Comintern – Breaking the Fetters

Comrades: Rab Stewart.

This was a first draft of a chapter from the biography of Bob Stewart I’m currently writing, tentatively titled Everything You Get Must Be Fought For. Much of the material here will make it in the rewrite but the chapter as a whole is, unlikely to survive. I thought I’d post it here as I loved learning more about my dad’s uncle. Many thanks to Rab’s daughter, Linda – I hope we can meet up again soon. Thanks also to Ros Sitwell who found material on Rab in The Daily Worker – it was enormously helpful.

Bob had named his first child after his father. When his second came along in 1906, he gave him his own name. To avoid the muddle of having two Roberts, two Bobs in the household, the younger son was forever known as Rab. However, as if to add to the confusion, Rab also went on to marry a woman named Margaret.

Rab became active in the trade union movement at the age of 16 when he began working as a printer which, in Dundee, meant working for the press baron DC Thompson. Today, of course, the company he founded is famous for being the publisher of The Beano and The Dandy – something commemorated by statues of cowpie connoisseur Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx situated in the city’s High Street. However, in the 1920s Bob and other communists viewed it as a bastion of the reactionary right wing press- its conservative leaning title The Dundee Courier being particularly critical of their activities. Although, to be fair, as Bob mentioned in his memoirs, the Courier was also pretty vituperative about Winston Churchill during his time as an MP there.

The 1926 General Strike was a turning point. Rab evidently played his part and was victimised for it. Thompson was furious with the strike and the damage it did to newspaper revenues. As a punishment he would only allow those who took industrial action to return if they made a formal apology and presented a document proving that they had left their union. Rab was one of those who lost their jobs. The sacked printers set up their own paper The Dundee Free Press which ran for around a decade. It’s likely that Rab had some involvement with this although in 1927 he came to London and found a job with the The Daily Chronicle and joined the National Society of Operative Printers. He became a shop steward or, as they were termed in the printing trade, a Father of Chapel and throughout the Second World War was an organiser for the Daily Worker League, drumming up funds and support for the CPGB’s paper.

Though our conversations about his family were rare, my dad always spoke of his uncle with great affection. My brother recalls an incident during the 1980s which shows the influence he had. When we were younger our family took both The Observer and The Sunday Times – the latter for balance. This lasted until the Wapping dispute when Dad refused to buy the Murdoch paper ever again in solidarity with striking printworkers. A small act from a man who was vaguely left but not party political. One afternoon during the summer holidays my brother was working as a pot boy and heard raised voices in the main bar. Dad was in a heated discussion with a holidaymaker from London.

It turned out that he was an electrician working at Wapping, and very pleased with himself he was too. Dad was politely refusing him further service, and the exchange went like this:

Electrician: I can spend my money how I bloody well please!

Dad: Yes squire, but I don’t have to take it. Goodbye.

As the man left with his family, muttering under his breath and the regulars sat in stunned silence, Dad said out loud, “I don’t mind a man scabbing, we’ve all got to eat, but he was proud of it. My uncle was Father of Chapel.” The bar then returned to its normal sleepy midweek hum, as Dad, now aware that my brother had seen this, told him, “Don’t tell Mum I lost my cool, I shouldn’t have done that.”

However, as well as his lifelong career in the printing trade, Rab, along with the rest of the family, also dipped his toe into secret work. Letters in various files in the National Archives reveal that in the mid 1930s he was living in Moscow and attending the International Lenin School. The ILS was a Comintern initiative founded in order to shape the outlook of generations of communist leaders from all over the world – in JT Murphy’s words it was to be “a real revolutionary university capable of training revolutionary workers for real Communist leadership.” Its most famous graduate was probably Yugoslavia’s Marshal Tito followed by the GDR’s Erich Honecker. The idea was to fashion a revolutionary elite free from the ‘taint’ of social democracy. There was an academic curriculum focussing on subjects such as Philosophy, Politics and Economics although I imagine this was very unlike Oxford University’s PPE as taken by UK Prime Ministers David Cameron and Liz Truss and right wing Labour figures such as Rachel Reeves. There were further courses such as Trade Union Organization and the History of the Russian Communist Party but, most significantly, the school also provided training in practical underground political work.

Over the years the CPGB sent around 160 comrades to the ILS and, in keeping with the Comintern’s impatience with the British party’s less than stellar record in achieving revolution, the British recruits tended not to impress. Nevertheless, MI5 and MI6 maintained a keen interest in anyone found to have attended the school and letters from Rab during his time at the ILS appear in Bob’s files. First of all, the security operatives were focussed on establishing that the pseudonym Robert Ness written on the envelopes was indeed Rab. All the ILS students had to adopt aliases but the family gossip content of the letters was a fairly good clue as to the true identity. Of course there was little mention of Rab’s activities at the school and scanning them for secret messages turned up nothing. Vague references to old friends and various visitors coming and going were of interest but there was nothing conclusive. However, while Military Intelligence found little to interest them within these pages, to me they provide a glimpse about Rab’s life and the lives of other British communists in the USSR including his sister who had moved there at around the same time.

In the grand tradition of the British traveller, one of the first things that Rab encountered in a far-off land was a debilitating bout of dysentery. In June 1934 he wrote to his parents warning that there would be a period when there would be no letters from him as he was about to get very busy. His work had suffered as a result of his poor health and he mentioned that he’d lost weight but felt he was on the mend. He noted that he had to be careful of his diet but that it wouldn’t be difficult as most things were “barren” and he stuck to basic foods like rice and fish. Partly due to his illness he hadn’t yet seen “any of our old friends” at that point and was keeping abreast of current affairs as he could get all the newspapers there. He described events in Britain as ‘lively’ but Moscow was, in his view, the opposite apart from the rescue of the Soviet Arctic explorer Otto Schmidt and his team whose vessel, the SS Chelyuskin, had become trapped in polar ice and sunk. A daring air rescue was planned and, after weeks of surviving on the ice floes, the scientists were given a heroes’ welcome along with the rescuers. Unable to join in due to his illness, Rab relayed what he heard about the event from friends and wrote of the “tremendous reception” the explorers were given and the huge parade thrown in their honour.

Rab had rallied enough to attend celebrations for the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in the autumn that year. He mentioned the excitement of watching thousands of people passing through the square and being involved in the various celebrations. He was kept very busy but he did feel a sense of isolation about being so far from his family. In response to a letter from Bob which included a lovely account of my father at one years old – “ A mouthful of teeth and we toddling legs off which he falls every few steps but he is rather a good-natured kid and seems used to the bumps.” – Rab replied that he loved hearing about “Bill’s kid” but it brought home how much he missed his own daughter, Moira and had written to her in the hope of a reply. In a subsequent letter he writes of his relief to hear from her and her mother.

However, what comes across in Rab’s letters is how much the cultural life of Moscow, such as it was, meant to him. In one letter he laments that, after attending a film festival, there were no new films for him to see. He urged Bob to catch Chapaev as soon as he was able. A war movie by the Vasilyev brothers about a Red Army commander from the Civil War, it became one of the most popular Soviet films of all time. It was well regarded and won prizes abroad in the USA and France. It is also apparently, Vladimir Putin’s favourite film. Rab also recommended a comedy Jolly Fellows and mentioned that he’d seen Rene Claire’s On the Roof of Paris once again after reminding his father they’d seen it at the Rialto some years previously. He went on to remark that the festival had created tremendous interest abroad and there were great musical and theatrical programmes planned. He mentioned that Paul Robeson had written very favourably about the Moscow theatre and anticipated many more performers coming to the USSR. Rab was very much looking forward to this. Music was his first love – both as a listener and as a performer. Bob had written in a previous letter of Rab and his wife keeping them all entertained singing into the “wee sma’ oors” and his surviving daughter, Linda, recalls a man whose favourite thing was to browse the record stores after work and arrive home with a new LP under his arm. He also had quite a fine voice. In a letter from March 1935 Rab’s sister described him singing the Robeson standards ‘Old Man River’ and ‘Pretty Little Fellah’ – presumably ‘Mighty Like a Rose’ – at a party thrown for a visiting Harry Pollitt. It sounds like quite a raucous evening. Before the party Nan, her husband and Rab had gone to the theatre and saw the first three acts of ‘Eugin Onegin’ before making their way to Pollitt’s bash. According to Nan, Pollitt, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, remarked that Rab’s voice would “make all the women there want to have babies.”

The letters from this time reveal quite a bond between Rab and Nan. It must have been a comfort to have family so close by in a strange place when he could barely speak the language. He called round often, joking that it was mainly to pinch her notepaper. The pair of them tease and gossip about each other in their letters home but ultimately Rab’s time in Moscow was relatively brief. It was Nan who had decided to make her life out there. A decision she would soon come to regret.

Forty Splendid Years

Bob Stewart pictured on a visit to Moscow in 1961.

The following article celebrating forty years of the Communist Party of Great Britain was written by Bob Stewart and appeared in the September 1960 issue of the journal Labour Monthly. At the time Bob was 83 years old and had ‘retired’ from active work three years earlier. The piece is written from the perspective of being one of the last men standing’ from the formation of the CPGB in 1920.

“HISTORY will record that the birth of a Communist Party in Britain was the outstanding event of the 1920’s. The fact that it was nearly three years after the Bolshevik victory of 1917 indicates the difficulties encountered and overcome before it saw the light of day. Small as the event appeared, it was nevertheless the political culmination of more than a hundred years of British working class struggle against the rule of the capitalist class. These years had inscribed indelible victories as well as many defeats on the banners of the oldest working class movement of Europe.

Along the years it built the modern Trade Union movement which despite weakness, sectionalism and betrayal is still a powerful weapon and a training ground for militant workers. It embraced Chartism which meant the intrusion into politics of revolutionary ideas and practices on a mass scale. It eventually cast off the manacles of the Liberal Party even if it is not vet free from their illusions. It gave birth to the Labour Party out of the strange assortment of Fabians, Independent Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation which became the British Socialist Party, the latter becoming a leading component of the Communist Party, and was itself affiliated to the Labour Party. Due to historic circumstances which I have not space to detail, the Labour Party has rejected a scientific outlook. It rejected Marxism, abhorred revolution, and has spent half a century confusing and befuddling the working class with hopes that capitalism would change its spots or at least let the right wing leaders of Labour paint them a different hue.

Necessarily capitalism imputed foreign parentage to the C.P. as it had done to Chartism and to early Socialist or other progressive movements. The mud refused to stick. The C.P. was bone and flesh of the British working class. Of course it had and is proud of its international connections. That also is a fine tradition of our class. The more immediate circumstances attending the birth of the C.P. may be thus described. Prior to 1914-18 and during the First World War there were outside of the official Labour Party many of the most class-conscious and militant workers who were split up amongst a number of more or less Marxist sects, e.g., the Socialist Labour Party, Workers’ Socialist Federation, South Wales Socialist Society, and many lesser bodies in various localities. These were largely concerned about the purity of their gospel. There were also the shop stewards, the workers’ committees and many unattached rebels, New Age readers, Guildsmen, etc. Amongst them were great agitators and strike leaders who had with Tom Mann and others headed the struggles of workers on Merseyside, Clyde and elsewhere before World War I.

August, 1914, saw official Labour, like official Social Democracy, dip their flags of red and appear in the flamboyant colours of the capitalists they were supposed to fight against. A sorry spectacle indeed, relieved if but a little by the few who kept the flag aloft. The course of the war brought hellish experiences to the workers. Along came Military Service Acts, which gave rise to an Anti-Conscription movement, Munitions Acts, Rent Acts, high prices. Out of these struggles the clamant need for unity, discipline and wider understanding was arising here, as in every country.

Then came 1917, and the glorious victory of the Russian workers and peasants. The movement in Britain was reborn out of the fires of war. On July 31 and August 1, 1920, after months of negotiation, a convention was brought together in London by the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Unity Conference, representing chiefly British Socialist Party, Communist Unity Group, South Wales Communist Council. (The unification was completed in the early months of 1921. The Leeds Congress in January, 1921, brought in the Scottish Communist Labour Party, whose leading members included William Gallacher and J. R. Campbell; while the left wing of the Independent Labour Party, including Shapurji Saklatvala, came in a month or two afterwards.)

At this founding convention in August, 1920, well-known figures included Bob Williams of the Transport Workers Federation, A. A. Purcell, Colonel Malone, William Mellor, Joe Vaughan, Arthur McManus, Tom Bell, William Paul and Albert Inkpin. Of the Provisional Executive elected I fear I am now alone. Some have done their day and passed on. Others sought other fields and have faded from my memory. The convention was serious and full of zeal, sharply divided on the question of affiliation to the Labour Party, but when Paul and Hodgson had finished debate and affiliation was carried the Conference agreed in unanimity. I recollect that after the convention finished on the Sunday, a group comprising Bill Hewlett of Wales, Bill Jackson of Sheffield, Frank Simpson of Perth, George Anderson of Coatbridge, Fred Douglas and myself from Dundee were steered by Jock Laurie of Aberdeen to what he called the ‘Merble Airch’. Before long we were spectators at a B.S.P. meeting. Jock said, ‘the speaker’s gey cauld’. Off he went and how he managed it I had not time to find out before I was hustled through the crowd and found myself making what I suppose must have been the first report back of the first Party Conference, which was received with great enthusiasm. Then to the train, where fate had delivered a very orthodox clergyman into our carriage, and did we baptise him!

