141 Longmarket Street,
CAPETOWN/.
21stFebruary,1936
N. J. Barclay

Dear Comrade,

Comrades Grant30 and Frost are in a better position than myself
to inform you about the development of our movement in Johannesburg.
I will confine myselt' to Cape Town.

We will take as a starting point the Lenin Club which was formed
in 1933 by our or five Jewish-speaking members, two of which had
been expelled from the Commmission Party (Stalinists) as right-wingers.
The L.C. grew slowly (almost exclusively Jewish-speaking) until
the end of 1933 and the beginning of 1934 when theLeft Wing of
the Independent
Labour Party joined. (The I.L.P. blew up before achieving an organ
or even a constitution.) As a re.sult of its growth the Lenin Club
became English-speaking; the Jewish members taking a less and less
active part in its work which consisted of holding regular lectures
(twice a week) and issuing occassional leaflets. The Lenin Ciub
stood for the International Left Opposition and propaged its views
but
in the opinion of some of the comrades it was Left Opposition before
it had been communist (with a small "c"), Although united
on the international problems, the Club rapidly deveioped two points
of view on all the South African questions. As a step towards forming
a Party, it was decided to elaborate theses on the South African
questions. The Theses Sub-Committee split and submitted minority
and majority theses to a series of general meetings of the Club where
the theses were accepted after discussion by a majority of the members.
The accepted Theses, the Majority Theses, have been sent to you together
with the Minority Theses.

On the basis of the Theses accepted by the majority of the Lenin
Club the Communist League was formed but, and this is very important,
after discussion with the Johannesburg group, the Communist League
decided to change its name to Workers Party. (Reason: in most Bantu
languages there is no separate word for League as opposed to Party
which led to endless confusion between us and the Communist Party
(Stalinists).) The Communist League became the Workers Party but
the Lenin Club minority whose theses had been rejected picked up
the discarded name of Communist League.

The position
now was that there were two political organisations, the Workers
Party which
issued and issues the "Spark" and
the Communist League both inside the Lenin Club. It was decided to
ask the International Secretariat to decide between the two groups
on the basis of their theses but the I.S. counselled peace, peace,
peace, and detailed Duhois to comment on the Theses of the W.P. The
ignorance of Dubois was equalled only by his cocksureness but L.
T. wrote a "Remark" (a copy was sent to you) which is now
the Magna Charta of our Party. The arrival of L. T.'s "Remarks" had
no effect upon the Communist League and in June 1935 the split was
widened by the withdrawal of the Workers Party from the Lenin Club.

The position to-day is this. The Lenin Club-Communist League carries
on an issues "The Workers' Voice". The Workers Party has
formed the Spartacus Club here and in Johannesburg, in Alexandra,
and in Benoni, and issues "The Spark". Negoitations are
are present being carried on between the W.P. and the C.L. but whether
or not a basis for unity will be found I cannot say at this date.

The opinion of the W/.P. is that the C.L. is not communist in so
far as South African questions are concerned but actually takes up
a left-social democratic position, i.e., opportunism, on all South
African problems. I leave to you the task ofcomparing our "Spark" with
the "Workers' Voice", and ofstudying the various theses.