British Labour and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1924 0674187369, 9780674187368

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HARVARD HISTORICAL

MONOGRAPHS

XXX Published under the direction of the Department of History from the income of The Robert Louis Stroock Fund

British Labour and the

Russian Revolution 1917 -1924 ë

—

Stephen Richards Grauhard

CAMBRIDGE

*

H A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

·

1956

© 195^ THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 56-10161 Printed in the United States of America

TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

Foreword

ACKNOWLEDGMENT of one's scholarly indebtedness is a happy and pleasant duty. I must first of all record my gratitude to Professor David E. Owen, who read this manuscript in its several stages, and offered his counsel and criticism. Students and friends of the late Professor Harold J. Laski will understand the nature of my debt to him. I recall vividly the unhurried hours spent in his quiet study, where conversation was welcome even when it led to disagreement, and assistance was tendered even before it was asked. T o my friends Mr. John J. Conway, Mr. Klaus W . Epstein, and Mr. Henry A . Kissinger I owe a great deal; they have contributed to my education as a historian in ways too numerous to relate and too complex to explain. Thanks are due to Mrs. Cedric H . Whitman for expert editorial assistance. THE

It is particularly appropriate that I express my appreciation to Harvard University and the Social Science Research Council who made funds available for a two-year residence in England. Without that generous aid, this work could not have been undertaken. S.R.G. Cambridge, Mass. March 2, 1956

Contents

INTRODUCTION I. The Labour Party: A Brief Historical Sketch II. Labour and the March Revolution

I 7 16

III. Labour and the November Revolution

44

IV. Labour Speaks Out Against Intervention

64

V. Labour Acts To Stop Intervention. VI. The Origins of the Communist Party VII. Early Labour-Communist Relations Vili. IX.

83 "5 140

The Communists and "Black Friday"

161

The Internationals

183

X.

Labour Visits Russia

211

XI.

New Russian Crises

223

XII. Later Communist-Labour Rivalry XIII. Labour in Office and Out XIV.

245

Concluding Remarks

257 289

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

293

British Labour and the

Russian Revolution 1917-1924

Introduction

A TENDENCY TOWARD REVISIONISM is perhaps inherent in the historian's craft. In approaching a virgin field, complete originality is possible, but in all other instances—necessarily the overwhelming number— the historian works by adding to existing knowledge or by altering prevailing interpretations. Where new information is gathered, the right of revision is universally acknowledged. The development of new modes of analysis, useful in historical inquiry and capable of providing fresh insights into otherwise exhausted fields, may also be thought legitimate reason for reappraisal and reexamination. In practice, however, neither the discovery of new materials nor the developing of novel interpretative devices explains the constant reworking of traditional themes. The impetus to revision originates in the fact that every generation asks different questions about the past, and in doing so observes a different pattern of "significant detail" and meaning. The failure to produce a greater number of positively definitive studies in any area of historical inquiry may indicate nothing more than that the historian, like all other men, is essentially time-bound. H e moves to his work and proceeds in it as the captive of ideas common to his time. In the very questions which he is led to ask, he shows himself a man of a particular moment. This is not to suggest that the positivist belief of the nineteenthcentury historian lacks merit. If the historian chooses his subject

2

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

with care and is prepared to delimit and define it in a particular way, he is capable of producing something to which the "definitive" label may be properly attached. However, if his purpose is to write a large history—of the Augustan Age, of the Renaissance, or of the French Revolution—he must expect his work to be redone or undone by generations yet unborn. The historian concerned with contemporary or near-contemporary happenings is in a peculiarly vulnerable position. Lacking the ample documentation to which the scholar of ancient Greece or colonial America may lay claim, he finds himself further handicapped by being required to work on what is an essentially unfinished story. Future events, necessarily unpredictable, must cause the recent past to be viewed in a new perspective, revealing lines and stresses presently hidden from sight. If all large historical inquiry is tentative, that which relates to matters still unfolding appears particularly susceptible to reinterpretation. This study, which seeks to examine the role of the Russian Revolution in British labor history, and which treats of matters now three decades past, admits to being the product of research after the second World War. T o say this is not to surrender any claim to objectivity, but only to acknowledge that the question—in form and character—is in some sense dictated by our present preoccupation with Soviet policy and tactics. Historians of the Russian Revolution, writing about it in the twenties and thirties, thought to define their subject rather narrowly. They viewed the event as relevant only to the Russian land mass and its peoples, lacking significance for any except the tsar's former subjects. The year 1917—supremely important for Russia—enjoyed no place of prominence in the chronological sequences created for other nations. The revolution, if it figured at all, emerged as a footnote in histories conceived along traditional national lines. There had been, in the years after 1789, no comparable failure to appreciate the significance of the French Revolution. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but certainly involving France's position as Europe's leading military and intellectual power, historians and statesmen of the period recognized in the French Revolution an event of universal import. Eighteenth-century European history became

INTRODUCTION

3

comprehensible only through a study of the cataclysmic event which signaled its end. T h e historian o£ the twentieth century may in time come to regard the Russian Revolution in a similar light. Today, when Russia is almost too much with us in all our investigations, there is no disposition to ignore or underrate her. But there is a certain regrettable tendency to study her influence in the more recent period and to ignore earlier history. Since the Bolshevik power began to be exerted in 1917, and not in 1945, it is to the earlier years that scholarly investigation needs to be directed. Such inquiry can only contribute to a better understanding of the larger implications of the Russian Revolution for the outside world. T h e British Labour Party, in common with every other group espousing socialist doctrine however defined, could not hope to escape the influence of the Russian Revolution. Those responsible for the November rising never conceived of their handiwork in purely national terms. Claiming alliance with a larger body—the international proletariat, still unliberated—their aim was a universal rebellion issuing in a Marxist victory. Labour and Socialist groups, dedicated to other beliefs, were expected to resist this policy, but the Bolsheviks welcomed such opposition as no less necessary to their purpose than the predicted encounters with the bourgeois class. T h e Labour Party, for reasons of its own, welcomed the opportunity to cope with the novel situation created by the Bolshevik seizure of power. A s a political organization aspiring to be His Majesty's Opposition, and one day, hopefully, His Majesty's Government, the Labour Party took seriously the obligations imposed by that ambition. O n every issue affecting the British nation—foreign and domestic—it felt called on to make its views known and its policy clear. H o w else could the public learn of the party's readiness to serve at any time as an alternative administration ? Russian affairs were certain to continue as a chief subject of debate, and the formulation of a correct and sound policy became an objective of the highest priority. T h e Labour Party, in criticizing the Government's Russian policy, questioned the integrity of those responible for it. Cabinet and other

4

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

high state officers, intent on destroying the Russian regime and its Communist leadership, seemed prepared to engage in military operations to secure that end. Labour Party leaders discovered in British action an aggressiveness shown toward no other friendly power and scarcely comprehensible in the context of continued protestations of sympathy for the Russian people. The party branded the policy deceitful and dangerous, and recommended a close watch on all responsible agencies. The official policy, conceived by men of property and prejudice, was held to endanger the public interest in behalf of a supposed private advantage. The Labour Party, as the self-declared defender of the public interest, assumed the responsibility of thwarting the Government in its ambition. The character and content of the Labour Party protest and its effectiveness in various crises forms a principal theme of this study. In formulating its argument, the Labour Party developed its own concept of a proper foreign policy; this it offered to the nation as an alternative. When in 1924 the party assumed power as a minority Government, some attempt was made to translate the program into official policy. The absence of a clear majority in Parliament, the brevity of its tenure of office, and the intrinsic difficulties of the international situation at the time combined to frustrate the Government in its endeavor. Although minor changes were effected, there were no permanent reforms. The Labour Party's decisive defeat in the General Election of 1924 was related to its agitation in Russia's behalf over the preceding seven years. Or so at least it appeared at the time. The Zinoviev Note was considered a mean political trick engineered by an irresponsible Opposition anxious for power. While the Zinoviev scandal influenced the returns less than some believed, its symbolic importance was considerable. For the light that it sheds on the climate of opinion prevailing in 1924, it is a matter of some consequence. Every foreign policy which operates to alter the strength of the contending political parties must be admitted to have domestic significance. It required no particular insight for Labour Party leaders to realize the incendiary potentialities of their Russian program. In proposing close and cordial relations with Russia, the Labour Party

INTRODUCTION

5

offered the Opposition an almost too inviting target. T o call the Labour Party "Bolshie"—as its political foes never tired of doing— was to broadcast the fact that in the prevailing political atmosphere pro-Russian sympathies were suspect, affording a dubious political advantage and fairly obvious drawbacks. In marginal constituencies particularly, where a few hundred ballots represented the difference between victory and defeat, Labour leaders appreciated the serious consequences attending an effective "smear" campaign in which their motives were intentionally misconstrued. N o easy solution could be found for this dilemma: how to choose between what the Labour Party regarded as a moral injunction to criticize and a political situation which rendered such criticism dangerous. T h e situation was not eased by the excitement generated in Britain, particularly in working-class organizations, by Russian Communist propaganda. T h e Marxist brand of Socialism, introduced into Britain decades earlier by men of limited political talents, emerged as an impressive new solution for many who had missed the earlier presentation. Self-declared defenders of the Marxist idea and its propagator, the Russian state, arose to do battle with those who adhered to more traditional ways and refused homage to the new idol. Inside the Labour Party new stresses developed, threatening to undo the work of a generation of builders. In time, a distinctive product of the Russian Revolution took its appointed station in Britain, prepared to absorb dissident elements. T h e Communist Party—the party of Marx and Lenin—vied with the Labour Party for the support of Britain's working millions. Conflict was inevitable; its early history is presented in the pages that follow. In choosing to fight Communism internally while supporting a policy of close cooperation with Soviet Russia, the Labour Party showed a charity towards the creator of British Communism which at times seemed scarcely warranted or credible. T h e Labour Party's struggle with communist ideology, pursued on another level in the International Socialist organizations, had no important political consequences, but demonstrated anew that friendship for the Russian state presumed no respect for its various political creations. British Labour, anxious to contain International Com-

6

BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

munism, came to lead the world's anti-Comintern Socialist parties. The story of that leadership, and of the conflicts which developed, will necessarly form part of the history that follows. In every sphere of its activity the Labour Party encountered the Russian state, its leaders, puppets, and ideas. T o view the Labour Party's growth in terms of those encounters is perhaps to create a unity of which the participants were themselves unaware. If, however, in proceeding along such lines, the success and failure of the Labour Party is given a new dimension and meaning, the project may be considered justified. The Labour Party must be understood as a dynamic agent, making its way by trial and error on the basis of preconceived and ad hoc judgments to a position of authority and influence. It is no less important, however, to explain the Communist Party's failure in Britain not as a fortuitous circumstance arising out of a happy Anglo-Saxon temperament, but as a political fact issuing from the Labour Party's own success. This examination seeks, in short, for a new perspective on the Labour Party's tortuous passage from adolescence to maturity in a world altered by revolution half a continent away.

C H A P T E R

I

T h e Labour Party: A Brief Historical Sketch

T H E BRITISH LABOUR PARTY, on the eve of the R u s s i a n R e v o l u t i o n ,

showed unmistakable signs of its recent origin. Founded in 1900, when one hundred and twenty-nine delegates from Socialist, trade union, and other working class associations gathered in London, the party never entirely overcame the artificiality of its birth. The delegates, assembled in response to a Trades Union Congress resolution of the previous year, hoped to devise measures for increasing Labour's influence in Parliament; some sixty-five trade unions and three socialist societies with a combined membership of over half a million were represented. The T.U.C., in recommending the meeting, had gone out of its way to impress prospective delegates with the limited role to which they were being called.1 N o one expected that a new political party would arise out of the conference, and no one intended that it should. Britain's leading socialist organizations—the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation, and the Fabian Society— sent delegations. The I.L.P., largest of the three, had been founded in 1893, and claimed a membership of i3,ooo.2 Its program was to detach the worker from liberalism and bring him to favor an independent labor representation in Parliament. Basing its socialist 1 Francis Williams, Fifty Years March (London, 1950), 12. Williams thought it significant that the membership of the organizations represented at London was only 568,000. 2 Williams, Fifty Years March, 12.

8

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

propaganda on ethical Nonconformist teachings, the I.L.P. opposed the Marxist idea of class war and violent revolution, and favored instead a form of activity that found its rationale in street-corner and open-air meetings. There the sermon of a new society achieved through workers' control of Parliament could best be preached. The enthusiasm aroused by Keir Hardie, Fred Jowett, Philip Snowden, and others made the IJL.P. a household word to all workers, particularly in the north of England. In Yorkshire and Lancashire, the movement spread deep roots; the leaders concentrated their efforts in those places.8 I.L.P. trade unionists, responsible for the T.U.C, resolution that led to the London Conference, looked forward to it with some anticipation. The Social Democratic Federation embodied a very different tradition. Founded in 1881, the S.D.F. was largely the creation of Henry Hyndman, who, as the leading exponent of Marxism in Britain, made the party in his own image. While attracting many capable supporters, not least of whom was William Morris, Hyndman showed himself sufficiently tactless, domineering, and argumentative to destroy whatever unity the organization enjoyed. The S.D.F. had survived several defections by 1900, but could boast of no conspicuous success in propagating Marxist ideas in Britain.4 The Fabian Society, the only completely intellectual socialist group in Britain, enjoyed a small but select membership. Organized in 1884, the Fabians sought to spread socialism through the successful permeation of existing parties. Fabian socialist principles have been defined as "the organisation and conduct of the necessary industries of the country, and the appropriation of all forms of economic rent of land and capital by the nation as a whole, through the most suitable public authorities, parochial, municipal, provincial, or central."5 The Fabians began by hoping that the Liberal Party could be used as a vehicle for their propaganda. Only in 1893, with the appearance of To Your Tents, O Israel!, the joint work of Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw, was the tactic of working through the Liberal Party * The only satisfactory account of the I.L.P. in its early years is contained in Henry Pelling, The Origins of the Labour Party ¡880-1900 (London, 1954). William Stewart, f . Keir Hardie, a Biography (London, 1924), offers some valuable materials. * Max Beer, A History of British Socialism (London, 1948), II, 303. 5 Beer, History of British Socialism, 285.

THE LABOUR PARTY: A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH

9

questioned; the creation of a Trade Union party, prepared to contest parliamentary seats, was recommended.® However, the "Lib-Lab" tradition lived on, and as late as 1900, Fabians still spoke of converting Liberals to Fabian policies. The rivalry of these several socialist organizations posed certain problems for the London Conference of 1900, but even more serious difficulties developed because of the misgivings of powerful trade union leaders. Showing an open disdain for socialist ideas and methods, these men revealed a hostility which on several occasions threatened to disrupt the conference.7 Only the genius of Keir Hardie, the I.L.P. leader, saved the situation and permitted the drafting of a resolution on which all could agree and from which the whole later development of the Labour Party may be said to stem. Its terms were simply: That this Conference is in favour of establishing a distinct Labour Group in Parliament who shall have their own whips and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being, may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of labour, and be equally ready to associate themselves with any party in opposing measures having an opposite tendency. . . .· T o implement this resolve a special body, the so-called Labour Representation Committee, was organized. With its executive of seven trade unionists, two I.L.P. and two S.D.F. appointees, and a single Fabian, assisted by an unpaid secretary, this federated group prepared to involve itself in political battle.® A less auspicious beginning for a political movement would be difficult to imagine. How groups divided on fundamental political and economic questions would compose their differences no one at the London Conference cared to consider. The fact that almost a third of the trade unions represented at the meeting saw fit to reject the recommendations brought back by their delegates gave evidence of the prevailing mood. 10 With so sharp a rebuff at trade union hands, it was not •Edward R. Pease, History of the Fabian Society (New York, 19x6), 1 1 6 . 7 Williams, Fifty Years March, 23. 8 Williams, Fifty Years March, 24. * J. Ramsay MacDonald served as secretary. 10 Williams, Fifty Years March, 32.

IO

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

surprising that the S.D.F. thought so little of the organization as to abandon it almost at its birth. 11 But for the Tafï Vale decision of 1901, the L.R.C, might well have foundered. The courts, however, in rendering unions liable for damages arising out of strike actions in which their members participated, raised fears which gave new life to the enterprise. Temporary and ill-concerted measures to win support among radicals in the Liberal Party would no longer suffice; the situation demanded a bold legislative counterassault. The L.R.C., quick to grasp the significance of the issue, worked to impress the unions with the necessity of seeking redress through Parliament. For this sort of endeavor, the L.R.C. appeared the logical instrument. Between 1901 and 1903, membership increased 84 per cent; even more significant was the rise in the number of affiliated unions from 65 to 127. 12 The general election of 1906 provided unmistakable evidence of the organization's power; with fifty candidates in the field, the L.R.C. secured the election of twenty-nine. In an instant, the L.R.C. seemed to have grown from an ad hoc body contesting an occasional by-election to a national party capable of securing some 323,000 votes.13 A new star had risen in the political firmament, and the very unexpectedness of the event seemed to increase its magnitude. The victory produced an elation unique in British Labour experience; vistas were opened which would have seemed inconceivable at the turn of the century. Structurally, the organization remained unaltered, changing only its title to the more appropriate one of Labour Party. But in a more basic sense, nothing remained the same; optimism was universal and expectation knew no bounds.14 Gradually, however, this feeling changed to one of doubt, and eventually to one of pessimism only slightly less absolute than the hope which it replaced. Labour Party members in the House of Commons showed a peculiar capacity for mutual distrust and recrimination. Trade unionists, satisfied with the social reform policies of the Liberal Government, found agitation and criticism 11

Beer, History of British Socialism, 329. Williams, Fifty Years March, 146. 13 Williams, Fifty Years March, 149. 14 George Bernard Shaw's preface to the 1908 reprint of the Fabian Essays illustrates the mood perfectly. 12

THE LABOUR PARTY: A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH

II

from socialists of the Keir Hardie school irritating and unnecessary. Socialists spoke with contempt of trade union secretaries, now enjoying their ease on Westminster's terrace, who wished for nothing better than to be led by Liberal worthies. T h e results of the two general elections in 191 o confirmed the fears of many who believed that the party had been checked in its political advance. Although the January 1910 election saw the return of forty Labour Party members, the fact that this included certain miners' representatives not affiliated to the party in 1906 made the change a negligible one. 15 In the December election, the party increased its strength by only two seats.16 In both these Parliaments the Liberal Party retained power through an unofficial alliance with Irish Nationalist and Labour Party members. A break in this arrangement would almost certainly have precipitated a General Election from which the Tories stood to gain. T h e Labour Party, committed to a political tactic of which it felt ashamed, saw in the situation a mockery of its claim to independence. Contributing to the decline of the Labour Party's prestige was a new restiveness in trade union circles, culminating in large strikes. Trade unionists, disappointed with the political achievements of the Labour Party, and disturbed by signs of economic depression, came increasingly to support Syndicalist policies. T h e cry for "direct action," heard in the mines and at the docks, on the railways and in the cotton factories, gave evidence of a new sentiment in the nation. T o m Mann, George Lansbury and others who preached the "general strike" were listened to attentively; the voices of Keir Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald, and Arthur Henderson, urging caution and patience, were scarcely audible above the tumult. Syndicalism threatened not only the Labour Party but the whole prevailing trade union organization, with its multiplicity of unions, each pursuing an independent course, and none of them concerned to compel basic changes in the Williams, Fifty Years March, 181. G. D. H. Cole, A History of the Labour Party from 1914 (London, 1948), 4. The author explains that of the 42 seats won, 27 were secured in straight fights with Conservatives, and 11 were gained in two-member constituencies where the Liberals put forward only a single candidate. If the Liberals had chosen to contest every seat, Cole suggests that all, except those held by the Miners' Federation, would have been threatened. 15

16

12

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

economic control of industry. 17 Syndicalists were unimpressed by parliamentary politics which offered only the appearance of battle. The formation of the Triple Alliance, a combination of over 1,350,000 members of the National Union of Railwaymen, the Transport Workers' Federation, and the Miners' Federation, in April 1914, which had as its purpose the arranging of concerted action in any industrial dispute affecting its members, provided evidence of Syndicalism's power. Only the advent of war caused the situation to change. The Labour Party, suddenly the object of a sustained Liberal courtship, profited from its position. The Government, anxious for Labour Party assistance in the prosecution of the war, seemed prepared to offer junior assistantships to those who would serve in its ranks. Many of the greatest men in the party were ineligible for the honor; they had withdrawn themselves from the list of "loyal subjects" through their opposition to the war. The I.L.P., traditionally pacifist, refused to accept the explanations of ministers who sought to document Germany's perfidy. Compelled to choose between a war policy, then highly popular, and a peace policy, which could only be suspect, the most important I.L.P. leaders—Hardie, Snowden, MacDonald, Lansbury, Jowett—chose the latter. 18 MacDonald lost the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party as a consequence, for the trade union majority had no sympathy with his position. As early as October 1914, trade union members of Parliament, together with the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, represented the struggle as one between democracy and military despotism. 19 In such an encounter, the position of the British worker could not long be in doubt. Untainted with the pacifism of the socialist minority, and unmindful of the elaborate objections of overzealous intellectuals who pretended to discover perfidy in the foreign office, trade unionists held the war to be both just and necessary. The active participation of trade union leaders in the Government caused the 17 G. D. H. Cole and Raymond Postgate, The Common People 1746-1938 (London, 1938), 482. 18 Those in the I.L.P. who opposed the war did so most often for pacifist reasons. Some, however, like MacDonald, were not pacifists, and felt only that the war was unjust and unnecessary, brought on by the Government's diplomacy. 18 Cole, Labour Party From 1914, 2 1 .

THE LABOUR PARTY: A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH

13

breach with the I.L.P. to become increasingly wide so that the Labour Party during the war years assumed the character of a trade union party with certain insignificant socialist connections. While the IJL.P. continued to press its policies in the Labour Party, its influence was negligible. This was the condition of the Labour Party on the eve of the Russian Revolution. If it had left unfulfilled the exaggerated hopes of 1906, it had more than realized the dreams of 1900 of even the most optimistic who had assisted at its creation. The party had a small representation in Parliament, was learning something of the problems of national administration by participating in the Coalition Government, and might, with good fortune, expect an increased vote at the first general election after the war's end. If the party remained a loose federation, undecided about a broad policy agreeable to all, and uncertain about its future leadership, the war might contribute to a solution of those problems as well. Certainly the war underscored the key position of the trade unionists in the party. If trade union leaders had hitherto been backward in asserting their claims to leadership, their restraint was at an end. The trade unions had been increasing their membership since the middle of the preceding century; the moment for assuming a more important political role was at hand. Certain of the trade unions antedated the socialist societies, having been organized in the prosperous years between 1850 and 1870. These originated as fairly exclusive associations, catering to a limited number of skilled craftsmen able to afford weekly contributions of a shilling or more to keep others out of their industry and to provide some degree of protection in time of illness or unemployment.20 Such unions were little concerned with politics, and showed no great regard for fellow workers in less fortunate circumstances. More significant were the "new unions" for the semiskilled and unskilled which came into prominence after the dockers' strike of 1889. Organizations like the General Railway Workers' Union, the Gas-Workers' Union, the Dockers' Union, and the National Amalgamated Sailors' and Firemen's Union asked smaller contributions from their members, offered fewer benefits, but provided some protection for hundreds 20

Cole and Postgate, The Common People, 3 6 1 - 6 2 .

14

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

of thousands previously barred from trade unions. The new pattern influenced the long-established unions, and both old and new enjoyed a great increase in membership. 21 The feeling of trade union solidarity, influenced by these developments, received further impetus from the alarm spread by the Taff Vale and Osborne judgments. Trade union membership soared to hitherto unknown heights—1,848,570 in 1899, 2,369,067 in 1909, and 3,918,809 on the eve of the war. 22 That these new and powerful organizations would seek to exert pressure in the political sphere, and that they would do so through the Labour Party, was practically a foregone conclusion. This had already been indicated by the balloting required in connection with the Trade Union Act of 1913, which aimed at reversing the Osborne Judgment. 23 The Act enabled a trade union to use its funds for political purposes if a majority of the members voting on the question agreed.24 In the ballots taken to the end of May 1914, sixty unions accepted political contributions, while only three small unions refused. 25 Although the unions possessed something of a forum in the Trades Union Congress created in 1868, the T.U.C, never thought to compete with the Labour Party as a political pressure group. Essentially a union of unions, loosely organized, and presided over by an executive committee with limited powers, the T.U.C, existed to protect members' interests through the occasional petitioning of the Government on matters of great moment. The Annual Conference of the T.U.C., in providing a forum for the airing of grievances, served an important purpose. It afforded the Labour Party evidence of the thinking of its most powerful constituent element. The Labour Party of 1917 was still a dwarf in a circle of political giants. Lacking the financial resources necessary to the development 21

Cole and Postgate, The Common People, 418. Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (revised edition, to 1920; New York, 1926), Appendix VI, 750. 23 The Osborne Judgment (1908-1909) made it illegal for trade unions to spend funds, gained through a compulsory levy, for returning members to Parliament, or for that matter, for any political activity. Both General Elections in 1910 were fought by Labour under this handicap. 24 The minority was protected by the grant of an exemption privilege if it objected to making a monetary contribution. 25 Beer, History of British Socialism, 343. 22

THE LABOUR PARTY: A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH

I5

of vigorous propaganda organs, the party depended upon less efficient devices for the dissemination of its views. A long road had been traveled by 1917, but the end was not in sight. Whether the party would demonstrate the measure of spirit and skill and achieve the unity necessary to the attainment of political power, no man could say.

C H A P T E R

I I

Labour and the March Revolution

R U S S I A N AUTOCRACY had been so long decaying that prophets had abandoned hope of predicting the moment of its collapse. In the months immediately preceding the March 1917 rising, however, the news of Britain's second most important continental ally became sufficiently grave for Whitehall to sense danger. Developments, extraordinary even for Russia, received wide report in the British press. The Manchester Guardian expressed bewilderment when Stürmer's replacement as premier and foreign secretary was hailed as the final defeat of the pro-German elements in Russia. The Manchester daily reminded its readers that precisely the same claim had been made at the moment of Stürmer's accession to power.1 Accounts of an ever worsening economic condition, of the postponement of the Duma's sitting, and of a growing restlessness, gave ample cause for apprehension. Reports of "revolution on everyone's lips," and of a sharp decline in the tsarist government's prestige, should have prepared Britain for the inevitable.2 And yet, when the March Revolution actually broke, it came as a surprise. The tsar's success in weathering earlier crises lulled the Allies into believing the reports of disaffection exaggerated. The situation remained clouded for several days, after which the allied THE

1

Manchester Guardian, November 25, 1916. Manchester Guardian, January 6, 1917, January 1 1 , 1917, January 20, 1917, February 27, 1917. 2

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

I7

world learned what it was most anxious to hear; the Russian despotism had indeed fallen, but the new government, faithful to its alliance with the West, pledged itself to continue the war. Joy—an admixture of relief and pleasure—was the characteristic British reaction. People of diverse opinions found reason for welcoming the change. Empire-conscious subjects, recalling Russia's record of intervention and expansion in places adjacent to British imperial holdings, had never felt entirely comfortable in the alliance fashioned by Sir E d w a r d Grey, and hoped that the change presaged an end to the old Russian expansionist tradition. Liberals, who had never forgiven Russia its persecution of national and religious minority groups, and who felt ashamed of an alliance which united them to a state ruthless in its suppression of basic liberties, breathed more easily seeing the instrument of that oppression destroyed. Trade unionists and socialists, recalling the tsar's guilt in the massacre of 1905, enjoyed their liberation from the necessity of hypocritically accepting such an individual as an honored friend. T h e unanimity of opinion ought to have produced pleasure; in one quarter, at least, it caused misgivings. Bruce Glasier, I.L.P. Socialist, pacifist, and poet, expressed an uncommon opinion when he wrote: The world has long awaited the advent of the Russian Revolution. . . . It seemed so long overdue that we had almost ceased to expect it at all . . . and now bursts the news upon us that the Russian Revolution has come—come at last suddenly and without warning. We wonder can it be true. We hear the joybells of the war press ring; hailing the advent exultingly, and we wonder the more. We hear our Tory-Imperialist statesmen welcome the tidings of it as the most cheering event in the history of the war, and a feeling of confusion and distrust lurks in our hearts. Our cheers freeze upon our lips.3 Glasier's discomfort at finding himself associated, however involuntarily, in a common cause with his political opponents, compelled him to search about for explanations of this unnatural alliance. H a d he shown greater patience Glasier might have spared himself the task; the union between labor and other opinion did not survive the 3

Labour Leader, March 22, 1917.

Χ8

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

first days of March. Although labor groups continued to speak about a "new star of hope having risen over Europe," and of "the greatest victory which this war can possibly bring . . . the winning of Russia," 4 ecstatic expressions of this sort came to be less common in other quarters. Labor organizations staged a great rally at the Albert Hall in London, and some twelve thousand persons roared their approval of the revolution and voted to dispatch congratulatory messages.5 Everything indicated that labor accepted the new regime unreservedly, feeling no regret at the passing of the old. T h e House of Commons could scarcely be expected to remain silent on so historic an occasion; it fell to Bonar L a w to move the Government's statement of congratulation, which read: This House sends to the Duma its fraternal greetings and tenders to the Russian people its heartiest congratulations upon the establishment among them of free institutions in full confidence that they will lead not only to the rapid and happy progress of the Russian nation but to the prosecution with renewed steadfastness and vigour of the war against the stronghold of an autocratic militarism which threatens the liberty of Europe.® T o all except the pacifists in Parliament, this was an entirely acceptable resolution. Bonar Law's words on presenting it, however, caused some comment; he said: It is not, I think, for us to judge, much less to condemn, those who have taken part in the Government of an Allied country, but I hope I may be permitted to express a feeling which I believe will be shared by the vast majority of this House, and which I, at least, hold strongly, a feeling of compassion for the late Tsar, who was for three years, or nearly three years, as I believe, our loyal Ally, and who had laid upon him by his birth a burden which has proved too heavy for him.7 The Herald, March 24, 1917. The Herald, April 7, 1917. The meeting was sponsored by George Lansbury, editor of The Herald. Although called by an ad hoc body describing itself as the Anglo-Russian Democratic Alliance, it appealed chiefly to I.L.P. and other pacifists. Cf. also George Lansbury, My Life (London, 1928), 186-87. β Great Britain 5, Parliamentary Debates, Commons (hereafter cited as "Commons Debates"), XCI ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2085. 7 Commons Debates, XCI ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2086. 4 5

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

19

This might be dismissed as the oratory of a Christian and gallant gentleman expressing grief for a fallen comrade. Labour Party members refused to view the matter with such forbearance. While accepting the resolution, they reprimanded Law for his own contribution, and commented on the somber tone in which he chose to deliver a supposed speech of congratulation.8 Arthur Ponsonby, a prominent pacifist in the House, ridiculed the notion that the revolution had taken place to insure a more successful prosecution of the war. He believed that the Russian people sought only to institute good government, redress evils, and establish a rule of justice. In order that these ends might be achieved, Ponsonby asked that the new regime be permitted to proceed unhindered by internal or external pressures.9 Ponsonby's remarks, characteristic of Labour Party sentiment, revealed unbounded sympathy for the new Russian government. Law's remarks, no less typical of opinion in other less precisely defined quarters, gave evidence of a vague discontent with the situation created by the revolution. The Times, in its editorials, struck this muted note with some regularity; a characteristic Times comment was the following: " T o the Tsar, in particular, the highest credit is due. Had he chosen to resist the demands of the Duma there were, doubtless, plenty of troops ready to support him. But he knew what such a choice would have meant for Russia and for the great European cause which he had served so well, and he has shrunk from the dread responsibility of making i t . . . 1 0 The Liberal Manchester Guardian, refusing to assist in the perpetuation of such a myth, replied: What is evident beyond dispute is that he [the Tsar] is doing nothing to bring about a settlement by any renunciation on his own part. It is as well to grasp that fact, for already hasty commentators, with diplomatic assistance, are endeavouring to set up a myth of the Tsar's "wisdom" and "unselfish patriotism" and "his laying down the supreme authority of his own free will" to save his people from civil war and social anarchy. The Tsar has surrendered nothing of his own free will. His authority has Commons Debates, XCI ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2088-89. Commons Debates, XCI ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2091-92. 10 The Times, March 16, 1 9 1 7 . 8 9

20

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

been taken from him. His conduct during as before the Revolution has shown not the slightest understanding of the national forces which his misgovernment has provoked.11 These editorial comments appeared several days before Bonar Law rose to address the Commons; it is therefore impossible that he was unaware of the interpretation that would be placed on his remarks. That he chose to make them indicates the early creation of an opinion, which, while not openly hostile to the revolution, showed an uncommon concern for those swept away by it. The basis for a later opposition, scarcely so tentative and infinitely more dangerous, was laid. The Manchester Guardian recognized the trend and sought to give warning. 12 In detailing these differences between Labour and other opinion, care must be taken to avoid the impression of complete unanimity in Labour's ranks. There were many, particularly in the I.L.P., who took exception to the officially expressed attitudes of the Labour Party. Philip Snowden referred contemptuously to the Commons' resolution as a "hypocritical motion," unworthy of the British nation. 13 His sentiments were echoed by others in the I.L.P. who blasted the Government and the Labour Party indiscriminately. In no sense however, did such criticism constitute an attack upon the Manchester Guardian, March 17, 1917. Manchester Guardian, March 21, 1917. An editorial of that morning included the following: "There is a tendency in certain quarters here to take sides violendy in the controversy in Russia over the future form of the Russian State, and even to couple this partisanship with gross abuse of the Russian Republicans. This seems to arise out of two quite baseless beliefs: that it is our business, and that the kind of newpaper clamour which makes or unmakes British Ministers will have any effect at all upon the thoughts and actions of the Russian people. It is for the Russian people, and the Russian people alone, to decide whether they will live under a republic or a monarchy; and they have resolved and are determined to decide that matter for themselves through an Assembly which they will elect specially for that purpose. Abuse by English journalists of the Russian Republicans will not convert them to belief in a Romanoff monarchy. The men who have broken the most powerful tyranny in the world are not going to be cowed by wild words from across the sea. These wild words only damage the reputation of those who utter them, and would injure the good relations between Russia and England if they encouraged the entirely erroneous view that they were typical of the English attitude." 11 12

13

Labour Leader, March 29, 1917.

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

21

revolution itself; it developed as a censure of those who insisted that the revolution's purpose was the revitalizing of Russia's war machine. The news from Russia that reached Britain through the spring of 1917 provided little satisfaction. It suggested a condition of disorder and intrigue, with no promise of eventual abatement. The Provisional Government, nominal heir to the tsar's authority, appeared helpless before the pretensions of the Petrograd Soviet, a rival organization, which showed strong inclination to meddle in affairs of state. Its most famous decree, Army Order No. 1, virtually abolished the authority of officers over noncommissioned personnel. Army committees, in which privates shared single votes with officers, were empowered to ballot on questions of military strategy. 14 The situation at the front deteriorated rapidly in the face of such propaganda and activity. Russian soldiers, weary and disorganized, listened eagerly to Bolshevik orators who demanded an immediate cease fire to be followed by a separate peace if the Allies persisted in refusing to meet the enemy's representatives.15 A peace based on the principle of "no indemnities and no annexations" came to be the chief demand of the powerful Soviets. 18 The Provisional Government, subjected to pressure on every side, was itself undecided about a proper course of action. Guchkov and Miliukov, two of the chief ministers, were convinced that Russia's first objective must be the reorganization of its army. The security of the state could be achieved only by stopping the German advance. It was hoped that the Allies might be persuaded eventually to issue a more explicit declaration of war aims. 17 Others favoured an immediate overture to the Allies lest war weariness, famine, fear, and death demand its own remedy—an immediate peace. British newspapers gave considerable space to these Russian developments, but none of them cared to dwell on the probable consequences of the prevailing Russian mood. Only a few Liberal and 14

Bernard Pares, A History of Russia (revised edition, New York, 1944), 470-73. Pares, A History of Russia, 474. George Vernadsky, A History of Russia (new revised edition, New York, 1944), 240-41. 17 Vernadsky, A History of Russia, 240-241. 15

18

22

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

I.L.P. journals carried detailed accounts of Russia's disappointment with the reception accorded her revolution in Britain. In the Manchester Guardian, Michael Farbman wrote : The record of my first impressions on returning to Russia would be incomplete if I did not mention signs of a regrettable change of sentiment towards England among the large democratic and Liberal masses of Russia. . . . Russia was deeply wounded by the sympathy which was expressed for the fallen dynasty, even by Ministers of the Crown and in Parliament, by the doubts expressed of the loyalty of the Russian democracy, by the sharp criticism of the authors of the Revolution in leading English journals, a criticism which did not stop short of insinuating that free Russia would mean disorder and anarchy, that revolutionary democracy would mean humiliation, defeat, and dishonourable peace. But what hurt most of all was the tendency to judge of the Revolution mostly from the standpoint of its possible influence on the issue of the war, and not to judge of it from the point of view of Russia itself, and the cause of freedom and democracy throughout the world. 18 Britain found it impossible, in the midst of war, to view the Russian scene independent of its military aspect. T h e Labour Party, while refraining from criticism of those responsible for the military deterioration along the Eastern front, understood perfectly the probable consequences of a major debacle. T h e I.L.P., in its fulsome praise of the revolution, never concealed its ulterior motive of seeking an immediate end to hostilities. For Britons of every political persuasion, attitudes taken towards the war determined all other political attitudes. In May 1917, Russia passed through a major political crisis. T h e Provisional Government, at the insistence of the Soviets, issued and communicated to the Allies a statement of war aims. T h e Foreign Minister, Miliukov, dispatched a personal message to the Allies in which he reiterated Russia's resolve not to conclude a separate peace but to fight until victory in accord with past agreements. 19 T h e reaction inside Russia was immediate; the letter, Miliukov's opponents argued, in effect nullified the anti-imperialist promises contained in Manchester Guardian, May ι , 1917. William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1935), I, 444. T h e text of the note is given. 18

19

7 9 / 7 - / 9 2 / ( N e w York,

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

23

the war aims statement. Popular demonstrations in Petrograd and Moscow became sufficiently serious for Miliukov and Guchkov—who was also implicated—to resign. The government had to be reorganized. The Soviet, as a condition of its participation in the new ministry, demanded an explicit acceptance of its foreign policy in an official government pronouncement. A capitulation followed, and the government proclaimed its aim to be "the speediest achievement of a general peace, which does not have as its objectives domination over other people or taking away from [them] of their national possessions or violent seizure of foreign territories—a peace without annexations and contributions, on the basis of self-determination of the peoples." 20 In the new government, Prince Lvov remained as premier, but Kerensky assumed the direction of the war ministry. 21 These events coincided with renewed pressure from the Petrograd Soviet for a meeting in Stockholm of the International Socialist Congress to discuss war aims. A similar proposal, put forward by the I.L.P. in response to an earlier plea by neutral socialist parties, had been overwhelmingly defeated at the Labour Party's annual conference in January 1917· 22 The Labour Party Executive's plan called for an allied Labour and Socialist Conference, to which neutral and enemy delegates would necessarily not be asked. When the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet announced its intention of inviting socialists of all nations so that "the work for peace started by the Russian Revolution [might] be brought to a conclusion by the efforts of the international proletariat," the Labour Party Executive voted to postpone its own Inter-Allied Conference and send British delegates to Petrograd to discover the Soviet's intentions.23 The delegation, representative of all segments in the Party, was to consist of George Roberts, William Carter, and J. Ramsay MacDonald. 24 Already in Russia at the time were two other Labour Party leaders, Will 20

Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, I, 447. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, I, 148—49. The Government, a coalition, included six socialist ministers, as well as representatives of the Cadet and other liberal parties. 22 Labour Party, Special Party Conference, August 10, 1917; Report of The Executive Committee (London, 1 9 1 7 ) , 4. 23 Olga H. Gankin and H. H. Fisher, The Bolsheviks and the World War, The Origin of the Third International (Stanford, 1940), 594. 24 Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 33. 21

24

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Thome and James O'Grady, who had gone out as official representatives of the Government at Westminster. 25 Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador to Russia, was at this time reporting home that the new Socialist foreign minister, Tereschenko, seemed determined that there should be a full-scale Allied War Aims Conference. Buchanan, though lacking instructions, had suggested that His Majesty's Government might agree to a study of war aims through negotiations conducted by ambassadors in the Allied capitals rather than at a full-dress conference.28 Tereschenko, satisfied with this, had asked that the ambassador convey to his government Russia's interest in seeing that MacDonald was granted a passport for his projected visit to Petrograd. 27 Lloyd George found neither proposal acceptable. In deciding to dispatch Arthur Henderson to Russia, he acted in a manner entirely unanticipated, made all the more mysterious by a secret proviso permitting Henderson to replace Buchanan as ambassador if he saw fit28 Mary Agnes Hamilton, Henderson's biographer, suggests that this may have been the Prime Minister's way of ridding himself of a Cabinet colleague with whom he was coming to have basic policy disagreements.29 Lloyd George's motives, never clear, invite suspicion; in this instance, his later treatment of Henderson lends credence to such an opinion. However, there is some reason to believe that the Prime Minister's concern was diplomatic rather than political. Buchanan's social position and prior service as ambassador to the tsar's court may have been deemed too compromising for effective service in the new situation; a trade unionist of Henderson's prominence would have seemed a reasonable choice as a replacement. Henderson, once in Petrograd, realized that Buchanan had no inkling of his possible recall. In inquiring about the ambassador's relations with the new Russian political leaders he found them to be excellent. He hastened to inform the Cabinet of the desirability of 25 Will Thorne, My Life's Battles (London, 1 9 3 1 ) , 189-94. A somewhat inadequate account of the mission. 26 Sir George Buchanan, My Mission To Russia (London, 1923), II, 134. 27 Buchanan, My Mission To Russia, II, 134. 28 Mary A. Hamilton, Arthur Henderson (London, 1938), 125. 29 Hamilton, Henderson, 124.

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

25

post.30

keeping so experienced a diplomat in his Conversations with Buchanan convinced Henderson also that MacDonald's presence in Russia was desired, and that the British Government would do well to accede to this request. Both men expected that MacDonald would profit from his visit, and come to see his own "radicalism" in a new light. 31 Henderson returned from Russia convinced that the Soviet desire for the Stockholm meeting was such that no action on the part of British Labour could lead to its postponement or cancellation. He believed moreover that such a meeting might bolster the less extreme elements in Russia, thereby helping the Government in its difficulties with the Bolsheviks. However, the latter was a secondary consideration. The conference was clearly destined to take place; the only question for British Labour to decide was whether or not to participate. For Henderson, this was no problem at all; it would be folly for the British to allow the Russians to meet socialists of all countries, allied, enemy, and neutral, without a Labour Party representative present. If war aims were to be discussed, British Labour would wish to be heard; to be absent would serve no purpose except to create needless ill will, weaken the Provisional Government, and provide an advantage to the German point of view. 32 During Henderson's absence abroad, the British Government had issued passports to MacDonald and the others for their proposed visits to Russia. The Sailors' and Firemen's Union had intervened however, refusing to carry men who had expressed openly a willingness to meet in conference with the hated German. This decision, made by J. Havelock Wilson, 33 one of Britain's more violent antiGermans, enjoyed considerable rank-and-file support.34 The Labour Party Executive, challenged by this unexpected development, agreed to do nothing till after Henderson's return. 30

Hamilton, Henderson, 126-27. Hamilton, Henderson, 128. 32 Hamilton, Henderson, 136. 33 Wilson engaged in a constant verbal duel with pacifist and other antiwar elements in Britain. His prestige and power, in his own union particularly, was considerable. 34 Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 34. 31

2Ó

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

In London, in late July, Henderson informed the Labour Party Executive of the Soviet's firm intention to send delegates to Stockholm irrespective of what other individual Allied Socialist parties chose to do. He recommended that the Labour Party participate in the conference. Over the objections of a strong minority, the Executive voted to arrange a delegate meeting in London in early August for a full discussion of the proposal.35 Four representatives of the Petrograd Soviet, present in London during these talks, felt sufficiently encouraged by the British response to proceed to Paris to complete arrangements there. In response to a French request that British Labour representatives accompany the Russians to Paris, Henderson, MacDonald, and Wardle did so.36 The Paris conversations very early revealed a basic disagreement between the French and British on the one hand and the Russians on the other. While the former regarded the Stockholm Conference as a purely consultative assembly, whose decisions would not bind the participating parties absolutely, the Russians argued for a meeting with full powers. The differences were so basic that the groups decided to postpone the Stockholm meeting till September 9, hoping that further inter-Allied talks in London in August would serve to create some measure of unity. 37 On his return from France Henderson learned of all sorts of wild rumors circulated in Britain as a result of his visit abroad in Ramsay MacDonald's company. Replying to his critics in the House of Commons on August ι , Henderson defended his mission as consistent with his duties as secretary of the Labour Party, and in no way related to his status as a member of the War Cabinet. 38 The House was at the time ignorant of the incidents of that day which had led to Henderson being debarred from a Cabinet meeting while his colleagues discussed the proprieties of his political behaviour.39 The 35

Hamilton, Henderson, 136. Labour Party, Executive Committee Report, August 10, 1917 Conference, 6. 37 Gankin and Fisher, Bolsheviks and World War, 600-01. 38 Commons Debates, XCVI ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2197. 39 David Lloyd George, War Memoirs (Boston, 1934), IV, 1 5 1 . The Prime Minister's account of the incident, so patently insincere as to make comment almost impossible, ran as follows: "It was of course inevitable that the other members of the War Cabinet would wish to express their views in this discussion with considerable frankness, and we decided to get this part over before asking Mr. Henderson to join 36

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

27

question of whether Henderson, in supporting British Labour participation in the Stockholm Conference, and in visiting France in MacDonald's company to expedite that project, had behaved in a manner unbecoming to a member of His Majesty's Government, had been discussed in Henderson's absence; he had been left on the "door mat" to await his colleagues' decision. From that moment till August 10, the day of the Special Labour Party Conference, Henderson withstood the pressure of press, Cabinet, and Prime Minister, all intent on persuading him to reverse his position on Stockholm. Lloyd George was later to claim that at a meeting of the War Cabinet on August 8, Henderson "recognised the impossibility of pressing the Stockholm Conference and agreed with us that it must be abandoned." 40 Everyone understood that without Henderson's support the proposal would not secure the Labour Party's approval. Henderson's steadiness in the face of these pleadings and warnings provided evidence of the confidence he felt in his own political judgment. Speaking before the Special Labour Party Conference, he explained why he had come to favor British representation at Stockholm. T h e meeting was only to be consultative in nature; those who argued that it would seek to dictate peace to the warring governments were raising a false issue. H e recalled his explanation to the Russians that the "Socialist and Labour Parties in this and other countries were not yet the nation, and the only people . . . responsible for negotiating actual peace terms were the Governments of the respective countries. . . ." 4 1 In his peroration Henderson attempted an appeal to the emotions of his audience; he said: Let us remember poor Russia, and if we cannot give the newest Democracy, the infant of Democracies, all she asks, I beseech you not to us. As a result, he was asked on his arrival to wait a while in my Secretary's rooms. . . . Unfortunately the delay, which was designed solely to spare him personal unpleasantness, lasted about an hour, and when at the end of that time Mr. Barnes went out to speak to him about what had taken place, he found Mr. Henderson in a highly resentful frame of mind." 4 0 Lloyd George, War Memoirs, IV, 157. Lloyd George explained that the attorneygeneral offered the opinion that it would be illegal for British delegates to attend the Stockholm Conference without the Crown's express permission, and that it was this fact that made Henderson agree to push the matter no further. 41 Labour Party, Executive Committee Report, August 10, 1917 Conference, 10.

28

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

give her an entire point blank refusal. Of this I am convinced, and I want to say this with all the seriousness and deliberation of which I am capable, that if we today, representing as we do the great British Labour and Socialist Movement, determine for the whole period of the War not to use the political weapon to supplement our military victories, not only shall I regret it, but I will venture to predict that you as a Movement will regret it hereafter. My final word to the Conference is: Let us by all means at our disposal, whether they be military or whether they be political, strive to secure such a victory as will ensure for the world a lasting, honourable, and democratic peace.42 T h e conference, after a luncheon recess, heard James Sexton of the Dockers' Union move an amendment, which, while accepting the sincere motives that actuated Henderson in his motion, suggested that no case had been made for the appointment of delegates to Stockholm or to any other conference attended by enemy representatives. 43 Sexton argued that nothing had happened to warrant the Labour Party reversing its earlier decisions to abstain from such meetings. T h e Russians wanted a mandatory conference, Sexton argued; a purely consultative one would certainly not satisfy them. In any event, Russia had never welcomed the representatives or the ideas of the "official" British Labour movement. While the proceedings of the "unrepresentative" Leeds Conference 4 4 had been broadcast far and wide, the overtures of the Trades Union Congress had not even been acknowledged. O'Grady and Thorne, two loyal British trade unionists, had been subjected to various indignities when in Russia, and treated almost as spies. Sexton, in closing, questioned the wisdom of permitting the B.S.P. 4 5 and the I.L.P. to include representatives from their pacifist ranks in any British delegation sent to Stockholm. 4 8 George Barnes was even more critical of the Henderson motion. Barnes doubted that the Russian nation cared at all about the Stockholm meeting; only a small minority seemed to favor it. T h e United 42

Labour Party Report, 1 3 . Labour Party Report, 16. 44 Cf. infra, 36-40. 45 B.S.P., the British Socialist Party, was organized in 1 9 1 1 ; it was originally part of the S.D.F. Marxist in outlook, it opposed the war from the beginning and sought a peaceful settlement through international proletarian action. 46 Labour Party, Executive Committee Report, August 10, 79/7 Conference, 16. 43

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

29

States, Belgium, France, and Italy had refused to send delegations. What possible advantage could be realized from a discussion with Russians, Germans, and a Dutch-Scandinavian committee? T h e time was not yet propitious for peace talks. 47 Ramsay MacDonald, eloquent and sardonic, corrected Barnes on several of his more glaring inaccuracies. If the French and Italians were absent from Stockholm, it was not because they wished to stay away, but only that their governments prevented them from coming. MacDonald suggested that the Labour Party had reached a moment of crisis. T h e "Russian Democracy" wanted to be reassured that the Allied governments intended consulting "European Democracy" about war aims. British labor was being summoned to aid Russia in its struggle against imperialism. Could labor afford to refuse participation in a meeting so conceived ? How could the Allies be hurt by being compelled to proclaim their war aims ? W h y was it wrong to ask the Germans whether they agreed with those aims ? In speaking of the Germans, MacDonald referred to them as "German friends"; a tumult followed. When order was restored, MacDonald concluded by pleading that British labor "go to Stockholm, to consult, to make their views known, to state their case, to hear the other side state their case, to discuss it with them, and then come back and say they had the basis of peace in their pockets." 4 8 T h e rest of the debate proved an anticlimax. Delegates warned of rank-and-file opposition to any policy of fraternization with the enemy; there was much talk of enemies at home as well as abroad. 49 J. H . Thomas, of the Railwaymen, deplored such attacks, and remarked on the complete integrity of every delegate present. In supporting attendance at Stockholm, Thomas stressed the possible impact such a meeting might have on the powerful German militarist element. If Lord Newton and others were permitted to meet the enemy in wartime, Thomas said, there was no reason for labor's representatives to fear doing the same. 50 T h e Sexton amendment, when put to the vote, was overwhelmingly *7 Labour 48 Labour 49 Labour 50 Labour

Party Party Party Party

Report, 16. Report, 18. Report, 18-19. Report, 19.

30

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

defeated. 51 The vote on the principal motion showed 1,846,000 favouring attendance at Stockholm, and 550,000 opposed.52 The victory was Henderson's; all that remained was to select the delegation. This proved to be no easy matter. Hostility towards the I.L.P. and the B.S.P., always latent, now emerged into the open. A resolution fixing the size of the delegation at twenty-four, with the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress, and the Special Conference each selecting eight, was amended by William Adamson of the Fifeshire Miners, who asked that "no further additions thereto shall be permitted from any affiliated or unaffiliated body in this country." 53 Adamson complained of InterAllied Labour Conferences, where the socialist societies sent sixteen delegates for their 35,000 members while the millions of organized trade unionists sent twenty. That sort of "gerrymandering" would have to stop. Ernest Bevin seconded the amendment and after a brief debate it was carried by a vote of 1,813,000 to 432,00ο.54 The mood of the conference was revealed in an instant. Composed overwhelmingly of trade union delegates, it was prepared to accept a major policy change recommended by one of its own trusted leaders, but its feelings remained unchanged about pacifist socialist groups in general who happened to be voting for the same policy for reasons of their own. The decision to go to Stockholm represented a vote of confidence in an individual, Arthur Henderson; it did not indicate a more basic alteration of sentiment. Henderson's success was destined to be short-lived. In recommending that the conference vote for going to Stockholm, he made inevitable a break with Lloyd George and his withdrawal from the Cabinet. While he may have hoped that this would be achieved with a minimum of political struggle, such was not to be the case. Henderson submitted his resignation on Saturday, August 1 1 , and rose in the House of Commons the following Monday to explain his action. Reminding the House that he had gone to Paris after informing his colleagues of his intentions, he revealed, for the first time publicly, 51 52 53 54

Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Party Party Party

Report, 20. Report, 20. Report, 20. Report, 21.

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

3I

55

the indignities he had suffered on his return. The proceedings of Cabinet meetings were confidential, and Henderson made no attempt to detail the pressures imposed on him by his Cabinet colleagues, but the House understood what they had been. The Prime Minister, in replying to Henderson, dismissed his argument with the remark that it dealt with issues of no great consequence; it was scarcely deserving of the attention of the House.5® Lloyd George told of the Cabinet meeting of August 8, where Henderson had left the impression on eight persons, some members of the Cabinet and some not, that he would urge the Labour Party Conference to reject the Stockholm proposal.57 Even more damaging was the Prime Minister's assertion that Henderson possessed, at the moment that he addressed the Labour Party meeting, a communication from the Russian government expressing its disinterest in the Stockholm Conference. While the Provisional Government could do nothing to prevent the conference, it had no desire to promote it. Lloyd George stated that he personally had asked Henderson to inform the Labour Party of this message. Henderson, he suggested, had intentionally failed to do so.58 In his own remarks, Henderson had referred to this matter, explaining that while he had never seen the Russian document in question, he had heard of it through Professor Mantoux, who had seen it at the French Embassy. Henderson had for that reason included in his Labour Party Conference speech a reference to the fact that "there has been some modification of the position of the new [Russian] Government as compared with the old on the question of the proposed Conference." 59 Having never seen the communication, Henderson felt that he could hardly be expected to say more. As for the Prime Minister's note, in which he urged a full explanation of the Russian government's new position, Henderson claimed that it arrived too late, reaching him just as the conference was preparing to adjourn for lunch. 80 65 56 57 58 69 60

Commons Commons Commons Commons Commons Commons

Debates, XCVII Debates, XCVII Debates, XCVII Debates, XCVII Debates, XCVII Debates, XCVII

(1917), (1917), (1917), (1917), (1917), (1917),

914. 924. 927. 930. 923. 922. This was probably the weakest point in

32

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Henderson's explanation failed to satisfy the Commons and may well have served to confuse the public. The Prime Minister, with his usual resourcefulness in debate, chose carefully the ground for attack. He quibbled over small details and returned to the principal issue only to state the unqualified opposition of the United States, France, and Italy to any meeting with the enemy. When the Allies thought the time propitious for peace talks, Great Britain would be represented by a national delegation and not by the representatives of a minority party. This was Lloyd George's final answer to the Labour Party agitation.61 The Prime Minister emerged the victor in the exchange. Parliament, scheduled to begin a two-month recess that same week, was not likely to reconsider the question in the autumn. MacDonald, in an attempt to keep the matter alive, raised it in the adjournment debate. Arguing that the wording of the Russian telegram suggested that it was a reply to a message sent by some government or some agent, MacDonald deplored the use of such pressure to compel the Russians to make an anti-Stockholm declaration. Finding nothing spontaneous in the message, he refused to believe that it had not been invited by an outside source.62 To support his argument, MacDonald read from a Daily News dispatch filed by Arthur Ransome which told of an interview with Kerensky, in which the Russian leader specifically disclaimed any hostility towards the Stockholm meeting. Kerensky had given Ransome permission to quote his remarks in the British press.63 In replying for the Government, Bonar Law repudiated the idea that the Russian telegram was anything but spontaneous, or that it had been exacted through British pressure.64 MacDonald had never made the second charge, but Bonar Law was untroubled by so minor Henderson's argument. It would have been a simple matter to inform the conference of the Prime Minister's note in its afternoon session. Also, the Prime Minister was able to claim that he had sent a second copy of the Russian letter with his own note, with the special request that it be read to the conference. Text of the Russian note is given in Lloyd George, Memoirs, IV, 160-61. 61 This is a characteristic example of how Lloyd George managed to convert a political question into one which seemed to have larger significance. 62 Commons Debates, XCVII ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 1499. 63 Commons Debates, XCVII ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 1501-02. 64 Commons Debates, XCVII ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 1523.

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

33

a technicality. He argued that until the Russian government sent its telegram, its sponsorship of the conference had been unquestioned.65 Who believed this, and the basis for the opinion, L a w did not bother to say. His concern was only to announce that so long as British soldiers were dying at the front the Government would continue to refuse passports to individuals intending to meet enemy nationals.86 Philip Snowden, who replied for Labour, corrected Bonar L a w on at least one point. He explained that the Labour Party had never believed the Russian government responsible for the invitations to Stockholm. Kerensky's statement showed that he was personally sympathetic, but that was a matter of small moment. The Stockholm Conference was not to be a meeting of governments, but of the international socialist democracy.67 Snowden asked that the House restrict its recess to three weeks. In this he was defeated; the Government had satisfied the Commons on the Henderson issue. While Parliament discussed the rights and wrongs of Henderson's behaviour, the adjourned Labour Party Conference prepared to reconvene to select its Stockholm delegation. The Government's refusal to issue passports made a renewed discussion of the whole project likely. When the delegates reassembled in London on August 21, they expressed displeasure with the Government's passport policy, but seemed reluctant otherwise to challenge it. The question of sending delegates was opened anew, and all the old arguments were restated. When the vote was finally taken, 1,234,000 ballots were cast in favour of a Labour delegation being sent to Stockholm; 1,231,000 ballots recommended abstention.68 A majority of well over a million, registered ten days previously, had dwindled to a meager three thousand. This extraordinary change reflected principally the movement of a single large union, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, from one camp to the other. The bloc vote system made such dramatic reversals fairly common65

Comptons Debates, XCVII ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 1525. Commons Debates, XCVII ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 1526. 97 Commons Debates, XCVII ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 1528-29. 68 Report of the iyth Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1 9 1 8 ) , i o l i . This offers a brief summary of the August 21 meeting. No printed verbatim account exists, but the Labour Party possesses one in typescript. This is available in the Transport House Library, London. ββ

34

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

place at Labour Party conferences.69 By an even larger majority than at its August io meeting, the conference voted to prevent the socialist societies from sending their own delegations to Stockholm. 70 With so small a majority, and with the Government adamant in its refusal to issue passports, it was obvious that nothing would come of the motion. It only remained to perform a decent rite of interment. Bob Smillie, on behalf of the Parliamentary Committee, performed this service at the T.U.C.'s annual meeting in September. The unanimity with which the delegates received his pious and thoroughly emasculated motion left no doubt that the trade unions intended no further fight on the issue. The motion read: In view of the divergence of opinion, we have come to the conclusion that a conference at Stockholm at the present moment could not be successful, and in the light of all the circumstances we make the following recommendations : — 1. W e recommend that the Parliamentary Committee attempt in every possible way to secure general agreement among the working classes of the allied nations, as, in our opinion, this is a fundamental condition of a successful international conference. 2. W e are strongly of opinion that an international Labour and Socialist International would be of the greatest service, and is a necessary preliminary to the conclusion of a lasting and democratic peace, and we recommend that the T . U . C . Parliamentary Committee be empowered to assist to arrange and take part in such a conference. 71

The Stockholm agitation forms an interesting and important chapter in British Labour history. The power of the individual Labour leader was fully demonstrated; the party would never have voted as it did on August io but for the trust it placed in Arthur Henderson. That the party practically reversed itself eleven days later indicated more about the limitations of Henderson's appeal than it 8 9 The bloc vote system made it impossible for a trade union to split its vote on a particular motion. The majority within the trade union gave all the union's vote to one or the other of the sides. This was a constant source of irritation to nontrade-union elements in the party. 7 0 Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 37. 71 Report of the 49th Trades Union Congress (London, 1917), 70. The allusion to "divergence of opinion" related to differences encountered at an Inter-Allied Conference on August 28-29. T h ' s was only a pretext for the resolution. Actually, differences within the British Labour movement were more significant.

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

35

did about the independence of the rank and file. By the personal loyalties which he inspired, Henderson assured the Stockholm project of an initial acceptance. Had he argued his case more forcefully at the Labour Party Conference, in Parliament, and in private discussions with individual trade union leaders, the reluctance of the Miners to vote his way a second time might have been overcome. Henderson probably misunderstood the urgency of his own proposal. His knowledge of Russia, acquired in a brief visit, prepared him for lecturing to even less well-informed trade union colleagues, but did not afford him that complete understanding necessary to an effective propaganda campaign. He spoke in glowing terms of Kerensky, welcomed the opportunity to aid him, but failed somehow to convey the urgency which another in his position might have done. Henderson was probably incapable of doing more. These remarks are not meant to suggest that if the Stockholm Conference had taken place, significant results would have followed. That, for obvious reasons, one cannot hope to know. However, it is possible to argue that the failure of the agitation encouraged Lloyd George and others in their policy of continuing the war without seriously attending to the problem of issuing a war aims declaration. A legitimate Russian grievance existed, but instead of coping with it, every effort was made to distort or ignore it. Henderson, in seeking to convert the Labour Party to an idea that it had repudiated in January, embarked upon a program of mass education. His allies—MacDonald, Snowden, and others of the I.L.P. —gifted as orators and propagandists, had little to offer, given the conditions of 1917. Compelled to withstand a press campaign of unequaled ferocity, ably abetted by Lloyd George, Henderson did what he could to inform the public of the true state of affairs in Russia. T h a t he failed to impress his views on the Labour Party is not surprising. Once his failure was recognized, the conditions of war necessitated a quiet and dignified withdrawal from the Cabinet. However much Henderson may have wished to correct the record, the politics of the Coalition Government required him to remain silent. His seat in the W a r Cabinet was filled by another Labourite, George Barnes, and the possibility of a general Labour Party withdrawal from the

36

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Government was not even broached. The successful prosecution of the war, as an issue, transcended all others. In such a circumstance, it was difficult to impress the British public with the tragedy playing itself out on the Russian stage, to which it sat silent witness. In documenting the Stockholm Conference agitation, it has been necessary to pass over other British Labour reactions to the Russian revolutionary developments. The story of the Leeds Convention of June 1917—that curious occasion, when, in a sudden moment of excitement, Britons voted to create Soviets in their midst, and then promptly forgot to do anything more about it—is deserving of some attention. The Leeds Convention, organized by a group which called itself the United Socialist Council, had as its purpose the "welcoming" of the Russian revolution.72 The reputation of the conveners caused civic authorities and hotels to temper their greetings, but this calculated coldness did not prevent some twelve hundred delegates from coming to the Yorkshire city for the one-day meeting. Representatives of Trades Councils, local Labour Parties, the I.L.P. and B.S.P., womens' organizations, small socialist societies, and other miscellaneous groups attended. Illness kept George Lansbury from the meeting which his newspaper, The Herald, had been advertising for weeks. Other prominent pacifists and antiwar leaders were there in good number. Ramsay MacDonald moved the first resolution which congratulated the Russian people on their revolution. Addressing the convention, MacDonald said: It is fashionable in some quarters in this country to say "We congratulate the Russians upon the Revolution, but in some respects we regret it." But today we congratulate the Russians on the Revolution without any reservations whatever. We do it not because the Revolution has happened, but because for years we wanted it to happen. We are glad not because we are compelled to be glad—but because it is in accordance with our democratic principles to be glad. . . . The old Russian Government was a sink of corruption. It was the most corrupt of all the Governments of Europe. St. Petersburg was the nursery of the very worst forms of diplomacy. . . . Its policy was bound 72 The Herald, June 9, 1917. Francis Johnson of the I.L.P. and Albert Inkpin of the B.S.P. were chiefly responsible for the arrangements.

LABOUR AND T H E MARCH REVOLUTION

37

ultimately to make for war. . . . When this war broke out organised Labour in this country lost the initiative. It became a mere echo of the old governing classes' opinions. Now the Russian Revolution has given you the chance to take the initiative yourselves. Let us lay down our terms, make our own proclamations, establish our own diplomacy, see to it that we have our own international meetings. Let us say to the Russian democracy, "In the name of everything you hold sacred in politics, in morality, in good government, and in progress, restrain the anarchy in your midst, find a cause for unity, maintain your Revolution, stand by your liberties, put yourselves at the head of the peoples of Europe." 7 3 Philip Snowden followed with a resolution expressing satisfaction with Russia's war aims; it read in part: We pledge ourselves to work for an agreement with the international democracies for the reëstablishment of a general peace which shall not tend towards either dominion by or over any nation, or the seizure of their national possessions, or the violent usurpations of their territories— a peace without annexations or indemnities and based upon the rights of nations to decide their own affairs; and as a first step towards this aim we call upon the British Government immediately to announce its agreement with the declared foreign policy and war aims of the democratic Government of Russia. 74 A member of the Seaman's Union rose to inquire who would support widows and children of dead seamen in the absence of an indemnity. Cries of the "shipowners" were reported to have silenced him. 7 5 W h e n Ernest Bevin rose to speak, the Chair appealed to the delegates to grant him a fair hearing; in the L e e d s assembly he was considered an unregenerate "patriot." Bevin asked what would happen if Snowden's resolution became the policy of a large majority in the L a b o u r movement, was eventually forced upon the Government, but produced no effect in Germany. W o u l d the I.L.P. and other likeminded organizations then join in a vigorous prosecution of the w a r ? British Labour's experience with G e r m a n Social Democrats had not been altogether happy in the past. What evidence did dele73 74 76

The Herald, The Herald, The Herald,

June 9, 1 9 1 7 . June 9, 1 9 1 7 . June 9, 1 9 1 7 .

38

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

gates have for believing that things had changed in Germany ? Bevin observed that Bob Smillie, the Convention chairman, had said : "The tide is on the rise for us." "On the rise for whom," Bevin asked, "the professional politicians of the Labour Party?" Protests were heard in the hall and the chairman informed Bevin that his time was up. Snowden's resolution passed with only two or three dissenters.™ The resolution on civil liberties, which followed, included demands for political rights for all men and women, unrestricted freedom of the press, freedom of speech, a general amnesty for all political and religious prisoners, full rights of political and industrial association, and the release of labor from all forms of compulsion and restraint, thereby "placing [Britain] in accord with the democracy of Russia." 7 7 Bertrand Russell addressed the convention in behalf of the thousands of conscientious objectors still in prison. 78 William C. Anderson, M.P., moved the final resolution, which read: This Conference calls upon the constituent bodies at once to establish in every town, urban and rural district, Councils of Workmen and Soldiers' Delegates for initiating and coordinating working-class activity in support of the policy set out in the foregoing resolutions, and to work strenuously for a peace made by the peoples of the various countries, and for the complete political and economic emancipation of international labour. . . . And further, that the conveners of this Conference shall be appointed a Provisional Committee, whose duty shall be to assist the formation of local Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils and generally to give effect to the policy determined by this Conference.79 In speaking on the resolution, Anderson admitted that many would discover in it a call for revolution. To those, he said: "If a revolution be the conquest of political power by a hitherto disinherited class, if revolution be that we are not going to put up in the future with what we have put up in the past, we are not going to have the shams and poverty of the past, then the sooner we have revolution in this country the better. . . . W e set up an organisation, 7iThe 77 78 79

Herald, June 9, 1917.

The Herald, The Herald, The Herald,

June 9, 1917. June 9, 1917. June 9, 1917.

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

39

not subversive, not unconstitutional unless the authorities care to make it so; an organisation which is a definite challenge to tyranny wherever tyranny may show itself." 80 So mild an interpretation of the resolution's purpose offended the "revolutionary" ardor of the seconder, Robert Williams, of the Transport Workers' Federation, who saw no reason to mince words at so stirring a moment. For him the resolution meant nothing more nor less than the "dictatorship of the proletariat." 81 He recommended that those with cold feet depart swiftly from the convention, for Leeds was determined to break the influence of Labour's decrepit political and industrial machine. Parliament had never done anything for the working masses and never would. If the Russians had respected their constitution, they would have remained slaves of the Romanovs. Britons, Williams argued, had to be prepared to show an equal contempt for their own constitution. 82 Sylvia Pankhurst, on mounting the platform, expressed her conviction that the Provisional Committee selected at Leeds would one day be the Provisional Government of Great Britain. 83 With that said, no greater praise was possible. Willie Gallacher and Dick Wallhead, who followed, seemed incapable of expressing a sentiment more noble and inspiring. The convention closed amidst a chorus of enthusiastic song. The Leeds Convention stands out as one of the great anomalies in British Labour experience. T o deny the enthusiasm which it evoked would be to distort its quality, as would be any attempt to disclaim the idealism which found expression there. Yet, those things admitted, the problem remains of explaining the behavior of noted "constitutionalists" like Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden who seemed suddenly to have abandoned years of "parliamentary" preaching. How were such men able to agree to a resolution creating extraparliamentary Soviets with sovereign powers? The most generous interpretation would be that they were themselves swept along by the emotion of the mass. The least generous would be that they s0

The The 82 The 83 The sl

Herald, Herald, Herald, Herald,

June June June June

9, 9, 9, 9,

1917. 1917. 1917. 1917.

