The Zinoviev letter was a fake document published and sensationalised by the British Daily Mail newspaper four days before the general election of October 1924. The letter purported to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow, to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), ordering it to engage in seditious activities. It claimed that the normalisation of UK relations with the Soviet Union under a Labour government would radicalise the British working class and put the CPGB in a favorable position to pursue a Bolshevik-style revolution. It further suggested that these effects would extend throughout the British Empire. The right-wing press depicted the letter as a grave foreign subversion of British politics and blamed the incumbent Labour Party for promoting the policy of political reconciliation and open trade with the Soviet Union on which the scheme appeared to depend. The election resulted in a strong victory for the Conservatives and the continued collapse of the Liberal Party. Labour supporters often blamed the letter, at least in part, for their party's defeat. The letter was widely taken to be authentic upon publication and for some time afterwards, but historians now agree it was a forgery. The letter perhaps aided the Conservative Party by hastening the ongoing collapse of the Liberal Party vote, which, in turn, produced a Conservative landslide. A. J. P. Taylor argued that the letter's most important impact was on the mindset of Labourites, who for years afterwards blamed foul play for their defeat, thereby misunderstanding the political forces at work and postponing what Taylor regarded as necessary reforms in the Labour Party. History Background On 22 January 1924, the Labour Party formed a government in the United Kingdom for the first time. However, it was a minority government and therefore liable to fall if the Conservatives and Liberals combined against it. In foreign policy, the government used its executive powers to offer official recognition of the Soviet Union in February 1924. It also proposed to lend it money and to open up trade, but parliament mostly obstructed these measures. On 8 October 1924, the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald suffered defeat in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence forwarded by the Liberals, who had until then supported the continuation of the minority government while also blocking most of its signature policy initiatives. Instead of resigning, MacDonald