That was our send-off. What have we to show for our Party over the years? Not enough but still a lot. We played our part in pulling capitalism’s hands off Russia. We backed and fought for British Miners when officialdom turned their backs and even their guns on them. We expelled even big Bob Williams for his part in the Triple Alliance betrayal of the miners. The defeat of the miners opened the way for attacks on engineers, textile-workers, seamen, etc. In all of these struggles our members were active. In the heat of these struggles some succumbed and left us for easier paths. We fought the opportunist heritage brought in by local Councillors or personal egoists. The Government of the day soon recognised the new type of Party. Raids were frequent, our General Secretary, Albert Inkpen, was arrested and sentenced, active workers, especially in the minefields, were doing time. Our organisation was still lamentably weak and sectarian. Printers were blackmailed into refusing to print our articles and pamphlets. We started our own printing works. Our editors faced libel and sedition charges, so that we needed a double shift, sometimes a treble one.

By 1924 we had our first taste of Labour Government, rather sourish at that. Johnny Campbell put the cat among the pigeons and very much upset MacDonald & Co. By 1924 we began to put new life into the trade unions through the Minority Movement whose secretary was Harry Pollitt, later Arthur Horner. So 1925 opened new economic battles. Government was compelled to subsidise mineowners and assume emergency powers. To prepare for the next round they arrested twelve of our leading members. They were found guilty of conspiracy to utter seditious libels. Six, with previous convictions, were given twelve months.

Six were offered release if they would forswear their allegiance. But one and all refused and served six months’ sentences. Further attacks on the miners were more than decent workers were prepared to put up with, so came the General Strike and wholesale arrests, office raids. This greatest confrontation of the classes in Britain in our time sent their leaders shivering to sell the pass and leave the miners to their fate. Fierce punishment befell the workers in consequence of this betrayal. Victimisation was common and hard, hard times kept knocking at the door. The miners survived their desperate ordeal. . . .

1929. Once again a Labour government which succumbed to American capitalist pressure. The defection of McDonald, Thomas and Snowden and their descent into a ‘National Government’ did not stop the economic rot. Unemployed relief was cut to the bone. These tested our membership and they withstood the pressure and nobly headed or fought in the ranks of the unemployed, joined in hunger marches, fought the police and won concessions. Meantime the German monopolists had been set on their feet again by American and British investments. But being unable to rule in the old way, they washed out the remnants of democratic practice and forged a rod of iron for Hitler to wield while they cheered him on to the fight against the growing Soviet power. Fascism reared its black flags in Britain too, but the working class showed its strength and routed it. In 1935 we scored a real Parliamentary success by the return of William Gallacher who by his Communist attitude did much to add to his own and the Party’s prestige. We led the fight and formed the British section of the International Brigade which saved the honour of the British working class in the battlefields of Spain. 1939: that fatal year that saw the outbreak of that most vicious war of the centuries. Here also our Party gave freely of its dearest and best to bring the war to a victorious end. When it ended the British workers’ stored-up anger burst through to the defeat of Churchill and placed their hopes on the Labour Government, which shooed them off with meagre reforms and played a sorry second fiddle to American big business so that once again our Party is leading the fight against further war.

Now we have established the Party as a potent factor in British politics. Our numbers have grown. We have lost many brave and able leaders but we have raised able successors. Our camp of Peace grows daily and despite provocation we know that the forces of Peace will prevail. All our efforts are turned in that direction. Our literature is improving daily. Our Daily Worker is known the world over. We are no longer the feeble body of propagandists that we were in 1920 but a strong virile Party worthy of the class we find it an honour to serve.”

Bob Stewart, ‘LABOUR MONTHLY’, September 1960.

Communists in Ireland.

At the moment I’m working on a biography of Bob Stewart. Hopefully this will build on what he revealed in his memoirs and will offer a fuller picture of his political and clandestine life and how this affected his family. I’ve just finished writing a chapter on his activities in Ireland in the 1920s when he was tasked with trying to set up an ‘Irish Marxist Party’. As part of the research, I came across this news article from The Scotsman that hopefully gives a little more of an idea of how Bob’s activities were viewed at the time.

Alan Stewart.

COMMUNISTS IN IRELAND.

ACTIVE CAMPAIGN OPENED.

TO PROMOTE A ” WORKERS ‘ REPUBLIC . “

(FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Fishing in troubled waters is, and has always been, a favourite pastime of Communist agitators , and in the Irish Free State they have had opportunities for its prosecution, of which they have promptly availed themselves from time to time. During recent years they have made repeated attempts to take advantage of the unsettled conditions in order to spread discontent and carry on their propaganda . It will be remembered that when a considerable part of the South was held by the armed supporters of Mr De Valera they seized the opportunity afforded by the disorders to raise the Red Flag and to establish Soviets in Tipperary and Clonmel . The only consequences of their activities then, however, was the destruction of creameries and other works and the ruin of the workers.

Subsequently there was a lull in the Communist propaganda, although now and again Mr Jim Larkin and a few others made efforts to instil life into the movement. Larkin has been twice at least in Russia during the past eighteen months, and the fact that he is a welcome visitor there is in itself significant . He claims to be a recognised link between Moscow and Ireland, and to have been appointed to some sort of official position as a delegate or deputy from the Bolshevists to the Free State.

A DANGEROUS DOCTRINE.

Lately there has been a revival of Communist agitation, and an active campaign has now been inaugurated in Dublin, where a public “demonstration” has been held beneath the folds of a Red banner said to have been sent by “the Russian proletariat” to their “Irish comrades.” The chief speakers at this “demonstration” came from Great Britain. They were Mr Saklatvala , the Communist MP for North Battersea and Mr Robert Stewart , of Dundee. Mr Saklatvala (who spoke for nearly two hours) declared that the revolutionary method was the only one that would befriend the working classes and Mr Stewart pledged himself that before the end of next month an organisation will be established in the Free State for the promotion of a Workers’ Republic. Mr Stewart, who recognises, as Irish agitators have done before, the value of land hunger as a , political weapon, appealed to workers if they wanted land to take it, and legalise their action afterwards. A dangerous doctrine and all the more dangerous that it has always been a popular one among a large class in Ireland. One of the troubles which the Free State government is experiencing arises from the illegal seizure of land in some of the Western counties at this moment.

While the Government do not, it is understood, take the Communist irruption into the Free State very seriously at present, they are watching developments with great care. They recognise that the real danger of the campaign which has been inaugurated lies not in its political propaganda, however pernicious, but in the possibility of resort being made to the weapons of terrorism and violence. Any association with Moscow cannot fail to be disquieting , especially at the present juncture.

The Scotsman Friday 24 April 1925

POSTSCRIPT

A shorter version of the story appeared in the Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner on Saturday 25 April 1925.

A Workers’ Republic

Addressing a meeting in the Mansion House on Sunday Mr. Saklatvala said the revolutionary method was the only method that could befriend the labouring classes. They seeded a great revolutionary measure by which boards of directors could be set aside and representatives of the working class take their places. British Labour betrayed the Irish workers when they were fighting for their freedom.

Mr. Bob Stewart, Dundee, said if the workers wanted the land of Ireland for the people they must take it and legalise it afterwards. Before the end of May he would have established in Ireland an organisation whose object would be a Worker’s Republic.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 21: Ireland.

On my return from Moscow I was sent to Ireland to work. At that time, in 1924, there was no Communist Party in Ireland, although since its inception the British Communist Party had given direct assistance to the Irish revolutionaries. After the Easter Rising of April 1916, there had followed turbulent years of working-class struggle. The Government of Ireland Bill was piloted through Parliament in the autumn of 1920. It provided for the partition of Ireland, with both North and South having a Parliament with restricted powers, subordinate to Westminster. There was a state of war until the summer of 1921, followed by six months of bargaining and intrigue, which ended in the offer of fiscal independence for the twenty-six counties of the South. The handing over of power to the provisional government was accompanied by brutal economic oppression and wage reductions, often amounting to one-third. There was a deep economic crisis and strikes were widespread.

It was clear that the political and economic conditions in Ireland necessitated a Marxist party with a solid basis in the Irish trade union movement. My work was to see how this necessity could be achieved. I was glad of this opportunity because I had met Jim Connolly in 1913 and I was also well known among the Irish for my work in Dundee.

Big Jim Larkin was then the best known trade union leader in Ireland and headed the biggest and most militant trade union, the Transport and General Workers Union; and naturally any hope of success in my task rested on my ability to interest Larkin in the formation of a Marxist party.

Jim Larkin will always be revered as one of the great line of Irish rebels whose names will never be forgotten in the history of the Irish working class. As a very young man he was already in the leadership of many industrial struggles in both Northern and Southern Ireland and in 1909 at the age of thirty-two he founded the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. He said at the time that the total assets were two chairs, a table, a candle and an empty bottle to hold the candle, and a potential membership drawn from the Dublin carters who had just concluded a strike. By hard, patient and militant work he built the union into a real fighting organisation. In 1911 he launched a newspaper called the Irish Worker which sold 95,000 copies weekly and which was in itself a great trade union organiser and a splendid forum for left political opinion.

In 1914 Larkin went to the United States, as he said to interest the American Irish in the Irish at home, but he was soon at work in the United States trade union movement. His militant trade union principles and his left political opinions got him into trouble with the authorities. He was arrested and charged with “criminal anarchy” under a law which proscribed “the advocacy of force and violence”. He was tried in New York and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. He did four years in the prisons of the United States and in 1923 he was released from Sing Sing by governor Al Smith, who at the time said: “Larkin has suffered enough for his beliefs.”

On his release he came back to Britain, where he had a great welcome when he arrived at Southampton. Many people, including Bill Gallacher, were at the docks to welcome him back home.

I spent months working with Larkin in the attempt to found a Marxist party in Ireland. He was, like myself, a total abstainer and one of his hates he had many-was strong drink. One of his first acts when he became a trade union official was to stop the then prevalent practice of paying the dockers their wages in public houses. He was a professed Marxist and fully supported the Soviet Union.

Working with Larkin and the other Marxists, both in Dublin and in the country districts, I soon found that one of my greatest difficulties was to keep the peace among our own people. Larkin was the biggest problem because he always personalised his politics. He would denounce this scoundrel, that scoundrel, in fact almost everyone in Ireland was a scoundrel. I think his experiences in the gaols in the United States may have had something to do with this attitude, but it certainly was anything but helpful in the political position we were in at that time in Ireland.

All the time I was in Dublin I lived with Larkin and his sister Delia and his brother Peter, who were political personalities in their own right. Peter had been a leader in the trade union movement in Australia and had done time in the Australian jails for fighting for the workers’ right to organise. But despite their similarity of political beliefs there were family squabbles. Jim did not speak to Delia and Delia did not speak to Jim, so they had to talk to each other through Peter. When Peter was missing I was used as the go-between. It was a dreadful position for grown-up people to create, particularly when to make any political headway friendship and comradely tolerance were an absolute necessity.

The house we lived in at Gardiner Street had a very large living-room. During the day and in the evening all kinds of people kept coming and going. It was a clearing house for all problems political and economic or even purely domestic. As people came and went there were no introductions so that you had not the faintest idea whom you were speaking to, or anything about them, and yet you were expected to engage in serious discussion and to give your opinion on the subject.

At that time in Ireland I knew it was much safer to keep certain discussions and opinions to the circle of people whom you knew and understood. In all this welter of coming and going, discussion and argument, Big Jim would sit in his easy chair talking to everyone, butting in the conversation and lighting match after match trying to get his pipe going, so that after a while he was entirely surrounded by burnt matches. It certainly was an odd scene looking round the circle. It was in this room that I had my first discussion with Sean O’Casey, the Irish poet and playwright, but I did not know who he was then. O’Casey used to say of Jim that it was his ideal to see workers with a loaf of bread under their arms and a bunch of flowers in their hands.

However, these were but small difficulties, easily got over in a day’s work.

I got on well with Larkin and I was one of the few men he really trusted politically. Lenin said of Larkin, “His remarkable oratorical gifts and seething Irish energy performed miracles among the Irish workers.” That was justified. He was a powerful and popular speaker, and every weekend we were out in the country or in a Dublin hall speaking at meetings and selling the Irish Worker. The paper had a big sale because there was usually something sensational in its pages. Larkin was continually in trouble defending himself against libel actions in the Courts. The Court verdicts were always against him and his debts piled up. But, of course, it brought huge crowds to the meetings and sold the paper.