40

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

knew that nothing would come of the whole effort and simply enjoyed the platform provided them. It was not an inconsiderable platform, for among those who attended or supported the meeting were certain of the most influential and well-known leaders of the Labour movement. Bob Smillie, George Lansbury, T o m Mann, Will Anderson, Ben Tillett, Bob Williams, Dick Wallhead were all persons of note in the Labour community; some of them had been the chief architects of the new unions created in the previous century. T o be allied with such persons had certain political advantages of which MacDonald and Snowden cannot have been ignorant. T h e Leeds Convention was a characteristic expression of British Labour sentiment in the summer of 1917. In its admiration for all things Russian, a parallel with the later Communist idealization of the Soviet state may be discovered; the difference in motivation needs to be noted. T h e delegates at Leeds knew almost nothing about Russia, the Provisional Government, or the Soviets; they understood only that the Russian people, in their troubles, looked abroad for material and other assistance. Certain British Labour groups believed that the revolution would hasten the advent of peace; this provided a practical reason for an otherwise gratuitous support. T o be proRussian in these circumstances involved no sacrifice of friends at home. A n d yet, the Leeds Convention needs to be viewed in a proper perspective; if it had existed only to extend good will to a beleaguered ally, every segment of British Labour opinion would have been fully represented. T h e absence of so many prominent individuals and groups testified to the narrow base on which the meeting was organized. T h e pacifists of the I.L.P. and B.S.P., responsible for its convocation, and dominant in its debates, kept other equally powerful labor groups away. A m o n g those who did attend, probably few understood even the meaning of the term Soviet. Such strange concepts, neither comprehended nor explained, passed the inspection of persons who came not so much to debate as to applaud. T h e Leeds Convention was a well-staged demonstration and as such left no permanent mark on the Labour movement. If the more bizarre qualities of the convention stand out in retrospect, they must not be thought to have been equally apparent to those w h o lived closer to the event. There is something comic in an

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

41

84

account left by Will Thorne of an interview with the king in which the Leeds Convention was the chief topic of conversation; Thorne wrote: The King seemed greatly disturbed about the famous Leeds Conference, and asked me if I knew anything about it. I said, "Yes, I know all about it. I've read all the proceedings." I also told him about the telegram that had been sent from the Conference that made the Russians think that we were spies, and he was amused at my story of the incidents that had happened over this message. "Do you think any ill will come from this Conference at Leeds and the decisions that were made there?" the King asked me. "No," I said; "I've seen these things happen before many times in days gone by, and in my humble judgment there will never be a physical violent revolution in this country. But there will have to be many political and industrial changes within the course of the next few years." This seemed to relieve his mind, and he spoke to me in a most homely and pleasant way. I was very pleased.85 British Labour remained sympathetic towards the Russian Revolution throughout the spring and summer of 1917, but never thought to develop a policy which involved doing something more than affirming its good-will. The news from Russia, sparse and contradictory, gave no indication of the extreme peril in which the Provisional Government found itself. In September 1917, when the government passed through yet another internal crisis, British Labour did little more than reiterate its concern and express the hope that this threat would be overcome as had all the previous ones. However, even this modest support contrasted widely with the attitude of other British groups who seemed anxious that Kornilov should succeed in bringing down the Kerensky regime.86 The Manchester Guardian spoke of "nothing being more shameful than the bitter hostility displayed in our own Prussian press towards a friendly Government struggling with incredible difficulties within and without." 87 84

Cf. supra, 23-24. Thorne, My Life's Battles, 195. Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, I, 192-221. An excellent account of the Kornilov episode. 87 Manchester Guardian, September 1 1 , 1917. 85

86

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Times, the chief offender, published editorials of which the following is typical : Superficially, it may seem that General Kornilov, with Cossack help, is aiming at a military dictatorship, while M. Kerensky stands for the democratic principle of civil control. The facts do not support this view. . . . This is not a simple conflict between a would-be military dictator and the advocates of civil control of a constitutional nature. There is no Government at all in Russia at the moment. There are two rival dictators, General Kornilov and M. Kerensky, and the supporters of the soldier appear to advocate a reversion to constitutional methods.88 In another editorial The Times depicted the Provisional Government as the prisoner of the Petrograd Soviet, a body which it proceeded to describe in the words of "a Scotsman just returned from Russia." H e was reported to have declared it: A self-constituted organisation of idealists, theorists, anarchists, syndicalists, who are largely of the international Jew type, who have hardly any working men or soldiers among them, and some of whom are known to be in German pay.89 With Parliament in recess, labor lacked a proper forum in which to express its views. Its weekly periodicals were filled with expressions of disgust at the perversions of fact regularly disseminated in the so-called respectable press. 90 When Kornilov was finally defeated, Labour partisans gloated over the discomfiture of Kerensky's critics in Britain. 91 T h e editor of the Liberal Daily News expressed an opinion that might reasonably have appeared in a Labour journal when he wrote: I do not think anyone who believes in the Revolution can have watched the attitude of this country in regard to Russia, as reflected in the press this week, without indignation and concern. With a few exceptions, the newspapers have declared for Kornilov and against Kerensky. The Northcliffe organs have fed their readers with slanderous ridicule of the Soviet and of Kerensky, and the mad dervishes of the Morning Post The The 90 The Bathurst. aiThe 88 89

Times, Times, Times Neither Herald,

September 1 2 , 1 9 1 7 . September 1 3 , 1 9 1 7 . was then owned by Lord Northcliffe; the Morning Post by Lady showed restraint in its handling of Russian news items. September 22, 1 9 1 7 ; Labour Leader, September 20, 1 9 1 7 .

LABOUR AND THE MARCH REVOLUTION

43

have adopted the cause of the rebel general with as much enthusiasm as if he had been a Tariff Reform candidate. They thought it was a walkover for the Military Dictator and their glee was undisguised. But it has been short lived. The coup has not come off. Kerensky and the Revolution survive. . . . But the peril is not over. It will come again and we ought to make up our minds whether we are for the Revolution or against it, for reaction or liberty, for the Russian Tsar or the Russian people—whether in short, the claim that we are fighting this war for freedom and democracy is a sham or a reality. . . . This mad dervishism does not represent the real mind of the country towards the Revolution, but it does represent much that is most powerful in the country.92 As Britain moved into the fourth autumn of war, the Labour Party directed its attention increasingly to the home front. 93 Developments at home in the industrial sphere overshadowed interest in nonmilitary foreign questions. The events of November, leading to the Bolshevik coup, were scarcely noted. As in March, so in November, Britons awoke surprised by the news of revolution which issued from the East. A new chapter in Anglo-Russian relations opened; the errors of the past receded into insignificance beside those destined to be made. Labour leaders always wanted to assist the Provisional Government, but showed no great capacity for translating their good will into measures of positive support. Henderson, in reëstablishing communication between the pacifist and prowar elements of his party, succeeded for a short time in pressing for a measure which he believed the Russians sought. But even this limited objective was never realized. A larger policy the Labour Party never conceived; it was satisfied to render statements of sympathy and congratulation. Its failure to offer more tangible aid probably made no difference in the end; the Provisional Government's fate was sealed by happenings inside Russia. 92 93

Daily News, September 1 5 , 1 9 1 7 . Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 38.

CHAPTER

III

Labour and the November Revolution

THE BOLSHEVIKS seized power on November 7, 1917; within twentyfour hours Lenin announced the government's intention of opening peace negotiations.1 Two weeks later, Trotsky, minister for foreign affairs, addressed notes to the Allied powers asking them to consider the peace terms formulated by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.2 That same day, November 23, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestiia began publishing selections from the diplomatic correspondence of the tsarist government and the Entente powers.3 Trotsky hailed the event as the fulfilment of the Bolshevik promise to reveal the deceptions perpetrated by "financiers and industrialists, together with their parliamentary and diplomatic agents" on an unsuspecting public.4 Britain was inadequately and belatedly informed of most of these developments; its diet of Russian news, particularly in the first days after the revolution, consisted largely of rumor and hearsay. The more "patriotic" journals, though lacking information, lost no time in condemning the new regime. Their readers were reminded of long-standing prophecies that such would be the miserable end of revolution. On November 9, the Morning Post thought itself suf1 James Bunyan and H. H. Fisher, The Bolshevik. Revolution 1934), 125-28. Text of the proclamation is given. 2 Bunyan and Fisher, Bolshevik. Revolution, 243. 3 Bunyan and Fisher, Bolshevik Revolution, 242. 4 Bunyan and Fisher, Bolshevik Revolution, 243-44.

/ 9 / 7 - / 9 / S (Stanford,

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45

ficiently informed on Russian affairs to headline its chief editorial "Revolution Made In Germany"; this read in part: M. Kerensky has been deposed by those Revolutionary forces which raised him to power, and the Soviet, which has for some time governed indirectly, has now openly taken over the Government. . . . From the outset the German influence in the Soviet has been thinly disguised. Some time ago we gave a list of members of that remarkable council who had seen fit to change their names, and the number was considerable. These conspirators were evidently Russian Jews of German extraction, and we fear it may now be said that the Russian Jews have betrayed Russia. . . . It goes without saying that the Allies can never recognise a Russian Government whose first proposal is a separate peace. The followers of Lenin have usurped power in Petrograd, but they have given no evidence that they represent Russia as a whole, and it is questionable if they will survive. But whether they survive or not, they are the declared enemies of the Entente powers and the open friends of Germany. Therefore there can be no dealings with them. It remains only for the Allied nations to reach by some means the heart of the Russian people themselves and those elements in Russia which are true to the cause of the Allies. We think this is a task in which the U. S. and Japan might exercise their new-found power of friendly cooperation. And France and England might also shape a new Russian policy out of the ruins of the old. It should be a policy to appeal to the heroic elements of Russia, those elements which realise that any peace with Prussia means slavery and death for the Russian nation.5 Nonrecognition and Allied intervention—the twin pillars of subsequent British policy—were envisaged in this early editorial. The Times seemed no less certain that the "real" Russia would never consent to a separate peace, and that "her proved military valour, her instinct for decent and orderly life" would prevail in the end.® The liberal newspapers, the Manchester Guardian and Daily News, discovered a substantially different moral in the situation. Arguing that the cause of the revolution was not Germany but Britain, these dailies recalled Britain's hostility towards the Provisional Government's numerous requests for an Allied declaration of war aims. The British press abuse of the Kerensky regime, and the Government's 5 6

Morning Post, November 9, 1917. The Times, November 9, 1917.

ύβ

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

refusal to issue passports to Labourites desiring to go to Stockholm constituted other articles in the general indictment.7 Labour journals took much the same position; Snowden, in the Labour Leader, expressed a characteristic sentiment when he wrote : If the Governments of the Western nations had shown sympathy with the Russian Revolution, if they had met the demands of Russia for a restatement of the Allied War Aims, if they had shown some desire to help Russia to consolidate the fruits of the Revolution, Russia would not have been today in the position of what the United States Government has described as something worse than a neutral.8 This mood of regret over what might have happened had the Government pursued a different foreign policy gave way to one of positive anger when the Manchester Guardian began publication of the "secret treaties," as translated from the Russian press.9 The Union of Democratic Control,10 an organization deriving its support chiefly from Labour and independent Liberal sources, had long protested the evils of "secret diplomacy," and now assumed the lead in the agitation that developed. Arthur Ponsonby, a Liberal destined soon to transfer his allegiance to the Labour Party, denounced the Government in an impassioned speech in Parliament; addressing the Government front bench he said: You have prostituted the original disinterested motives for which this country entered the War, and you have substituted for them a mean craving for vengeance and punishment, a sordid desire for gain, and an arrogant demand for Imperial aggrandisement and domination, without the consent of the people, secretly and surreptitiously making declarations all the while which were deceitful and false.11 In this atmosphere of growing disillusion and recrimination, the Labour Party met to prepare and publish its own statement of war aims. The Labour Party Executive, having presented a Draft MemoI

Manchester Guardian, November 9, 1 9 1 7 ; Daily News, November 9, 1 9 1 7 . Labour Leader, November 29, 1 9 1 7 . 9 The Manchester Guardian printed these documents in several installments. Beginning on December 1 2 , 1 9 1 7 , they continued to be published through February 22, 1918. 10 A history of the Union of Democratic Control is available in Helena M. Swanwick, Builders of Peace (London, 1 9 2 4 ) . II Commons Debates, C ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2008. 8

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

47

randum on War Issues to the Special Conference of August io, 12 submitted this document, with revisions, to a joint conference of the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party on December 28,1917. This body proceeded to accept it as a true statement of Labour's sentiments concerning a peace settlement.13 The declaration called for the establishment of a League of Nations, an International High Court, and an International Legislature. Imperialist motives were denounced; it was proposed that new nation-states be created in the Balkans, based on the "independent sovereignty of the several nationalities," and united in a customs union. Poland and Luxembourg were guaranteed the right to decide their own futures, as were the citizens of Alsace-Lorraine. Italia Irredenta was to be restored to Italy. Jews were to be protected in their citizenship rights everywhere, and the creation of a free Jewish state in Palestine was promised. The dependencies of Turkey and Germany were to be placed under an International Commission of the League of Nations, to be administered by that body till they were ready for full independence. Constantinople was to be declared a free port, to be supervised by an International Commission which would regulate traffic through the Dardanelles.14 As soon as the document was accepted, a Labour Party delegation made its way to No. 10 Downing Street to discuss it with the Prime Minister. Lloyd George could not but be embarrassed by such agitation. Only a month previously he had argued the impossibility of the Government issuing a war aims declaration. Now, with the Russians negotiating for peace, calling for a settlement without annexations or indemnities, and the Secret Allied agreements spread before the British public, the Labour Party sought to pressure the Government into an explicit disavowal of all suspect diplomatic ambitions. In his Memoirs, published years later, Lloyd George explained his capitulation. Britain, he argued, was at that moment approaching the most difficult stage of the war; pacifist propaganda, operating on war weariness, was threatening to undermine the nation's morale.15 The 12 Austin van der Slice, International Labour, Diplomacy, (Philadelphia, 1 9 4 1 ) , 1 0 2 . 13 The Labour Year Booh,, 1919 (London, 1 9 1 9 ) , 25. 14 The Herald, December 22, 1 9 1 7 . 15 Lloyd George, Memoirs, V , 37.

and Peace

1914-1918

48

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

I.L.P. and MacDonald, securing greater influence day by day, could be stopped only by a dramatic gesture on the Government's part which would instantly reassure the public. 16 Lloyd George admitted that the Government's relations with the trade unions were deteriorating; as he put it, "the difficulties with our man-power had almost produced a deadlock with the trade unions. Without their goodwill and cooperation, we could not have secured further recruits from amongst the exempted—certainly not without a resistance which might have alienated organised labour throughout the land." 1 7 In this last remark, Lloyd George gave a true estimate of the situation. Labour's declaration of December 28 resembled a dozen others published by the I.L.P. and pacifist groups throughout the war, but never before had the trade unions agreed to support such views. T h e uniqueness of the December document lay not in its content but in its support. N o Government could risk offending so powerful a constituent element or ignore the alteration of sentiment which explained its new position. These were the circumstances that dictated the Prime Minister's appearance before a special conference of trade union delegates during the first week of the new year. In a speech remarkable for its ambiguities and omissions, Lloyd George told of the ends for which Britain fought, and for which she would continue to fight till victory was assured. Britain sought not the destruction of Germany or the German people, but only the assertion of the supremacy of law over brute force. There was no intention, the Prime Minister said, of obliterating Austria-Hungary, or depriving Turkey of its capital or of other areas in Asia Minor and Thrace with a predominantly Turkish population. 18 T h e "secret Allied agreements," published in the Manchester Guardian, which promised Russia control of Constantinople and the Straits, were not alluded to. Lloyd George limited his îemarks on Russia to the vague statement: We shall be proud to fight to the end side by side with the new democracy of Russia, so will America and so will France and Italy. But if the present rulers of Russia take action which is independent of their Allies 16 17 18

Lloyd George, Memoirs, V, 38. Lloyd George, Memoirs, V, 38. Lloyd George, Memoirs, V, 64-5.

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

49

we have no means of intervening to arrest the catastrophe which is assuredly befalling their country. Russia can only be saved by her own people.19 T h e Prime Minister spoke about restoring Belgium's independence, reconsidering the 1871 decision on Alsace-Lorraine, granting independence to Balkan nations in accordance with the principle of selfdetermination, and neutralizing and internationalizing the Straits. A Peace Conference would settle the future status of the German colonies, the interests of the natives being duly respected.20 While avoiding any reference to the "no annexations and no indemnities" formula, Lloyd George had in effect promised a peace settlement based on such principles. President Wilson's Fourteen Points, proclaimed three days later, provided even more impressive evidence of a change in Allied policy. That the British Prime Minister and the American President had seen fit to issue these statements suggested the abandonment of earlier, more questionable designs. In Britain, pacifists and trade unionists, anti-Coalitionists and Government partisans joined in congratulating the Prime Minister on reversing a policy that had claimed to see an advantage in silence. Snowden praised Labour for having compelled the Government to take action, and suggested that the same sort of pressure could drive the Government even further. "It can," he said, "compel the Government to respond to the appeal of the Russian Government to join in the Peace Conference now in progress between Russia and the Central Powers." 2 1 If the I.L.P. thought the problem a continuing one, requiring an ever increasing pressure on the Government, trade unionists were of a different mind. They were entirely satisfied with the existing achievement. Allied war aims had been declared; the next move lay with the Germans. If the enemy was sincere in its quest for peace, it could not fail to take advantage of terms so equitable and just. While Snowden argued for British participation in the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, Henderson, representative of a wider segment of Labour opinion, remarked: 19 21 20

Lloyd George, Memoirs, V, 69-70. Labour Leader, January 10, 1918. Lloyd George, Memoirs, V, 66-73.

50

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

British Labour's leaders could only be justified in asking the Government to cooperate with the Bolsheviks in the present negotiations if Germany and her Allies officially made it clear that there was such similarity in the aims of the Central Powers and the principles of the Russian Revolution and the vital parts of the statement of Mr. Lloyd George as would justify the hope of settlement being reached. . . . W e ask our Russian comrades to believe that British Labour is acting in good faith, and that we are on guard against any perversion of the principles for which we stand by sinister imperialism. . . . I will now make an urgent and definite request to our comrades in Russia. If they reach any basis of agreement with the Central Powers for a general peace, I ask them to insist that the Central Powers shall submit this basis for the consideration of all the Governments and peoples concerned. They can then depend upon it that the representatives of British Labour will do all in their power to see that they receive a clear, candid, and reasoned reply. 22 T h e r e was an obvious lack of realism in Henderson's approach. T h e negotiations at Brest-Litovsk were not between equals, but between a beaten, disorganized suppliant, and a state which had just achieved a diplomatic and military victory of the first order. In these circumstances, it was inconceivable that Germany's terms would be such as to command respect in the West. T h e power balance, destroyed by the disintegration of Russia's armies, could have been restored only by an immediate and overwhelming Allied victory in the W e s t . Such an offensive, in the dead of winter, was militarily impossible. Russia might have struggled on, dragging the G e r m a n armies into her vast interior, but that was not the Bolshevik plan. L e n i n , in his T w e n t y - O n e Theses for Peace, explained that the success of the Bolshevik Revolution demanded an immediate end to hostilities; no other solution would serve to defeat Russia's "internal enemies." L e n i n admitted that Russia's armies were inadequate to halt a G e r m a n offensive, but thought the military problem unimportant. 2 3 T h e alternatives of war or peace did not exist for Russia; given her military and political predicament, her only choice could be peace. 22

The Herald, January 12, 1 9 1 8 . John W . Wheeler-Bennett, The ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 3 9 ) , 389. 23

Forgotten

Peace, Brest-Litovsk., March

1918

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

5I

In the British press, Maxim Litvinov 2 4 wrote of the dire consequences that would attend a defeat of the Russian Revolution ; militarism and reaction would triumph everywhere. 25 British Labour, except for its pacifist element, did not even comprehend the meaning of such warnings. T h e Allied war aims were known; Germany's failure to respond could only mean that undemocratic and expansionist groups, responsible for the war, continued to exercise power. T o compromise with such an enemy, undefeated and unreconciled, was to make a mockery of the sacrifice of millions who had fought for more than three long and difficult years. Lloyd George, in devising a war aims statement acceptable to Labour, secured an ally whose loyalty he had had reason to doubt a few weeks previously. Labour, in supporting the Government's statement, found new reason for believing in the justice of the Allied cause. T h e Labour Party's faith was so complete that it sought to convince the Bolsheviks that Britain sought only what they themselves approved, and that there was no difference of opinion between the two peoples. When the Parliamentary Committee of the T . U . C , and the Executive of the Labour Party issued invitations to an Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, Bowerman and Henderson addressed a special note to the Russians. It read : In this crisis the British people must speak. They must proclaim to the peoples of Russia and Central Europe that their aims are identical with those of Russia, that we, too, see no solution for the evils of militarism except in the principles of no annexations or punitive indemnities, and the right of peoples to determine their own destinies.26 Lenin, in replying, refused to participate in any Allied Socialist Conference, and reiterated his demand for the one policy suited to the moment; his telegram read: Russian Socialist Government regrets inability participate Allied Socialist Conference, as contrary to principles internationalism. We object to division of working classes according to imperialist grouping. If Brit24 25 26

Litvinov was the "unofficial" Bolshevik emissary in London. Labour Leader, January 10, 1 9 1 8 . Labour Leader, January 1 7 , 1 9 1 8 .

52

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ish Labour agrees to Russian peace aims, which are already accepted by Socialist Parties Central Powers, such division still more unwarranted.27 Lenin asked in 1918 what the experience of August 1914 showed to be impossible; he sought the creation of a united international workers' front opposed to war. Labour needed only to accede to his request and the organization would be launched. Lenin's words belied his thoughts. H e understood only too well the impotence of the German worker and the extreme unlikelihood of Germany's military and civil authorities being resisted by a disarrayed Social Democratic force. However, his own situation offered no other solution. Only a revolutionary upheaval on all sides could save Russia from the abominable peace treaty being prepared for her. Lenin, shrewd in his political analysis, probably understood how slight were his chances of success. His words fell on deaf ears. British Labour had no interest in altering its course; its aims were known; one day Germany would be compelled to accept them. That day would see Europe take the first step towards the establishment of a peaceful and integrated community. Labour had done all that might be legitimately expected of it. It was not yet the Government of Britain; its only proper function was to exert pressure to keep British statesmen faithful to a reasonable course already charted. In late February, the Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference met in London to draw up its own war aims memorandum. Delegates from all the major Allied states except the United States and Russia attended. T h e American Federation of Labor rejected the invitation because it expected "German influences" to dominate. T h e Bolsheviks were absent, as were the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, to whom Lenin refused passports.28 Preliminary talks having been held in Paris between the British, French, Italian, and Belgian labor groups, agreement on the agenda was quickly reached. Discussion centered largely on the British Memorandum on War Aims, which, with some modifications, became the Inter-Allied 27

The Herald, February 16, 1918.

28

Labour Year Book, 1919,

26-7.

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

53

Aims. 2 9

Labour and Socialist Memorandum on W a r The document satisfied every requirement for a peace without annexation, indemnity, or vindictiveness. Its influence was virtually nil. At the moment of its construction, the Germans at Brest-Litovsk presented the Bolsheviks with a set of demands almost without parallel in diplomatic history. The Russians had hoped, originally, that the German armies would evacuate Poland, Courland, and Lithuania, and that these territories would be returned to Russia in accord with the "no annexations" principle. 30 When the Germans refused absolutely, the Bolsheviks offered a compromise formula which called for the withdrawal of the German forces and the holding of plebiscites in these areas to determine their final disposition. The Central Powers were no more agreeable to this proposal. 31 In early February, when the Kaiser learned that the Bolsheviks, instead of desisting from further subversive propaganda at the front, were actually inciting his troops to mutiny and murder, the announcement was made that not only would Russia lose Poland, Courland, and Lithuania, but Livonia and Estonia as well. 32 Russia's chief negotiator, Trotsky, replied that while his country was prepared to demobilize its armies and cease all warlike activities, it would never accept a peace treaty containing such clauses. He explained: W e cannot place the signature of the Russian Revolution under these conditions which bring with them oppression, misery and hate to millions of human beings. The Governments of Germany and AustriaHungary are determined to possess peoples and lands by might. Let them do so openly. W e cannot approve violence. W e are going out of the war, but we feel ourselves compelled to refuse to sign the peace treaty. 33

The Bolshevik emissaries returned to Petrograd convinced that Germany would not dare to resume its attack; world opinion would deter her. 34 In this, as in other matters, the Russians were mistaken. 29 Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, Memorandum don, 1 9 1 8 ) . 30 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, 124. 31 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, 1 6 1 - 6 2 . 32 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, 222. 33 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, 227. 34 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, 236.

on War Aims (Lon-

54

BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Lenin received word on February 16 that Germany intended terminating the Armistice agreement within forty-eight hours. Trotsky's hopeful policy of "no war—no peace" had come to nothing. W h e n the German armies resumed their offensive on February 18, the Bolsheviks had no alternative but to announce their readiness to accept the treaty. 35 T h e Germans responded with a new offer of terms; these were even more oppressive than the ones originally offered. T o insure their acceptance, a forty-eight hour time limit was appended. 36 With the German armies advancing, the Russian plight grew more serious by the hour. T h e Bolsheviks argued passionately about the rights and wrongs of so ignominious a capitulation. In the end, Lenin's views carried the meeting; peace was an absolute necessity, no price could be too high. T h e Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, one of the most vindictive in modem history, was signed on March 3, 1918.37 Russia had at long last secured the peace it sought; the road to reconstruction lay open. Lenin, criticized inside Russia by those who regarded his capitulation as treason, suffered even more violent attacks in the Allied states, where Russia's defection was universally condemned. British Labour remained aloof from this campaign. Sympathizing with the Russians in their defeat, Labour leaders sought to extend whatever encouragement was possible. In a message to the Russian people, Henderson remarked: In the hour of Russia's agony the organised workers of Britain w o u l d wish m e to send a message of sympathy to their Socialist comrades. In this moment of total crisis in the fortunes of the Revolution, British Labour proclaims to the Socialist and working-class parties of Russia its undiminished faith in their eventual triumph. W e ask our Russian comrades to believe that w e have been no party to the policy pursued by the Allied Governments in their dealings with the first Provisional Government, especially their failure to clarify their w a r aims and revise their treaties. . . . W e are profoundly convinced that the shameful conditions imposed upon Russia by the Imperialist rulers of Austria and Germany 35 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten 3 6 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten 3 7 Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten

Peace, 245. Peace, 245. Peace, 403-8. T h e text of the Treaty is given.

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

55

cannot stand. They will have made a peace which is no peace. But the sacrifices which Russia has made for peace and freedom will not have been made in vain.88 Ramsay MacDonald said much the same thing in Parliament. 39 Philip Snowden, informed of an Entente declaration, critical of the Russian decision to accept the Brest-Litovsk proposals, commented bitterly: For cool impudence and hypocrisy it is entitled to take a front place among political documents. The last people to express any criticism of the Treaty which the German militarists have forced the Russian Government to accept are the statesmen of the Entente powers. It is they who are responsible for this. By their desertion of Russia, they left her helpless at the feet of Germany.40 Only a handful in the Labour movement thought to criticize the Russians for their withdrawal from the war. Henry Hyndman, 4 1 who had left the B.S.P. in 1916 because of its pacifist pronouncements, assumed the leadership of this minority. While representing no particular segment of Labour opinion, and lacking anything that might be mistaken for a personal following, Hyndman enjoyed a certain reputation for his agitations of an earlier day. In an article prepared for the Sunday Pictorial, titled "Democracy By Assassination," and subtitled " W h y W e Must Repudiate the Bolsheviks," Hyndman blended in a curious fashion his jingoistic and democratic prejudices; the article told something of the man and of his time; it read in part: There was, as everyone knows, a great democratic election for a Constituent Assembly in Russia only a few weeks ago. In spite of Terrorism at the polls of the most alarming and disgraceful kind, the Russian peasantry and townsfolk returned a great majority of the members who held opinions opposed to those of the Bolsheviks. According to all the democratic principles which have been proclaimed with such eloquent fervour by the leaders and followers of this faction, the people who had Daily News, March 5, 1918. Commons Debates, CIII ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 42-4. 40 Labour Leader, March 21, 1918. 4 1 For a biographical account of the most important years of Hyndman's life, see Henry M. Hyndman, Record of An Adventurous Lije (New York, 1 9 1 1 ) . 38 39

56

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

thus nominated and chosen their own delegates should have the right of "self-determination" in Russia as elsewhere. But there is only one democracy in Petrograd today. Lenin and Trotsky are its prophets. Those misbeguided citizens who self-determined their ballot-papers and sent up delegates with instructions to vote against the views of Lenin and Trotsky could have no rights. Therefore, any demonstrations in favour of such malignants of the majority must be stopped. The unarmed participators in such processions must be massacred. The duly-elected Constituent Assembly must be dispersed, under penalty of sharing the fate of the victims outside. And it was so. . . . N o such shameful coup d'etat has been carried out in modern times. . . . I never believed that when the Bolsheviks showed themselves in their true colours our own Pacifists and Quakers in their newspapers and on their platforms would give their special envoy an enthusiastic welcome. Is it not ironical that these self-same Pacifists and Quakers—who would not in defense of freedom slay a Prussian Junker—should receive the representative of these Petrograd butchers with open arms ? Yet that is what is happening to Litvinov at this moment. . . . I am proud to state that I can reckon most of the leading revolutionaries of Europe and Asia among my friends. But they, in all their uprisings against abominable tyranny were never guilty of such crimes as those which Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks generally are committing Democracy and Socialism are both endangered by their conduct. 42 H y n d m a n ' s personality and opinions were not such as to inspire confidence in British L a b o u r circles. H i s views, however, when proclaimed by others in a less eccentric jargon, were thought reasonable. While most Labourites refused to join in condemning the Bolsheviks for withdrawing f r o m the war, an increasing number came to express misgivings about Bolshevik methods generally. D r . Alfred Salter saw fit to describe the I.L.P. reaction as follows: While approving their [the Bolsheviks'] ultimate aims with scarcely any reservations, few LL.P.ers can accept their methods. . . . We must definitely disassociate ourselves from its violence, its suppression of opposing criticism, and its disregard of democracy. . . . Socialism imposed by a minority—Socialism apart from true democracy, is not only meaningless but valueless. 43 42 43

Sunday Pictorial, January 27, 1918. Labour Leader, March 7, 1 9 1 8 .

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

57

Even so staunch a friend of the revolution as George Lansbury felt ashamed by the news of "lynching and murdering, imprisonment and persecution," and prayed that they would quickly cease.44 H . N . Brailsford, another sympathetic admirer, admitted that many of the Bolshevik actions were "incapable of defense, on grounds either of principle or of prudence," but begged that the Russians be left alone to work out their own destiny.45 Expressions of this sort could be multiplied many times. They revealed neither malice nor hostility, but only regret at the tragedy of Russia's plight. Hyndman's abusive criticism was rarely heard in Labour's ranks, but his argument, modified and stripped of its emotional overtones, found frequent expression there. The only Labour group entirely oblivious to Russia's defects, and quite out of sympathy with even the mildest criticism, was the B.S.P. It viewed the Bolshevik victory as the natural culmination of the events of March 1917, and saw no reason to regret the overthrow of the moderates. In The Call, its weekly journal, a sustained chorus of praise was sung to the glories of the Bolshevik Revolution and its inspired leadership.46 Immediately after Brest-Litovsk, the I.L.P. engaged in a major propaganda campaign to secure diplomatic recognition for the new Russian state. MacDonald had urged this in the House of Commons as early as February, 1918. 47 Snowden returned to the theme many times in his weekly contributions to the Labour Leader 48 The Government's response was always that since Russia lacked a single authority capable of speaking for the nation, any sort of recognition, de facto or de jure, was impossible.49 While the recognition question attracted some attention in the first months of 1918, it was soon superseded by another of more compelling urgency—the start of Allied military intervention in Russia. N o issue could have proved more embarrassing to the Labour Party. On such a question, the split between the prowar and antiwar 44 45 46 47 48 49

The Herald, March 9, 1918. The Herald, July 27, 1918. Litvinov was a frequent contributor of articles in 1 9 1 8 . Commons Debates, CIII ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 48. Labour Leader, May 23, 1918. Commons Debates, CIV ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 782.

58

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

elements was certain to manifest itself. If a military advantage could be secured through intervention, or if it served to deny the Germans the full profit of their victory in the East, Labour's trade union majority would favor it. The I.L.P. and other pacifist Labour groups would necessarily be opposed. Having never believed in the possibility of a true victory being achieved through military success, and having always supported the rights of neutrals, these organizations would never accept the argument of those who justified an unwarranted interference with the plea of military expediency. The question arose at a time when the Labour Party was engaged in a major revision of its organizational machinery for the handling of foreign policy issues. A new body, the Advisory Committee on International Questions, had just been established, with responsibility for making recommendations to the Executive and the Parliamentary Party on foreign policy. Allied intervention in Russia was the first important issue with which the committee concerned itself. Since the committee met privately, there was never any need to conceal divisions or assume a false pose of agreement. The committee's practice was to assign to one of its members the preparation of a report which the others then discussed, altered, and passed on to the Executive as recommended policy.50 The committee met for the first time on May 30, 1918; Sidney Webb was appointed chairman and Leonard Woolf secretary. Among the original committee members were G . Lowes Dickinson, H . Duncan Hall, H. N . Brailsford, G. D . H. Cole, C. Delisle Burns, and Arnold Toynbee. Present at the first meeting in an advisory capacity were the foreign Socialists Camille Huysmans and Theodore Rothstein. 51 Ramsay MacDonald joined the committee in July after discussion had started on the question of Allied intervention. In a meeting on July 15, H. N . Brailsford offered a memorandum that condemned intervention; Rex Leeper presented one favoring military interference; Leonard Woolf sought to summarize the conclusions of each in a memorandum of his own. The memoranda and 50 William P. Maddox, Foreign Relations in British Labour Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), 99-103. Maddox provides an excellent statement of the functions of the committee. 51 Advisory Committee on International Questions, Minutes, May 30, 1918; June 14, 1918.

LABOUR AND T H E NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

59

the votes recorded on them provide convincing evidence of the serious dilemma created by the question. Brailsford, in his memorandum, argued that while the Russian Revolution had produced military problems for the Allies, it had at the same time provided a "moral gain to the cause of democracy and national freedom." 5 2 T h e Russian people, Brailsford said, had the right to choose the form of government under which they wished to live, unhampered by outside interference. There were, Brailsford admitted, certain circumstances in which outside military intervention might be justified. H e proceeded to enumerate them; they included a specific invitation from the Russian people; a joint intervention by all the Allies after a clear German menace had been shown; guarantees by the Allies, particularly Japan, that no territorial or other claim would arise from such intervention, and that it would cease immediately after the German threat was removed. A s for the allegation that such a threat already existed in the F a r East, Brailsford denied it. Germany's advance was not in the direction of Vladivostok; even if the Germans contemplated such a move, the single track Trans-Siberian Railway would never prove adequate to the operation. Brailsford scoffed at the report that Allied stores at Vladivostok were menaced by the Germans; all that might happen to them was their destruction in a civil war. H e thought little of the story of an army of German ex-prisoners of war being organized in Eastern Siberia; the only German-speaking prisoners in that area were Austrian Slavs who had surrendered voluntarily out of hostility to the Central Powers. Japanese intervention would rouse the Russian nation, Brailsford warned, and might lead Russia to look for aid from Germany. While M . Pichón, the French foreign minister, believed the Bolsheviks to be outcasts, from whom millions of Russians prayed to be delivered, Brailsford quoted from a letter written by Sir Paul Vinogradofï, which repudiated the idea that the Russians, however unsympathetic they might be towards the Bolsheviks, desired any such fatal deliverance. 53 Brailsford begged the Labour 52 Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, No. 9, 1 . These memoranda are unpublished, and are available at the Labour Party headquarters in London. They are the property of the International Department of the Labour Party. 53 Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 9, 1 - 2 .

6o

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Party not to associate itself with an illiberal policy whose hidden motives included the wresting of collateral securities for the redemption of tsarist debts. 54 Rex Leeper, in his memorandum, admitted that under normal circumstances the idea of intervening in a country which had signed a peace treaty and declared its neutrality would not arise. But circumstances were not normal in Russia, Leeper argued, and her neutrality was only a matter of form. Germany intervened in Russia every day; if the Allies failed to act, Russia's political and economic life would soon be dominated by German militarists. 55 Lenin had hoped for a European revolution to save his regime but his expectations had not been realized. T h e Bolshevik power was fast declining; Germany, the real master of Petrograd and Moscow, controlled the Ukraine and Don basin as far south as the Caucasus. T h e Allies, Leeper argued, were actually harming Russia by supporting Bolsheviks, discredited and hated, who were powerless before the might of Germany. All Russians who desired to save their country from German control were looking to the Allies for aid. 56 Leeper said that Allied intervention in the Far East would have as its purpose the restoration of normal economic conditions and the reconstituting of those organs of self-government destroyed by the civil war. Such an operation would have to be led by Japan. T h e Germans would probably retaliate by overthrowing the Bolshevik government and occupying Moscow and Petrograd, but this would be no loss, for Russia's position would be no worse and Siberia's would be vastly improved. German domination would be increasingly opposed, and the beneficial results of Allied control of Siberia would quickly be felt on the European side of the Urals. 57 Woolf's memorandum summarized the other two, and concluded with a personal reflection of some interest; it read: W e assume that no British Government would agree to forcible intervention in Russia avowedly for the single purpose of interfering in the internal politics of a friendly neutral people. T h e case for intervention 54 55 56 57

Advisory Advisory Advisory Advisory

Committee, Committee, Committee, Committee,

Memoranda, Memoranda, Memoranda, Memoranda,

No. No. No. No.

9, 3. 14, 1—2. 14, 2. 14, 2.

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

6l

rests rather on the assumption that some large body of Russians, presumed to be the majority, desires to wage war upon the Germans, and could do so effectively if it received some military aid from the Allies. We are not satisfied that this belligerent tendency which some Russians undoubtedly feel, is in fact shared by the mass of the Russian people. The evidence is at best inconclusive, while the dissolution of the Army last year and the admitted failure to restore it this year, point the other way. Even if the desire exists the question remains whether a new Russian army, even with Allied aid, could be created without the preliminary restoration of normal economic life in Russia—a process which must require many months, if not years. The premature renewal of formal war with Germany would interrupt the process of recuperation, and might provoke a German invasion with forces which the Allies can spare no troops to oppose adequately. We hold that no evidence that Russia desires our military aid can be conclusive unless it comes from a de jacto Government, so firmly established that we can formally recognise it. We are strongly opposed to any proposal to send troops to Russia on the pretext of fighting the Germans under conditions which may compel the Allied forces to deal with Russian opposition before they can counter the enemy. This would be the hostile invasion of a neutral country and would involve us in a war, formal or informal, with the Soviet Government. There ought to be no intervention until that Government requests it, or until that Government is deposed by the unaided efforts of Russian forces.58 T h e committee discussed both the Brailsford and the Leeper memoranda, and found itself unable to agree on either. It was finally decided that both should be forwarded to the party Executive, each member of the advisory committee affixing his signature to that with which he agreed. Cole, Buxton, and Woolf signed the Brailsford document; Sidney Webb and R. C. K . Ensor appended their signatures to the Leeper memorandum. 59 T h e committee also agreed, by a bare majority, to dispatch Woolf's recommendations along with the others. 60 This incident, behind closed doors, revealed completely the nature of Labour's dilemma. Leeper's arguments, though weak and contrived, gained Webb's support because to him the successful prosecu58 59 60

Advisory Committee, Advisory Committee, Advisory Committee,

Memoranda, No. 15, 2. Minutes, July 1 5 , 1918. Minutes, July 1 5 , 1918.

62

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

tion of the war transcended all other issues. T h e Bolsheviks, however unintentionally, were giving aid and comfort to the Germans; their removal therefore became a legitimate object of state policy. T h e inconsistencies in Leeper's argument, its military and political gibberish, made no impression on the Fabian intellect. It was enough that the policy seemed to promise an improvement in the Allied military position. T h e ordinary British trade unionist would have taken much the same view; so long as the nation remained at war, military considerations were paramount. Only the pacifist element in the Labour Party thought differently. Snowden wrote bitterly of the almost universal indifference to the Japanese attack on Russia. 61 The Herald and Manchester Guardian expressed some concern, and after August 2, when British troops began landing at Archangel, criticism increased.62 T h e National Council of the I.L.P. published a special manifesto condemning intervention. 83 But, except for such predictable opposition, there was remarkably little agitation on the matter. W h e n the Inter-Allied Labour Conference met in London, in September, an expression of sympathy was sent to "Labour in Russia, now fighting German imperialism." The conference declared the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to be the death of the Russian Revolution and a threat to world democracy. Article six of Wilson's fourteen points was interpreted to mean that the "present effort of the Allied Governments to assist the Russian people would be influenced only by a genuine desire to preserve liberty and democracy in an ordered and durable world in which the beneficent fruits of the Revolution should be made permanently secure." 64 T h e I.L.P. thought this abominable; J. Bruce Glasier, writing of the resolution on Russia, said: The paragraph as drafted and adopted is couched in terms that seek to appease those who oppose intervention, and at the same time to condone the action of the Allied Governments. This it does by declaring that should intervention assume the form of imperialist aggression in the interest of Tsarist and capitalist reaction it then would be the duty of the Labour Leader, June 27, 1918. The Herald, June 29, 1918; Manchester Guardian, May 22, 1918. 83 Labour Leader, August 1, 1918. 84Report of the igth Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1919), 10. 81

82

LABOUR AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

63

Allied democracies to protest against it. Thus the resolution assumes that Allied intervention has not taken the form of imperialist aggression. 65 By autumn the war was rapidly drawing to a close, and British Labour could hope that the military considerations which had dictated the intervention policy would soon cease to exist. Labour turned its attention increasingly to the approaching peace and the problems it would bring. Less was said and written about conditions peculiar to the war; whatever protest there had been on the intervention issue tended to diminish. Only the I.L.P. and B.S.P. continued to remonstrate till the end; Ramsay MacDonald, on the eve of the Armistice, wrote : I do not excuse, far less approve of everything the Lenin Government has done, but the Lenin Government has shown that it can give Russia a chance of settling down, and people do forget that Russia is still in revolution. Moreover, Lenin must not be judged by absolute principles, but must be compared with his opponents. Lenin has had to bow to unhappy necessity, as at Brest-Litovsk; he has had to seize the nettle with ruthless will as when he disenfranchised all the bourgeoisie; but when the tale of his errors, his evil necessities and his tyrannies has been told to the full, the balance will remain in his favour. He could not avoid unfortunate surrenders and deplorable tyranny as temporary troubles, but he was saving Russia from a reign of terror. The terror comes with civil war, especially when outside powers take sides and with money, arms, and countenance support the parties to a counter-revolution. I do not know who advises our Foreign Office on Russian affairs, but the advice has been uniformly mischievous.6® T h e great body of trade unionists preferred to remain silent on the question. While few cared openly to approve of intervention, most were reluctant in the midst of war to speak out against it. As the armistice approached, a keen observer would have detected the division in Labour's ranks on this issue. While a minority campaigned actively against intervention, the majority remained silent, apparently unconcerned about it. T h e war created this cleavage; the war's end would witness a change. 60 66

Labour Leader, September 26, 1918. Socialist Review, v. 15 no. 87, 310.

C H A P T E R IV

Labour Speaks Out Against Intervention

just before the Armistice, called for the withdrawal of Allied troops from Russia. The suspension of German military operations in the area had destroyed the last pretext for Allied intervention.1 The demand was dismissed at the time, coming as it did from a "pacifist" and "antiwar" organization. Such distinctions became almost meaningless in the weeks that followed. After November 11 Labour closed its ranks, and, with a considerable show of unity, pressed for an immediate end to all Allied interference in Russia's internal affairs. The New Statesman, which had been cautious in its criticism throughout the war, announced that "we feel the time has come to break the self-imposed silence which we have observed with respect to the British Government's attitude towards Russia." 2 This was more than a symbolic gesture of protest; it was an evidence of the new freedom provided by the Armistice. T H E U N I O N OF DEMOCRATIC CONTROL,

Parliament, scheduled to terminate its eight-year existence in a fortnight, found time for one last debate on Russia. When Arthur Ponsonby asked the Government for assurance that intervention would cease and that the Allied Expeditionary Force would retire from Russia, Lord Robert Cecil, the undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, replied: 1 2

Manchester Guardian, November 4, 1 9 1 8 . New Statesman, December 21, 1 9 1 8 , 232.

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

65

it is quite impossible for me to give any pledges or undertaking as to what our military action is or is not going to be in Russia, without, at any rate, having previous consultations with those who are responsible for military operations in that country. 3 Ponsonby reminded the minister that Britain was not at war with Russia, to which the latter replied that he had never claimed it was; he had merely referred to military operations.4 Colonel Wedgwood's interjection: "What are they—military operations between the Foreign Office and the W a r Office," 5 was ignored by Lord Robert Cecil who concluded: the Government are fully aware of the considerations which the hon. Member has put forward, and have got them very much in their minds, and they are certainly not disposed to entangle this country at the close of a great war in serious military operations. Beyond that, I cannot go, and I confess, I should have heard the hon. Member's speech with more agreement had I heard in it some condemnation of the really outrageous proceedings of the so-called Government of Russia. It is not only their great offence against humanity and good government, which the hon. Member may think is mainly a matter for the Russians themselves; but after all they have committed offences against this country which, if they had been committed by any ordinary civilised Government, would have more than justified this country in seeking redress by arms. After all, they have killed without justification one of our naval officers in Petrograd who was doing his duty protecting the Embassy from entry by unauthorised persons. That is only one of the many things which they have done. (Interjection: " W e had not any Embassy.") That is a perfectly irrelevant consideration—and not only so, but the circumstances were of a really horrible character. There are many British subjects in Moscow and Petrograd against whom they have committed other crimes which really to use a celebrated phrase might "stagger humanity." Therefore, although I think that we are bound to consider and ought to consider primarily the interests and desires of the people of this country, yet when we are dealing with this subject, it is right to say that the Bolshevik Government 3

Commons Debates, following year. He had 4 Commons Debates, 6 Commons Debates, Party in 1919.

CX ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 3262-63. Ponsonby joined the Labour Party the been a prominent pacifist throughout the war. CX ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 3263. CX ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 3263. Wedgwood, a Liberal, joined the Labour

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

as such is entitled to no consideration whatever from the British Government.® T h e defense of the intervention policy had fallen to a sorry state. A minister was now compelled to justify it by referring to the murder of a British naval officer, murdered not in just ordinary circumstances, but in "circumstances of a really horrible character." Nor was that all; other British subjects had been maltreated. Such incidents had led to war in the past. Were Russia a civilized society, Britain would have considered war, but Russia was not civilized, and her aggressions required different handling. "Staggering humanity" would never accept Bolshevik barbarism. Lord Robert Cecil's audience could not have guessed that such argument would provide the basis for retaining forces in Russia over much of the next year. But November 1918 was not a time for reasonable or generous talk. T h e mood of the nation called for dramatic gesture and bombastic argument, and Lloyd George, master political tactician, seemed prepared to provide both. Whatever else the historian of the period may dispute, there can be no disagreement about the quality of the political campaign which preceded the general election. Caution, reason, and common sense were thrown to the winds; irrelevant and false issues dominated all political discussion. T h e results seemed to justify the tactics employed; Coalition nominees won everywhere, and independents of all parties were buried in the landslide. A Government with the largest absolute majority in modern British history prepared to take office. T h e Labour Party, having deserted the Coalition, ran its candidates independently; while collecting some two million votes, it secured only fifty-seven seats.7 Every prominent I.L.P. nominee went down to defeat. T h e Parliamentary Party became something of a trade union club; twenty-five of its members were Miners' Federation candidates; another twentyfour represented other trade unions. 8 Not since 1906 had the Party Commons Debates, C X ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 3263-64. Some eight million new voters went to the polls in December, 1918. A considerable number of these were individuals newly enfranchised by the Representation of the People Act, 1918. 8 This was the first election fought by Labour under its new constitution, adopted at the annual conference in January 1918. Under the new rules, individual membership in the party through local Labour constituency parties was made possible. Memβ 7

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

67

in Parliament been so lacking in persons of proved political capacity. Only a few stalwarts—J. R. Clynes, J. H. Thomas, Ben Tillett, Tom Shaw, Will Crooks, William Adamson—remained. Party leadership in the Commons went to Adamson, who in the next three years revealed a remarkable inadequacy in that post. Lloyd George demonstrated again his very considerable political talents. While the general election might have been delayed till spring, no such impressive victory could have been secured at any time later than December 1918. The Prime Minister had judged the mood of the nation correctly, had struck at precisely the right moment, and had employed tactics appropriate to his purpose. The Labour Party emerged from the election experience in something of a state of shock. The realization dawned that dreams born of wartime propaganda were destined to remain unfulfilled. The vision of a "bright new world" after the war seemed inconceivable on the morrow of political defeat. It was this disillusionment and despair, and not foreign propaganda, that produced much of the political and industrial agitation of the period. As Labour's weakness in Parliament became increasingly apparent, the proponents of "direct action" gained new prestige. Their program of violence, however, never triumphed entirely; the trade union element, still dominant in the Party, preferred to adhere to its constitutional traditions. Parliament was the obvious place to challenge the Government on its Russian policy. Adamson, in speaking on the King's Address, remarked on the absence of all reference to Russia; he asked the Government to clarify its position.9 The Prime Minister, in replying, congratulated Adamson on his denunciation of the Bolshevik system, but gave no hint of British policy other than to remark that efforts would be made to restore order and good government in that "distracted" land. 10 What Lloyd George refused to clarify, Winston bership through trade unions or Socialist organizations was maintained, but it was no longer the sole method of admission to the party. "Labour and the New Social Order," a document that pledged the party to a Socialist policy, was accepted at a special party conference in June 1 9 1 8 ; it was on this platform that Labour fought the 1918 general election. 9 Commons Debates, CXII ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 58-59. 10 Commons Debates, CXII ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 198.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Churchill, the secretary for war, took no pains to conceal; he explained: Everyone knows why they [the B.E.F.] were sent. They were sent as part of our operations against Germany. . . . That reason has passed away, but the troops sent in obedience to it are still on those wild northern coasts, locked in the depth of winter, and we must neglect nothing required for their safety and well-being. At the other end of Russia, in the extreme South, we have an Army . . . in the Caucasus. These troops were sent there when the Turkish resistance collapsed . . . for the purpose of maintaining order in these wild regions and among these turbulent peoples, pending the decision of the Peace Conference as to their future. . . . We are simply discharging a duty to the League of Nations or to the League of Allied Nations, and endeavouring to prevent new areas of the world from degenerating into the welter of Bolshevik anarchy.11 J. H . Thomas, unconvinced by this none too subtle argument, admitted the tyranny of the Bolsheviks—a tyranny even more terrible than that of the tsars—but argued that Russia's internal affairs were her own concern, and that intervention could never serve Britain's interests. 12 Churchill answered that this "terrific question" could be settled neither by the war office nor the Cabinet; only the heads of the victorious states gathered in Paris could decide the issue. 13 This gratuitous limitation by Britain of her rights over her own soldiers, maintained in Russia independently of any Allied directive, gave little room for further discussion. In a subsequent debate, when Adamson asked for a clarification of the B.E.F.'s position in Russia, Churchill replied that they were frozen in by ice. 14 Unable to argue the point, Adamson warned that if the Government contemplated sending additional troops to Russia, it might find the British working class unwilling to "continue to pour out the blood of their sons to establish forms of government desired by certain people. . . , " 1 5 This was the closest the Labour Party came to threatening the Government. 11 12 13 14 15

Commons Commons Commons Commons Commons

Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates,

CXIII CXIII CXIII CXIII CXIII

(1919), (1919), (1919), (1919), (1919),

81. 153. 181. 674-75. 675.

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

69

When the Prime Minister stated that "to attempt military intervention in Russia would be the greatest stupidity that any Government could possibly commit," 16 Labour M. P.s took heart, believing that properly spaced protests would have their desired effect. However, the Prime Minister's habit was never to make a gesture of compromise without at the same time renewing his old pledges to aid those who had supported Britain. In this instance, he explained British assistance to the armies of Koltchak 1 7 as "help to Russians who were our friends in the past, and whom honour demands that we not leave defenceless before the Bolshevik menace, which seeks their extermination." 18 Such remarks offended certain members; Colonel Wedgwood, an outspoken critic of the Front Bench, suggested that the Government seemed less afraid of Russian terrorism than of her socialism.19 Wedgwood thought the Allies responsible for whatever "terror" existed in Russia; the Bolsheviks, he argued, had been compelled to resort to such measures for the same reasons that the French revolutionaries had in 1793, when they were subjected to external pressures.20 The Government might have had to defend itself against this criticism had the Labour Party been united in such an opinion. This was not the case. J. R. Clynes, replying to Wedgwood, denied that Bolshevism shared anything in common with socialism; on the contrary, it was the very negation of socialism.21 Bolshevism, Clynes explained, never operated through elective institutions; its selfappointed leaders exercised absolute power over the masses. "The more the working classes understand how vicious, unjust, tyrannical, and dictatorial Bolshevik methods are," Clynes argued, "the more unitedly will they reject them." 22 J. H. Thomas thought even less of the Bolsheviks; in comparing them with the "evil German Kaiser," 16

Commons Debates, C X I V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 2942. One of the many "White" armies fighting the Bolsheviks to whom the British gave aid. 18 Commons Debates, C X I V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 2942-43. 19 Commons Debates, C X I V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 2980. Wedgwood criticized particularly a Government White Paper (Cmd. 8), which purported to tell of atrocities committed by the Bolsheviks. 20 Commons Debates, C X I V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 2976. 21 Commons Debates, C X I V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 3 0 0 1 - 2 . 22 Commons Debates, C X I V ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 3 0 0 1 - 2 . 17

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

he ranked the Kaiser morally superior.23 While Clynes, Thomas, and other Labourites railed against the iniquities of Bolshevik rule, they were always quick to add that these actions provided no excuse for Allied intervention. The Labour Party's protest in Parliament lacked both vigor and purpose. Its inadequacy came to be painfully apparent to those outside, and at the Labour Party Annual Conference in June 1919, Herbert Morrison called the party "a failure in the present Parliament." 24 Morrison criticized the party for neglecting to secure a reversal of the Government's intervention policy, and suggested that whether Labour agreed or disagreed with the Bolsheviks, believed or disbelieved the atrocities with which they were charged, were matters of no consequence. The important issue was the war then being waged against "the international Socialist movement," in which British Labour was itself threatened. Only when the Labour Party came to use its full political and industrial powers would the situation be improved.25 These, the remarks of a fairly conservative member of the Labour Party, indicated something about the sentiment that existed in more radical quarters. George Lansbury, who converted The Herald into a daily newspaper at the war's end, made Russian affairs one of his chief interests. In editorials remarkable for their acidity, he lambasted those who seemed prepared to support intervention. During by-elections particularly, Lansbury could be depended on to keep the Russian question to the fore. The Daily Herald never failed to contradict the more obvious falsehoods about Russia circulated in other journals; 28 in this it received considerable support from the I.L.P., then entering on one of its great periods of expansion. A leader like Philip Snowden seemed never to tire in his efforts, or to lose his capacity for scorn; in a characteristic article he remarked : The Allied war upon Russia is not a war against Bolshevist excesses, for the Allied Governments were the bosom friends of the late Tsarist regime, which committed greater diabolical outrages in a day than the 23

Commons Debates, CXIV ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 2167. Report of the 19th Annual Conference of the Labour Party, ¡gig, 128. 25 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 191g, 128. 26 An example was the reported "nationalisation of women," whatever that was meant to imply. See Daily Herald, March 3 1 , 1919. 24

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

71

Bolsheviks have committed in a year in a state of revolution. But it is a war upon the philosophy of social democracy. 27 T h e I.L.P. Head Office issued a constant stream of propaganda, depicting intervention as a policy in the interest of "bondholders, concessionaires, oil kings, and profiteers." 28 There was a suggestion that the attempt to extort from impoverished Russians debts incurred by a corrupt tsarist regime had as its ultimate purpose the establishment of an antirevolutionary cabal prepared to take orders from British and French reactionaries. 29 W h i l e prepared to agitate in such a manner, the I.L.P. always thought it necessary to distinguish between its version of socialism and that proclaimed by the Bolsheviks. I.L.P. statements revealed a measure of tolerance which distinguished them from others put forward by trade union leaders of the ClynesT h o m a s persuasion; a typical I.L.P. pronouncement read: We are not Bolsheviks, if by Bolshevism is meant a permanent system of Government in which any section of the community is denied its proportionate share of representation in a democratically elected assembly. But we have defended the Bolsheviks against the vile, and as we believe in large measure unfounded charges of barbarism and terrorism, which have been made against them by the Allied Governments, and by the Allied Press inspired by these Governments. We have held that it was the concern of the Russian people alone to settle their own form of Government. We have opposed Allied intervention because we believe in the right of self-determination and because we believe that Allied intervention has for its object the overthrow of the Revolution, and the re-establishment of a reactionary Government which would serve the interests of Allied and Russian capitalists.30 In advocating this policy, the I.L.P. confirmed an original pledge to assist the Russian people in its revolution. T h e trade unions, in deciding to support the same policy, gave evidence of a new sentiment, made possible by the war's end. T h e Miners' Federation, at its annual meeting in March 1919, demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Russia, and recommended the use of pressure to compel 27 28 29 30

Labour Labour Labour Labour

Leader, Leader, Leader, Leader,

January g, 1919. January 23, 1919. January 23, 1919. May 22, 1919.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

other of the Allies to do the same. 31 In a joint conference of the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, in April, this resolution was endorsed together with certain minor amendments.32 The next move lay with the Triple Industrial Alliance, composed of the Miners' Federation, the National Union of Railwaymen, and the Transport Workers' Federation. It voted to petition the Parliamentary Committee of the T.U.C, to convene a special conference to discuss ways and means of compelling the Government to heed Labour's demands. 33 At a time when the War Office was calling for volunteers to join an expeditionary force to relieve British troops at Archangel, and reports of aid given the armies of Denikin and Koltchak were widely broadcast, three of the most powerful unions in Britain recommended that the T.U.C, act to halt all intervention. The Parliamentary Committee chose in this instance to procrastinate. Refusing to be pushed into any hasty action, it proposed an interview with the Prime Minister, or in his absence at the Paris Peace Conference, with the leader of the House, looking towards a clarification of the Government's Russian policy.34 More than this, the Parliamentary Committee refused to recommend. A n interview with Bonar L a w followed on May 22. L a w informed the Labour delegation that the Allies intended no interference in Russia's internal affairs, and had no wish to impose any particular form of government on her. When certain of Labour's spokesmen referred to the injustices of the tsarist regime, and asked why Britain had never thought to intervene in those instances, L a w replied: When you said we never interfered with the Tsar's Government that is perfectly true. If the Bolshevist Government were recognised by the Russian people, and was a Government of the Russian people, however 31

Manchester Guardian, March 27, 1 9 1 9 . Labour Party Annual Conference Report, igig, 26. This was passed as an emergency resolution at the party's conference on the League oí Nations. The unions chiefly responsible were the Miners, Textile Workers, and Locomotive Enginemen and Firemen, who sponsored the resolution. 33 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 191g, 26. The requests, apart from the withdrawal of British forces from Russia, included demands for lifting the blockade, withdrawing a conscription bill from Parliament, and releasing all conscientious objectors from prison. 34 Report of the 5 i s t Annual Trades Union Congress, igig (London, 1 9 1 9 ) , 74. 32

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

73

bad, we would just as little think of interfering with it, or fighting it, except that we would prevent the evil coming across our border. . . . 3 5 B r i t a i n intended b r i n g i n g all her forces out o f Russia at the earliest possible m o m e n t , L a w assured his questioners. O n the matter o f cont i n u i n g to assist K o l t c h a k , L a w chose his words carefully; h e said: T h e r e have been statements that Admiral Koltchak is a reactionary. T h e information we get does not bear that out. T h e r e was a meeting in Siberia, of which I got a report only this week, of all the forces of the men who are not Bolshevists who supported Koltchak, and certainly, so far as they are concerned, they have complete confidence in him. W e are helping Koltchak. W e have already taken steps to make it clear to him that unless it is made quite clear that his success will not mean the establishment of some autocratic government, that his success will mean the calling of a Free Assembly in Russia, which will decide for themselves what their form of government is to be, we are free to change our attitude, and cease to give even the support we are giving now. 3 6 B o n a r L a w ' s audience seemed little outraged by this somewhat strange definition o f nonintervention. T o assist a Russian force to defeat the Bolsheviks, for the purpose o f h o l d i n g a F r e e Assembly, sounded almost reasonable. T h e delegation submitted a report o f the interview to the P a r l i a m e n t a r y C o m m i t t e e , w h i c h called it "satisfactory," a n d a n n o u n c e d that n o special conference would be required.37 L a b o u r groups other than the P a r l i a m e n t a r y C o m m i t t e e were not so easily satisfied. A t the L a b o u r P a r t y C o n f e r e n c e in w h i c h M o r r i s o n voiced his criticism of the P a r l i a m e n t a r y Party, several resolutions on Russia were c o m b i n e d to f o r m a composite m o t i o n w h i c h r e a d : This Conference protests against the continued intervention by the Allies in Russia, whether by force of arms, by supply of munitions, by financial subsidies, or by commercial blockade; it calls for the immediate cessation of such intervention; it demands the removal of the censorship, so that an unbiased public opinion may be formed upon the issues involved; it denounces the assistance given by the Allies to reactionary bodies in Russia as being a continuation of the war in the interests of The Times, June 4, 1919. The Times, June 4, 1919. 37 T.U.C. Conference Report, J919, 75. 35 si

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BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

financial capitalism, which aims at the destruction of the Russian Socialist Republic, and as being a denial of the rights of peoples to self-determination; and it instructs the National Executive to consult the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, with the view to effective action being taken to enforce these demands by the unreserved use of their political and industrial power. 38 In the debate that followed, emotions ran high. Neil MacLean, a member of Labour's small Parliamentary band, appealed to the conference to give the Bolsheviks whatever aid was necessary to halt the capitalists in their intervention. 39 Ben Tillett, veteran trade union leader, counseled against haste. Criticizing the party's "intellectuals," he referred to them as "lions on the platform [ w h o ] had been rats when the sword had been drawn." 4 0 No industrial action ought to be considered, Tillett argued, till the movement had been consulted, and all hope of securing action by political pressures had been abandoned. 41 Frank Hodges, the Miners' chieftain, suggested that Tillett had misconstrued the meaning and purpose of the resolution. In accepting the fact that political pressures were insufficient, he explained, the conference simply recognized what all knew to be true. The trade unions were being asked to join in consultation looking to the establishment of more efficient methods of protest. 42 No one had thought to criticize the trade unions for aid given the Parliamentary Party during previous crises; why, Hodges asked, should the same not hold true in the present circumstance. 43 Hodges' conciliatory manner was marred only by his peroration in which he warned that if the conference failed to act, the Triple Alliance would be compelled to act alone. 44 Clynes, in replying to Hodges, remarked on the great disparity between his opening and closing remarks; he deplored the latter. 38

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 79/9, 1 5 6 . Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 1 5 8 . 40 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 158—59. 41 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 1 5 9 . 42 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 1 5 9 . 43 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 160. Hodges offered instances where trade unions had intervened to apply pressure to assist Labour in its parliamentary agitation. 44 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 160. 39

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

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Clynes explained that he had always believed in industrial action for industrial ends, but never in industrial action for political ends. 45 T h e working people of Britain had had an opportunity to vote for the Labour Party in 1918; many had neglected to do so. If certain Labour candidates had been elected, and others rejected, Clynes saw no reason to believe that only the foolish had won, while all those possessed of true wisdom had gone down to defeat. T h e Parliamentary Labour Party—the choice of the rank and file—was fully representative.46 In the proposed resolution, Clynes argued, Labour asked the right to pursue extra-Parliamentary action; was Labour prepared to grant this same privilege to other groups who might one day be aggrieved at a Labour Government ? T h e resolution was not so much an attack on the Government as an attack on democracy. 47 T h e Labour Party would never gain from the triumph of such ideas. Clynes reminded his audience that Keir Hardie and other Labour pioneers had always believed in the victory of socialism through the voluntary acceptance of its policies by the people; he, for one, continued to believe in that idea. 48 Clynes' remarks, like those of Tillett, were calculated to drive a wedge between the trade union and intellectual elements in the party. Intellectuals, in their inordinate love for bold resolutions, were said to be leading the workers to untold danger. This sort of argument had been used effectively against the I.L.P. throughout the war, but the vote in the 1919 Conference demonstrated how greatly the political climate had altered. In a meeting dominated by the trade unions, 1,893,000 ballots were cast in support of the resolution; only 935,000 negative votes were registered.49 Granted that the vote probably reflected a vague ill-defined sympathy for the Russian people and an overwhelming desire to see British soldiers removed from foreign areas of combat, and that the bloc-vote system tended to distort the picture, still, the readiness of so large a majority to favor strike action for a political objective gave evidence of a disillusionment with the 45 46 47 48 49

Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Parly Party Party Party

Annual Conference Report, 1919, Annual Conference Report, 1919, Annual Conference Report, 1919, Annual Conference Report, 1919, Annual Conference Report, 1919,

160. 160. 161. 161. 161.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Parliamentary Party. Those who thought political questions the sole prerogative of Parliament were found to be in the minority. T h e T.U.C., at its annual meeting in September, provided even more impressive evidence of Labour discontent. Bob Smillie rose to deliver a scathing attack on the Parliamentary Committee for having discovered "plain speaking" in the Bonar L a w interview. Smillie claimed that neither he nor the Executive of the Miners' Federation were able to discover the supposedly encouraging message concealed in the report of the interview. 50 H e asked that the Parliamentary Committee's report be "referred back," 5 1 so that if ever again a comparable issue arose, the Parliamentary Committee would recognize its duty and act accordingly. When the rank and file called for a conference, Smillie argued, the Parliamentary Committee's duty was to heed that request; they were the servants, not the masters of the Labour movement. 52 Tempers flared when Bob Williams of the Transport Workers' Federation supported Smillie and revealed that by a majority of two the Parliamentary Committee had been able to stifle action on the Triple Alliance petition. 83 Williams called Churchill, the minister for war, an "insistent, persistent, and consistent liar," in whose word Labour could never have confidence. T h e only way to compel the Government to remove British troops from Russia was through continuous agitation. 54 Stuart-Bunning, Chairman of the Conference, who had been attacked by Smillie and Williams, rose to defend himself, armed with the record of the Bonar Law interview. Denying that the Parliamentary Committee's delegation had failed in its mission, he offered as evidence the strong language used and the obvious threats made. 55 T h e Stuart-Bunning defense lacked conviction. J. R . Clynes, who delivered the chief address in support of the Parliamentary Committee, assumed a more aggressive pose. In a 50

T.U.C. Conference Report, 1919, 218.

T h e expression used at all Labour and T.U.C, conferences to suggest " n o confidence" in a particular action taken by the Executive. 51

52

53 54 60

T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C.

Conference Conference Conference Conference

Report, Report, Report, Report,

1919, 220. 1919, 222. 1919, 222. 1919, 223.

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

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closely reasoned speech, he began by inquiring why the millions of trade unionists, supposedly anxious to substitute industrial for political action, had never bestirred themselves sufficiently to express that want in specific resolutions submitted to the T . U . C . If the sentiment was universal, why had it not been the subject of branch and executive meeting resolutions of the affiliated unions? 5 6 Smillie, Clynes suggested, had not been entirely consistent; at one point he claimed that the Triple Alliance sought the special conference only because it wished to pressure the Government; in another place he held that words alone were never sufficient to move the Government. T h e proposed conference, Clynes argued, could have had only one purpose— to threaten the Government with a general strike if it persisted in ignoring Labour's demands. 57 If this was what the Triple Alliance intended, why had this not been made clear? T h e T . U . C , should have been asked outright whether it was prepared to alter traditions of political conduct based on the experience of decades. 58 Hodges, in reply, denied the accuracy of Clynes' interpretation. T h e Triple Alliance wished only to call a meeting "to decide what action (if any) should be taken. It was to commit nobody to any particular policy, nor ask anyone to adopt a certain line of action." 5 9 If the conference had taken place, Hodges explained, those who favoured political action would have argued their case, as would those who supported industrial action. T h e delegates would then have decided the question. T h e Parliamentary Committee, Hodges concluded, had no right to prevent an airing of opinion on so critical an issue. 60 When the vote was taken on the "reference back" motion, 2,586,000 chose to condemn the Parliamentary Committee, while 1,876,000 elected to support it. 61 A s in the case of the Labour Party Conference vote, the motives which led the several unions to ballot as they did were not entirely clear. Sympathy for Russia, mingled with regret at not having been able to do more to halt British intervention, 56 57 58 59 80 61

T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C.

Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference

Report, Report, Report, Report, Report, Report,

1919, 1919, 1919, 1919, 1919, 1919,

226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

were certainly among the chief reasons. Some unions were unquestionably piqued with the Parliamentary Committee for its seeming arrogance, and would have responded as they did whatever the issue; the traditional hostility towards the "platform" in all such conferences cannot be ignored. However, the largest number probably voted as they did because of a genuine disillusionment with parliamentary action. This last fact was recognized in the conference; to prevent the use of the "censure vote" as evidence that the T.U.C, had embraced the "general strike" tactic, Tom Shaw, of the Weavers, introduced a special resolution explicitly disclaiming the appropriateness of industrial weapons in "purely political matters." 62 Shaw accused Smillie and Williams, the two principal supporters of "direct action," of seeking to foment a revolution in Britain which would have as its ultimate purpose the establishment of a government on the Soviet Russian model. 63 Arthur Hayday, in seconding the motion, argued that the trade unions ought never to wage war against the state so long as redress through the ballot box remained practicable.64 Frank Hodges opposed the resolution as "academic, abstract, and mischievous." 65 Such a resolve had no meaning except in a precise and particular context; to speak of "direct action" because of intervention in Russia, conscription, the use of the military in trade disputes, made sense; to speak of it as a general principle devoid of all context was impossible.86 When Shaw's opponents moved the "previous question," thereby terminating discussion and preventing a vote on the substantive issue involved, the conference gave its assent. The moderates failed in their attempt to secure a general disavowal of the legitimacy of industrial pressures in purely political disputes.67 This second defeat cannot be explained away so easily as the first. It gave unmistakable evidence of opposition to the purely constitutional approach; more important, it indicated a breach between powerful trade union leaders and the 62 63 64 85 66 67

T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C. T.U.C.

Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference

Report, Report, Report, Report, Report, Report,

1919, ¡gig, 1919, 1919, 1919, 1919,

288. 289. 291-92. 297. 297. 300.

LABOUR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST INTERVENTION

79

rank and file. Clynes and Shaw were ignored; so were Henderson and Thomas. On the eve of the conference, Henderson had said : To force upon the country by illegitimate means the policy of a section, perhaps a minority, of the community, involves the abrogation of Parliamentary Government, establishes the dictatorship of the minority, and might easily destroy eventually all our constitutional liberties. It is moreover a two-edged policy. When Labour conquers political power and accepts responsibility for the machinery of Government, I cannot see it prepared to permit, say, the followers of Sir Edward Carson, or the medical profession, to set the Executive at defiance by any process of direct action.68 J. H . Thomas had been no less explicit: I cannot understand and do not subscribe to the policy that asks men to strike today for what they refused to put a cross on the ballot paper yesterday. At the General Election, Labour made its appeal, declaring our policy both with regard to Russia, conscription, and the nationalisation of monopolies. The other parties made their appeal—and our people believed them, and not us. We ought clearly to recognise that if Labour is going to govern—as I believe it will—we can't have some outside body attempting to rebel against Parliamentary institutions, without it recoiling on our own heads.®9 These and other leaders were repudiated by the votes registered at the T.U.C. Conference. The forces led by Smillie, Williams, and Hodges were momentarily in the ascendant. Their victory, however, ought not to be exaggerated; the debates and votes suggest considerable confusion. The delegates, while disgruntled with Parliament, were not sufficiently daring to recommend industrial action as a general policy in political disputes. In fact, the delegates voted to appease all but the most committed of their number. No final vote was registered for or against "direct action"; the conference simply discontinued discussion on a motion hostile to that concept. If the battle had been something other than a draw, it was also something less than a complete victory for the advocates of extraparliamentary action. 68 68

Daily Daily

Herald, Herald,

July 14, 1919. July 29, 1919.

8o

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

T h e censure of the Parliamentary Committee was equally inconclusive. This action would have been significant if the issues responsible for it had remained alive. Russia and conscription were matters of some urgency in March, and in June, but had lost much of their immediacy by September. Discussion of the rights and wrongs of the Parliamentary Committee's behavior was somewhat academic, since the problem had settled itself, independently of Labour's action or inaction. Since the censure involved no commitment, no great courage was required to vote it. This is not to suggest that there was no substance to the "direct action" agitation. T h e fact that noted constitutionalists like MacDonald preferred to sit on the fence, proclaiming the supremacy of Parliament while at the same time admitting that under circumstances, specifically outlined, "direct action" would be legitimate, indicated something of the ambiguity of the situation. MacDonald, after the T . U . C . Conference, commented: "Democracy is a form of power. Everyone who would reform the world or damn the world must seek power, and the power which the I.L.P. seeks to gain is the power of public opinion. It believes that all other forms of power . . . are unstable." 70 Lest this be thought a disavowal of the idea of "direct action," a quotation from MacDonald's book, Parliament and Revolution, published in 1919, should be given: Should circumstances arise when active political sections in the community are convinced that Parliamentary powers are being abused and that in the interest of representative government the abuse must be ended, if public opinion will give sufficient support and the object to be aimed at is of such a nature as to allow the weapon to be used effectively, which in most cases means swiftly, the case for "direct action" is complete.71 Snowden supported MacDonald in this matter, and argued that intervention in Russia qualified under his definitions; he wrote: Industrial action for the specific purposes named could be justified . . . on the ground that the intervention in Russia and the continuance of conscription by the Government were themselves unconstitutional acts, 70 71

Labour Leader, September 25, 1919. J. Ramsay MacDonald, Parliament and Revolution

(London, 1919), 79.

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unsupported by the country, and were violations of the pledges on which the Government was returned to power. 72 T h e dispute over "direct action" split the Labour movement without in any way diminishing its contempt for the Government's intervention policy. M a c D o n a l d spoke for everyone in the Labour Party when he said: The whole story of our relations with Russia since the Revolution has been one of underhand, mean intrigue inspired by snobs, financiers and militarists. We have issued White Papers that were lies—and known to be lies. . . . In supporting the Russian Revolution we [Labour] are not necessarily taking sides either for or against the Soviets or Bolsheviks. We are recognising that during a Revolution there must be Jacobinism, but that if Jacobinism be evil, the way to fight it is to help the country to settle down and assimilate the Revolution. 73 It is questionable whether these verbal blasts had much influence on the Government. When, however, Churchill, in late July, announced in Parliament that all British troops would be withdrawn from Russia before winter, the Daily Herald headlined the story "Churchill A d m i t s D e f e a t . " 7 4 Never reluctant to claim credit for any policy which it helped sponsor, the Lansbury daily interpreted the event as the "final and irrefutable proof of the necessity and efficacy of direct action." 7 5 According to the Herald, the Government was so alarmed by the threat of an approaching Triple Alliance ballot on the use of industrial pressure, that it had been forced to climb down on every point. 7 6 F e w other Labour journals thought to claim so much for their modest activities. W h e n the Triple Alliance convened in mid-August, it remarked on the vast change in Government policy and declared that the holding of a ballot on "direct action" was no longer necessary. 77 T h e Daily Herald, incensed by what it interpreted as a show of weakness, admitted the Government's retreat, but argued that words had 72

Labour Leader, August 21, 1 9 1 9 . Labour Leader, July 1 7 , 1 9 1 9 . 7 * Daily Herald, July 30, 1 9 1 9 . 75 Daily Herald, July 30, 1 9 1 9 . 76 Daily Herald, July 30, 19x9. 77 Daily Herald, August 1 3 , 1 9 1 9 . 73

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not been followed by deeds. The Government could not be trusted; only the threat of "direct action" would keep it faithful to its promises.78 These were the circumstances which confronted the T.U.C, at its annual meeting. Delegates, while prepared to argue for "direct action," had every reason for believing that the necessity for such action had passed. The conference reflected perfectly the dilemma which Labour groups had faced from the beginning. Anxious to assist Russia and criticize the Lloyd George ministry, they never entirely understood how to persevere effectively in either objective. Ineffectual in Parliament, unwilling to stake all on the gamble of a general strike, and lacking other powerful methods of combat, Labour found itself substituting the appearance of action for action; the verbal protest represented the limit of its activity. Newspapers like the Daily Herald made great claims for Labour's agitations; the facts warranted no such estimates. Labour had a long road to travel before it could effectively oppose the Government in what it claimed to be an emergency. Only in comparison with later performance can the minuscule effort of 1919 be judged. The effort had been made; the results were something less than spectacular. 78

Daily Herald, August 13, 1919.

C H A P T E R

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only a brief respite f r o m its anxieties about the Government's Russian policy. W h e n , in mid-October, various White armies began an advance on Moscow and Petrograd, 1 rumors flew about British plans to make one last attempt at defeating the Bolsheviks. A letter f r o m Winston Churchill to his constituency party, the Dundee Liberal Association, suggested that the Government had already decided to take advantage of the precarious situation in which the Bolsheviks found themselves; Churchill had written: L A B O U R ENJOYED

There are now good reasons for believing that the tyranny of Bolshevism will soon be overthrown by the Russian nation. W e have steadfastly adhered to our principles that Russia must be saved by Russian manhood, and all our fighting troops have been safely and skilfully withdrawn from that country. On the other hand, w e have continued to help, with arms, supplies and organisers, those Russian National forces and leaders who were true to us in the war against the Germans, and who are now advancing with good hopes of victory to the liberation of their native land. W e must use our influence in Russia, as far as it goes, to help that great country to find a good way out of its present miseries and in building u p a new Russia on the broad foundation of democratic and Parliamentary institutions. If that result is achieved we shall have rendered lasting service to the whole world. 2 1 2

Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, II, 267. Daily Herald, October 21, 1919.

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The Labour Party was alarmed by the implications of these remarks. The Daily Herald, which had always regarded Churchill with particular disfavor, found new cause to attack him. Snowden asked that "Russia cease to be a theatre for Mr. Churchill's military performances." 3 MacDonald's comments were much more sardonic; he wrote : Churchill pursues his mad adventures as though he were Emperor of these Isles, pacifying us with a pledge, and delighting his militarists and capitalists with a campaign. Again, we have been told one day that we are withdrawing our troops from Russia, and the next we read of new offensives, new bogus governments, new military captains as allies.4 The Advisory Committee on International Questions, after studying the problem, reached much the same conclusion. It described Churchill and Northcliffe as the two evil geniuses behind intervention, forcing it upon an unwilling but pliant Prime Minister. 6 With the British Expeditionary Force out of Russia, the Government's assistance could only be of a financial or material kind. Against this sort of aid, the Labour Party found it difficult to maintain an effective agitation. Snowden described Labour's record as "a sordid story of apathy and indifference"; he appealed to the rank and file to pressure "reactionary Executives" into moving against the Government. 6 Such appeals made little impression in the country. It was not easy to rouse Labour to action in a case involving grants of several million pounds sterling to a group of Russian military adventurers. The Daily Herald spoke contemptuously of a fifteen-million-pound "dole" to General Denikin, at a time when the "dole" to Britain's own "civil" unemployed was being reduced. "How blessed a thing it is to be a Holy Russian," the Herald commented. 7 All to no avail; words were inadequate substitutes for acts. In the conditions then prevailing, the Labour Party showed a positive disinclination to use weightier pressures. In Parliament, the Labour Party voiced its protest by moving for 3 4 5 6 7

Labour Leader, October 9, 1919. Socialist Review, vol. XVI, no. 91, 3 1 3 . Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, Labour Leader, November 1 3 , 1919. Daily Herald, October 3 1 , 1919.

No. 97.

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a fifteen-million-pound reduction in the army estimates. In the debate that followed, Wedgwood ridiculed Churchill for his constant promises of imminent victory, and reminded his listeners of similar pledges during the Gallipoli campaign.8 Colonel Malone, recently returned from Russia, spoke of the Bolshevik desire for peace, and begged the Government to respect that request.9 The Government had no reason to fear the results of this or any similar debate; with its overwhelming majority in the Commons, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.10 The Government's mastery of the political situation at home contrasted sharply with its helplessness before the ever changing military scene inside Russia. The offensive of the White armies, so full of promise in early October, suddenly came to a standstill, and by mid-November, degenerated into a rout. The forces of Koltchak, 8

Commons Debates, CXX ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 1556-57. Commons Debates, CXX ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 1574-80. 10 The Manchester Guardians editorial comment on this debate received Labour's full approval. Parts of it read: "Though Mr. Churchill affects to think otherwise, no part of the present Government policy is so utterly unbefriended by electors as its policy of fighting, with men or money, in this Russian civil war. All Liberals and all Labour voters regard it as an offence against English tradition. . . . What does the English taxpayer say to it all? Is he humbugged by that mock-Liberal talk about insisting on a 'democratic' Government in Russia? Does he think it worth a hundred millions of his money, either to Russia or to himself, to have gingered the Yudenitch faction up to the venture in which its unfortunate army seems now to be in danger of destruction? Surely our Government overrates the credulity of its countrymen and also the shortness of their memories. We all know that Mr. Lloyd George, on April 17, laid down the very principle which the country now censures him for disobeying. 'There is,' he said, 'the fundamental principle of all foreign policy of this country, and a very sound one, that you should never interfere with the internal affairs of another country, however badly governed. And, whether Russia is Tsarist or Republican, whether it is Menshevik or Bolshevik, whether it is reactionary or revolutionary, whether it follows one set of men or another, that is a matter for the Russian people themselves, and we cannot interfere, according to any canon of government, to impose any form of government upon another people, however bad we may consider its present form of government.' That sweeps away at once the whole fabric of argument based by our few interventionists upon the alleged badness of the Bolshevik government. Whether Bolsheviks are as black as they are painted, or Koltchakists as white, is a question of interest to us all as students of European affairs, but it is not a question of the slightest relevance to the question of British interference between them. Bolsheviks or Koltchakists may be as odious as Thugs, but if so, it is Russia's business, not ours, to say whether she is to have Thugs for rulers." Manchester Guardian, November 6, 1919. 9

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Denikin, and Yudenitch were all in full retreat. 11 Lloyd George, capable of seeing the magnitude of the Bolshevik success even before it had been finally assured, sought to maintain the diplomatic initiative by announcing in his Guildhall speech of November 8 that the continuance of an intervention policy which led to an interminable civil war was clearly impossible. 12 In an address remarkable for its conciliatory tone, the Prime Minister hinted at the Government's readiness to abandon its Russian venture. The Labour Party, heartened by these remarks, thought immediately of measures which the Government would be wise to incorporate in its new Russian policy. Arthur Henderson, in Parliament again after winning a by-election, spoke of righting the wrongs that had "had the effect of destroying to a considerable extent the confidence of the Russian people in the good will and good faith of this nation." 13 All aid to the foes of the established Russian regime— whether in the form of money, troops, or materials—needed to be discontinued. Henderson added: We should offer to the Russian people such moral and economic help as they need for the restoration of their country. Such help should be offered to them through the valuable machinery of the League of Nations. It is essential that Russia should have not only supplies, but machinery, credit, and the best advice that can be given to aid her in the restoration of her economic life. 14 Henderson had argued for this sort of assistance program outside Parliament. His decision to introduce the idea in Parliament reflected Labour's increased confidence that the end of intervention was at hand, and that a new policy was called for. The Prime Minister, in replying to Henderson, ignored most of his explicit recommendations, but spoke in a manner highly pleasing to the small Labour contingent. He remarked on his dread of "adventures in lands whose conditions are unknown, and where nothing but catastrophe has awaited every Empire and every Army that has ever invaded 11

Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, II, 200, 275-77. The Times, November 10, 1919. The Times answered with an indignant editorial in which it condemned the Prime Minister for his change in policy. 13 Commons Debates, CXXI (1919), 700-1. 14 Commons Debates, CXXI (1919), 702. 12

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them." 1 5 T h e Government could not have offered a more blunt assertion of its intention to disassociate itself from further intervention schemes. However, the Labour Party knew its Welsh adversary too well to expect that the vague promises of one day would necessarily be recalled the next. Realizing the pressure under which the Prime Minister worked, and the constant interference by other members of the Cabinet, the Labour Party thought it best to seek a more binding commitment. A statement that the Government intended to resume normal diplomatic relations with Russia would have been most pleasing. This, the Prime Minister absolutely refused to consider. O n one occasion when he was questioned about peace overtures reportedly made by Litvinov, the Bolshevik emissary, he replied: "If the Soviet authorities in Russia want to make peace they must make it with the people with whom they are at war—with General Koltchak, General Denikin, and others. They must make peace amongst themselves first."16 W h e n Clynes pressed the Government to state its position on resuming diplomatic relations, Lloyd George answered : There is no government at the present moment which can speak for the whole of Russia. . . . The fact here is that the Soviet Government no more represents the vast multitudes in Russia than any of the other warring factions do. Therefore there is at the present moment no basis for peace.17 In preferring to keep alive a fiction which his previous utterances had all but exploded, Lloyd George showed his usual elusiveness. T h e Labour Party, while regretting this inflexibility, was at least relieved that the intervention hurdle had been overcome. However, in January 1920, a manifesto by a number of Labour leaders, selfstyled as "a group of trade union officials and Labour men, representing the more moderate section of the Labour movement," 1 8 Commons Debates, CXXI ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 726. Commons Debates, CXXIII ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 24. 17 Commons Debates, CXIII ( 1 9 1 9 ) , 764-65. 1 8 A m o n g the signatories were Bowerman, Brownlie, Clynes, and Purdy; all were moderate reformers. 15

16

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revealed that the Government had not succeeded entirely in quieting Labour's fears. The declaration opened with the following: There have been so many and such violent changes in our Russian policy that there is no assurance that the recent more pacific tendency will be permanent, unless public opinion now makes itself heard unmistakably. It is for this reason that the undersigned, who do not subscribe to the political and social theories on which the Soviet Government is based, desire, at what may be the parting of the ways in our relations with Russia, to outline the considerations which cause them to favour a policy of complete and immediate peace with the Soviets. . . . 1 9

The statement proceeded to document the misinformation which had led Britain to support civil war, impose a blockade, and encourage foreign intervention. The British Government had depicted the Bolsheviks as on the verge of collapse at every turn, but in not a single crisis had the Red forces failed to rally. Armies raised at Britain's instigation and equipped at her expense, as Churchill himself claimed, had in every instance been defeated. The continued use of these alien forces, the statement explained, would only lead Russia to use guerilla tactics, thereby postponing indefinitely the possibility of a peaceful settlement. If the Soviet regime had in fact failed to reconcile the Russian people, a continuation of the war would only contribute to an intensification of disorder and tyranny. Peace, on the other hand, would operate to increase food production, and might initiate a "normal resistance to tyranny." If the Bolshevik power did in fact rest upon force and terror, the growth of an opposition at home would compel the Russian leaders to abandon their propaganda in India and Asia Minor, 20 and concentrate on domestic problems. Poland's unwillingness to discuss peace terms was considered, and the manifesto concluded with a comment of some prescience; it read: The Polish Army is already in occupation of Russian territory. If its invasion of Russia is repelled by the Soviet forces, we shall undoubtedly be told that this is an attack upon Poland, and that it is our duty to stand by the State we have created. We should then be committed to support Manchester Guardian, January 29, 1920. This was a charge frequently leveled against the Russians by Government officials and the popular press. 19

20

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this war, not owing to any policy sanctioned by the country, but to acts of the Polish army instigated by obscure diplomatic intrigues. The whole results of the war which we have just fought and the victory we have gained—the end of militarism, the reduction of armaments, the firmer establishment of democracy, openness in diplomacy, a more unified Europe, a more secure peace—all are menaced by these intrigues. We shall do our best to oppose Britain's entrance into any war that this may give rise to. 21 At the moment when intervention had reached its lowest ebb, a group of "moderate" Labour leaders thought it expedient to remind the nation of still existing dangers. Months before the press or Parliament acknowledged any menace in Poland's policy, these men pointed to it as the potential tinderbox. N o t only did they recognize the danger, but they prophesied its likely consequences with remarkable accuracy. Listening to the Prime Minister in Parliament, one could scarcely have comprehended the basis for such anxieties. Lloyd George seemed reason itself when he announced: It is perfectly clear now to every unprejudiced observer that you cannot crush Bolshevism by force of arms. I was of that opinion, quite frankly a year ago, and I never hesitated to express it. . . . We were bound to give the anti-Bolsheviks their chance to recover Russia. . . . We were bound by considerations of honour because we called them into being for the purpose of arresting the German advance into the grain area, but they failed in their attempt to recover Russia.22 Having established his own excellent credentials, Lloyd George proceeded to outline a policy for which he had had little to say in the past. Lloyd George remarked : " W e have failed to restore Russia to sanity by force. I believe we can save her by trade. Commerce has a sobering influence in its operation." 2 3 Always the Liberal, the Prime Minister was suddenly reminded of all the goods that would flow f r o m a renewal of trade. All Europe would benefit; high prices would be relieved, the high cost of living modified, hunger and scarcity banished. 24 Lest his audience assume that a resumption of 21 22 23 24

Manchester Commons Commons Commons

Guardian, January 29, Debates, C X X V (1920), Debates, C X X V (1920), Debates, C X X V (1920),

1920. 41. 43. 45,

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trade necessitated also a renewal of diplomatic relations, Lloyd George hastened to reassure them that such was not the case. So long as Russia persisted in its use of barbaric methods, and so long as the Bolsheviks spoke only for a segment of the great Russian people, recognition was impossible.25 Except for the technicality of recognition, the Prime Minister's words might have been uttered by any of several Labour leaders. Men like Thomas and Clynes, even when arguing for the resumption of diplomatic and trade relations, never neglected to mention "Russian atrocities"; for the Prime Minister to do the same was in no way surprising. Lloyd George's remarks, calculated to reassure any who doubted his ability to withstand the pressure of colleagues and newspapers, suggested that an accommodation with Russia was possible.28 The Labour Party wanted to believe in the Prime Minister's intentions, and, except for some murmuring on the far Left, there was general acceptance of his statements. The only disquieting news was that which issued from Poland. Why did the Government insist on remaining silent when Labour Party members requested information on what appeared to be Polish preparations for a military offensive against Russia? Labour Party M.P.s were avid to discuss the question. Colonel Wedgwood suggested that Polish "pin prick attacks" would probably lead to a full-scale Bolshevik counteroffensive, and that a plea for British aid might then be expected.27 Lieutenant Commander Kenworthy asked that the Poles be informed in advance that Britain would not step in to rescue them from the just consequences of their folly.28 The questions put the Government were so numerous that Lloyd George was finally prevailed upon to answer. He explained that "His Majesty's Government have made it clear that they do not encourage and cannot support by men, money, or material, an offensive by Polish troops into Russian territory."29 The Labour Party could not have asked for a more satisfactory reply. If the Prime Minister had seen the Daily Herald for the morning Commons Debates, C X X V ( 1 9 2 0 ) , The Times particularly had grown hall speech of the previous November. 27 Commons Debates, C X X V ( 1 9 2 0 ) , 28 Commons Debates, C X X V ( 1 9 2 0 ) , 29 Commons Debates, C X X V ( 1 9 2 0 ) , 25

26

43. critical of the Prime Minister after his Guild320. 344. 1022.

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he delivered this statement, he would have noted an article by Brailsford which gave indication of continued misgivings. Brailsford had written: The proverb that "history repeats itself" is, happily for mankind more often false than true, but a premonition haunts me that it may apply to the case of Poland. The Poles are today morally and physically as they have often been before, in a position which tempts a Western power to exploit them. They are a romantic race, with a warlike tradition; they cordially detest all their neighbours, a feeling that is fully reciprocated, and they occupy a position on the map which tempts strategists to use them against Russians or Germans, or both. Unhappily for themselves, they seem always to be better provided with the occasions than with the weapons of w a r . . . .30 The Labour Party, reassured by the Prime Minister's statement, and by the Government's announcement that it had advised the states bordering on Russia to arrange peace terms with the Bolsheviks, was not inclined to worry. 31 The Daily Herald proclaimed exultantly the triumph of "our policy." 32 A l l signs seemed to indicate that the Government intended no further intervention in Russia's internal affairs. But, as always with the Russian question, the respite proved a short one. On April 30, the Daily Herald's headlines screamed of a "New Try to Crush Russia." T h e Polish armies had launched an offensive along a front extending for two hundred and fifty miles.33 The Herald blamed the Allies for the attack, arguing that in the absence of Allied promises of assistance, the Poles would never have dared to move. "The marionettes are in Warsaw, but the strings are Daily Herald, February 19, 1920. Commons Debates, C X X V , 1501-2. Bonar Law, in making the announcement, hedged somewhat; however, the intent was clear. L a w said: "If the communities which border on the frontiers of Soviet Russia, and whose independence or de facto autonomy they have recognised, were to approach and ask for advice as to what attitude they should take with regard to Soviet Russia, the Allied Governments would reply that they cannot accept the responsibility of advising them to continue a war which may be injurious to their own interests. Still less would they advise them to adopt a policy of aggression towards Russia." 32 Daily Herald, February 25, 1920. 33 Daily Herald, April 30, 1920. 30 31

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pulled from London and Paris," one editorial concluded. 34 The I.L.P. was no less incensed; the Labour Leader remarked bitterly: For meanness and treachery there is nothing in the history of European diplomacy to surpass the methods which have been employed by the Supreme Council and their tools to achieve the destruction of the Soviet Republic. . . . The British Government deny responsibility for this new war. This denial is a l i e . . . . Poland is bankrupt, famine-stricken and typhus-ridden, and it could not continue the war for a single day without the material support of the great powers. 35

The trade unions moved quickly to the offensive; leaders, supported by rank-and-file opinion, showed considerable vigor and resourcefulness. A dramatic incident—the refusal of the London dockers to load the Jolly George with ammunition and other supplies destined for Poland—received wide publicity. It seemed that Labour intended doing something to stop Poland in its aggression. When the Dockers met in conference a week after the Jolly George incident, Ernest Bevin submitted a resolution which read: this Triennial Conference makes emphatic protest against the export of arms to Poland and other Border States, which enables the Junkers of these countries to set the people at war in the interests of their financial paymaster. It congratulates our London members in refusing to have their labour prostituted for this purpose, and calls upon the whole of the movement to resist their labour being used to perpetuate these wicked ventures. 36

In speaking on the resolution, Bevin told of a shipowner who had approached him with an appeal that he use his influence to urge the workers to load his ship. Amidst loud cheers, Bevin told of his reply : "Go and ask Bonar Law and Lloyd George. I am not going to ask the dockers to put a gun in the ship to carry on this wicked venture." 37 The railwaymen were quick to follow the dockers' lead. The 34 35 36 37

Daily Herald, April 30, 1920. Labour Leader, May 13, 1920. Daily Herald, May 19, 1920. Daily Herald, May 19, 1920.

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Executive of the National Union of Railwaymen asked all members to refuse to handle material destined for Poland, likely to assist her in her Russian campaign. 38 This order was rescinded only when the managing director of the Great Northern Railway announced that he would fire anyone hindering the company in the discharge of its contracts. 39 It was not easy to act unilaterally in a time of economic depression. T h e Advisory Committee on International Questions, in a memorandum prepared for the Parliamentary Labour Party, recommended a policy of firm opposition to any Government proposal for assisting Poland. 4 0 T h e committee suggested that a policy which started with the dispatch of munitions and a tightening of the economic blockade would end in a virtual state of war with Russia. Churchill, the committee thought, expected to win, whatever the outcome of the Polish campaign. If the Poles were victorious, and the Bolsheviks destroyed, his chief aim would be realized. If the Poles were thrown back, the League of Nations would be called upon to step in and resolve the dispute, thereby saving the Poles from their own wickedness. 41 T h e committee argued that the Labour Party's failure to push the matter in Parliament would result in the strengthening of those groups sympathetic to "direct action," for Labour would never acquiesce in this "imperialism of the worst kind." 4 2 T h e Advisory Committee's advice notwithstanding, Labour's protest in Parliament lacked fire. Clynes suggested that the dispute be submitted to the League of Nations for its judgment. 4 3 Lord Robert Cecil, delighted with the proposal, remarked that if the League had "received as great assistance from the party to which I belong as it has received from the Labour Party, it would be in a better position today in this country." 4 4 T h e Government thought little of the recommendation; at that moment Poland's armies were still advancing. Bonar L a w denied the League's jurisdiction in the dispute, Daily Herald, May 22, 1920. Daily Herald, June 5, 1920. 40 Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, No. 155. 41Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 155. 42 Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 155. 43 Commons Debates, CXXIX (1920), 1680. 44 Commons Debates, CXXIX (1920), 1682. 38

39

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and explained that the P r i m e Minister had made very clear to the Polish foreign minister that while Britain could not advise Poland as between w a r and peace, H i s Majesty's Government certainly did not advise war. 4 5 H e then proceeded to offer a somewhat original interpretation of the origin of the conflict, and of Britain's attitude towards it; he explained: It is a fact that after the defeat of General Denikin, the Bolshevist army on the Polish frontier was increased by more than 60 per cent. . . . The Bolshevists said they only sent the troops because they were afraid of an attack by Poland. It was possible to say that. On the other hand, the Poles said that, unless they were strong, and unless they showed their strength, the Bolshevists would overrun them. That is their case. I am not going to say whether they were right or wrong, but I can imagine nothing that would be more discreditable to this Government or to the Supreme Council than to say to Poland, "Even if you think it necessary for your safety, you are not to attack the Bolshevists." Then suppose it had been found that the Poles were right, and the Bolshevists overran Poland, what would our position have been? 4 6 These, the words of a minister whose Government had recently affixed its signature to the L e a g u e of Nations Covenant, may be thought to reflect either immense contempt for the document or profound ignorance of its content. L a w ' s remarks suggested an admixture of the two. H e asked: " H o w could anyone suggest that the L e a g u e of Nations could have intervened successfully in a matter of this k i n d ? Is it not obvious it w o u l d have been faced w i t h precisely the same difficulties as those w i t h w h i c h w e were f a c e d ? " 4 7 L a w never thought to explain w h y both Britain and the L e a g u e were prevented f r o m stopping the aggression. If the Bolsheviks had been the aggressors, nonintervention w o u l d have been unthinkable. H o w e v e r , everyone understood that the Government intended to maintain its neutral pose just as long as Poland's armies were advancing. L o r d C u r z o n , the foreign secretary, in reply to criticism f r o m L o r d Robert Cecil, provided yet another version of the curious defense erected by the G o v e r n m e n t ; he said: 45 46 47

Commons Commons Commons

Debates, C X X I X (1920), 1699. Debates, C X X I X (1920), 1701. Debates, C X X I X (1920), 1 7 0 1 - 2 .

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I do not see how we can invoke the intervention of the League of Nations to check an offensive by the Poles in the course of their conflict with the Bolshevists. We told them that His Majesty's Government would offer them no advice and that they must choose peace or war on their own responsibility. Having left them free to choose, I hardly think that it is open to us to attempt to repress their action when they have made their choice. Such an attempt would certainly be regarded as intervention in favour of the Bolshevists and against our Allies—a result which it would be difficult to defend.48 Lord Curzon, like Bonar Law, preferred to disregard the obligations devolving on Britain as a signatory of the League Covenant; Article i l had no meaning for these men. 49 As a League member, Britain's duty was not to advise Poland to assume the responsibility of choosing between war and peace, but to recommend the submitting of the dispute to the world organization for pacific settlement. T h e Covenant had not differentiated between aggressions favorable to the interests of member nations, and others inimical to those interests. T h e Government, in interpreting its responsibilities as it did, made a mockery of its pledge. A diplomatic victory, secured through the abandonment of a moral commitment, might create a precedent for actions which one day would embarrass Britain. T h e Government seemed oblivious to all danger. As if to emphasize its neutrality, Lloyd George chose this moment to receive the Bolshevik emissary Krassin on the question of resuming trade relations. This action was little appreciated by some who denounced the Prime Minister for meeting a "representative of a Government which has shed more innocent blood many times over than the wickedest of the Jacobins in the worst days of their power." 5 0 Lloyd George's Cabinet colleagues took a dim view of their leader's action, and the The Times, May 1 7 , 1920. Article 1 1 of the League Covenant read : " A n y war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. . . . It is also declared to be the friendly right of each Member of the League to bring to the attention of the Assembly or of the Council any circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends." 50 The Times, May 28, 1920. 48

49

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Prime Minister felt constrained to explain it not as his wish, but as that of all the Allied states. Europe required trade, Lloyd George explained, and could not isolate itself from Russia out of dislike for its government. 51 Reminded of Bolshevik atrocities, the Prime Minister remarked that Britain had never thought to stop trading with other nations whose leaders had behaved scarcely better; Turkey under Abdul Hamid was offered as a case in point. 52 The nation as a whole accepted the situation calmly, and one newspaper at least, the Manchester Guardian, saw something humorous in this encounter with a "real live Bolshevik." 53 51

Commons

Debates,

CXXX

(1920),

167-68.

Commons Debates, C X X X ( 1 9 2 0 ) , 168-69. 53 Manchester Guardian, June 1, 1920. T h e editorial of this date, more serious than its tone w o u l d imply, is deserving of extensive quotation; it read: " T h e blow has fallen. A Bolshevist, a real live representative of Lenin, has spoken with the British Prime Minister face to face. A being, as Sergeant B u z f u z w o u l d say, erect upon t w o legs and bearing the outward form and semblance of a man was seen to approach 10 D o w n i n g St., yesterday, to ring at the door and gain admission. T o add versimilitude, we are informed that Mr. Krassin and his colleague 'walked from D o w n i n g Street by w a y of the Foreign Office steps into the Horse Guards Parade.' T h e Bolshevist pretends to g o downstairs like any ordinary mortal, but without doubt in doing so he conceals some dark design. Probably if scrutinised his method of locomotion w o u l d be found to depend on some inhuman device. Meanwhile, Mr. Lloyd George has seen him and lives. N o t only does he live, but whether he walked d o w n any steps or not, w e are informed th^t he motored off afterwards to help enthrone an archbishop. W e trust that the archbishop will receive a double portion of archiépiscopal annointment to avert the evil influences. However, Mr. Lloyd George was not trusted with Mr. Krassin alone. H e was duly chaperoned by Mr. Bonar L a w , Lord C u r z o n , Sir Robert H o m e , and Mr. Harmsworth, a combination which might make head against Lenin and all his works. A n y h o w , the great contact is made, and the British Empire still stands. 52

" O n l y preliminaries were discussed, says the communication which gives us the illuminating detail of the descent of the Foreign Office steps. But it has taken a year and eight months to reach preliminaries, and meanwhile a state of half-war has been maintained, the Russian Empire and all Eastern Europe have been kept in anarchy, civilisation is declining and in parts becoming extinct, and w e have been throwing our hundred millions into the sink, and have been paying famine prices for goods with which Russia, once peaceful and reconstructed, could supply us. N o w a Polish attack has been launched on Russia, at the instigation of at least one of the Western Allies and w i t h the connivance of another, w h i c h if but partially successful must postpone the recovery of Russia indefinitely, and may ruin this year's harvest in the Ukraine. . . . It is the interest as it is the duty of this country to forward the return of peace in the fullest sense. T h e reception of Mr. Krassin was the first step. T h e second should be the communication of some plain and emphatic advice to the Poles, or rather to those military leaders w h o are for the moment dragging the unlucky Poles with t h e m . "

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T h e Polish armies continued their successful campaign through May and the early days of June; they took Kiev on June 12. This was destined to be their last victory; the Bolsheviks launched a counteroffensive almost immediately thereafter, and by late June the Poles were in full flight out of Russia. W h e n the Labour Party met for its Annual Conference, the cry "save Russia" was already outdated; the cry "save Poland" was yet to be heard. A m o n g the delegates to the Labour Party Conference was a group recently returned from Russia. They had gone as the official representatives of the British Labour movement, commissioned to investigate the Russian political and social scene. In their first interim report, published before the start of the conference, they recommended the unconditional recognition of the Bolshevik regime, the lifting of the blockade, and an end to all intervention activity. 54 T o m Shaw presented the conference with a foreign policy resolution which asked the Allied Governments to recognize the Russian Government, abstain from direct or indirect attack upon it, and offer all possible encouragement to the free development and exchange of Russia's natural resources. T h e Russian Economic Mission, then in London, was welcomed, and wishes for its success expressed.55 In speaking on the motion, Shaw urged that Britain not only refrain from helping the Poles in their aggression, but take positive action to "advise her to cease war, clear typhus from her midst, solve her Jewish problem, reconstruct herself and rid herself of the military incubus... ." 5 6 Shaw read a telegram from five members of the Labour delegation still in Russia, asking the conference to work for the resumption of trade relations and an end to all British assistance to Poland. 57 T h e B.S.P. moved an amendment to the resolution; it called for the convening of a National Labour Conference whose purpose would be the organizing of a general strike to compel the Government to cease its attacks on Russia. 58 T h e amendment was duly seconded, but when Colonel Malone, one of the B.S.P. delegates, rose 54 55 66 57 58

For a more complete account of this mission, cf. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1920, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1920, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1920, Labour Parly Annual Conference Report, 1920,

infra, 214—217. 132. 133. 134. 138.

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to speak, several delegates questioned his right to be there; in Parliament, he was still accepting instructions from Liberal Party whips.59 Only after some disturbance and the acceptance of a special rule from the Standing Orders Committee did Malone succeed in gaining the floor. He proceeded to deliver a violent attack on the conference for its timidity and failure to act; only "direct action," he argued, could stop the Government in its "foul deeds in Russia." 60 Ernest Bevin, defeated in his effort to keep Malone from speaking, replied to this criticism. Bevin warned the Conference against those who joined the Labour movement knowing nothing about it, having done nothing for it, but very anxious to lead it. These men spoke too lightly of leadership, Bevin said; they thought men could be ordered about at will. The trade union movement was not a military force ready to respond automatically to the orders of such self-styled leaders. It was a voluntary group which took action only when absolutely convinced of its necessity; the Jolly George boycott was cited as an instance. Bevin spoke of Labour on the continent looking to British Labour for light and leadership; to threaten strike action when it was not intended was only to mislead Lenin, Trotsky, and other European labor leaders. There was a great gulf between words and action; promises which had no possibility of fulfillment were best left unmade. They served only to raise false hopes among men unacquainted with the true situation in Britain.61 Bevin, in a few wellchosen words, laid bare the fictions created by the B.S.P. and other like-minded groups. T o speak of a general strike in the then prevailing political and economic situation was to speak nonsense. When, and if, the situation changed, alternative measures might be considered. The conference proceeded to accept the resolution while overwhelmingly defeating the amendment.62 The Labour Party Conference occurred at a time when the military threat to Soviet Russia had almost completely vanished. The restoration of normal diplomatic relations and the opening of trade channels appeared as the objectives most deserving of attention. 59 60 el 62

Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Party Party Party

Annual Annual Annual Annual

Conference Conference Conference Conference

Report, Report, Report, Report,

1920, 1920, 1920, 1920,

140-41. 143. 144. 144.

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99

When the delegates learned of difficulties in the trade negotiations, they hastened to introduce and pass an emergency resolution expressing alarm at the prospect of the talks failing. "No private or financial interests should be allowed to stand in the way of an immediate resumption of trade with Russia," the resolution read.63 The party's concern with such issues seemed entirely reasonable in June 1920. The Polish armies, by early July, were retreating out of Russia, and a delegation headed by the Polish Prime Minister was on its way to Spa to ask assistance of the Supreme Allied Council. The situation foreseen months earlier had come to pass. British Labour would have done well to ponder this question in the first days of July but its attention was diverted elsewhere. The Daily Herald had just published a "strictly confidential" document reporting conversations of the previous year between Winston Churchill and General Golovin, a Russian who had come to London to plead Koltchak's cause. This document, said to have been discovered by the Daily Herald's special correspondent in Moscow, was distributed by the Foreign Affairs Commissariat in translation to several of Labour's visiting delegates, to assure its publication in Britain. It purported to tell of a conversation between Churchill and Golovin, in which military support to Koltchak's armies was promised. Churchill cited Labour's opposition to intervention as a factor preventing too open assistance, but he pledged a British force of ten thousand volunteers. According to the report, these were to be sent under the pretext of assisting in the evacuation of the armies already there.64 Churchill was said to have made extensive promises of material aid, and his words, "I am myself carrying out Koltchak's orders," were thought to have some special significance.65 The Government, while making no attempt to dispute the authenticity of the report, denied its accuracy. Bonar Law, speaking for Churchill in the Commons, assured members that it contained grotesque distortions. The remark about carrying out Koltchak's orders was declared absurd. Law denied also that reinforcements had been promised, not to effect the withdrawal of military forces, e3 94 85

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, ig2o, Daily Herald, July 3 , 1 9 2 0 . Daily Herald, July 3 , 1920,

176.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

but to maintain the operation.66 The Labour Party, delighted with the revelations, saw no reason to disbelieve them. MacDonald wrote: "If Mr. Churchill had been an unlimited monarch, he could not have spent the money and lives of the nation with more unstinted generosity. If the House of Commons allows this to pass, it ceases to be a House of Commons. If the Labour Party can't fight this, it can fight nothing." 67 The Daily Herald accused Churchill of treason and demanded his impeachment.68 Wallhead, who had gone to Russia with the Labour delegation, returned with a copy of the document, and asserted that it revealed "a responsible Minister of the Crown pledging himself to a policy of deceit, wilfully lying to the House of Commons, guilty of chicanery as foul as has ever been committed by any scoundrel known to history."69 All this was nothing compared with the abuse heaped on Churchill by Forward, the LL.P.'s Glasgow weekly.70 Labour partisans enjoyed this spectacle ββ

Commons Debates, C X X X I (1920), 1006. Forward, July io, 1920. Daily Herald, July 3, 1920. 69 Labour Leader, July 8, 1920. 70 The following were fairly typical comments from Forward. They were written by William Stewart in an article titled "The Marlborough Rat"; they appeared in the July 17, 1920 issue. Stewart wrote: "Mr. Churchill has an absolute contempt for the people, a contempt that is well founded. He himself is the justification for that contempt. "The British people have tolerated Churchill for a long time. They have seen him shift and dodge from one party to another, and they have rather admired his shiftiness, as they admire the sliminess of a crook in a stage play. They have seen him, like a rat, desert the Tory ship when he thought it was sinking, and cling to the Liberal ship when it had the wind in its favour, and they have seen him cringe and humiliate himself before a Coalition Prime Minister that he might not be cast adrift from office and emoluments. "They know that he is a braggart and a boaster, and that, like all boasters, he is a liar. They know that he donned his uniform and went out to fight the Germans, whom he never fought, and that he came back quickly with his sword still in its sheath, and decided that the War Office was a safer place than the war trench. They remember how in imagination he got to within a few hours of Constantinople; and they remember how, not in imagination but in reality, he left many thousand British corpses there. They remember how, when the Great War was ended, he spent one hundred millions pounds of British money in carrying on a war on his own account, and bragged of the performance. These and many other Churchillian tomfooleries, expensive and tragic, the British people know of. They know that he is either the one or the other—a madman or a blackguard, and they still tolerate him in a position of power the most dangerous for either a blackguard or a madman to occupy. And so, when he stands once more convicted, in the testimony of his confederate, of hood67

68

LABOUR ACTS TO STOP INTERVENTION

ΙΟΙ

of a minister's discomfiture. Churchill had long ranked as chief enemy, and the opportunity to revile him was not lightly abandoned. For a few days, the political drums beat out a single message, "Churchill must go." T h e Government paid little attention to the shouting, busying itself with other more urgent matters. T h e Labour Party was pulled back to reality by the Prime Minister's return from Spa. While admitting that the Polish invasion had been "reckless and foolish," Lloyd George contended that it provided no justification for Russia to destroy Poland as an independent nation. 71 Great Britain could not fail to take an interest in Poland's welfare, the Prime Minister said; under the League Covenant she was pledged to protect her independence. Article 10, inapplicable so long as Poland's armies were advancing into Russia, was now introduced to condemn the reverse operation. Bolshevism, Lloyd George argued, could not be permitted to advance to the borders of Germany. 72 These considerations, he explained, had led the Allies at Spa to commission Great Britain to deliver a note to Russia requesting an immediate armistice. This note, dispatched on July 12, recommended the withdrawal of Poland's armies to the frontier fixed by the Peace Conference. 73 Delegates from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland were then invited to foregather in London to make a final peace settlement. 74 Great Britain reminded Russia of her [Britain's] obligations to Poland under the League Covenant, and added that if Poland's territorial integrity was not respected, "the British Government and its Allies would feel bound to assist the Polish nation to defend its existence with all the means at their disposal." 75 T h e House was informed also of Russia's reply, dated July 17. T h e Bolsheviks accepted the principle of direct negotiation with winking the British, of using the resources of this country to promote and prolong civil war in other lands, and of playing with flesh-and-blood British soldiers as a silly child plays with tin ones, his contempt for the British people is so complete that he doesn't even take the trouble to defend himself." 71 Commons Debates, CXXXII (1920), 482. 72 Commons Debates, CXXXII (1920), 482. 73 Commons Debates, CXXXII (1920), 483. , 7 4 Britain requested only that the Russian delegates to the London Conference indulge in no propaganda and remain outside British politics. 75 Commons Debates, CXXXII (1920), 483.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Poland, but held that such proposals ought properly to emanate from the Polish Government. Lloyd George termed the reply "incoherent." 76 Tom Shaw, replying for the Labour Party, thought otherwise. He asked whether the Prime Minister had ever considered investigating Poland's charges of Bolshevik aggression. Might Poland's objective not have been the "grabbing of more territory, when the territory she already has was not sufficiently well administered to meet our more Western ideas of what civilisation ought to be." 7T Shaw failed to understand the reasoning which asked Britain to take up arms in behalf of a nation that had embarked on a mad adventure and was receiving its just deserts. Knowing the dangers that would follow from any foreign occupation of Poland, Shaw hoped that the Russians would be sensible enough not to cross the Polish frontier. However, his hope lay in Russia, not in the West. The Prime Minister spoke of invoking Article 10 of the League Covenant; why, Shaw asked, had no League member ever thought to invoke Article n . Why, when Poland was about to attack Russia, had no member nation suggested the summoning of the League Council to restrain her. 78 Support for Shaw's views came from Lord Robert Cecil, the principal advocate of the League of Nations in Britain. Disputing the accuracy of the Prime Minister's claim to having warned Poland against invading Russia, Lord Robert Cecil recalled that the House had been told again and again: " W e have given no advice to Poland, we repudiate all responsibility for what Poland is going to do. She must choose herself and do what she thinks right, and we can take no responsibility for her action." 79 In no mood to humor the Government, Lord Robert recommended that ministers consult Hansard for the truth. The Prime Minister, embarrassed by the turn of events, realized the weakness of the Government's position. Poland, obviously the 76 Commons Debates, CXXXII text of the Russian reply, but it Daily Herald. 77 Commons Debates, CXXXII 78 Commons Debates, CXXXII 79 Commons Debates, CXXXII

(1920), 483. Lloyd George refused to divulge the appeared the following day, July 22, 1920, in the (1920), 508. (1920), 508. (1920), 518.

LABOUR ACTS TO STOP INTERVENTION

103

aggressor, enjoyed no great popularity with the general public, though it had many powerful friends at Westminster. The Government had no choice but to accept the "incoherent" negotiating terms proposed by the Russians. Snowden spoke of the Government "putting its pride into its pocket." 80 The Labour Party believed it had reason to be satisfied. Satisfaction turned to dismay, however, when the first reports of the Polish-Russian conversations reached London. Parliament was in recess for the August Bank Holiday when the newspapers announced on August 2 that the Polish envoys had returned without armistice terms. While agreeing to discuss an armistice, the Poles refused to discuss a general peace except in concert with their French and British allies.81 The talks collapsed, and in the absence of an armistice, the Russians continued their advance into Poland. On August 3, Lord Curzon, in a strong note, advised the Russians that if they persisted in their offensive, Great Britain would have no alternative but to offer aid to her beleaguered ally. 82 The Times, on August 6, published an editorial which virtually admitted the imminence of war; it read: It is a terrible truth that once more we stand upon the edge of a crisis fraught with possibilities only less tragic than those which lowered over us in this first week of August six years ago.. . . We must face it with the same unanimity and the same courage with which we faced the crisis of 1914. The hour when so sore a menace is impending over us is no time for divisions or recriminations. Mr. Henderson and his friends will do themselves no good service with the nation by summoning meetings of protest at such a time. The plain duty of all parties on the approach of what may be a supreme national and Allied task is to drop all lesser things and to bend all the mind and all the strength of the nation to the work they may have to do. We ourselves can exhort them to it with greater freedom because we have all along foreseen the danger and have steadily predicted it from the time of the Paris negotiations. . . . We do not know what military or naval action the Government will propose to Parliament. . . . Come what may, our only positive guarantee is the unwavering cooperation of England with 80 81 82

Labour Leader, July 29, 1920. The Times, August 2, 1920. The Times, August 4, 1920.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

the sane and sober elements in France. In their newspapers they are now taking, we rejoice to see, the attitude we could have most desired. They are grave, sober, and very firm. They see the situation as it is, and they are not intimidated. They adhere loyally to the Entente and loyally to Poland, and they will not hear of any truckling to the Bolshevists... . 8S The "Henderson and his friends" remark related to a telegram sent by Henderson in his capacity as secretary of the party to all constituent groups; the wire read: Extremely menacing possibility extension Polish-Russian war. Strongly urge local parties organise citizen demonstrations protest against intervention and against supply men, munitions to Poland. Demand immediate complete raising blockade, resumption trading relations. Send resolutions Premier and Press, deputise local M.P.s.84 The Labour Party, apprised of the danger, moved rapidly. Within twenty-four hours, a group of prominent party leaders, representing every shade of opinion, came forward with a manifesto warning the nation of the imminent danger of war. The statement carried the signatures of Bevin, Bondfield, Bowerman, Clynes, Cramp, Henderson, Lansbury, Lunn, Mann, O'Grady, Purcell, Robertson, Spoor, Walsh, Wignall, and Williams. Every important segment of the party was represented; leaders traditionally opposed to one another —Williams and Clynes, Mann and Henderson, Lansbury and Bowerman, Purcell and O'Grady—found themselves in agreement. The manifesto was outspoken in its pro-Russian sentiment; parts of it read : The Russian Soviet Government has given clear proof on every occasion that it will agree to Polish independence on even more favourable terms than those suggested by the Allies at Versailles, and to give Poland frontiers better than the suggested "ethnographical line". . . . We have therefore to warn the responsible governments, the diplomats, and the various foreign ministers, that Labour in this country will not cooperate in a war as allies of Poland... , 85 On Sunday, August 8, special peace demonstrations were organized by Labour groups throughout the country. The Daily Herald, ap83 84 86

The Times, August 6, 1920. Daily Herald, August 6, 1920. Daily Herald, August 7, 1920.

LABOUR ACTS TO STOP INTERVENTION

IO5

pearing on a Sunday for the first time in its history, bore the banner, " N o t a Man, Not a G u n , N o t a S o u ! " 8 6 On its front page were a score of letters from Labour leaders urging the public to stand firm in its determination not to become involved in another war. 8 7 T h e next day, at a special meeting of the Parliamentary Committee of the T.U.C., the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, and the Parliamentary Labour Party, a resolution was approved which declared: That this Joint Conference . . . feels certain that war is being engineered between the Allied Powers and Soviet Russia on the issue of Poland, and declares that such a war would be an intolerable crime against humanity; it therefore warns the Government that the whole industrial power of the organised workers will be used to defeat this war; that the Executive Committees of af&liated organisations throughout the country be summoned to hold themselves ready to proceed immediately to London for a National Conference; that they be advised to instruct their members to "down tools" on instructions from the National Conference; and that a Council of Action be immediately constituted to take such steps as may be necessary to carry the above decisions into effect. 88 T h e Council of Action, organized forthwith, reflected all segments of Labour opinion. Adamson, Clynes, O'Grady, Robertson, and Wedgwood represented the Parliamentary Party; Gosling, Purcell, Swales, Walker, and Bondfield, the T . U . C . ; Cameron, Bromley, Hodges, Cramp, and Williams, the Labour Party Executive. 89 T h e council coöpted Bevin, Smillie, Middleton, and Hutchinson, and the very next day (August 10) waited on the Prime Minister at D o w n i n g Street. 90 Local Councils of Action sprang up throughout the country. Labour seemed to have forgotten entirely its earlier doubts about the legitimacy of using industrial threats to secure political objectives. Officials everywhere agreed that a war would initiate a general strike. With a central directing agency, and local bodies capable of translat86

Daily Herald, August 8, 1920. Daily Herald, August 8, 1920. 88 Report of the 21st Annual Conference of the Labour 1 9 2 1 ) , II. 89 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, igîi, 11-12. 80 Daily Herald, August 1 1 , 1920. 87

Party, ig2i

(London,

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ing orders into immediate action, the machinery for a general "down tools" movement seemed complete. Henderson's telegram had induced trade unions, trades councils, local Labour Party and I.L.P. branches, and other similar organizations to join forces as they had never done on any previous occasion. No one stopped to inquire about the constitutionality of the proposed undertaking. Confronted with what appeared to be a genuine war threat, there was little inclination to debate or delay. In this highly charged political atmosphere Labour's Council of Action prepared to lay its case before the Prime Minister. Ernest Bevin was selected as the chief spokesman for the group. He began by explaining that Labour was opposed not only to direct military action—the use of British soldiers and sailors—but to every form of aid, whether by blockade, the shipment of arms, or the granting of other advantages to the armies then fighting Russia. Bevin condemned the Government for its policy of "arming, encouraging, and urging others to fight what is not their battle, in the interests of greater Powers." He reminded the Prime Minister that Labour's own delegation had recently visited Russia, and had returned with evidence "showing the seriousness of that country's desire for peace. Other powers, afraid of Russia's political and economic system, seemed bent on war. Bevin accepted the fact that the Prime Minister had occasionally shown a desire for peace, but he reminded him that one of his principal colleagues had never ceased to agitate for war. If war came, it would be a victory for these same forces of reaction in all the other Allied states. Labour fought therefore, Bevin explained, not only Governments, but the forces of reaction to which Governments were prone. Britain had not "played straight over the Russian business," he concluded, and therefore Labour was confident of the nation's support in its fight for peace.91 In replying, the Prime Minister spoke of his own desire for peace; a desire which all his Cabinet colleagues shared. If Poland's independence was in fact threatened—if Bolshevik Russia attempted to do in the twentieth century what the tsars had done in the eighteenth—did Labour propose to prevent assistance being rendered? 91

Daily Herald, August n , 1920.

LABOUR ACTS TO STOP INTERVENTION

Bevin objected to the question; Poland's independence was not at stake. "How do you know?" the Prime Minister responded. Bevin answered that Russia's declarations to that day revealed the absence of any aggressive designs.92 Bevin asked whether the Government would object to the Council of Action's consulting with Krassin and Kamenev, the Russian emissaries then in London. Lloyd George replied that the Government would object strenuously to any such meeting; Krassin and Kamenev had come on the distinct understanding that they would refrain from any political activity while in Britain. It would be difficult to enforce that agreement if dealings with political parties were permitted. The Council of Action represented no political party, Bevin answered, but the Prime Minister insisted that it did, and that there was no point in pretending otherwise. Bevin, very angry, denied that he had ever been guilty of pretence; the Prime Minister agreed, and then proceeded to repeat his charge. Bevin interrupted him to explain the Council's reason for wishing to see the Russian representatives; it was only to enlighten them on British workingclass opinion. If the Prime Minister wished, the Council would convey the same information to Poland. After consulting with Bonar Law, Lloyd George suggested that the Council convey its views in writing, it being a dangerous precedent for diplomatic agents to "begin trafficking with political parties." 93 The Prime Minister concluded the interview with the statement that Labour's threatened action served only to stiffen the backs of the Bolsheviks, there being as many unreasonable people in Russia as there were in France, Poland, or Britain. H e assured the delegation that steps were being taken to bring the Poles and Russians together at Minsk. The Poles understood quite well that Britain was not prepared to sanction just any policy, without regard to its merits. Labour, Lloyd George suggested, needed to act in the same spirit. Labour wanted peace; so did His Majesty's Government. If the extremists in Russia, responsible for frightening the Poles into their attack, gained the upper hand, all hope for a just settlement would vanish. 92 93

Daily Herald, August 1 1 , 1920. Daily Herald, August 1 1 , 1920.

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T h e Prime Minister pleaded for time to prepare his statement for the House of Commons. 9 4 T h e Council of Action, while not entirely satisfied with the interview, was pleased that it had made its position known. Also, the Prime Minister's studied moderation suggested that the Government intended to do everything possible to calm the situation. In Parliament, that afternoon, Lloyd George confirmed these impressions. Admitting that Poland had not been justified in its attack, he argued that both Britain and France had sought to dissuade her from it. 95 While agreeing that Russia was entitled to certain guarantees that Poland would not repeat the performance, the Prime Minister asserted that such guarantees could not involve the destruction of Poland as an independent nation. In a lengthy account of the negotiations to that date, Lloyd George laid great stress on the fact that the Russians had not responded to the Spa communication for six or seven days. 96 H e expressed an almost personal hurt at the Russian rejection of the London Conference proposal; the Government had only made the suggestion in order to be helpful. Russia had shown no desire to compromise; although Poland requested an armistice on July 22, the Russians had not replied till July 24, and had fixed the date of the meeting for July 30; another unwarranted delay, the Prime Minister suggested. 97 T h e Russian-Polish negotiations had been conducted in an unseemly manner; the Polish delegates, ignored and mistreated, had been finally sent back without the terms they hoped to secure. This was the situation as it stood at the moment. T h e Prime Minister then announced that Britain had succeeded in arranging for new talks to open in Minsk the following day. If the Minsk negotiations succeeded, the incident would be closed. If they failed through Polish intransigence with respect to legitimate Russian demands, the Allies would cease to support her. If, however, they failed because of the severity of Russia's terms, which involved infringements on Poland's independence, Britain would stand by her 94 95 96 97

Daily Herald, August n , 1920. Commons Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 254. Commons Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 256. Commons Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 256.

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ally. 98 In either event, the question of sending British troops to Poland did not arise. Russian obduracy would compel Britain to offer Poland counsel and material equipment. Also, the imposition of economic pressures on Russia would have to be considered.09 Finally, to diminish the Red Army's pressure on the Polish forces, the Government might be forced to contemplate a program of generous assistance to General Wrangel who was still fighting the Bolsheviks inside Russia. 100 T h e Prime Minister concluded with the statement that Russia was neither democratic nor free, and in no sense a workers' government. He termed ridiculous the Labour assertion that what was involved was a reactionary attack on a revolutionary socialist state.101 Clynes, in replying, dismissed the idea that approval of the Russian regime was a necessary prerequisite to a condemnation of the activities of the British Government. T h e Prime Minister depicted Poland "as innocent in diplomacy, as innocent as an infant or a child in moving along these thorny paths of statesmanship." 102 W h o , then, Clynes asked, had advised Poland in her folly? W h o had coached her? Impoverished, diseased, and ravaged by famine, Poland had succeeded in putting into the field an army of half a million men. Did all this happen by magic? Poland's power derived from the support freely given by the Allies; her own resources would have been quite insufficient to the operation. 103 Clynes suggested that the Prime Minister not be too virtuous about criticizing other nations for delaying an armistice. He reminded the House of the five or six week delay in 1918 when the Germans asked for one. " W h e n the victor is Britain we assert our right; when the victor is Russia we cannot deny it." Clynes asked how it could have been wrong to intervene peacefully and diplomatically when Poland was getting the best of the war, but right to intervene by force and arms when she was getting the worst of it. 104 A l l that Labour asked was a show of conCommons Commons 100 Commons 101 Commons 102 Commons 103 Commons 104 Commons 98

99

Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 259. Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 263-64. Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 265. Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 266-70. Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 281-82. Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 281-82. Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 284.

IIO

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

sistency. Clynes quoted with approval from a letter sent by Viscount Grey to The Times, in which the former foreign secretary suggested that the League of Nations ought to have been asked to intervene months earlier, when the Poles could have been stopped in their offensive. To invoke the League's aid in support of Poland against the consequences of her own wicked action was not only illogical, but a terrible misuse of the League's authority.105 Labour Party M.P.S who followed Clynes repeated the now familiar threat to oppose any Government scheme to assist Poland. These men spoke with confidence, certain that the nation supported them.106 It was almost as if they knew that the issue had already been resolved, and that their words were meant only for the record. This same quality of anticlimax characterized a conference summoned by the Council of Action which met on August 12. Bevin announced that the Council proposed to remain in existence till a general peace was assured.107 J. H. Thomas spoke of having opposed "direct action" whenever he thought parliamentary action would secure the same objective, but assured his audience that in the present crisis parliamentary pressures would never have sufficed. Enjoying his "revolutionary" stance, Thomas told the cheering delegates that the resolution before them challenged the whole constitution.108 Bob Smillie, always popular, received an ovation when he thanked "our comrade Winston Churchill for uniting the British Democracy."109 The conference disbanded after voting a resolution instructing the Council of Action to remain in being till it had secured: ( 1 ) A n absolute guarantee that the armed forces of Great Britain shall not be used in support of Poland, Baron Wrangel, or any other military or naval effort against the Soviet Government. ( 2 ) T h e withdrawal of all British naval forces operating directly or indirecdy as a blockading influence against Russia. ( 3 ) T h e recognition of the Russian Soviet Government and the establishment of unrestricted trading and commercial relationships between Great Britain and Russia. 1 1 0 105 108 107 108 109 110

Commons Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 285. Commons Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 346. Daily Herald, August 14, 1920. Daily Herald, August 14, 1920. Daily Herald, August 14, 1920. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921,

12.

LABOUR ACTS TO STOP INTERVENTION

III

Further evidence that the crisis had passed was provided by Parliament's decision to disband for its annual summer recess. Because the Minsk talks were not proceeding with any remarkable success, provision was made for a hasty recall, should the Speaker, after consulting with the Government, deem an emergency to have arisen. The speeches of the final day suggested that few expected any such unpleasant development.111 The Labour Party withdrew from Westminster convinced that the Government would attempt no intervention—open or concealed—knowing what it did of the public's mood. Parliament was right in believing the crisis over, though few of its members guessed correctly as to why. It was not negotiation that saved the Poles, but their own military prowess; their armies, reorganized and led by General Weygand of France successfully defended Warsaw and forced the Russians to retreat. 112 The Council of Action's influence in preventing British intervention at an early date has been a subject of some dispute. Bonar Law argued in Parliament that the Council of Action simply supported what had always been the Government's policy. 113 The claim that the Government never contemplated anything except a pacific setdement of the dispute, and that it used strong language only to restrain radical elements inside Russia came to be a standard Government defense. The Prime Minister's statement that the Council of Action forced an open door, and that a war danger never existed was a variant of the same theme. The Labour Party fought this interpretation from the beginning. MacDonald, who had not been particularly active in what was largely a trade union agitation, wrote immediately after "victory" was assured: We must hammer in the fact that it was Labour's action that saved us from war. Until that took place, everything was making for war. "Poland in danger," was in every newspaper; the impertinent demand sent to Russia, had it not been ridiculed by Tchitcherine, meant a quarrel. . . . All the manoeuvering was for military position backed by public opinion. 111

Commons Debates, CXXXIII ( 1 9 2 0 ) , 663-726. A Russian-Polish Armistice was signed on October 1 2 , 1920, after the Russians had been pushed out of Poland. 113 Commons Debates, CXXXIII (1920), 665. 112

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The tone of the Press was not pacific until after Labour spoke and put its foot down. There was no open door until Labour appeared in front of it. 114 It is difficult to judge between these varying interpretations. Certainly, the statements of Lloyd George and Bonar Law, after the event, understate the influence of Labour's protest. Labour leaders, on the other hand, concerned to create and maintain a myth, unquestionably exaggerated their own influence. On the eve of the creation of the Council of Action, the British press, filled with incendiary statements, suggested the imminence of conflict. The Government probably contributed to the creation of this atmosphere in the hope of thereby compelling Russia to come to terms. Actual war against the Russian state cannot have been contemplated; the Government almost certainly expected the Bolsheviks to climb down. However, had Russia not done so, the Government probably intended a vastly expanded program of material assistance to Poland. Labour's unanticipated response assisted Russia to withstand the pressure, and convinced the Government that no program of aid to Poland could be implemented. Labour was prepared to engulf the nation in a vast strike before it acquiesced in the renewal of an intervention policy. Labour took this position confident of the nation's support. Those within its ranks who had opposed "direct action" in every previous crisis would have done so again had the public demand for action not been so insistent. Labour moved with a sure step because it knew that on this issue the nation could not misconstrue its motives. The Prime Minister, while seeking to minimize the importance of this domestic agitation, recognized its strength, and understood that any misstep would produce a serious challenge to the Government's authority. His words in Parliament were tempered by an understanding of the prevailing national sentiment. To have argued in a less conciliatory manner would have been to court political disaster. Thus, the immediate effect of Labour's decision was the Government's loss of its freedom of action; it was now limited to counseling caution and recommending renewed attempts at negotiation. Threats continued to be hurled at Russia, but their tone belied their emptiness. 114

Vorward, August 28, 1920.

LABOUR ACTS TO STOP INTERVENTION

"3

It was impossible for Russia to act so much the aggressor as to fall within the broad definitions outlined by the Prime Minister. 1 1 6 Disputes over the effectiveness of Labour's agitation have tended to obscure other scarcely less interesting aspects of the action. For example, it was an act without precedent. Although Labour had spoken for years about a "general strike" to halt an international war, when the critical moment arrived in 1914, Labour forgot its dogma and hastened to assist the Government. Some excused the failure by arguing that the German Social Democrats had faltered first, but most thought it unnecessary to justify their conduct. Labour, in 1914, believed in the war, and supported it. In 1920, the feeling was quite different. That year, Labour achieved by itself what it had once considered doing in concert with other sympathetic parties abroad. A t a moment when war seemed imminent, it declared its firm intention of actively opposing it. Never before, and never since, has Labour repeated the performance. Perhaps never before nor since has there been a threat of war for which reasonable men could discover so little excuse. Labour, for one brief moment, represented the nation in its desire to keep the peace. Labour had spoken so often of the "general strike," and had avoided it so consistently that its adherents might have been forgiven a belief that it had become an article of faith rather than a scheme for action. When the unions did strike in 1926—a surprise to many— the issues were entirely industrial. A n y notion that a political question was involved received a quick denial. In 1920, Labour stood on the verge of the same sort of action and proudly proclaimed its aim to be political. In abandoning Parliament, the arena which had so long been the center of its hope, Labour turned its back on its own tradition. Labour, with its Council of Action, achieved the sort of success on which a myth may easily be constructed. T o the extent that no movement can develop without its myths, the exaggeration and distortion of the effort served to create a spirit useful for the future. Labour believed more firmly than ever in its own idealism. It knew that it was capable of leading the nation in a great cause, and that while 115 The Prime Minister had always favored a conciliatory policy, but in seeking to mollify France and certain Cabinet colleagues he had been pulled in another direction.

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parliamentary majorities were still the most stable foundation for government, the power that came from the support of untold millions in cities and towns could also move governments. N o Labour partisan ever forgot August 192ο.116 1 1 6 Even so conservative a leader as J. H. Thomas gloated about the action; he remarked to the 1920 T.U.C. Conference: "During the past few weeks we have gone through what is, perhaps, the most momentous period of the Trade Union and Labour movement in our long history; a period which found, for the first time, a united and determined working-class effort to challenge the existing order of Parliamentary Government. . . . The hypocrisy of the cry that there was no danger of war can be demonstrated by reference to the Press on the days preceding the crisis and since, and the cry of pushing an open door only proves the accuracy of our judgment. It cannot be denied that Labour gave organised expression to public opinion and frustrated the desires of those of our statesmen who would drag this country at the tail of any imperialist policy, even at the cost of war.

"Were the situation not so serious, and the consequences so liable to be fraught with tragedy, it would be amusing to witness the attempts of our opponents to frighten the workers by the suggestion that they are the mere tools of the wicked Bolshevists; that in their innocence they are being dragged at the tail of the wicked supporters of a Soviet system—-the friends of every country but their own. Time was when such tactics could have succeeded, but not today. Our opponents knew, and still know, that our only object was to prevent another war against Russia. So far we have succeeded, but the danger is not yet over, and cannot be over until a complete peace and understanding is arrived at with the Russian Government. Our action regarding Russia does not carry with it an acclamation of the Soviet method of Government, and many of those who advocate a Russian Peace do not subscribe to the Soviet methods. W e can, by unity and by the exercise of our political power, determine our own form of Government, and if the Russian people prefer the Soviet system it is their business." T.U.C. Conference Report, 1920, 62-63.

C H A P T E R

V I

T h e Origins of the Communist Party

preoccupied with the activities of the Council of Action, gave scant notice to another domestic happening in which Soviet Russia was implicated. In August 1920, after several abortive attempts, a Communist Party was organized in Great Britain. Owing its existence entirely to experience, ideas, and inspiration derived from Russia, the party reveled in its dependence on foreign example. Since it appealed to precisely the same elements in the nation as did the Labour Party, competition between the two was inevitable. This, also, the Communist Party welcomed, confident that its ideology and tactic was superior to that of any of the conventional political organizations. T H E LABOUR PARTY,

T h e party, for all its arrogance, was not created without difficulty. A n amalgamation of several small groups, prominent chiefly for their factional disputes, it bore visible signs of the struggle that attended its birth. T h e British Socialist Party (B.S.P.) was the most powerful of the several organizations which abandoned their identities to form the new Communist Party. T h e B.S.P., the lineal descendant of the Social Democratic Federation (S.D.F.), broke from the parent group in 1 9 1 1 , and with certain other disgruntled I.L.P. and socialist factions, organized itself anew, pledged to the idea of the "class war" and other assorted Marxist doctrines. 1 A serious cleavage developed 1

Beer, History of British Socialism, II, 385.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

soon after the start of the war, when a "patriotic" group led by Hyndman denounced the more "pacifist" elements. The two factions maintained an uneasy truce till 1916, when the fight assumed a more violent turn; the Hyndman supporters withdrew, leaving the B.S.P. a completely antiwar organization.2 The B.S.P. had petitioned for affiliation to the Labour Party in 1914, but the war prevented a consideration of the application till 1916. At that time, the B.S.P. was formally admitted to membership.3 The I.L.P. and B.S.P. formed the antiwar "left-wing" of the party. The B.S.P.'s Marxist leanings distinguished it from the less doctrinaire and more religiously oriented I.L.P. On broad issues relating to the war, however, the two tended to band together. With the accession of the Bolsheviks to power in Russia, the B.S.P. entered on a new phase of its own internal development. Having long maintained close relations with Marxist groups abroad, the B.S.P. accepted from the beginning the duty of protecting the new Russian state. On the eve of the Labour Party's annual conference in 1918, the secretary of the B.S.P., Albert Inkpin, declared for an immediate peace without annexation or indemnity.4 The Entente governments had been unmasked by the Soviet publication of their secret accords, Inkpin argued, and no Junker power could keep Germany in the war if British Labour intervened to stop it. The Labour Party, dominated by its prowar trade union elements, thought little of the B.S.P. proposal.5 When the conference went so far as to refuse to hear Litvinov, the Bolshevik emissary, after it had listened to Kerensky, the B.S.P. fumed and fretted, but had to satisfy itself with printing Litvinov's reply to Kerensky in its own weekly.6 Allied intervention in Russia heralded the start of the "Inter-Capitalist Counter-Revolution," B.S.P. publicists argued.7 The Call, the B.S.P.'s newspaper, read like a translated Russian Bolshevik organ; in 2

Beer, History of British Socialism, II, 386. Report of the i$th Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1 9 1 6 ) , 109. Cf. supra, 5 7 - 5 8 . 5 The Labour Party Conference in January 1 9 1 8 supported the War Aims statements of Wilson and Lloyd George. 6 Kerensky spoke at the Labour Party Conference in June 1 9 1 8 . For Litvinov's reply, see The Call, July 4, 1 9 1 8 . 7 The Call, August 1 , 1 9 1 8 . 3

4

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

II7

strident Marxist jargon it preached the inevitable world revolution, certainly at hand. After the armistice, the cry for a Bolshevik rising in Britain grew; the character and quality of the B.S.P. argument may be deduced from an editorial in Call titled "Audacity"; it read in part: The workers and peasants of Russia, the workers of Germany, the workers of Austria have rid themselves of the parasites, gilded and fat and sleek, who from time immemorial robbed and oppressed them. The workers of Britain must do the same. . . . Let us swiftly change, alter, adapt our movement—our political, industrial, and co-operative organisations so that they are transformed into efficient means for accomplishing the social revolution. Let us dare, dare, and dare again. Let us dare to raise the banner of emancipated humanity—the Red Flag. Let us rid society of its parasites and luxurious loafers, its aristocrats and capitalists; its monstrous inequalities, its slums, brothels, convict prisons, sweatshops, and fever dens. Let us join the European cleansing and purging. Maybe the cause will call upon us "some to live and some to die." But we shall win. 8 T h e B.S.P., while interested in domestic happenings, recognized that its chief responsibility lay in the defense of the Soviet state. Allied intervention was regarded as an abomination, and those responsible for it the world's major criminals. Men who neglected to fight intervention were weak, deserving only of scorn and abuse; the Parliamentary Labour Party received more than its fair share of both. 9 T h e B.S.P. never condemned intervention as simply the interference of one state in the internal affairs of another, but always as the attack of a reactionary capitalist class on the world's revolutionary Socialist Republic. At its first annual conference after the war, delegates predicted: a World Revolution in which the hitherto exploited and oppressed classes in all countries would seize the reins of power, overthrow the rule of the capitalist and landlord classes parading in the shoddy cloak of Parliamentarism and sham democracy, establish the direct rule of the workers and peasants by means of Soviets, and wind up the Capitalist order of society, with its private ownership of the means of production and the exploita8 8

The Call, December 6, 1918. The Call, February 20, 1919.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

tion of hired labour, by the establishment of a Socialist Common10 wealth The conference pledged itself: to do all in its power to stir the workers of Great Britain into action not only for the protection of the New Soviet Republic against the attacks of the capitalist International, but also for the speediest overthrow of capitalism in their own country.11 When one of the delegates, E. C. Fairchild, moved an amendment recommending the deletion of the section relating to Soviets, claiming that conditions in Britain were unsuited to such a development, and that trade unions were sufficient safeguards of the workers' interests, he was answered by John Maclean who remarked that Fairchild "had gone over to the enemy." The conference seemed to agree at least to the extent of overwhelmingly defeating the Fairchild amendment. 12 On a motion to disaffiliate from the Labour Party, delegates showed greater restraint. They preferred to maintain the connection so that the party might "give expression to Marxian Socialism, voice the class-struggle, and attack the reactionary elements from within the Labour Party itself." 13 Only about a quarter of the delegates found the Labour Party connection so embarrassing as to wish to sever it. 14 If Marxist orthodoxy be defined as agreement with the ideas and practices of Russian Bolshevism, then certainly the B.S.P. was orthodox. Somewhat more eccentric and nonconformist was the Socialist Labour Party (S.L.P.), the second largest organization destined to lose its identity in the new Communist Party. The S.L.P. had a membership of about a thousand, concentrated on the Clyde, and particularly powerful in Glasgow. Originally, like the B.S.P., a secessionist group from the Social Democratic Federation, it established itself as a separate party in 1903, modeled after De Leon's American Socialist Party. 15 It began by shunning all relations with 10

The Call, April 24, 1919. The Call, April 24, 1919. 12 The Call, April 24, 1919. 13 The conference also voted down a resolution that would have created an immediate link with the Third International. 14 Thirty-two delegates voted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party; eighty-six opposed such a move. 15 Beer, History of British Socialism, II, 355. 11

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

II9

other Socialist or trade union organizations, thereby emphasizing its contempt for their "reformist" policies. T h e S.L.P. found parliamentary action abhorrent, and believed that only the general strike would secure justice for the worker. 1 6 Active in many of the major prewar strikes, the S.L.P. figured also in much of the Clydeside agitation during the war. "Unofficial strike committees" invariably boasted a full quota of S.L.P. adherents, anxious to advance the class war. 1T T h e S.L.P.'s political philosophy was not susceptible to easy definition; it existed as a curious admixture of syndicalist and Marxist doctrine. Because of its limited membership, concentrated in a small geographic area, the S.L.P. could never hope to achieve the propaganda success of the larger socialist organizations. However, it believed absolutely in the rightness of its dogma and the strength of its membership, and expected that courage and persistence would make up for other deficiencies. After the Bolshevik Revolution, it joined the B.S.P. in placing the defense of Soviet Russia above every other objective. T h e Workers' Socialist Federation (W.S.F.), the only other group of any consequence participating in the talks that led to the creation of the Communist Party, had a strange and curious history—quite in character with the woman who led it, Sylvia Pankhurst. Before the war, when the suffragette agitation was at its height, she had organized the working-class women of London's East End as an auxiliary force to assist the more "respectable ladies" of Britain in their common struggle. Quarrels between Sylvia Pankhurst and her several friends and relatives in the Women's Social and Political Union 1 8 led ultimately to the expulsion of the East London Federation from the parent body. 19 Undaunted by the rebuff, Pankhurst carried on independently; the organization was rechristened the Workers' Suffrage Federation; the Women's Dreadnought served as its weekly journal. 20 T h e war provided new opportunities for agitation, though not always with respect to women's suffrage. Pankhurst thought nothing of extending the line of battle, and by 1916 all Government 1β 17 18 19 20

Beer, History of British Socialism, II, 392. Beer, History of British Socialism, II, 375. The major suffragette organization in Britain. E. Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement (London, 1931), 519. Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement, 596.

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operations came under surveillance. The Women's Dreadnought was filled with stories of soldiers shot at the front for slight infractions of discipline, of widespread profiteering and price gouging, of the prosecution of law-abiding citizens under the D.O.R.A., and of the persecutions of pacifists and others unwilling to join in the slaughter. 21 These criticisms emanated from a genuine humanitarian impulse uncomplicated by political or ideological dogmas. With the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution, the W.S.F. found yet another cause to embrace. The "no annexation, no indemnity" formula seemed a new piece of political wisdom, and the Workers' Dreadnought, the Women's Dreadnought rechristened, thought well of the regime courageous enough to initiate it. Articles with an obviously Marxist bias began to appear regularly in W.S.F. propaganda. There was much talk of the approaching British revolution in which the workers would seize power and create soviets. The organization's name, Workers' Suffrage Federation, seemed no longer adequate to its larger political purposes, and was altered therefore to the more appropriate one, Workers' Socialist Federation. 22 The W.S.F. emerged from the war a small band of East London militants commanded by Sylvia Pankhurst. It claimed to be "revolutionary, pro-Soviet, and antiparliamentary;" its connections with the trade unions were nil. A n uncharitable observer might have caricatured it as an organization of a few hundred cranks intent on revolution but uncertain as to how to go about achieving it. The adjectives "harmless, well-meaning, and ineffectual" might have been added to complete the picture. These three organizations—the B.S.P., S.L.P. and W.S.F.—together with a small Welsh group, the South Wales Socialist Society,23 arranged the first "unity" talks that led ultimately to the founding of the Communist Party. They did so on the urging of the Third International, which, in the summer of 1919, advised British sympathizers to join forces in a single party.24 The B.S.P., the strongest Marxist organization in Britain, took the lead in the dis21

See Women's Dreadnought, ad passim 1 9 1 4 - 1 7 . The precise date of change is not certain. According to Mrs. Pankhurst, it occurred some time between March and September 1918. 23 A small group of perhaps a hundred members. 2i The Call, February 1 2 , 1920. 22

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

121

eussions. Both the S.L.P. and the W.S.F., suspicious of the B.S.P., wondered how an organization affiliated to the Labour Party could claim to speak for the British worker. If a Communist Party were created, they argued, it was essential that it not be compromised by such a connection. 25 This the B.S.P. refused to admit; in fact, its rank and file made it a condition of "unity" that the new Communist Party affiliate to the Labour Party and thereby represent "the revolutionary left wing in the political movement of the working class." 28 T h e Bolshevik example of participating in Soviets dominated by Mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries was cited as a precedent for this policy. No other device, the B.S.P. argued, could succeed so well in converting the British worker to Communism. 27 T h e S.L.P. spokesmen explained that even if they personally accepted such a proposal, their rank and file would never accede to it, and that "unity" on such a basis was impossible. After much wrangling, it was decided to leave the question of affiliation open, and have it decided by a referendum of Communist Party members three months after the organization was launched. A resolution embodying this compromise was adopted; it read: T h a t the membership of the various organisations be consulted as to their willingness to merge the existing organisations in a united Party having for its object the establishment of C o m m u n i s m by means of the dictatorship of the working-class working through Soviets; and that the question of the affiliation of the n e w Party to the L a b o u r Party be decided by a referendum of the members three months after the n e w Party is formed.28

T h e executives of the B.S.P., W . S . F . and South Wales Socialist Society approved the resolution, but the S.L.P. Executive balked and voted to withdraw from the "unity" talks. 29 Concerned to prevent a complete collapse of the project, the S.L.P. Unity Committee 3 0 decided to make a direct appeal to the rank and file of the organizaThe Call, February 12, 1920. The Call, February 12, 1920. 27 The Call, February 12, 1920. 2sThe Call, February 12, 1920. 29 Thomas Bell, Pioneering Days (London, 1 9 4 1 ) , 179. 30 Bell, Pioneering Days, 179. The S.L.P. Unity Committee consisted of those who attended the original meetings at which the aforementioned resolution was passed. 25 26

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

tion. T o forestall this, the S.L.P. Executive announced that it would poll the membership to determine first, whether affiliation to a Communist Party based on the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was favored, and second, whether, after the formation of the party, a ballot ought to be taken on the question of affiliating to the Labour Party. 31 The Executive, in effect, invited members to cast a split ballot, voting "yes" on the first and "no" on the second proposal. The Unity Committee, realizing that the B.S.P. would never consent to continue the talks if a minority of the party's prospective membership were permitted to decide the affiliation question in advance of the party's formation, and knowing that it was incapable of preventing the poll, did what it could to urge an affirmative vote on both of the proposals. In this it was unsuccessful; the S.L.P. voted to approve the formation of a Communist Party pledged to nonaffiliation with the Labour Party. 32 When the B.S.P. called for another set of "unity" talks in January 1920, the S.L.P. Executive refused to send a delegation. The Unity Committee participated in these meetings without the Executive's sanction. The B.S.P., recognizing the intransigence of the S.L.P. Executive, recommended to the other groups that they proceed to form the new organization, and hope that the S.L.P. would agree at a later date to affiliate. The appointment of a Standing Joint Committee to work out the details of the amalgamation, to prepare a draft constitution, and make arrangements for a delegate conference, were other B.S.P. recommendations. These, both the W.S.F. and South Wales Socialist Society refused to consider. They were unwilling to proceed with the "unity" talks in the absence of an "official" S.L.P. delegation. Distrusting the B.S.P. policies on Labour Party affiliation and on the more general question of parliamentary representation, they had no desire to continue discussions except in concert with the S.L.P. 3 3 The talks having reached a stalemate, there was nothing to do but abandon them and hope that the Second Congress of the Third International, scheduled to convene that summer, would provide some lead to its British sympathizers. 31

The Call, February 12, 1920. The Call, February 12, 1920. 33 The Call, February 12, 1920.

32

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

123

Events did not wait the meeting of the T h i r d International. Relations between the W . S . F . and the B.S.P. deteriorated through the spring as a result of attacks leveled by the Pankhurst group on the larger and more powerful B.S.P. T h e B.S.P., "bourgeois" and "reformist," came in for repeated criticism in W . S . F . propaganda. Albert Inkpin, the B.S.P. secretary, was finally driven to reply; he took the Workers' Dreadnought to task for its inaccurate reporting of a B.S.P. conference, and concluded with a strong blast directed at Sylvia Pankhurst. 3 4 T h e Workers' Dreadnought, clearly in the wrong, offered apologies, but explained that its report was based on stories published in The Times and Daily Herald. T h e B.S.P. proved this to be untrue; the reports in these newspapers were accurate, whereas those published in the W . S . F . weekly were garbled. 3 5 These minor skirmishes set the stage for a major explosion which followed the publication in Call, the B.S.P. weekly, of hitherto unpublished correspondence between Pankhurst and Lenin. In April the B.S.P. published a letter sent to Lenin in July of the previous year, signed by one who claimed to be "the leading English C o m m u n i s t . " T h i s individual, the B.S.P. revealed, was none other than Sylvia Pankhurst. In order to acquaint Lenin with the character and position of the various revolutionary parties in Great Britain, Pankhurst had written at some length; her letter began: The Labour movement in England is being ruined under my eyes by parliamentary and municipal politics. Both leaders and masses are only waiting with impatience for elections, and, while preparing for the electoral campaign, are quite forgetting the Socialist work. Nay, they totally suppress all Socialist propaganda in order not to frighten the electors. 36 Pankhurst had then proceeded to describe in detail the qualities of the various groups contending for workers' support. She believed the trade union and Labour politicians of the old school completely bereft of idealism and incapable of acting as Socialists. T h e I.L.P. was dismissed as a body of people "often bourgeois and extremely religious," while the B.S.P., which thought itself more advanced than the I.L.P., was, f r o m a C o m m u n i s t point of view "perhaps even 34

The Call, April 15, 1920. The Call, April 22, 1920. The Call, April 22, 1920.

35 3a

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

more hopeless." Both were interested only in electoral success and tended to ignore the real needs of the workers. A group listed as "revolutionary industrialists" gained qualified approval; they, at least, recognized the necessity of "direct action." Pankhurst remarked of this group: " T h e y have in their midst remarkable men, in the character of whom, with all their generosity and humanity, one can detect a certain ruthlessness which will be indispensable to us when the Revolution comes. It is true though that many of them, outside their special sphere, lack the capacity for organisation. . . ." 3 T T h e shop stewards and workers' committees were placed in this category despite their obvious deficiencies; they contained " a pretty large number of backward elements." T h e S.L.P. was characterized as a party which had once opposed "parliamentarism," but had abandoned this policy in the previous general election when it sought popular support for its candidates. As a result, Pankhurst explained, the workers had lost confidence in the S.L.P. As for the W . S . F . , her own organization, Pankhurst provided the following description: The W.S.F. . . . is considerably smaller and younger than the other parties. Owing to the circumstances attending its foundation, the W.S.F. still consists, to a large extent, of women, but now the majority of its new members are men, and it may be called with greater justification than any other organisation, the party of the poor. This is due to the fact that it carries on a street corner propaganda, and its headquarters are in the East End. For the rest, it also includes a sprinkling of clerks and skilled workers. At its conference, held at Whitsun, the W.S.F. proclaimed itself a Communist Party, but on the suggestion of comrades it was decided for the present not to change the name of the party, but to make all efforts to organise a united Communist Party. 38 T h e letter concluded : You will ask why I am writing all this. I do so in order to tell you that Parliamentarism is at present holding up the movement. The B.S.P. and S.L.P. are trying, as before, to get their candidates in Parliament, and this keeps away from them the ["revolutionary industrialists"] as well as the members of the W.S.F. and South Wales Socialist Society. . . . I 37 38

The Call, April 22, 1920. The Call, April 22, 1920.

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

I25

should like very much for you to give your opinion about parliamentary action.38 Pankhurst had attacked, directly, or by implication, every major socialist group in Britain except her own. The B.S.P. had special reason for being aggrieved, and made no effort to conceal its annoyance. The image of Pankhurst as the one person in Britain interested in revolution was held to be preposterous. As for the idea that headquarters in the East End and street-corner propaganda qualified the W.S.F. as a working-class party, one B.S.P. wit remarked that on such a basis the Salvation Army merited the same distinction.40 In assuming the offensive, the B.S.P. enjoyed an advantage more telling than wit or ridicule; it had come into possession of Lenin's reply, dated August 28, 1919, which it now proceeded to publish in Call. Lenin, in his most patronizing manner, agreed with Pankhurst that Communist parties would be wrong to offend those workers who believed in Soviets and thought parliamentary participation detestable, but he asked whether in fact this was the real issue. Certainly the unpardonable error was to disassociate oneself from the revolutionary masses. In Germany, he explained, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg pursued the correct policy when they advocated participation in the national elections and in the Constituent Assembly. When the Spartacists, however, were seen to favor the contrary policy, the two abandoned their own correct position and joined the others. It was better, Lenin argued, to stand with the revolutionary party even when it made errors than to enter an alliance with socialists of the Right. The correct revolutionary tactic demanded Communist participation in Parliament, but if Pankhurst believed that the creation of a large working-class Communist Party in Britain would be retarded by the use of this tactic, then the alternative of nonparticipation might be considered. Lenin left no doubt that he questioned the accuracy of the Pankhurst diagnosis, and that he favored any scheme which would contribute to the use of the proper tactic. He reminded his correspondent of all that the Bolsheviks had achieved by p'articipating in the Duma, and suggested that 39

The Call, April 22, 1920. The Call, April 22, 1920. The attack was made by Fred Willis, a frequent contributor to B.S.P. propaganda sheets. 40

I2Ó

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

the same results would attend a comparable effort in Britain. If, he concluded, those disagreeing about parliamentary participation were agreed on every other issue, a solution might be found in the creation of two Communist parties, one pursuing the parliamentary tactic and the other rejecting it. The existence of two parties, both pledged to the Soviet ideal, would be an improvement on the situation then existing, and would be "a step towards complete unity and an early victory of Communism." 4 1 Lenin had confirmed the B.S.P. position in every respect. When, therefore, several days after the publication of this letter, the various groups met for further "unity" talks, a capitulation to the B.S.P. might have been expected. This did not occur. Instead, Pankhurst insisted on the formation of a Communist Party unaffiliated to the Labour Party. All but the B.S.P. representatives supported her. 42 Technically, Lenin had not spoken on this issue, and therefore no question of Marxist orthodoxy arose. That Lenin had succeeded in pushing the various groups towards unification was indicated by a decision on May 29 to convene a delegate conference on or about August ι to launch the new Communist Party. 43 It seemed impossible that new difficulties would arise to vitiate this resolve, but the W.S.F. showed a peculiar talent for disturbing ordered plans. On June 19, the W.S.F. Executive addressed rankand-file members and other interested groups (which included the Gorton Socialist Society, the Manchester Soviet, the Labour Abstentionist Society, the Aberdeen, Croyden and Holt Communist Societies and others) on the question of the forthcoming "unity" meeting. The W.S.F. Executive explained that of the four original parties to the "unity" negotiations only two remained; the South Wales Socialist Society and the S.L.P. had both withdrawn. The Unity Committee of the S.L.P. represented only a tiny fraction of that organization's membership, and had actually been expelled from the parent body. Therefore, the W.S.F. explained, an imbalance of the parties had come about; the "left wing" was weakened and the "right wing" augmented. This "right wing" had used its majority to require that 41 42 43

The Call, April 22, 1920. Workers' Dreadnought, May 15, 1920. For additional information, see Bell, Pioneering Days.

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

I27

organizations participating in the forthcoming Unity Convention agree beforehand to accept the decisions reached there; also, that they consent to merge their identities in whatever party emerged. Since the "right w i n g " would dominate in the convention—the proposed basis of representation guaranteeing that—the party would inevitably favor affiliation to the Labour Party and parliamentary participation. 44 T h e W . S . F . Executive held that "true revolutionaries" would never consent to this, and that it was impossible that they would find a spiritual home in such an organization. T h e adoption of a resolution incorporating "true revolutionary doctrine" was recommended; also, the immediate ending of all negotiations with the "bourgeois" B.S.P. A l l but two in the hall voted for a resolution which read: We Revolutionary Communist delegates and individuals pledge ourselves to the Third International, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the Soviet system, non-affiliation to the Labour Party, and to abstention from Parliamentary action; and decide not to take part in the August 1 Unity Conference, or in the Unity negotiations concerned with it. 45 Almost as an afterthought, the meeting decided to dissolve the W . S . F . and create itself anew as the "Communist Party (British Section of the T h i r d International)." Sylvia Pankhurst and her friends had managed to destroy entirely the agreement reached on May 29. T h e B.S.P. and S.L.P. Unity Commitee, realizing the precariousness of the situation, decided on a bold move—to make a personal appeal to Lenin. On June 20 they wrote to Lenin as the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Party, asking for his views on the Pankhurst challenge. 46 Lenin's reply, dated July 8, must have reached England some time before July 24, for on that day Pankhurst answered Lenin's criticism. Lenin's message read: Having received of the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain a letter dated June 2 0 , 1 hasten to reply, in accordance with their request, that I am in complete sympathy with their plans for the immediate organisation of the Party in England. I consider the policy of Comrade Sylvia Pankhurst and of the Work44 45 46

Workers' Dreadnought, June 26, 1920. Workers' Dreadnought, June 26, 1920. Bell, Pioneering Days, 157.

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128

ers' Socialist Federation in refusing to collaborate in the amalgamation of the British Socialist Party, Socialist Labour Party, and others into a Communist Party to be wrong. I personally am in favour of participation in Parliament and of adhesion to the Labour Party on condition of free and independent communist activity. This policy I am going to defend at the Second Congress of the Third International on July 15, in Moscow. I consider it most desirable that a Communist Party be speedily organised on the basis of the decisions and principles of the Third International and that the Party be brought into close touch with the Industrial Workers of the World and Shop Stewards' Committees in order to bring about their complete union.47 Sylvia Pankhurst replied in an "open letter to Comrade Lenin," in which she spoke of seeing reports in the press about an attack on her position; she remarked: My reply to you is that I also would desire to defend my tactics in the Moscow Congress, but I have been refused a visa by two intervening countries. If you, through the influence of the Labour Party or your parliamentary friends can obtain for me a passport, I shall gladly meet you in debate.48 The Dreadnought suggested that Lenin would never have offered such bad counsel had he been more intimately acquainted with the situation in Great Britain. A Communist Party existed already, correct in its repudiation of Labourism and Parliamentarism. The Communist Party, scheduled to be created on July 31 would have the "virus of Second Internationalism in its arteries," the Dreadnought concluded.49 On the eve of the Communist Party Unity Convention, an even more violent attack issued from the Pankhurst camp. It suggested that parliamentary participation led to "reformism" and a belief that leaders fought battles when actually mass action alone produced results "in the last stage of the struggle [then] approaching." 5 0 While the Labour Party diverted the revolutionary will of the masses into parliamentary and reformist channels, the Communist Party (British Section Third International) demanded class war and not class talk. Labour Party leaders, with their middle-class 47 48 49 50

Lenin on Workers' Workers' Workers'

Britain (London, 1 9 4 1 ) , 261. Dreadnought, July 24, 1920. Dreadnought, July 24, 1920. Dreadnought, July 24, 1920.

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129

mentality, sought only class collaboration. T h e Dreadnought claimed that Britain at that moment boasted more Communists than had existed in Russia in 1917, more revolutionaries than France had had in 1789. T h e task was not to make new Communists but to bring those already converted to act. 51 These outbursts notwithstanding, Lenin's response afforded the B.S.P. powerful support, and made possible the holding of the Unity Convention according to schedule. Delegates from the B.S.P. and Unity Committee of the S.L.P. gathered at the Cannon Street Hotel in London on July 31 to make final arrangements for the founding of the Communist Party. Arthur MacManus, who had been chiefly responsible for the Unity Committee's defection from the S.L.P., served as the convention's chairman. Alfred Purcell, of the Furnishing Trades Federation, moved the principal resolution, which declared the party's belief in the Soviet, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the Third International. 52 T h e resolution on parliamentary participation encountered some opposition, but the final vote, 186 to 19, showed that the overwhelming number were prepared to accept Lenin's interpretation of the matter. This resolution read: T h e C o m m u n i s t Party repudiates the reformist v i e w that a social revolution can be achieved by the ordinary methods of Parliamentary Democracy, but regards Parliamentary and electoral action generally as providing a means of propaganda and agitation towards the revolution. T h e tactics to be employed by representatives of the Party elected to Parliament or local bodies must be laid d o w n by the Party itself according to national or local circumstances. In all cases such representatives must be considered as holding a mandate from the Party, and not from the particular constituency for which they happen to sit. Also that in the event of any representative violating the decisions of the Party . . . he or she be called upon to resign his or her membership of Parliament or municipality and also of the Party. 5 3

Delegates showed greater reluctance in approving a resolution which recommended Communist Party affiliation to the Labour Party. T h e convention report stated that some thirty persons spoke 61 52 53

Workers' Dreadnought, July 31, 1920. The Communist, August 5, 1920. The Communist, August 5, 1920.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

on the question, and that the vote, when recorded, showed a hundred delegates favoring affiliation and eighty-five opposed. 54 Lenin's message of the previous week had succeeded only to the extent of securing a bare majority for the proposal; had it never been issued, the resolution would almost certainly have been defeated. T h e Joint Provisional Committee was reorganized as the Provisional Executive of the Communist Party, with a membership of twelve. 55 O n e of its first acts was to inform the Labour Party of its existence, state its policies, and make application for affiliation. 56 T h e Labour Party reply, dispatched by Henderson a month later, informed the Communist Party that its application had been rejected, the basis for affiliation being the acceptance of the Labour Party constitution and program. 57 This development coincided with the return from Russia of the British delegation to the Second Congress of the Third International. In this early chaotic period, no fixed principle of representation existed, and individuals attended the meeting representing thousands, hundreds, or just themselves. T h e British delegation—a motley crew—had been selected according to no definable principle. Whoever could manage a passport and passage to Moscow, and cared to go, went. 5 8 T o m Queich and William MacLaine attended as B.S.P. representatives; Sylvia Pankhurst went nominally as her organization's delegate, but in another sense as an "independent"; Jack Tanner, Dave Ramsay, and J. T . Murphy represented the shop stewards; Willie Gallacher attended as a Clydeside "rebel"; Helen Crawford represented no one officially, but was thought to reflect "left-wing" I.L.P. opinion; Dick Beech, an old I . W . W . adherent, represented only himself. 59 54 The Communist, August 5, 1920. The Convention record does not state which delegates supported and which opposed the resolution. It is safe to assume however, that the B.S.P. delegates favoured affiliation, and that a good number of the S.L.P. contingent opposed it. 55 The Communist, August 5, 1920. 66 Report of the 2ist Annual Conference of the Labour Party, 1921 (London, 1 9 2 1 ) , 18. 57 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 19. 68 John T . Murphy, New Horizons (London, 1 9 4 1 ) , 84-98. An interesting account of the difficulties encountered by one of the delegates who set out for Moscow in 1920. 59 Murphy, New Horizons, 143.

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

I3I

T h e Second Congress gave considerable attention to the "British question," and the disputes between Lenin and certain of the British delegates were numerous. In the debate on the "role of the Communist Party," Jack Tanner, reared in a syndicalist tradition, expressed distrust of all political parties, but admitted the necessity of the classconscious minority leading the others in their revolutionary advance. 60 Lenin accepted the fact that the class-conscious minority should lead the others, but argued that this could be accomplished only through an organized political party. Tanner, he suggested, made a serious error when he assumed that all political parties would necessarily be like the existing "bourgeois parties," which were certainly organizations of "parliamentary fakers and traitors to the working class." 8 1 Lenin hoped to see the founding of entirely new parties dedicated to the idea of an intimate union with the working masses. 82 In another debate, Dave Ramsay, an active S.L.P. adherent, objected to any scheme for affiliating the Communist Party with the Labour Party. British Communists, Ramsay argued, needed to decide that question for themselves. 83 Lenin, in a characteristic response, remarked: " W h a t would the International be if every little fraction came and said: some of us are in favour of one thing and some of us are opposed; let us decide the question ourselves. What would be the use, then, of having an International, a Congress and all this discussion?" 6 4 Lenin proceeded to offer Ramsay much of the same advice he had given Pankhurst; he said: Even the parallel existence of two parties would be better than the refusal to reply to the questions as to which tactics are the correct ones. . . . We must study the question raised by the British delegation in a special commission and after that say: the correct tactics are affiliation to the Labour Party. If the minority are opposed to that, then we should 60 No verbatim account of the debates exists in English. Short summaries of speeches, based on information culled from the Russian press, appear in a work published by the U. S. State Department in 1920. The Second Congress of the Communist International (Washington, 1920). For Lenin's speeches dealing with England, see Lenin on Britain. 61 Lenin on Britain, 264. 62 Lenin on Britain, 264. 63 Lenin on Britain, 265. 64 Lenin on Britain, 265.

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organise the minority separately. This will have educational importance. If masses of the British workers still believe in the former tactics we will test our conclusions at the next Congress. But we cannot say that this question concerns England alone—that would be copying the worst habits of the Second International. W e must openly express our opinions. If the British Communists do not reach an agreement and a mass party is not formed, then a split is inevitable in any case. 65 Lenin's arguments with Tanner and Ramsay, while interesting, were less important than those involving Willie Gallacher. In Gallacher Lenin encountered the toughest of the British delegates, and the one whose conversion would contribute most to making a British Communist organization successful. Although anxious to appease Gallacher by seeming to agree with him on nonessentials, Lenin never tried to conceal the major ideological differences. H e joined Gallacher in criticizing MacLaine for accepting the Labour Party as "the political expression of the trade union movement," and remarked that every workers' organization did not automatically become a "political workers' party"; the character of a party's leadership and tactics determined its qualifications for that distinction. 8 6 Lenin depicted the Labour Party as thoroughly bourgeois, composed of workers, but led by reactionaries. While he accepted certain of Gallacher's criticisms of the B.S.P., his final comments suggested that he saw the general situation differently; Lenin remarked: On the one hand, we see that the B.S.P. is weak and is not very well adapted for carrying on agitation among the masses; on the other hand, we see the younger revolutionary elements so well represented here by Comrade Gallacher, who, although in close contact with the masses are not very experienced in organising political work and do not represent a political party, and in this sense they are even weaker than the B.S.P. Under these circumstances we must quite frankly express our point of view regarding the correct tactics to be pursued. When in speaking of the B.S.P., Comrade Gallacher said that it is "hopelessly reformist/' he undoubtedly exaggerated. . . . T h e only correct tactics of the friends of Gallacher would be to join the Communist Party without delay for the purpose of straightening out its tactics in the spirit of the resolutions that have been adopted here. If you have so many adherents in Glasgow 65 ββ

Lenin on Britain, 266. Lenin on Britain, 267.

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133

that you are able to organise mass meetings, it will not be difficult for you to increase the influx of new members into the Party by more than ten thousand.67 Lenin thought the Labour Party distinctive; it permitted B.S.P. affiliation despite that organization's criticism of the Labour Party's "social-traitor" leadership. The Communist Party would be ill advised to refuse affiliation on such generous conditions. Comrade Pankhurst had suggested in a private conversation that if the Communists persisted in their revolutionary tactics they would face expulsion from the Labour Party. Lenin dared the "reactionaries" to attempt this. He explained: "If the British Communist Party starts out by acting in a revolutionary manner in the Labour Party and if Messrs. Henderson and Co. are obliged to expel this Party, it will be a great victory for the communist and labour movement in England." 68 Lenin rejected Gallacher's suggestion that the Third International was being surreptitiously influenced by the B.S.P.; its sole guide was the revolutionary experience of all countries. He showed no greater sympathy for Gallacher's contention that Britain's best workers would be repelled by a policy of affiliation to the Labour Party. On the contrary, if the tactic was properly explained to them, they would rally to it as the principal opposition to the "old reformism and opportunism."89 Lenin's views, needless to say, carried the Congress. Gallacher, Tanner, Ramsay, and Pankhurst were all defeated. By a two to one majority, the new Communist Party in Britain was told to seek affiliation to the Labour Party. A second recommendation was made that within four months of the delegation's return, all British Communist groups unite to form a single party dedicated to the Third International and its program.70 The British delegates returned with the Theses of the Second Congress, and with copies of Lenin's Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, published earlier in the year. This book repudiated the Lenin on Britain, 268, 271. Lenin on Britain, 269-270. 69 Lenin on Britain, 270. 70 Theses of the Communist International As Adopted at the Moscow Congress, 1920 (London, 1920). These were published by the Communist Party of Great Britain. 67 68

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

views of "radicals" in the Gallacher and Pankhurst tradition, and set forth a correct revolutionary tactic. Published in Britain almost immediately, it provided impressive evidence of Lenin's concern with British affairs. T h e complexity of the tactic, its origin in a Russian model, and the numerous errors of fact made little impression on Marxists eager to learn from a Russian master. They accepted readily a policy which would see them enter the Labour Party in order to discredit its "reformist" leadership, and then assist in the creation of a Labour Government which they were pledged to destroy. 71 Were the Labour Party to refuse this "assistance," the Communist Party would gain even more, for Lenin expected that this would only confirm the masses in their suspicions about the "treacherous" and "reformist" character of the Labour Party leadership. Whatever the Labour Party's response, the Communist Party stood to emerge the victor. 72 T o those who complained of the complexity and difficulty of the tactic, Lenin addressed a special admonition; he wrote: A n d if the objection is raised that these tactics are too "subtle" or too complicated, that the masses will not understand them, that they will split and scatter our forces, will prevent concentrating them on the Soviet revolution, etc., I will reply to the " L e f t s " w h o raise this objection: don't ascribe your dogmatism to the masses ! T h e masses in Russia are probably no better educated than the masses in England; if anything, they are less so. Y e t the masses understood the Bolsheviks; and the fact that on the

eve

of the Soviet revolution, in September 1 9 1 7 , the Bolsheviks put up their candidates for a bourgeois parliament (the Constituent Assembly) and on the morrow

of the Soviet revolution, in November 1 9 1 7 , took part in

the elections to this Constituent Assembly, which they dispersed on January 5, 1 9 1 8 , did not hamper the Bolsheviks, but on the contrary, helped them. 7 3

Lenin's immense personal prestige and not inconsiderable dialectical skill made his position almost unassailable. As Gallacher was to remark in his autobiography, published years later: "Gradually, as the discussions went on, I began to see the weakness of my position. 71 V . I. Lenin, "Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder," in Selected (London, 1947), II, 621-22. 72 Lenin, "Left-Wing Communism," 622—23. 73 Lenin, "Left-Wing Communism," 624.

Works

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

135

More and more the clear simple arguments and explanations of Lenin impressed themselves on my mind." 74 When some discount is made for Gallacher's idolization of the Russian leader, the fact remains that before leaving Moscow, in a last private interview, Gallacher assured Lenin that he had been mistaken in his earlier opinions, and that he would give full support to the new British Communist Party. 75 Lenin could not have hoped for a more complete conversion. Sylvia Pankhurst—the eternal maverick—was no less agreeable; she returned home a passionate devotee of the Third International and its dictates.76 These conversions helped persuade other British Marxists to accept the new orthodoxy. Not all were prepared to bend the knee, however; a few insisted on continuing to believe in their own private, and now prohibited opinions. The creation of a Communist Labour Party in Glasgow, in September 1920, opposed to Labour Party affiliation, indicated that the old S.L.P. independence was not entirely extinct.77 The organization of this party, the third bearing the Communist label, was greeted with violent abuse by those anxious to carry out the International's recommendations.78 Even more disconcerting was the intransigence of a small group generally referred to as the "Left-Wing Section of the I.L.P." After the I.L.P.'s Annual Conference in 1920, a small group of "left wingers," dissatisfied with the "reformist" quality of the conference decisions, organized themselves as a separate pressure group. While interested in the Communist "unity" talks which took place during the spring and summer, they made no move towards participating in these meetings. They explained their aloofness as a calculated policy; they would defer action until "the whole of the I.L.P." could be brought to accept membership in a single Communist Party. 79 When the Third International listed the "Left-Wing Section of the I.L.P." as one of the constituent groups that needed to be brought 74

William Gallacher, Revolt On the Clyde (London, 1936), 2 5 1 . Gallacher, Revolt on the Clyde, 253. 78 Workers' Dreadnought, September 25, 1920. ''''The Communist, September 16, 1920. 7s The Communist, September i6, 1920. 78 The International, The Organ of the Left-Wing Section of the I.L.P., July 3 1 , 1920. 75

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

into the new Communist Party, independence assumed a new character. Whereas previously it might be excused as a legitimate tactic, it now became a flouting of the International's authority. T h e "LeftW i n g Section" preferred to ignore this and showed no particular anxiety to assume its appointed place in the party. Sylvia Pankhurst's Communist Party, now the bulwark of orthodoxy, condemned the upstart and declared it unfit for membership in the revolutionary Third International. 80 J. T . W . Newbold, in an angry reply, explained that while his group had no time for "lukewarm elements" or "doubters," it had no patience with "those who chatter the mystic Muscovite jargon to the exclusion of every attempt to translate Sovietism into British phraseology and British practice." 8 1 H e told the "little flock" not to worry; they, of the I.L.P., were just as ardently Bolshevik as any other group. This cavalier treatment of recommendations laboriously created in month-long conferences revealed once again the independence of some British socialist groups who balked whenever foreign orders ignored domestic traditions. T h e British supporters of the Third International were only slightly less exasperated by personal declarations of independence. One such was issued by John Clarke, one of the Glasgow representatives who had gone to Moscow, and had returned before the session was half over. H e remarked on the Moscow Conference: One could not elude the ever intruding suspicion that every item brought forward was prepared for unqualified acceptance, and as one watched the proceedings, and observed how little the most skilfully conducted opposition influenced the crowd of Bolshevik-worshippers present, one could be righteously excused for suggesting the "cut and dried" policy was mainly responsible for the "success" of the C o n g r e s s . . . . T h e utter incapacity of the Congress to legislate for the British movement was perhaps the most conspicuous fact there. Some of the tactics that were useful and successful in Russia would be grotesque failures if put into operation here. T h e difference between conditions in this highlyorganised, industrially-centralised, politically-compact and insular country, and medieval, semi-barbaric, loosely-organised (industrially) and politi80 81

Workers' Dreadnought, December 1 1 , 1920. Workers' Dreadnought, December i8, 1920.

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

IS?

cally-infantile Russia is almost inconceivable to those who have not been there to see.82 Such criticism did not pass unanswered. Clarke was linked by British Communists with Ethel Snowden, another "superior" person, who nursed a private grievance because the Russians spurned her "profound and mature advice." 83 Although Clarke and others of his opinion were in a distinct minority in British Marxist organizations, they were treated as major threats to the forward advance of the workers' interest. Meanwhile, preparations for a new Unity Convention, to complete the work of July 31-August 1, went on. After prolonged negotiations, a committee representing the three existing British Communist organizations agreed to issue invitations to a convention scheduled for January 29, 1921, in Leeds. T h e convention would be empowered to elect, on a geographic basis, ten members of a new Provisional Executive Committee; six would represent England, two Scotland, and two Wales. T h e executives of the participating Communist parties would appoint seven other members; the C.P.G.B. would select three, the Communist Labour Party and the Communist Party (British Section Third International) two each.84 T h e party chairman would be chosen by the convention, and the secretary appointed by the provisional executive from outside its own number. Some fairly elaborate fictions were maintained by this unusual scheme. First, it suggested that the three participating organizations were in fact equal, and that a real federation was envisaged. Also, it suggested a fusion of opinion, in which diverse views were encompassed. Actually, the facts warranted no such interpretation. T w o of the three Communist organizations were woefully deficient in members. T h e Communist Labour Party, the most recent creation, may have enjoyed a membership of a hundred in Glasgow and its environs. 85 T h e Pankhurst organization, never robust, had come on evil days with the imprisonment of its leader for writing seditious 82 The Communist, September 23, 1920. A partial reprint of John S. Clarke's article, which appeared originally in The Worher. 83 The Communist, September 23, 1920. %iThe Communist, January 20, 1921. 8 5 An estimate based on conversations with Sylvia Pankhurst, J. T . Murphy, and Dick Beech. No published membership figures exist.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

matter in the columns of the Workers' Dreadnought.8β With Pankhurst, the Party amounted to little; without her, it was an empty shell. The Communist Party of Great Britain, actually the old B.S.P. in new dress, was the only participating group of any consequence. From the beginning its views had corresponded most closely to those of Lenin. In the Leeds Convention it registered its absorption of several small dissident elements, which, for one reason or other, had previously remained aloof. Sylvia Pankhurst, on the eve of the convention, issued from her prison cell a statement which suggested second thoughts on the part of at least one of the Moscow converts. While calling for unity, Pankhurst announced that her support of the new Communist Party would be conditional on its guaranteeing certain rights. The "Left," for example, would have to be permitted "to keep together and form a strong compact bloc within the Party." 87 Lenin's support of this policy was quoted to prove its orthodoxy. Also, the "Left" would need to have its own conveners and private meetings, to function as a unit when it entered the larger Communist gatherings. Even on the local level, the "Left" would need to be organized, to act as a "ginger group" and provide the lead to the others. The party constitution would do well to declare these privileges, and the Third International to recognize them. As for the Workers' Dreadnought, Pankhurst thought its future role would be that of an independent journal, offering free support to the Communist Party from the left-wing standpoint.88 Sylvia Pankhurst had indeed been to Moscow, but she had learned little from her visit. The Communist Party that emerged from Leeds tried her patience sorely, and in the end, dispatched her from its ranks. The Leeds Convention was a fairly humdrum affair. Differences were largely resolved beforehand, and only the organizational problems remained. Jack Tanner chaired the meeting and Willie Gallacher moved the principal resolution which brought the organization into being. Both were ardent supporters of the Third Inter86 Workers' tion 42 of the 87 Workers' 88 Workers'

Dreadnought, Defense of the Dreadnought, Dreadnought,

November 6, 1920. Pankhurst was tried under RegulaRealm Act. January 15, 1 9 2 1 . January 15, 1 9 2 1 .

THE ORIGINS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

I39

national, and never mentioned their earlier misgivings. Gallacher spoke of the discreditable behavior of certain British delegates at Moscow, who had hoped to impress the Russians with their revolutionary fervor. Such immodesty was held responsible for earlier failures. There had been too much concern with personalities, and too little with principles. However, all this was a chapter in history; from that moment, only one thing mattered: the world Communist movement. 89 Gallacher opposed MacManus for the party chairmanship, but lost in the balloting; MacManus, an old B.S.P. leader, was very much at home in this assembly. 90 As for the provisional Executive, it was elected according to the prearranged plan. T h e convention proceeded with scarcely a hitch; the disagreements of the past were scarcely mentioned. After two years of almost incessant feuding, the Communist Party of Great Britain was at last launched. Only the intervention of Lenin had made the organization possible. While certain leaders had acquired a Marxist education in Moscow, a larger number were destined to receive the same training in the Moscow creation. T o some, the experience would prove remarkably invigorating; many others were destined to be disappointed. Orthodoxy would continue to be dictated from Moscow, and London would be duty-bound to keep in step. Because of the absence of any precedent for such an organization, prediction about its possible success was impossible. Those who belonged believed, convinced that they were in accord with a historical trend which they claimed to know. Those who remained outside were skeptical. 89 90

The Communist, February 5, 1 9 2 1 . The Communist, February 5, 1 9 2 1 .

C H A P T E R VII

Early Labour-Communist Relations

important essential the Communist Party of 19201921 bore little resemblance to the Labour Party in its early days. Trade union participation in the Labour Representation Committee, however halfhearted and qualified, established from the beginning the possibility of an organization with mass membership. The Communist Party, pushed into being by outside pressures, started with no comparable advantage. Created as the result of an artificial fusion of several minuscule Marxist and neo-Marxist groups, the Communist Party bore all too visible marks of its strange origin. A group of young and energetic trade union agitators, who had acquired local reputations during the war, assisted at the creation of the party and afforded some reason for believing that the organization's deficiency in numbers would be compensated for by spirit and drive. But these were individuals without secure backing, and in every instance little known beyond a limited trade or geographic area. Their previous activities, in essentially limited projects, provided small experience for the founding of a national political enterprise. Also, whatever their individual and collective capacities, they were too few in number. The party was dominated by B.S.P. veterans who had preached "revolution" for decades without success, whose records as organizers and agitators were disappointing. The Communist Party might claim that its dependence was not on men but on ideas; that with the all-important Theses produced by I N AT LEAST ONE

EARLY LABOUR-COMMUNIST RELATIONS

I4I

the Second Congress of the Third International, success was assured. The British "question" had received a full airing in Moscow, Europe's foremost revolutionaries having contributed to the debates. The tactics agreed upon required only to be implemented; successful in bringing the various factions together to form the party, they would prove equally efficacious in launching the party. Such thoughts must have occurred frequently to those who showed the greatest anxiety to serve the Third International in its British operation. Hindsight provides the opportunity of seeing this period in a better perspective. It is now obvious that the Theses constituted one of the most crushing burdens ever imposed on a weak organization. Framed at a moment of considerable optimism, when world revolution seemed imminent, they were untenable almost as soon as they issued from the printing press. The tactic of 1920 was already outmoded in 1921. The long process of adjustment and modification, started immediately after the Moscow Congress, continued without pause for the next several decades. British Communists, like their confreres in other countries, were denied the security bestowed by a relatively stable policy. Since change proceeded slowly, at times almost imperceptibly, constant attention to Moscow became mandatory. Having once accepted the Third International's lead, every new position had to be anticipated, prepared for, and held to be consistent with all that had gone before. The possibility of error loomed large. The endless striving after a changing and yet changeless goal became the Communist Party's daily occupation. The Third International began by preaching a crusade against "Centrists and Reformists," who were to be "stubbornly and mercilessly" denounced.1 T o fail in that policy would be to abandon the workers to leaders who would "run" at a time of crisis, and involve all in a catastrophic defeat. Communists were told never to permit the myth to develop that only "theoretical differences of opinion" separated them from the reformist elements; the workers needed to be educated to know their true from their false friends. 2 The British Communist Party moved quickly to its appointed task. 1

"The Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International," Theses of the Communist International (London, 1920), 7. 2 "The Fundamental Tasks," Theses, 7.

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Selecting as its first target no less a person than Ramsay MacDonald, it ridiculed his candidacy in a Woolwich by-election. A Communist Party Election Manifesto remarked on the impropriety of selecting such an individual to represent a working-class constituency. Part of the Manifesto read: We cannot allow such a situation to pass unnoticed or misunderstood by the workers of Woolwich; nor shall we suffer our class to be deluded by this gross act of treachery without at least raising our voice in protest and warning. . . . Ramsay MacDonald is the Secretary of the Second International, which is, at this very moment, acting and conspiring against the Workers' Republic of Russia. . . . He is the Secretary of the body the adherents of which are the bitterest enemies of the working class— enemies invariably called in by capitalism to bludgeon the workers when they revolt against their slave conditions. . . . 3 The Communists thought the Coalition candidate a supporter of capitalism in all of its ramifications—industrial autocracy, attacks on trade unions, exploitation, imperialism. While the Coalition nominee stood for all these things openly, MacDonald supported them "none the less surely though his purpose [was] hidden under words." 4 The Manifesto concluded: Against the capitalist, the nominee of the Black International of finance and militarism; against the "Labour" leader, the candidate of the Yellow International of treachery; we Communists of Great Britain offer you the fraternal support of the Red International, whose program is our watchword: "All power to the working class!"5 Since the Communists failed to advance one of their own number to fight these "impossible" candidates, the worker sympathetic to Communism found himself in something of a dilemma. At this stage, the Communist Party thought it unnecessary to resolve such problems. Its concern was wholly with the propaganda value of the by-election and not with its political consequences. Entirely irresponsible, the party treated the matter as comedy. Forward, the I.L.P. Glasgow journal, had commented that "the whole movement 3 4 5

The Communist, The Communist, The Communist,

February 19, 1921. February 19, 1921. February 19, 1921.

EARLY LABOUR-COMMUNIST RELATIONS

T

43

will feel a thrill of enthusiasm on learning that Ramsay MacDonald is to fight an immediate by-election at W o o l w i c h " ; the C o m m u nists, in their o w n journal, retorted: " D o you thrill, comrade?" T h e answer, "not a palp!" 8 Such play, however diverting, did not constitute a proper implementing of T h i r d International instructions, and the Communists were soon made aware of their shortcomings. T h e Moscow Congress had been very explicit in ordering Communist parties abroad to form groups or nuclei in every "organisation, union, or association—beginning with the proletarian ones at first, and afterwards in all those of the non-proletarian workers and exploited masses . . ." 7 In the Theses appeared an even more precise injunction to permeate the trade unions, which read : The duty of the Communists consists in inspiring the trade unions and factory committees with a spirit of determined struggle, and the consciousness and knowledge of the best methods of such a struggle—the spirit of Communism. In execution of this duty the Communists must practically subordinate the factory committees and the unions to the Communist Party, and thus create a proletarian mass organ, a basis for a powerful centralised party of the proletariat, embracing all the organisations of the workers' struggle, leading them all to one aim, to the victory of the working class, through the dictatorship of the proletariat.8 T h e British Communist Party failed conspicuously to achieve the objectives outlined in this resolution. Whether insufficient membership, faulty organization, or powerful opposition led to the defeat, the fact remained that almost no progress was registered. T h e failure was so apparent to the T h i r d Congress, which met in July 1921, that it stated flatly: " [ T h e British Communist Party has] fallen far short of becoming the Party of the masses." 9 Again, the International stressed the absolute necessity of securing a firm base in the trade unions; it declared: N o Party influence from the outside can compare with the influence which is exercised by Communist groups working in factories, mills, etc., The Communist, February 19, 1921. "The Fundamental Tasks," Theses, 9. 8 "Parliamentarism, Trade Unionism and the Communist International," Theses of the Communist International (London, 1920), 15. 9 Decisions of the Third Congress of the Communist International, Moscow, July ig2i (London, 1921), 7. 6 7

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where they come in daily contact with the masses, and where they can influence the workers by persistently unmasking and discrediting the traitors and betrayers of trade unionism, who in England more than any other country, have become the political tools of capitalism. 10 If the Communist Party revealed no great aptitude in its efforts to permeate trade union and similar organizations, it enjoyed even less success in securing affiliation to the Labour Party, on which its instructions were even more specific: The Third International must declare itself in favour of the Communist Party, and the groups and organisations sympathising with Communism in England, joining the Labour Party, notwithstanding the circumstance that this party is a member of the Second International. The reason of this is that so long as this party will allow all constituent organisations their present freedom of criticism and freedom of propaganda, and organisational activity in favour of the dictatorship of the proletariat and power of the Soviets, so long as this party preserves its principle of uniting all the industrial organisations of the working class, the Communists ought to take all measures, and even consent to certain compromises, in order to be able to exercise an influence over the wider circles of workmen and the masses, to denounce their opportunist leaders from a higher platform, to accelerate the transfer of political power from the direct representatives of the bourgeoisie to the "Labour lieutenants of the capitalist class" so that the masses may be more rapidly cured of all illusions on this subject. 11 T h e B.S.P. had always favored Labour Party affiliation; its heir, the Communist Party of Great Britain, formed on August i , 1920, proceeded to demand the same. 1 2 When the Labour Party refused the bid, however, Communists expressed little resentment. Instead, the reaction was one of pleasure, bravado, and even relief. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted; the prospect of unity with the "reformist" Labour Party was a thing no longer to be feared. T h e Communist press found immensely amusing the Labour Party statement that Communist objectives "did not appear" to be in accord with its own. "Our worst enemy will not accuse us of ever pretending 10 11 12

Decisions of the Third Congress, 7. "The Fundamental Tasks," Theses, 15. Cf. supra, 130.

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MS

rejoinder. 13

they were," was the Communist A belated discovery that affiliation would have hampered Communists in waging election campaigns led to the remark that while Communists had been prepared to forego this privilege, it was pleasant to learn that it would be unnecessary. 14 T h e Labour Party's intended rebuke was transformed into a cause for celebration, and expressions like the following were common : We can fight where we like, and whom we like. We can oppose Labour candidates as freely as we oppose ordinary capitalist candidates, and since the Labour Party Executive admits that our objects are not in accord with their own they can not have the slightest cause for complaint. So be it. It is their funeral, not ours.15 T h e Theses of the Third International compelled the Communists to abandon their cavalier stance and renew their plea for affiliation. In a letter replying to Henderson's note of refusal, MacManus and Inkpin, the Communist Party's chief officers, reminded the Labour Party of its reputation for being "so catholic in its composition and constitution that it could admit to its ranks all sections of the working-class movement." 1 8 Henderson, in response to this second plea, quoted from the Communist press to substantiate his charge that the two organizations had nothing in common and therefore lacked any basis for agreement. 17 A further exchange of letters followed, but on November 18, 1920, Henderson, in a curt and formal note, informed the Communists that the "Executive have nothing further to add to their previous communications," and that the question would be raised at the Labour Party annual conference in June 1921. 18 The Communist, September 16, 1920. The Communist, September 16, 1920. 15 The Communist, September 16, 1920. 16 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 19-20. See also The Communist, September 23, 1920. Between September 16 and 23, the text of the International's Theses reached Britain. On the first date, nothing was said of the International's recommendations on affiliation, but on September 23, the subject received considerable attention. The Communist explained: " T h e view of the Third International, made quite clear in the various theses, is, that it is the duty of the Communists to work where the masses are. That may mean going into reactionary organisations, but that is better and easier than creating brand new organisations in the hope that the masses will leave the old ones and come to the n e w . " 17 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 20. 18 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 22. 13

14

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T h e Communists had no alternative but to wait for the Labour Party's annual meeting. T h e newly formed Communist Party, into which the C.P.G.B. was absorbed, had been in existence some five months when its predecessor's petition came before the Labour Party conference. A London delegate, who moved the acceptance of the Communist Party conditional on its adherence to the Labour Party Constitution, suggested that only by accepting the Communists would a "dangerous split in Labour's forces" be averted. 19 If they proved disloyal, he explained, their expulsion would be in order. 20 Duncan Carmichael, a powerful figure in the London Trades Council, seconded the motion. H e argued that an adverse vote would place the whole British Labour movement in jeopardy; "nothing was safe" without Communist support. 21 A. J. Cook of the Miners' Federation spoke as a Communist who made no excuse for his politics. T h e Labour Party, he explained, required a left wing no less than a right wing; it was wrong to prevent the youth from entering and advancing in the party. 22 Emanuel Shinwell rose to defend the Executive. H e delivered a scathing attack on those who advised acceptance of the Communist Party. While denying that he personally feared criticism, he distinguished between criticism tending to the improvement of the party and that which sought its destruction. 23 Cook had pleaded with the conference to "watch its leaders;" Shinwell replied that the conference would do well to watch its new type of leader "who posed as a Communist, understanding as much of Communism as he did of relativity, and whose actions during industrial disputes, and on other occasions, were traitorous to the working class and were driving the movement to the devil." 2 4 T h e Communist Party and the Labour Party were not simply in disagreement about a program; theirs was a more fundamental difference—of spirit and temperament. T h e essence of Communism was a rigid cast-iron discipline imposed by Moscow. Shinwell found it impossible to comprehend the argument 19 20 21 22 23 24

Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Party Party Party Party Party

Annual Annual Annual Annual Annual Annual

Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference

Report, 1921, 158. Report, 1921, 159. Report, 1921, 159. Report, 1921, 161. Report, 1921, 161. Report, 1921, 162.

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that the refusal of the Communist bid would increase the dangers of disruption. If there was any party in Britain which had done more to disrupt the Labour movement, Shinwell asked its name. Cook claimed to speak for the Miners' Federation; Shinwell remarked that though "the miners might, through the stress of circumstances and temporary mental aberration have come to a wrong conclusion," he doubted that Cook's views expressed the opinion of the Scottish miners, or for that matter, of those in South Wales. The Labour Party, Shinwell concluded, had considerable experience with men like Cook, who balked at the authority of any and every Executive.25 Fred Bramley, in defending the Executive, read from Lenin's Wor\s to reveal the deceit and trickery recommended by the Russian leader.26 Such evidence made no impression on Herbert Smith, the Acting President of the Miners' Federation, who argued that while he personally disbelieved in Communism, he saw no reason to be frightened of it. Disruption was necessary in every trade union, for otherwise there would be no check on its leadership. If the Communists remained outside the party, he said, they would enjoy a separate platform; to admit them would destroy that platform.27 An already lengthy debate was prolonged by other delegates who insisted on speaking. Finally, Henderson rose to summarize the Executive's argument and terminate the discussion. He challenged anyone present to show that Moscow at that moment or at any other had supported constructive socialism and political democracy.28 Did the framers of the resolution believe that Moscow would permit the British Communist Party faithfully to adhere to the Labour Party Constitution? "Any man who sought to persuade himself of that was fooling himself. Moscow had laid down its conditions and they were inconsistent with both the Labour Constitution and Labour Policy." Replying to Cook, Henderson asked when the Communist Party had become the left wing of the British socialist movement. No injustice, he argued, was being done the true left in the denial of the Communist application.29 25 28 27 28 29

Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Annual Party Annual Party Annual Party Annual Party Annual

Conference Report, 1921, 162. Conference Report, 1921, 1 6 2 - 3 . Conference Report, 1921, 163-4. Conference Report, 1921, 166. Conference Report, 1921, 166-7.

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When the ballots were counted, 4,115,000 were found to favor the Executive's exclusion policy, and only 224,000 opposed it.30 N o t a single major trade union had been won over to vote for the Communists—not even the Miners' Federation, for whom Cook and Smith claimed to speak. A year earlier, the Communists might have thought it best to let the matter rest. But in 1921, such a policy was made impossible by the explicit orders of the Third International. T h e Labour Party conference had scarcely adjourned when MacManus, secretary of the Communist Party, addressed a new note to the Labour Party Executive renewing the request for affiliation. 31 T h e Executive, with its authority recently affirmed, made short shrift of the matter; it claimed that it had nothing to add to what had already been said at the party conference. 32 In November, MacManus broached the question again, varying his approach somewhat, and using more moderate language than had characterized his previous communications. H e explained that Glasgow Communist Party branches, seeking affiliation to the Glasgow Trades and Labour Council, had received from the secretary, William Shaw, a recommendation that the Communist Party Executive communicate with the Labour Party Executive with a view to reaching an understanding that would permit affiliation of the Communist Party both locally and nationally. T h e Communist Party, MacManus explained, was "only too willing to adopt the suggestion of the Glasgow Trades and Labour Council," and reopen the question of affiliation. MacManus suggested that the Labour Party Executive appoint representatives to meet with Communist Party representatives for a discussion of outstanding differences. 33 T h e Labour Party Executive, after considering the request, agreed to the appointment of a subcommittee of five to meet with the Communists "to hear any statement upon the question of affiliation which Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 167. Report of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Labour Party, 1922 (London, 1922), 74-5. Labour's 1921 Annual Conference ended on June 24; the letter written by MacManus arrived on June 30. 32 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 75. 33 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 75-6. 30

31

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149

[they] desire to place before them." 34 In the discussions that followed, a proposal was made that the Labour Party submit a questionnaire to the Communist Party requesting specific information on matters in dispute. The Labour Party Executive approved, and on January 6, 1922, a questionnaire was sent; the Communist reply was received on May 17. 35 Both questions and answers told a good deal about the rivals. The Labour Party asked first whether the Communist Party had made changes in its "Constitution and objects" to bring them into accord with its own. Communist support of soviets and of membership in the Third International were declared inconsistent with policies advocated by the Labour Party. The Communist Party replied that no changes had been made in its Constitution; its belief in soviets and the Theses of the Third International remained unaltered. The Communists argued however, that the acceptance of soviets was in no way incompatible with a program of parliamentary participation; the soviets would simply replace Parliament when the workers secured power. 36 The Labour Party, in another question, remarked that it employed only lawful means in the pursuit of its objectives. How did Communists view this policy? 37 The Communist Party claimed that it was at a loss to discover in the Labour Party Constitution any clause suggesting that never under any circumstances would the party use extralegal means. Under normal circumstances the Labour Party acted within the law; the Communist Party declared itself prepared to do the same. However, should extraordinary circumstances arise, the Communist Party would be compelled to consider other means, in much the same way as the Labour Party had, in 1920, in forming Councils of Action; or, in 1917, in attending the Leeds Conference. 38 The Labour Party inquired also about Communist views on the responsibilities of members of Parliament to their constituents. It 34 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 75-6. The Labour Party representatives were Henderson, Jowett, Webb, Lansbury, and R. J. Davies; the Communists were represented by Gallacher, MacManus, Bell, Peet, and J. Hodgson. 35 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 77. 36 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 77. 37 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 78. 38 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 78.

15Ο

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was suggested that Third International and Communist Party resolutions seemed to deny such obligations.39 The Communists replied with a quotation from the I.L.P. Constitution: "Each candidate must undertake that he will run his election in accordance with the principles and policy of the Party, and that if elected, he will support the Party on all questions coming within the scope of the principles of the I.L.P." The Communist Party declared that it requested no greater freedom than this.40 In the questionnaire, the Labour Party referred to Communist talk of "waging war within the Labour Party camp," and of seeking to weaken or even destroy the party. Would the Communists agree to abandon all such plans and faithfully adhere to the Labour Party Constitution ? 4 1 The reply came that the Communist Party intended to obey the constitution, but would not prejudice its right of criticism about policy or tactics—a right common to all affiliated groups. The Communists protested the misinterpretation of certain of their statements which were viewed as attacks on the Labour Party when their intention was criticism and condemnation of particular individuals in the party. 42 The Communist Party, in a covering letter, remarked that never in the Labour Party's twenty-one year history had any other group seeking affiliation been required to submit to such an interrogation. However, it expressed the hope that the responses would be found sufficiently satisfactory to warrant favorable action being taken on its application.43 The Communist Party was of course disappointed, as it almost certainly expected to be. The Labour Party Executive, after discussing the reply, voted to confirm its original decision and that of the 1921 conference, and refuse the Communist bid for affiliation.44 The Communists, adamant in their earlier views, had done nothing to warrant a reversal of the original decision. Also, the Executive complained, the Communist Party misrepresented intentionally the 39 40 41 42 43 44

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922,

79. 79. 79-80. 79—80. 80. 80-1.

EARLY LABOUR-COMMUNIST RELATIONS

Labour Party's position with respect to the Leeds Convention and the Councils of Action. While individual Labour Party members participated in the Leeds affair, the party itself was in no way involved. As for the Councils of Action, the Executive rejected any suggestion that their behaviour had been unconstitutional.45 The Communists refused to be deterred by any reply, however adverse. On June 8, in a letter to the Executive of the Miners' Federation, they reviewed their record, and pleaded for support in their continuing fight for affiliation.46 Copies of the Labour Party questionnaire and the Communist Party responses were enclosed, so that the Miners' Executive might judge for itself the justice of the case. It was suggested that only the defeat of the existing Labour Party Executive at the forthcoming conference could save the party. The Miners' Executive voted to take no action on the petition.47 At the Labour Party conference in Edinburgh in 1922, Harry Pollitt of the Boilermakers moved that the Executive's account of its dealings with the Communist Party be "referred back." The executive had no right to question the Communist Party on any issue except its acceptance of the Labour Party constitution. Pollitt suggested that as a workers' organization the Communist Party enjoyed the right of membership in the Labour Party. 48 Frank Hodges of the Miners' Federation responded with an impassioned oration. Denouncing Communist lip-service to democracy, he spoke of its belief in the dictatorship of a nucleus of persons held to represent the will of millions of others. Making no effort to conceal his anger or prejudice, he shouted: The British Communist Party fand its supporters are] the intellectual slaves of Moscow, unthinking, unheeding, accepting decrees and decisions without criticism or comment, taking orders from the Asiatic mind, taking the judgment of middle-class Russia—the residue of the old regime— not even the judgment of the plain Russian people, but the dictates and decrees of the same type of intellectuals . . . despised in this country.49 45

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 80-1. Miners' Federation of Great Britain, Annual Volume of Proceedings for the Year 1922 (London, 1 9 2 3 ) , 347. 47 Miners' Federation Proceedings, 1922, 350. 48 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 196-7. 49 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 198. 46

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Ramsay MacDonald characterized British Communists as people "signed, sealed and delivered, mind, body and soul, bound to accept whatever instructions they got from Moscow." 50 If a report of Pollitt's speech reached Moscow and was repudiated there, MacDonald argued, Pollitt would have to choose between leaving the Communist Party and accepting his instructions. The Communists were free to make no pledge, for they could keep none. MacDonald warned the party against those who admitted openly : "We are coming in, holding out our right hand, but in the left, behind us, we have a dagger and we are coming up so close to you in order that we may stick it into your back." 5 1 The vote showed little sympathy for the Communist bid. Over three million ballots were cast in opposition to a censure of the Labour Party Executive; only 261,000 supported Pollitt in his resolution.82 For a second time in annual conference, the Labour Party approved the decision of its Executive to keep the Communist Party out. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this defeat for the Communist Party. Not only had it failed to secure the objective declared essential by the Second and Third Congresses of the International, as well as by its own party congress, but in failing it rendered inoperative the whole complicated tactic said to be required by the existing situation. The Communist Party, separated from the great mass of the British working class, could do none of the things dictated by Moscow. At the Third Congress of the International, held in 1921, a new tactic had been outlined; its slogan was " T o the Masses." Recognizing that the great majority of the world's proletariat had not come under Communist control, this being particularly true of Britain and America, and that imminent revolution seemed unlikely anywhere, the Moscow International ordered large-scale agitation in all bourgeois organizations. It was essential that the workers become acquainted with the Communist message and join "great, revolutionary 50 01 52

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922,

199. 199. 199.

