Editing Ramsay MacDonald (section)

=== Zinoviev letter ===
{{Main|Zinoviev letter}}
On 25 October 1924, just four days before the election, the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' reported that a letter had come into its possession which purported to be a letter sent from [[Grigory Zinoviev]], the President of the [[Communist International]], to the British representative on the [[Executive Committee of the Communist International|Comintern Executive]]. The letter was dated 15 September and so before the [[Dissolution of the Parliament of the United Kingdom|dissolution of parliament]]: it stated that it was imperative for the agreed treaties between Britain and the Bolsheviks to be ratified urgently. The letter said that those Labour members who could apply pressure on the government should do so. It went on to say that a resolution of the relationship between the two countries would "assist in the revolutionising of the international and British proletariat ... make it possible for us to extend and develop the ideas of [[Leninism]] in England and the Colonies".

The government had received the letter before its publication in the newspapers. It had protested to the Bolsheviks' London chargé d'affaires and had already decided to make public the contents of the letter with details of the official protest but it had not been swift-footed enough.{{sfn|Marquand|1977|p=382}} Historians mostly agree the Zinoviev letter was a forgery, but it closely reflected attitudes current in the Comintern.