The aim of the group I was working with was to plan a political campaign leading to and culminating in the formation of an Irish Marxist party. In Ireland at that time politics took a wide sweep. Poverty in some places was desperate, and it was necessary not only to recognise this politically but to do something about it. So we were constantly engaged in relief work. But a special more urgent relief became necessary. Flooding took place in Donegal and we placed part of our organisation on this relief work. I got together a three-woman team to take charge of the work: Mother Despard, Countess Markievicz and Helen Crawfurd from Scotland.

Countess Markievicz, Mother Despard and Helen Crawfurd

These were three remarkable women. Countess Markievicz was one of the famous Booth sisters, daughter of Sir Henry William Gore-Booth, a family of the Sligo aristocracy. In 1900 she married a Polish count, Casimir de Markievicz, but despite her background and marriage she was a revolutionary in politics. She took part in the Dublin rebellion in 1916, and was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for life. She was released from prison in 1917. She was M.P. for St. Patrick’s, Dublin, 1918-21; M.P. for Dublin City, 1921-22; and re-elected for the Irish Free State in 1923, being the first woman elected to the Dail. Mother (Charlotte) Despard was one of the leaders of the British suffragette movement and without doubt one of the ablest women politicians of this century. Her work in the Women’s Labour League, the suffragette movement in defence of women’s rights, and her work in the care and needs of children, was outstanding by any standard. She was highly intelligent and an able organiser. Helen Crawfurd was a foundation member of the British Communist Party, a Scotswoman who was always in the thick of political struggle and one of the finest women politicians I ever worked with.

These three women formed a wonderful trio. With entirely different backgrounds they had worked miracles in the struggles for women’s rights, yet it took the flood relief in Ireland to bring them together. They organised relief in the form of food, clothes and household goods from Britain and the continent, and even made trips to America to get relief from there. I remember making a trip to Donegal myself during this period, and in doing so I learned a valuable political lesson about working in the Irish countryside. In Ireland at that period you couldn’t give anything away without a priest. In these small towns, even though the people were in really desperate straits, you needed a priest with you before they would accept relief goods. The people, of course, showed their gratitude and goodwill to all who did the relief work, but if the priest was not there it was very difficult indeed.

Very likely because of such lessons I have a healthy regard for priests.

During this relief campaign I met Father Flannigan. He was a hard worker and spoke at many meetings with Larkin and myself. He used to say to me, “Bob, your Lenin was a great Christian and should have spent his life preaching the Christian doctrine.” Naturally I tried to refute this and convince Father Flannigan that he was a Marxist and should join the Communist Party. He never did, but he worked miracles on the relief work and gave great assistance in building relief and welfare organisation.

I well remember another Irish Catholic priest in the same mould. In the late nineteen-twenties I was again in Ireland trying to organise a peasant delegation to visit a Congress in Berlin. To do this I sought the assistance of Peador O’Donnell. I knew Peador O’Donnell well: he was a member of the IRA and a staunch republican. He was also a famous author and wrote many novels, including The Gates Flew Open, being his experiences in the Irish prisons. I managed to interest Peador O’Donnell in the sending of the peasant delegation and we went to Galway to see what could be done. He was well known to the local councillors and prominent citizens, so we organised a meeting on a Saturday evening, which was very successful, in fact too successful, the drinking and discussion going on well into the Sunday morning. I remember the hotel keeper coming into the meeting with an emphatic protest that we must finish, because he said: “Never in my hotel have people been awake at two o’clock on a Sunday morning.” Before we retired Peador O’Donnell said to me, “Bob, I am going to Mass in the morning and if you come along I will introduce you to a rebellious priest if ever there was one.” Well, that coming from what I considered was a real rebel was something that intrigued me, so I inquired: “Who is this fellow?” “His name is Father Fahy and he has been expelled to the country for battering a bailiff who took an old woman’s cow to pay for her debts.” “I think I will come to the Mass,” I replied. Next morning we drove in a jaunting car to a very small village where we met Father Fahy. As we entered the room he was putting on his robes and his back was to us. “Father Fahy,” said Peador O’Donnell, “I have brought a man who has no soul to save.” “Ah well,” was the reply, “it will save him a great deal of trouble.” Then turning round he said, “But I know this man. I saw him often in Dundee when I was there. He is a great speaker.” “Ah,” I said, “you are Father Fahy of St. Andrew’s Cathedral.”

There was a famous Dundee story of Father Fahy. During the 1914-18 war (I was in jail at the time, but the story was well known) a number of soldiers from the Black Watch, Irishmen by birth, came to St. Andrew’s Cathedral for Mass from Father Fahy. However, along with the Mass he gave them a severe lecture, telling them they should be ashamed of themselves serving in the British imperial army, adding they should be patriotic Irishmen and go home to fight for Ireland. One of the soldiers reported the incident and Father Fahy was carpeted.

Not having a soul to save we did not waste time on Mass, but we got to talking over old times in Dundee. Politics and elections were discussed. “Well,” said Father Fahy, “Scrymgeour can thank the Catholic Church for his becoming an M.P.” Then he went on to tell me that in the 1922 election the organised Catholics came to the conclusion that Churchill did not stand a chance of retaining the Dundee seat. With two votes to be cast the three most likely to get them were Scrymgeour, prohibitionist, Morel, Labour, and Gallacher, Communist. “Morel as the official Labour candidate was certain to win,” said Father Fahy, “so we Catholics decided to give our second vote to Scrymgeour instead of Gallacher.” The Catholic voters then in Dundee were nearly 50 per cent of the total electorate. A glance at the election result of 1920 will show Father Fahy was right. Prohibitionism and Catholicism have little in common, if anything. But the Catholic vote, although be it said some Catholics did vote for Gallacher, certainly made Scrymgeour the Member of Parliament.

But to return to the position in Ireland in 1924. With the tremendous political campaigning and the prodigious relief and welfare work we got a good political footing in many Irish counties, but most important and best of all in Dublin. We decided the time was opportune to launch the call for the formation of a mass Irish Marxist party.

After much deliberation and argument we drew up a manifesto and organised a mass demonstration in the Mansion House. It was essential to get Larkin to sign the manifesto and I discussed this with him many times, always with the same result. “All right, Bob,” he would say, “I am thinking about it. What are you worrying about? I will likely sign it.” And he went about with the manifesto in his pocket for days but it was never signed.

The demonstration in the Mansion House was one of the best ever held in Dublin. The hall was packed to capacity, with hundreds standing in the aisles and the corners. Over two hundred people applied to join the new party. All we needed for a successful launching of the party was Larkin’s acceptance of the manifesto. But this he refused. My own opinion is that Big Jim would never accept the democracy of a disciplined Marxist party. He always had to be in the centre of the stage all the time, and so to join a party where the emphasis is put on collective work was not for him. Shortly after this I left Ireland with the feeling that a great political opportunity had been lost. In 1924 the political situation in Ireland was ripe for the formation of a Marxist party based on the Irish workers’ organisations, principally the trade unions. Larkin’s refusal to play his part in the creation of such a party greatly weakened the fight. The result was that much of the good work done over the years preceding 1924 ran into sand and failed to bear fruit.

Comrades: Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky (Part Two).

The second of two pictures of Anatole Kaminsky in his MI5 file.

Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky married Bob Stewart’s daughter Annie at some point during 1933. This is an overview of what I found in his security file when I visited the National Archives last year and any inaccuracies are my own. This post concerns information the British secret services gathered on him during his brief visits to Britain while the details of his arrest and execution can be found in ‘Comrades: Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky (Part One)’. Ultimately, this is all the information I have found out about Kaminsky but I would love to know more.

Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky first arrived in the United Kingdom on the 10^th September 1930. Sailing from the Hook of Holland and docking at Harwich, it’s likely that it was his first visit or, at least, he had never caught the attention of the security services before. His arrival records state that he was 23 years old, a Russian national and that he carried a Soviet passport. His proposed address in the UK was given as “Arcos, London”. Arcos was the All-Russian Co-operative Society – the organisation which oversaw Anglo-Soviet trade. Three years before, its Hampstead headquarters had been raided by the British authorities and evidence of espionage uncovered. The whole affair had been a cause celebre and the relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union, always palpably frosty, had cooled somewhat as a consequence. Kaminsky came in on a six month visa and was employed as a commercial secretary. It’s clear from the outset that the security services were intending to keep an eye on him.

Initial investigations found that Kaminsky was much more than a secretary. In a letter dated 27^th March 1930 Captain Guy Liddell, then of Special Branch, wrote to Oswald Allen Harker in MI5 with the following information:

Dear Harker,

Application was made a short time ago in Moscow for a visa for Anatole Naumovitch KAMINSKI, born 1907. This man who was then secretary of the Scientific Technical Section of the Society for the Promotion of Cultural Relations with Countries Abroad in Moscow, was coming here as a secretary to Arcos. Preliminary enquiries through SIS show that he is a scientist and is in touch with military scientific men in the “Revoyensoviet”. He has also been working in the Osoaviachim. He is a full member of the VKP (b).

KAMINSKI arrived her on the 10th September and proceeded to 81, Kensington Gardens Square, W.

The involvement with the Osoaviachim was of particular concern as that was the society concerned with the construction of military aircraft and chemical warfare research. There is little else in the file at this point other than establishing links with the director of Arcos Vladimir Belgoff and his wife Sophie. There was a request to intercept all mail at the Belgoff’s address 14 Tenterden Drive in Hendon and it looks like Kaminsky might have been staying with them for a time.

I assume Kaminsky left the UK sometime in March 1931 due to the length of his visa. However, he made a return visit in December of that year as part of The Trade Delegation of the USSR in Great Britain and, this time, he was listed as a “consulting economist”. Shortly after this on the 7^th January 1932, he appeared in a news story in the Daily Mail. Despite the snideness of the journalist remarking on Kaminsky’s “broken English” the economist’s assurances that his activities are strictly business and nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence gathering are spectacularly unconvincing.

Transcript of The Daily Mail article from 1932 Anatole Kaminsky’s MI5 file.

ARCOS IMPUDENCE.

Demands to British Firms.

An impudent letter which British firms have received recently from Arcos is making them wonder what secret object the Soviet trade organisation in this country is pursuing under the disguise of innocent business relationships.

The letter explains that Arcos is anxious to “tabulate information on industrial and technical lines concerning their production and general characteristics of distinguished British firms, with whom we have commercial relations, to be placed upon record for reference when deciding orders for the forthcoming year.”

It proceeds: “We ask you especially to give technical information in detail such as measurements, size and capacity of machines.” It demands information “in detail” and not “under general headings” and instructs that replies should be sent “in triplicate.”

Then follows a questionnaire, half of which could be filled in from ordinary business books. It includes such questions as dividends paid, if any, from 1926 to 1931 and number of work people employed.

‘Comrade’ A. KAMINSKY, of the economic department of Arcos, is responsible for this piece of effrontery. He had little explanation to offer yesterday when asked by a Daily Mail reporter what was the object of this so-called business inquiry. “Just to assist us in making purchases,” he answered in broken English.

When it was suggested to him that the replies would be useful for the secret archives of Moscow, ‘Comrade’ KAMINSKY gave his favourite answer: “Oh, no, you make big mistake, just business purposes only.”

Kaminsky came to the attention of the security services again in January 1933 when he arrived in the UK on a short term visa only valid for a few months. It stated that he was returning to the same post, however, during this time, it was his personal life rather than the professional which interested MI5. It is likely that this was when he married Bob Stewart’s daughter Annie, my father’s Aunt Nan. There are several enquiries about this and it is confirmed by Superintendent Canning of Special Branch in May of that year.

“In reference to the enquiries which you were recently good enough to have made regarding Annie Walker STEWART (301/MP/2860), it has just been reported from a source which is I think reliable, that this woman is married to a Russian called KAMINSKY.”

Of course the security services were already interested in Bob Stewart for his roles in the covert finance of the CPGB, his time as the British representative to the Comintern and his associations in Ireland. They also clearly considered Annie and her older brothers William and Rab to be persons of interest due to their links to Arcos and it is likely that all three had some involvement, however slight, in Bob’s underground activities.

Although Annie’s marriage to a Soviet official who seemed to be rising through the ranks would have ensured the security services attention it seems the pair did little to attract it. The next mention of Kaminsky is from March 1934 when the passport office is extending his visa and its confirmed that, “This alien has not come under notice.”

