purge of Trotskyists is in progress in the British Communist Party." A directive urges party members to report anyone they suspect of "disruptive activities" -- a rather wide category in an organization shaped under the influence of Stalin.
“To help the members in their detective work, the circular asks: "Who are the Trotskyists..in your area? Which group do they. belong, to? Where do they work and show themselves?
"Who-sells the various publications? We want to know so that we can protect the party from their activities,"
~The top bureaucrats seem particularly concerned about the pene~ tration of "Trotskyist" ideas among the youth, Members of "other organisations," says the directive, have infiltrated Communist student branches, "deliberately joining our party for the purpose ef disruption,"
A confidential "history" of Trotskyist organizations in Britain, running to more than 12,000 words, has been distributed inside the party. The document is * critical of the lack of awareness among party members that “dangerous disruptive activity can result from the work of very small. groups,"
The campaign against Trotskyism in the British Communist party appears to be motivated by two considerations, (1) To counteract. the sympathy evident.in certain sectors of the party for the Peking position in the Sino-Soviet confliot., A number of expulsions have already occurred over this issue and it is evident that more are to follow, (2) To demonstrate as effeotively as possible that the top leadership stands squarely in Khrushchevts camp, The directive is a "British" application of the _ campaign against Trotskyism launched in Moscow.
In Moscow's campaign, which is associated with the Sino-Soviet
conflict, the Fourth International and organizations in ideologioal sympathy with it such as the Socialist Workers party in the United States have been subjected to heavy fire in various official publications. Most recently, Suslov, in his report on the Sino-Soviet... conflict, singled out the Fourth International for attack and accused the Chinese Conmunist party leaders of having borrowed from its arsenal of ideas and giving them a "Chinese" veneer in their efforts to expose Khrushchevist "revisionism," [See World Qutlook April 10 and April 24,.] .
QUEBEC