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Communist mass parties." 63 Communists were warned against establishing themselves in small isolated groups, where their influence would be negligible and their power nil. In December 1921, the Executive of the Third International produced new Theses, said to be an elaboration of the old, which formally inaugurated the united front tactic.64 The Executive, aware of the impotence of its constituent members, of the growing strength of the opposition, and of the improbability of imminent revolution, recommended that Communists unite with all other workers' organizations. 55 The formulation of a common program to meet the "capitalist onslaught" was recommended. Only six months previously, the Third Congress had recommended the waging of "relentless war" against the Second, Two-and-a-Half, 56 and Amsterdam Trade Union Internationals, but that policy was now completely reversed.57 The necessity of Communist Party unity with the Labour Party in Britain became all the more urgent. 58 Communists everywhere sought to show the new tactic as a logical extension of the old; there was never a suggestion of a possible inconsistency between the two. The Communist, a British Communist weekly, explained: T h i s does not mean that the Communist International or any C o m munist Party will abate one jot or tittle from its position. N o agreement can be entered into that in any w a y infringes the fullest liberty of C o m munist expression of opinion and criticism. T h e Communists will continue their campaign of merciless exposure of every

non-Communist

leader and policy. T h e y will insist on their absolute right of separate propaganda and criticism, not only upon and after action, but at the very moment of action. T h u s the actual position remains unchanged. T h e new policy is not in reality a new one. T o those w h o may be misled by 53 Theses and Resolutions Adopted at the Third World Congress of the Communist International (New York, 1 9 2 1 ) , 38-9. 54 Labour Monthly, February 1922, 1 1 1 - 1 8 . Provides the text of the "united front" theses. 55 Labour Monthly, February 1922, 1 1 2 . 56 Cf. infra, 200-201. 57 Compare Theses and Resolutions, Third World Congress, 69, with the "united front" statement given above. 68 Labour Monthly, February 1922, 1 1 8 .

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reports in the capitalist press that the Bolsheviks are modifying their outlook, it may be worth recalling that this policy has been pursued successfully by the Bolsheviks time and time again since their foundation. In 1905, and again in 1910, the Bolsheviks entered into agreements with the Mensheviks for a common front, even while remaining their bitter enemies. A similar situation has now been reached on the international state for the pursuit of the same policy with the same success.59 Such efforts to prove the Third International's consistency notwithstanding, the fact remained that a major shift in strategy had occurred. The Second Congress, in instructing British Communists, recognized a peculiar situation in one country, and argued for "unity" —though not in those terms—as the only reasonable tactic. The Third Congress, assembled after the ebb tide of revolution in Europe, understood that new conditions demanded a new formula. The Executive's decision, a later elaboration of the " T o the Masses" directive, developed the idea, of a united front. In a situation of diminishing influence, Communist organizations could maintain or increase their power only through alliance with other workingclass associations. This change affected British Communists less than it did Communists in other countries. Having from the beginning been told to seek affiliation with the stronger Labour Party forces in the country, so as to unmask its Rightist leadership and lead the disillusioned masses to action, the new policy simply reiterated the old. However, it did incorporate a subtle change of emphasis which few found to their liking. Whereas the old policy suggested strength—a conspiratorial device for securing influence, especially constructed for British use—the new policy seemed to have been developed out of impotence. Why else should Communists everywhere be instructed to work with Social Democratic and other "revisionist" elements? Criticism of the Right would continue, of course, but with a difference; formerly, it had been an end in itself; now it was subordinated to the larger task of creating a united opposition to the forces of capitalism and imperialism. Before the introduction of the united front tactic, British Communists accepted their orders with alacrity. They thought them 59

The Communist, January 28, 1922.

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ISS

exceedingly subtle—the work of the best revolutionary minds— which recommended alliance with a hostile but influential group only in order to sabotage and destroy it. After December 1921, the necessity for affiliation became all the more imperative, but the new motives did not provide the old satisfactions. Communists would, in the long run, still seek to subvert the Labour Party, but in the period at hand, their duty rested in cooperation with the party to secure advantages for the worker. The policy of attacking "Labour's rightist leadership" took second place to that of working in concert to achieve rather limited objectives. British Communists tried to convince themselves that nothing had changed; they knew better. The Communist Party's rank and file showed little liking for the new tactic. J. T . Murphy, at the Fourth Congress of the International, a year after the event, said that the "introduction of the United Front in Britain had some rather remarkable effects. It came to the Party in Britain practically as a shock. The Party was young and had no great experience, and at first the demand for the United Front resulted in a considerable loss of membership to the Party." 60 The issue was fought out at the Communist Party's policy conference in March 1922. A t that meeting, Harry Polliti moved a resolution calling for the adoption of the united front tactic. The specific demands on which common action could be contemplated were enumerated; assurance was given that freedom of criticism would be insisted on by the Communist Party. 61 The party declared itself ready to join with other working-class associations in combatting wage cuts and the extension of working hours; also, in fighting attacks on protective regulations, trade union or political, secured by workers in the past; finally, in opposing assaults by the employers on workers' organizations. Under a separate heading came the promise to form a united front with any workers' group anxious to secure full diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Republic, and employment or full maintenance benefits for the unemployed.62 Pollitt, in speaking on the resolution, expressed a sentiment characteristic of Communists everywhere who supported the new tactic; he said: 60 Fourth Congress of the Communist International. Abridged Report of Meetings Held at Petrograd and Moscow, November 7-December 3, 7922 (London, 1 9 2 3 ) , 6 1 . 61 The Communist, March 25, 1922. 62 The Communist, March 25, 1922.

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The tactic is not born of a brain wave. It is a result of the international situation, both political and economic, in which the working class finds itself. It cannot be discussed from the point of view of country, London, or even England, but only from the international point of view. The time has passed for the moment when we can appeal with slogans like "On to the Revolution;" we must now appeal to the workers on the basis of their everyday practical domestic demands. It means that we shall have to associate with people whom we do not like, whom we definitely opposed. The fact, however, is that these people have the masses under their influence to a greater extent than we have. . . . So long as we can retain our freedom of action and propaganda, the tactic of the United Front, in this country, particularly, offers us the most glorious opportunity we have had for many a long day.83 William Paul, one of the staunchest supporters of the Third International in Britain, on the eve of the conference, wrote an article which suggested how considerable were the misgivings in Communist circles. Paul admitted that some would seek to condemn the united front tactic by labeling it a Moscow order, to which the British were compelled to give their assent. He asked what difference this made, since "the Communists [were] disciplined units of the iron battalions of the International proletarian army." H e went on to say: " T h e Communist soldier who is so important that he cannot take orders from the revolutionary General Headquarters Staff should quit the fight. There are groups of philosophical anarchists and other bodies for such as he." 8 4 Language of this sort would not have been used without cause. Yet, the report of the debate, as it appeared in the Communist Party press, gave only the faintest hint of disagreement. Only a single opposition speech was quoted; it was delivered by a Liverpool fireman who opened by excusing himself for his deficiencies as an orator. Worried about the party's future, he asked it to be "absolutely a working-class party, with a revolutionary outlook that the masses can look to and say 'those fellows might have funny ideas, but they are clean and they can fight.' "®5 No other opposition speech was printed. Instead there appeared the self-laudatory remark, "around 63 64 65

The Communist, March 25, 1922. Communist Review, March 1922, 337-8. The Communist, March 25, 1922.

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157

this resolution centered a searching debate, entered into with vehemence possible only to men and women for whom the class struggle is a vital actuality." ββ Needless to say, the meeting voted to accept the united front tactic. T . A . Jackson, a Communist of some prominence, moved at the same meeting that the Executive persist in its efforts to affiliate with the Labour Party. Jackson offered all the old arguments in behalf of this policy. His chief critic, J . T . W . Newbold, expressed himself as favoring affiliation at some future time, but not immediately. N e w bold argued that " w e have not had the constituent parts of the Communist Party sufficiently long together, we have not welded them sufficiently into an intelligent party understanding the implications of political action for us to be able to take them as a party into the Labour Party." 8 7 T h e balloting showed 1 1 2 delegates supporting Jackson's resolution and only 31 opposed to it.68 These votes renewed the Communist Party Executive's mandate to persist in affiliation efforts and to strive for unity with other working-class organizations. It was against this background of pressure— international and national—that the Communist Party suffered its setback at the Labour Party's Edinburgh conference. T h e Communists anticipated their defeat; on the eve of the Edinburgh meeting, MacManus wrote: "Whatever the result, the Communist Party will carry on its work, convinced that time and circumstances will reveal that in it the working-class has always a steadfast, loyal, fearless champion, and that its exclusion from its legitimate place within the ranks of the organised labour movement would be a tragic mistake." 6 9 Anticipation of defeat did nothing to diminish its sting. T h e Labour Party's intransigence proved a serious blow to Communist hopes, and resulted in new disruptive agitations. Momentarily blocked, the Communists launched a major propaganda offensive to convince the working class of its distinctive merits, and of the wickedness of those who sought to bar its admission to the Labour Party. T h e "intellectual" elements in the party were 66 67 68 69

The The The The

Communist, Communist, Communist, Communist,

March 25, 1922. March 25, 1922. March 25, 1922. June 24, 1922.

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singled out for attack; they were declared responsible for the Edinburgh decisions. One entire issue of The Communist was devoted to this question. Typical comments read: It is not the Communist Party, but the middle-class theoreticians (Fabian and I.L.P.) who are splitting the labour movement. It is these dictators who in the name of "democracy" seek to destroy the right of the rank-and-file to move in a revolutionary direction. It is these theoreticians who at Edinburgh demonstrated alike their anxiety for the approval of the reactionary middle-class elector and their hatred of the revolutionary left wing of the working-class movement. It is those who as the Communist Party grows stronger grow ever more bitter in their hostility to the Communist Party's claim to affiliation. And it is these—the Sidney Webbs, the Ethel Snowdens, and the MacDonalds—who with Frank Hodges as their enthusiastic ally are straining every nerve to secure an "industrial peace" with the ruling class, and a political truce with the middle class. . . . The Communist has no ends to serve other than those of the working class. Let the workers rally to the side of the Communist Party.70 The Communists repudiated the suggestion that they aimed at creating splits in the trade unions. They argued : This lie proceeds out of the mouths of officials whose conduct of trade union affairs has been so disastrous during the last eighteen months that if any actions of a leader could have split a union, their actions most assuredly would have done so. When the Communists try to introduce some sanity and courage into the conduct of union affairs, these officials resent the implied (and often expressed) criticism of their leadership as a sort of treason to the union itself. They cry out "The Communists are out to split the unions"; and under cover of that cry they will attempt to expel the one element which keeps up a spirit of fight in the broken ranks of the proletariat. There is something sublime in the impudence with which high-placed trade union officials, and particularly parliamentarians—"hard faced men who have done well out of the War"—callously bring the charge of "splitting the Labour Movement" against men who have sacrificed everything, have been batonned by the police, been sentenced to long imprisonments, and been thrown out of job after job and finally black-listed for 70

The Communist, July 22, 1922.

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I59

the sake of that Labour Movement which they are now accused of splitting. 71 T h e Communists enjoyed these excursions into the realm of selfpity no less than they did their attacks on trade union leaders, but both were now secondary to the object of discrediting the "middleclass intellectual" Labour leader. R . Page Arnot, one of the Communist Party's own "intellectuals," viewed the Edinburgh decision as a logical consequence of the Labour Party's anxiety to secure political office. His explanation, a very simple one, ran as follows : From the point of view of the Labour Party Executive, the winning of a large section of the middle class must not be jeopardised. Now the admission of the Communist Party would spoil all this. Its loud insistence on the abolition of capitalism would scare away many professional men and small traders who, as things are at present, would be willing to vote for a Labour Party but not to vote for a revolution.72 During the 1922 general election campaign, R . Palme Dutt, the Communist Party's leading theoretician, used the same argument, claiming that the Labour Party seemed ready to destroy a workingclass program in its desire to attract middle-class votes. Dutt suggested that it was one thing to win middle-class support with special appeals calculated to stimulate interest in the Labour program, and quite another to seek such support by "going over to the middle class." 7 3 T h e Labour Party, in 1922, as on earlier and subsequent occasions, worked hard to secure a large popular vote. T h e policy of disengaging middle-class voters from their traditional Liberal or Conservative moorings antedated the first World W a r . There is little evidence to substantiate the charge that the Labour Party's hostility to the Communist Party developed out of an exaggerated fear of losing votes through a too intimate association with a suspect organization. T h e Labour Party's aversion originated in a quite different set of circumstances. T h e Communist Party, in refusing to admit this, never succeeded in placing a correct estimate on its own 71 72 73

The Communist, July 22, 1922. Labour Monthly, July 1922, 10. Labour Monthly, December 1922, 326.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

failure. The Edinburgh decisions were ascribed to "bourgeois intellectuals" when in fact they represented a very conscious trade union sentiment. There was no dearth of Communist propaganda directed at the trade unions, but all to no avail. Substantial efforts produced minuscule results. The Communist Party could explain its failure only by remarking on the perfidy of "reformists" and other such elements. The answer lay deeper, and could have been discovered only by a degree of introspection impossible for Communist propagandists. The Party's success in Britain depended on securing a firm hold in the trade unions. In the absence of a strong intellectual Marxist tradition in the country, the trade unions represented the logical avenue of approach. The Communists made the effort but failed; their methods seemed unsuited to the British political and industrial scene. The Communist Party failed through its incapacity to perform the tasks assigned to it. Dependent on foreign instruction, but lacking the capacity to implement directives, it became what it wished most not to be—a "secluded clique." The Labour Party was at least partly responsible for the failure; it stood between the Communists and the workers, without whom no advance was possible. Success might still have attended the Communist effort if the trade unions had been won over. A study of "Black Friday" and its aftermath—one of the most severe defeats ever suffered by British trade unionism— may provide some insight into the Communist failure in this regard.

CHAPTER

Vili

T h e Communists and "Black Friday"

originated in the Government's decision, in February 1921, to decontrol the coal mines and return the responsibilities of management to the owners. In the midst of an industrial depression, when coal prices were steadily falling, the mine owners faced the problem of cutting the costs of production. While they would have preferred for the Government to reduce wages and increase hours prior to decontrol, the Government refused; the owners were left to make their own agreements with the miners. The Coal Decontrol Bill became law on March 24,1921; private control took effect on April 1. The mine owners communicated terms to the Miners' Federation, but these were declared unacceptable by the union. The owners responded by issuing orders to close the mines. Locked out, the miners appealed to their fellow workers in the Triple Alliance, and on April 8, the Railway and Transport unions voted to strike in sympathy with the Miners' Federation. 1 "BLACK FRIDAY"

British Communists, from the beginning, urged the workers to "watch those leaders," predicting a betrayal if the rank and file lost control of the situation. The Communists constructed a highly dramatic version of the immediate possibilities: Throughout the length and breadth of the country the rank-and-file labouring masses wait for the signal that shall let loose their pent-up 1

Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 141-15; cf. supra, 12.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

desire to aid their locked-out comrades of the coal fields, and, in helping them, to save themselves from the grim tragedy of an everlasting life of poverty, misery, and distress. T h e y realise well the meaning of defeat for the miners; they realise well the fateful consequences of yet another compromise. T o them the issues are crystal clear. Our reformist leaders may yet be compelled to call for action. If they give the signal—good. B u t if they fail to give the signal ? If they fail, you must not fail. Out of the hands of the reformists must power be taken, and into the hands of those who see straight and see clearly must power go Once the call for action is accepted there must be no further compromise. There must be no "leaders settlements" that leave the festering sores of modern capitalism open and untouched. There can be no final issue out of the present struggle save the end of the wage system. . . . T h a t spirit means revolution ! F o r only by a complete alteration of the present system can a solution be found to the issues that the Employers' war on wages have raised—a revolution that shall destroy the power of those who own and shall give it forever to those who are owned. . . . They [the leaders] tell us that the present dispute with the miners and the threatened dispute with other sections of the workers are merely wage disputes, and can be settled by the use of sweet reasonableness. T h e y bid us have patience and let constitutionalism work its slow and gradual changes. T h e y bid us look to politics as a way out of the chaos in industry. All this is special pleading and lies. 2 British C o m m u n i s t s had learned their lessons well. I m p l i c i t in M a r x i s t - L e n i n i s t ideology was the idea that "every e c o n o m i c or political conflict, given the necessary combination o f circumstances, m a y develop into civil war, in the course of w h i c h it will b e c o m e the task o f the Proletariat to c o n q u e r the power o f the s t a t e . " 3 C o m munists refused to see in the railway and transport w o r k e r s ' promise o f assistance another instance in a l o n g series where unions banded together to oppose i n j u r y to one o f their n u m b e r . P r o p a g a n d a interests dictated a different theory—one w h i c h showed " r e f o r m i s t " leaders goaded into action by " r e v o l u t i o n a r y " workers. T h e m i n e r s ' concern with a living w a g e under the existing e c o n o m i c system was a matter o f no consequence to the British C o m m u n i s t . H i s demands were o f a different nature ; even w h e n they included revolution itself, 2 3

The Communist, April 9, 1921. Theses and Resolutions, Third World Congress, 60-61.

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they were not thought excessive. The slogan "watch those leaders" required no particular prescience; by Communist standards, the failure o£ the "leaders" was inevitable. This propaganda, heedless of facts, and unimpressed by the immediate needs of half a million men and their families, struck a strangely incongruous note in April 1921. N o trade union leader in Britain, with the possible exception of J. H . Thomas, expected the Triple Alliance strike to lead to a revolution, and not a single one was concerned that it should. At a time of severe economic crisis, trade unionists recognized that a cut in miners' wages probably presaged a similar reduction in their own, and that to prevent this and also to assist a genuinely depressed group, a sympathy strike was in order. N o one thought of it as a political struggle, and no one viewed it as a threat to the state. Only the Communists—a tiny sect—shouted for revolution, claiming that the workers were behind them, with only a few traitors in the way. The Communists were not taken in by their own words; neither were the workers. The situation grew exceedingly tense as the moment approached for the strike to begin. At a joint meeting of the Labour Party Executive, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, and the Parliamentary Labour Party, on April 14, the miners were pledged all possible support, and the Labour movement generally was appealed to for assistance in meeting "this attack on the workers' position."4 That same evening, Frank Hodges, secretary of the Miners' Federation, made a remark at an interparty meeting of members of Parliament that set in motion new plans for achieving a peaceful settlement. Asked whether he would accept a compromise formula which guaranteed that wages would "not fall below the cost of living," but which shelved the miners' demand for a "National Pool," 5 Hodges replied that "any such offer coming from an authori4

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 3 1 . Herbert Tracey, The Coal War in Britain (New York, 1 9 2 1 ) , 28-29. Tracey offers an excellent description of the principle at issue: "The miners wanted a National Wages Board to determine by national agreement the amount and method of future wageadjustments. For purposes of smoothing out the inequalities in the wage-rates of the several districts they also proposed the creation of a central fund or 'pool,' to be formed by a levy on the tonnage of each undertaking. "The miners held that it was not reasonable to say that two men producing a thing, needed by the community, under different geological conditions, but involving 5

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tative source would receive very serious consideration."® Lloyd George, informed of this, accepted it as a compromise offer, and asked the Miners' Federation to meet with him for further discussion. The Miners' Executive, hastily assembled, refused, arguing that the discussion of a National Wages Board and a National Pool were indivisible.7 In effect, the leadership of Frank Hodges was repudiated by his own Executive.8 The National Union of Railwaymen and Transport Workers' Federation now intervened, and urged the Miners' Executive to reconsider its decision, and at least attempt negotiations on the basis of Hodges' offer. This, the Miners' Executive absolutely refused to do. The two other unions decided therefore to cancel their own strike notices.9 The day of their decision came to be known as "Black Friday." The Communists were appalled, and at the same time jubilant. Had they not predicted treachery from the beginning? What greater proof did the British proletariat require of their leaders' guilt? On the Saturday following "Black Friday," a cartoon appeared in The Communist; it depicted J. H. Thomas standing over a dead miner. The caption read : "I claim the right to lay the first wreath—I killed him!" 1 0 This same periodical, a week later, opened an appeal for financial contributions to assist the striking miners, and reminded the same expenditure of energy, must have a different wage. They urged that the industry could be, and ought to be, treated as a single service, and that the basis on which wages should be fixed should have regard not merely to the conditions of particular districts . . . but should be related to the capacity of the industry as a whole. "Profits would not be equalised. There would be precisely the same differences as had always existed in this respect between the well-managed and inefficient undertaking. The National Wage Board representing owners and workers which would supervise distribution of the "pool" would certainly wish to know the reason why a particular district or a particular colliery was taking from the "pool" more than it contributed, and would put pressure on it to improve its methods to come up to the standard of productivity set by others, or go out of business. By organising the industry as a single service, the bad practice of fixing wages and prices so as to keep the worstsituated and most ill-managed collieries going would be superseded. Conditions would be equalised." 6 Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 1 1 5 - 1 6 . 7 Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 1 1 6 . 8 Hodges resigned his office, but the Miners' Executive refused to accept the resignation. 9 Daily Herald, April 16, 1921. 10 The Communist, April 16, 1921.

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the workers of their other obligation—to punish the traitors. "Thomas must go," became the rallying cry. The workers were told to call special delegate meetings, not to examine the betrayers, but to receive their resignations.11 According to The Communist, the Hodges interview was a "discreditable rigged-up affair," to which he had either been party or dupe. He had been "induced to suggest" a formula which the Miners' Executive could not possibly accept.12 The Communist pretended to know the "secret history" of the debacle which it promptly told: It did not enter into their heads [Miners' Federation Executive] that the railwaymen's and transport workers' leaders would be such skunks as to use Hodges' blunder as an excuse for backing out of the strike. They did not realise that the whole thing was a plant. Meanwhile, Thomas, Bevin, Williams, and the others were already busy on their dirty work at Unity House. When the miners told them they would not walk into the trap prepared for them, and so enable the Alliance at least to postpone the strike again, these leaders had already prepared the way for the great betrayal. When the miners had left, the other sections in the Triple Alliance soon decided to call the strike off. Cramp made a half-hearted attempt to get the strike postponed instead of cancelled; but Thomas had the Conference well in hand. The decision was taken, and a simple announcement was made, without a word of explanation, that there would be no stride. The Triple Alliance was dead. No flowers, by request. Even then, Thomas & Co. had not the decency to tell the miners what they had done. They told the Press; but the miners only learned the decision by telephoning themselves to Unity House for information.13 Just as the Communists had intentionally misconstrued the purposes of the strike, so now they concealed the reasons for its failure behind a barrage of angry and vituperative comment. A comparison of the Communist Party attitude with that of Lansbury's Daily Herald, a newspaper not noted for its friendliness to officialdom, reveals some striking differences. The Daily Herald's editorial of August 16 was brief but poignant; it said: 11 12 13

The Communist, April 23, 1921. The Communist, April 23, 1921. The Communist, April 23, 1921.

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Yesterday was the heaviest defeat that has befallen the Labour Movement within the memory of man. It is no use trying to minimise it. It is no use pretending that it is other than it is. We on this paper have said throughout that if the organised workers would stand together they would win. They have not stood together, and they have reaped the reward. It is not for us to blame either individuals or sections or the movement as a whole. It is not for anyone to criticise anyone else or pretend that he himself would have done better than those who have borne the heaviest responsibility. We stood by the movement when it seemed to be on the rising wave; we do not propose to belittle it in its bad time. . . . We cannot, however, believe that one misunderstanding or mistake could have stopped the strike, defeated the movement, and brought about the present disaster. Not one, nor a hundred, nor a thousand such trivialities could have affected the issue if the whole movement had really been solid in organisation and understanding as well as in sympathy. That is where the fatal weakness lies. . . . What we need is a new machinery and a new spirit. The old machinery has frankly, in the hour of emergency, failed. The owners and the Government have delivered a smashing frontal attack on the workers' standard of life. . . . We may be beaten temporarily; it will be our own fault if we are not very soon victorious. Sectionalism is the weakness of the movement. It must be given up. Everybody must come back to the fight undiscouraged, unhumiliated, more determined than ever for self-sacrifice, for hard work, and for solidarity. We must wipe out personalities. We must concentrate on the Cause. 14 George Lansbury, in an article prepared some weeks later, remarked: " T h e Triple Alliance failed to function properly not because of the treachery of leaders, but because there was not sufficient driving power behind it. I cannot imagine, if the great mass of the workers had realised their community of interest, any action of the leaders would have kept them in." 1 5 George Naylor, secretary of the London Society of Compositors, voiced an opinion shared by others whose unions were not directly involved in the strike when he said: Surely, once having declared their intention of coming out in support of the miners, the other partners in the alliance were entitled to a voice 14 15

Daily Herald, April 16, 1 9 2 1 . Daily Herald, May 4, 1 9 2 1 .

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in all the negotiations going on and a vote on all questions to be decided. Had that measure of participation been provided for, it is fairly certain that an early settlement would have been reached. The miners, however, did nothing discreditable, for they were acting within the alliance rules; it was the constitution of the alliance that failed. 16 T h e Miners' Federation delegate conference, meeting a week after the fateful day, attributed the collapse to the "character and structure of the Triple Alliance itself." G . D . H . Cole, commenting on this, m a d e perhaps the most incisive appraisal of the weaknesses inherent in the Triple Alliance; he wrote: I think the miners are right in taking this view; for the Triple Alliance created with so great a flourish of trumpets in the early years of the war, as Labour's all-powerful expression of its economic power, has in fact never shown itself capable of action, and has now, at the decisive moment, completely broken down owing to the difficulties inherent in its structure and organisation. . . . The aim of those who founded it was to secure that action for the improvement of conditions should be taken simultaneously by the three groups of which it was made up. It was not, in its first inception, an organisation for the calling of sympathetic strikes by two of the bodies whenever one of them was engaged in a conflict. It was an organisation for ensuring that negotiations, and therefore the possibility of conflict, should arise simultaneously in all three bodies. This, it was thought, would have the effect rather of preventing than of multiplying strikes, since the collective power of the three groups was sufficient to secure the satisfaction of any reasonable claims. . . . Viewed from one aspect, the whole Triple Alliance fiasco is a study in human frailty and susceptibility to panic. There is no doubt that the courage of the Triple Alliance delegates did give way, and that it was this failure of courage which caused the eleventh-hour cancellation of the strike. But, in addition to this human problem, there is an equally interesting problem of large-scale organisation involved. . . . In fact, the effective working of the Triple Alliance, it can plausibly be stated, demanded a greater measure of solidarity and power of concentrated action thanarticulately exists in the Labour movement at the present t i m e . . . . It is bad policy to equip oneself with a club that is too heavy to wield. The weapon must always have a definite relation to the strength of him who is to use i t . . . . 16

Daily News,

June 16, 1921.

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The failure of the Alliance was a serious blow; but there are blows that do good to those who suffer them, even if they hurt at first.17 T h e comments of other non-Communist critics were much the same. Those closest to the event, who would have been in a position to speak most authoritatively about it, chose to remain silent. Months later, when the Transport Workers' Federation met for its conference, delegates complained of the Executive's long silence. One delegate remarked: " W e have had to get amongst the men. . . . For a considerable time we have had a dog's life, and we resent it." 1 8 Bob Williams, replying for the Executive, explained: "It has been extremely delicate, if not difficult, for us to make any revelation of the inside incidents which led up to the cancellation of the strike, because of the protracted nature of the miners' negotiations. Everybody with the desire to assist the miners, in not embarrassing them by making a revelation of the facts, agreed to do exactly what we did do." 1 9 In the weeks after "Black Friday," when the workers were still stunned by the magnitude of their defeat, Communist propaganda played a single theme—betrayal, individual guilt, severe punishment. T h e simplicity of the argument ought to have assured its success. Doubts were played upon, half-truths and untruths were retailed as fact, and vague hints of unrevealed evidence were freely given. There was never a suggestion that the organizational mechanisms of the Triple Alliance had been at fault, or that trade unionists on all levels acquiesced in their leaders' decision. Only the notion of wickedness and weakness in a few men, contrasted with strength and unyielding determination in the mass, was permitted. A shrill Communist demand for vengeance filled the air. An unparalleled opportunity to impress the British worker seemed to have been granted, if only he chose to listen. T h e securing of so enviable a public platform, while important, also involved certain dangers. In fighting a long tradition of rankand-file loyalty to trade union leaders, the Communists sought to Westminster Gazette, April 27, 1921. Transport Workers' Federation, Report of the nth Annual Council Meeting (London, 1921), 22. 19 National Transport Workers' Federation, nth Council Meeting, 23. 17

18National

General

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obliterate memories of services generously given. J. H. Thomas might be thought "hopelessly conservative" by persons outside his union, but by those inside, he was remembered for years of patient and effective effort. Ernest Bevin, who, a year previously, had made a magnificent defense of the dockers' interest, boasted a reputation too secure to crumble before the first blast of criticism. The other leaders— men who had devoted their entire working lives to the trade union movement—might be deemed innocent whatever the evidence. The enormity of the indictments, calculated to make any response impossible, were they to miscarry, might contribute only to the creation of a healthy skepticism. The Communists proceeded entirely oblivious to these dangers. Determined to strike while suspicions were rife, they showed neither charity nor reason in their scattered attacks. At a delegate meeting summoned in late April to discuss the Communist Party constitution, those who had "betrayed" the miners were individually cited and condemned. Bob Williams was expelled from the party for his crimes; a resolution, bristling with hate, was passed unanimously: T h i s Conference of the C o m m u n i s t Party of Great Britain, meeting within a week of the greatest betrayal of the workers of Britain, declares its whole-hearted

sympathy with the mining workers, w h o were so

treacherously abandoned by the leaders of the Transport W o r k e r s and Railwaymen, and congratulates t h e m upon their steadfastness in the face of the failure of their Allies. It calls upon the rank-and-file w h o were no party to this betrayal, to drive their betrayers from their official positions, and urges the rank-and-file of the Triple Alliance and of the other organised workers to take hold of this lesson and to prepare against a repetition of this disaster by reorganising the unions on a class basis and with a class w a r policy. 2 0

The Communist press recognized no limits in attacking individual leaders. J. H. Thomas ended by suing The Communist for libel; he was awarded two thousand pounds damages.21 Bob Williams suffered the onslaught in stoic silence, made all the more difficult by his reluctance to be separated from an organization with which he wished The Communist, April 30, 1921. The Communist, in its December 10, 1921 issue, gives a fairly extensive account of the trial. Thomas was awarded two thousand pounds in damages. 20 21

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to be connected.22 Ernest Bevin replied to the more intemperate criticism, but soon learned that such action only induced the Communists to redouble their attacks. A single instance may be offered to demonstrate the nature of the problem. Throughout April and May, The Communist published attacks on Bevin by a writer who signed his articles John Ball. When Bevin decided to reply to these, he revealed the author to be Francis Meynell, who had been removed from the Daily Herald's staff partly at Bevin's instigation.23 Meynell admitted his authorship of the articles but denied that he bore Bevin a personal grudge because of his involvement in the Daily Herald matter. On the contrary, Meynell explained: Was I not one of the people who propagated his title of "Dockers' K.C.," which won him not only his fame, but many a presentation piece of furniture and check. Did I not subedit in the Daily Herald the long reports of his speeches for which he paid at advertisement rates?24 With ingenuity and malice Meynell raised all sorts of questions likely to reflect on Bevin's rapid rise to power. As for Bevin's reply, Meynell preferred to repeat his own version of the events of the "fatal day." He claimed that Bevin and others had gone to interview the Prime Minister without asking prior permission of the Miners' Federation. Bevin replied that he and Gosling had been asked to meet with the minister of labour, that the matter had been referred to Williams of the Transport Workers' Executive, and that they had been instructed to see the minister if the National Union of Railwaymen and Miners' Federation Executives had no objections. Williams communicated with Hodges, Smith, Cramp, and Thomas, and all agreed that a refusal of the invitation would be a mistake. Bevin 22 National Transport Workers' Federation, 11 Council Meeting, 52. Williams said: "Nobody has taken more abuse with regard to the developments of that Black Friday than the Secretary of the Transport Workers' Federation. I have been expelled from an organisation with which I wish to be associated." 23 Meynell had been largely responsible for securing money from the Third International for the support of the Daily Herald. This was done without the knowledge of the Herald's editor, George Lansbury. When the "Bolshevik gold" story broke in August 1 9 2 0 , the Herald hesitated about returning the money. In September 1920, the newspaper's directors, Bevin, Lansbury, Hodges, Turner, and Williams decided to refuse help from the Third International.

2iTAe

Communist, May 28, 1921.

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I7I

and Gosling, in their interview, gave unqualified support to the miners' case, and, when asked to repeat their arguments to the Prime Minister, agreed to do so. Bevin noted that Herbert Smith, the President of the Miners' Federation, had thanked them for their effort. 25 T o this Meynell replied : Bevin hopes that his readers will regard this as a rebuttal of our charge. It is nothing of the sort. It is an admission, though a most candid and disingenuous one. Bevin and his colleagues went (as he says) to see the Minister of Labour, having first informed the Miners of their step. They did not inform the Miners, Bevin does not now inform his readers, that, in the words of Robert Williams, "it had been intimated to him that the Prime Minister would be present." Bevin makes it appear that, going to see the Minister of Labour, they were suddenly faced by the Prime Minister. That is false. They entered into partnership with the "diplomatic" Lloyd George to deceive the Miners, by means of a fake interview with the Minister of Labour. And Bevin has the effrontery to boast of Herbert Smith's thanks for their "candour" when, until this day Herbert Smith has been kept in the dark as to the true history of that shameful meeting!2® T h e thought that Bevin wished to see the Prime Minister and could achieve it only by the covert and elaborate stratagem suggested by Meynell may seem preposterous; it was entirely credible to the believing Communist. Bevin, in telling about the interview, had remarked: " W e abstained from discussing the miners' claims and conditions in accordance with our promise, and simply stated the trade unionists' point of view." T o this, Meynell replied: That disgraceful quibble requires no comment. What it means is that Bevin did worse than break his promise. Instead of discussing the strike as an advocate of the miners' case, he gave away to Mr. Lloyd George the neutral, unprejudiced, impartial "views" of other sections of Trade Unionists, who were falsely supposed to be the miners' allies.27 25 26 27

The Communist, May 28, 1 9 2 1 . The Communist, May 28, 1 9 2 1 . The Communist, May 28, 1 9 2 1 .

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T h e Communist vendetta, once started, seemed to lose all touch with reality, and degenerated into a squabble about trivialities. So long as the miners were out on strike, trade union leaders refused to engage the Communists in open battle, and the tirade continued unanswered. By late summer, however, testimony of a different sort began to accumulate. T h e Transport Workers' Federation, at its annual general council meeting, produced the first authoritative account of the events leading to "Black Friday." Delegates received a special report on the mining crisis, in which the Executive repudiated "any suggestion—from whatever quarter it may come—that the Federation is responsible in any way for any intrigue, any negotiations, any wire-pulling, which would to the slightest degree militate against the success of the miners "28 T h e Communists had sought to make an issue of the fact that both the transport and railway unions urged the miners to keep their pump and safety men at work, thereby diminishing the strike's effectiveness. T h e Executive explained why, together with the N.U.R., it had recommended this policy. T o have done otherwise would have been to increase the pressure on the owners but at the loss of the public's confidence. T h e removal of the pump and safety men, the report argued, would have given ammunition to those who claimed the miners reckless, toying with the nation's wealth and endangering its future use. 29 T h e report maintained that "up to Thursday the position seemed wellnigh impregnable." 30 Then came the fatal Hodges interview, and by Friday, all was confusion. Provincial newspapers carried reports of the strike's abandonment, and of Hodges' resignation. T h e various union offices were deluged with telephone calls and telegrams from all parts of the country requesting information. 31 T h e Triple Alliance met, and asked leave to consider the telegram sent by the Prime Minister in response to Hodges' statement of the previous evening. At this the Miners' Federation representatives withdrew, deliberated separately for an hour and a half, and returned to tell the 28 National Mining Crisis 29 National 30 National 31 National

Transport (London, Transport Transport Transport

Workers' Federation, Executive Council's Special Report on 1 9 2 1 ) , 17. Workers' Federation, Special Report, 19-20. Workers' Federation, Special Report, 28-29. Workers' Federation, Special Report, 3 0 - 3 1 .

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others that they intended to reject the offer, and were returning to their own offices to draft a reply. The report told of the refusal of the Miners' Federation to discuss the matter further. Their attitude was: "all you have to do is strike, but you shall not have anything to say on the merit of any offer, on the conduct of the negotiations, neither shall the weight of the Alliance be used until you have got your men out." 82 The Transport Workers' Federation and National Union of Railwaymen representatives hoped still to bring some order into the proceedings, and, shortly after noon they phoned the Miners' Federation offices to ask to see the proposed answer before it was dispatched. A subcommittee of six hurried to the Miners' Russell Square headquarters to study the note. They found the office in a turmoil. Hodges had tendered his resignation; the Miners' Executive was split almost evenly on the terms of the proposed message. N o one offered to show it, and it was not seen till it appeared in the newspapers. 33 Disheartened, the subcommittee returned to Unity House to report on the situation. After some discussion, it was agreed that nothing would come of a further attempt at a meeting with the Miners' Federation. By a vote of 28 to 12, the Transport Workers' Federation and the National Union of Railwaymen admitted the futility of further conversations. The two unions proceeded to vote on a motion canceling their strike notices; all but five of the representatives agreed to the motion.34 The Transport Workers' Executive held the chief defect of the Triple Alliance to have been "the lack of adequate controlling machinery." 35 While emphasizing the organizational failing, the Executive made no effort to ignore the human element. The report con32 National Transport Workers' Federation, Special Report, 3 1 . The Prime Minister's note to Hodges read: "The general impression made on their [the listeners'] minds was that you were now prepared to discuss with the owners the question of wages without raising the controversial issue of the pool, provided the arrangements to be made were of a temporary character and without prejudice to the further discussion of proposals for a national pool when a permanent settlement comes to be dealt with. If this is a fair representation of your suggestion, I invite you and your fellow-delegates to meet owners at Board of Trade at eleven this a.m." 33 34 35

National Transport Workers' Federation, Special Report, 3 1 . National Transport Workers' Federation, Special Report, 33. National Transport Workers' Federation, Special Report, 34.

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eluded with a comment which the activities of J . H . Thomas probably inspired. It read : T h e fact cannot be disguised that there are those participating in the direction of the Alliance who have not only doubted its efficacy, but have been against its actions in any conceivable set of circumstances. While nominally accepting the principles upon which the Alliance is based, they have feared the consequences of a general stoppage of Miners, Railwaymen, and Transport Workers. T h i s must be accounted for by a natural hesitancy, a disbelief in their own class, or a fear of revolutionary consequences following upon a strike of the magnitude of the Triple Alliance membership. A stoppage on the part of three organisations is not different in character from a stoppage of one organisation; it is only a difference of degree, and not of kind.3®

This report, which contributed substantially to the existing fund of information on the events leading up to "Black Friday," served another purpose; it initiated a debate during which further details emerged. Jack Jones, M.P., inquired of the Executive whether it knew of any "private negotiations" that had taken place of which the miners were not informed. 37 Ernest Bevin, in replying, assured Jones that he knew nothing of "secret visits or conversations," and that had he heard of such incidents, he would have reported them to the Executive. 38 H e remarked also that despite the abuse and calumny to which he had been subjected since that fateful Friday, were he required to decide the matter again, he would act precisely as he had on the previous occasion. 39 Bevin reminded the delegates of the conditions that had brought the Triple Alliance into being. The three unions, he suggested, had acted together on only a single question—that of hours. And, even in that instance, Bevin remarked, joint action was accidental rather than planned. On every other occasion, the three unions had insisted on acting separately, each in accord with its own constitution. This, Bevin argued, was the real difficulty; "you cannot have a joint movement and autonomy at the same time." 4 0 36 37 ss 39 40

National National National National National

Transport Transport Transport Transport Transport

Workers' Workers' Workers' Workers' Workers'

Federation, Federation, Federation, Federation, Federation,

Special Report, 36. nth Council Meeting, nth Council Meeting, nth Council Meeting, nth Council Meeting,

28. 29. 29. 29-30.

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Recalling the mining crisis of the previous October, Bevin told of the numerous occasions that the Transport Workers' Executive had asked for a reorganization of the alliance. T h e Executive, he explained, wanted machinery that would actually work, and not put the union in a ridiculous position before the public. In the October crisis, Bevin reminded his audience, the Miners' Federation dropped one of its key planks without a word of warning to the other two unions. Each Executive met in its own room, came to its own decision, and then announced its intentions to the others. " Y o u cannot run a joint movement that way," Bevin remarked. He continued: On those grounds, speaking for myself quite honestly, knowing that the great problems associated with the Triple Alliance strike had never been adequately considered, I personally was very diffident in the early stages . . . not because the justice of the case did not call for it [a strike], but because we had not made adequate preparations for such a move. 41 Between October and April, Bevin explained, the Executive of the Transport Workers' Federation tried on several occasions to arrange a meeting to consider the reorganization of the alliance. T h e Executive realized that only careful planning could prepare the alliance for an emergency in which it became responsible for the feeding and caring of a million-odd families. All this pleading had no effect, Bevin said, for the other unions admitted no need for reorganization. When, in the midst of the April crisis, Bevin reminded the Miners' Federation of their obstinacy, he received the reply that "the reason they had not met us was because they thought they would never want the Triple Alliance again." 4 2 Bevin told anyone who doubted his word to consult the record of the alliance, where this very statement would be found. It was easy for Herbert Smith to tell the other unions to "get on t' field," but Bevin explained, "our people are on wheel, moving from one part of the country to the other, and it is more difficult to handle them than calling the miners out of a pit and automatically closing that pit." Why were the miners so incapable of considering and trusting their allies? Their suspicions served only to create un41 42

National Transport Workers' Federation, nth National Transport Workers' Federation, nth

Council Meeting, 30. Council Meeting, 3 1 .

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necessarily tragic situations. Bevin told of the Labour Party's offer to present the miners' case in the House of Commons, and of the cool reception given this generous suggestion. 43 These were the conditions under which the Triple Alliance was expected to operate. W a s it any wonder, Bevin asked, that its efforts came to nothing? Bevin then proceeded to describe "Black Friday," an account deserving of a verbatim report: After Hodges' speech, the next day, the miners came to Unity House. They did not come as with two partners in the Alliance who had to bring out a million men that night. They did not say in common parlance, "Well, brothers, this happened in the House, and before we take a final decision we want a consultation." I submit, if there is going to be unity in action there must be unity in counsel if you are going to preserve the solid front of the movement. They went into a room by themselves; they were there two hours or more, and they came to the other two constituent parties . . . and the President of the Miners' Federation read out to us about a three-line resolution which was their decision. That is what happened. We appealed to them to hear our views. . . . I have read the speeches of Cook and others, but I fail to find the lion-like conduct inside the Triple Alliance that is on the platform. I have heard them more than once, and they never make a single contribution to the Alliance. W e said: "Look here, since there is the possibility of a settlement or a changed condition, let us look at our weaknesses." There are a lot of men who shout that we ought to strike when we are not sure we are going to strike. I am not going to underestimate the calibre of the men I have to deal with. We knew that there were a number of men in the Transport Workers' Federation who had decided to come out that night, but we also knew that there were a number who had volunteered for the Government Volunteer Forces. Let that be understood by you. The information was in our possession. We were not worrying about the docks; the docks were not our trouble. I am not revealing anything when I say that road transport was our serious anxiety in the whole business. We knew these things were going on, and we said we must try and keep a united front. We appealed for a common consideration of our problem. W e were told that it was a matter for us. They—the miners—were going to Russell Square. They had decided to send a letter to Lloyd George refusing this meeting, and were going to Russell Square. 43

National Transport Workers' Federation, nth Council Meeting, 31.

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177

We then sent the Sub-Committee to Russell Square to consult with the miners, and we never saw the letter to the Prime Minister or knew what it contained until it was read in the House of Commons; and we were partners to the Alliance! I am not blaming the miners. I am only pointing out it is their method, and it did not correspond with the difficult situation we had to handle with a million men. . . . Speaking for myself, when I saw no chance of common consultation, when we saw no chance of making the Triple Alliance the real Executive movement—this independent action of the groups going on and these changes taking place without one another—I felt it was leading the men to absolute disaster, and honestly, I voted at that stage for calling off the strike. 44 This, the most candid official statement on the "Black F r i d a y " debacle, revealed the inadequacies of an overly large trade union combination, created in one set of circumstances, and employed in another. T h e distrust felt by each of the constituent groups, the faulty machinery for joint consultation, and the general unpreparedness of the railway and transport workers for a sympathy strike, were all laid bare. Bevin made no attempt to conceal the fear which he and others felt lest the workers not heed the strike s u m m o n s and the action be broken by scab and volunteer forces. Bob Williams was even more specific on this matter; he said: We knew all along that the miners have not, during the last twenty years, had a single dispute broken by the importation of scab labour. The whole of London was an armed camp. Regent's Park and Kensington Gardens were fitted up with an improvised transport service, as though the Germans were about to invade our shores. The Government was spending half a million a day, not to break the miners' dispute, but to break the threatened transport workers' dispute. We knew very well that if the forces provided by the Government were to be used it was not to take the place of one single miner, but to take the place of our members who took part in this dispute; and therefore we implored the Miners' Federation to consider this aspect of the situation which had been forced on our attention. 45 There had indeed been a loss of faith—a gnawing fear a m o n g the leaders that they would fail to bring the contemplated strike to a 44 45

National Transport Workers' Federation, nth National Transport Workers' Federation, nth

Council Meeting, 32. Council Meeting, 24.

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successful issue. Bevin offered reasons for his concern in the field reports that reached his office. Whatever view is taken of this evidence, the inadequacy of the Triple Alliance machinery is apparent. Mutual trust and confidence, essential in this sort of operation, were conspicuously lacking. This, more than any last-minute fear, compelled the transport and railway unions to seize on the divisions in the Miners' Federation Executive to extricate themselves from a difficult situation. T h e Communists never admitted such an interpretation. Machinery meant nothing to them; only men counted; and the men, they asserted, were entirely prepared, waiting only to be ordered into action. So long as the Communist version was uncontested, a theory of individual guilt seemed almost credible. W i t h the accumulation of new evidence, the extravagance of the Communist view became apparent. It was no accident that both the railway and transport workers, in separate conferences, found their Executives not guilty of the crimes with which they were charged. T h e theory of individual guilt gave way before the weight of authoritative evidence. Every union realized that the situation peculiar to itself was more complicated than the first reports suggested. T h e Transport Workers' Federation, for example, began to consider whether its large new membership, composed of men for whom trade unionism was a novelty, did not constitute something of a liability in a time of crisis. T h e acquiring of firm loyalties to a trade union did not come automatically with the securing of a membership card. T h e large number of unemployed workers were seen as a hindrance, offering an attractive body from which scabs could be recruited, and contributing by their poverty to the shaky financial condition of the union. In these circumstances, the hesitations of Williams or Bevin came to represent something other than personal cowardice. T h e Communists saw fit to ignore entirely such evidence. Having constructed the myth of individual perfidy and mass purity, they made no attempt to alter it. When their indictment was complete, every major trade union figure found himself cited. "Thomas & Co." came to include former friends like Herbert Smith and Bob Williams along with traditional Communist foes. Smith, who only a year previously had enjoyed a high regard in the Communist camp, found

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himself among the condemned. As one Communist journal explained: To the treachery of J. H. Thomas, Williams, and Bevin must be added that of Herbert Smith and the other miners' leaders. We now know from the brazen confession of these men at the recent miners' conference that their heart and spirit were not in the struggle during the lockout. They neither had the will nor the determination to win, and consequently the miners were disastrously defeated. As honest men, their position was clear. When they realised that they could not carry out the demands of the determined rank-and-file, then they ought to have resigned and made way for the younger, more active and courageous leaders who would gladly have taken their places. . . . We are now beginning to comprehend the real depths of the rascality that inspired the careerists in the trade union bureaucracy. Their policy was so to manipulate the miners' lockout to inevitable defeat that it would serve as a solemn warning to all workers that strikes were played out and that the ballot was the weapon of salvation.46 The Communists had finally reached the point where only two groups remained inviolate—the ever-virtuous rank and file and themselves. All leaders had finally come to rest in the same pool. In the late summer of 1921, the Communists were given an opportunity to gauge their success as a political party. They nominated one of their number to contest the Welsh seat Caerphilly in a by-election. The South Wales Miners' Federation had recently demonstrated its "revolutionary" ardor by withdrawing from the International Federation of Trade Unions and affiliating to the new Communist Trade Union International. This achievement, the Communists credited to the pressure of the rank and file. Now, this same rank and file was presented the opportunity of returning to Parliament the first member of the Communist Party. Bob Stewart, the nominee, produced an election manifesto quite different from those commonly seen in Wales; it read in part: While the miners have thrown aside the industrial leadership of an international movement led by J. H. Thomas, they have not yet thrown aside the political leadership of the Labour Party, which is dominated by the same man and men like him. To bring this new industrial movement 46

Communist Review, September 1921, 4.

ΐ8θ

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

with all its new demands on to the political field, it is necessary to have a new political policy. The Trade Union leaders who betray you during strikes cannot be trusted in the House of Commons. The Labour leaders who blackleg you on the industrial field will scab you on the political field. It is because we recognise this that the Communist Party comes before the masses and puts forward the new political policy which alone is in keeping with Labour's industrial policy. The South Wales miners demand all power in the mines. The Communist Party demands all political power for the workers. And until the workers get all power in every phase of social activity, they will be locked out, starved out, boycotted, cast into unemployment, and finally sent to die as soldiers to defend the imperial interests of their masters. . . . During the past few months two most important things that cut into the marrow of the working-class were the miners' lock-out and unemployment. During the lock-out . . . the Communist Party was the only organisation in this country whose members, eighty of them, were thrown into prison for fighting for the miners, their wives and children. The Labour Party were afraid to hurl their members, as we did, against the Colliery Owners and the Government. . . . Not only are the leading members of the Labour Party responsible for the recent defeat of the miners but these gentlemen are still pleading for increased production as the solution for unemployment. . . . We, of the Communist Party, on the other hand, declare that the capitalist and merchant have such quantities of goods that the markets are glutted. Increased production would only add to unemployment.47 T o vote for such a self-sacrificing lot, with such good economic sense, must have seemed almost a duty to some Welsh miners. Yet, when the results were in, the Labour Party candidate, an I.L.P. nominee, emerged the victor; the Communist candidate appeared at the bottom of the poll, the proud recipient of 2592 votes. In the many Communist post-mortems, T . A . Jackson spoke of the "odds being against us, but in spite of that we got 2592 votes. Against either of the parties, in a straight fight, we would have swept the deck clean of everything opposed to it." Continuing, he said: "if we can do what we did in Caerphilly with the odds there were against us the triumph of the Rebel Workers is in sight." 4 8 Jackson seemed lost in his self-created fantasy world. One of the Communist Party's great opportunities to make an impression on 47 48

The Communist, August 20, 1 9 2 1 . The Communist, September 3, 1 9 2 1 .

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l8l

the nation had been wasted. Not till the General Strike of 1926 were the Communists presented with an equal prospect for success. The Communist failure to capitalize on the "Black Friday" debacle cannot be attributed to a lack of effort or initiative. Their behavior from beginning to end would have received the plaudits of their most conscientious critic, the Third International. Their propaganda followed the pattern suggested by Moscow, but for various reasons failed to secure the desired ends. Only the Government and the Communist Party spoke of the immediacy of "revolution" in the weeks preceding "Black Friday." British Labour adherents recognized that both were lying; while comprehending the reasons for the Government's fabrications, they failed to understand why an organization claiming to have the workers' interest at heart should so misconstrue the issue. After "Black Friday," the Communists enjoyed the public platform almost alone. They used it for a propaganda tour de force, in which their arguments gained credibility in inverse ratio to their noise. Trade union leaders of the most divergent sort were grouped together and condemned. The Communists ended by denouncing everyone save themselves ; the grotesqueness of their argument began to impress itself on wary listeners. Trade unionists expressed their loyalty to existing Executives by the simple act of reelecting them. Not only did the Communists fail to win over the unions en masse, but more significantly, they made no impression on even the most disgruntled of all, the Miners' Federation. By indiscriminately tagging all leaders with the "traitor" label, the Communists lost some of their most influential support. While Herbert Smith was prepared as late as June 1921 to argue for Communist affiliation to the Labour Party, 49 he emerged from this ordeal a chastened man. His voice was never again raised in behalf of such a cause. Whatever Ernest Bevin thought of the Communists before 1921, his relations with them after "Black Friday" suggested that he had never forgotten nor forgiven. A man destined to stand in the forefront of the British trade union movement for the next several decades had received an excellent education in Communist methods and propaganda, and could be expected to carry away permanent lessons from the encounter. The Communists knew what 49

Cf. supra, 147.

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they were doing when they launched these indiscriminate attacks. T o condemn them or suggest that alternative tactics would have been in their own self-interest is to ignore the fact that any other policy would have made them something else than "orthodox Marxists." This was not a distinction lightly prized by the British Communist. If the party failed, it was because it adhered too closely to the tactic outlined by Moscow. Communists liked to tell of "intellectual" Labour Party opposition to their affiliation bids. More important was the opposition of trade unionists, who, in the school of hard experience, came to know something of the qualities of their Communist suitors. Trade unionists, believing neither in Communist integrity nor in their claims to influence, chose to spurn their constant advances.

C H A P T E R

I X

T h e Internationals

P A R T Y SUPPORTERS gave considerable attention to their internal political engagements with British Communism. They were less interested in the same struggle, pursufed on the international stage, in which the Labour Party assumed the leadership of various organizations seeking to contain powerful Marxist groups created by Moscow. Because this latter conflict provided further opportunities for Labour partisans to acquaint themselves with Russian Communism, and because it revealed the tensions within the Labour Party itself, it is an aspect of the total experience worth investigating. LABOUR

The various international socialist and trade union organizations, created in the thirty years before the outbreak of war in 1914, were all adversely affected by the global conflict. The Second International, pledged to resist and oppose all "capitalist and imperialist wars," found itself impotent at the supreme moment of crisis. Europe's workers, asked to choose between nation and class, elected everywhere to stand with the first. The hopes of a generation of socialists were shattered in the first days of August 1914. The wartime meetings of neutral and refugee socialists, from which the socialists of belligerent states were conspicuously absent, served only to emphasize the extent of the debacle. Socialists of the Allied states met separately, but to what purpose few could say. International workers' solidarity, even as a slogan, became meaningless. Immediately after the armistice, Arthur Henderson, in his capacity

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as secretary of the Labour Party, dispatched invitations to workingclass organizations in all countries requesting their attendance at a Conference to restore the Second International.1 Henderson appreciated the difficulties of his position. He was dealing with individuals and groups for whom the war constituted the most important incident in their experience. The Belgian socialists, for example, continuing to hold the Germans responsible for the conflict, refused to engage in discussions with "enemy" representatives. Within the individual delegations, the fissures were no less serious. Those who had suffered persecution and humiliation throughout the war as a consequence of their pacifism, found little in common with the others who had abandoned the International to embrace their individual governments. Conditions were scarcely conducive to amicable or reasonable argument. The meeting, however, did take place as scheduled in Bern, in February 1919. The French delegation opened with a War Guilt resolution, which declared the German and Austrian governments responsible for the war, and condemned those who had assisted these regimes in their aggressive acts.2 A compromise was eventually reached, which repeated the substance of the resolution, but referred to "the new Germany and its complete separation from the old system which was responsible for the war." 3 This was introduced to appease the German delegation. A resolution on Democracy and Dictatorship, put forward by Branting of Sweden, aroused an even more acrimonious debate. The motion, supported by the British delegation, reaffirmed the International's belief in "democratic principles," and warned against the dangers of class dictatorship.4 A powerful minority, led by Longuet of France and Adler of Austria, moved a counterresolution disassociating themselves from any criticism, however oblique, of the existing Russian regime.5 The Adler-Longuet resolution deplored the absence for four-and-a-half years of those groups who now wished to saddle the International with an impossible burden. The Soviet Re1 2 3 4 5

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 11. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 1 3 - 1 4 . Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, Appendix VIII, 196. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 198-99. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1919, 199-200.

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public had done nothing to warrant such criticism, the resolution added. As for the Russians present in Bern, they were described as representatives of a tiny minority of Russia's masses; the door of the International needed to be left open for the others.® Finally, the resolution expressed opposition to any statement "capable of being exploited by the bourgeoisie against the Russian Revolution." 7 The Adler-Longuet resolution received the support of Holland, Norway, Ireland, and Spain, a majority of the French delegation, half the Austrian delegation, and a lone delegate from Greece.8 The Branting motion was approved by Sweden, Germany, Russia, Esthonia, Lettland, Georgia, Alsace, Argentina, Denmark, Bulgaria, Armenia, Hungary, Finland, Great Britain, Canada, and the Ukraine; also by the French and Italian minorities, and half the Austrian delegation.® Everyone agreed that the subject of Bolshevism needed to appear on the agenda of the next conference. T o prepare for this, a special commission of inquiry was appointed with instructions to visit Russia to study its political and economic order. 10 A permanent commission, charged with reconstructing the International, was also appointed. Before it could begin its work, however, a rival organization created by Moscow entered the field. The Bolsheviks extended on January 24, 1919 a blanket invitation to socialists of all countries to meet in Moscow to establish a new International. A certain number of delegates having assembled by March 2, the First Congress of the new or Third International was declared open. 11 This Congress, hastily summoned, inadequately publicized, and hampered by restrictions on international travel, enjoyed no large foreign representation; the Russian Bolsheviks dominated. A "Manifesto to the Proletariat of all Countries" was produced, which represented the "bourgeoisie" as everywhere on the defensive, paying for a war they had started. The "bourgeoisie" were depicted as bankrupt, incapable of organizing production, and striving vainly to establish some sort of international community through the League β

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, igig, 200. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, igig, 200. 8 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 191g, 200. 9 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, igig, 199. 10 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, tgtg, 16. 11 R. Palme Dutt (ed.), The Labour International Handbook. (London, 1 9 2 1 ) , 189. 7

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of Nations. Helpless before the forces they had unleashed—a socialized war economy, a revolutionary working class, rebellious colonies, and militant small nations—they were declared doomed. The Third International urged the proletariat to rise as an organized mass, disarm its oppressors, form councils of peasants and workers, create a government of soviets, organize Red armies for self-defense, and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in accord with the Russian model. 12 The Third International, in commenting on existing socialist groups, denounced not only "Social Patriots" who had supported the war, but also, the "hazy, fickle, and irresolute Center," represented by the Independent Socialists of Germany, the I.L.P. in Britain, and the Longuet supporters in France. The latter were declared an even greater menace to the "Proletarian Revolution" than the "Patriots," for their mild radicalism and appeals to compromise served only to prolong the agony of the struggle. The Manifesto recommended an unceasing battle with the forces both of the Right and the Center; only those of the Left prepared to take their place in the Third International were deemed trustworthy. 13 It was suggested that the First International would, in time, become known as "the prophet of the future," the Second as "the organizer of millions," while the Third pledged itself to become "the International of deeds." 14 The permanent commission of the Second International, which met in Amsterdam in late April, thought sufficiently little of the Moscow creation to pay it no heed. In August, at Lucerne, the Second International reaffirmed its decision to send a commission of enquiry to Russia. 15 Ramsay MacDonald, in a published article, denied any fear of the Third International, whose prospects he declared to be dim. H e suggested that the Moscow organization, the creation of a revolutionary age, would not survive long if the parties belonging to the Second International closed their ranks and ceased 12 No official text of this Manifesto is extant. One version may be found in R. Palme Dutt, The Two Internationals (London, 1920), 68—83. 13 Dutt, The Two Internationals, 7 5 - 7 7 . 14 Dutt, The Two Internationals, 77. 15 The International at Lucerne, Resolutions and Provisional Constitution (London, 1 9 1 9 ) , 10.

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their bickering. 16 T o suggest this was easy; to effect it, exceedingly difficult. A t that moment, the Second International was suffering not only from new schisms but from outright defections. T h e German Independent Socialists, in December 1919, voted to withdraw from the Second International, and agreed to approach other parties with a view to establishing a union with the Third. 1 7 T h e French Socialist Party also seceded; its conference ballot was not even close; 4330 votes were cast in favor of disaffiliation and only 337 supported continued membership in the Second International. T h e blow was softened somewhat by a decision against an immediate affiliation with the Third International. 18 Parties in other countries were tending in a similar direction. 19 British Labour Party adherents took note of these developments. In the I.L.P. particularly, discussion of the relative merits of parliaments and soviets, and other like questions, commanded considerable attention. T h e I.L.P., pacifist and socialist, felt unhappy in the confining quarters of Second International orthodoxy, and sought some sort of early release. Many would have preferred affiliation with a "revolutionary" organization like the Third International, but the soviet issue compelled believing parliamentarians to be cautious. MacDonald and others, who had no sympathy with the Third International, emphasized repeatedly the inappropriateness of the soviet device for Britain, hoping that the defeat of this concept would militate against I.L.P. adherence to the Moscow-sponsored International. 20 I.L.P. journals were filled with articles seeking to demonstrate that socialism could not develop in Britain save through indigenous methods, and that a conscious copying of a foreign form would only lead to disaster. A characteristic expression of this view, expressed at the height of the controversy, read : The conditions in England, so vastly different from those of Russia in 1917 must produce vastly different methods and tactics. Our immediate Labour Leader, Dutt, The Two 1 8 D u t t , The Two 1 9 Dutt, The Two withdrawals. 20 Labour Leader, 16

17

August 14, 1919. Internationals, 43—44. Internationals, 42-43. Internationals, 36. This provides a complete list of the national September 25, 1919.

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problems are different, and to them we must apply different solutions. To begin with, there is no need to conquer political power. That the workers have already done. It remains now for them to use it. . . . An industrial unlike an agricultural country cannot afford a prolonged revolution. Success to be at all possible must be immediate, for the disorganisation consequent upon any prolongation of the disturbance means complete chaos, paralysis, and starvation. The forces of Revolution, if they are to be successful, must have an overwhelming superiority of power. Revolutionists in England are thus on the horns of a dilemma; either they have not enough support for success, or if they have sufficient support then a Revolution is quite unnecessary, for the will of the conscious majority can prevail without the use of force. The Capitalist will not fight; he is generally an elderly gentleman, rather out of condition. The real obstacle is the unenlightened workers who would fight for the property-owner as today they vote for him. There is no magic in a revolution to bring a man from the wrong side of the ballot box to the right side of a barricade. . . . 2 1 MacDonald's opposition in the I.L.P. came not so much from convinced Marxists as from emotion-ridden humanitarians. These men, never pretending to comprehend the subtleties of the Marxist dialectic, argued as socialists concerned to assist fellow socialists under attack by "capitalist powers." To explain the "true character" of the Russian system became their mission. The fact of their ignorance on the matter deterred them not at all; they retailed sheer fantasy as unquestioned truth. One correspondent explained in the Daily Heraid that the term "dictatorship of the proletariat," which worried many British socialists, meant nothing more than that "idlers [were] not allowed to live on others' labour." 22 Another Soviet partisan saw no danger in British affiliation to the Third International, since "our methods will be determined by the concrete situation, and not by any fixed adherence to any general principle."23 On returning from Russia, Lansbury announced that the only right refused Russian citizens was "the right to exploit their fellow men and women." 24 The Daily Herald, concerned to correct the inaccuracies of other 21 22 23 24

Labour Leader, January 22, 1920. Daily Heraid, February 27, 1920. Labour Leader, January 15, 1920. Daily Herald, March 22, 1920.

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newspapers, was scarcely conscious of its own. Lansbury remarked on the fact that men were safe and free in the streets of Petrograd, that the churches were open, that marriage was inviolate, and concluded that this disproved all charges thàt Russia was ruled by an atheistic and immoral despotism.25 The Daily Herald's tolerance for Bolshevism made more than a slight appeal in the country; many would have supported a view like the following: Soviet Russia, with all its faults and all its follies, is yet the great hope of the world; the definite proof that a Socialist state can be successfully organised and administered. It is because of this that our rulers have resolved to destroy it. They dare not let the example remain—lest it should spread. They think, by their campaign of falsehood, starvation, and slaughter, to prove the Socialist idea unworkable.2® Russia was made to represent "the wave of the future." Lansbury, in urging British affiliation to the Third International, used the argument that "the Third International had come to stay, and very soon the whole Socialist and Labour movement of the world will be numbered amongst its adherents." 27 The anxiety in I.L.P. circles to associate with "progressive Socialist elements" contributed to the clamor for affiliation with the Moscow organization. The Second International had failed the I.L.P. in a previous crisis, and was thought by many to be beyond resurrection. Arthur Henderson, recognizing the probable consequences of such mistaken impressions of the nature of the Third International, made every effort to correct them. He argued that the Moscow International was based not on a principle of comprehensiveness but on one of exclusiveness, and that it demanded of its members complete identity of thought and action without regard to their individual political and economic institutions. Henderson read from the Communists' own pronouncements to prove his argument. 28 The attempt to introduce the word "dictatorship" into the English vocabulary as a synonym for "democracy," Henderson found deplorable.29 25 26 27 28 29

Daily Daily Daily Daily Daily

Herald, Herald, Herald, Herald, Herald,

February io, 1920. October 20, 1919. March 27, 1920. March 30, 1920. March 30, 1920.

I9O

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Snowden was even more agitated by the pro-Moscow propaganda; in a very purposeful attack on Lansbury, he remarked: Mr. George Lansbury has come back from his short visit to Moscow a convert to Bolshevism and an advocate of affiliation to the Third International. His article on this subject in last Saturday's Daily Herald is one of the strangest and most innocent and most illogical episdes ever penned. . . . Mr. Lansbury must try not to let that magnanimous heart of his override his judgment. Affiliation with the Third International means being committed to a silly and futile attempt at armed revolution; it means violence as the system of Socialism; it means autocracy and not democracy; it means dishonest and disingenuous propaganda; in short, it means the complete reversal of everything the I.L.P. has preached and practiced up to the present. It means throwing away the results of a quarter of a century's successful work for a mad adventure which is foredoomed to failure, and which if temporarily successful would bring us to a condition infinitely worse than our present one.30 The I.L.P. met for its annual conference in April 1920 at the height of the controversy. The National Administrative Council (N.A.C.), the LL.P.'s governing executive, presented a memorandum entitled Socialism and Government, which it proposed submitting to the forthcoming meeting of the Second International at Geneva. The N.A.C., in this document, considered what it believed to be the chief questions raised by Bolshevism, and suggested possible replies. While the Bolsheviks argued that a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat was a necessary stage in the transition from capitalism to socialism, and that the soviet was the only device suited to the proletariat in its exercise of political power, the N.A.C, suggested that if the capitalists acquiesced in the social change, the dictatorship of the proletariat would prove unnecessary. As for soviets, the N.A.C, could discover no requirement of socialism that dictated their creation. While possibly efficient in certain circumstances, they were declared unsuited to the needs of an industrial democracy. The N.A.C, believed that Parliament could be adapted to the requirements of a socialist state; a proper coordination with industrial organizations would make possible a more than adequate representation of the 30

Labour Leader, April ι , 1920.

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workers' interest.31 The I.L.P. saw no reason to abandon its belief in the power of socialist propaganda; when the masses were educated to know the truth, and were prepared to elect socialists to responsible public office, socialists would enjoy all the authority that they required. 32 "Direct action," the N.A.C. thought a poor substitute for parliamentary action; its use needed to be limited to those few occasions when it served to restore representative institutions; its use to destroy those institutions could never be sanctioned.33 The N.A.C., in this statement, expressed perfectly the mood of the assembled delegates. While tolerant of certain aspects of Marxist ideology, the N.A.C, refused to abandon its own. If the Third International were a truly catholic body, as its friends insisted, then the I.L.P. could be assured of a warm welcome. This was the position taken by a delegate who moved that the I.L.P. disaffiliate from the Second International and join the Third. He scoffed at those who insisted that "the Communists would . . . seek to impose upon them something that was absolutely foreign to their nature." The Third International, the delegates learned, was simply "an experiment that had been tried and had succeeded;" it was altogether natural that the I.L.P. should wish to adhere to it. As for the Second International, it was declared dead; the LL.P.'s withdrawal would finally register that fact. 34 MacDonald, who replied to this, quoted from Communist sources to show that sovietism had been proclaimed not as a Russian expedient but as an International necessity. The Third International's views on arming the masses and establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat were not simply recommendations, to be accepted or rejected at will. They were orders binding on all national affiliates. MacDonald refused to believe that the I.L.P. was prepared to accept a program of this character. Denouncing those who dismissed the Second International as dead, he appealed for a new effort at reëstab31 Report of the N.A.C. of the Independent Labour Party, April 1920 1920), 28-30. 32 Independent Labour Party Report, /920, 29—31. 33 Independent Labour Party Report, 192.0, 32. 34 Independent Labour Party Report, 1920, 68.

(London,

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lishing an all-inclusive International, reflecting accurately world socialist opinion. 35 There was not much support for the MacDonald position. Delegates preferred a proposal put forward by Fenner Brockway; it recommended disaffiliation from the Second International, the dispatch of a mission to Moscow to learn the conditions of membership in the Third, and a new conference to study and act on the proffered terms. 36 Emanuel Shinwell, not entirely satisfied with this proposal, suggested instead that the conference vote to withdraw from the Second, but make a more cautious approach towards the Third. Shinwell hastened to assure his audience that he intended no censure of Moscow; he simply believed that the establishment of a new allinclusive International required an understanding of socialist opinion the world over, and an investigation larger than that contemplated by the Brockway motion. Clifford Allen, in closing the debate, came out in support of the Brockway formula; he favored a severance of all connections with the Second International, a consultation with any and all parties, provided only that contact was established with Moscow, and that the I.L.P. agree to "shake the hand of Lenin." 3 7 A n overwhelming majority favored immediate disaffiliation from the Second—529 voting aye, 155 nay. O n the proposal to affiliate immediately with the Third, only 206 voted yes, while 472 preferred to consult with the Russians first, and decide the matter in a subsequent conference. 38 T h e Daily Herald congratulated the I.L.P. on its decision to abandon an organization, "dead and decomposing," for which it could act only as undertaker. Its failure, however, to go the whole way, and affiliate immediately with the Communist International led the editor to remark: So l o n g as P h i l i p S n o w d e n and those w h o t h i n k w i t h h i m can r e m a i n ignorant of the fact that j o i n i n g the T h i r d International does not necessarily involve either the s u n d e r i n g of connections w i t h the

Natipnal

L a b o u r Party or a bloody revolution, the I . L . P . m u s t remain in its am35 36 37 38

independent Independent Independent Independent

Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Report, Party Report, Party Report, Party Report,

1920, 1920, 1920, 1920,

71. 73. 86. 86.

THE INTERNATIONALS

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biguous position. But this consultative conference, at which Moscow will be heard, will make that ignorance impossible. It will make equally impossible any prolonged abstention from the only living, the only realistic force in International Socialism today.39 Lansbury, convinced of the catholicity of the Moscow International, and of its concern to embrace socialists of all persuasions, embarked on a major campaign to acquaint his readers with what he believed to be obvious facts. A characteristic editorial of this period read: Now, if it were true that the founders of the Third International were going to say they would not admit to an International anybody who did not agree with them on the Soviet structure of the community, or on the use of force in revolution, then they would not be founding but destroying an International. We cannot believe this of them. We think there is no getting behind the definite statement of Lenin, that the Russian Bolsheviks do not desire to insist upon one form of revolution or one social construction for other countries. What they do insist upon is the Socialist objective. We do not desire, have never desired, and never shall desire, an armed revolution in this country. We believe a peaceful revolution is possible. We believe it is coming. What we want is not a First, Second, Third, or Fourth International, but one International.40 Henderson was sufficiently annoyed by this press campaign to request space in the Daily Herald for a reply. Deploring the dissemination of uncritical and distorted statements as incontrovertible fact, Henderson remarked on the embarrassing position in which the Labour Party found itself as the result of such propaganda. The party, on the threshold of power, was being attacked by an opposition anxious to associate it with forces seeking the violent upheaval of society. Henderson termed this a betrayal of men who had worked for the party believing that a new social and economic existence could be realized without the nation being plunged into chaos and without a particular social class being punished.41 Lansbury's friends moved quickly to his defense. Clifford Allen, in 39 40 41

Daily Herald, April 7, 1920. Daily Herald, April 8, 1920. Daily Herald, April 10, 1920.

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an open letter to Henderson, explained that any new all-inclusive International would require a common method as well as a common objective, and that no alternative policy was possible. The Second International was dead, Allen argued; there was no way to revive it. To Henderson he said: You are one of the few leaders who can hasten the long-delayed visit to Russia. I am confident that you recognise that the establishment of the first Socialist Republic and the present world muddle are circumstances that should lead us to open our minds to every new proposal for the fulfillment of Socialism. I beg you and your colleagues to go to Russia, and with the full facts in your possession, come back and then summon the Conference which shall consider the new International.42 Henderson did not go to Russia; Allen did. Before his return, however, the Labour Party met for its annual conference. The International was a subject high on its agenda. Many of the I.L.P. leaders repeated or elaborated the arguments already given at the I.L.P. conference. Shinwell, convinced that the Second International was an organization of words and not of deeds, suggested that it would never serve a worthwhile cause and that the Labour Party's withdrawal would sound its death knell. 43 MacDonald, in defending the Second, remarked that the Moscow International supported revolution by violence; there were loud cries of dissent in the hall. 44 The same response followed his suggestion that the Third International believed in the necessity of a dictatorship of the proletariat in all countries. He asked the Labour Party to go to Geneva to reconstruct the Second International, thereby testifying to its faith in a revolution without fire or bloodshed. The Third International, MacDonald argued, sought only to apply Russian methods on an international scale. Its whole justification lay in the fact that it believed Russian conditions could be, and needed to be, duplicated in France, Italy, and England. Cries of "No, No!" rose from the assembled delegates.48 Tom Shaw, supporting MacDonald, read from the Third Inter42 43 44 46

Daily Herald, April 1 3 , 1920. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1920, 172. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1920, 1 7 3 . Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1920, 1 7 3 .

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national's publications to show its unqualified belief in the necessity of violence and in the dictatorship of the proletariat. Shaw inquired why parties in other countries should be compelled to fashion their policies on a Bolshevik model. 46 Lansbury rose to suggest that Moscow never intended that they should. H e told of a two-and-a-half hour discussion with Lenin on this very point, in which he, Lansbury, had argued against the necessity of "wading through blood to achieve the revolution." 47 Lenin's reply had been: "I don't believe you can do it your way, but if you can, well, do it." 48 This was a challenge, Lansbury argued, that the British Labour movement could not fail to meet. A pacifist himself, he reminded his audience that he would never lift his finger to hurt any man, and would never support a policy which had such a purpose. T h e Second International, Lansbury concluded, was dead; a new International, pledged to fight capitalism and landlordism, was bound to arise; British labor would necessarily find its home there. 49 T h e B.S.P., shortly to be amalgamated in Britain's new Communist Party, moved for the immediate affiliation of the Labour Party to the Third International. T h e proposal was overwhelmingly defeated; 225,000 voted to support it, while 2,940,00 registered their disapproval. 50 T h e large trade union bloc could still be depended on to defeat any motion originating with the B.S.P. O n the major recommendation, calling for a withdrawal from the Second International, 516,000 affirmative ballots were cast along with 1,010,000 negative ones. 51 More than half the assembled delegates chose not to vote at all. Trade union votes saved MacDonald and his supporters the embarrassment of a reversal, but the closeness of the vote, and the numerous abstentions, provided unmistakable evidence of the general disappointment with the Second International. T h e debate preceded the return of the British Labour delegation from Russia. Clifford Allen and Richard Wallhead, w h o accompanied the joint Labour Party-Trades Union Congress group as the 46 47 48 49 50 51

Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour Labour

Party Party Party Party Party Party

Annual Annual Annual Annual Annual Annual

Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference Conference

Report, Report, Report, Report, Report, Report,

¡920, 1920, J920, 1920, 1920, 1920,

173. 174. 174. 174. 174. 174.

196

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

IJLP.'s representatives, were concerned chiefly with assembling data on the conditions of membership in the Third International. Equipped with a letter in which the I.L.P. requested this information, Allen and Wallhead hoped to learn whether the Moscow International commanded strict adherence to all its policies, and whether it believed the dictatorship of the proletariat applicable to the British situation. Information was also requested on the International's attitude towards parliamentary participation, the I-L.P.'s continued affiliation to the Labour Party, and the soviet mechanism. Finally, the I.L.P. asked for the International's views on the differences between communism and other forms of socialism.53 The Executive of the Third International, after several meetings, delivered a formal reply to Allen and Wallhead, which, in due course, was transmitted to Britain. The document was long and detailed; excerpts will serve to reveal its character. On the question of how communism differed from socialism, the Third International replied tersely: There are no other forms, there is only Communism. Whatever goes under the name of Socialism is either wilful deception by the lackeys of the bourgeoisie or the self-delusion of persons or groups who hesitate to choose between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie; who hesitate between a life and death struggle and the role of assistants to the expiring bourgeoisie. 53

The Third International was no less specific in commenting on the applicability of the dictatorship of the proletariat to Britain. "We consider that in no country can the dictatorship of the proletariat be applied better and more directly than in Great Britain." 54 The dictatorship, necessitated by the struggle which the bourgeoisie would wage to maintain power, could not be avoided. As for Soviets, while the International accepted the theoretical possibility that Britain might develop a revolutionary form of a somewhat different order, experience provided no encouragement for such a view.55 I.L.P. 52 63 54 56

The The The The

I.L.P. I.L.P. I.L.P. I.L.P.

and the Third and the Third and the Third and the Third

International (London, 1920), 9 - 1 2 . International, 33. International, 33. International, 44.

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doubts about the M o s c o w policy o u g h t to have been entirely resolved by one blunt s t a t e m e n t : . T h e bourgeoisie cannot be defeated without civil war in any of these countries. N o r is it possible to conduct civil war successfully without the organisation of the proletariat as the ruler of the country, that is to say the organisation of proletarian dictatorship; this dictatorship of the proletariat is to be based on the workers' organs of power, the Soviets. 88 T h e T h i r d International, while sanctioning continued I . L . P . affiliation to the L a b o u r Party, r e m i n d e d the I . L . P . that the object of the union needed to be the liberating o f the workers f r o m the L a b o u r Party's opportunistic and " r e f o r m i s t " leadership. 5 7 Bolshevik experience in Russia was cited as proof of the w i s d o m o f such a policy.® 8 M a c D o n a l d and his supporters received the news with delight; it c o n f i r m e d all that they had been saying for almost a year. M a k i n g no effort to conceal his satisfaction, M a c D o n a l d w r o t e : [ I t ] bears out what I have said repeatedly in these columns, that when Moscow uses words it means them. . . . W h e n they say dictatorship they mean dictatorship, when they say Revolution, they mean bloodshed and violence; when they speak of universal laws, they mean that Great Britain is included in that universe. . . . T h e I.L.P. and the Third International are oil and water, and will not mix. . . . I do not think it was necessary spending money in sending delegates to Moscow to procure this document. It has all been published before, and the Moscow men have never hid their light under a bushel. B u t the I.L.P. at Glasgow would not face facts. It wanted to dally. It was nervous that a hostile camp was being formed on its left. It hoped that the Third International might turn out to be something gender than its official documents hitherto published. 59 T h e delegation appointed by the L a b o u r P a r t y to the G e n e v a C o n gress o f the S e c o n d International left E n g l a n d s o m e w h a t m o r e confident of the support o f its constituents. A distinguished delegation, it included R a m s a y M a c D o n a l d , Philip S n o w d e n , Sidney W e b b , F r e d 56 87 58 69

The I.L.P. and the Third International, 45-46. The I.L.P. and the Third international, 54—55. The I.L.P. and the Third international, 56. Forward, July 31, 1920.

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Jowett, William Adamson, Neil MacLean, Tom Shaw, Mary MacArthur, Herbert Morrison, J. H. Thomas, Will Thorne, and Harry Gosling. The scene which greeted them at Geneva was disheartening; except for the British delegation there was no other major national Labour group in attendance. Absences and minority parties so depressed the mood of the congress that Jowett, a charitable critic, was led to remark that the French delegates had "served their Government so well as to earn their expulsion from the French Socialist Party"; the Belgians were members of a Coalition Government which stood "boldly and heroically for as much mild reform as the most exclusive aristocracy in Europe [would] permit;" the Dutch seemed to think Socialism to be "little more than opposition to Conservatism." 60 Even if this partisan judgment is set aside, the fact remains that, given the character of the participating organizations, there was little reason to hope for a rapid «establishment of the Second International. In the absence of powerful national delegations, the British were awarded the responsibility of acting as a negotiating body with the several national groups not represented.61 Although the British opposed the recommendation, the congress voted the transfer of the International's secretariat to London. The Labour delegation, aware of the interpretation that would be made of this move, pleaded that it lacked authority for such a transfer. The congress insisted that it be sought from the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress Executives.62 All the administrative arrangements testified to the weakness of every national group except that of Britain. The Second International, at Lucerne, the previous summer, had appointed two committees—one on "socialization," the other on the "political system of Socialism"—to prepare and recommend a policy to the Geneva congress. The British were influential members of both committees. In the reports submitted, a particular effort was made to distinguish between Second and Third International points of view. The International Labour Office, in publishing a report on 80 Fenner Brockway, Socialism Over Sixty Years, The Life of Jowett of Bradford (London, 1946), 177. 61 Bulletin of the International, July 1 9 2 1 , 1. 62 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 3.

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the Geneva Congress, commented on the spirit of combativeness that it detected : What distinguishes this Congress clearly from those which have preceded it is the attitude of open combat adopted towards Bolshevism. Not only is all hope of conciliation dead forever, but both from the political and economic standpoint the programme of the Second International is constantly in contrast to the Bolshevik programme. London and Moscow are henceforth two antogonistic forces struggling for the supremacy over the working masses: the two poles round which the Socialist forces will crystallise.63 In the "socialization" report, the committee approved reform proceeding "step by step, from one country to another, according as circumstances in each country may permit." 64 T o underscore its opposition to Moscow, the committee repudiated the right of confiscation without payment; this would "cause suffering to selected individuals" and "would disturb capitalist enterprise in industries in which socialisation was not immediately practicable." 65 T h e "political" report was no less critical of Moscow. Methods of violence and terrorism were repudiated; industrial strikes, necessary to a particular end, were approved, but any idea of converting every industrial strike into a political revolution was denounced. 66 Socialism could not base itself upon dictatorship; its historical mission was to "carry Democracy to completion." 67 T h e franchise for a socialist parliament needed to be universal, with no one barred for reasons of sex, race, religion, occupation, or political opinion. Parliament's supreme function was to represent the whole community. 68 These views, traditional in the Labour Party, received overwhelming support from the other groups represented at the Geneva Congress. When, in September 1920, the Labour Party Executive discussed the congress' decision to move the International's headquarters to London, grave misgivings were expressed. However, the party agreed 63 The Congress of the Labour and Socialist International, Geneva, July 5, 1920 (Geneva, 1920), 22. 64 Labour and Socialist International Congress, 1920, 25. 65 Labour and Sodatisi international Congress, 1920, 25. 68 Labour and Socialist International Congress, 1920, 28. eT Labour and Socialist International Congress, 1920, 28. 68 Labour and Socialist International Congress, 1920, 28.

ji-August

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BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

to undertake the work involved in restoring the organization, and admitted that some advantage might be derived from having the secretariat in London during the negotiating period. These arrangements were to be "purely temporary and provisional," and reconsidered when national sections, then absent, rejoined the organization.®9 The I.L.P. took no interest in these developments. Having withdrawn from the Second International, its energies were concentrated wholly on a scheme to unite parties unaffiliated to either International into a powerful bloc, which would then exert pressure for the formation of an all-inclusive International. In December 1920, representatives of the I.L.P., the French, Austrian, and Swiss Socialist parties, and the German Independents gathered in Bern to work out the details of this project.70 The I.L.P., in a memorandum prepared for the meeting, admitted that agreement between all parties on certain basic international questions would be desirable, but cautioned that "as circumstances differ in various countries in accordance with their national, political, and economic development, the national sections of the International must be allowed to adopt their own tactics and policy consistent with the declared policy of the world Socialist movement, and there must be no attempt to impose conditions or insist that the methods of one country must be imposed in another." 71 The I.L.P. argued for an organization combining the best qualities of the two existing Internationals. In February 1921, in Vienna, these several parties organized themselves as the Vienna Working Union of Socialist Parties; they came to be known popularly as the "Two-and-a-Half" International.72 Each of the constituent organizations promised to remain aloof from both the Second and Third Internationals, and to engage in negotiations with them only after common consultation. While no explicit judgment was made on the substantive issues dividing the Second and Third Internationals, the former was condemned for its laxity and 89

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 4. Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 1 3 4 . 71 Report of the N.A.C, of the Independent Labour Party, March 1921 (London, 1 9 2 1 ) , Appendix VII, 64. 72 Labour Leader, March 10, 1 9 2 1 . Texts of speeches, resolutions, etc., are published in this issue. 70

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the latter for its dogmatism. 73 The creation of the "Two-and-a-Half" made the Labour Party's task of restoring the Second International even more difficult. When letters were sent to parties absent from the Geneva congress, inviting them back into the Second's fold, the response was negative.74 The unaffiliated parties preferred to wait and watch from outside. A joint invitation from the Second International and the International Federation of Trade Unions to the Vienna Union for a conference on reparations received a quick rejection.75 Only a conference that included delegates from the Moscow International was acceptable to the Vienna Union. The I.L.P., at its annual meeting in 1921, accepted the recommendations of its Vienna delegates to affiliate with the Vienna Union. 76 Allen and Wallhead submitted reports on their Moscow conversations, which were fully debated. Wallhead told of the Communists' persistent demand that the I.L.P. fight the Labour Party, and of his own response that the I.L.P. "neither could nor would pursue a policy of that description." 77 In conversation, he explained, the Russians insisted on the necessity of violence even more than they did in their written replies. The establishment of socialism other than by force "was scouted as a childish dream." 78 In Russia, the Soviet was an instrument for maintaining a dictatorship over the masses, and while Wallhead had no wish to question the motives of those in power, he did believe that the exercise of absolute authority, uncontrolled by criticism in a free press or on a free platform, could not possibly lead to the establishment of the best form of socialism.79 Allen's report, equally cautious and critical, dwelled on the Russian control of the Third International. The Russians seemed less concerned to establish an all-inclusive International than one composed of parties committed to their own particular view. They were prepared to see the International composed of minority groups only, T3

Labour Leader, March io, 1 9 2 1 . Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 4-6. 75 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1921, 9. 76 Report of the N.A.C, of the Independent Labour Party, March 1921, I, 36. 77 Independent Labour Party Report, 1921, Appendix III, 53. 78 Independent Labour Party Report, 1921, 54. 79 Independent Labour Party Report, 1921, 57. 74

Appendix

202

BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

so long as there was agreement on a common objective and a common method. Allen could discover no catholic principle in the Third International.80 He told of his conversations with Lenin, which confirmed vague impressions that the Third was an "International of violence," seeing revolution as attainable only through direct action.81 Having presented the facts to his colleagues, Allen proceeded to offer his opinions. He spoke of the strength of the Third International; it was impossible for British Labour to ignore it. Therefore, he argued, the I.L.P. would do well to join with others in attempting to negotiate with the Third International. Because he believed the Third "capable of modification and change," Allen hoped that some sort of unity would eventually be achieved.82 Allen offered no explanation for his optimism; it was enough that the I.L.P. wanted an all-inclusive International, and that this would necessarily have to include Moscow. The debates revealed the same temper; delegates, fully aware of the character of the Third International, and yet insistent that a universal organization be founded, sought to reconcile the irreconcilables. Extremists in the party dominated the discussions, but the conference elected to travel a middle road. MacDonald's supporters sought a general denunciation of the Moscow conditions of membership, claiming that they would "bind [the I.L.P.] hand and foot to a foreign organisation." 83 The Third International's friends argued that socialism and communism were one, that the Moscow International existed as a union of socialist parties, and that the Second International was dominated by "nonSocialist organisations, amongst them the Imperialist, Capitalist British Labour Party." 84 A resolution calling for immediate affiliation with the Communist International was put and overwhelmingly rejected—97 delegates voted yes, 521 no. 85 The conference, while prepared to go thus far in repudiating its extremists, had no intention of offending Moscow. Ben Riley, in a characteristic speech, suggested that the I.L.P. reiterate its concern 80 81 82 83 84 85

Independent Independent Independent Independent Independent Independent

Labour Party Report, 1921, Appendix IV, 58. Labour Party Report, 1921, 59. Labour Party Report, 1921, 61. Labour Party Report, 1921, 1 1 3 . Labour Party Report, 1921, 1 1 6 . Labour Party Report, 1921, 124.

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for a comprehensive International embracing socialists the world over.86 Freedom of opinion for the various national sections was of course demanded. Charles Roden Buxton, in supporting the Riley proposal, explained why the I.L.P. could never reaffiliate with the Second International. The latter's constituent elements, out of sympathy with I.L.P. aims, seemed able to agree on only one m a t t e r to be anti-Bolshevik.87 Buxton explained that the I.L.P. would never shut the door to unity with Moscow. The I.L.P., ever patient, awaited the inevitable change of heart. N o argument could have convinced the 1921 conference that it would never come. MacDonald, a leader in the movement to drive the Third International's supporters from the I.L.P., seemed satisfied with the results. On the eve of the meeting, he wrote : The I.L.P. has always been a catholic and undogmatic body, and that characteristic it must maintain. That does not mean however, that it must offer hospitality either of membership or of platform to those who use it only to destroy it. If people are to remain in it to advance its general policy and work out its natural evolution, they can have as much liberty as they like in exercising their own honest judgment, but if they are amongst us to carry out the Moscow idea of paralysis and disruption, they should be told plainly to go elsewhere.88 The small pro-Moscow contingent, rebuffed by the I.L.P. vote, had no alternative but to seek membership in a more congenial organization. Many found their way into the newly-created British Communist Party. MacDonald, in commenting on these defections, suggested that honesty ought to have compelled an earlier withdrawal, but that some good could be expected from its having finally happened. He suggested that the I.L.P. would lose nothing by the incident, and might expect a rapid return from those who realized their error.89 MacDonald made no allusion to the fact that his own leadership had been questioned by the I.L.P. decision. Prepared to bide his time, he seemed confident that his opinions would be vindicated in the end. 86 87 88 89

Independent Labour Party Report, ig2i, Independent Labour Party Report, 1921, Forward, March 26, 1 9 2 1 . Forward, April 9, 1 9 2 1 .

126. 127.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Labour Party, anxious to create its "comprehensive International," and to prevent further divisions, suggested that the Vienna Union join in issuing invitations for a conference.90 The Vienna Union refused. Between the "revolutionary and reformist conceptions of the class struggle," agreement was held to be impossible. All that the Vienna Union consented to were "interviews of a consultative character" with the Labour Party Executive. 91 These conversations took place in October 1921, and proved abortive. The Labour Party pressed for a meeting of all non-Communist Labour groups as a first step towards the reëstablishment of an all-inclusive International. The Vienna Union refused to participate in any conference from which parties affiliated to the Third International were barred.92 While admitting that conditions were at that moment unpropitious for a meeting which included delegates from the Third International, the Vienna Union refused to meet on any other basis.93 The Labour Party accused the "Two-and-a-Half" of an "indefensible postponement"; the charge made no great impression on the Vienna group.94 In December 1921 the situation was suddenly altered by the decision of the Third International to adopt a "united front tactic," and to join with other working-class organizations in a common offensive.95 Exhortations to fight the "bourgeois Second International" were dropped, and pleas for unity among working people against the "capitalist forces of reaction" assumed new importance. The Vienna Union, disregarding the reasons for the change, sounded a call for unity. In a manifesto addressed to labor groups everywhere, the "Two-and-a-Half" called for a meeting between its Executive and the Executives of the Second and Third Internationals preparatory to the convening of a general conference.96 The Second International, embarrassed by the proposal, recognized that to refuse the invitation was to risk its reputation as a proponent of the all-inclusive International. T o accept, however, was to risk 90 91 92 93 94 96 96

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, Labour Party Annual Conference Report, Cf. supra, 153. Bulletin of the International, June 1922,

1921, 147-48. 1922, 13. 1922, 14. 1922, 14-15. 1922, 15-16. 2.

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being used by the Third International for its own propaganda purposes. The Second International, characteristically, compromised; it accepted the idea of a preliminary meeting of the three Executives but reserved the right to raise the question of "Georgia and of political prisoners." 97 As for the general conference, the Second International undertook to attend only if confidence existed that all parties were participating "with the firm intention of adding to the strength of working-class action, and not with the object of lending support to new efforts to create 'nuclei,' divisions, and splits." 98 These conditions were found acceptable, and on April 3, 1922, the representatives of the three organizations assembled in Berlin. Ramsay MacDonald, Harry Gosling, and Tom Shaw attended as the British representatives from the Second International. Richard Wallhead served as British spokesman on the Vienna Union delegation.89 Before departing for Berlin, MacDonald expressed doubt that the gap between the Third International and the others would be bridged. He promised "to offer a handsome apology" if he was proved wrong. 100 The Second International's delegation attended out of a sense of duty, and made no attempt to conceal its misgivings. The Third International, from the beginning, pressed for an immediate general conference to inaugurate the "united front" policy. 101 The Vienna Union, while critical of the Russian Bolsheviks for their mistreatment of political prisoners, and unhappy about aspects of Russian foreign policy, seemed prepared to meet in a general conference despite the absence of a preliminary agreement. The Second International demanded a prior agreement on the outstanding issues—Georgia, Russia's Socialist prisoners, and Third International intervention in trade union affairs. 102 The three groups finally compromised with a joint declaration which accepted the desirability of a general conference, but admitted that certain conditions needed to be remedied prior to that meeting. A "committee of 97 The Second International had long protested Russia's "forcible annexation" of Georgia. MacDonald wrote about it constantly in I.L.P. journals. 98 Bulletin of the International, June 1922, 3. 99 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 19. 100 Forward, April 8, 1922. 101 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 19. 102 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 20.

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nine" was appointed, with powers to settle these differences. The Third International made every effort to acquiesce in the others' demands; it accepted the creation of a committee of inquiry to investigate the Georgian situation; agreed that no death sentences should be asked in the Russian political prisoner trials then pending, that prisoners should be permitted attornies of their own choosing, and that representatives of the three Internationals should be afforded court privileges to witness the proceedings; finally, it agreed to abandon the policy of noyautage.103 MacDonald, surprised at the Russian willingness to compromise, expressed the hope that the Bolsheviks were preparing to retreat from their political tactics as they already had from their economic policies.104 He thought the prospects for the Committee of Nine "hopeful." 105 The Labour Party and Trades Union Congress acted quickly to approve the Second International's request to engage in these further conversations.106 Emil Vandervelde of Belgium, Otto Wels of Germany, and Ramsay MacDonald were selected to serve as the Second's representatives. The committee did not convene in Berlin till May 23, some seven weeks later. In a memorandum introduced by the Second International's delegates, the Third International was criticized for its failure to adhere to the joint declaration of April. The Second claimed that the socialist revolutionaries, on trial in Russia, had been subjected to threats of mob violence in order to secure their convictions. Also, reports told of Lenin's having requested the death penalty. Emil Vandervelde, the Second International's representative on the scene, had been the victim of a sustained propaganda onslaught. For all these reasons, the Second International expressed concern about the outcome of the trials.107 Reports of a new agitation by Moscow against the Georgian socialists also worried the Second International. The 103 "Noyautage" relates to the cell-building activities of the Third International in trade union and other labor organizations. 104 A reference to Russia's new economic policy. The N.E.P. was welcomed in British Labour circles as a return to "economic sanity." 105 Forward, April 15, 1922. 109 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 22-23. 107 Bulletin of the International, June 1922, 4.

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appointment of the promised committee of inquiry was again asked. 108 The Third International's continued activity as a disruptive force in the internal affairs of other nations remained as the principal complaint. According to the Second International, these operations, instead of ceasing, had actually been intensified; specific cases in individual European countries were cited. 109 The Second International expressed a willingness to continue discussions in the Committee of Nine, but demanded satisfaction on these questions before any call for a general conference was issued. Any other policy, it argued, would deceive the workers, leading them to believe that unity was already an established fact when in fact the Third International had done nothing to alter its ways. 110 The Third International, in responding to these allegations of "bad faith," hurled the same charge at its adversaries. According to the Communists, the Second International had intentionally caused delays in the meeting of the Committee of Nine; as the "servants of their capitalist masters," the Second International feared doing anything that might interfere with the Genoa conference.111 To demonstrate the Second's duplicity, the Third International submitted a letter written by Abramovitch of the Vienna Union; this letter had been intercepted. Abramovitch, an "independent," reported to his Menshevik colleagues in Russia that the Second International, skeptical about unity, was anxious to abandon the whole project. The Labour Party in Britain, and the Social Democratic Party in Holland, preparing for general elections, were said to be in no mood for an alliance with Bolshevism; this might jeopardize their chances at the polls.112 In short, the Second International had no desire to break with its "bourgeois associates." Complaints about the Russian socialist revolutionaries trial proceedings, and the press coverage permitted, were dismissed as "absolutely irrelevant." 113 As for the Georgian 108 109 110 111 112 113

Bulletin of the Bulletin of the Bulletin of the A reference to Bulletin of the Bulletin of the

International, International, International, the European International, International,

June 1922, 4. June 1922, 5. June 1922, 5. economic conference held in Genoa in April 1922. June 1922, 6. June 1922, 6.

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question, the T h i r d International promised to submit all documents immediately that a W o r l d Labour Congress was convened. All objections to that meeting were declared "evasions." According to the T h i r d International, the "united front does not mean the fusion of the three Internationals, but their forming a bloc for the struggle for the concrete demands of the working class." T h e Second International's complaints about Communist propaganda were dismissed as "laughable." 1 1 4 N o r were Communists guilty of "splitting"; their only object was the "unification of the workers." T h e T h i r d International, as evidence of its good faith, offered to discuss all such questions with representatives of the International Federation of Trade Unions in the presence of Red Trade Union International delegates. 115 Anticipating a rupture as a result of these recriminations, the T h i r d International concluded its statement with the following: The Commission of Nine was appointed by the Berlin Congress for the organisation of the World Labor Congress. If it evades this task it is only a blind alley behind which the Second International is able to sacrifice the interests of the international working class in a united front with the bourgeoisie and at the same time to evade all responsibility therefore. . . . If the Second International refuses to convoke the World Labour Congress in the immediate future the undersigned as the representatives of the Executive Committee of the Communist International withdraw from the Commission of Nine. The Communist International will then work for the idea of the united front in the struggle with redoubled energy and will do all that it can to convince the working masses, even the non-Communist workers, of the necessity of the united front, and to compel their leaders to break their united front with the bourgeoisie and to fight in serried ranks for the common interests of the working class. 116 T h e Second International, having never expected anything from these negotiations, felt no great disappointment at their collapse. T h e Vienna Union, completely unprepared for such intransigence, knew of no explanation for the Third's behaviour. Adler expressed the 114 115 116

Bulletin of the International, Bulletin of the international, Bulletin of the International,

June 1922, 7. June 1922, 8. June 1922, 8.

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"Two-and-a-Half" 's disappointment unmistakably; he remarked that he saw no purpose in continuing the Committee of Nine. T h e differences were so basic that the convening of a World Labour Congress was clearly out of the question. 1 1 7 Under these circumstances, the best solution seemed to be one which would send the delegations back to their respective Executives for guidance. T h e Second's delegates, who had heretofore been the most extreme critics of the Moscow International, found themselves in a middle position; they were at least prepared to continue the discussions in the Committee of N i n e . 1 1 8 Radek, the Third International's chief spokesman, resolved the problem by announcing that the Moscow delegates were withdrawing from the committee. 1 1 9 T h e Russians, who had created the meeting, now employed the "united front" plea to close it. T h e Second International, meeting in London in June 1922, issued an invitation to the Vienna Union for conversations on the reëstablishment of a single organization. 1 2 0 T h e Vienna Union, thoroughly altered as a consequence of its Berlin experience, accepted with alacrity. In amicable talks which proceeded through the rest of the year, differences were gradually resolved. In May 1923, at Hamburg, the two groups were formally united. T h e schism that had existed from the first years of the war, unofficially at first, officially later, were finally healed. T h e I.L.P. rejoined the Labour Party in a single Labour and Socialist International. 121 T h e "battle of the Internationals" entered on a new phase. T h e Labour Party participated in every stage of this struggle to recreate a single Socialist International. For a time it stood almost alone in support of the Second International. T h e I.L.P. was only slightly less influential in the Vienna Union camp. Anxious to maintain friendly relations with Russia, and to believe in the good will of the Russian leaders, the I.L.P. fought long and hard for its principles. Persistent in its optimism, it remained hopeful that the Third International was not what it appeared to be, that behind its forbid117 118 119 120 121

Bulletin of the International, June 1922, 9. Bulletin of the International, June 1922, 9. Bulletin of the International, June 1922, 9. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, iç22, 24. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1923, 4 - 1 8 .

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ding exterior lay a tolerant and benign substance. The Berlin "unity" talks seemed to vindicate the I.L.P. in its belief, but the final disappointment was all the more severe. MacDonald, Henderson, and others of the Labour Party were shown to be right. The aims of the Third International, however interpreted, failed to correspond with those of the I.L.P.; further self-deception was impossible. The Communist International never tried to conceal its motives or methods; the I.L.P. and others simply refused to believe the obvious. The events of May 1922 broke the spell. The will to believe, shown in its stark isolation, emerged as somewhat pathetic, if not ridiculous. Mortification led to reconsideration, and the Hamburg Congress loomed as the final stage. Union, not between all, but between the like-minded, was at last achieved.

C H A P T E R

Χ

Labour Visits Russia

CERTAIN ELEMENTS in Britain were disillusioned by these encounters with Russian Bolshevism, the nation as a whole welcomed the information that they brought. Beginning in 1920, individual and group visits to Russia again became possible, and reports that issued from these visits became a principal source of information on the new regime. In the years immediately after the revolution, reporting from Russia was inadequate and poor. Newspapers served as the chief channel of communication, publishing dispatches that enjoyed no great reputation for accuracy. Correspondents filed their stories from cities outside Russia; Riga and Stockholm datelines were common. The Times' correspondent, expelled from Russia, specialized in retailing lurid accounts of Bolshevik misdeeds, all based on supposedly authoritative evidence. Correspondents stationed in the newly created Baltic states produced an endless stream of copy, much of it worthless rumor. WHILE

Those newspapers fortunate enough to maintain their correspondents inside Russia retained some reputation for accuracy. The Manchester Guardian and Daily News, both Liberal dailies, carried reports from Arthur Ransome; these were always reliable and dispassionate. Reuter's was the only press association remaining in Moscow; the Guardian subscribed to its service. Michael Farbman, who at times seemed unnecessarily biased in the Bolsheviks' favor, wrote for the Guardian, and later for the Daily Herald. M. Philips

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Price toured Russia to the extent that this was possible in 1918-1919, and wired his findings to the Guardian} The large newspapers in

London, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, and Morning Post received their news from sources outside Russia, often from places as distant as Berlin. In the absence of other communications, the British public depended on newspapers for their information. Between the March and November revolutions, Henderson, Thorne, and O'Grady, all Labourites, visited Russia; each returned with a certain amount of accurate data. But the character of their missions, and their brevity, militated against reaching any very important conclusions. The Bolshevik Revolution and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk put an end to such official expeditions. During 1919 the country was virtually closed to foreign visitors. The mechanics of obtaining entry—passports, visas, travel facilities, and so on—proved sufficiently onerous to dissuade most persons from even making the attempt.2 The situation began to change in 1920. There started then a stream of British visitation—official and unofficial, group and individual, friend and critic—which never ceased till the signing of the RussianGerman pact some two decades later. Labour Party adherents, interested in Russia's economic and social program, and concerned to improve Anglo-Russian relations, led the cavalcade. The Marxists went, of course, but also those who imbibed at other socialist founts. Reports on Russia, produced by Labourites, flowed from the presses; individuals and groups hastened to relate their experiences, observations, and reactions. The party's policy, both foreign and domestic, could not fail to be influenced by these expeditions and the reports that followed. Both require therefore some further examination. George Lansbury's visit in January and February 1920 was the first to be taken by a British Labour leader after the Bolshevik rising. His dispatches to the Daily Herald, curiously emotional and naïve, re1 Many of the Manchester Guardian's correspondents published their Russian dispatches in book form. See M. Philips Price, My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution (London, 1 9 2 1 ) ; Arthur Ransome, Six Weeks in Russia in 1919 (London, 1 9 1 9 ) ; William T . Goode, Bolshevism at Wor\ (London, 1920). 2 Colonel Malone was one of the few Britons who managed to get into Russia in 1919. He published his report under the title The Russian Republic (London, 1920).

LABOUR VISITS RUSSIA

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vealed a man who had gone to look and listen but had not seen or heard. As he admitted later: I did not go to Russia as a cold-blooded investigator seeking to discover what there was of evil; I went as a Socialist, to see what a Socialist revolution looks like at close quarters; and, above everything else, to look at the faces of those who made the revolution. It was the spirit moving the men and women responsible for the revolution I wanted to discover, for all else is of no importance. 3

Chagrined at finding himself dismissed as a Russian apologist, Lansbury wrote: I do not consider Lenin or his comrades need me or any one else to act as such. In my judgment, no set of men and women responsible for a revolution of the magnitude of the Russian Revolution ever made fewer mistakes or carried their revolution through with less interference with the rights of individuals, or with less terrorism and destruction, than the men in control in Russia.4

"Real democracy" was being fashioned in Russia, Lansbury explained, by men and women "striving to build the new Jerusalem." 5 He thought Lenin a man of such ability, enthusiasm, and "devotion to the cause of humanity," as to compare with no other whom he had ever encountered.® Trotsky was characterized as "one of the greatest leaders of men;" the other Russian leaders were described as sincere, capable, hardworking, and intelligent. 7 Lansbury reassured those who might be concerned about the state of religion in Russia; the church, he said, had "perfect freedom to preach her gospel, conduct her services, and worship God in her own way." 8 Religion had been altered in only one respect by the revolution; the church had been disestablished and disendowed. The situation that prevailed in France and Wales was now duplicated in Russia. 9 The 3

George Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia (London, 1920), xiii. Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, xii. Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, xiv. β Lansbury, What 1 Saw in Russia, 22. 7 Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, 3 5 - 4 1 . Lansbury's remark about Trotsky was made without his ever having met him. 8 Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, 45. 9 Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, 46. 4 5

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Bolshevik leaders, "deadly enemies of ignorance," were given high praise for their educational reforms. 10 L a w and order was maintained everywhere, with a "surprising absence of any paraded authority." 11 Lansbury never stopped to consider possible deficiencies; these were regarded as temporary phenomena, certain to disappear as soon as the Allies ceased their intervention. Disclaiming the role of "investigator," Lansbury produced a report likely to win support from others of equal faith. Those who sought a more detached and objective analysis waited for the report of the official Labour delegation which left London in late April 1920. The delegation, sponsored jointly by the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, comprised Ethel Snowden, T o m Shaw, and Robert Williams as the Labour Party representatives; Margaret Bondfield, Alfred Purcell, and Herbert Skinner as the T.U.C, nominees; Charles Roden Buxton and L . Haden Guest, as joint secretaries, and Ben Turner as chairman. Clifford Allen and Richard Wallhead accompanied the mission on an unofficial basis as I.L.P. representatives. 12 The group left England on April 27, arrived in Petrograd May i l , and toured Russia for approximately six weeks; Buxton remained somewhat longer; others, because of Allen's serious illness, returned sooner. 13 The delegation completed its report in late July, and gave it wide publicity in Labour Party and trade union journals. T w o interim reports, published earlier, described the hardships suffered by the Russian people as a consequence of the Allied economic blockade, and asked that for humanitarian, if for no other reason, the blockade be lifted, intervention cease, and the Bolshevik government be recognized. 14 The final report, a brief document, opened with a blast against the British press for its inaccuracies : W e feel it necessary to begin by pointing out that most accounts of Soviet Russia which w e had seen in the capitalist press of our o w n country proved to be perversions of the facts. T h e whole impression gained was of a different character from that presented by these accounts. W e 10

Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, 94—97. Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, 120. 12 British Labour Delegation to Russia 1920, Report (London, 1920), 27. 13 Labour Delegation Report, 5. The delegates reported that they "generally had freedom of movement and inquiry," and were greeted warmly everywhere. 14 Labour Delegation Report, 28-31. 11

LABOUR VISITS RUSSIA

215

did not see any violence or disorder in the streets, though we walked about them freely at all hours of the day and night. We did not see people fall dead of starvation in the streets. We did not see any interference with the religious life of the people. We did not see any Chinese soldiers. We saw no evidence of extraordinary luxury on the part of the leading Commissars. We did not find that either women or children had been nationalised. We certainly did witness a widespread breakdown in the transport system with deplorable economic consequences, and we saw terrible evidence of underfeeding and suffering. These points have been dealt with, however, in the Reports already issued by the Delegation on the iniquitous policy of intervention and blockade.15 The report noted that the average Russian in the towns appeared underfed and poorly clothed; peasants fared better than townspeople, and children better than adults. Sanitary conditions were described as poor, but no housing shortage was noted. Some class differentiation existed, the report explained, but "broadly speaking, a single standard of living has been established. The glaring inequalities of fortune . . . so great a scandal in capitalist countries . . . no longer exist in Russia." Russia's excellent facilities for child care received special praise. The delegation, while impressed with such achievements, made no effort to conceal the high price at which they had been purchased. The methods of government thought to be necessary by the ruling party were deplored; personal freedom, in the Western sense, was completely unknown. Freedom of speech and press were severely curtailed. T o differ with the ruling party was to risk imprisonment as a "counterrevolutionary." The congresses of soviets, large and unwieldy bodies, with power concentrated in the hands of executive committees and Praesidiums, did not impress the delegation. The Communist Party worked to control "every department and every institution of the national life." Trade unions and cooperatives, as integral parts of the state mechanism, operated in response to orders from centralized authorities. The delegation held the Allies responsible for whatever militarism existed in Russia. No threat to the West could be discerned; technical and administrative problems made impossible a Russian policy of world revolution. 16 15 16

Labour Delegation Report, 6. Labour Delegation Report, 7-11.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND T H E RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The report concluded with the remark that the investigators had intentionally refrained from judging whether the same results might have been secured by other, less violent means; whether democracy might yet be established in Russia; and, whether the Bolshevik Revolution might serve as a model for other countries.17 These matters the delegation declared to be outside its province. In fixing responsibility for Russia's plight, however, the report was most specific; it said: The Russian Revolution has not had a fair chance. We cannot say whether, in normal conditions, this particular experiment would have been a success or failure. The conditions have been such as would have rendered the task of social transformation extraordinarily difficult, whoever had attempted it and whatever had been the means adopted. We cannot forget that the responsibility for these conditions resulting from foreign interference rests not upon the revolutionaries of Russia, but upon the Capitalist Governments of other countries, including our own.18 The delegation appended to the report a collection of important documents. 19 These included studies by individual members of public health, education, housing in Moscow, industrial organization and mobilization of workers, the blockade, soviets, Russian militarism and patriotism. 20 A message from Prince Kropotkin, the famed anarchist, pleading for an end to intervention, was printed. Kropotkin, deploring the dictatorship of the Communist Party, suggested that the revolution would be destroyed by that dictatorship, for it carried a "death sentence on the new construction." 21 A more poignant message came from the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which, though persecuted and harried, begged British Labour to work for an end to foreign intervention. Bolshevik power, the Socialist Revolutionaries argued, required the assistance of a civil war; indigenous democratic movements would rise only when the foreign threat had been lifted. 22 The Socialist Revolutionaries bade the British seek the 17

Labour Delegation Report, 26. Labour Delegation Report, 27. 19 Labour Delegation Report, 3 2 - 1 4 9 . There were twenty-two appendices, each dealing with a different subject. 20 Labour Delegation Report, 1 1 9 - 1 4 9 . 21 Labour Delegation Report, 89-92. 22 Labour Delegation Report, 85. The Socialist revolutionaries wrote: "However 18

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truth, and not be taken in by the "panegyrics of the official defense" or the "attacks of the bourgeois boulevard press." 23 This report must by any standard be accounted a document of the greatest significance. Conceived in an objective spirit, and based on a judicious sifting of evidence, it served as a necessary corrective to some of the more biased judgments produced by men of the Lansbury school. T h e delegation visited Russia neither to praise nor to condemn but only to examine. Good and bad were discovered everywhere, never in perfect balance, and usually explainable by rational argument. T h e delegates encountered no saints, either in the government or in the nation. N o member thought to ennoble Lenin, as Lansbury had, as "a father of his people—a father who toils for them, thinks for them, acts for them, suffers with them, and is ready to stand in danger or in safety struggling on their behalf." 24 Such description was entirely foreign to this report; it was hard and factual, though not lacking in sympathy. Feeling was expressed for a people in need, but there was no impulse to romanticize, patronize, or exalt. T h e delegation condemned absolutely the Allied persecution of the Russian state and people. T h e admission of Russia to the family of nations, and her treatment as an equal, were implicit demands throughout. N o man could prophesy how the Bolsheviks would behave once accepted, but to refuse them because of this uncertainty was to make a fetish of a prejudice. T h e delegates demanded a restoration of normal relations between independent and sovereign states, not in the distant future, but immediately. Visits to Russia in 1920 were sufficiently uncommon for at least three of the delegates to rush into publication more personal accounts of their experiences. These books, hastily produced for a curious public, fell short of the excellent standard set by the official report. L . Haden Guest wrote " T h e Struggle for Power in Europe 1917strongly Bolshevik power has compromised the cause of the Revolution, however many mistakes and even crimes against freedom it may have committed—nevertheless, so long as the claws of social and political reaction, powerful through foreign aid and rich with foreign gold and armaments, are greedily clutching at the Bolshevik heirloom—so long will no armed hand from within our camp be lifted against that power." 23 Labour Delegation Report, 86. 2 4 Lansbury, What I Saw in Russia, 28.

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1921," a study of conditions in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. Based largely on personal observations, the book sufficed as an introductory text. Descriptive matter, interspersed with critical notes, provided illuminating comment on the qualities of Bolshevik rule. Guest argued that Lenin had failed in his efforts to convert the peasantry to a program of agrarian reform. 25 Like Kropotkin, he doubted that communism or socialism would issue from the dictatorship of the Communist Party. 26 Charles Roden Buxton, the delegation's second secretary, wrote a slim volume dealing with a trip to Ozerò, a village in the Samara province. 27 The book revealed a sensitive appreciation of the problems of living under Bolshevik rule. Portraits of individual Russians, delicately constructed, gave the work an almost biographical quality. The simplicity of the report was deceiving; behind the casual references to men and conversations lay a detailed image of Russian society as expressed in numerous daily activities. Ethel Snowden's report was sufficiently popular to require a second printing soon after publication. 28 While few remarked on its barbaric, almost illiterate prose style, many took exception to its conclusions. Mrs. Snowden, depressed by her observations, caused a minor storm in I.L.P. circles. The work actually merited slight attention; contradictory and simple, it revealed the operation of an undistinguished mind loosed from its parochial moorings. All Russian experience, tested by British standards, was found to be deficient. N o effort was made to eliminate inconsistencies. On one page Mrs. Snowden attributed "a large part of the misery of the unhappy people of Russia" to the Bolshevik coup d'état, and three pages later suggested that "the experiment in Russia might have been of the greatest possible value to the rest of the world had its purity not been sullied by civil wars and unpardonable alien aggression." 29 Temperance, a 25

L . Haden Guest, The Struggle for Power in Europe 7 9 / 7 - / 9 2 / (London, 1 9 2 1 ) ,

104.

28

Guest, The Struggle for Power, 104-5. Charles Roden Buxton, In A Russian Village (London, 1922). 28 Ethel Snowden, Through Bolshevik, Russia (London, 1920). 29 Snowden, Through Bolshevik. Russia, 14. 27

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favorite Snowden cause, received ample attention; no comment is possible on the following: The absence of drinking-shops and of public drinking, and consequently of men and women the worse for liquor is a commendable feature of social life in Russia, and accounts for many good things, probably for the Revolution itself, almost certainly for the almost unvaried success of the Red armies.30 Mrs. Snowden applauded at least one of the government's capital punishment decrees—that which ordered a railway worker, discovered drunk from illegally purchased vodka, promptly shot. 31 She described Lenin as a fanatic, kind in personal relations, but cruel when it came to matters of state policy. 32 T h e Bolshevik educational reforms had minimal value since their purpose was the advancement of Communist teachings. 33 When the Bolshevik leaders argued about the Russians not being ready for democracy, and therefore requiring a dictatorship, Mrs. Snowden reflected on the use of this same "unfitness" argument in England during the time that the suffrage agitation was at its height. 34 Mrs. Snowden's argument followed a similar pattern throughout; between the inanities, there were a certain number of valuable criticisms, but most of these were lost. T h e most distinguished private report issuing from the Labour delegation's visit was certainly that of Bertrand Russell. 36 Russell went to Russia as an independent observer, but his entry permit required him to travel with the other British Labour delegates.36 His report—a document of insight and learning—showed sufficient prophetic accuracy to be republished three decades later without a single textual alteration. 37 Russell saw Russia in 1920 as many other objective critics did, but his intelligence and wit made possible the Snowden, Through Bolshevik. Russia, 26. Snowden, Through Bolshevik Russia, 27. 3 2 Snowden, Through Bolshevik Russia, 116. 3 3 Snowden, Through Bolshevik Russia, 99. 3 4 Snowden, Through Bolshevik Russia, 150-51. 3 5 Bertrand Russell, Bolshevism: Practice and Theory (New York, 1920). 3 6 Russell, Bolshevism, 23. 3 7 Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (London, 1949). Russell omitted one chapter in this second edition—on art and education. In the first edition, this chapter was written by Russell's secretary. 30 31

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REVOLUTION

production of a work of a distinctly higher order. The excellence of the report belied the shortness of the visit. Russell was profoundly disturbed by what he saw in Russia. He believed that the Bolsheviks were prepared to create a socialist state without regard to the cost or the opposition.38 Russell doubted that a socialist society could develop from such beginnings, and believed that one of three things would happen: Bolshevism would be defeated by capitalism; the Bolsheviks would triumph but lose their ideals in a "regime of Napoleonic imperialism;" a prolonged world war would see the collapse of all civilization.39 The Bolsheviks, impatient and impassioned, were disinclined to seek popular approval for their acts. Russell found Bolshevism a religion "with elaborate dogmas and inspired scriptures," and was repelled by its dogmatic fanaticism. 40 He believed that while some forms of socialism were superior to capitalism, others were not; the Russian form he placed in the latter category.41 The Bolshevik love of violence, and its acceptance of a philosophy of inevitable conflict, made its creed an unpalatable one to men of humane sensibilities. Russell criticized "Russia's friends" for their mistaken belief that the dictatorship of the proletariat constituted some new form of democratic government incorporating universal suffrage for workers in legislative bodies based on occupational representation. He explained : They [Russia's friends abroad] think that "proletariat" means "proletariat," but "dictatorship" does not quite mean "dictatorship." This is the opposite of the truth. When a Russian Communist speaks of dictatorship, he means the word literally, but when he speaks of the proletariat, he means the word in a Pickwickian sense. He means the "class-conscious" part of the proletariat, i.e., the Communist Party. He includes people by no means proletarian (such as Lenin and Chicherin) who have the right opinions, and he excludes such wage-earners as have not the right opinions, whom he classifies as lackeys of the bourgeoisie,42

Russell described Bolshevism as "internally aristocratic and externally militant," by which he meant that the plebs were treated as 38

Russell, Bolshevism,

4.

39

Russell, Russell, Russell, Russell,

4. 6. 18. 27.

40 41 42

Bolshevism, Bolshevism, Bolshevism, Bolshevism,

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inferiors by the Communists inside Russia, but that to the outside world the Communists tried to appear the champions of revolution and equality. 43 H e thought Lenin opinionated, narrowly orthodox, and dictatorial, though undeniably courageous and dedicated. 44 Russell worried considerably about the leadership problem; he failed to understand how the Bolshevik minority would ever be impelled to surrender its absolute power. Authority was sweet and to exploit it natural; there was no reason to expect the Bolsheviks to behave any differently from other groups in power. Russell thought he detected an identity between the Bolshevik power in Russia and the British Raj in India; he explained: It stands for civilsation, for education, sanitation, and Western ideas of progress; it is composed in the main of honest and hard-working men, who despise those whom they govern, but believe themselves possessed of something valuable which they must communicate to the population, however little it may be desired. Like our Government in India, they live in terror of popular risings, and are compelled to resort to cruel repressions in order to preserve their power. Like it, they represent an alien philosophy of life, which cannot be forced upon the people without a change of instinct, habit, and tradition so profound as to dry up the vital springs of action, producing listlessness and despair among the ignorant victims of a militant enlightenment.45 Russell entertained no illusions about "democracy" in Russia. T h e Soviets constituted a channel for the transmission of Communist Party orders. T h e argument about soviets vs. parliament seemed unreal to a Western observer in Russia; soviets were not free, representative, or active. 46 Russell's report was not an easy one for Russia's admirers in Britain to accept. Some rejected it as the work of a bourgeois intellectual; others preferred to ignore it. Those who respected the intelligence and integrity of this humane British philosopher, and who still sought to believe in Russia, were bewildered. Only time and experience could resolve their doubts. Such reports provided a basis of fact on which reasonable foreign and domestic policies could be framed. Destructive of romantic illu43 44 45 49

Russell, Russell, Russell, Russell,

Bolshevism, Bolshevism, Bolshevism, Bolshevism,

31. 35-41. 174-75. 73-81.

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sions and unfounded generalizations, these reports cleared the atmosphere of the irrelevancies created by emotion and ignorance. None of them led to any diminution of sympathy for the Russian people. They operated rather to increase solicitude and to make more urgent the reëstablishment of normal diplomatic and trade relations. Ethel Snowden and Bertrand Russell were no less concerned to foster this policy than George Lansbury and others of his persuasion. The Labour Party, with more accurate information at its command, recognized anew the necessity of befriending the Bolshevik state.

C H A P T E R

XI

N e w Russian Crises

1920, as before, Russia remained one of the Labour Party's principal foreign policy interests. T h e growing economic depression at home and the consequent rise in unemployment gave force to the argument that an immediate restoration of normal trade relations was essential. T h e Labour Party centered its agitation in Parliament, and Adamson, the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, was prepared to communicate resolutions passed by the unemployed in London and Glasgow urging a renewal of trade with Russia. 1 O'Grady spoke of his constituents in Leeds being convinced that the reopening of the Russian market would restore that city's prosperity. 2 T h e Government did its best to parry such arguments. Sir Robert Home, president of the Board of Trade, suggested that they expressed exaggerated hopes, and that no such beneficial results would follow from a renewal of trade. T h e simple fact, according to Sir Robert, was that Russian goods did not exist in appreciable quantities, and could not therefore contribute to a lowering of prices in Britain. 3 Sir Robert admitted that a Russian market existed, but argued that the "limited Russian gold supply" made impossible any extensive export by Britain. 4 N o mention was made of the possi-

AFTER

Commons Commons 3 Commons * Commons 1

2

Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates,

CXXXVI CXXXVI CXXXVI CXXXVI

(1920), (1920), (1920), (1920),

1851-52. i860. 1866. 1869.

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bility of extending credits; such action did not suggest itself to the Government. When, in March 1921, the Government negotiated a trade agreement with Russia, practical financial considerations were ignored. Trade was again permitted, but the problem of payment was ignored. Russia, virtually bankrupt, and without a large external trade, could not possibly pay for British commodities in any quantity. T h e British Government, unconcerned, exhausted its generosity and wisdom in the act of ratifying the agreement. 5 T h e Labour Party, while pleased with this tangible evidence that intervention in Russia had come to an end, entertained no illusions about the trade benefits that might ensue. In the absence of credit, Russian trade would remain minimal. T h e Advisory Committee on International Questions pressed the Labour Party Executive to declare for a policy that involved full recognition and the negotiation of an adequate loan.® T h e Advisory Committee, in a specially prepared memorandum, explained how Russia had come to be excluded from benefits under the provisions of the Overseas Trade (Credit and Insurance) Act, 1920, and the Trade Facilities Act, 1921. These empowered the Board of Trade, with the consent of the Treasury, to extend credits in the form of British goods to foreign countries. T h e first Act offered assistance to war-stricken areas; the second, to unemployment-stricken Britain. 7 Russia, the Advisory Committee explained, had been excluded from both because of its failure to recognize the tsarist debts, and also because it was classified as a "poor risk" by Government financial experts.8 T h e Advisory Committee questioned the wisdom of both judgments. T h e credits issue was complicated by the famine that descended over Russia in the summer of 1921. Almost all observers agreed that Russia could not hope to survive this natural catastrophe without very considerable assistance from the outside world. Humanitarian considerations dictated the dispatch of food, medicines, and grain seeds of every variety. But this was an issue in which other than 5 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1921, XLIII, Cmd. /207, "Trade Agreement Between His Majesty's Government and the Government of the R.S.F.S.R." β Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, Nos. 226 and 228a. 7 Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 242. 8 Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 242.

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humanitarian principles played a role. If it could be demonstrated that aid would reënforce the Bolshevik power, there would be many who would argue against its being offered. Early in the crisis, The Times set the style for this argument. It suggested that while no heart in Europe could fail to be moved by Russia's tragedy, Europe was powerless to assist her. Russia's tyrant rulers prevented access to the "great Hermit Empire" by free men. 9 The Times proceeded to remind its readers of Russia's threat to Poland in Upper Silesia, as well as to Finland, Esthonia, and Latvia. The editorial concluded: With the famine undermining all coherency of policy, with the militant Trotsky perpetually opposing the temporising of Lenin, with the population of Russia here revolting, there starving, it is impossible to calculate what sudden move the Bolshevists will make in their dire extremity. . . . We gladly recognise that our French Allies have a particularly keen sense of the situation in Eastern Europe, and we are sure that they will realise that this country earnestly desires that whatever danger may appear we and they shall meet it with a front firmly united by a sense of the common suffering, the common victory, and the hopes and perils of the future. 10 A more disingenuous scheme to create the illusion of a threat where none existed, and to suggest an emergency inconceivable in the circumstances, could not have been fashioned. The Morning Post, Daily Mail, and Daily Telegraph showed themselves avid pupils in this inhuman masque. The Daily Mail announced that the famine would continue till the Russian people rid themselves of their "inefficient, corrupt, and criminal" masters. Russia's "return to civilised methods" was the only solution to the problem. 11 The Daily Telegraph recommended caution in providing assistance lest it be used by the Bolsheviks in "feeding and feeing its armed mercenaries," and supplying its "parasites, retainers... and kept proletariat in the large cities."12 These sentiments were characteristic of large segments of the press; one would scarcely have guessed from read9

The Times, July 22, 1 9 2 1 . The Times, July 22, 1921. 11 Daily Mail, August 8, 1 9 2 1 . 12 Daily Telegraph, August 17, 10

1921.

22Ó

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ing them that the lives of millions of ordinary Russian citizens were in any way involved. The Daily Herald deplored such callousness and pleaded for a large-scale program of famine relief.13 The two principal Liberal dailies, the Manchester Guardian and Daily News, remained faithful to their traditions, and spoke lustily for a humanitarian approach. The Guardian expressed contempt for "some unspeakable persons in England [who] have discouraged the giving of any help lest the Russian Government should lose the political disadvantage of having the highest possible mortality among its subjects."14 The Daily News thought the situation ugly; a characteristic comment read: In the whole history of recent propaganda—which does not lack for grimy pages—there has been nothing quite so odious as the attempt to exploit the misery of these poor people as a sort of "knock-out blow" to the Soviet Government and to prove the superiority of capitalist economics by adding anarchy to the incredible nightmare of their sufferings.15 The Government ignored these humanitarian pleas. As Lloyd George explained in the Commons, if Russia required help, she would do well to admit her past obligations; the recognition of the tsarist debts, he explained, would do much to restore confidence and revitalize trade.18 The possibility of extending a loan did not even occur to the Prime Minister. J. H. Thomas, in replying, agreed that Russia ought to recognize its indebtedness, but denied that "this matter should enter in any way into the grave human appeal that is involved in the . . . famine." 17 Political considerations were entirely irrelevant, he argued; a great human tragedy made its own appeal. Colonel Wedgwood seconded these sentiments; Russia, prepared to pledge the products of its forests and mines as security, provided a guaranty sufficient for any government. Britain's sincerity was being put to the test, Wedgwood said, and he prayed that it would not be found wanting. 18 Such arguments made no impression on the Gov13 Daily Herald, July 26, 1921. 14 Manchester Guardian, August 19, 1921. 15 Daily News, August 8, 1921. 16 Commons Debates, CXLVI (1921), 1241—42. 17 Commons Debates, CXLVI (1921), 1256. 18 Commons Debates, CXLVI (1921), 1281-82.

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ernment; Parliament rose for its summer recess without taking any action. The British representative on the International Commission for Russian Relief, a subsidiary of the Allied Supreme Council, behaved in a no less dilatory fashion. In a meeting with the representatives of France, Italy, Belgium, and Japan, all agreed to do nothing till an exhaustive study by a thirty-man investigating team was completed.19 Then, if the commission saw fit to recommend a loan, it was to be conditional on the Bolsheviks recognizing the tsarist debts and offering adequate collateral. This offer, tendered by Joseph Noulens, France's ex-ambassador to Russia, and one of the chief foes of Bolshevism, seemed to invite a refusal. One commentator remarked : "It is difficult to believe that such a message could have been sent to Moscow unless the governments were convinced that the Soviets were about to collapse and would be willing to accept anything which the Allies might have to offer."20 Chicherin, Russia's foreign minister, called the proposal "a monstrous mockery against the starving masses." He explained that neither the American Relief Administration nor the Red Cross had "thought it necessary or possible to compel the hungry masses to wait for assistance until these profound researches can be completed."21 Particular disgust was expressed at the choice of Noulens as spokesman for the commission. The group met again in Paris in September and in Brussels a month later. In each place the project was reaffirmed, further conditions being added. The Manchester Guardian remarked bitterly, "the recommendations should more than suffice to spin out time, with an appearance of decorum until most of the starving Russians are dead."22 Political considerations militated against any scheme for international assistance; funds, other than those provided by private sources, would have to come from individual governments. The Labour Party resumed its petitions immediately when Parliament reconvened. The Government, replying to a question put by 19 20 21 22

H. H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia 1919-1923 Fisher, Famine in Soviet Russia, 67. Fisher, Famine in Soviet Russia, 67. Manchester Guardian, October 10, 1 9 2 1 .

(Stanford, 1927), 66.

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Clynes, reaffirmed its decision to refuse credits till the Bolsheviks accepted the tsarist indebtedness.23 Clynes suggested that for both humanitarian and political reasons an assistance program would be in Britain's interest. If the famine continued, he argued, it would have an adverse effect on the British economy and contribute to new unemployment. 24 Appeals to the head met with no better response than those directed to the heart. T h e Government refused all compromise, and made much of its bequest to the Red Cross of certain stores for distribution in Russia. 25 A twenty-million-dollar relief grant by the United States Congress produced no reaction in official British circles.2® T h e Labour Party's representation in Parliament was insufficient for an effective agitation. T h e T . U . C , undertook to canvas individual trade unions for contributions to a relief fund, but union finances in 1921 and 1922 were too shaky to permit large donations. 27 T h e Labour press, newspaper and periodical, gave support to every projected assistance scheme, and kept the Russian famine very much in the public mind. Except for the Labour and Liberal press, newspapers were hostile to aid proposals. The Times condemned daily the work of Dr. Nansen, Red Cross official, who toured Britain in the hope of securing several million pounds for famine relief. 28 T h e Daily Express retailed scandalous accounts of the maldistribution of funds in Russia. Stories bearing lurid headlines were common. T h e following were typical: "Folly of Feeding Russia," "Moscow Has Plenty," "Some Money for Propaganda—Not for Famine," "Bolsheviks Waste Resources on Munitions," " A Bolshevik Palace, Luxury Offices for Soviet Agents in London While Russians in Russia Starve, Are W e to Pay?" 2 9 When the Labour Party petitioned the Prime Minister to receive a delegation anxious to state the case for a credits policy, the response was negative. Lloyd George claimed to be fully acquainted with the 23

Commons Debates, CXLVII (1921), 77. Debates, CXLVII (1921), 105. Commons Debates, CXLVII (1921), 1741, 1763. Fisher, Famine in Soviet Russia, 522-23. British Trades Union Review, November 1921, 1. The Times, September 2, 1921; February 1, 1922. Daily Express, October 1921 through February 1922; ad passim

24Commons 25 26

28 29

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30

situation in Russia. Austen Chamberlain, Leader of the House, explained the Government's position on March 9, 1922, saying: We have given serious and renewed consideration to this question [famine relief] but in view of the large sums which this House has already voted for the relief of Europe, of the very heavy burdens resting upon our own people, and the great distress and suffering existing among them, we are unable to propose a grant from the public funds, but every effort will be made to add to the supply of medical stores already placed at the disposal of the Red Cross Society. 31 Chamberlain argued that never before had the state been asked to approve the expenditure of public funds for such a purpose. Charities were invariably arranged by appeals through the L o r d Mayor; there was no reason to alter this tradition. 32 T h e Government seemed prepared to ignore Labour and Liberal pressures, but on March 17, it suddenly reversed itself and announced its readiness to appropriate one hundred thousand pounds for relief purposes. 33 T h e amount, a pitifully inadequate token, was attacked as such, but Chamberlain responded that with two million unemployed, the Government had no right to embark on large foreign aid expenditures. Self-righteous, almost indignant, he remarked: Men may be as generous as they like with their own money. But when they are administering the money of others they must be prudent; they must have regard to the obligations which they have already undertaken, and to the burden which they have placed upon their countrymen—a burden which their countrymen are beginning to find it almost impossible to endure.34 Arguments failed to move the Government to increase its appropriation. T h e grant, voted by the Commons, was eventually made available in the form of commodities shipped to Russia. Chamberlain's attempt to cover the Government's parsimony by appealing to the unsettled economic conditions at home deceived no one. T h e Labour Party recognized that political considerations dictated the 30 31 32 33 34

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, ig22, 40. Commons Debates, CLI (1922), 1462. Commons Debates, CLI (1922), 1464. Commons Debates, CLI (1922), 2545. Commons Debates, CLI (1922), 2624.

23O

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Government's policy, and that only an attempt at face-saving accounted for even so minuscule a grant. The humanitarian appeal had not made a sufficient impact on the country. The experience preyed on the conscience of many in the Labour movement. Richard Wallhead, I.L.P. chairman, expressed an almost universal opinion when he said at the party's 1922 conference: Organised capitalism, lacking the bowels of compassion, sees in the natural horror that has overtaken Russia a means to bring about the defeat of a theory it hates and fears, and when the perishing people of Russia in their agony ask of a British capitalist government "bread," it offers them lime juice. [A reference to a famous shipment of lime juice sent to Russia by the British Government, and distributed through the Red Cross.] The huge surplus of grain known to exist ought to have been available for the relief of the starving millions of Russia; instead of that it mocked them, despite the fact that all over the world kind hearts and willing hands are doing what in them lies to assist in that defeat of nature in her malignant mood.35 Throughout 1922 and 1923, Labour's solicitude for Russia was demonstrated in matters large and small. Its reaction to the results of the Genoa conference, in April 1922, was characteristic. The meeting, summoned by Lloyd George to consider the "paralysis of the European system," was doomed from the beginning by the open hostility of Poincaré, the French prime minister, and by the absence of the United States. The thirty-four states, Russia and Germany included, wrangled over trivia for three weeks and dispersed without reaching agreement on any substantive matter. The conference's one claim to fame arose from the German-Russian rapprochement effected by their Rapallo accord. Genoa brought the two states together; Rathenau, Germany's foreign minister, agreed to grant Russia de jure recognition in return for a favorable trade agreement.36 The Allied states were surprised and offended; Lloyd George, on his return to London, called the Treaty "a great error in judgment." 37 The Labour Party took a different view, and rejoiced in the Gov35

J.L.P. Annual Conference Report, 1922, 57. F. Lee Benns, Europe Since 1914 (5th ed., New York, 1944), 367. A brief explanation of the principal differences between Russia and her several creditors at Genoa. 37 Commons Debates, CLIV (1922), 1455. 36

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231

ernment's discomfiture. MacDonald called the accord "a God-send," and spoke of Germany and Russia having performed a great service for Europe. "If the other nations would knock the heads of their 'statesmen' together and tell them to stop fooling and get to business, we could look upon Genoa and this incident with gratitude," he asserted.38 T h e Labour Party refused to be frightened by talk of a "German-Russian threat," and preferred the opinion of Charles Trevelyan, a Liberal recently come into the Labour Party, w h o viewed it as a "rebuke to Western imperialism" and an encouragement for the future. 39 Labour's partiality towards Russia was evidenced even more in the long drawn-out "Near Eastern crisis" of 1922-1923, in which the Soviets figured prominently. T h e unpublished memoranda of the Advisory Committee on International Questions reveal a pro-Russian bias throughout. Arnold Toynbee prepared a documentary memorandum for the Committee. In it he explained the origin of the Greco-Turkish conflict, and showed Lloyd George and Eleutherios Venizelos as the principal agents of the Greek aggression. 40 Toynbee made no attempt to conceal his pro-Turkish sympathies or his disdain for the British who had led Greece into the disaster.41 H e recommended the withdrawal of all British troops from the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles lest they be an incentive to war. Also, he favored the restoration of Turkey's control over Eastern Thrace in return for an engagement on Turkey's part to maintain the "freedom of the Straits," demilitarized, and subject to League of Nations control. 42 Toynbee called for a peace conference between the representatives of Turkey, Greece, the Little Entente, Bulgaria, and Russia. T h e latter's interests were said to be "equal to those of all the other parties together." 43 Toynbee prepared the memorandum in late August or early September. T h e situation deteriorated almost immediately thereafter. With the Greek A r m y smashed, no military force separated the vic38 39 40 41 42 43

Forward, April 29, 1922. Labour Leader, May 4, 1922. Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, No. 258. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 258. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 258. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 258.

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torious Turks from the Dardanelles; the British Government raised the cry of "the Straits in danger." Britain invited her Allies, Dominions, and friends in the Balkans to prepare to meet the Turkish threat.44 France and Italy responded by withdrawing their forces; they were in no mood to join the British in a containment policy. Lloyd George announced the Cabinet's decision to defend Chanak alone. Only at the last moment was a clash averted. Turkey and Greece agreed to settle their differences in a peace conference.45 The Advisory Committee on International Questions gathered in special session to consider these developments. A distinguished group attended the September 25 meeting; it included MacDonald, Ponsonby, Morel, Toynbee, Brailsford, Charles and Noel Buxton, Woolf, Greenwood, and Gillies. 46 The committee charged the Government with "obstinate and persistent mishandling of the Near Eastern question," and suggested that war would have broken out but for the intervention of the French and Italian governments. With a peace conference impending, the committee urged Lloyd George to remain at home and entrust the negotiations to his foreign secretary, Lord Curzon. 47 The committee protested the omission of Russia and Bulgaria from the group of invited powers; Toynbee's phrase about Russia having a greater stake than all the others was repeated.48 The powers did not assemble at Lausanne for the peace conference until late November, by which time Lloyd George's government had fallen, the Conservatives had returned to power under Bonar Law's leadership, and Russia had been added to the participating powers as a result of Turkish pressure. Great Britain and Russia emerged as the chief protagonists in the controversy surrounding the Straits. Russia favored a plan which would close the Straits to warships at all times but leave them open to merchant ship traffic. Great Britain proposed a scheme permitting free entry to warships and merchant vessels in time of peace, and to all except belligerent ships 44 Harold Nicolson, Curzon: The Last Phase 79/9-/925 (Boston and New York, 1934), 272-76. 45 Benns, Europe Since 1914, 187. 46 Advisory Committee on International Questions, Minutes, September 25, 1922. 47 Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, No. 259a. 48 Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 259a.

NEW RUSSIAN CRISES

in time of war. 49 T h e advisory committee, in a m e m o r a n d u m prepared during the conference sessions, declared the British proposal "a reversal of the policy we had supported for many years before the war." 5 0 " T h e British policy is one of war," the memorandum continued, "presumably directed against Russia." 8 1 After the signing of the Lausanne Treaty, in which the British view prevailed, the advisory committee offered an opinion as to why the Government had fought so strenuously for its policy: The conflict that developed between Great Britain and Russia, owing to the British proposal to open the Straits to warships, originated in present-day politics. Great Britain and Russia have in this matter of the passage of warships exchanged policies, because they have exchanged positions. Russia, as a Maritime Power, is for the moment on the defensive; while the British Government still sees in the possibility of a naval offensive in the Black Sea a necessary check on Russia. Moreover, in the Anglo-French political-strategic front against Russia, the British fleet covers the flanks in the Black Sea and Baltic while France maintains a "sanitary cordon" through Poland and Rumania. . . .B2 T h e advisory committee presented an unedifying spectacle of Curzon "freezing out the Russians" in the commission by virtue of his presidency and his delegation's control of procedure. 83 H e had dismissed the Russian proposals as "quite impractical arrangements," but the committee noted that Britain had supported precisely the same principles by force of arms for over a century. 84 Curzon had countered Chicherin's complaint that the British plan would permit Britain to control the Black Sea with the argument that the Russian scheme envisaged precisely that sort of predominance for Russia. But the advisory committee added : " T h e British case was discounted by the fact that Russia, at the moment, is not a naval power and Great Britain is." 88 T h e memorandum suggested that Bulgaria had 49 50 51 52 53 54 65

Nicolson, Curzon, 312. Advisory Committee on International Questions, Memoranda, No. 266. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 266. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 277a. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 277a. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 277a. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 277a.

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gone as far as she dared in supporting Russia's proposal, and that Rumania had been used by Britain (as Chicherin charged) to put forward a proposal that was not in fact her own. Curzon's intent was to make his own policy appear that of one of the minor Balkan states.56 "Russia had revolutionised its policy in the international interest, while Great Britain had reacted into imperialism," the memorandum concluded.57 These unpublished memoranda, prepared for the Labour Party Executive and the Parliamentary Labour Party, reveal the extent to which, in questions of foreign policy, Labour stood ready to defend Russia against its critics. Distaste for the Lloyd George and Bonar L a w governments, and an ardent desire to aid a weak and maligned state, made the Labour Party an almost uncritical supporter of Russia's foreign policy. Virtue was made to reside in one camp, vice in the other. The possibility of even a partial justice in the British policy was never intimated. The Labour Party's anxiety to influence British foreign policy in a direction favorable to Russia expressed itself particularly in the agitation to secure de jure recognition for the Bolshevik power. This policy, recommended persistently during the years of intervention, gained new support with the growth of unemployment after 1920. The Labour Party never failed to introduce the Russian recognition formula whenever unemployment came up for public discussion. In December 1921, a Special Conference on Unemployment and the International Situation, convened by the National Joint Council, a group representing the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, described Britain's "industrial misfortunes" as emanating largely from the Government's foreign policy, "particularly as regards Russia and Central Europe." " A reversal of that policy, so as to include the recognition of the Russian Government, is necessary in the interests of the wage earners of this country," the conference resolution concluded.58 Labour Party leaders repeated this opinion constantly in 1922-1923. Arthur Henderson, before the World Peace Conference 56 57 58

Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 277a. Advisory Committee, Memoranda, No. 277a. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1922, 5.

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235

in T h e H a g u e , in December 1922, gave an almost classic statement of this position. H e said: T h e Labour and Socialist Parties must take every opportunity of bringing Russia once more within the comity of nations, and we ought to take every step in Parliament that can be taken to secure full diplomatic recognition of Russia and such assistance as may be necessary to enable her to overcome the effects of the Allied blockade, the shameful military adventures they encouraged against her, and the dreadful famine which has taken toll of the Russian people. 59 A f t e r Russia's inauguration of the N e w Economic Policy, Philip S n o w d e n thought of recognition not only as an incentive to trade, but also as a device to compel the " t h r o w i n g away of the last shreds of Bolshevism and C o m m u n i s m by w h i c h it is presently fettered." 6 0 T h r o u g h extensive foreign trade, S n o w d e n argued, Russia w o u l d in time come to adopt the economic practices of the rest of the world and open itself to "the profitable employment of capital." 6 1 Such hopeful prophecies seemed entirely unnecessary to E . D . Morel and others w h o believed quite simply that the time had come to end a senseless and destructive feud. Morel, conscious of the economic advantages to be gained, asked a series of disturbing rhetorical questions in Parliament: What will recognition cost us? What will we lose by recognition? What will we sacrifice by recognition? On the other side, what has this four and a half years of confused, inexplicable and unintelligible quarreling with Russia cost us? W h a t is it costing us now? What are the dangers involved ? I feel sure that if these alternatives are faced squarely, the decision can only be in the way I am urging on the Government and this House, of reconciling two great people who have need of one another, and a reconciliation between whom is necessary for the peace and progress of mankind. 62 T h e L a b o u r Party, in recommending recognition as a cure for British unemployment, endowed that policy w i t h an urgency other59 Labour Magazine, January 1923, 393. The World Peace Congress was convened by the International Federation of Trade Unions. 60 Commons Debates, CLIX (1922), 1084-85. 61 Commons Debates, CLIX (1922), 1084-85. 62 Commons Debates, CLXII (1923), 825.

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wise inconceivable. While continuing to argue that de jure recognition was warranted since the state enjoyed de facto existence, the economic plea came to be used increasingly. Unemployment engaged the public's attention as no other domestic problem; every relief proposal secured an almost automatic hearing. In the spring of 1923, when a dispute between the British and Russian governments threatened the very tenuous relations then existing, the Labour Party was provided with yet another opportunity to reveal its pro-Russian bias. The dispute originated in a British note to the Bolshevik regime requesting a stay of execution in a case involving a Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Butkevich. 63 The Monsignor's execution, the British note averred, would produce throughout the civilized world "a feeling of horror and indignation." 64 The Russians, in reply, suggested that the execution of an individual tried and convicted of high treason was a matter for the government concerned, and not a question for outside powers. 65 The Russians thought the British complaint particularly inappropriate, given the statement of the "Irish Republic representative in France" which held the British Government "responsible for the assassination in cold blood of political prisoners in Ireland, where 14,000 men, women and young girls [were] treated in a barbarous and inhuman fashion." 66 Lord Curzon was not a man to permit such a rebuke to pass unanswered. He informed the Russians that he doubted "whether it is desirable, or indeed possible, that the relations of the two Governments should remain any longer upon so anomalous and indeed unprecedented a footing, and whether His Majesty's Government can with due respect continue to ignore repeated challenges which the Soviet Government has thought fit with apparent deliberation to throw down." 67 Curzon accused the Russians of maintaining a propaganda offensive against Britain in Persia, Afghanistan, and 63 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1923, X X V , Cmd. i86g, "Correspondence Between His Majesty's Government and Soviet Government respecting the Relations Between the Two Countries," 3. 64 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 3. 65 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. i86g, 3. 66 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 3. Hodgson, the British agent in Moscow, thought the Russian reply so insulting that he refused to receive it. 67 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 186g, 6.

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India, in violation of the existing trade agreement.68 He reminded the Russians also of the "judicial murder" of C. F . Davison, and the imprisonment of Mrs. Stan Harding in 1920; compensation in both these cases involving British subjects was demanded.69 Finally, Curzon introduced the question of British trawlers which were being interfered with by Russia outside its territorial waters; for this, also, the foreign secretary demanded compensation.70 The Russian reply to British representations on Monsignor Butkevich, Curzon characterized as "unexampled in the case of Governments affecting friendship." 71 The note concluded: When it is remembered that this is only the latest incident in the long series of studied affronts . . . it seems difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that the Soviet Government are either convinced that His Majesty's Government will accept any insult sooner than break with Soviet Russia, or that they desire themselves to bring the relations created by the Trade Agreement to an end.72 An ultimatum followed. Unless Russia satisfied Britain within ten days that she intended to abstain from further propaganda, make adequate compensation in the trawler cases, and withdraw her insulting notes, the Trade Agreement would be considered abrogated.73 The press, after weeks of violent abuse of the Bolshevik authorities, greeted the Curzon note with approval. The Times, which had published editorials with such edifying titles as "The Conspiracy Against Christ" and "The War On Heaven," felt completely satisfied.74 The Manchester Guardian, in anticipation of a firm note, had remarked editorially: The principal cause of offense is the seizure of a British trawler. We do not recognise the Russian claim to a twelve-mile limit for territorial waters, and are bound to take some action when British vessels are impounded for no offense that we admit. But disputes over territorial waters are neither new nor confined to Russia and England. Until the inter68

Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 7 - 9 . Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 9. 70 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 10-11. 71 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 1 2 . 72 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 1 2 . 73 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1869, 1 3 . 74 T A f Times, April 9, 1 9 2 3 ; April 1 3 , 1 9 2 3 . 69

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national law of the matter becomes a little less foggy they are bound to arise. . . . Were Russia governed by a Tsarist and not a Bolshevik despotism there would be no question of making a dispute over territorial waters an occasion for hampering British trade or for needlessly embittering our foreign relations.75 Curzon refused to view the matter in so simple a light. He preferred to brand Russia a transgressor upon "the rules of God and man." 76 The press, except for the Daily Herald, Manchester Guardian, and Daily News thought his note "enlightened," "judicious," and "moral." The Labour and Liberal press reacted differently; the Daily News observed editorially: The fundamental objection to the Note is that it seems deliberately designed to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible for a selfrespecting Government to offer a temperate diplomatic reply. It brisdes with threats; without any need at all it imposes peremptorily a ten-days' limit for an answer, as if the fate of the British Empire depended upon instant action, and it thereby implies quite gratuitously that the recipients will ignore the protest altogether after the manner of barbarians. Yet among the various questions raised in the Note, there is not one that could not be settled through the ordinary channels of diplomatic courtesy.. . . [Russia] is now at the turning-point of her economic development following the failure of her tremendous experiment. To denounce the Trade Agreement at such a moment on so trivial a pretext would be a commercial and political disaster. It would also be a blunder and a crime.77 J. A. Spender, in the Westminster Gazette, referred to the note as a mixture of the material and the moral, with "mingled cries of righteous indignation, self-interest, and wounded self-esteem."78 The document reminded Spender of the apocryphal tale in which a judge sentencing a soldier to death for stabbing a uniformed comrade, exclaimed: "Prisoner at the bar, you have not only launched a human soul into eternity, but you have transfixed with your lethal Manchester Guardian, May 7, 1923. Leeds Mercury, May 8, 1923. 77Daily News, May 10, 1923. 78 Westminster Gazette, May 12, 1923. 75

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weapon the trousers of your victim which were the property of His Majesty's Government." 79 Labour's attacks on Curzon, while not distinguished by equal humor or levity, revealed a deep concern over the impasse. Spokesmen employed philosophical, legal, and political arguments indiscriminately, all seeking to support the Soviet position. Trawler disputes had been common in tsarist days, and there was no more excuse for a rupture in 1923 than there had been in 1911, one argument ran. Another suggested that the religious persecutions of the Bolsheviks were no worse than those of the tsar; the exile of twenty-eight bishops during the reign of Nicholas II, and the persecution of Jews, Baptists, and other religious and racial minorities, was offered as evidence.80 Britain had never thought to protest those injustices; in fact, it had embraced imperial Russia and formed an alliance with her. A double standard, one for the tsar and another for the Bolsheviks, seemed unjust. Certain Labour leaders were uneasy about the religious issue and preferred to concentrate their criticism on other more vulnerable aspects of the Curzon ultimatum. The Russians, in replying moderately and inoffensively, assisted the more cautious elements in Britain. Chicherin suggested that ultimatums and threats never settled anything, and that only a willingness to negotiate could resolve existing differences. 81 The Bolshevik foreign minister denied knowledge of "Russia's numerous challenges to Britain," and asked why they had not been enumerated.82 H e also contested the propaganda charges. Such information, he argued, came to Britain by way of informers, who were notoriously unreliable. Any government could gain access to such materials; its use would make all normal diplomatic relations impossible.83 The Harding and Davison episodes occurred in 1920, during the civil war, and before the signing of the Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement. Chicherin asked why Britain 79

Westminster Gazette, May 12, 1923. New Leader, May 24, 1923. 81 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1923, XXV, Cmd. 1874, "Reply of Soviet Government to His Majesty's Government Respecting the Relations Between the Two Governments," 2. 82 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1874, 3. 83 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1874, 4, 80

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chose to reintroduce the subject in 1923. Russia declared itself prepared to participate in any international conference whose purpose would be the establishing of uniform regulations defining territorial waters. The note added that the British trawlers had all been set free.84 Chicherin denied that the Soviet state engaged in a policy of religious persecution; every convicted churchman had been found guilty of high treason. The earlier Russian notes were perhaps excessive, but Chicherin excused them by remarking that an overanxiety for the security of the Russian state prompted them. Since they had never been officially received by the British agent in Moscow, Chicherin asked that they be regarded as nonexistent.85 A rupture, he concluded, would serve the interests of neither party; with good will on both sides, a settlement of outstanding differences could be accomplished. Chicherin asked that such an effort be made in new negotiations.8® The reasonableness of Russia's reply facilitated matters for MacDonald when he rose in the Commons to ask that de jure recognition be extended to the Soviet regime, not because Britain associated itself with that government or held itself responsible for its actions, but because it existed as an objective fact. Great Britain recognized the tsarist regime without ever accepting its policies or methods, and the same principle ought to govern relations with the Bolshevik state.87 Even if the Labour Party accepted the accuracy of every charge leveled against the Russians, MacDonald continued, the problem remained of why the Government permitted them to accumulate, made no effort to resolve them, and brought them out "month after month, some year after year . . . like the stock that an Oxford Street draper brings out for show."88 If the Government possessed genuine proof of Russian propaganda activities, it ought to be submitted; criticism on any other basis was unreasonable.89 MacDonald attacked Curzon's version of the Harding compensation claim, and suggested that this was a matter for a general conference conducted 84

Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1874, 5-6. Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 1874, 7. 86 Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. ¡874, 8. 81 Commons Debates, CLXIV ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 282. 88 Commons Debates, CLXIV ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 283. 89 Commons Debates, CLXIV ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 284. 85

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24I

through normal diplomatic channels. 90 Trawler disputes had been common when Sir Edward Grey presided over the foreign office, MacDonald reminded the Commons; there was no excuse for Britain having failed to negotiate these differences at an earlier date. 91 As for religion, MacDonald quoted from the letters of "reputable Christian m e n " to demonstrate how varied were the opinions about the extent or fact of religious persecution. 92 In conclusion, he said: If the trade agreement be torn up, there is not the least doubt about it, a state of incipient war will be created. I do not say that war will break out, but I do say that a state of incipient war will be created. You will have all the small countries bordering upon Russia engaged in pursuing hostile policies. . . . Moreover, if we take this step we shall have made an enemy—an implacable enemy, a concealed but relentless enemy. We shall have roused up the old revolutionary animus, and the Russian Government and the Russian people as a whole will regard us in a hostile frame of mind which will react not only on our trade but on our political position as well.93 Ronald McNeill, the undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, rose to declare that "the great predominating mass of instructed, expert business opinion" did not accept the notion that the abrogation of the trade agreement would have an adverse effect on British trade and employment. 9 4 MacDonald had placed great stress on the economic argument; McNeill sought to destroy i t 9 5 Also, the Government believed the stories about religious persecution in Russia; testimony f r o m Snowden and Clynes was offered to substantiate the charge. 98 T h e foreign secretary, while prepared to receive Krassin for a discussion of outstanding differences, wished it to be understood that this "must not be taken that we mean to be satisfied with anyCommons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 285-86. Commons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 287. 92 Commons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 288-89. 93 Commons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 294. 94 Commons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 297. 95 Commons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 292-93. 96 Commons Debates, C L X I V ( 1 9 2 3 ) , 3 1 3 - 1 4 . Clynes had advanced the fantastic theory that Russia's execution of Roman Catholic clerics originated in a desire to humiliate the British, and weaken Britain's position at the forthcoming Lausanne Conference. See Financial Times, May 9, 1 9 2 3 ; Forward, May 19, 1 9 2 3 . 90

91

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thing less than compliance with our demands," McNeill concluded.97 The dispute dragged on till June, by which time Russia capitulated, on paper at least, to all Britain's demands.98 The trade agreement was kept intact; de jure recognition would have to wait the Labour Party's accession to office. The Labour Party's pro-Russian attitude in this crisis followed closely the pattern established immediately after the armistice. In any dispute between the British Government and Russia, the Bolsheviks were assured of Labour support. This was no less true after 1920, when personal visits to Russia and experience with the Third International and the British Communist Party led Labour leaders to understand the true character of Russian Bolshevism. Labour "went to school in Russia," came away disillusioned, but lost none of its early anxiety to protect Russia against its critics. T o understand this behavior, some explanation is necessary of the political and intellectual climate in which Labour operated. The Labour Party was bound to Russia by an identity of status. Organized as a protest against existing political parties, Labour suffered humiliation and ridicule as the price of mere existence. Russia experienced the same treatment in the community of nations. Those forces, within Britain, who were most critical of the Labour Party, led the operation against Russia, with what appeared to be precisely the same motives. Those who compassed the Soviets' destruction, it was argued, would have been equally ready to destroy an internal socialist opposition, if the opportunity had presented itself. The Labour Party appreciated how great a chasm separated the British socialist parliamentarian from the Russian Marxist; that understanding created sympathy. The forces which engineered Khaki elections, and published posters with slogans of "red menace" attached to gory images, were now involved in creating and ostracizing a foreign "foe". The Labour Party's adversary was also Rus97

Commons Debates, CLXIV (1923), 319. Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1923, XXV, Cmd. i8go, "Further Correspondence Between His Majesty's Government and Soviet Government Respecting the Relations Between the Two Governments." Russia withdrew the two offensive notes, agreed to pay compensation in all the cases cited, and promised to adhere to all the other provisions of the trade agreement. 98

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sia's enemy; how sensible therefore that the party should be Russia's friend. As Labour in its weakness had been buffeted by a stronger power, so Russia came to experience the same abuse at the same hands. Conservatives had never spoken of Liberals as being "unfit to govern," and Liberals had never believed this of Tories, but Labour's appearance on the scene provided new arguments for political sport. De facto regimes acquired de jure recognition when they proved their stability; but not so with Russia—the rules were suddenly altered. Russia seemed to be suffering on the international stage what the Labour Party had endured in a smaller arena. Labour leaders asked only that Russia be given the same privileges as any other state. In proclaiming Russia's rights, these men were at the same time stating their own. Double standards, operating to another's disfavor, were no less reprehensible when applied to Russia than when applied internally. Russia, the weak and inexperienced giant, was awarded the sympathy traditionally shown the defenseless. The Labour Party's support of Russia developed not from an intellectual affinity, but from an emotional attraction. To assist the weak was the duty of the weak—in a harsh world, existence was otherwise impossible. When Russia triumphed—diplomatically, politically, or militarily —Labour enjoyed a victory also. To dupe the powerful and make them appear ridiculous was to reverse the field, and run in a direction usually reserved for the strong. The Labour Party, painfully conscious of its own inadequacies, enjoyed the vicarious pleasures that attended such success, no less when secured by a friend. Labor wanted Russia to outwit the Lloyd Georges, Winston Churchills, and Lord Curzons—these became common triumphs. Labour Party leaders, concerned to disassociate their organization from a reputation for being "Bolshie," found the alliance with Russia forced upon them by political circumstances. A Government victory registered a Labour Party defeat; the reverse was equally true. Russia served Labour's interest precisely as the Government sought to make it serve its own. The Labour Party recognized the impossibility of discovering immediate remedies for unemployment, Britain's most serious internal problem. In appearing to possess such a cure in the prospect of increased trade with Russia, the party constructed a politi-

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cally useful myth. If Russia served the party's purposes, the Labour Party also served Russia. In propagandizing for de jure recognition, Labour leaders worked for that policy which the Bolsheviks themselves most ardently desired. The Labour Party, in the role of His Majesty's Opposition, suffered from its association with Russia, but also gained over the long period. The policy caused the party to become the refuge of those most given to humanitarian and tolerant policies. Many who had once found their home in the Liberal Party, and who had been disillusioned by war and postwar experiences, found a new sanctuary in the Labour Party. The protection of the weak, the quick response to suffering and privation, the equal treatment of men and nations— the Labour Party claimed all these for its banner.

CHAPTER

XII

Later Communist-Labour Rivalry

THE LABOUR PARTY saw no inconsistency in its Janus-faced policy of friendship for Soviet Russia on the one hand, and hostility towards the British Communist Party on the other. Both attitudes originated in the same political-ethical context and developed simultaneously. A political party's first consideration must be its survival; the Communist Party, in plotting the Labour Party's destruction, made inevitable a policy of mutual enmity. At the Labour Party conference in 1922, yet another of the Communist Party's affiliation bids was rejected.1 The Labour Party had no interest in associating with Communist organizations, and showed great concern to impress this fact on the public. The Opposition—Conservative and Liberal—was just as anxious to promote a myth of Labour-Communist cooperation. The political stakes were large. In October 1922, the Conservative Party decided to withdraw from the Coalition Government to seek its fortunes independently. A general election followed immediately, with Conservatives, National Liberals, Free Liberals, and Labour each seeking a popular mandate. The Labour Party boasted a contingent of seventy-five in the Commons at the moment of dissolution; it hoped for a considerable increase in the new Parliament.2 Believing that Lloyd George had secured his 1918 victory through a political "trick," Labour felt 1 2

Cf. supra, 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 . Report of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1923), 51.

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almost instinctively that one or other of the major parties would seek again to win with a stunt. Lest its candidates be caught ofï-guard at a critical juncture in the campaigning period, the Labour Party took almost excessive precautions. Labour's Election Manifesto, presented as a program for "International Peace and Reconstruction," against what it termed the Conservative "policy of naked reaction," reflected these fears. 3 The Manifesto concluded with the significant remark : Labour's program is the best bulwark against violent upheaval and class wars. Democratic government can be made effective in this country without bloodshed or violence. Labour's policy is to bring about a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth by constitutional means. This is neither Bolshevism nor Communism, but common sense and justice. This is Labour's alternative to Reaction and Revolution.4 The Communists, in regarding this as further evidence of the Labour Party's capitulation to a liberal middle-class ideology, purposely misconstrued its purpose.5 The Manifesto denoted not so much a change in Labour's policy as a forthright avowal of its traditional beliefs. The existence of a Communist Party in Britain, pursuing a policy odious to the great mass of the British electorate, provided Labour's opposition with an almost irresistible temptation to foist the myth of Communist-Labour unity on an uninformed public. Had the Labour Party permitted this myth to develop it would have contributed to its own defeat. In recognizing the necessity of distinguishing between its program and that with which certain self-seeking politicians might seek to identify it, Labour provided its anti-Communist policy with a telling urgency. The Labour Party's impressive showing in the 1922 general election contributed further to the development of a strong anti-Communist program. In electing 142 members to Parliament, and securing 4,235,457 votes, the Party had proof of the wisdom of its policy and the efficacy of its political tactics.® The I.L.P. victories, thirty-two in 3

Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1923, Appendi* II, 263. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1923, 264. 5 Hütt, History of the British Working Class, 68-69. 6 Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1923, 50. In the previous general election (1918), Labour candidates received only 2,244,945 votes. 4

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number, restored the prestige of that organization, and reestablished its primacy as the main socialist group in the party. Non-Communist Leftists rejoiced in the triumphs of the "Red Clyde" radicals; Forward, the I.L.P. Glasgow weekly, told of mass celebrations along the Clyde, where the victory was heralded as the dawn of a new age. 7 T h e Communists, virtually inactive during the election because of their own internal party difficulties,8 greeted the results as a vindication of the "united front" tactic.9 H a d they not persuaded their adherents to vote for Labour Party nominees against the "capitalist" candidates ? Had they not deliberately refrained from running Communist candidates in constituencies already contested by the Labour Party? 1 0 What better right could any party have for congratulating the workers on the election of another party's candidates? 11 This subterfuge deceived no one; the Communists' anxiety to maintain the myth of the "united front" in spite of repeated rejections by the Labour Party revealed a new form of political opportunism. Labour was in no mood to assist the Communist Party in its designs. T h e I.L.P.'s claim to having secured a great victory made better sense. Reduced in 1918 to a situation where its nominees held only three parliamentary seats, the party returned in full force in 1922. T h e pacifist group, almost entirely extinguished in the Khaki Election, was again represented; MacDonald, Snowden, Jowett, and Lansbury were among the successful candidates. 12 With them came persons previously unknown in London who enjoyed reputations for political radicalism in Scottish I.L.P. circles. These—John Wheatley, James Maxton, George Buchanan, Campbell Stephen and others— were certain to make a mark in the new Parliamentary Party. MacDonald, when seeking election as leader of the Parliamentary Party, courted this group assiduously, thereby acknowledging their promiForward, November 25, 1922. T h e Communist Party, in compliance with directives issued by the Third International, reorganized itself in late 1922. The Executive was replaced by a more highly centralized Political Bureau. This change, challenged by those who remained unconvinced about the advantages of "democratic centralism," led to considerable internecine warfare. 8 The Communist, November 25, 1922. 10 The Communist, October 28, 1922. 11 The Communist, November 25, 1922. 1 2 Cole, Labour Party Since 1914, 128. 7

8

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nence in the new Parliament. Their political beliefs were little understood in Westminster, but their actions testified to an impatient anxiety to remedy at once the abuses of a socially destructive industrial order. Almost all of them boasted pacifist records, and MacDonald's own antiwar stand appealed to them. These Clydeside I.L.P. votes were instrumental in securing the leadership for MacDonald. 1 3 Conflict between MacDonald and this Clydeside contingent was not long in coming. MacDonald's cautious tactics, and his almost frenzied concern to show Labour respectable in its role of His Majesty's Opposition, annoyed those who viewed their parliamentary responsibilities differently. Peripheral grievances relating to Labour Party leaders attending "plutocratic dinners" and consorting with the "class enemy" added fuel to the fire.14 T h e Communists, delighted to find their judgment of the " R e d Clyde" vindicated, 15 acted as if new recruits had joined their own camp. A s always, there was more exaggeration than truth in the Communist propaganda. T h e Clydesiders' differences with MacDonald were personal and tactical; there were no basic differences in political ideology, certainly none which tended in a Communist direction. A t its annual meeting in 1923, the I.L.P. showed particular concern to differentiate between its policy and that of the Communist Party. Richard Wallhead, the retiring chairman, had the Communists very much in mind when he remarked in his opening address : It is the task of the I.L.P. to demonstrate that Socialism is not for the benefit of a class. Its object is the common good. For the first time in human history a great movement has arisen which has for its aim, not the substitution of one class for another, but the abolition of classes and the inauguration of a universal humanity. In our order, the necessary discipline and coordination of effort will not be maintained by the authority of one class over another, but will be established as the result of the free will of the associated people. And this new social system must 13 MacDonald defeated Clynes for the party leadership. Clynes gives the margin of victory as five votes; see J. R. Clynes, Memoirs, i86g-ig24 (London, 1 9 3 7 ) , 330. Snowden, in his autobiography, says that the margin was only two votes; see Philip Snowden, An Autobiography (London, 1934), II, 574. 14 Forward, March 1 7 , 1923. 15 The Communist, December 9, 1922.

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be created by, and function with, the approval of the majority of the people. Destined for the benefit of all, it must be prepared and accepted by the great mass, and it will ultimately be the power that resides behind an immense majority that will discourage the last effort to resist its will. 16 Clifford Allen, the new chairman, expressed similar sentiments at the close of the conference: If you look back over history you will see how much our country has contributed to political ideas. I would wish that it might again so contribute—this time by being the first nation to show men how Socialism can become recognised and adopted as the surest method of preventing the suffering of the world—and by the consent of the people. I am patriot enough to hope that this may be the work of the British Socialist Movement. 17 Fenner Brockway, recalling this conference years later, remarked on his thoughts at seeing James Maxton who "in appearance embodied the revolt against the bourgeoisie" tackle Allen, "the typical bourgeois," on the Ruhr question. T h e incident symbolized for Brockway the coming struggle between the "bourgeois" and "proletarian" elements in the party. 18 While Allen, in physical appearance, certainly bore no resemblance to Keir Hardie and other founders of the I.L.P., his opinions were not in any significant respect different. Allen and Wallhead said in 1923 those things that I.L.P. adherents had been saying for thirty years. Faith in Parliament, in socialist propaganda, and in the people, characterized their every statement, and linked them to that more ancient band who criticized the Social Democratic Federation for its belief in violence, bloodshed, and dictatorship. T h e I.L.P., in 1923, had good reason for fighting the Marxist interpretation of the class struggle, and for propagating its own, which had finally gained some acceptance in the Labour Party. If the I.L.P. abandoned its unique ethical and religious standards it would lose its identity and purpose, and in the end, its independent existence. T h e I.L.P., always tolerant, thought it sufficient to condemn the Communist Party by implication; the Labour Party showed no 16 17

1.L.P. Conference Report, 1923, 60. I.L.P. Conference Report, 1923, 149. Fenner Brockway, Inside the Left (London, 1942), 150.

18

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similar restraint. P h i l i p S n o w d e n , in m o v i n g a resolution in the H o u s e of C o m m o n s c o n d e m n i n g the capitalist system f o r its failure "to adequately utilise a n d organise natural resources and p r o d u c t i v e p o w e r , or to provide the necessary standard of life f o r vast n u m b e r s of the population," took special pains to disassociate his socialist remedies f r o m any proposed by the C o m m u n i s t s . 1 9 " T h e r e is n o analogy between Socialism and B o l s h e v i s m , " S n o w d e n said; "Socialism a n d B o l s h e v i s m are antitheses." 2 0 T h e British parallel to Bolshev i s m lay in "die-hard T o r y i s m , " S n o w d e n a r g u e d ; both entertained similar ideas about political dictatorship a n d a d v a n t a g e o u s property expropriation. 2 1 S n o w d e n expected the O p p o s i t i o n to " m a k e party political capital" out of his resolution, b u t he w a r n e d t h e m that they w o u l d be disappointed. " T h e y h a v e done all the mischief they can by b r a n d i n g the L a b o u r Party a Socialist and Bolshevist organisation," and n o g o o d w o u l d c o m e of f u r t h e r effort. 2 2 S n o w d e n ' s anxiety to drive a distinct w e d g e b e t w e e n socialism a n d c o m m u n i s m belied his claim that n o n e w d a m a g e could result f r o m a false p r o p a g a n d a w h i c h connected the t w o . S i d n e y W e b b , in his presidential address at the L a b o u r Party conference in 1923, g a v e an even m o r e explicit definition of the g u l f that separated L a b o u r f r o m C o m m u n i s m . A f t e r h a v i n g elaborated o n the futility of violence, W e b b r e m a r k e d : W e shall not achieve much, whatever changes w e can bring about, unless what we do is done in the spirit of fellowship. For w e must always remember that the founder of British Socialism was not Karl Marx but Robert O w e n , and that Robert O w e n preached not "class w a r " but the ancient doctrine of human brotherhood—the hope, the faith, the living fact of human fellowship—a faith and a hope reaffirmed in the words of that other great British Socialist—William Morris—in The Dream of John Ball.™ W e b b , in g i v i n g such p r o m i n e n c e to the M a r x i s t question, spoke less to the m e m b e r s of his o w n party than to the public at large. T h e propagation of correct i n f o r m a t i o n about L a b o u r ' s attitude t o w a r d s 19 20 21 22 23

Commons Debates, CLXI (1923), 2472. Commons Debates, CLXI (1923), 2482. Commons Debates, CLXI (1923), 2482-83. Commons Debates, CLXI (1923), 2485. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1923, 180.

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25I

Communism remained a major political responsibility. Insofar as Webb did address his remarks to those in the immediate audience, they were directed at the few, who, though far removed from Marxism, threatened by their impatience the unity and stability of the party. Communist propaganda suggested a very different explanation. When anti-Communist resolutions received Labour Party conference approval by majorities of millions, they were dismissed as the predicted outcome of bureaucratic trade union balloting. When, however, as in 1923, a hundred thousand additional ballots favored Communist affiliation to the Labour Party, the vote being 366,000 in support of affiliation, as contrasted with 261,000 in 1922, the shift was heralded as a great Communist victory, the result of rank-and-file pressure.24 A n elaborate explanation of Labour Party conference voting procedure is scarcely necessary to explain the ease with which shifts of several hundred thousand occur in an aggregate of three million ballots. T h e bloc vote system exaggerates the smallest shift of every trade union; the 1923 vote probably reflected little more than the movement of one or two unions, and small ones at that, from one lobby to the other. It certainly told nothing about the state of pro-Communist sympathies in the nation. Labour Party leaders, in attacking the Communist Party, rarely took the offensive without some provocation. Communist propaganda sought constantly to drive a wedge between the leaders and rank-and-file members of the Labour Party. When, for example, James Maxton was suspended from the House of Commons for calling Sir Frederick Banbury "murderer," and three other Clydeside members—Wheatley, Buchanan, and Stephen—took up the cry, with the same consequences befalling them, 25 the Communists were 24 Workers' Weekly, July 27, 1923. The Communists discovered further evidence of their strength in the fact that the Labour Party Executive made no effort to unseat Communist delegates sent by individual trade unions, as they might have done under a strict interpretation of a resolution passed the preceding year at Edinburgh. Several trade unions, the Communists suggested, would have withdrawn from the conference had the Executive attempted such action. 25 Commons Debates, C L X V (1923), 2382-2402. Maxton's remark came in response to a "hear, hear" interjection by Banbury, when the latter heard that the death rate in Scotland had risen, but that the Government had saved money. Maxton showed the infant and child mortality rate in Scotland to be higher than that of England, and

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quick to draw parallels between the timid do-nothing policies of Labour Party officialdom and the brave rebellion of solid backbenchers. The I.L.P. "rebels," feted and praised, emerged as proletarian heroes. One leading Communist suggested that Wheatley had "more political acumen in his little finger than is contained in the combined heads and bodies of Snowden and MacDonald." 28 The Communists delighted in these comparisons, and never failed to identify themselves with the "morally strong proletarian element" in the Labour Party. In 1923, with the establishment of the Minority Movement, 27 and the start of a major campaign by the Communists to secure control of individual trade unions, attacks upon trade union officials were intensified. Willie Gallacher, in a characteristic remark on the eve of the T.U.C, annual conference, suggested that the rank and file compel their leaders to toe the line. The quality of his argument may be gauged from the following: If things are allowed to go on as they are doing the unions are doomed. Some of the officials appear to have adopted the attitude that if they [the unions] last their lifetime, and give them an opportunity of giving their families a middle-class education, they will have amply served their purpose. But the unions don't exist to send officials' sons and daughters to universities, where they hob-nob with the enemies of the workers, and we've got to let the officials know it. 2 8

The Workers' Weekly, a Communist journal, featured the same sort of attack, with Clynes selected as the chief culprit. It began with a headline about "trade union officials eating up union funds," and went on to explain that the National Union of General Workers had a deficit of over one hundred thousand pounds. Contributing to this blamed the difference on the Government's parsimony. Those who favored such savings, Maxton claimed, were "murderers." After the chairman asked Maxton to withdraw his remark, only to receive a refusal, the House suspended him. Wheatley and Stephen then rose to make the same remark, offer the same refusal, and suffer the same penalty. Buchanan's expulsion followed his charge of "discrimination" against the chairman when the latter decided not to expel Sir George Hamilton who had shouted "Jew" at Shinwell. 26 Communist Review, August 1923, 154-55. 27 A Communist-inspired movement, aiming at Communist domination of individual trade unions and trade union branches. 28 The Worker, August 25, 1923.

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deficit, according to the Communists, were the "huge salaries" paid union officials. They were listed as ^1,877 for Clynes, ¿1,586 for Thorne, and ¿1,438 for Jack Jones. These salaries, the Workers' Weekly explained, were over and above the parliamentary stipends enjoyed by these men. 29 W h e n the journal received letters of protest, suggesting that it sought to harm trade unionism by these disclosures, it protested its innocence; its only purpose was to act as "watchdog of the working class." 30 Clynes took the "watchdog" to task in a bitter letter. H e explained that his so-called "salary" of ¿1,877 included ¿1,229 paid by the union for general election expenses, agent's wages, railway fares, and away-from-home allowances. Lest there be any misunderstanding about the size of the last item, Clynes noted that an officer away for an entire day and night received the magnificent sum of 12s 6d. 31 T h e Workers' Weekly had given ¿98,476 as paid in "officials' salaries"; what they did not tell, Clynes informed his readers, was that ¿43,495 of this amount represented wages paid to rank-and-file members as remuneration for duties performed within the individual branches. T h e union's deficit arose, Clynes argued, not from such expenditures, but from the loss of over six hundred thousand pounds paid out in unemployment grants in 1921.32 T h e Communists regarded such explanations with faint amusement. T h e editor of the Worker/ Weekly explained that he had never suggested that Clynes received ¿1,877 "salary"; he was "glad" to correct that mistaken impression. However, it was still a fact, he continued, that a union in desperate financial straits ought not to be compelled to "maintain" officers in such an extravagant manner. 33 Clynes made the mistake of comparing union salaries with those paid by the Communist Party. T h e editor seized upon this point and challenged Clynes to state his personal income— "official salary, parliamentary salary, investments and boss press contributions all included"—so that a comparison might be made with that of any Communist Party officer. " T h e workers will then m 30 31 32 33

Workers' Wor\ers' Workers' Workers' Workers'

Weekly, Weekly, Weekly, Weekly, Weekly,

August 11, 1923. September 8, 1923. September 21, 1923. September 21, 1923. September 21, 1923.

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decide," the editor chortled triumphantly. 34 Clynes ought to have known better than to engage in an exchange of this sort. The Communist capacity for wriggling out of their own falsehoods was already becoming legendary. Clynes' only satisfaction, and a small one at that, came in a second note to the editor in which he explained that not only had the Workers' Weekly "suggested" his salary was ^1,877; it had clearly and explicitly published it as a fact. He suggested that the editor examine his back issues.35 These attacks upon individual leaders were only incidental to the larger Communist design of discrediting the trade union leadership en masse. The annual meetings of the Trades Union Congress provided an almost too tempting arena for the Communists, who, abandoning all self-restraint, engaged in something of a propaganda orgy. Communist behavior had become so completely stereotyped by 1923 that no one seemed surprised by it. The Communist press, in commenting on the T.U.C. Plymouth conference of that year, agreed that it was "the worst ever." 36 "Never has the complete bankruptcy of the old leadership so completely displayed itself," one weekly explained in an article headlined: "While Workers Starve, Congress Time Filled With Leaders' Bickering." 37 Harry Pollitt, the leading Communist at the meeting, spoke of all the resolutions having been rushed through after fifteen-minute debates; he explained: When it is pointed out that it took more time to say farewell to Mr. Bowerman than it did to discuss the Ruhr question; when it took the Lord Mayor longer to invite the delegates te a reception than it did to debate the future of the General Council; wh:n it took the Chairman of the Congress, J. B. Williams, longer to fasten necklaces around the necks of the wives of fraternal delegates (a job both he and they appeared to enjoy) than it took to discuss unemployment, the reader will be able to place a proper value on the Congress and its work. 38 The only conscientious delegates present, according to the Communists, were their own. Their nine party members and five sympa34 35 36 37 38

Workers' Workers' Workers' Workers' Workers'

Weekly, Weekly, Weekly, Weekly, Weekly,

September September September September September

21, 28, 15, 15, 15,

1923. 1923. 1923. 1923. 1923.

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thizers, struggling to be heard in an assembly where "the majority of delegates [were] full-time officials, and only a small minority actual workers from the bench, mill, and mine," managed, the Communists claimed, to win attention by their serious treatment of every major issue.39 T h e General Council, 40 accustomed to apathy, and able to dominate the conference because of this indifference, found in the disciplined Communist group its only challenge. T h e Communists told each other that their first duty lay in the further development of this critical group. 41 A s Pollitt explained, the existing leadership, "utterly discredited," retained power only because of the absence of a sufficiently organized opposition; leaders like Thomas, Tillett, Clynes, and Bevin would be ousted just as soon as an effective opposition developed in the T . U . C , and within the individual unions. 42 Ellen Wilkinson, who was a Communist at the time, seemed prepared to go along with the idea of forming an organized opposition, but doubted the wisdom of constantly disparaging the T . U . C . T o call the T . U . C , hopeless and unrepresentative settled nothing, and was in fact an untrue statement. She argued that it was a true expression of working-class sentiment in the country and that the Communist mission ought to be the educating of the workers. " T h e attitude of 'curse your leaders' just gets us nowhere," Miss Wilkinson claimed. 43 Hers was a lone voice in the Communist crowd; it was not long before it ceased to be heard in that quarter. Labour-Communist hostility had reached the stage by late 1923 where reconciliation was inconceivable. T h e two parties, natural rivals, fought bitterly for British working-class support. Periodically, when general elections occurred, the Communists called a truce and urged their adherents to vote Labour and defeat the "capitalist" nominees. T h e Labour Party, unprepared to serve Communist ends, disregarded the proffered aid and proclaimed its aim to be the defeat of Communist ideology. In 1923, as in 1922, the Labour Party ignored the Communist "united front" overtures, and went to the country Workers' Weekly, September 15, 1923. The T.U.C, had reorganized its executive, and converted the old Parliamentary Committee into a new group called the General Council. 41 Communist Review, October 1923, 262-64. 42 Workers' Weekly, September 21, 1923. 43 The Worker, September 15, 1923. 39

40

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with its traditional socialist program. Its victory, culminating in the formation of the first Labour Government, was entirely its own. Hostility towards British Communism and friendship for Soviet Russia, the Labour Party's twin reaction to the Russian Revolution, remained the cornerstone of its policy.

CHAPTER

XIII

Labour in Office and Out

ON JANUARY 22, 1924, J. Ramsay MacDonald rode to Buckingham Palace to receive from the king the highest commission in his charge —an invitation to form a government. Those in the Labour Party who had dreamed of the day when its leaders would assume the direction of the nation's affairs anticipated a beginning different from that which now confronted them. The Labour Party took office as a minority Government; its 191 members were almost lost in a House that included 258 Conservatives and 158 Liberals. Only the Liberal decision to join Labour in its "no confidence" motion had compelled Baldwin to surrender his seals of office and advise the king to summon the leader of the next largest party in the House. Asquith, subjected to enormous pressure by Conservatives anxious to prevent a Labour administration, told the Commons of his experience: I have never come across more virulent manifestations of political hysteria. . . . I have been in turn, during these weeks, cajoled, wheedled, almost caressed, taunted, threatened, brow-beaten, and all but blackmailed to step in as the "saviour of society." 1

Asquith's refusal to play the role led to MacDonald's summons to Buckingham Palace. The Labour Government came into existence on Liberal sufferance. Few in the Labour Party had foreseen so inauspicious a start for their apprenticeship on the Government front 1

Commons Debates, CLXIX (1924), 313.

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bench. Even fewer could have foreseen the extent to which the Government's fortunes would be influenced by events attendant on a foreign revolution, so that in the end its very existence seemed to depend on contingencies outside its control. The Labour Government came into being the day of Lenin's death; no one thought to remark on the coincidence of these happenings. In early 1924, the world retained sufficient size for British and Russian news events to be viewed independently. By November 1924, the Labour Party might have been forgiven a contrary opinion; in the intervening months, the Russian colossus had managed to intervene everywhere, creating unities where none had previously existed. The Labour Party had always been prepared to acknowledge the fact of the Russian Revolution, but had never expected this act of recognition to entail such fateful consequences. While realizing that its Russian policy might be distorted by an opportunistic political opposition, the full potentialities of this threat had not been appreciated. The Labour Party, soon after its accession to office, undertook the difficult and thankless task of negotiating for Britain's holders of Russian securities. The negotiations, which continued without major interruption from April to August, were conceived as central to Labour's purpose of pacifying Europe. The Labour Party, anxious to expiate the mistakes of the past by an open and wholehearted acceptance of the Soviet state, anticipated Conservative opposition but hoped that the Liberals would prove more tractable. The Government believed that the ethical-economic sensitivities of the Liberal Party could somehow be comprehended in a new commercial agreement that would also satisfy Labour's back-benchers. Liberal support was always seen to be essential. If the Labour Government had been defeated in Parliament on this, the Russian treaty issue, it would have been possible to go to the nation on a substantive policy question. Labour's defeat, however, came not on the Russian treaty, but on the Campbell case, a minor judicial prosecution, abandoned by the Government after certain facts had come to its attention. The opposition parties, in magnifying an incident that might properly have formed the substance of a parliamentary question, revealed its readiness to unseat the Government on any issue, however trivial. The Campbell case—the prosecution of

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a British Communist—proved a godsend to an impatient Conservative Party. The Government realized too late the danger of a reputation for being too closely affiliated with the Russian state. No precedent existed for the Government's defeat on an issue of such small consequence. A general election inaugurated by such an incident gave promise of an equally unconventional campaign. The "Zinoviev note," produced almost on the eve of polling day, surprised even the supposedly prepared element in the Labour Party. Having borne the disadvantage of a reputation for a too close association with the Soviet state from the beginning, it was almost natural that the Government should be characterized as its prisoner in the end. A general election perpetrated by a bogus issue resolved itself in something of a farce. The question of the document's authenticity seemed unimportant; rumor and hearsay dominated the atmosphere. The Labour Government, depicted as a "friend of the Bolsheviks" at the start of the campaign, went down to defeat as their "dupe." The Government bowed out, as it had risen, the victim of conditions not of its own making; as Asquith had been its creator, so Zinoviev emerged as its destroyer. The Anglo-Russian treaty negotiations, the Campbell prosecution, and the Zinoviev note, taken together and recognized as varying aspects of the operation of the Russian Revolution in Britain, assume a pattern comprehensible in the context of British politics of the period. Labour's efforts to support legitimate Soviet demands and yet remain free of any taint, seemed an impossible political aspiration. In befriending Russia and treating her as an equal among nations, the Labour Party offered its own political opposition an unequaled opportunity for criticism and intrigue. Labour's difficulties and eventual defeat seemed to arise as a natural consequence of its desire to translate into action the words it had proclaimed since the Armistice. Neither Parliament nor the electorate seemed prepared to follow the Government's lead; this was the Labour Party's undoing in 1924. The Government's decision to grant de jure recognition to Soviet Russia surprised no one. Individual Labour leaders had been proposing this policy since November 1918. The Election Appeal of 1923 committed the Party to "the resumption of free economic and diplo-

2Ó0

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

matic relations with Russia." 2 Clynes, in commenting on the king's speech prepared by the Baldwin Government, mocked the suggestion that His Majesty's Government enjoyed "friendly relations with foreign powers." 3 The inference was clear; if Labour's "no confidence" motion passed the House, and Labour took its place on the Government front bench, a new Russian policy would emerge. The Labour Party remained faithful to its pledge. On February i, 1924, MacDonald informed the Russians of the Government's intention to grant de jure recognition, and of its wish to meet Soviet representatives for a discussion of all outstanding differences. The settlement of existing claims and the restoration of Russia's credit were items specifically mentioned.4 The Bolsheviks accepted the proposals, and arrangements went forward for the meeting of accredited representatives in London. MacDonald opened the conference on April 14, and directed the negotiators to their threefold task—the settlement of outstanding claims by British bondholders and other British subjects who had suffered loss through the revolution, the regularizing of existing treaty obligations between the two countries, and the substitution of a commercial treaty for the trade agreement of 1921. 5 For the next three months, the British delegation, headed by Arthur Ponsonby, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, and the Russian delegation, led by Rakovski, the Soviet government's charge d'affaires in London, met in almost daily session.® Settlement of claims arising out of Russia's indebtedness to British subjects proved, as anticipated, an almost insuperable barrier to agreement. The British proposed a formula that would allow the Soviet government to negotiate directly with the individual creditors. It was expected that all but the most difficult claims would be adjusted in this manner, and that the few others would be submitted to arbitration.7 The Russians, while prepared "to set aside a lump sum to cover the prewar debts of Russia 2 Report of the 24th Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1924), Appendix III, 192. 3 Commons Debates, CLXIX, 303. 4 Arnold J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1924 (London, 1926), 491. 5 The Times, April 15, 1924. 6 Toynbee, Survey 1924, 2 3 3 - 5 1 . This provides an excellent brief account of the negotiations. 7 The Times, May 16, 1924.

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to British subjects," made this offer conditional on the British G o v ernment assisting them to float a long-term loan in Britain. 8 T h e British rejected this plan. 9 T h e negotiations proceeded slowly, with the British determined to uphold the principle of the sanctity of debts, and the Russians equally anxious to maintain their o w n principles. A n y formula that might be construed as a questioning of Russia's right to nationalize property or nullify the debts of the tsarist regime, came under an immediate ban. T h e Russians, in agreeing to compromise, abandoned none of their traditional beliefs. O n the night of A u g u s t 4-5, the negotiations reached a point of crisis. A f t e r twenty-four hours of more or less continuous sitting, the conferees disbanded without agreeing on a principal clause, Article 13. Ponsonby, weary and disappointed, announced to the press that the negotiations had failed, and that no treaty w o u l d be signed. 1 0 T h e Russians had refused to accept Article 13, w h i c h provided for the negotiation of a second treaty after certain conditions had been satisfied. 11 Rakovski favored a plan that w o u l d see the second treaty negotiated as soon as substantial progress was made in the settlement of nationalization claims, as set forth in Article 12. 12 Russian concern w i t h the w o r d i n g of Article 13 arose f r o m the fact that Article 14, in certain respects the most important in the agreement, w o u l d come into effect only after the signing of the second treaty. Article 14 read: Upon the signature of the treaty referred to in Article 13 His Britannic Majesty's Government will recommend Parliament to enable them to guarantee the interest and sinking fund of a loan to be issued by the Soviet Government. The amount, terms and conditions of the said loan The Times, May 21, 1924. The Times, May 21, 1924. 10 The Times, August 5, 1924. 1 1 Article 13 read: " T h e terms agreed upon between the Government of the U.S.S.R. and the British holders of bonds in accordance with the provisions of Article 8, and the amount and method of payment of the compensation to be paid by the Government of the Union in respect of claims preferred by British nationals (including juridical persons) under articles 11 and 12 shall form the subject of a further treaty to be concluded between the parties when the reports to be made under articles 11 and 12 have been received." Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1924, X X V I , Cmd. 2253, " T e x t of Draft of Proposed General Treaty Between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as it stood when negotiations were suspended on August 5, 1924." 8

9

12

Toynbee, Survey ¡924,

242.

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and the purposes to which it shall be applied shall be defined in the treaty provided for in Article 13, which will not come into force until the necessary parliamentary authority for the guarantee of the said loan has been given. 1 3 A small group of Labour Party back-benchers, dismayed by the rupture, decided to intervene directly to reopen the negotiations. A f t e r visiting Ponsonby, and w i t h his permission, they met the Russian delegates in the House of C o m m o n s , and asked that another effort be made at w o r k i n g out a compromise arrangement. 1 4 A n e w formula devised by this Labour contingent was shown Ponsonby, and was thought sufficiently promising to warrant the reopening of the talks. T h e Russians, advised of these developments, agreed to return to the conference table. A l l this happened in a single day; with Parliament scheduled to rise for its summer recess on A u g u s t 7, speed was essential. 15 T h e talks, resumed on the m o r n i n g of A u g u s t 6, reached another stalemate that noon. F o u r Labour M.P.s, informed of this, hurried to Ponsonby and presented h i m with yet another compromise solution. Satisfied that they had his support, they made their w a y to the Russian headquarters, where they urged that their formula be accepted. T h e Russians, after studying the clause and consulting together, announced their approval. T h e information was communicated immediately to the foreign office, and the final details were settled there. T h a t evening, the undersecretary of state for foreign affairs rose in the C o m m o n s to announce the completed treaty. 1 6 Cmd. 2253, 12. It is not entirely clear which members of Parliament visited Ponsonby. The names given in The Times were Purcell, Morel, Lansbury, Wallhead, and Kenworthy. The Times, August 27, 1924. 15 Foreign Affairs, September 1924, 52. An excellent account of the day, probably written by Morel who played a principal role in the private negotiations. 16 Foreign Affairs, September 1924, 52. The accepted formula, which became Article 11 in the final Treaty, read : " A second treaty will be entered into which will contain:— ι . The conditions accepted in accordance with article 6. 2. The amount and method of payment of compensation for claims under article 8. 3. An agreed setdement of property claims other than those directly settled by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." See Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1924, XXVI, Cmd. 2260, "General Treaty Between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." 13

14

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263

The final arrangements had been so hurried that when Ponsonby rose to speak no member possessed a true copy of the proposed treaty. Ponsonby remarked on the "degree of animosity and prejudice engendered against the Soviet regime," which he considered "almost unequalled in the feelings displayed in this country against any other country." 17 He assured his listeners that the Government had negotiated a treaty which protected the interests of all parties. 18 Ronald McNeill expressed the Conservative point of view when he said: " I think I am justified in saying that we on this side will most strenuously oppose the guaranteeing of any loan to Soviet Russia, in spite of the assurances which have been given over and over again, and we shall denounce it whenever it is brought forward." 1 9 T h e Government received no greater encouragement from the Liberal side of the House where Lloyd George complained of many of the technical arrangements; he thought it bad policy to write down a foreign debt, and refused to acknowledge the wisdom of granting a loan in the absence of adequate security.20 The debate continued into the next day, August 7, the last sitting of Parliament prior to the summer recess. MacDonald sought to reassure the Opposition by explaining that the Government's decision to sign the treaty in no way prejudiced Parliament's traditional right to accept or reject it. He said: I give the House this pledge, that we will not do what was done in the case of the Treaty of Lausanne. We shall not put a clause into this suggested Treaty of ours that every word of it, every line of it, every provision of it, every annex of it, must be taken en bloc, or rejected altogether. It can consider it, it can amend it, it can pass it or reject it after all has been done.21 Sir Robert Home, replying for the Opposition, warned MacDonald that unless he believed the House would support him in his treaty, he was running a dangerous course in signing it. The Russian people would assume that a signature meant a firm agreement, and if it 17 18 19 20 21

Commons Commons Commons Commons Commons

Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates,

CLXXVI CLXXVI CLXXVI CLXXVI CLXXVI

(1924), (1924), (1924), (1924), (1924),

3013. 3014-15. 3030. 3034-36. 3138.

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were later repudiated by Parliament, they would think themselves cheated. 22 Lloyd George suggested that the treaty was a makeshift, leaving unsettled many of the most important British claims against the Bolshevik regime. H e thought that the failure to adjudicate the Russian claims for damages arising out of the Allied intervention during the civil war might lead to unreasonable Russian demands at a later date. Yet, Lloyd George complained, the Government made its treaty and pretended that it was sound. H e concluded : I am not going to have it said that, because we object to a thoroughly unbusinesslike agreement, such an agreement as has never been submitted by a Government on its responsibility to the House of Commons, an agreement which leaves out every ingredient of settlement, every element, every fact, every figure, and postpones the whole thing—I am not going to have it said that, because we do not agree upon such a proposal as that, we are, therefore, not willing to come to terms with the Russian people. That is not our position.23 Given the economic situation at home, Lloyd George doubted the wisdom of Britain's investing in foreign loans; Russia's financial plight gave little encouragement for such ventures. 24 Ponsonby, in replying, tried to assure the House that in establishing machinery for Russia's repayment of her indebtedness, and in making it clear that a loan would not be forthcoming till such settlements had been made, the Government had given the Russians the greatest possible incentive to compromise with their creditors. 25 This was where the issue stood when the House rose for its summer recess. The Government, in its handling of the treaty negotiations, showed a commendable spirit and a regrettable lack of realism. In refusing for the first several months to admit the necessity of Britain's supporting Russia in its loan quest, the British negotiators made impossible any agreement. Russia understood that only explicit Government guarantees would secure loans and since a loan was central to the whole project, there was no incentive to compromise without it. When the Government accepted this fact, the negotiations began 22 23 24 25

Commons Commons Commons Commons

Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates,

CLXXVI CLXXVI CLXXVI CLXXVI

(1924), (1924), (1924), (1924),

3144. 3183. 3183. 3186.

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to make some progress. T h e British then hoped to make the loan conditional on certain things being done. Russia objected to the original Article 13 because the negotiation of complaints arising out of nationalization would take months or even years to complete. T o make this a condition of a loan was unrealistic. T h e dispute over this clause ought not to have resulted in the rupture announced by Ponsonby on the morning of August 5. A n agreement on which so much effort and time had been expended ought not to have been abandoned so lightly. T h e spectacle of back-benchers prodding the Government was both unedifying and unnecessary. T h e formula eventually accepted by both parties could easily have been produced by either. Weariness and bad temper led to a break which ought not to have occurred. T h e successful intervention of back-benchers resolved the immediate problem, but provided fuel for later Opposition attacks, and made for an unseemly end to the negotiations. MacDonald, in reassuring the House about its prerogatives, and in promising to lay the treaty on the table for twenty-one parliamentary days, expected that only amendments would be attached. T h e Liberal opposition, as expressed by Lloyd George within the House, and by Asquith outside, suggested a more basic disapproval. Could the Government suffer to see its work wholly repudiated ? MacDonald's talk about Parliament's right to express a judgment on every aspect of the treaty suggested that he, at least, believed repudiation would not be a reason for a general election. O n October 1, Asquith offered a motion calling for the rejection of the treaty. 26 T h e House, when it rose in August, had expected to remain in recess till October 28, but the crisis arising out of the Campbell prosecution necessitated a recall on September 30. Labour Party M.P.s, returning to Westminster, must have wondered whether fate would dictate the Government's fall on the trivial Campbell issue or on the more substantive Russian Treaty. T h e Campbell case was not so much a judicial as a parliamentary and press proceeding. Before Parliament reconvened, rumors flew of Cabinet and back-bench intervention to halt a legitimate judicial proceeding. Sir Patrick Hastings, the attorney general, rose immediately that Parliament met to correct the exaggerated and distorted 26

The Times, October 2, 1924.

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accounts that had circulated in the press. H e explained that on July 31 the director of public prosecutions had consulted him in respect to an article that had appeared in the Communist journal, Workers' Weekly, on July 25. T h e attorney general, asked to give an opinion as to whether certain words constituted simply a recommendation to troops not to participate in trade disputes, or whether they incited men to mutiny, declared in favor of the second interpretation. Having done so, he authorized the start of a complete inquiry and the initiation of judicial proceedings. 27 It was only later that he learned that the illness of the editor of the Communist weekly had placed an individual named John Ross Campbell in the post of "temporary chief," and that it was against this man Campbell that charges had been made. Realizing the difficulty of fixing responsibility on a temporary officer, and believing it essential that no prosecution be undertaken if the chances of success were small, Sir Patrick asked for a full investigation of Campbell's character and responsibility. H e knew that the issue of character would weigh heavily with any jury. T h e director of public prosecutions reported back that Campbell seemed a man of excellent character, w h o was serving temporarily as editor, had not himself written the article, which was probably an excerpt from another journal. T h e Workers' Weekly received its instructions from the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, and so far as was known, Campbell was not a member of the Political Bureau. His military record, an extraordinarily brilliant one, showed that he had been a volunteer, had suffered permanent injuries in the fighting, and was decorated with the Military Medal for gallantry. T h e attorney general realized that no jury possessing this information would find Campbell criminally liable. Had he known these facts from the beginning, he explained, he would never have permitted the charge to be instituted. Therefore, the public prosecutor was instructed to present no evidence against Campbell. This decision, the attorney general assured the House, was entirely his own; he had been subjected to no pressure from any quarter. 28 In normal parliamentary circumstances this explanation would have satisfied, or opened the way for further rational discourse. How27 28

Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 8. Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 9-10.

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ever, conditions in October 1924 were anything but normal, and the Conservatives showed no interest in letting the matter drop. A censure resolution was introduced by Sir Robert Home on October 8: That the conduct of His Majesty's Government in relation to the institution and subsequent withdrawal of criminal proceedings against the editor of the 'Workers' Weekly' is deserving of the censure of the House.29 Self-righteous and feigning shock, Sir Robert added : " N o greater blow, no more grievous blow, could be struck at our civilisation than that our Courts should be in any measure manipulated for party purposes." 30 He had no doubt but that they had been so manipulated. Quoting from Communist sources, Campbell was offered as authority for the statement, "it was not good will on the part of the Labour bureaucrats that caused the prosecution to be dropped, but simply the pressure of the rank-and-file." 31 Albert Inkpin, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, had made an even more explicit claim to outside pressures, which Sir Robert quoted with approval. Inkpin had said: "We wish to state that the withdrawal of the charge was made on the sole responsibility of the Labour Government under severe pressure from such well-known Labour Members of Parliament as Mr. George Lansbury, Mr. James Maxton, Mr. A . A . Purcell, Mr. John Scurr, and many others." 32 The Workers' Weekly, Sir Robert added, had gone even further; it had written : Perhaps for the first time in England's fair island history has the course of justice in the Law Courts been changed by outside political forces into a triumph for the working classes over the capitalist classes, not by securing a legal success, but by a plain revolutionary victory.33 As for the attorney general's explanations, Sir Robert quoted from his favourite Communist source to show that they were false; the Workers' Weekly had explained: 29 30 31 32 33

Commons Commons Commons Commons Commons

Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates,

CLXVII CLXVII CLXVII CLXVII CLXVII

(1924), (1924), (1924), (1924), (1924),

581. 582. 582. 583. 584.

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The article on which the charge was based was not cut out of another publication. It was an article written on the specification of the editor for a special anti-war number of our paper. It was not a wild and irresponsible statement inserted in the paper by a young and inexperienced editor. It was a cold, deliberate statement of the party position, inserted by the editor, James Ross Campbell, who is a responsible member of the Political Bureau of the Party. In the subsequent issue of the paper a similar article appeared. In the party manifesto a fortnight ago on war, the Political Bureau reaffirmed the policy contained in the open letter.34 "Without straining the facts or putting undue inference upon them, enough has been elicited already to show that this charge was withdrawn without proper investigation and with indecent haste," Sir Robert argued. T h e House of Commons could not, he said, "contemplate in silence such a dereliction of a fundamental duty . . . and pass over without censure an act which, if it were repeated, would strike a most deadly blow at our respect for law and justice in this country." 3 5 In trying to defend himself, Sir Patrick repeated much of the information already given, but added a few facts to clarify issues raised by the Opposition. H e explained that the name Campbell had never been mentioned at the start, and that the director of public prosecutions had approached him only for an opinion as to the author's liability. Not till August 5 did he learn of Campbell's arrest. It was on that day that information was brought telling him that questions might be asked in the Commons. 3 6 James Maxton, who had already approached the Government on the case, was sent for. H e told Sir Patrick that he knew Campbell well, and that his war record was an impressive one. Sir Patrick explained to the Commons: I am accustomed to defending people, and I thought to myself at once what my position would be if I were defending counsel and the Attorney-General had picked out as the one dangerous Communist whom he wanted to put in the dock a man described as one who had both his feet almost blown off in the War, and who fought through the War from beginning to end, and who had been decorated for exceptional 34 35 36

Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 589. Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 596. Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 600-602.

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gallantry. I thought to myself what I would look like, supposing this were true, as the Attorney-General of England, putting in the dock at the Old Bailey, as the only dangerous Communist whom I could find such a person as that. 37 W h i l e the public prosecutor's information about Campbell's m e m bership in the Political Bureau of the Communist Party and his authorship of the article had been inaccurate, Sir Patrick defended himself by saying: That was the information I had. . . . There are several Law Officers here at this moment. Can any of them tell me that when they ask the Director of Public Prosecutions what information he has about a certain case, they expect to have to go and look through the police reports themselves? 38 T h e s e explanations failed to impress the House. Sir J o h n Simon, speaking for the Liberal Party, argued that an investigation of all the circumstances was necessary. H e moved an amendment to the Conservative motion of censure providing for the appointment of a Select Committee "to investigate and report upon the circumstances leading up to the withdrawal of the proceedings recently instituted by the Director of Public Prosecutions against M r . C a m p b e l l . " 3 9 Sir John believed it significant that August 6, the day the attorney general was first asked about the Campbell case in the Commons, was also the day the Prime Minister was preparing to announce the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian treaty negotiations. Sir John thought that a conversation between M a c D o n a l d and his attorney general that day might have found M a c D o n a l d saying: " W e l l done, good and faithful colleague. I satisfied the Communists and agreed to a Treaty with Russia yesterday, after announcing the day before that I would not do it, and I now find that you, at exactly the same moment, are engaged in prosecuting the very people with whom I am trying to arrive at an accommodation." 4 0 37 Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 603. It was Maxtor) also who told the attorney-general that Campbell was only acting temporarily as editor of the Workers' Weekly. 38 Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 609. 39 Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 619. 40 Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 622-23.

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ΐηο

MacDonald,

stung by this criticism, referred to it as a "petty

little old-maidish discovery," without the slightest basis in fact; no one had ever considered the Russian treaty in connection with the Campbell prosecution. 4 1 M a c D o n a l d explained his own position to the H o u s e : There was one thing that concerned me when I saw about this prosecution in the papers, and that was not what my hon. Friends behind me might say, or what hon. Members in front of me might say—I have disagreed with them before, and I shall disagree with them again—and if the right hon. and learned member for Spen Valley [Sir John Simon] imagines that when there is any revolt in the party I bend and bow and twist about in order to accommodate myself to the new situation, he is profoundly mistaken. T h e one thing that I was interested in was this. When I saw that this prosecution had been undertaken, I felt, and I feel now, that it gave such an extraordinary gratuitous advertisement to Communism that the thing, although in itself it was a breach of the law, undoubtedly . . . nevertheless, it was one of those breaches of the law which must be considered in the effect of the prosecution, and from that point of view I felt that the prosecution was a mistake—not because of hon. Members' questions, because as every hon. Member knows perfectly well when they are handling practically those big problems of social policy you have to handle them with common sense and with a judgment of an all-round character, including consequences as well as breaches and faults. 42 M a c D o n a l d thought the Conservative Party's motion straightforward and correct; if the House had no confidence in the Government, it ought to say so. T h e Liberal Party's motion, he called " m e a n " ; it proposed to establish a select committee appointed by party whips on the basis of party representation in the C o m m o n s . T h e Opposition would have seven representatives on the Committee; the Government only three. M a c D o n a l d thought it impossible that such a group would render an impartial opinion on so partisan a matter. H e explained to the House that if it insisted on passing either the resolution or the amendment the Government would have no choice but to go to the country. 4 3 41 42 43

Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 630. Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 6 3 1 . Commons Debates, CLXVII (1924), 635-38.