Nevertheless, MI5 still tracked Kaminsky’s movements and gathered information on him. There’s a record that on March 4^th 1934 there was a lecture at the “London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The lecturer was to be A. KAMINSKY, Soviet Economist, of the First Moscow State University, and the subject to be ‘The Second Five Year Plan.’” Also that year MI5 received intelligence that Kaminsky was “the real power behind Arcos” and that he was “either married to or living with Nan STUART, the daughter of the Clydeside Communist.” One hopes the agent who drafted that memo was slightly more knowledgeable about potential threats to the nation than they were about Scottish geography. Bob was a Dundonian – not a Glaswegian. It’s likely they were confusing Bob with Willie Gallacher.

By October 1935, Anatole and Annie had moved to Moscow although they were in regular contact with the family back in London. Being so far away Annie would have been eager for news from home and, in the files, there is an intercepted letter from Bob dated the 8^th October. The security services were mostly interested in the references to Harry Pollitt, the head of the CPGB and his wife Marjorie. However, the letter is largely domestic. Bob’s wife Margaret is ‘in the tub’ and Bob is taking the opportunity to write to their daughter. There is some news of ‘Bill and family’ – my grandfather, grandmother and my dad – baby Robin- who would have been two years old at the time. There’s some gossip about Rab, Bob’s middle child and his new girlfriend. The anecdote about them singing makes me smile as when I met his daughter Linda for the first time last year she remarked that what her father loved above all else was music. Towards the end there’s some talk of knitting and this is because Annie would have been pregnant at the time with my father’s cousin Greg. Bob and Margaret were eagerly awaiting their second grandchild.

Part of the letter from Bob Stewart to Annie and Anatole. (1935).

Dear N & N again,

Your letter arrived a couple of hours ago and we three enjoyed its contents. So very glad to know that you are both so well. This seems to be washing night. Rab balked and hopped off to bed, mother is now in the tub. While the old man, like the dutiful father he is, sits down to write this letter straight away lest tomorrow he should be too busy in other directions. The new situation is imposing duties that cannot wait as you will readily appreciate. We are well in health. Rab walks fairly comfortably now and is on the hunt for a job. Mother is all right again and of course the old man is the XXXX-XXXX-XXXX or thereby.

We were glad that you remembered our Welsh friends who are really the most excellent comrades. I hope you will be successful in helping them out. Very glad that P____ is going to help you get numbers? Tolia has many things to do and maybe he is modest about his own comfort. We were so glad to get his picture cards from way down South to find that his writing arm was still in good order. I gave Harry your message- he says it’s between you and Marjorie whom I saw a day or two ago. She is looking and feeling very well as is Jean who played merry hell when I couldn’t play with her any longer. We have not seen Bill and family for a fortnight but they are all well and Robin has had more photographs taken. Everyone likes to take his picture and he quite likes it. We have now got a big one of him and all the lady visitors are taking him for a walk -he is so lovely to look at they say.

We have had numbers of visitors recently among them XXXX’s auntie who is much interested in you but more in Rab who needs to help with the printers of whom we have now quite a few. We had Tom Wilson and C____ up for tea and we had a young girlfriend from a distance staying the weekend. She and Rab sang all our favourites till the wee sma’ oors. It was delightful. She reminded mother very much of you although her singing was a vast improvement on yours. She went away home overwhelmed by the kindness of your mother which is not unusual. We also had a visit from one of the numerous Clark family who want me to share with you the joys of the children’s movement at home. I don’t remember his first name he’s got a job in some club or hotel down Leatherhead way – not much of a job but better than idleness. Yes! We read in your XXXX all about the XXXX expansion of trade and the XXXX values brings to you all. It’s a remarkable achievement and opens the door to new XXXX. It’s a consolidation of brilliance compared to the darkening skies elsewhere. The centre the world’s attention is now on Africa and as you’ll see by the British XXXX there is a lack of confusion and in some cases XXXX XXXX in our movement. It’s an acid test that will reveal much base metal. Probably you will have seen Jane ‘ere you get this. I hope she will benefit from her sojourn in your country. Hope to get some of your orders shipped in the course of the next fortnight if I’m not called away! I notice the knitting needles being used here and no doubt you’ll be pleased with the result – the other fittings may not be so easy to get but will have a good try on the first fine day. I think that’s all I’ve got to say at this time except that the weather is as wet as you have had it. Even as we are all bearing up – always cheered up when your letters come along. All the same I could have sat in on mothers celebration and I think Rab’s teeth were watering when I thought of what he could have done had he been around. I don’t know if I told you that Jimmy B had a XXXX XXXX badly and has been under medical care for three weeks. He seems to have got over the worst but it is a XXXX XXXX blow as he had to cancel all engagements and new ones will not be easy to get. Cheerio- it’s bedtime.

Love from all to you all,

Dad.

(I’ve used XXXX when I can’t make out the Bob’s handwriting.)

Greg was born in Moscow in early 1936 and, in the summer, Annie took him to London so that everyone could be introduced to the latest addition to the family. Anatole stayed behind in the Soviet Union but wrote regularly. MI5 intercepted the following letter from him addressed to Annie and their son. The letter has all the hallmarks of the new parent – concern, pride and love. However, just over a year later Anatole’s brother, Grigory, was arrested and executed in Stalin’s purges, setting in motion his own imprisonment and eventual murder.

Letter from Anatole Kaminsky to Annie Stewart. (1936).

17^th June 1936

Dearest Nan and XXXX

Last night I received your long letter and felt very happy that you are managing well. It was nice to hear that calm and sunny weather made your journey bright and not a difficult one.

A few days ago I got your note from the sea and Dad’s ‘epistle’. It makes a pleasant reading to find out that old people and the whole family are taking such a keen interest in our wee sonny. I think he already succeeded to prove that he is a thoroughly good boy and deserves all the love and care bestowed upon him. As to his ??? on the face I think it will go away after some fresh fruit and vegetable diet of his milking cow – (Sorry to use zoo terms!)

Have a complete rest, change over to fruit eats and drinks and don’t take troubles of any kind. I don’t give anymore advice is as you have very good advisers around you with lots of experience gained during a long life. The only remark will be the main thing is to develop regular habits a good regime.

Anatole

According to his file, Anatole made one more visit to the United Kingdom. Beforehand, the Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky wrote to the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to request a visa so Kaminsky could attend trade negotiations.

M. Maisky, Ambassador of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in Great Britain, presents his compliments to His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and has the honour to request a visa for M. Anatole Kaminsky who is a financial expert, and is coming to this country to take part in the financial negotiations which are going on between the Trade Representative of the USSR in London and the Board of Trade.

As his presence here is urgently required, M. Maisky would be obliged if the instructions granting him a visa could be telegraphed to Moscow at the Embassy’s expense.

11th of July, 1936.

The Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden, MC, MP,

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky arrived in Britain from Amsterdam by aeroplane on or around the 1^st August 1936 and was recorded as an “Economic Advisor to the USSR Trade Delegation.” An unconditional landing was granted. This is the last record I can find of Kaminsky in the MI5 files until 1956 when, after Khruschev’s speech denouncing Stalin, Annie and her teenage son, Greg found out exactly what had happened to him after his arrest by the NKVD in June 1938.

Alan Stewart.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 22: The First Labour Government and the Zinoviev Letter.

On my return from Ireland I found the country in a political ferment. A Labour government, with Liberal support, had been formed arising from the general election of November 1923. This government, headed by Ramsay McDonald as prime minister, had run into trouble and was in no way solving the deep economic crisis. The cost of living was high, wages were low and unemployment still at a very high level. Despite this the big political discussion was taking place on foreign policy. The de jure recognition of the Soviet Union had been effected in the early days of the Labour government, and demands were being made by Labour M.P.s for this to be followed up by normal trading and diplomatic relationships.

This demand soon ran into difficulties. The Tories were vehemently against. They demanded compensation for British property in the Soviet Union which had been nationalised by the Soviet government, and also trading rights for British firms on Soviet territory. The first was realisable, but naturally the Soviet government would not entertain the latter. In Parliament Lloyd George supported the Tories, so with a Tory-Liberal coalition the minority Labour government was in difficulty. Pressure by Labour M.P.s, however, forced the government to open discussions with the Soviet government on compensation for confiscated British property, trading relations and a British loan to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet delegation arrived in Britain in April 1924, and negotiations under Arthur Ponsonby from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began immediately. By August all the problems had been settled except one: the compensation for British property. Then news came that negotiations had broken down. The Tories were jubilant, saying this showed that it was impossible to negotiate with these Bolsheviks. In this critical situation, when it was obvious that the future of the Labour government was in jeopardy, a number of Labour M.P.s went into action. One of them who played a leading part, and who later told the full story, was Edmund Morel, M.P. for Dundee, a man I knew well. Morel was secretary of the Union of Democratic Control, a champion of the colonial peoples and founder of the Congo Reform Association in 1904. Among his many books and pamphlets outstanding was Red Rubber, an exposure of the rubber slave trade in the Congo. Morel and the others had discussions with the Soviet delegation and then went to Ponsonby with a suggested formula. At first this was accepted, but later rejected by Ponsonby, and it was deadlock again. On the critical day when Parliament was to re-assemble and a parliamentary statement of the negotiations was to be made in the House of Commons, Labour M.P.s again saw the Soviet delegation and only four hours before the parliamentary statement was due agreement was reached by all parties in what were really last-minute negotiations. Edmund Morel later told the story of what the argument was about. The British government wanted the words “valid claims” inserted in the compensation agreement. The Soviet delegation suggested “valid and approved by both governments”. The Soviet government demanded they should have a say in what was “valid”. The eventual compromise which was finally accepted used the words “agreed claims”.

This draft treaty on trade was, however, never put into effect. It was clear that the Tories violently opposed any trade with the Soviet Union and, with the Liberals supporting them, the defeat of the Labour government was only a matter of time. The Communist Party estimated that the general election was at most only a few months away.

The party called for a closing of the working-class ranks and for an end to the divisions in the labour movement and a fight for the return of a majority Labour government based on the unity of the working class, with Communists being accepted with full rights in the Labour Party. We decided that no Communist candidates would run against Labour candidates when the election took place and instructed our branches to submit the names of Communists to the Labour selection conferences to go forward for selection with the Labour nominees. In some constituencies the nominations of Communists were ruled out by right-wing Labour, but in others Communists were nominated and eventually selected to stand as joint Communist-Labour candidates. In this way Saklatvala contested Battersea and won the seat. In all, seven Communists stood as Labour-Communist candidates and in Leeds Tom Mann lost a selection conference by two votes. Gallacher was only narrowly defeated in the Motherwell selection.

In Dundee, however, the position was different. It was a double-barrelled constituency, two seats for the city. There was only one Labour candidate, Edmund Morel. The other M.P. was Edwin Scrymgeour, the prohibitionist, who, while occasionally supporting Labour, was not officially connected with the Labour Party. We took a decision to contest Dundee and I was chosen as the candidate, thus becoming the only “clear” Communist candidate in the election. However, it was not the British-Soviet draft treaty that defeated the Labour government. The defeat came on a much smaller issue. Johnnie Campbell, who was then the editor of the Workers Weekly, the paper of the Communist Party, had written an article which the Crown held to be seditious. This contention was one which might have been difficult to sustain in Court and, on second thoughts, the Attorney General withdrew the charge. The Tories, hell bent for an election at any cost, raised an outraged cry. The Tory press claimed intimidation of the Labour government by the Communists and in parliament the Tories tabled a vote of censure on the government. This vote of censure was defeated, but a Liberal amendment to it seeking an “appointment or a select Committee to investigate ” the withdrawal of the charge against J. R. Campbell was carried against the government by 364 votes to 198. Next day, October 10, Ramsay McDonald announced the dissolution of Parliament.

Our party was first in the field in the Dundee hustings. I commenced my campaign with meetings on the 14th October. With me I had Harry Pollitt who, because he had been in Dundee with Gallacher in the previous elections, knew Dundee as well as his home town of Gorton. He was also a great favourite with the local shipyard workers, many of whom were to him “fellow boilermakers”. Also with me was Helen Crawfurd, a wonderful woman speaker invaluable in an election in a women’s town. And also Johnnie Campbell. Poor Johnnie, he always had to open his meetings with an apology: “I would much rather have discussed the election without dragging in personalities, but I will have to because if I don’t, you will.” After all, he was supposed to be the cause of the election, although he soon disposed of that in his speeches. Still, it was all grist to the mill and filled the meetings to capacity, with Johnnie always in top form.

The Dundee Tories and Liberals had made a pact for the election, running one candidate each, two votes -one Tory, one Liberal. The Liberal was Sir Andrew Duncan, a barrister from Kent, who boasted of Scots ancestry. This brought him his first mistake in the election. At his first meeting he was laying on the charm and said, “I come as a Scotsman among Scotsmen.” Then a voice from the audience put him right: “Hauf o’ wiz are Irish.” This was indeed true. At any Dundee meeting 50 per cent or more of the audience were Irish. Scrymgeour, who had lived all his life in Dundee, knew this and always deliberately campaigned for the Irish Catholic vote.

