As we have seen, there was a very strained relationship between Murphy and other leaders of the CPGB from the mid-1920s onwards. There had been the major argument immediately after the General Strike, with Murphy's polemical article in Communist International (with Page Arnot) attacking the party's failure to criticise the ‘left’ trade union leaders. Then there had been Murphy's critique of the party's acceptance of the TUC's instruction to trades councils to disaffiliate from the Minority Movement. This was followed by the bitter and protracted battle to gain the party's acceptance of the need for a sharp leftward turn towards the Comintern's ‘Third Period’ new line, exemplified by the political bureau's attempt to prevent Murphy attending the Ninth ECCI Plenum and Murphy's resignation from his leadership position within the party in September 1928. Moreover, Murphy's proposal for a Workers’ Political Federation, and his distinctive position on such tactical issues as the non-payment of the political levy, had even pitted him against those members of the central committee who agreed with the general thrust of the new line, such as Pollitt and Palme Dutt. Such tensions were reflected in a number of bitter exchanges within the political bureau during 1930 over a range of tactical issues, which resulted in Murphy's appointment to, and then removal from, the industrial department within the space of just a few days. This chapter explores the way these tensions were further exacerbated in early 1931 over a conflicting assessment of the Labour Party's fortunes, which eventually culminated in May 1932 with Murphy's expulsion from the CP over an argument about credits to the Soviet Union. It also charts his subsequent political trajectory towards left reformism.

A ‘DISINTEGRATING’ LABOUR PARTY?

The conflicting assessment of the Labour Party was a major turning point. In early 1930 Murphy was appointed head of the CP's parliamentary department and, as part of the political offensive against Labour, he stood as the party's candidate in a by-election in the Sheffield constituency of Brightside against the Labour candidate Fred Marshall. Murphy wrote a special pamphlet entitled The Labour Government: An Examination of its Record, which explained how: