The Communist Party certainly did not set out to help Labour. Their advice from Zinoviev was that they should support the Labour Party like the hangman's rope supports the hanging man. Nevertheess the Labour Party continued to benefit from people of great quality who have been defecting the Party almost since the CPGB was formed.

There is a long list of events in the Communist Party’s history starting with Stalin's systematic extermination of virtually the entire Bolshevik revolutionary leadership and including such landmarks as the repression of the Hungarian uprising (1956) and the overthrow of the Dubcek Government in Communist Party of Great Britain Czechoslovakia (1968).

Dennis Healy once said in his time if you were not in the Communist Party in your teens you had no heart but if you were still in by the end of your twenties you had no brain. Fife probably benefited more than most from CP defections and it worth noting that the majority of ex-CP members would still give credit to the CPGB for the training, discipline and commitment which they received while party members.

The list is too large to do justice to in this publication but some notable individuals were David Proudfoot; Robert Eadie; Sir George Sharp; Lawrence Daly; Jimmy McIntyre; Margot Doig and Jim Brennan.

George Sharp was from a railway family in his youth a active trade unionist and leading light in the YCL (Young Communist League). He won his home village of Thornton as a communist councillor and after a short period he was persuaded to join the Labour Party mainly through the influence of Frank Gibb a leading Kelty Councillor. George was by any standard a giant of local government just some of his positions included Chairing Glenrothes Development Corporation and Convener of Fife County Council. At his funeral Lord Ewing paraphrased a quotation used of Christopher Wren the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral “If you want to see George Sharp’s legacy look around you”.

Robert Eadie left the Communist Party and was elected to Buckhaven & Methil Burgh Council in 1945 as a Labour candidate. He served on the Council until his death in 1956 in a mining accident caused by a coal face collapse at Wellesley Colliery.

David Proudfoot had a long history as a militant miner, a leader of the 1926 strike in Buckhaven & Methil. During army service he had been gassed in World War 1 and had continuing health problems as a result. His break with the Communist Party was very public in 1941 when he supported Labour Candidate and miner Tom Hubbard for the parliamentary seat. David Proudfoot was elected in 1945 as a Labour councillor in Buckhaven & Methil and was very prominent in the post war reconstruction of the Burgh.