Ian Irvine
After the election of 1923, Labour formed its first ever government under Ramsay MacDonald, though with no majority in the Commons. In February 1924 it had recognised the USSR and was attempting to normalise relations between the two countries. Four days before the election in October 1924— which Labour went on to lose—the Daily Mail published what became known as the Zinoviev Letter. Apparently sent by Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain, it read:
“A settlement of relations between the two countries will assist in the revolutionising of the international and British proletariat not less than a successful rising in any of the working districts of England, as the establishment of close contact between the British and Russian proletariat, the exchange of delegations and workers, etc. will make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda of ideas of Leninism in England and the Colonies.”