Recent events have compelled us all to consider seriously the policies which have brought the world to the brink of war, and to ask—what is the future for our country?

In putting forward this programme for discussion, we know that the questions it raises are of deep concern to all workers by hand and brain, who want to find the way forward to an independent, prosperous, Socialist Britain.

In its long struggle to win political, economic and social emancipation the working class of Britain has built up mighty trade union, cooperative and political organisations. It is out of these that the Communist Party was born thirty years ago, at a time when the Movement was at the turning of the ways. Every great political event since then has shown how necessary it was for the Communist Party, inheriting and carrying forward the traditions and socialist aims of the British working class, to take its stand against the influence of capitalist ideas in the Movement. As in the past, so now and in the future, the Communist Party has no interests other than those of the British working class and the British people.

The doubts and heart-searchings felt by so many people about the present situation and the future show that the British people realise that to drift along with the existing economic and social system can offer no hope. The people of Britain can look forward to a better future only if they take their country into their own hands.

This is the message of this programme. It is a call above all to the whole Labour Movement to recall its glorious traditions of struggle for the immediate interests of the working people, and to safeguard their future interests in a Socialist Britain. But it is no less a call to the great majority of the British people to join with the Communist Party and the whole Labour Movement in the struggle to win a new future for Britain in the socialist world which history is now shaping.

This programme is not an immediate election programme. It is a programme which charts the future—a programme which corresponds to the needs and the heartfelt desires of the great majority of the British people. We are confident that they will find the way to make it a reality.

HARRY POLLITT