Early on in the campaign Harry Pollitt also gave Duncan a knock. Sir Andrew let it be known in the press that he wanted a debate with a trade unionist, preferably a shipyard worker, no doubt to show he knew the trade union position very well. The boilermakers got together and accepted the challenge and put forward as their speaker Harry Pollitt. The brave Sir Andrew then changed his pipe music. He would not debate with a Communist, he said, much to the glee of the local shipyard workers who put his gas at a peep for the rest of the campaign.

Sir Andrew Duncan’s running mate was a Tory called Frederick Wallace who had already contested Dundee in the 1923 General Election.

The Labour candidate was Edmund Morel, who as I have said had taken an important part in the British-Soviet negotiations on the trade treaty. When the Labour government was first formed he was tipped to be the first Foreign Minister, but he was much too left for Ramsay McDonald, who took the Foreign Ministry himself as well as being the Prime Minister. Morel was a strong candidate, a good speaker and always on the left, but he always hedged at being officially associated with the Communists. Privately he would say he hoped the Communists would win the second seat, but he would never say it publicly.

Edwin Scrymgeour was the sitting member and, while he stood as a prohibitionist, he campaigned for the second Labour vote. I said at the time he was the candidate from heaven who would steal a vote from all parties, Tory, Liberal, Labour and Communist, and then say he had a mandate for the abolition of the liquor trade. This in fact was a great joke at the time, because Dundee was one of the most “drunken” cities in Britain and many of those who voted for Scrymgeour could be seen every Saturday in life fou’ with the beer and whisky.

This election was one of the most rousing in Dundee’s long history of tousy election campaigns. From the day I opened my campaign on October 14th to my final meeting on the 28th I spoke to full houses only. On many occasions there were overflows. This went for every candidate. From the City Hall holding three thousand to the smaller halls holding a few hundreds, all were packed out. The main issues in the election, in fact almost the only two issues, were British-Soviet relations and employment with good wages. In Dundee these fused together because Dundee is a big textile town and before the war of 1914-18 a large flax manufacture was based on the export of flax from Russia. This had dried up and many flax workers were unemployed, so the question of British-Soviet trade was not an academic one in Dundee. It was on diplomatic relations between Britain and the Soviet Union that the big election fight took place.

I had just returned from my spell on the Communist International and my knowledge of the Soviet Union was standing me in good stead. I knew what I was talking about and could discuss developments in the Soviet Union at first hand. Morel, with his knowledge of British-Soviet trade discussions, was also campaigning well on this issue. This rattled Sir Andrew Duncan and his Tory running mate, and as they tried to answer the questions their meetings became rowdier and rowdier. They were under a constant barrage of interruptions, which was not unnatural because they began to insult people at the meetings. Many of the audience had been in dire straits and unemployed for months, and they retaliated by showing their disgust in good election fashion. The singing of “The Red Flag” at the end of the Tory and Liberal meetings became a commonplace event. The local newspapers, seeking to find a reason for this, accused the Communists of trying to break up the Tory-Liberal meetings. I was mad about this and wrote to the papers pointing out the Communists had a campaign in operation and this was stretching our resources to the limit and occupying 100 per cent of our time. We had no time to think about other candidates’ meetings.

So it was Morel and I for recognition and trade with the Soviet Union, Duncan and Wallace with their “down with the Bolsheviks and trust the boss” attitude, and in between came Scrymgeour talking of God and Heaven, the iniquity of the drink trade, appealing to the reason of the Labour voters, and in particular to the Irish Catholic voters. As the campaign went on he became more and more anti-Soviet, no doubt through pressure of the Catholics and in order to win Catholic support.

Of course the election hustings were full of good give and take questions and answers, with the Tory and Liberal mostly on the receiving end. The following question, noted by the press of the period and kept for posterity, is a good example. At Sir Andrew Duncan’s final rally, after he had concluded his final speech and was no doubt saying to himself, as all candidates do, “Well that’s finished,” the chairman asked for questions. Up jumped one bright fellow to ask: “As the only difference between Churchill and you is that Winnie sent us to war to slash the Germans whilst you stayed at home to slash wages, is there any reason why we should not give you the same dose as the Kiel Canal rat catcher?” Amid a storm of cheers Sir Andrew was heard to whimper, “I stand on my record.”

As the election campaign neared its end it became increasingly clear that Labour was gaining ground. It was at this point that the Zinoviev letter incident broke (1). This was one of the crudest political frauds ever inflicted on the British voter. It was a forged letter purporting to have been sent by the Communist International to the British Communist Party. On the Saturday before the election all the press in Britain had banner headlines: “Soviets Intervene in British Elections,” “Red Hands on Britain’s Throat”, and so on. Immediately Rakovsky, the Soviet Chargé d’Affaires in Britain, indignantly and emphatically denied the authenticity of the letter and categorically stated it a forgery. All Sunday the country waited for an explanation from Ramsay MacDonald, who was Foreign Minister, but nothing came. On Monday the local paper in Dundee, The Courier, carried a huge banner headline:

COMMUNIST PLOT-RAMSAY MACDONALD SILENT

While such a denial from the Soviet Ambassador was to be expected the fact remains that the socialist government, the foreign office, and Mr. McDonald personally were satisfied it was a genuine document and not a forgery.

Arthur McManus, who had taken my place on the Communist International and who was an alleged signatory to the letter from Zinoviev, was speaking at Manchester two days before the poll. In the audience were police and C.I.D. men. McManus denounced the document as a forgery and challenged the police to arrest him, but no one moved. The last thing the Foreign Office ever wanted was an investigation into the origins of the document.

On Tuesday, MacDonald made a statement casting doubt on the genuineness of the document, but the damage was done. The British electorate went to the polls without a clear statement from MacDonald, and the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in British political history had paid off. The result of the poll was a resounding Tory victory. On dissolution of Parliament the state of the parties was:

Tories 258

Labour 193

Liberal 158

After the election it was:

Tories 403

Labour 157

Liberal 38

The Liberals who had precipitated the election were smashed and never again returned as a main British parliamentary party. That was the outcome of their anti-Soviet policy and their demand for an investigation in the Johnnie Campbell case.

Edmund Morel held Dundee, with Scrymgeour second. The result was:

Morel (Lab.) 32, 864

Scrymgeour (Prob.) 29, 193

Wallace (Con.) 28, 118

Duncan (Lib.) 25, 566

Stewart (Comm.) 8, 340

After the count we mounted the platform to say our piece, but the Tory and the Liberal would not speak. They were sorely disappointed because they had really believed that the Zinoviev scare had won them the seats. Morel, knowing this, went for them, saying he would demand an immediate investigation from Parliament, which I think he did. Scrymgeour, safe in the second seat, found time to thank God for being good to him and thus saving the second seat from the Communist menace. He did not add but must have thought, “Yes, and with the aid of the Irish Catholic vote.”

With such a resounding victory at the polls the road was now open for a direct attack on the British working class. It certainly came.

Footnote (1): Some facts regarding the notorious letter came to light years after-wards. The letter was dated Moscow, September 15th 1924. It purported to be signed by three people: Zinoviev, President of the Presidium of the I.K.K.I., McManus, Member of the Presidium, Kuusinen, Secretary.

Zinoviev was not president of the presidium of the I.K.K.I. (Communist International) although he was president of the I.K.K.I. itself, and therefore would not sign himself as president of the presidium. Also, he always signed as G. Zinoviev. Secondly, McManus always signed as A. McManus. or Arthur McManus. Thirdly, Kuusinen was not the secretary of I.K.K.I The secretary was a man named Kolarov. To add to this mountain of obvious forgery the letter was headed from “the Third Communist International”. There was no Third Communist International. It was always referred to as “the Third International’ because it followed the First and Second Internationals, which were not Communist. These were such infantile mistakes that even a cursory examination would have shown the document to be a blatant forgery.

In later years it came to light that a Foreign Office official, Mr. J. D. Gregory, who was dismissed from the Foreign Office after an inquiry into some illegal currency deals, was stated to have been involved with some Russian emigrés in the forgery of the letter. This was never ultimately proved, but the whole story of the Zinoviev letter, dealt with in W. P. and Zelda K. Coates’ book A History of Anglo-Soviet Relations, is fascinating reading for all students of political history.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 20: Moscow and the Comintern.

“The oppressed peoples of the whole world, under the banner of the Comintern, overthrow imperialism!” Soviet poster by Gustav Klutsis, 1924. Shamelessly nicked from @sovietvisuals.

I went to Moscow early in 1923 as British representative to the Communist International, or the Comintern as it was called more briefly. I was a bit diffident about accepting this job because I regarded myself as an apprentice in Communist Party work. My wife and daughter came with me and I left my two sons with my sister, so the arrangements were quite good. I liked the job very much. I was living in the heart of the revolutionary political world. I was meeting people who knew much better than I the main world political events and could interpret them much better. I was taking part in discussion with leading working-class politicians from all over the world, all with their special problems, and if at times I could not make a contribution at least I could listen and learn.

In the Comintern I did a fair amount of foreign work. Because I had a British passport, I was better able to cross frontiers and move about freely than many of the other foreign representatives. At this time, the Comintern was very much in its formative period and the communist parties of the various countries had serious conflicts of opinion on many political questions. There were many commissions in the work of the Comintern, trying to smooth the way and deal with the problems.

Troubles had grown in the Swedish Communist Party and the Comintern sent a delegation of which I was a member to help to sort things out. In Sweden I was known as Comrade XR (Executive Representative). Half the Swedish party were really right-wing social democrats, both in theory and action.

The party was led by Seth Hoglund, a social democrat who certainly put no R in revolution but had a very good anti war record. The party was split in two; the left-wing section was the more aggressive and was able to retain control of the party paper. Hoglund was a likeable chap, not in any way vicious but a true social democrat and for quiet, steady reform. The leadership afterwards passed to Samuelson and some others, but they too quarrelled and some left the party.

At this time Scandinavia was very important. Politically, despite some setbacks, the left forces were making good progress. There was also another practical reason. The Norwegian party had a good standing among the seamen, which enabled comrades to get across the seas illegally. Bill Gallacher, Sylvia Pankhurst and a number of others crossed the North Sea in this way. Irish sailors did the same before Eire became a state, ready to smuggle people across on the Irish boats. De Valera was got out of Lincoln Gaol and smuggled across in this way.

Many people with whom I worked and whom I met during my time at the Comintern are now dead. A few are still alive. Some made their political mark, some dropped out of political life in the development of the struggle, because being a Communist in politics is never easy, no matter in which country you are domiciled.

Stalin in the early 1920s- “quiet, painstaking and efficient.”

Naturally the reader will ask what I thought of Stalin. I always speak of people as I find them. I worked with Stalin on a commission on Germany after the defeat of the German party in 1923. I found him a quiet, painstaking and efficient chairman. He chaired the commission which was composed of members from all parties resident in Moscow and from the Russian party, which was represented by Kuibishev, who later became Minister for Planning in the Soviet Union. The discussion in the commission went on for weeks, and one interesting point was that after every session the delegates and their interpreters met singly with Stalin to make sure that if they had not spoken during the discussion, he would be aware of their views. In this way I had several talks with Stalin. I remember that one particular discussion he and I had dealt with the way in which the German party central committee worked. In my opinion there was too much bureaucracy and I said that certain changes in work should be considered. The Comintern could not enforce changes, since the national parties were independent; but the Comintern could, and did, make suggestions. At the end of our tête-a-tête Stalin made a number of pointed remarks and agreed with me on the need for change, but there was a great battle of personalities in the German party at that time. The need for unity was so important that one had to cut the suit according to the cloth and not seek changes that might possibly widen the division.

This commission usually started work about midnight. As a rule I was getting ready for bed when the telephone would ring, and then it was down to the Kremlin for an all-night sitting. They did not rush it, these people. Many of the Kremlin lads were long-distance men. I remember one night Terricini- the delegate from Italy I think his first name was Angelico, but he was certainly no angel -was delivering his point of view in French and doing it very well. He had been at it for over an hour and a half when Stalin intervened to say,

“Tovaritch Terricini, French is a beautiful language to listen to but it is now three o’clock in the morning.” Terricini nodded to show he had heard and then continued with his speech, as if no intervention had been made.

During this German commission discussion, some leading members of the German party went after Clara Zetkin; they baited her unmercifully and this really sickened me. It was an exhibition of political cannibalism that should never be tolerated in working-class politics. Clara Zetkin may have had some weaknesses and faults we all have but she had many decades of selfless working-class struggle behind her and a great reputation both in the international communist movement and in Germany. I protested vigorously against the manner in which some of the German comrades were acting and, with several other delegates supporting me, Stalin said, “We hold a high opinion of Clara Zetkin, our Russian women have learned much from her work, and we will not permit this type of vilification.”