LABOUR IN OFFICE AND OUT

27I

Asquith, in jeply, spoke of "these obsequial tributes [being] generally reserved, if not until the corpse has been interred, at any rate until the doctor has pronounced life extinct." "Why this sacrosanct supersensitiveness," Asquith asked. He had never known any other group of public men possessed of such thin skins. The amendment, he argued, was quite in accord with precedent.44 Herbert Morrison spoke of the Communist aim of embarrassing the Labour Government. If the Conservatives and Communists had been formally united, they could not have cooperated more successfully in pursuit of a single objective.45 Baldwin rose only to say that the Conservative Party intended to vote for the Liberal amendment. In this way, he explained, the Government's tactic of dividing its critics would be thwarted.46 The issue was drawn. J. H . Thomas, in closing for the Government, called the motion "a mean and contemptible party manoeuvre." The question was a moral one, Thomas said; to vote for a select committee was to cast doubt on the honesty and integrity of the Government front bench; no group of honorable men could accept such a situation.47 The division showed 364 members supporting the Liberal amendment and 198 voting with the Government. 48 MacDonald submitted his resignation the next day, Parliament was dissolved, and the general election was fixed for October 29. The issue was adjourned to another court of inquiry, the widest in the realm. Why the Government permitted itself to be forced into a general election on the Campbell question is not entirely clear. The argument that a defeat on the Russian agreements, being inevitable, made the Government anxious to terminate its anomalous existence is not altogether satisfactory. The Labour Party realized that it would be compelled to defend its Russian policy in a general election, whatever its date; there was no advantage to be gained from rushing into the fray. Also, a general election resulting from a defeat on the Russian treaty would have made excellent sense, providing Labour with some sort of propaganda advantage. Its defeat on a substantive issue, con44

Commons Commons 46 Commons 47 Commons 48 Commons

45

Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates, Debates,

CLXVII CLXVII CLXVII CLXVII CLXVII

(1924), (1924), (1924), (1924), (1924),

639. 658-59. 679. 688-93. 700.

γρ.

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ceived as part of a general policy of European pacification and the restoration of domestic economic prosperity, could not fail to commend itself. Why then did Labour not wait, accept the select committee, and achieve the maximum advantage from a defeat on the Russian question ? If one accepts the fact that the Government had nothing to fear from a select committee's investigation, several explanations may be offered. It is possible that the decision, reached on MacDonald's initiative, revealed only the peculiar workings of that mercurial personality. Evidence before, during, and after the general election showed an agitated and harried Prime Minister, unhappy about his own party no less than about the Opposition. MacDonald's failure to impress his point of view during the Anglo-Russian conversations, his readiness to tolerate the interference of others, and his obvious ignorance of many of the details, suggests an abdication of responsibility not usual in the man. Only the burdens attendant on holding the two chief offices of state could have made him so ready to share authority and so little jealous of its misuse. Irascible even in untroubled times, MacDonald bore the cares of office with no great display of pleasure. Fatigue and depression may have contributed to his decision to stake everything on the slight possibility of receiving a more popular mandate. It is not impossible that MacDonald hoped not for victory but for a return to the Opposition front bench, where, with a large party, he might expect to hold the balance of power. If MacDonald's concern had been simply to hold on to his office he would never have » acted as he did in the Campbell case. Acceptance of these personality influences need not rule out other more fundamental organizational factors. It is entirely possible that the Government saw an advantage in going to the country after being defeated on so trivial a matter. The Labour Party, having worked for years to establish the principle of an irresponsible Opposition, may have hoped to profit from this incident. Certain Labour leaders, recognizing the Opposition's readiness to defeat the Government on any issue, may have felt that a failure to respond to this particular threat would only store up trouble for the future. A general election forced by such an unprecedented circumstance was certain to produce other equally large surprises. The Labour

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Party's interest lay in the creation of an atmosphere conducive to calm and rational discussion of real issues. Its election manifesto was a model of sobriety. T h e Campbell case

figured

not at all;

L a b o u r simply noted that its parliamentary defeat had come about through "a partisan combination of Liberals and Tories." 4 9 If the party had been defeated on the Russian treaty question, it could not have made a more explicit defense of that agreement. Labour believed "the supreme need of this country, as of the whole world, [to be] peace a m o n g the nations, and the restoration of industry and commerce." T h e maintenance of friendly relations w i t h the Irish Free State, the strengthening of ties w i t h the Dominions, the improvement of Britain's relations with France, and the continuation of efforts at Geneva to secure a world agreement on "arbitration, security, and general disarmament," were listed as policies of high priority. T h e manifesto continued : T h e Labour Government has refused to exclude from this general pacification the Russian people, with whom it is essential to resume our trade in the interests of our unemployed and the country as a whole. The Treaties with Russia, now awaiting ratification, open up for our fishing industry thousands of square miles of additional fishing ground, and provide for new outlets for our manufactures and our coal. When compensation has been secured to British subjects for their losses in Russia, a third Treaty will be negotiated providing for the raising (from private financiers) by Russia of a loan the interest and sinking fund charges on which shall be guaranteed by Great Britain. It is laid down in Article 12 of the General Treaty that "the amount, terms and conditions of the said loan, and the purposes to which it shall be applied," shall be defined in the future Treaty referred to, and this Treaty "will not come into force until the necessary Parliamentary authority for the guarantee of the said loan has been given." Will you allow this work for peace and prosperity to be stopped? 50 Labour's desire to discuss its Russian policy as one calculated to produce peace and prosperity did not coincide with the plans of the other parties. Stanley Baldwin, in his election address, established the theme w h i c h the Conservatives intended using. T h e Campbell case and the Russian agreements were not to be considered sepa49 60

Labour Party Annual Labour Party Annual

Conference Conference

Report, 1924, 194. Report, 1924, 194.

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rately, but as complementary expressions of a single Labour Party policy. Baldwin spoke of justice deflected by political interests in the Campbell proceeding, and suggested that equally partisan interests were responsible for the Russian agreements, which were after all the work of extremists.51 The agreements could not stand up under public scrutiny since they were no less false than the explanations put forward by the Government to explain its abandonment of the Campbell case. The Government, Baldwin concluded, in forcing an election on the Campbell issue, revealed its dread of approaching Parliament with absurd proposals which committed the British taxpayer to making good a Bolshevik indebtedness in case of default. 62 The Conservative Party's decision to link the Campbell case with the Russian agreements, and to make both appear the work of irresponsible Labour Party back-benchers, was a masterful stroke. Instead of themselves appearing responsible for the general election, stooping to any device to secure it, the Conservatives emerged as the passive and injured party. Afraid to face Parliament in defense of a manifestly weak and wicked set of agreements, Labour sought refuge in the Campbell case, and purposely made it a question of confidence. The Conservative Party managed to fashion a particularly effective campaign theme; it did precisely what the Labour Party hoped it would not do. The Liberals showed none of the imagination of their Conservative colleagues. Although equally responsible for the Government's fall, they made no attempt to capitalize on the Campbell issue. Their opposition to the Russian agreements, stated in rigid nineteenthcentury political prose, conformed to the pattern that Labour had hoped to maintain. The Liberal Party election manifesto read: The Labour Ministry has undertaken to ratify a Treaty which contemplates that the British taxpayer should guarantee a loan to a Government whose principles deny the obligations which civilised nations regard as binding between borrower and lender.53 The issue was as simple as that; a nation that abandoned the ethics and practices of a business civilization had no right to expect favors 51 52 63

The Times, October 1 3 , 1924. The Times, October 1 3 , 1924. The Times, October 1 3 , 1924.

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275

from those who continued to abide by the established rules. T h e Labour Party had no great difficulty in refuting this sort of argument. T h e more insidious jibes of the Conservative Party were less easily countered. Conservative Party election posters featured the Russian issue in a fashion calculated to confuse, and to sow doubts where none had previously existed. A widely distributed poster read : "Russians O w e Us ^722,500,000, That Is Per Head Of Our Population. N o w They Ask For More. Answer By Voting U N I O N IST." Another featured the rhyme, "Bolshevik, Bolshevik, where have you been? Over to England where the Reds are still green." 54 T h e Labour Party knew of no answer to this sort of criticism. A n exchange of letters between Austen Chamberlain and Winston Churchill received wide publicity, and provided unmistakable evidence of the Conservative tactic. Chamberlain opened the correspondence by welcoming Churchill's candidacy as a Constitutionalist, and said: The old quarrels of Liberals and Conservatives belong to the past. The fundamental issues today are those which unite Liberals like yourself with us of the Unionist Party and divide us both from the Socialist Party and their Communist supporters.55 Churchill, in reply, spoke of "the Socialist movement [being] from beginning to end, a foreign-minded movement. It had been lifted bodily from Germany and Russia." 56 T h e Labour Party's effort to prevent any identification in the public mind of its organization with that of the Communist Party was thwarted by Conservative propaganda calculated to establish precisely that connection. T h e Labour Party, exasperated by the myth, could do little in the midst of a heated campaign but point to its record and attempt to prove its independence of all foreign influences. This, it continued to do till the morning of October 25, four days before the polls opened. O n that day, in screaming headlines in the penny press, and in only slightly less incendiary form in other newspapers, the news was carried of a "Red plot" in Britain. A copy of a letter, purportedly written by Zinoviev, the leader of the Third International, marked 54 55 56

The Times, October 14, 1924. The Times, October 16, 1924. The Times, October 22, 1924.

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"very secret," and sent to the central committee of the British Communist Party, was printed for all to see.57 The letter, dated September 15, 1924, told of the approaching struggle over ratification of the Anglo-Russian agreements, and called on the British proletariat to work and fight to secure ratification as it had previously acted to force the Government to negotiate the agreements. Zinoviev recommended that the Labour Party leaders be closely watched lest they attempt to desert the workers' cause. A settlement between Britain and the U.S.S.R. would further "the revolutionizing of the international and British proletariat no 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," the letter continued.58 It referred also to a British Communist Party report on agitation within the army and navy, and admitted that while quality rather than quantity of members mattered most, it was desirable that Communist cells be formed "in all the units of the troops, particularly among those quartered in the large centres of the country, and also among factories working on munitions and at military store depots."59 "In the event of danger of war," the letter continued, "with the aid of the latter and in contact with the transport workers, it is possible to paralyse all the military operations of the bourgeoisie and make a start in turning an imperialist war into a class war." The letter concluded with a plea that the "military section of the British Communist Party" recruit specialists, "the future directors of the British Red Army," to be prepared in "the event of an outbreak of active strife." A national army was to be made ready—one that would refuse to act at the bidding of its "bourgeois" masters.60 Printed alongside the Zinoviev note, and appearing in all newspapers, was a copy of a foreign office letter of protest, written on October 24, and presumably sent to Rakovski. The foreign office, in 57

The The The 60 The 5s

59

Times, Times, Times, Times,

October October October October

25, 25, 25, 25,

1924. 1924. 1924. 1924.

LABOUR IN OFFICE AND OUT

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expressing its intense displeasure with the evidence of continued Third International propaganda activity in Britain, anticipated the Russian reply by denying the validity of any argument that sought to excuse the Soviet Government by declaring it not responsible for the actions of its satellite. The Soviet Government, the foreign office argued, had agreed to refrain from all propaganda; it was dutybound to adhere to this pledge and to punish those who transgressed it. A n organization that sought to influence "British subjects to work for the violent overthrow of existing institutions . . . and for the subversion of His Majesty's armed forces as a means to that end," ought not to be tolerated by a supposedly friendly power. The foreign office charged the Russians with flouting both the letter and spirit of their earlier undertakings. 61 J. H . Thomas described in his memoirs how he felt on learning of these happenings. Having risen early in his Huddersfield hotel, where he and Philip Snowden were staying for an election meeting, he recalled "rushing along the corridors to Snowden's room, hammering on the door and calling to him: 'Get up! We're bunkered!' "® 2 This was probably a common Labour reaction on that fateful Saturday morning. While Thomas, Snowden, Henderson, and other Labour Party leaders had known nothing of the Zinoviev note till they read about it in the newspapers, MacDonald had known of its existence for more than a week. The foreign office had received a copy, from an unknown source, on October 10. In due course, MacDonald, who was out of London on an extensive campaign trip, received a copy and ordered an immediate investigation. He suggested also that a draft note be prepared for delivery to the Soviet authorities should it prove necessary. The draft note reached MacDonald on October 23; after making certain corrections, he returned it to London. It was understood that if evidence showed the Zinoviev letter to be authentic, the Prime Minister would decide on the action to be taken. It was at this juncture that the foreign office learned of the existence of another copy of the Zinoviev note in the Daily Mail's possession, and of that newspaper's intention to publish it on the morning of October 25. Quickly, and without attempting a fur61 62

The Times, October 25, 1924. J. H. Thomas, My Story (London, 1937), 78.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ther communication with the Prime Minister, the permanent officials of the foreign office sent copies of the letter and its own protest to all newspapers.63 The British public knew none of these details on the morning that the news broke. They understood only that the Third International had sent a letter to "unknown Britons" urging preparation for a revolution, and that the foreign office had lodged a protest. Labour Party candidates, fighting a campaign based on the idea of improved relations with Russia, found themselves in an impossible position. The Conservatives had all along depicted the Government as the "dupe" and "prisoner" of the Soviets; what better confirmation could they have asked for? The foreign office protest seemed proof of the note's authenticity; for what other reason could it have been sent? Labour candidates looked instinctively to the Prime Minister for guidance; his schedule called for a speech in Wales that day. MacDonald did not mention the matter that day, nor did he seek to clarify the question on Sunday. For forty-eight hours, the British press screamed about "Russian perfidy" and "Labour stupidity"; the one person who was in a position to speak sat back and said nothing. Only on Monday, less than forty-eight hours before the polls opened, did MacDonald attempt to explain the chain of events which led the foreign office to publish the document and its note. MacDonald gave no hint as to his personal opinion about the letter's authenticity; it was impossible for him to know. 64 On Wednesday, October 29, more than twenty million Britons flocked to the polls to return an overwhelmingly Conservative Parliament. The Labour contingent fell from 193, at the time of dissolution, to 1 5 1 ; the Conservatives, together with the Constitutionalists who accepted Conservative Whips, numbered 415· 65 The Labour Party suffered a major setback; it was inevitable that the Zinoviev incident should be accounted partly responsible. If the document did influence the returns as much as certain persons claimed, then Mac63 Daily Herald, October 28, 1924. These facts were given by MacDonald in his speech of October 27. ei MacDonald's detractors have never been willing to admit this. 65 The Times, House of Commons 192g (London, 1929), 12. A useful guide to the general election results in 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1929.

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Donald's personal responsibility for the defeat was enormous. The issue had rested in his hands from the beginning to the end; if mistakes occurred, they were his. There is no advantage in attempting a new analysis of the authenticity of the Zinoviev note. Too many imponderables exist, and the impossibility of securing evidence from those most intimately concerned makes any fresh inquiry difficult. That MacDonald should have believed, even for a time, in the authenticity of the document, reflects neither on his intelligence nor on his integrity. Documents of the Zinoviev variety issued from Moscow with fair regularity; no one familiar with Third International tactics could have been surprised by its dispatch. MacDonald's mistake was his failure to realize that other copies probably existed, and that they might be brought quite suddenly to the public's attention. MacDonald ought to have been prepared for the events of October 25; his preparedness ought to have prevented its happening. In failing to publish the document immediately, together with an explanation that its authenticity was being investigated, MacDonald played into the hands of those who hoped to see his Government brought down. This was a serious blunder, further compounded by his failure to direct the party for forty-eight hours after the news broke. MacDonald's capacities for leadership were legitimately questioned after this incident. Certain critics would render an even more adverse judgment because of their conviction that the document was a forged one. MacDonald's error, they would say, was moral rather than political. He ought to have recognized the forgery and treated it as such; his failure to do so originated in his own peculiar bias. With such an opinion, it is impossible to agree. William and Zelda Coates, years after the event, amassed all sorts of evidence to demonstrate the spuriousness of the document. Their case, while plausible, is by no means certain.66 MacDonald, in the midst of an election campaign, and away from London, could not possibly have discovered the internal evidences of forgery, if indeed they be that. N o responsible public official, with so little information at his disposal, would have been warranted in saying that the document was fraudulent. Macee W . P. and Zelda Coates, A History of Anglo-Russian 181-197.

Relations (London, 1943),

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Donald had no way of knowing; his error was of a different sort. Those who have sought to prove the authenticity or spuriousness of the Zinoviev document have neglected the investigation of its real influence on the election results. T o repeat the fact of its influence, without a more precise definition of its extent or character, is to assist those who have constructed the most grandiose exaggerations of its effects. These statements have come most often from those whose connection with the Labour campaign was a small one; those who were most intimately involved usually tempered their criticisms. For example, in an exchange of letters between Jowett and Snowden, written immediately after the 1924 defeat, Snowden expressed his sorrow at Jowett's defeat, and remarked that he received "no satisfaction from the increased Labour poll." 8 7 "It is proof," Snowden wrote, "of the great opportunities we have wantonly and recklessly thrown away by the most incompetent leadership which ever brought a Government to ruin."® 8 Jowett replied, " I will not say more as to the cause of my misfortune than that the author of it was overworked and must have lost his head at the most critical time." 6 9 This was an obvious reference to the Zinoviev episode; that Snowden intended a broader criticism of MacDonald's leadership was evident from his reply in which he said to Jowett : Y o u k n o w that I never trusted J . R., but he has added to the attributes I k n e w , during the last nine months, an incapacity I never thought h i m capable of. H e has thrown a w a y the greatest opportunity which ever came to a party and has landed us with five years of T o r y Government. A n d his colossal conceit prevents him from being in the remotest measure conscious of w h a t he has done. H e is absolutely self-centered. I should not be surprised to hear that he has never remembered that you have been thrown. H o w e v e r , I w o n ' t bother you with m y views and feelings, which are too strong to be expressed temperately. 7 0

In so documenting his disgust, Snowden laid to rest any theory that he believed MacDonald's campaign behavior to be the paramount issue. So far as the chancellor of the exchequer was concerned, 67 68 69 70

Brockway, Brockway, Brockway, Brockway,

Socialism Socialism Socialism Socialism

Over Over Over Over

Sixty Sixty Sixty Sixty

Years, Years, Years, Years,

222. Jowett lost the election by 66 votes. 222. 222. 223.

LABOUR IN OFFICE AND OUT

281

MacDonald's incapacity extended over the whole nine-month tenure of office, and it was this gross ineptitude that required attention. Snowden never singled out the Zinoviev episode as a particularly conclusive one. A decade later, in his Autobiography, Snowden held to this view. He spoke of MacDonald's error in forcing a "confidence" vote on the Campbell issue; he, Snowden, would have given "the Opposition twenty committees if they asked for them." This opinion, Snowden claimed, was the one "widely held by the reasonable members of the Labour Party, who were shocked that the Government should have accepted defeat on what, after all, was a very trivial incident." 71 He thought that the question of the authenticity of the Zinoviev note would never be settled, but he suggested that this was unimportant, for if the Labour Party had not already been associated in the public mind with Communism, the note would have had no effect. 72 In any event, the "Labour Party [had] entered upon the Election under circumstances which made its defeat a foregone conclusion." 73 T h e Labour Party Executive, in its report to the annual conference in 1925, attributed the defeat "to the operation of the pact between the Liberals and Tories in many cases, to the heavy Tory poll consequent on the Red Letter scare, and to the fact that the Liberal voters in many cases deserted their own candidates, and the Liberal vote, generally speaking, went in favour of our opponents." 74 T h e Executive, while prepared to list the Zinoviev factor as one of the explanations for the defeat, refused to give it priority. Such opinions have not proved congenial to those anxious to create a theory in which the Zinoviev episode figures as the paramount influence. Francis Williams, in his history of the Labour Party, prepared for its fiftieth anniversary, remarked bluntly: "the deciding factor in this election was not the Campbell case, nor the Government's record in domestic and foreign policy, but the Zinoviev letter." 75 Louis Fischer, in his two-volume treatise on Soviet Russia, spoke of the letter "undoubtedly determining the outcome of the 71 72 73 74 75

Snowden, Snowden, Snowden, Report of Williams,

Autobiography, II, 698. Autobiography, II, 716. Autobiography, II, 698. the 25th Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London, 1925), 6. Fifty Years March, 312.

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BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

elections." According to Fischer, "it changed the nature of many, many seats—of at least 100 is the usual estimate." 76 It is with such opinions, and they can be multiplied many times, that issue needs to be taken. W h e n Labour Party leaders gathered in their Eccleston Square headquarters during the campaign to discuss their chances of success, they probably hoped for a return of about 191 members, the number that secured election in 1923. A s reasonable men, given neither to excessive optimism nor pessimism, they viewed the question with the hard factual data at hand. While the party might go to the country singing its own praises, the Executive and Parliamentary Party boasted a more realistic appreciation of the dimension of its success as His Majesty's Government. Unemployment was as much a problem in late 1924 as it had been a year earlier; only the first steps had been taken towards making low-cost housing available; Egypt continued to threaten in the Middle East; within the Empire, India remained a malcontent. Labour leaders cannot have believed that in nine short months the nation's opinions had been seriously altered. Even ignoring policy questions, electoral conditions in hundreds of individual constituencies made unlikely the return of many more than 191 Labour members. In 1923, Labour captured many seats, some for the first time, in three-cornered fights; these candidates won on a minority vote. In 1924, as a result of local compacts between Conservative and Liberal organizations, Labour candidates found themselves defending these same seats against only a single opponent. Losses were certain to result. It was inconceivable that Labour would be able to maintain everywhere in straight fights what it had originally gained by splitting its opponents. Labour leaders recognized also that in 1923 the party had run a poor third in numerous constituencies, capturing only 15-25 per cent of the total vote. These seats, contested against the day when Labour would win in an overwhelming landslide, were not serious possibilities in 1924. They might be secured one day, after considerable work by dedicated and loyal supporters, propagandizing in season and out, but that time was not yet. Victories were not fashioned in the crucible of a three76

Fischer, Soviets in World Affairs, II, 493,

LABOUR IN OFFICE AND OUT

283

week general election campaign; the Labour Party required no education on this point. Nor did Labour anticipate victories in constituencies contested for the first time, or for the second time after a lapse because of a particularly unimpressive first showing. T h e party, in contesting such seats, sought only to establish a base of operations which it expected to expand with time. In such constituencies victory was clearly inconceivable. If Labour Party leaders did in fact miscalculate, it was probably about the extent of the Liberal defeat. Labour may not have foreseen the magnitude and consequences of the Liberal debacle. However, even if it had, it would have been powerless to prevent it or profit from it. Conditions entirely divorced from the 1924 campaign made it inevitable that the Conservative Party should be the heir of the Liberal power. Labour Party leaders probably hoped to hold something like 191 seats. T h e existence of 615 seats in the Commons ought not to becloud the issue. T h e Labour Party failed to contest a hundred of these, and in many places where a candidate was named, the party had no expectation of victory. Even in the twentieth century, the Commons boasts several hundred absolutely "safe" seats, in which victory is all but certain for the favoured party. In 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1929, 172 seats were consistently taken by Tory candidates. 77 These 172 places were won by Coalition nominees in 1918, and by National candidates in 1931. If Labour had been unable to touch any of these before 1924, failed to so in 1929—a normal election—in 1931, and in 1935, there is little reason to suspect that victory was anticipated in 1924. A m o n g these 172 places were many uncontested by Labour, but a contest in the others ought not to suggest that Labour had any hope of winning. These were absolutely "safe" for Conservative Party nominees. T h e Labour and Liberal organizations also boasted their quotas of "safe" seats. T h e Labour Party, in the 1920's, held 107 such places. Contests by Conservatives and/or Liberals in 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1929 served no great purpose; they went to the Labour Party nominee 7 7 This figure does not include the "safe" university seats held by Conservatives. The 172 places were distributed as follows: 89 in English counties, 43 in English boroughs, 21 in London, 10 in Northern Ireland, 8 in Scotland, and 1 in Wales.

284

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

every time. Liberal and Conservative candidates entered these fights expecting to lose. T h e Liberal Party held 16 "safe" places, mostly in Wales and Scotland. If the fact is accepted that the Conservatives entered the 1924 campaign confident of 172 seats, Labour of 107, and the Liberals of 16, it becomes obvious that in almost half the constituencies, the decision was known on "nomination day." If to this number are added nine seats which went to Conservatives in 1923, 1924, and 1929, and four which were won by Liberals in those years, we have a further reduction in truly contested areas. These seats were no less "safe" than the others, except for the fact that unusual fights in 1922 between Conservatives, Free Liberals, and National Liberals returned other than the traditional victors. Labour candidates had no chance of success in any of these in 1924. T h e Labour Party, in capturing 151 seats in 124, won 44 more than those labeled absolutely "safe" for Labour. These 1 5 1 , when added to the 172 "safe" Conservative places, the 16 "safe" Liberal seats, and the abovementioned 13, make a total of 352 seats. There were 263 other places, of which Labour won not a one. In how many of these can Labour have expected to win? H o w many of them were lost through the mistakes of a faulty political campaign ? Of the 263, Labour had no hope whatever in 107 places. T h e reasons are sufficiently obvious to make a long explanation unnecessary. In 36 of these 107 constituencies, Labour ran no candidate in 1924. In 48 others, a Labour nominee was contesting the seat for the first time, or for the second time after a lapse of at least one general election. In only the most exceptional of circumstances, could such a candidacy have been successful. 78 T h e other 23 seats were contested both in 1923 and in 1924, but the poll in 1923 had been so disappointing—in every instance less than 25 per cent for Labour—that no Labour partisan could have expected a gain sufficient to win the seat. Of these 107 seats, the Liberals went into the 1924 general election holding 96, many by the smallest of margins. If the Conservatives were not to emerge with an enormous parliamentary majority, it 78 Labour won a single seat on its first try in 1924; in 1929, it also won only one such place.

LABOUR IN OFFICE AND OUT

285

was essential that the Liberals retain most of these places, but they failed to do so. T h e Conservatives took from their Liberal opponents 92 of these 96 places. 79 T h e Labour Party, powerless to prevent the Liberal debacle, to arrest it, or profit from it, saw the Conservatives add further to an already impressive beginning. T h e 172 "safe" Conservative seats, the abovementioned 9, and these 92 gave Baldwin's party 273 places in the new Parliament. These were seats that Labour had not the slightest hope of winning. MacDonald, Zinoviev, party platform, Government record—all counted for nothing in these constituencies. There were, however, 156 other seats outstanding. W h y did Labour fail to capture any of these? Can the influence of the Zinoviev note be detected in these contests? A m o n g these 156 places were twelve university seats, four of which Labour contested, and one of which it may have hoped to win. 80 T h e speaker's seat was uncontested, as were two Irish seats, and the Liverpool place held by T . P. O'Connor. 81 T h e omission of these seats leaves 140 seats outstanding, of which, at the dissolution, Labour held 62, the Conservatives 52, the Liberals 23, and Independents 3. N o t only did Labour fail to keep any of these; it failed to make inroads on the others. W h y ? T h e day that Parliament was dissolved, a Labour Party leader studying conditions in the 52 Conservative constituencies might have concluded that his party would be fortunate to win a dozen of them. In the 1923 general election—a favorable one from Labour's point of view—advances had been made in these places, but in every instance the Conservative nominee topped the poll. In 27 of the 52 places, the Conservative majority was by many thousands. 82 Of the 25 others, the Conservatives had won in 10 places by majorities of from 1200 to 2000, but by fewer than a thousand ballots in the remaining 15. Had Labour just completed an extremely successful administration, it might have posed a threat in all 25 places. In the conditions 78

The Liberals suffered particularly in the English counties where they lost 55

seats. 8 0 A single university seat, that of Wales, was held by a Labourite, G. M. L. Davies. He accepted the Labour Party whip after his election in 1923. Some expected he might be able to keep his seat. 8 1 O'Connor, the "Father of the House," sat continuously after 1880. 8 2 In these places, the Liberal was usually the second candidate.

286

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

prevailing in 1924, success in even half would have seemed incredibly fortunate. Of the Liberal Party's outstanding 23 seats, Labour expected even less. In 13 of these constituencies, Labour placed third in 1923, sometimes trailing the Conservative by a few hundred votes, but often by several thousand. A Liberal decline would almost certainly see the elevation of the power next in line, that of the Conservatives. This actually happened in 1924; Labour Party leaders cannot have been surprised. O f the remaining 10 places, Labour had no hope in three where the Liberal majorities had been by 5,689 to 7,195 votes.83 In three other places, Labour fought the election with Liberals turned Constitutionalist; the incumbents, who had defeated Labour in 1923 by majorities of 1,890, 4,520, and 3,188 were all expected to retain their places.84 Only in the outstanding four constituencies did Labour have any reason to hope for a victory. One comes finally to the 62 Labour seats won in 1923, and lost in 1924.85 Labour entered the campaign knowing that some would be lost. Four—Renfrew East, Gravesend, Norfolk Southern, and Maldon—were won only once by Labour throughout the whole interwar period. In 27 other constituencies, Labour gained the seats in threecornered fights in 1923, but as a result of local Conservative-Liberal pacts, found only a Conservative adversary in 1924. In 1929, when these 27 places were recaptured by Labour candidates, they were won in three-cornered contests; in 20 of the 27, the Labour nominee lacked a majority in 1929. While the intrusion of a Liberal candidate was not a prerequisite to victory, it was a matter of no small moment. In five other contests, the Conservative candidate withdrew in 1924, and Labour was forced into a straight fight with a Liberal nominee. In six constituencies, Labour fought the same three-cornered battle in 1924 that it engaged in in 1923, but with less favorable results. The constituencies were Blackburn, Chesterfield, and South Shields. These constituencies were Heywood and Racliffe, Stretford, and Accrington. 8 5 Labour actually lost 64 seats in the 1924 general election, but two of these were tallied in other categories; the Welsh university seat in the university category, and the Harrow seat among the 107 "impossibles." Labour secured the Harrow seat originally through Sir Oswald Mosley's decision to cross the aisle and join the Labour contingent. Mosley did not contest the seat in 1924, and it was a foregone conclusion that it would be lost. Kenneth Lindsay, who ran for Labour, received 9,507 votes to the Conservative candidate's 16,526. 83

84

LABOUR IN OFFICE AND OUT

W h e n it is noted that Labour's largest victory in this group was by 620 votes and smallest by 68 votes, the 1924 results become less surprising. 86 Such statistics can never provide a definitive answer to the question of the influence of the Zinoviev disclosure. T h e y can only suggest that Labour probably expected something like a return of its 1923 representation. In addition to the 151 seats actually w o n , L a b o u r may have hoped to pick up about a dozen Conservative places and four Liberal seats. O f its o w n losses, Labour probably anticipated something like 50 per cent of them. T h e altered character of the contest made such a result almost inevitable. H a d Labour returned 190 or 200 members, the Conservatives w o u l d have remained overwhelmingly strong with something over 360 seats, for it must be remembered that Labour gains w o u l d have been partially at the expense of the already diminutive Liberal Party. T h e Conservatives, as the immediate and only possible heir of the Liberal Party, reaped the rewards of their position. T h e

Liberal

decline, already apparent in 1923, went steadily forward in 1924. Scores of Conservatives, barred f r o m office in 1923 by small Liberal majorities, were swept in. Labour, powerless to influence the returns in these constituencies, saw the Conservatives secure a sufficiently impressive majority to assure a five-year tenure of office. T h e Liberal decline may have been precipitated by the Zinoviev note; to w h a t degree it is impossible to say. A s for Labour, it certainly lost some seats through the mishandling of the Zinoviev affair, as it did over the Campbell case, the Russian treaties, and other like issues. It w o u l d be a mistake, however, to exaggerate the number of these losses. F r o m all causes, Labour may have suffered fifty defeats. W h o w o u l d suggest that the Zinoviev note was alone responsible ? T h e facts of electoral conditions in hundreds of constituencies made it extremely unlikely that Labour w o u l d return more than 86

T h e Labour majorities in 1923 in these six places were: Cardiff South—426 Swansea W e s t — 1 1 5 Berwick and Haddington—68 Lanark—230 Coventry—620 East Ham, N o r t h — 4 1 6

288

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

two hundred members, irrespective of how the campaign proceeded and how the Conservatives behaved. Only the Liberals were in a position to bar the Conservatives from office; in their failure—undoubtedly caused by factors more complex than the Zinoviev note— the Labour Party lost much. The Liberal decline, and not the Zinoviev fiasco, created the 1924 Tory victory.

C H A P T E R

X I V

Concluding Remarks

of 1924 provides a reasonable terminus to this study in that it directs attention to the peculiar hazards attending the Labour Party's progress in a political atmosphere permeated by Russia and its revolution. Labour, in learning to adjust itself to the fact of Bolshevik power, established a set of traditions never seriously modified in later years. A study of British Labour history in 19241931, or 1931-1938, would reveal a pattern in no essential respect different from that demonstrated in the first seven years after the Bolshevik accession to power. In questions of foreign policy the Labour Party persisted in its defense of the Soviet state. Convinced that other parties were employing a double standard, criticizing Russia for activities that went unnoticed in other states, Labour demanded consistency. While requesting no special privileges for Russia, every evidence of unequal treatment came under quick attack. As the self-declared protector of the Russian nation, the Labour Party sought initially to achieve its ends by appealing to the British sense of "fair play" and justice. When these entreaties failed, political and economic arguments were brought forward and the utilitarian instinct appealed to. A small minority in the Labour Party acted as if their campaign involved nothing less than the defense of Russia against British foes plotting her isolation and destruction. The more rational majority understood, particularly after 1920, that no British Government enterT H E GENERAL ELECTION

29O

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

tained such schemes. The peril consisted chiefly in the breaking off of whatever formal or informal relations happened to exist at a given moment. The crisis of 1923, and later those of 1927 and 1933, portended nothing more than that. In 1924, and again in 1929-1931, the Labour Party revealed the narrowness of its objectives in an unmistakable manner. N o party could have shown a greater deference for tradition than did the Labour Party when serving as His Majesty's Government. N o startling foreign policy innovations were promised and none were attempted. The Government, in recognizing the Soviet regime and seeking to stimulate trade, necessarily beneficial to both countries, exhausted the whole of its program. There is no reason to believe that if Labour had enjoyed an absolute majority in the Commons it would have attempted more. These facts notwithstanding, the gulf between Labour policy and that of the other parties was wide. Labour, instead of seeking constantly to disparage the Bolshevik regime, tempered its criticism with careful adherence to the known facts. Outraged by what appeared as a planned offensive carried on by Russia's detractors in the press and Parliament, Labour leaders sought to combat such calumny with reasoned argument. The violence of the "Tory" attack, and the disingenuousness of much of its argument, poisoned the political atmosphere and left the Labour Party mistrustful and unbelieving. The situation grew sufficiently grave, at times, for men to lose their sense of proportion and argue as if Conservative Governments could do no right and Russia no wrong. In the handling of postwar diplomatic and economic problems, Lloyd George and his Coalition Ministry left a sorry heritage of Labour skepticism. The Labour Party suffered politically through its support of the Soviet regime. The opposition, anxious to create a myth of Russian Communist-British Labour solidarity, used every evidence of friendship to bolster this theme. After years of attempting to meet the argument, Labour leaders realized the futility of the effort, and admitted that there would always be a few who believed socialism led to communism, and that the British Labour Party served a group of Communist masters. The Labour Party could never expect to enlighten these men; the others, who saw, heard, and read of the

CONCLUDING REMARKS

29I

day-to-day struggle betweeen socialism and communism, Labour aspired to reach. Labour-Communist rivalry—nationally and internationally—never subsided. T h e initial Labour Party refusal to permit Communist Party affiliation established something of a precedent. T h e Communists progressed not at all in their design. Within the trade unions, they enjoyed somewhat greater success, and for a time, appeared to have discovered in them an avenue to power. But in this too they were disappointed. Although Communists captured individual trade union branches and occasionally the leadership of small unions like the Electrical Trades Union, they made little impress on the great trade union majority. In continuing to abuse the existing trade union leadership, the Communists grew increasingly perverse, and soon found even the most tolerant unsympathetic to their appeals. T h e trade union hierarchy, pledged to eternal opposition, resisted the Communists by revising union constitutions, conducting "disruption" inquiries, and expelling relcalcitrant members. In the end, in most unions, the Communists were silenced, reduced, or ousted. T h e T . U . C , remained largely impervious to Communist pressure; after 1926, Bevin and Citrine, both violent anti-Communists, were in full control there. Within the Labour Party, small groups clamored constantly for a closer alliance with Soviet Russia. T h e call originated in I.L.P. circles in the early 20's; after the 1924 defeat, the trade unions produced leaders anxious for such unity. T h e general strike led the Communists to condemn many of these "friends of Russia" for the weakness and indecision they had shown in a moment of crisis. Hicks, Swales, and others learned their lesson, and directed their energies to new pursuits. Cook, Maxton, and Lansbury remained faithful to their pro-Russian belief, but age and death took its toll, and by the mid30's this I.L.P.-trade union group was all but extinct. In the 30's, intellectuals made much of "united fronts" and "popular fronts," but trade unionists remained aloof, and nothing came of the slogans. N o combination of pressures seemed sufficient to induce socialistcommunist unity, nationally or internationally. In the first years after the revolution, the Labour Party established a policy from which it never seriously deviated. Friendship for Soviet

292

BRITISH LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Russia and its peoples; material and moral aid to Russia when she came under attack from without; hostility towards Moscow's creations, national and international—these were the principal tenets of the Labour Party credo. Faithful to its parliamentary tradition, convinced that one day it would enjoy power as Keir Hardie had predicted it would, the Labour Party saw the revolution as creating new problems but as indicating no new directions. British socialism showed itself the insular, traditional, empirical movement it professed to be.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL N O T E

Bibliographical

Note

The Labour Party, in the period 1917-1924, showed considerable respect for its so-called "democratic" organizational procedures. The party conference, while not entirely free of pressures from the Executive, continued to offer an opportunity for the easy communication of rank-andfile sentiment. The Labour Party Annual Conference Reports provide evidence of Labour Party opinion on all major questions. The annual meetings of the Trades Union Congress served much the same function. The Annual Reports of the T.U.C, are filled with important statements of trade union policy. The Annual Conference Reports of the Independent Labour Party are less useful. While major speeches are given verbatim, all others are summarized. A comparison of the contents of these volumes with reports in the I.L.P. press suggest a less than satisfactory editing. Individual trade unions, particularly the larger ones, published reports of their delegate conferences. Since most of their business was narrowly industrial, these reports have no great utility for the general historian. Exception needs to be made, however, for the Miners' Federation, whose activities, frequently political in character, receive full documentation in their Annual Volumes of Proceedings. The Transport Workers' Federation, concerned to clarify its position on the "Black Friday" debacle, published reports of considerable value. Ordinarily, however, trade union conference and special reports carry little of interest to the political historian. The unpublished reports of Labour Party Executive meetings, unavailable to researchers for any period, undoubtedly contain materials of major

296

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

importance for Labour Party policy studies. The unpublished Reports and Minutes of the Advisory Committee on International Questions, which were examined in the present instance, indicate something of the value of such unpublished data. They provide insight into internal party divisions, reveal arguments not otherwise aired, and contribute to an understanding of the procedures of policy formation. The Executive's minutes, if made available, would offer such information over a much larger field. T h e proceedings of the Parliamentary Labour Party are also unpublished and unavailable. This is a no less serious loss. Although much that is said in the closed Parliamentary Labour Party sessions is undoubtedly repeated on the floor of the Commons, some of the minority opinions are not. T h e Parliamentary Debates have great importance, revealing as they do the official Labour Party position on all major policy matters. Labour members, often independent, speak their minds freely, and communicate something of the differences that exist within the party. However, except in extraordinary circumstances, Parliament is not the place where Labour Party feuds are aired. T h e Labour Party has never enjoyed sufficient wealth to establish large periodical and newspaper enterprises. The result has been an insufficient publicizing of its views. The Daily Herald, which was Lansbury's personal newspaper till 1922, became the Labour Party's sole national daily. T h e party launched a monthly in May 1922, the Labour Magazine. Except for these, the party depended on the journals of its friends and constituent elements. T h e I.L.P. published a weekly, the Labour Leader (New Leader, after September 1922), and the Socialist Review, a monthly. In Glasgow, Forward existed to express I.L.P. opinion along the Clyde. Trade unions frequently published monthlies, but these rarely ventured into the area of politics. The British Trades Union Review, which ceased publication in April 1922, was conventional and unimportant. Friendly journals like the New Statesman served as a vehicle for Labour Party opinion. The Communists, appreciating the importance of newspapers and periodicals for their propaganda, experienced little difficulty in maintaining several. Inheriting The Call from the British Socialist Party, they converted it into a weekly, The Communist. The Worker was another Communist weekly that issued out of London. T h e Workers' Weekly, important in the Campbell case, came into being in February 1923. T h e Communist Review, a monthly, started up in May 1921. In July of the same year Labour Monthly made its first appearance. Both of these pub-

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

297

lished long theoretical Marxist analyses of important events. These various Communist organs provide considerable information on the character, activities, and propaganda of the British Communist Party, and are therefore invaluable. The rivalry between the non-Communist and Communist Internationals, in which Britons assumed key roles, receives full documentation in publications issued by the Second and Third Internationals. Both organizations published extensive accounts of their meetings and resolutions. Biographies and autobiographies are among the most important secondary sources for the period. Except for Ramsay MacDonald, about whom no adequate biography can be written till his papers are released by his heirs, there are acceptable biographies for the major Labour Party leaders. Mary Agnes Hamilton, in Arthur Henderson, has done an exceptionally able piece under severe handicaps. Henderson, like most other Labour Party leaders, wrote relatively little, and kept almost none of his correspondence. The Life of George Lansbury by Raymond Postgate, while somewhat uncritical, contains valuable information on the man and his times. In his Autobiography, Philip Snowden left a major document for the study of Labour Party history. J. R. Clynes and J. H. Thomas produced autobiographies of a less satisfactory sort. Both men would profit from new biographical researches. Socialism over Sixty Years: The Life of fowett of Bradford, by Fenner Brockway, might serve as a model for such studies. The Communist autobiographies of Gallacher, Murphy, and Pollitt, while polemical, provide some useful material on the activities and beliefs of the founders of the British Communist Party. The biographical resources for other British political leaders—Conservative and Liberal—are good. The more general histories of the Labour Party and the Communist Party are fairly conventional. Wherever possible, they avoid large interpretative questions and concern themselves with narrative only. G. D. H. Cole's empirical researches have been excellent; his materials will certainly serve any historian concerned to generalize about them. For the Communist Party, there is no history in any way comparable to Cole's History of the Labour Party Since 1914. This is a serious lack.

Index

Adamson, William, 30, 67-68, 105, 198, 223 Adler, Friedrich, 1 8 4 - 1 8 5 , 209-210 Advisory Committee on International Questions, 58-62, 84, 93, 224, 2 3 1 234 All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 44 Allen, Clifford, 1 9 2 - 1 9 6 , 201-202, 2 1 4 , 249 Allied intervention, 45, 57-62, 64-66, 70-78, 1 1 7 Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, 23. 34. 5 1 - 5 3 . 62 Anderson, William C., 38—39 Anglo-Russian Democratic Alliance, i8n. Arnot, R. Page, 159 Asquith, H. H., 257, 265, 271 Baldwin, Stanley, 257, 260, 2 7 1 , 2 7 3 274 Banbury, Sir Frederick, 251 Barnes, G. Ν., 27η., 28-29, 35 Bathurst, Lady, 42η. Beech, Dick, 130 Bevin, Ernest, 104; at Special Labour Party Conference on Stockholm, 30; at Leeds Convention, 3 7 - 3 8 ; on Polish attack on Russia, 92; on general strike, 98; and Council of Action, 1 0 5 - 1 0 7 , n o ; and "Black Friday," 165, 1 6 9 1 7 1 , 174-179, 181

"Bloc vote" system, 3 3 - 3 4 , 251 Bolshevism, 1 8 8 - 1 8 9 ; after March Revolution, 2 1 ; and November Revolution, 44; and Brest-Litovsk, 50; Labour Party policy towards, 5 1 , 242-244; and war aims, 52; Hyndman on, 55-56; I.L.P. attitude towards, 56, 7 1 , 1 9 0 - 1 9 2 ; Lansbury and Brailsford on, 57; Adamson and Lloyd George on, 67, 96; Wedgwood, Clynes, and Thomas on, 68-70; and White Army threats, 8 5 86; and Second International, 1 8 5 ; Bertrand Russell on, 2 2 0 - 2 2 1 ; Snowden and Webb on, 250 Bondfield, Margaret G., 1 0 4 - 1 0 5 , 214 Bowerman, C. W., 5 1 , 87η., 104 Brailsford, Η. N., 5 7 - 6 1 , 91, 232 Bramley, Fred, 147 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 49-50, 53-54 British Socialist Party (B.S.P.), 28, 30, 195; at Leeds Convention, 36, 40; and Bolshevik Revolution, 57; on intervention, 63, 97; and founding of Communist Party, 1 1 5 - 1 3 0 ; Lenin on, 1 3 2 133 Brockway, A. Fenner, 192, 249 Bromley, John, 105 Brownlie, J. T., 87η. B.S.P., see British Socialist Party Buchanan, George, 247, 2 5 1 - 2 5 2 Buchanan, Sir George, 24-25

300

INDEX

Burns, C. Delisle, 58 Butkevich, Monsignor, 236-237 Buxton, Charles R., 61, 203, 214, 218, 232 Buxton, Noel, 232 Call (The), 57, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 123, 125 Campbell case, 258-259, 265-274, 287 Carmichael, Duncan, 146 Carter, William, 23 Cecil, Lord Robert, 64-66, 93, 102 Chamberlain, Austen, 229, 275 Chicherin, G. V., 227, 233-234, 239-240 Churchill, Winston S., on allied intervention, 67-68; on troop withdrawal, 81; on Bolshevik military reverses, 83; criticized by Advisory Committee on International Questions, 84, 93; attacked by Daily Herald, Forward, MacDonald and Wallhead, 99-101; in 1924 General Election, 275 Clarke, John, 136-137 Clynes, J. R., 241, 248η., 260; and 1918 General Election, 67; on Bolshevism, 69; on "direct action," 74-77; on recognition, 87; on Russian-Polish conflict, 93, 104-105, 109-110; on famine relief, 228; attacked in Communist press, 252-254 Coalition Government, 1 2 - 1 3 , 66 Cole, G. D. H„ 58, 61, 167-168 Commons, House of, 18-21 Communist, The, 158-159, 165, 169-170 Communist Labour Party, 135, 137-138 Communist Party, 120-122, 124-130, 140-145, 271; discussed in Second Congress of Third International, 1 3 1 133; Unity Convention, 137—139; discussed at 1921 Labour Party Annual Conference, 146-148; and Labour Party questionnaire, 148—151; discussed at 1922 Labour Party Conference, 1 5 1 152; and united front tactic, 153-157; and trade unions, 160; and "Black Friday," 161-165, 168-172, 179-182; and 1922 General Election, 246-247; attacks on trade union leaders, 252253; at 1923 T.U.C. Annual Conference, 254-255; and Zinoviev note, 276

Communist Party (British section of the Third International), 127-129, 136138 Communist Trade Union International, 172 Conservative Party, 245, 257-259, 267, 269, 271, 274-275, 282-288 Cook, A. J., 146-148, 176 Council of Action, 105-108, 1 1 0 - 1 1 4 , 149, 151 Cramp, C. T., 104-105, 165, 170 Crawford, Helen, 130 Crooks, Will, 67 Curzon, Lord, 94-95, 103, 232-233, 236239 Daily Express (The), 228 Daily Herald (The), 70, 81, 170, 238; on aid to White armies, 84; on Poland, 91-92; publishes "strictly confidential" document, 99; attacks Churchill, 99100; on Russian-Polish conflict, 104105; on "Black Friday," 165-166; on Russia and Bolshevism, 188-189; on the Third International, 192-193; on Russia, 2 1 1 , 226 Daily Mail (The), 212, 225, 277 Daily News (The), 32, 238; on British press and Kornilov, 42-43; on Bolshevik Revolution, 45-46; on Russian famine, 226 Daily Telegraph (The), 212, 225 Davison, C. F., 237, 239-240 Denikin, General A. I., 72, 84-86 Dickinson, G. Lowes, 58 "Direct action," agitation for, 1 1 - 1 2 , 67; debated in Labour Party and T.U.C. Conferences, 73-78; Henderson and Thomas on, 79; MacDonald and Snowden on, 80-81; Colonel Malone on, 98; Council of Action and, 105, n o , 1 1 2 - 1 1 4 ; S.L.P. on, 119; I.L.P. on, 191 Duma, the, 16-19 Dutt, R. Palme, 159 Ensor, R. C. K., 61 Fabian Society, 8-9 Fairchild, E. C., 118

INDEX Farbman, Michael, 22, 2 1 1 Fischer, Louis, 281-282 Forward, ioon.-ioin., 142-143, 247 Gallacher, William, 39; at Second Congress of Third International, 130, 1 3 2 133; and Lenin, 134-135; and Unity Convention, 138-139; on trade union leaders, 252 General Elections (1906), 10; (December and January 1910), 1 1 ; (1918), 66-67; (1922), 245-247; (1923), 257; (1924), 271-288 General strike, see "Direct action" George V, King, 41 Georgia, 205-208 Germany, 29, 37-38, 45, 48, 53-54, 230 Glasier, J. Bruce, 17, 62-63 Gosling, Harry, 105, 1 7 0 - 1 7 1 , 198, 205 Greenwood, Arthur, 232 Grey, Sir Edward, 17, n o Guchkov, Α., 2 i , 23 Guest, L. Haden, 214, 217-218 Hall, H. Duncan, 58 Hamilton, Mary Agnes, 24 Hardie, James Keir, 8-9, 1 1 - 1 2 Harding, Mrs. Stan, 237, 239-240 Hastings, Sir Patrick, 265-269 Hayday, Arthur, 78 Henderson, Arthur, 212, 277; on "direct action," h , 79; Russian mission, 2425; and Stockholm proposal, 25-28, 30-31, 34-35; on Brest-Litovsk, 49-50, 54-55; Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, 5 1 ; on British-Russian policy, 86; on Polish-Russian war, 104105; on Communist Party affiliation, 130, 145, 147; and restoration of Second International, 184; Third International, 189, 193-194, 210; on recognition, 234-235 Herald (The), i8n., 36, 62, 70 Hodges, Frank, 74, 77-78, 105, 1 5 1 ; and "Black Friday," 163-165, 170, 1 7 2 173 Home, Sir Robert, 223-224, 263-264, 267-268 Huysmans, Camille, 58 Hyndman, H. M., 8, 55-56, 116

301

Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.), 7 9, 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 , 123; and the war, 1 1 - 1 3 , 49; and March Revolution, 18, 20-23; Labour criticism of, 28, 30; at Leeds Convention, 36, 40; Prime Minister on, 48; on recognition and intervention, 56-58, 62-63, 7 1 ; and 1918 General Election, 66; on Polish attack on Russia, 92; and the Third International, 187-188, 195-197, 202-203; memorandum on Socialism and Government, 190-191; joins Vienna Union, 201; Allen and Wallhead report to, 2 0 1 202; rejoins Labour Party in single Labour and Socialist International, 209210; and 1922 General Election, 246247; and Communism, 248-249 Inkpin, Albert, 36η., n 6 , 123, 145, 267 Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, see Allied Labour and Socialist Conference International Commission for Famine Relief, 227 International Federation of Trade Unions, 179, 201, 208 International, Second, 183, 201; restoration of, 184-187; I.L.P. opinion on, 189, 1 9 1 - 1 9 2 ; Labour Party debate on, 194-195; meeting at Geneva, 1 9 7 199; and Third International, 204209; and Vienna Union, 209 International, Third (Comintern), 120, 122, 128-129, 138-139, 149-150, 170η., 2io; Second Congress of, 130133, 140-144; Third Congress of, 143-144, 1 5 2 - 1 5 3 ; and united front, 153-154, 204-205; First Congress of, 185-186; and I.L.P., 187-197, 2 0 1 203; meeting with Second International and Vienna Union, 206-209; and Zinoviev note, 275, 279 Izvestiia, 44 Jackson, Τ. Α., 157, i8o Johnson, Francis, 36η. "Jolly George," 92, 98 Jones, Jack, 174, 253 Jowett, F. W., 8, 12, 197-198, 247, 280 Kenworthy, Lt. Com. Joseph M., 90, 262η.

302

INDEX

Kerensky, Α., 23, 32, 4 Ι _ 4 2 , 116 "Khaki Election," see General Election (1918)

Koltchak, Admiral Α . V., 69, 72-73, 8586, 99 Kornilov, L. G., 41-42 Krassin, L. B., 95-96, 107 Kropotkin, Prince P., 216-218 Labour Leader, 92 Labour Party, 7 - 1 3 , 176, 193, 204, 206, 209, 234; and March Revolution, 1 9 20, 22; on war aims, 23, 47; and Stockholm Conference, 27-30, 33-34; and Provisional Government, 43; in the 1918 General Election, 66-67; and the 1919 Annual Conference, 70, 7 4 76; on intervention and aid to White armies, 72-76, 84-85; warning of moderates, 87-89; report on Russia, 97; and the 1920 Annual Conference, 97-99; rejects Communist Party affiliation, 130, 144-145; Lenin on, 132133; Third International on, 144; and the 1921 Annual Conference, 146—148; and the 1922 Annual Conference, 151— 152; and the Third International, 194195; and the Second International, 197—199; delegation to Russia, 214— 217; on credits and famine relief, 228; on the Rapallo Treaty, 230—231; on recognition, 235—236; on Bolshevism, 242-244; and the 1922 General Election, 245-247; and the 1923 Annual Conference, 251; and the 1924 General Election, 272-275, 282-288 Labour Party Executive, 23, 25, 163, 204, 224, 234; and Stockholm, 25-26; and war aims, 46—47; and Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, 51; on Polish-Russian conflict, 105; and Communist affiliation, 148-152; and Second International, 198-200; on 1924 election defeat, 281 Labour Representation Committee (L.R. C.), 9-10 Lansbury, George, 1 1 - 1 2 , i8n., 104, 170η., 217, 247, 262η., 267; and Leeds Convention, 36; on Bolshevism, 57; on intervention, 70; on "Black

Friday," 166; on Russia and Third International, 188-189; on I.L.P. and Third International, 192-193; on Lenin, 195; report on Russia, 212-214 Law, Andrew Bonar, 18, 20, 91η., 107, 232; on Provisional Government and Stockholm Conference, 32-33; on intervention, 72-73; on League of Nations, 93-94; on Churchill and Koltchak, 99-100; on Council of Action, 111—112 League of Nations, 47, 93-95, 101-102, no Leeds Convention, 28, 36—40, 149, 151 Leeper, Rex (Reginald), 58, 60-62 "Left-Wing Section of the I.L.P.," 1 3 5 136 Lenin, N., 44, 50-52, 54, 258; and founding of Communist Party, 123, 125-130; at Second Congress of Third International, 1 3 1 - 1 3 3 ; Left- Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, 1 3 3 134; and Gallacher, 134-135; and Lansbury, 195, 213; and Allen, 202 Liberal Party, 8, 11, 257-258, 269, 274275, 282-288 "Lib-Lab," 9 Lindsay, Kenneth, 286η. Litvinov, M., 5r, 87, 116 Lloyd George, David, 164, 232; on Henderson and Stockholm, 24, 26η.27η., 31-32; on war aims, 47-49; and the 1918 General Election, 67; on Bolshevism and intervention, 67, 69, 8687; on recognition, 87, 90; on trade with Russia, 89; on aid to Poland, 90; and Krassin, 95-96; on Polish Russian conflict, 101-102; and Council of Action, 105-108, i n — 1 1 2 ; and "Black Friday," 170-174; on famine relief, 226, 228-229; and 1922 Genoa Conference, 230; on Russian Treaty, 263-265 Longuet, Jean, 184-185 Lvov, Prince G., 23 MacArthur, Mary, 198 MacDonald, James Ramsay, 9, 1 1 - 1 2 , 81, 210, 232; visits Russia, 23-25; and Stockholm, 26, 29, 32; at Leeds Convention, 36-37; on Brest-Litovsk, 55;

INDEX on recognition, 57, 240-241; joins A d visory Committee o n International Questions, 58; on Lenin and intervention, 63; o n "direct action," 80; on Churchill, 84, 100; o n Council of A c tion, 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 ; C o m m u n i s t attack on, 142; on British Communists, 151; and Second and T h i r d Internationals, 186187, 191-192,194, 197, 202-203, 205206; on Genoa Conference and Rapallo Treaty, 231; and Clydeside contingent, 247-248; as Prime Minister, 257, 271272; and Russian treaty, 260, 263, 265; o n Campbell case, 270; and Zinoviev note, 277-280 MacLaine, W i l l i a m , 130, 132 Maclean, John, 118 MacLean, Neil, 74, 198 MacManus, Arthur, 129, 139, 145, 148, 157 Malone, Col. Cecil L'Estrange, 85, 9798, 212η. Manchester

Guardian

(The),

16, 85η.,

237-238; on the tsar, 1 9 - 2 0 ; on Brit-

3°3

National Union of Railwaymen, see Railw a y m e n , National Union of Naylor, George, 166-167 New Statesman (The), 64 " N e w U n i o n s , " 13-14 N e w b o l d , J. T . W „ 136, 157 N e w t o n , L o r d , 29 Northclifle, Lord, 42η., 84 O'Grady,

James,

23-24, 28, 104-105,

212, 223 Osborn Judgment, 14 Pacifism, r 2, 18-19,

30, 40, 55-56,

58, 64, ιι6 Pankhurst, Sylvia, 39, 135; and Workers' Socialist Federation, 119-120, 123-128; at Second Congress of T h i r d International, 130, 133; and Unity Convention, 138 Parliamentary Committee o f Trades Union Congress, see Trades Union C o n gress, Parliamentary Committee Parliamentary Labour Party, 58, 105, 117,

Krassin, 96; reporting on Russia, 211-

163, 234 Paul, William, 156 Petrograd, Soviet, see Soviet Poland, 88-94, 97. 99> 101-103, 107-iri Pollitt, H a r r y , 151-152, 155-156, 254255

212; o n Russian famine, 226-227

Ponsonby, Arthur,

ish press and Provisional Government, 41; o n Bolshevik Revolution, 45-46; and secret treaties, 46; on Allied intervention,

62; on L l o y d

George and

M a n n , T o m , 1 1 , 40, 104 Marxism, 8, 28η., 188, 251 Maxton, James, 247, 251-252, 267-268 M c N e i l l , Ronald, 241-242, 263 Meynell, Francis, 170-171 Middleton, J. S., 105 Miliukov, P., 21-23 Miners' Federadon of Great Britain,

11-

12, 147-148, 151; and Stockholm, 33; in the 1918 General Election, 66; o n intervention, 71-72; and " B l a c k

Fri-

d a y , " 161, 164, 167, 172-180 Minority movement, 252η. Morel, E. D . , 232, 235, 262η. Morning

Post (The),

42, 44-45, 212, 225

Morris, W i l l i a m , 8 Morrison, Herbert, 70, 198, 271 Mosley, Sir Oswald, 286η. Murphy, J. T . , 130, 155

19, 46, 64-65, 232,

260-265 Travia, 44 Price, M . Philips, 211-212 Provisional Government, 21, 31-33, 54 Purcell, A l f r e d , 104-105, 129, 214, 262η., 267 Purdy, W . F., 87η. Queich, T o m , 130 Radek, Κ . , 209 Railwaymen, National Union o f , 12, 9293; a n d " B l a c k F r i d a y , " 161, 164, 172-178 Rakovski, C . , 260-261, 276 Ramsay, Dave, 130-133 Ransome, Arthur, 32, 211 Riley, Ben, 202 Roberts, George, 23 Rothstein, Theodore, 58

3°4

INDEX

Russell, Bertrand, 219-222 Russia, 1 6 - 1 7 , 21-23, 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 ; and Kornilov, 41-42; Bolshevik success in, 44. 45. 57, 87, 97. 1 1 ° . " 2 , 2 3 4 236, 240-244, 259-260; and BrestLitovsk, 53-54; and White armies, 83, 85-86; and Poland, 91, 97, 101-103, 1 0 6 - 1 1 2 ; trade with, 223-224; famine in, 224-230; at 1922 Genoa Conference, 230; and "Near Eastern crisis" ( 1 9 2 2 - 1 9 2 3 ) , 231-234; dispute with Britain, 236-242; treaty with Britain, 258-265, 269-274, 287 Sailors' and Firemen's Union, 13, 25 Salter, Dr. Alfred, 56 Scurr, John, 267 S.D.F., see Social Democratic Federation Second International, see International, Second "Secret treaties," 44, 46, 48 Sexton, James, 28-30 Shaw, George Bernard, 8 Shaw, T o m , 67, 78, 97, 102, 194-195, 198, 205, 214 Shinwell, Emanuel, 1 4 6 - 1 4 7 , 192, 194, 252η. Simon, Sir John, 269 Skinner, Herbert, 214 S.L.P., see Socialist Labour Party S.L.P. Unity Committee, see Socialist Labour Party Unity Committee Smillie, Robert, 34, 38, 40, 76, 105, n o Smith, Herbert, 147, 1 7 0 - 1 7 1 , 175, 1 7 8 179, 181 Snowden, Ethel, 137, 214, 2 1 8 - 2 1 9 Snowden, Philip, 8, 12, 20, 46, 197, 241, 247, 248η., 277; o n Provisional Government and Stockholm Conference, 33; at Leeds Convention, 37; on war aims, 49; and Brest-Litovsk, 55; on recognition, 57, 235; on intervention, 62, 7 0 - 7 1 ; on "direct action," 80-81; on Churchill, 84; on Polish-Russian war, 103; on Lansbury and the Third International, 190; on Bolshevism, 250; on 1924 General Election, Zinoviev note and Campbell case, 280-281 Social Démocratie Federation (S.D.F.), 8 - 1 0 , 1 1 5 , 118, 249

Socialist Labour Party, 1 1 8 - 1 2 8 Socialist Labour Party Unity Committee, 121-122, 126-127, I 2 9 South Wales Socialist Society, 120-122, 124, 126 Soviet, The, 21-23, 26, 42 Soviets, Leeds Convention on, 38-39; B.S.P. on, 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 ; W.S.F. on, 120; resolution on, 1 2 1 ; Lenin on, 1 2 5 - 1 2 6 ; Communist party on, 129-149; and I.L.P., 187, 1 9 0 - 1 9 1 , 196; Third International on, 196-197 Spender, J. Α., 238-239 Stockholm Conference, 23, 25-30, 33-34 Spoor, Ben, 104 Stephen, Campbell, 247, 2 5 1 - 2 5 2 Stewart, Bob, 179 Stuart-Bunning, G. H., 76 Stürmer, Β., ι 6 Sunday Pictorial (The), 55 Swales, A . B., 105 Syndicalism, see "direct action" Taff Vale Judgment, 10, 14 Tanner, Jack, 130-133, 138 Tereschcnko, M. I., 24 Third International, see International, Third Thomas, J. H., 29, 67, 198; on Bolshevism and intervention, 68-70; on "direct action," 79; and Council of Action, n o , 114η.; and "Black Friday," 1 6 3 - 1 6 5 , 169-170, 177, 179; on famine relief, 226; on censure motion, 271; on Zinoviev note, 277 Thorne, Will, 23-24, 28, 41, 198, 212, 253 Tillett, Ben, 40, 67, 74 Times (The), 237; on the March Revolution, 19; on Kornilov, Kerensky, and the Soviet, 42; on the Bolshevik Revolution, 45; on imminence of war, 103104; on Russia, 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 ; on Russian famine, 225, 228 Toynbee, Arnold, 58, 231-232 Trade unions, 9 - 1 4 ; and British government, 48; on war aims, 49; on intervention, 58, 63; in 1918 General Election, 66-67; on Poland's attack on

INDEX Russia, 92-93; and Communist Party,

Working

Union

of

Socialist

Parties, 200-201, 204-210

160 Trades Union Congress ( T . U . C . ) , 7, 14, 206, 234; on war aims, 47; o n intervention, 72; and 1919 Annual Conference, 76-79; delegation to Russia, 2 1 4 217; and famine relief, 228; C o m m u nists

SOS

Vienna

a n d 1923

Annual

Conference,

254-255 Trades Union Congress, Parliamentary Committee, 12, 163; and Stockholm, 30, 34; and Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, 51; and intervention, 7273; criticized in Annual Conference, 76-77; o n Polish-Russian war, 105; converted into General Council, 255η. Transport Workers' Federation, 12; and " B l a c k Friday," 161, 164, 172-178 Trevelyan, Charles, 231 Triple Alliance, 12, 72, 81; and " B l a c k F r i d a y , " 161, 165-168, 172-178 Trotsky, L., 44, 53, 213 T . U . C . , see Trades Union Congress T u r k e y , 47, 48, 231-233 T u r n e r , Ben, 214 " T w o - a n d - a - H a l f " International, see V i enna W o r k i n g Union o f Socialist Parties Union of Democratic Control, 46, 64 "United F r o n t , " 153-157, 204-205, 207209, 247, 255 Vandervelde, E m i l , 206

Wallhead, R . C., 39, 100, 195-196, 201, 205, 214, 230, 248-249, 262η. W a r aims, 21-24, 2 9 . 3 7 . 4 6 - 4 9 , 5 i ~ 5 3 . 116 W a r Cabinet, 26-27, 3°> 3 5 Wardle, G . J., 26 Walsh, Stephen, 104 W e b b , Sidney, 8, 58, 61, 197, 250-251 Wedgwood, J . C., 69, 85, 90, 105, 226 Wels, Otto, 206 Wheatley, J o h n , 247, 251-252 Wilkinson, Ellen, 255 Williams, Francis, 281 Williams, Robert, 39, 76, 104-105, 214; and " B l a c k F r i d a y , " 165, 168-170, 177, 179 Wilson, J . Havelock, 25 Wilson, W o o d r o w , 49 W o o l f , Leonard, 58, 60-61, 232 Women's Dreadnought, 119-120

Workers'

Dreadnought,

120, 123, 128,

138 Workers" Socialist Federation ( W . S . F . ) , 119-128 Workers' Suffrage Federation, 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 Workers' Weekly, 252-254, 266-268 Wrangel, General P. Ν . , 109-110 W . S . F . , see Workers' Socialist Federation Yudenitch, General Ν . N . , 85-86 Zinoviev note, 259, 275-282, 287-288

HARVARD HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS ι . Athenian Tribal Cycles in the Hellenistic Age. By W. S. Ferguson. 1932. 2. The Private Record of an Indian Governor-Generalship. Hie Correspondence of Sir John Shore, Governor-General, with Henry Dundas, President of the Board of Control, 1 7 9 3 - 1 7 9 8 . Edited by Holden Furber. 1933. 3. The Federal Railway Land Subsidy Policy of Canada. By J. B. Hedges. 1934. 4. Russian Diplomacy and the Opening of the Eastern Question in 1838 and 1839. By P. E. Mosely. 1934. 5. The First Social Experiments in America. A Study in the Development of Spanish Indian Policy in the Sixteenth Century. By Lewis Hanke. 1935.* 6. British Propaganda at Home and in the United States from 1 9 1 4 to 1 9 1 7 . By J. D. Squires. 1935.* 7. Bernadotte and the Fall of Napoleon. By F. D. Scott. 1935. 8. The Incidence of the Terror During the French Revolution. A Statistical Interpretation. By Donald Greer. 1935. 9. French Revolutionary Legislation on Illegitimacy, 1789-1804. By Crane Brinton. 1936. 10. An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Ages. The Bishopric of Bayeux, 10661204. By S. E. Gleason. 1936. 1 1 . Chinese Traditional Historiography. By C. S. Gardner. 1938.* 12. Studies in Early French Taxation. By J. R. Strayer and C. H. Taylor. 1939. 1 3 . Muster and Review. A Problem of English Military Administration 1420-1440. By R. A. Newhall. 1940. 14. Portuguese Voyages to America in the Fifteenth Century. By S. E. Morison. 1940. 15. Argument from Roman Law in Political Thought, 1200-1600. By M. P. Gilmore. 1941.* 16. The Huancavelica Mercury Mine. A Contribution to the History of the Bourbon Renaissance in the Spanish Empire. By A. P. Whitaker. 1 9 4 1 . 17. The Palace School of Muhammed the Conqueror. By Barnette Miller. 1 9 4 1 . 18. A Cistercian Nunnery in Mediaeval Italy. By Catherine E. Boyd. 1943. 19. Vassi and Fideles in the Carolingian Empire. By C. E. Odegaard. 1945. 20. Judgment by Peers. By Barnaby C. Keeney. 1949. 2 1 . The Election to the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1 9 1 7 . By O. H. Radkey. 1950. 22. Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam. By Daniel C. Dennett. 1950. 23. Albert Gallatin and the Oregon Problem. By Frederick Merk. 1950. 24. The Incidence of the Emigration during the French Revolution. By Donald Greer. 1 9 5 1 . 25. Alterations of the Words of Jesus as Quoted in the Literature of the Second Century. By Leon E. Wright. 1952. 26. Liang Ch'i-Ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China. By Joseph R. Levenson. 1953· 27. The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen. By Marius Β. Jansen. 1954. 28. English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century. By Robert Walcott, Jr. 1956. 29. The Founding of the French Socialist Party ( 1 8 9 3 - 1 9 0 5 ) . By Aaron Noland. 1956· * Out of print.