Communist Party (British Section of the Third International)

[4] Despite Whitehead's assurances that the CP (BSTI) was against parliamentary action and would only consider running candidates for elections on a platform of abstentionism, a dispute broke out with Guy Aldred and the Glasgow Communist Group, who had suspended their support for the Third International on account of their avowed revolutionary parliamentarianism.

Upon their return a further conference was held in Manchester on 18–19 September, where they voted to accept the conditions of the Second World Congress with explicit reservations about taking parliamentary action.

Whitehead and Pankhurst maintained they still had the freedom to fight for abstentionism within the CPGB, and they formally fused with them at the second Communist Unity Convention in Leeds, in January 1921.

[13] The Glasgow Communist Group responded by inaugurating their newspaper the Red Commune, declaring "there is no other party organ in this country [...] that stands fearlessly for Communism.

[14] Despite the merger, the former CP (BSTI) maintained Workers' Dreadnought as an independent publication from which they could criticise the CPGB on the issues of parliamentary action,[13] as well as its attempted affiliation to the Labour Party.

The CP (BSTI)'s programme further specified that commodity exchange would continue during this transitional period, albeit under state control, with "local and national Soviet banks" issuing currency.