Radek was another member of the Comintern with whom I worked in close association When the first Labour Government was formed in January 1924, Radek, Theodore Roth-stein, Clara Zetkin, some others and myself, worked on a manifesto to be published in Britain in the name of the Communist International. Radek was the most remarkable reader I have ever come across. He had an insatiable appetite for newspapers and had a wide and fundamental knowledge of world politics. Lenin’s criticism of Radek was that he read too many bourgeois newspapers and I think he inferred that Radek was influenced by them. But Radek was most helpful to me. He was also a humorist with a ready answer to any question. He wore long side-whiskers, like the Ancient Mariner, but one day when I met him they were shaved off. “Oh, what’s happened to the growth?” I asked. “Got to go to Germany so I must have a disguise,” he replied. Another time when I was having a difference of opinion with Walton Newbold, who was once Communist M.P. for Motherwell, and was lamenting about it, he said, “Never mind Newbold, Bob, he not only sits on his arse, he sits on his brains as well.”

Kamenev, Zinoviev and other leaders of the Soviet party, Dimitrov from Bulgaria, Pieck from Germany and many others from other countries, I met both at work and socially, but as a rule the discussion was mainly political. I never found it easy or even practicable to discuss everyday “common-place” happenings through an interpreter. Language to me was always a great barrier and I am sure it is for everyone.

Radek was the one who spoke all languages. I heard him speak and communicate with ease with people of many nationalities. I never knew how many languages he spoke. He was a Pole by birth. He once said to me, “Bob, there are good Jews and bad Jews, and the worst of the bad Jews are Polish Jews and I am one of them.” I don’t think the part about Polish Jews is right, nor in my contact with Radek was it true of him. In Moscow, in all his work with me, he was a most able and helpful member of the Comintern.

Photographs by Henry Sara from Bob’s time in Moscow including some from the school he mentions here. See the ‘Comrades: Henry Sara’ post for more information.

Naturally, apart from the leading comrades I got to know in the course of my work, I also met the ordinary Russian people. A group of Russians I got to know fairly well consisted of teachers. This happened somewhat accidentally. One day my wife and I were having a walk in the suburbs, and as we passed a school the children were coming out. Some of the children, observing by our dress that we were foreigners, asked us questions. When they found out that we were British, a number of them had to try out their English on us. Because of this incident we became very well acquainted with the school and the teachers. I took any English delegations that came to Moscow to the school, and through this the pupils became the proud possessors of footballs, boots, sweaters and other sports equipment. I found the children most friendly and com-paniable, with no sullen shyness, and the teachers were born to their jobs aunties and uncles they were called. The school owned a huge boar, a real Goliath. One day I said to one of the children,

“Big boar.” “Da, bolshoi -bolshoi Curzon!”

(Lord Curzon was the most notorious anti-Russian British statesman of the period, the originator of the attempt to enforce the Curzon line).

Another school I used to visit was a school for musically gifted girls. The teacher was the first flautist of the Bolshoi Orchestra. The children gathered round in the most natural way and sang and played spontaneously, everything from folk drama to grand opera. Watching these girls, I began to realise the inborn musical understanding and appreciation of the Russian people, which has endured for centuries.

I remember the first time in my life I heard community singing. It was at the Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow in 1924 I was wandering around with Jim Larkin, the leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, and we saw some people congregating near some seats. We strolled over to see what was happening. Out comes a fellow with a corduroy jacket and a pair of high boots curled up like a concertina. He stepped on to a small platform and started to sing, and away went the audience in wonderful community sing-ing. I couldn’t follow the words but there was no mistaking the real genuine feeling and natural musical ability of the crowd.

For the citizens of Moscow, however, it was not all singing and playing. Moscow was a political city, everyone talked politics. Even in the armed forces, the aim was to have politically understanding soldiers, sailors and airmen. Our party was a patron of some Russian regiments, and so got to know the officers and men. It was this political consciousness on the part of the Soviet soldiers, brought about by intense political discussions of day-to-day events, that created the understanding of the necessity to fight for the independence of the Soviet Union and the determination to crush the Nazi invaders in World War Two.

On the political side, I naturally attended conferences and meetings of the Russian Communist Party, and met with Russians from Stalin downwards. What struck me from the beginning was the business sense of the Russian political workers, very few of whom were business men. In these early days of Soviet rule, blacksmiths, mechanics, textile and other workers were pitchforked into top political jobs and had to adapt themselves to new work, sometimes dealing with old managements in production and, more important, themselves forming new managements in the big new factories. I remember Milnechesneski, who was an ordinary worker, telling me one day he was the biggest textile owner in the world -he had just been put in charge of the cotton textile industry.

In the countryside, many of the peasants were illiterate but, of course, while illiteracy is a great disadvantage, it does not mean lack of intelligence. The Russian peasant, who was intelligent enough to revolt against -and end serfdom, was also intelligent enough to combine with the Russian working class to end capitalism and also to end illiteracy among the peasant masses in the Soviet Union.

It was during my time in Moscow that a great tragedy befell the international working-class movement.

Lenin died in January 1924. I remember this well because I was then a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern which was summoned immediately: firstly, to hear the announcement of Lenin’s death and also to make all the necessary arrangements for the funeral.

Harry Pollitt came over immediately from Britain to represent the British Communist Party at the funeral. It was desperately cold and both Harry and I felt it very much. It was forty degrees below zero. Fires were kindled in the streets and I remember seeing the militiamen’s horses going over and sticking their noses in the fire to melt the icicles. We were as cold as the horses but at least we could pull down our fur caps and peer out occasionally to see where we were going.

I was one of the delegation of the Comintern chosen to go to Gorky, where Lenin had died, to accompany his body back to Moscow. We left by train from Moscow at about 5am and then travelled by peasant sleigh from Gorky Station to Lenin’s house. From the station you could see the house down in the valley, but the road to it so twisted and turned that even by sleigh it took us a long time to reach it. At the house Lenin was laid on a bed wearing an ordinary Red Army man’s uniform with the Order of Lenin pinned to his breast. The house was full of people: leading members of the Russian Communist Party, of the Comintern, delegates from the factories and the professions, and amongst them all wandered a big black cat who had been a very great favourite with Lenin.

Lenin’s body being taken to Gorky station en route to Moscow.

The body was placed in the coffin and carried to the station en route for Moscow. Leading men from the party and the factories took turns to carry the coffin. On the journey, at every station, on the way, thousands of people waited to see the train pass. I do not think I ever saw so many tear-stained faces in my life. It was a very moving demonstration of the love the ordinary people for this great man.

When we got to Moscow I realised for the first time in my life what a mass demonstration really meant. Not a demonstration that was called, but one that came. Every conceivable foot of space was occupied. A great mass of people followed the coffin as it was borne from the station to the Dom Soyus (Hall of the Trade Unions), and from every side street and opening, mass upon mass of people converged with the main stream or waited their turn to do so. At the same time the digging was proceeding on the site of the mausoleum, so there was blasting and picking going on. All these streets were crowded with sad-eyed mourners. Every shop and hotel and all central places were ordered to keep open twenty-four hours a day so that people overcome by the cold could go in and thaw out.

Crowds at Lenin’s funeral. January 1924.

Moscow has witnessed many varied scenes in her many centuries of troubled history; her ancient records must be filled with historic incidents, but never had such scenes been witnessed as during the days of Lenin’s lying in state and funeral. The Dom Soyus, a former palace of nobility, once the setting for the glitter and pomp of the aristocratic Tsarist circles, was the place where Lenin lay. Here his own people, the working masses of Russia, could pay their last tribute to the mighty leader of the Russian working class and the world proletariat. “Our Comrade Lenin” everyone said, as if he were a father or a brother.

For four days and nights, for mile after mile, people queued four abreast to pass the bier on which Lenin lay. Along with Harry Pollitt I took a turn on the guard of honour. I remember I was with Chicherin. The bier was surrounded by wreaths of flowers of every description, sent from all over Russia and indeed from all over the world. The magnificent hall with its white marble walls was a blaze of light, contrasting with the deep varied hues of the flowers, and on the balcony the band of the Red Guards played music befitting such a solemn occasion.

Delegations from all over Russia streamed into Moscow, joined the endless queues, and placed their wreaths as they passed the bier. But there were no kings or queens, no aristocrats and their ladies, no great admirals or field marshals with glittering medals. Only the endless stream of workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors with their wives and families. The queues never seemed to get less. Over a million had passed the bier and still the queues remained. It had been decided that on Saturday the doors must close at 12 noon. But on Saturday afternoon there were still hundreds of thousands of people waiting with banners and wreaths, still train after train arrived, pouring the delegations into Moscow from north, south, east and west. Every minute messages from all over the world came, telling the world-wide grief at the passing of this great working-class leader. Certainly, no king, no emperor, no bloody tsar has been honoured as Lenin, the leader of the world working class.

At 7am on Sunday came the final parting. Around the coffin stood the leaders of the Russian Communist Party and the Communist International, and with them, keeping her last vigil, was Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife and constant companion during thirty years of struggle. Lenin’s body was borne to the Red Square. As the coffin was raised the orchestra wailed the funeral march. After this a moment’s silence, then the International burst out, strongly and boldly sung. I thought then, this is the answer to the enemies of Leninism whose death was rekindling the hopes of new triumphs for imperialism. this is the answer of Lenin’s pupils, the Russian workers and peasants.

As the coffin was carried into the streets, crowds formed behind it. Leaders of the Party and trade unions took turns to shoulder the coffin along the Kremlin walls to the centre of the Red Square where the raised tribune was placed. The people filed past in millions until 4pm. Then silence just before the cannons crashed out the salute with a roar which could be heard in every corner of the world; factory sirens in every Russian city and village took up the salute; men, women and children stood still in silent homage. In every country throughout the world the workers paid their last respects to a great leader, who from small groups of Marxists had led the Russian workers forward to the formation of a mighty Communist Party and a mighty workers’ Republic and had laid the foundation by his leadership for a mighty Communist International.

The coffin was carried into the Mausoleum, Lenin’s final resting place. Queues formed again to pass the bier. It went on all night, all the next day and every day since. the years have passed and still the Russian workers and peasants and the visitors to Moscow from foreign lands pass the bier to pay homage to Lenin, the great working-class leader whose genius guided the people of downtrodden Russia and millions far beyond it, to break their chains and march to the not-so-distant communist society

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 17: Red Agent in Glasgow.

As the membership of the Communist Party grew and our organisation developed, better relations with the Labour Party were established in many districts. At the 1922 Labour Party Conference held in Edinburgh in June, the right wing on the National Executive Committee placed a change of rule on the agenda that would prevent such unity and indeed would go a long way towards isolating the Communists from the labour movement. The rule in question concerned the eligibility of delegates to local and national Labour Party conferences and the selection of candidates, and the changes read:

a) Every person nominated to serve as a delegate shall individually accept the constitution and principles of the Labour Party.

b) No person shall be eligible as a delegate who is a member of any organisation having for one of its objects the return to Parliament or any Local Governing Authority of a candidate or candidates other than such as have been endorsed by the Labour Party or have been approved as running in association with the Labour Party.

This change of rule, carried by a two-to-one majority at the conference, was directly aimed at the Communist Party and created a new position in the British labour movement. It was discussed by the Communist Party National Executive, who decided to recommend to their members that where it was necessary, such as in Trades and Labour Councils, Communists should accept the constitution of the Labour Party, and that where Communists were standing for parliamentary or local council elections they should be withdrawn unless there was agreement with the local Labour Party, thus fulfilling the conditions required by the change of rule.

To discuss the executive’s recommendations, I called a special extended meeting of the Scottish District Executive, but fate decreed that we were to have something more on our plate in this discussion. At this time Borodin, a member of the Communist International, was in Britain, and had previously visited a number of districts in England and Wales. He was a lawyer by profession, an erudite and well-informed man. He came to Britain to get an on-the-spot understanding and appreciation of British politics and the way in which the British Communist Party was working.

When I met him in Scotland he told me he wanted to meet people in the labour movement, to get to know them, their background and their attitude to politics. He said I was the only party organiser who had really been able to do this for him. I think that was flattery. He knew all the fine arts of winning people. I had a number of discussions with him and, while I was undoubtedly able to help him in assessing the Scottish political scene, he also greatly assisted me in reaching a deeper appreciation of the way a serious politician must work to win mass support. He patiently explained the value of international work, international trade union contact, international exchange of information in the cultural and educational fields, all of which was very new to me.

