Catalogue description James SHIELDS: British. A member of the CPGB since 1921 - initially in Scotland - he was...

James SHIELDS: British. A member of the CPGB since 1921 - initially in Scotland - he was by the time of his early death in 1949 one of CPGB's most important executives. 1925-1927 he was in South Africa, becoming Chairman of the South African Communist Party. He moved to London in 1931 to work on the staff of, and later to take charge of, the Daily Worker. In 1932 he made the first of several pre-war visits to Moscow as the British representative to the Comintern. Among important CPGB posts he filled from 1931 were membership of the Executive and Political Committees and of the Control Commission (later Appeals Committee), the Party's highest disciplinary body, for which he organised a secret CPGB wireless station for contacting the USSR. In 1936-1937 he was closely associated with Percy GLADING. The Link volumes record investigations into whether SHIELDS was a spy