moscow and surveillance by MI5===
From 1933 until November 1939, Pollitt was in radio contact with Moscow as the CPGB's "code holder". Contact ceased when he resigned as leader of the CPGB, and the secret code used to communicate with him was changed, though it was re-established in 1941.<ref name="Johnstone 31">{{cite journal |last1=Johnstone |first1=Monty |title=The CPGB, the Comintern and the War, 1939-1941: Filling in the Blank Spots |journal=Science & Society |date=Spring 1997 |volume=61 |issue=1 |page=31 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40403603 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Guilford Press|jstor=40403603 }}</ref>

From 1931, [[Olga Gray]], an [[MI5]] agent, infiltrated the party, and was for a time Pollitt's personal secretary.  In Operation MASK (1934–1937), [[John Tiltman]] and his colleagues of the [[Government Code and Cypher School]] were able to crack the code and decrypt radio messages between [[Moscow]] and some of its foreign parties, such as the CPGB.  They revealed the [[Comintern]]'s close supervision of the Communist Party and Pollitt, as well as the substantial financial support the CPGB received from Moscow. Among other things, Pollitt was instructed to refute [[news leak]]s about a Stalinist purge.  Some messages were addressed to code names, while others were signed by Pollitt himself. In his transmissions to Moscow, Pollitt regularly pleaded for more funding from the Soviet Union. One 1936 coded instruction advised Pollitt to publicise the plight of [[Ernst Thälmann]], a German Communist leader who had been arrested by the [[Nazi Germany|Nazis]] and who later died at [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp]]. Pollitt replied that he was "having difficulties" getting British statesmen to make public declarations supporting Thälmann but that they promised they would speak privately with German officials in [[London]]. In one of the more amusing dispatches, Pollitt (1936) informed his Soviet contact about a recent visit to [[France]] to make campaign appearances for candidates from the [[French Communist Party]]. "At great inconvenience went to Paris to speak in the election campaign". Pollitt went on to complain that he "kept sitting two days and comrades refused to allow me to speak. Such treatment as I received in Paris is a scandal."<ref>{{cite book
|title=Mask: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain 
|first=Nigel |last=West
|author-link=Nigel West
|publisher=[[Psychology Press]]
|year=2005
|pages=108&nbsp;et seq
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
 |title=The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors
 |pages=86–88
 |first=Herbert |last=Romerstein |author-link=Herbert Romerstein
 |author2=Eric Breindel
 |author2-link=Eric Breindel
 |publisher=[[Regnery Publishing]]
 |date=1 October 2001
 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book
 |title=Defend the realm: the authorized history of MI5
 |author-link=Christopher Andrew (historian)
 |first=Christopher M. |last=Andrew
 |publisher=[[Random House Digital, Inc.]]
 |date=3 November 2009
 |pages=142, 148, 160, 176, 179, 180, 404, 1023
 }}</ref>

Pollitt also tasked Gray, whose class background would make her less conspicuous aboard an ocean liner than the CPGB's mostly working-class membership, with delivering money, instructions, and a questionnaire to a contact in India. The strain of this mission caused Gray to resign as Pollitt's secretary, though she remained in touch with Percy Glading, and in 1937 provided evidence that led to the conviction of Glading on spying charges.<ref name="Andrew 179-182">{{cite book|last1=Andrew|first1=Christopher M.|url=https://archive.org/details/defendrealmautho00andr/page/182/mode/2up?q=Pollitt|title=Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5|publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf]]|year=2009|isbn=9780307263636|edition=1st US|pages=179–182|access-date=16 October 2021}}</ref>

CPGB members, including Harry Pollitt, were the subject of continual monitoring efforts by the British security services throughout the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. These included the planting of a listening device in their King Street offices in 1942.<ref name="Black" /><ref name="Morgan, Within and beyond the law" /> MI5 also had an unidentified source close to Percy Glading who regularly reported Pollitt's doings to them (including  Pollitt's dissatisfaction with [[Reg Birch]]), whilst both MI5 and [[Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)|Special Branch]] had sources at Pollitt's 60th birthday celebrations.<ref name="Ewing et al 98-99">{{cite book |last1=Moretta |first1=Andrew |last2=Mahoney |first2=Joan |last3=Ewing |first3=Keith |title=MI5, the Cold War, and the Rule of Law |date=5 March 2020 |publisher=OUP |isbn=9780192550590 |pages=98–99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m2HdDwAAQBAJ&dq=Pollitt+MI5&pg=PA98 |access-date=18 October 2021}}</ref>