At the extended Scottish Executive meeting, Willie Gallacher spoke for the National Executive, emphasising the tactics of the right wing of the Labour Party to drive the Communist members out of the working-class movement, out of the Trades and Labour Councils and finally out of the trade unions. Naturally Mr. Brown, for that was the name Borodin used, asked to speak. He was quite critical of the way a number of Communist members were working. “When I saw the Communist delegates at the Labour Party Conference,” he said, “I thought- if this is how the party is handling the situation then it is manœuvring very poorly.” Borodin was a great story-teller, and went on to say: “It is easy not to get drunk when you pass every saloon bar, but to be good politicians our members must learn to enter these places and not get drunk. To be able to seek affiliation to the Labour Party, the greatest saloon bar I have ever seen, to drink in the bar without getting drunk, that is what is needed. No party can avoid these places.” He talked about the Glasgow Trades and Labour Council. “Here is a basic working-class organisation with 362 affiliations representing 126,116 members. We have fifteen Communists representing their organisations. What do they do? Are we to allow them to be thrown out or do they stay inside and conduct work for the unity of the working class and for working-class policy? Do we fight on ground favourable to the right wing Labour people or on ground favourable to the left wing? Revolutionary tactics demand they stay inside.”

Despite the support of Willie Gallacher, Johnnie Campbell and Mr. Brown for these proposals, there was much criticism in the ensuing discussion of the National Executive’s recommendations, particularly the one seeking to withdraw our candidates where we got no agreement with the Labour Parties. We had already selected candidates for the next general election. J. V. Leckie, Tommy Clark and Ned Douglas, all members of the Scottish Executive, and various other comrades, had a real go. Frankly I could see their point of view and said so in the discussion. At one o’clock in the morning it was voted that we adjourn the meeting on the understanding that we would re-assemble the following week and try and finalise the position.

But the next meeting did not last long. We had just started when the Glasgow Criminal Investigation Department intervened in force. There were dozens of policemen and plainclothes men-they must have been concealed on all the stairs round about. They burst into the meeting and commenced to take all our names and addresses until they came to Brown. “Who is he?” they asked me.”A Yugoslav journalist visiting Scotland, interested in the Scottish Labour Movement,” I answered truthfully. “He’s the man we want,” and they left, taking Borodin with them. This was not an entirely new experience for me, but I admit to being worried during the questioning because I was standing beside a little sideboard we had in the office, hoping they would just leave me there. Fortunately they did. In the sideboard lay Borodin’s briefcase and his private papers. He also left a beautiful big panama hat which would have been a major sensation in Sauchiehall Street any day. I can’t remember who fell heir to that. Once the police had left, we set to work. Goods, chattels and papers were taken away to safe custody.

We arranged for food to be taken to Duke Street Gaol where Borodin lay on remand awaiting trial. This the law allowed. We had a relay of comrades who carried out this duty very willingly and well. The privilege stopped and then he had to exist on the normal prison diet which, in those days, to Borodin, must have been really nauseous, a real punishment indeed only kail and porridge daily.

Our most important task was to find a lawyer to take charge of his defence. Our choice was an ex-bricklayer who had won his way into the legal profession; his name was Alex McGillivray. He worked night and day. In the course of the case Borodin and McGillivray developed a great admiration and a real affection for each other. I never heard a lawyer speak of a client with such profound comradely feeling. Even so, the defence was not a smooth run. Borodin was trained in American law and practice and Alex had great difficulty in persuading him that this would not take a trick in the much more subtle practices of the Scottish Court.

The newspapers made a meal of the incident. “Underground Agent of Communism Caught”; “Red Agent in Glasgow” were two of the headlines. On Wednesday, 3oth August 1922, Borodin appeared in the Glasgow Court. The Procurator Fiscal was J. D. Strathearn and Borodin was charged that, at 156 Vincent Street, Glasgow, he (a) failed to produce a passport to the Registration Officer; (b) failed to produce a registration certificate; (c) refused to answer questions.

The Procurator Fiscal said Mr. Brown, alias Borodin, was a Yugoslav journalist, in Britain without the knowledge or authority of his country. How he came to Britain was not known. The British Intelligence considered him a dangerous person because he was sent to this country to foster revolution and had been found in Glasgow about to deliver an address. The C.I.D. considered his arrest very important. He had previously been in Britain, but on this occasion had only been in Glasgow one day (a big build-up for the efficiency of the Glasgow C.I.D., but a lie). The Procurator Fiscal asked for a prison sentence and deportation. The sentence was six months’ imprisonment with deportation immediately on release.

Note from Special Branch about Borodin’s imprisonment.

Borodin served his time in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow. He did not like jail, a sentiment I strongly shared with him. He said Barlinnie was colder than Siberia and having sampled both he would be a good judge of that. We did our best to cheer him up while he was on remand, taking in food and news of the outside world. I remember buying one of those iron plates that hold hot water and keep the food warm, to take into prison. Probably because of the coldness of the prison, he always asked for hot food.

Borodin was unfortunate in prison. He worked in the laundry and was badly scalded on the feet and legs with boiling water. Six months pass slowly in prison but fast enough outside. I got special visits to see him and much of our discussion dealt with his deportation. He was like a bird in a cage and his release and deportation must have been a welcome relief to him.

I had to consult with the Russian Trade Delegation about Borodin’s deportation. They were stubborn and, in my opinion, unreasonable people and I became a real angry man. However, I finally persuaded them I was right and on his release off Borodin sailed.

I met Borodin again on my first visit to Moscow when I went there to work on a British Commission. Borodin was very helpful to me during this long survey. After this I was asked to return to Moscow to work at the Comintern headquarters. I was very reluctant and doubtful about my competence to do this work but Borodin pleaded with me to accept. “Bob,” he said, “you come. I will give you all the help you need.” When I arrived in Moscow some time later, with my wife and daughter, as a delegate from the British Communist Party to the Comintern, Borodin had gone, I think to China. Anyway, he was not there to give the “every help” he had promised.

Naturally the Borodin arrest had a profound effect on the Scottish Party. There was an inquisition amongst ourselves as to how the leak had taken place. I began to treat the work with greater carefulness. Afterwards, when the full story was known, we discovered that the leakage did not come from Scotland but from further South.

Comrades: Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky (Part One).

Where to begin? It’s a troubling, ultimately tragic part of the story and some of it is truly inexplicable. Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to set out the information as simply as I can.

What we knew was this. At some point in the early 1930s Bob Stewart’s daughter, Annie (my dad’s Aunt Nan) married a ‘Russian’ and they went to live in Moscow. We didn’t know his name nor had we ever seen a photograph of him. At some point Nan gave birth to a baby boy – my dad’s cousin Greg. Soon after this Nan’s husband was killed in Stalin’s purges. Nan fled with their infant child back to London. Information about her husband was almost impossible to come by. I have no idea how they managed to escape. In the years that followed, Nan remarried, had two more children and remained a member of the Communist Party until 1956.

For me, all of this was rather abstract. Dad had a lot of family somewhere out there but was rarely in contact with them. Until recently, apart from visits to my grandfather when I was a toddler, the only other person I’d ever met from my father’s side was Greg. That was at my brother’s wedding just over a decade ago. I only spoke to him briefly as I was on best man duties. All I can really remember is how strange it was to be speaking to somebody who bore such a strong resemblance to my dad and yet was someone who was to all intents and purposes a complete stranger. I never made the effort to remain in touch. I wish I had.

After my father died, I started reading through the security files on Bob Stewart that the National Archives had digitised and put online. Trying to find glimpses of who he was before he was our dad. To begin with, I knew very little about the Communist Party or our family. I tended to focus on the later files as during that period MI5 weren’t simply intercepting Bob’s post and tailing his movements but bugging his offices and tapping his phone. Rather than squinting at spidery 1920s handwriting and trying to work out what it all meant I could easily read the transcripts of conversations and, through their voices, almost begin to get to know these people who were long gone.

I started looking at the files collected during 1956. The year that Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech condemning the crimes of Stalin and the first official recognition about what had gone on in the decades before. At this time Nan was living in a large house in North London with her family and also her father who was nearing eighty but still involved in the secret side of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Most of the documents in that file focus on the general disquiet about the revelation in ‘secret speech’ felt by those at the CPGB’s HQ at Covent Garden. However, a more personal impact is outlined in the transcript of a phone call Nan made to her sister in law Margaret on 10th August 1956.

O/G call from NAN CAPLAN to MARGARET STEWART, BOB’S daughter in law. HARRY is back, and DRONA, (the father of NAN’s son GREGORY CAPLAN) was definitely shot in 1941. They are both shattered by it. HARRY came to see BOB and NAN insisted on seeing him. She says there is not one of the five brothers in KRONA’s (sic) family left. She threatened that if HARRY does not give her justice she’ll follow him to every meeting at which he speaks. BOB’s threatening to leave (The house? The party?) She would like her brother RAB STEWART to come and see her. BOB is going away next week so they will arrange it.
(KV2/2790 – Security File on Robert Stewart held at the National Archives.)

‘HARRY’ was Harry Pollitt, the leader of the CPGB, who had gone to Russia in part to find out what had happened to the family members of several of his own colleagues and friends. Of course, this transcript raises so many questions. How had they lived with this trauma for so long? How had they maintained their commitment to the CPGB in all that time in the face of it? What had they already known?

At this stage I still did not know the identity of Nan’s husband. From the battered suitcase that had been up in the loft, every old photograph or letter in Russian that I sifted through proved a dead end. So too did the references to KRONA or DRONA in the transcript- a nickname that didn’t seem to crop up elsewhere. However, later on in the files I did find a reference that linked Greg’s father to Grigory Kaminsky and this was the first real breakthrough in my search.

Grigory Kaminsky was the People’s Commissar for Health of the Soviet Union between 1934 and 1937. He set up the Soviet health system, improved the production of medicine and medical training and battled malaria in the USSR. Evidently, he was also Nan’s brother-in-law. However, in 1937 he made speech in which he condemned the wrongful arrests of people and accused Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD, of counter revolutionary activities. As a result, he was arrested and then executed by firing squad in February 1938. Then, it seems, the NKVD went for the rest of his family.

Now I had a surname I went back to the earlier files from the 1920s and 1930s and managed to find documents that linked Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky and Annie Stewart together which speculated about whether they were married. So, now I knew who he was but still no idea of what he looked like or any real details of what had happened to him. My first port of call would have been to search for him through the Memorial website. Memorial is the Russian human rights organisation set up to investigate the crimes of the Stalin era and beyond. They’d amassed records of all known victims in a ceaseless effort to record every human rights violation. However, last year it was closed down after years of intimidation by the Putin regime. During one court hearing the state prosecutor announced that Memorial was “creating a false image of the Soviet Union as a terrorist state.”

Screenshot of the information I found on Anatole Kaminsky. Apparently the information is from a database of “Victims of political terror in the USSR”; Moscow, execution lists -Kommunarka.

Despite Memorial being closed down I think I’ve still managed to find a record of what exactly had happened to Anatole. It appears that there are several websites that have ‘backed up’ the information held by Memorial and similar agencies and these have not all been shut down yet. Not being a Russian speaker, I can’t fully judge the reliabilty of the website I found but, as key parts of the information held on Anatole Kaminsky match what’s held in the MI5 files, I am reasonably sure that this is what happened.

On June 20th 1938 NKVD officers arrived at Anatole Kaminsky’s Moscow flat on the St. Malaya Dmitrovka. They arrested him on charges of espionage and participation in counter revolutionary organisations. He remained in custody for the next three years and was eventually convicted on 8th July 1941 shortly after the Nazis invaded the USSR. His sentence was noted down as ‘VMN’. This stood for ‘Vysshaya Mera Nakazaniya’ which translates as ‘the supreme measure of punishment’. In other words, the death penalty. On July 28th the sentence was carried out. They took him to the Kommunarka shooting ground on the outskirsts of Moscow where his body lies alongside thousands of other victims to this day. He was 34 years old.

Anatole was rehabilitated by the Khrushchev regime in 1956. Rehabilitation would have had to have been requested and I assume it was Harry Pollitt who put that in motion or it might have been Bob on his visit to Moscow in August that year. That’s as far as justice stretched.

In November this year I finally saw some photographs of Anatole, one of which is reproduced at the top of this article. They were attached to his MI5 security file held at the National Archives. I spent the morning reading all about the six years he spent in Britain before he returned to the Soviet Union and the dreadful fate that awaited him. That afternoon I met, for the very first time, another of my dad’s cousins. It was Rab and Margaret’s daughter Linda. It had been Margaret who Nan had rang up after discovering what had happened to her husband in that summer in 1956. It was an emotional meeting and we covered a lot of ground in the few hours we were together. She could not believe I had found photographs of ‘Natte’ as he’d been known. He’d died long before she was born and she’d never seen a picture of him either. Of course she was familiar the story and knew that her aunt and cousin had got away by “the skin of their teeth.” When I showed her the photographs on my phone she was instantly struck by the resemblance to Greg who she’d known well and who died in 2019. I was glad I was able to show her these images. I wish that I could have shown them to my father. Above all, I wish I could have shown them to Greg.

