Editor’s Note

The story ends here abruptly. On March 29th, 1977, Joe Jacobs died in University College Hospital, London after a sudden heart attack. He was nearly 64 years old. He left behind this manuscript plus copious notes and references, but the story was unfinished. Some hastily scribbled notes in various small notebooks, on odd scraps of paper, some newspaper cuttings and some personal documents gave the only indications as to how the book was to have continued. One important set of documents had been carefully preserved by Joe, nevertheless. This was the complete correspondence in duplicate between Joe Jacobs and the Local and National Communist Party leaders during the major period of his conflict with the Party, i.e. from the end of 1936 to the outbreak of the Second World War.

It has been the task of the present editor to revise and check the manuscript that Joe left taking care to change as little of the original as possible. Only notes and references have been added plus a few minor stylistic alterations.

The editor is responsible for dividing the work into chapters, but the words remain entirely Joe Jacobs’ words as he wrote them. Faced with the dilemma of whether to leave the book unfinished or to conclude it, however inadequately, the editor has opted for the second solution, because of the significance of the material which had been collected and which was obviously meant to be included. Above all, the quarrel between Joe and the Party leadership over how to deal with Fascism is revealed in the correspondence between the two and they show how the fate of the dissenter reached its inevitable conclusion. The issues were and are important and the attitude and behaviour of the CP towards doubters within its ranks has rarely been so graphically detailed.

As far as possible the descriptions given and opinions expressed in what follows are based on Joe’s own words either taken from letters he wrote to the Party or from his rough notes. The editor’s own comments have been kept to the minimum, but sometimes an explanation or precision is required and some of what follows is the fruit of the editor’s own research. Always, however, the editor has striven to keep the original intentions of the author constantly in mind. Since the editor is not only a lifelong friend and admirer of Joe Jacobs but also his own daughter and had spoken many times with him about his project and already knew much of the background to this story, she hopes that, because of this, she has been able to remain faithful to the character and aims of this book. Sadly, however, she must obviously declare that what Joe would have written, had he lived longer, would have been much richer in detail and have contained many more arguments, examples, facts and interesting conjectures upon these facts than do the following pages. The reader must excuse obvious gaps. Some of the story has unfortunately remained buried with its writer. However the conclusion for this book does exist. It was written very shortly before Joe Jacobs’ untimely death. He meant it to be the closing words of his book and so it is with this conclusion that the book ends.