===World War II===
[[File:Harry Pollitt Whitehall 1941, IWM D 4420.jpg|thumb|Harry Pollitt giving a public speech to workers in Whitehall, London, 1941]]
With the outbreak of war between the UK and Nazi Germany in early September 1939, despite the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop pact]], Pollitt welcomed the British declaration of war on [[Nazi Germany]], calling for a "struggle on two fronts", involving the "military defeat of [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] and the political defeat of [[Neville Chamberlain|Chamberlain]]" in his pamphlet ''How To Win The War'', which was also ambivalent about rearmament.<ref name="Jupp 170">{{cite book |last1=Jupp |first1=James |title=The radical left in Britain, 1931-1941 |date=1982 |publisher=Frank Cass |isbn=071463123X |page=170 |url=https://archive.org/details/radicalleftinbri0000jupp/page/170/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=16 September 2021}}</ref> When this turned out to be contrary to the Comintern line received from Moscow on 14 September, and reiterated by the CPGB's Comintern representative on 24 September (as [[Rajani Palme Dutt]], who succeeded him as General Secretary, had warned him it would be), he was forced to resign.<ref name="Morgan 108">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |page=108 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ |access-date=15 September 2021}}</ref> By November 1939, Pollitt had disavowed his previous pro-war position, saying that by supporting the war he had "played into the hands of the class enemy".<ref name="Childs 245">{{cite journal |last1=Childs |first1=David |title=The British Communist Party and the War, 1939-41: Old Slogans Revived |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=April 1977 |volume=12 |issue=2 |page=245 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/260215 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Sage Publications, Inc.|doi=10.1177/002200947701200202 |jstor=260215 |s2cid=159508420 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

During 1940–41, under instructions from Moscow,<ref name="Taylor 114">{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Tony |title=Denial: History Betrayed |date=September 2008 |publisher=Melbourne University Publishing |isbn=9780522859072 |page=114 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-FgN-K2zBYC&dq=%22revolutionary+defeatism%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA114 |access-date=29 November 2021}}</ref> the party followed a policy of "revolutionary defeatism". This was a strategy that assumed that the goals of the Communist Party could be accelerated by quickening the defeat of Britain in the war against Nazi Germany.<ref name="Taylor 114" /> [[Douglas Hyde (author)|Douglas Hyde]] stated that the attitude of those advocating this policy was to regard "the almost inevitable defeat of Britain [...] as a magnificent opportunity".<ref name="Childs 251">{{cite journal |last1=Childs |first1=David |title=The British Communist Party and the War, 1939-41: Old Slogans Revived |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=April 1977 |volume=12 |issue=2 |page=251 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/260215 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Sage Publications, Inc.|doi=10.1177/002200947701200202 |jstor=260215 |s2cid=159508420 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Pollitt criticised the war policies of the Chamberlain government, describing them as seeking to exploit the war against "Hitler's fascism" to "impose certain aspects of that same fascism on the workers".<ref name="Childs 242">{{cite journal |last1=Childs |first1=David |title=The British Communist Party and the War, 1939-41: Old Slogans Revived |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=April 1977 |volume=12 |issue=2 |page=242 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/260215 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Sage Publications, Inc.|doi=10.1177/002200947701200202 |jstor=260215 |s2cid=159508420 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The anti-war position of the CPGB during 1939-41 was later cited by [[James Middleton (political organiser)|J. S. Middleton]], along with the CPGB's perceived lack of independence from Moscow, as a reason for refusing Harry Pollitt's application to affiliate the CPGB with the Labour Party.<ref name="Braunthal 7-9">{{cite book |last1=Braunthal |first1=Julius |title=History of the International: Volume 3 - 1943-1968 |date=1980 |publisher=Gollancz |isbn=0575026502 |pages=7–9 |edition=(English translation by Peter Ford & Kenneth Mitchell) |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofinterna0000brau/page/6/mode/2up |access-date=29 November 2021}}</ref>

On instructions from [[Georgi Dimitrov]] in Moscow, Pollitt was retained in a six-member political bureau after his removal.<ref name="Johnstone 33">{{cite journal |last1=Johnstone |first1=Monty |title=The CPGB, the Comintern and the War, 1939–1941: Filling in the Blank Spots |journal=Science & Society |date=Spring 1997 |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=33 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40403603 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Guilford Press|jstor=40403603 }}</ref> He was reinstated as the leader of the CPGB after [[Operation Barbarossa|Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941]], again in response to instructions received from Moscow. Moscow also overturned Dutt's previous position of criticising the [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] government and characterising the war as a struggle for socialism, instead endorsing Pollitt's position of offering full support to the Churchill government and avoiding inflaming anti-socialist opinion.<ref name="Johnstone 42">{{cite journal |last1=Johnstone |first1=Monty |title=The CPGB, the Comintern and the War, 1939-1941: Filling in the Blank Spots |journal=Science & Society |date=Spring 1997 |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=42–43 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40403603 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Guilford Press|jstor=40403603 }}</ref> Dimitrov, however, had doubts about Pollitt's reliability, and in 1942 questioned what he saw as Pollitt's "strange behaviour" in allowing what he believed to be the penetration of the CPGB by the British security services, saying that he did not know whether Pollitt was doing this "deliberately" or if "English intelligence is taking advantage of his lack of vigilance".<ref name="Morgan, Within and beyond the law">{{cite web |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Within and beyond the law? British communist history and the archives of state surveillance |url=https://www.gale.com/intl/essays/kevin-morgan-british-communist-history-archives-state-surveillance |website=Gale.com |publisher=Cengage Learning (EMEA) Ltd |access-date=16 September 2021 |date=2018 |archive-date=16 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210916071656/https://www.gale.com/intl/essays/kevin-morgan-british-communist-history-archives-state-surveillance |url-status=live }}</ref>

After [[Operation Barbarossa]], Harry Pollitt became a strong supporter of the opening of a second front in Europe against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies.<ref name="Laybourn & Murphy 117">{{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=117 |url=https://archive.org/details/underredflag00keit/page/n116/mode/2up?q=%22Harry+Pollitt%22 |access-date=17 September 2021}}</ref> Pollitt also urged [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] to moderate his demands for Indian independence for the duration of the war.<ref name="Morgan 130">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |page=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ |access-date=26 September 2021}}</ref> When strike action was proposed during the war, Pollitt was opposed to it as it would damage the war effort. Pollitt's adherence to an electoral truce unilaterally called by the CPGB after Operation Barbarossa led to instances of CPGB campaigning in favour of Conservative candidates in wartime by-elections.<ref name="Morgan 136-137">{{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Kevin |title=Harry Pollitt |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719032479 |pages=136–137 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gi3oAAAAIAAJ |access-date=26 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>

As the CPGB's membership of the Comintern had been a barrier to affiliation with the Labour Party, Pollitt took the opportunity given by the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943 to apply again to affiliate with the Labour Party. However, this was again rejected by Labour's central committee, who again cited the CPGB's previous opposition to the war against Nazi Germany.<ref name="Braunthal 7-9" /> At the 1945 general election, Politt's CPGB pursued a "Progressive Majority" strategy, and sought to coordinate its electoral strategy with the Labour Party, though the Labour Party did not reciprocate. As a result, rather than putting up 50 candidates as had been proposed, the CPGB put up candidates in only 21 seats, of whom only two were returned.<ref name="Laybourn 199-200" />

===Post WWII and later life===
Pollitt supported the [[Communist coup d'état of 1948|1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia]], characterising it as the work of "millions of lads" who were "led by their [[Shop steward]]s" to overthrow capitalism.<ref name="Thorpe 616">{{cite journal |last1=Thorpe |first1=Andrew |title=Stalinism and British Politics |journal=History |date=October 1998 |volume=83 |issue=272 |page=616 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24424503 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Wiley|doi=10.1111/1468-229X.00089 |jstor=24424503 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> During 1948 Pollitt also condemned the [[Marshall Plan]], calling it a war plan,<ref name="Mr. Pollitt's Warning">{{cite news |title=Mr. Pollitt's Warning |url=http://purl.org/pressemappe20/folder/pe/023711 |access-date=27 September 2021 |work=The Times |date=19 January 1948 |archive-date=27 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927150612/http://webopac.hwwa.de/PresseMappe20E/Digiview_MID.cfm?mid=P023711 |url-status=live }}</ref> and called for [[Ernest Bevin]], the then Foreign Secretary, to be dismissed over what he described as the deliberate prolongation of the talks on the Marshall Plan and the economic impact of Bevin's policies.<ref name="Communist Attack on Mr Bevin">{{cite news |title=Communist Attack on Mr Bevin |url=http://purl.org/pressemappe20/folder/pe/023711 |access-date=27 September 2021 |work=The Manchester Guardian |date=26 January 1948 |archive-date=27 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927150612/http://webopac.hwwa.de/PresseMappe20E/Digiview_MID.cfm?mid=P023711 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1951 the CPGB adopted ''The British Road To Socialism'' as their party programme, replacing ''For Soviet Britain''. The programme, which was championed by Pollitt, committed the CPGB to independence from Moscow, and a constitutional or parliamentary (as opposed to revolutionary) path to power. Additionally, it stated that the CPGB was committed to decision-making through internal party democracy. In spite of these commitments, the programme had actually been personally dictated to Pollitt by Stalin in a series of secret meetings in the Kremlin.<ref name="Torode">{{cite news |last1=Torode |first1=John |title=BOOK REVIEW / Working-class hero who followed the wrong leader: 'Harry Pollitt' - Kevin Morgan: Manchester University Press |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/book-review-working-class-hero-who-followed-wrong-leader-harry-pollitt-kevin-morgan-manchester-university-press-40-pounds-2322413.html |access-date=15 September 2021 |work=The Independent |date=23 October 2011 |archive-date=15 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915125923/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/book-review-working-class-hero-who-followed-wrong-leader-harry-pollitt-kevin-morgan-manchester-university-press-40-pounds-2322413.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

On [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|the death of Stalin]], Pollitt wrote that he had been "the greatest man of our time". He went on to say that "[n]ever before in the history of humanity ha[d] there been such universal grief" as the people of the world "mourned him with tears in their eyes and with deep uncontrollable sorrow".<ref name="Thorpe 608">{{cite journal |last1=Thorpe |first1=Andrew |title=Stalinism and British Politics |journal=History |date=October 1998 |volume=83 |issue=272 |pages=608–627 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24424503 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Wiley|doi=10.1111/1468-229X.00089 |jstor=24424503 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Pollitt was also a member of the guard of honour at Stalin's funeral.<ref name="Laybourn 199-200">{{cite book |last1=Laybourn |first1=Keith |title=Fifty Key Figures in Twentieth-century British Politics |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415226769 |pages=199–200 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bNG90O5aoFwC&dq=%22Marx%22+%22Lenin%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA199 |access-date=27 September 2021 |archive-date=3 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211003172601/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Fifty_Key_Figures_in_Twentieth_century_B/bNG90O5aoFwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Marx%22+%22Lenin%22+%22Pollitt%22&pg=PA199&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }}</ref>

The advent of [[Nikita Khrushchev]] presented the CPGB with problems. The CPGB had followed the Moscow line to attack [[Josip Broz Tito|Tito]]'s neutralist government in [[Yugoslavia]]; however, when Khrushchev visited [[Belgrade]] in 1955, the CPGB was forced to recant these attacks. Pollitt faced another crisis when Khrushchev, in his 1956 [[Secret Speech]], attacked the legacy of Stalin. Pollitt's embarrassment was heightened by the fact that he had been present in Moscow for the party congress at which the speech took place, but along with the other foreign delegates had been excluded from the session at which it had been given.<ref name="Thorpe 617">{{cite journal |last1=Thorpe |first1=Andrew |title=Stalinism and British Politics |journal=History |date=October 1998 |volume=83 |issue=272 |page=617 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24424503 |access-date=23 March 2021 |publisher=Wiley|doi=10.1111/1468-229X.00089 |jstor=24424503 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>
[[File:BTR-40 Budapest 1956.jpg|thumb|left|Soviet troops in Budapest, November 1956]]
Pollitt, suffering from worsening health in his final years, resigned as General Secretary in May 1956, with [[John Gollan]] succeeding him, and was appointed CP Chairman. When Khruschev's denunciation of Stalin was formally made public the following month, Pollitt stated that he was "too old to go into reverse and denigrate a man he had admired above all others for more than a quarter of a century". Pollitt also refused to take down a portrait of Stalin that hung in his living room, saying that "He's staying there as long as I'm alive".<ref name="Laybourn 199-200" /><ref name="Knox & McKinlay 79"/>

The Soviet repression of the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Hungarian Revolution of November 1956]] made the CPGB crisis worse, particularly as the party had taken the position that the [[Eastern Bloc]] countries, of which Hungary was one, were allowed to do what they pleased.<ref name="Thorpe 617" /> Pollitt supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary, stating that it had "saved Hungary from fascism".<ref name="Knox & McKinlay 79">{{cite book |last1=Knox |first1=W.W.J. |last2=McKinlay |first2=A. |title=Jimmy Reid: A Clyde-built Man |year=2019 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=9781789620849 |page=79 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jmOtDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Stalin%22+%22Pollitt%22+%22portrait%22&pg=PA79 |access-date=27 September 2021 |archive-date=3 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211003172602/https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Jimmy_Reid/jmOtDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Stalin%22+%22Pollitt%22+%22portrait%22&pg=PA79&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }}</ref> Most of the party's intellectual figures, including [[Doris Lessing]] and [[E. P. Thompson]], and many ordinary members resigned.  Others, for example [[Eric Hobsbawm]], chose to stay in the party to try to reform it.<ref name="Black">{{cite news |last1=Black |first1=Ian |title=How Soviet tanks crushed dreams of British communists |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/21/politics.past |access-date=16 September 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=21 October 2006 |archive-date=3 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603045937/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/21/politics.past |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1959, when British communist journalist [[Alan Winnington]] (whom Pollitt had recruited to the CPGB) became disillusioned with Chinese politics, Pollitt arranged for him to travel from China to [[East Germany]], where Winnington spent the remainder of his life as an author and film actor. Winnington was extremely grateful, and after Pollitt's death he described him as "the greatest Englishman I have known."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Winnington|first=Alan|title=Breakfast with Mao: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent|publisher=Lawrence and Wishart|year=1986|isbn=0853156522|location=London|pages=251}}</ref>