Alan Stewart.

Thanks to Linda Stewart, Ian Stewart, Ruth Holliday and Maurice Casey for all their help.

The Case of the SS Stalingrad, the Polar Bear and the Barrels of Siberian Honey.

God, how my father loved to tell stories. At his funeral I spoke about the times in my twenties when I used to ring home and he would talk and talk to the point where I would put the receiver down and walk off for five minutes to make a cup of tea. When I picked up again, dad would still be going strong, never knowing he’d been speaking to empty space. In the week following his death I searched everywhere for any recording I had of him and his voice. I imagine a lot of people who don’t stop talking only ever think of themselves but I don’t think this was true of dad. He was interested in everything and everyone. Our friends became his friends and he was always happiest surrounded by people. In short – he was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, in his last years vascular dementia dulled a lot of this. Buttonholing strangers for random conversations and endlessly repeated reminiscences of his wartime childhood were the norm for a while. Whereas in the past his stories entertained us, now they just made us apprehensive. They were to be policed and quietly managed. He had no filter. There would be myself, my partner and our small child together with my parents on a day out and when we sat down for lunch in a cafe dad would often turn his chair around and begin regaling the family behind us with his criticisms of ‘the colour bar’ in the 1960s, or the Napoleonic wars, whatever came to mind at that moment. These strangers would look bemused and often a little alarmed wondering why this person had attached themselves to their party before we got his attention to turn back to us. However, the illness didn’t dull his sense of the absurd. A few years before he died, during one of the rare times our small family was all together, he told a bizarre anecdote about his father trapped on a cargo ship with a polar bear drunk on Siberian honey. I had originally remembered the bear as being loose on a Russian submarine but my brother put me right – his memory of the story makes much more sense.

Although I can’t recall the exact words, dad’s tale left indelible images in my mind. Here’s my attempt at a retelling:

An icy breeze buffets the gulls gliding in the stone grey Leningrad skies. The docks seem busier than usual – all the activity focussed on a cargo ship berthed on the western side already sitting heavy in the water ready for its voyage. On the quayside, amongst the bedraggled dockworkers, stands a group of soldiers with rifles on their shoulders smoking and chatting nervously amongst themselves. Sailors weave past them, hats pulled down and jackets fastened tight against the Baltic air as they make the final preparations for their journey. Just one more item of cargo to load.

A crane rattles and wheezes into life. The crowds of dockers, soldiers and sailors all stop for a moment to gaze up at the large cage now being loaded on to the deck. Inside lies a huge mass of white fur which undulates slowly. Wheezing and snuffling sounds can be heard – the beast is heavily sedated. However, it is the large, black claws, each one the size of a hunting knife, that seizes the bystanders’ attention. This very large, very dangerous polar bear is on its way to London. It is a gift from Stalin himself.

With some difficulty sailors and dockworkers push and heave the massive drugged carnivore into a small compartment down in the hold where it settles down to snore away the effects of the anaesthetic. There is relief when the bar is shut down against the door and the key is turned – every man fully aware of the damage their cargo could do if it woke up and decided to clamp its jaws around their head. The final preparations are made for the journey and before long the steamship is manoeuvring its way out of the harbour towards the Gulf of Finland and out to the Baltic Sea on its way to England.

Unfortunately, the comrades haven’t read their AA Milne. In a oversight that they would soon regret, the sailors have stored a consignment of Siberian honey next to the sleeping bear. It may as well have been a powder keg. There are barrels and barrels of the stuff and, while a small group of off duty sailors sit around and pass the time playing cards, a pungent, earthy smell diffuses throughout the hold.

One of the sailors there is called Bill- a communist from Scotland. He’s there to make sure everything runs smoothly. That Stalin’s magnanimous gift is delivered without a hitch. As the cards are dealt once again, Bill becomes aware of a low growl and a scratching noise coming from the bear’s compartment. He ignores it as do the rest of the company and the game goes on. They imagine the bear is simply dreaming in the way they’ve seen their pet dogs chase rabbits in their sleep. But the bear is not dreaming. Instead the bear is emerging slowly from its slumber and has caught the scent of the wild honey.

Before long, the smell begins to intoxicate and torment the beast. It begins to get more and more agitated. To begin with the card players merely shout at it to keep the noise down before returning to their game. The growls get louder and then suddenly there is a thudding noise as the bear slams itself against the door in an effort to get to the barrels. It’s at this point the men stop playing and look nervously at each other. There is another thud. The sailors get up. While the others step warily back, Bill takes a few steps towards the bear’s compartment but instinctively stops. It is a very bad idea. Another thud accompanied by an almighty roar and the sailors scatter in panic. They shout to their comrades on deck that the bear is escaping. They shout to their comrades to bring rifles. Another thud and the sound of wood splintering. The sight of a claw, an eye, bared teeth. It’s only going to take a few more goes at battering the door before the bear escapes.

Bill shouts at the others to get out immediately and they scramble for to the steps that will take them up to the deck. Bill is the last to leave and, as he does so, the bear finally smashes through the door sending splintering wood everywhere. The sound it’s making is terrifying. It heads straight for the steps just as Bill gets onto the deck, the swipe of a paw missing his leg by inches. The ashen faced sailors are joined by their comrades as they look down the hatch, the bear snarling up at them. Someone brings along a rifle and attempts to push it into another’s hands. The man refuses. As does another. And another. Soon the whole crowd around the hatch are ignoring the chaos down below, shaking their heads and remonstrating with the man with the rifle. Not one of them is prepared to shoot the animal no matter how much danger they could be in or the damage that could be done. Shoot a gift from Stalin? How would you explain that? Staring at the floor they’d all rather take their chances with the bear.

Looking at the nervous crew Bill decides there is only one solution. He slams the hatch down and locks it, trapping the bear in the hold. The reaction down below is instantaneous- those on the deck can hear the animal going beserk. This seems to last an age- the sound of a bear wrecking every single barrel in the hold. Each smashed casing and the devouring of its contents propelling it into a further frenzy. What is to be done? Nothing it seems and most of the crowd drifts away from the hatch to worry and fret while leaving Bill and a comrade to stand guard. Eventually the bawling and growling gives way to huffing, slurping and chomping. Gradually these are replaced by a whimpering, the sound of a bear dropping to the floor and a heavy wheezing. Its a while before Bill opens the hatch. When he does, he is awed by the scenes of destruction that meet his eye. Every part of the bear’s fur seems matted and drenched with honey, its eyes rolled narcotically to the back of its head and its tongue lolling out of its slavering mouth. It is lying awkwardly on its back atop the wreckage of the entire consignment. Honey oozes out across the floor and splashes the walls. Bill will always remember this sight. A miracle no one was injured. With luck, they can now keep the bear sedated, clean up the mess and fix the worst of the damage. They can deliver their gift. Stalin need never know.

I can still remember the looks my brother gave me as we sat in a Chinese restaurant listening to Dad recount this tale. We hadn’t heard him in full flow for quite some time. It was more lucid than we were used to at that point but also more bizarre. And funny too. Much funnier than my attempt. He was more like his old self. Dad, for his part, maintained it was all true and that his father, Bill, had been one the sailors. It’s since become one of the main things we remember Dad by. Somehow typical of him but also, as it was one of the last of his tales he managed relay to us, more unique than ever. In the intervening years, the only other time I heard him talk at that length and detail was when we spoke on the phone a week before he died. For years all he’d managed was, “I’m being well looked after!” before passing the receiver back to Mum. In that last conversation he spoke for half an hour about how much he loved his parents, our Mum, my brother and me and our partners before speaking beautifully about his grandson. I knew then that it wouldn’t be long and it wasn’t a surprise when my mother rang distraught later that week. That last conversation will stay with me forever. However, the memory of it doesn’t make me laugh which is what Dad was so good at and which is why I have always wanted the polar bear story to be true.

I knew that grandad did work on Soviet steamships so there was a chance it could have happened. I had his discharge book which gave me the details of the ships he sailed on and their destinations but this stopped in 1927. Anyway, the Stalin element suggests that the incident took place in the 1930s but by that time my dad had been born and Bill had a chequered career ranging from working for the Soviet Embassy to being the catering manager at Tottenham Lido. When would he have had the time to go to Leningrad to load a polar bear onto a steamship in the first place?

I knew that if I started to pull at the threads of this tale it might not hold up. In fact it might unravel completely. All the same, I thought it was worth looking into. So, last year I sent an email to the Zoological Society of London. I began by explaining the story and apologising for it being so preposterous. The email continued:

I recently uncovered lot of documents detailing my grandfathers time on the SS Koursk- a steamship transporting goods from USSR to Britain which was operated by ARCOS during the 1920s. So, I have the Russian sailor part of the story but I don’t have the polar bear part. So, my question is. How would I find out whether the USSR gave London Zoo (or similar) a polar bear during the 1920s or 1930s? Is there any further information you could give me?

There might be no proof any of this happened. My dad told a lot of stories and this was one of the best. Wish I’d asked him more about it when he was alive.

The reply I received was remarkably unfazed as though they received requests like mine all the time. On reflection, I’m sure they do. They told me it would take a few days to research as the animal records weren’t kept in the Library and they needed to check with another department. A couple of weeks later I received the following:

Dear Alan,

I have searched our animal record cards to locate the polar bear that was shipped from the Soviet Union. There was only one polar bear which seemed a possibility, but I cannot be sure that it is the polar bear that you were told about. I have attached a photograph of the record card to this email.

So, on 30th September 1935 Captain Melenkhov and the crew of the SS Stalingrad presented London Zoo with a male polar bear called Mischa. In all probability this was the bear I was looking for. I managed to find an image of Mischa fairly easily. Standing upright in the Mappin Terrace enclosure. A huge beast. One you definitely wouldn’t want to get too close to. He looks fairly benign but then look at the size of those paws and imagine the strength behind them. You know how bears are. They can turn on you just like that. Much later Mischa became a father to the much more famous Brumas -the first baby polar bear to be successfully reared in Britain and a huge hit with the public. His image adorning a seemingly endless range of memorabilia. So, this was the polar bear part of the tale- whether I’d be able to find the truth regarding its journey to England though was another matter entirely.

The SS Stalingrad, was a cargo-passenger ship built for ice navigation making regular trips across the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic transporting goods back and forth between Russia and the United Kingdom. That means it was more likely to sail out from Vladivostok, Murmansk and Archangel rather than the Baltic port of Leningrad. During the Second World War, while it was part of a convoy carrying munitions from the UK to Russia via Reykjavik, it was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat. 21 lives were lost.

However, though our grandad had served on similar vessels in the past, by 1935, having recently become a father, he was rarely at sea. Did he make it onto the SS Stalingrad at all? My brother thinks that if he made this trip it was a one off. Possibly because he could be trusted & spoke English. After all, his sister was working in Moscow, and his father was a Comintern Agent. However, I think now it’s just as likely that Bill Stewart wasn’t on the crew. That maybe he just had friends on board and that he met up with them when they docked at Surrey. That he had nothing to do with trying to calm down a raging, Stalinist bear, blitzed on honey in the middle of the Baltic but that he heard all about it later. Or, of course, he may have made the whole thing up.

That first photograph I found of Mischa had lent a little bit of credence to the story and, as I put the whole thing aside for a few months wondering how to write about it, I just accepted that Russian sailors had stored an adult polar bear in the hold. There was something I’d missed on the card from London Zoo though. Next to the category ‘Habitat’ it said ‘Born in the Artic Circle in 1935’. I only noticed that, however, once I’d found another photograph of Mischa. This time on board the SS Stalingrad on its arrival in Britain that same year.

Mischa being fed on board the SS Stalingrad shortly before he as presented as a gift to the London Zoological Society. September 1935

Of course, Mischa hadn’t been a raging beast crammed into the hold ready to burst out and attack the crew until it was overcome by a stupor brought on by its gargantuan consumption of nectar. In reality one of the crew had picked up an infant bear of considerably less terrifying stature somewhere around the Arctic Circle during the ship’s voyage. Whether it was an orphan or not I do not know but Mischa clearly became a kind of ship’s mascot and the cute little thing might have been able to give you a nasty nip but would have found smashing through a compartment door next to impossible. Evidently Captain Melenkhov wasn’t sure what should be done with it on arrival in England and so presenting it to London Zoo seemed as good an idea as any. The story wasn’t true. It was wholly exaggerated. It was nonsense.

And then I realised what the story was. And I realised why my dad came to be telling it to us just as dementia started taking hold. When Mischa arrived in London, dad was a little over two years old. The tale of the polar bear drunk on Siberian honey was simply a story told by our grandfather Bill to his son Robin. Bill hadn’t been there. He may have had only the slightest connection to the whole incident but he made it his own. It was told to enchant, to amuse and to delight. To bring the teller and the listener closer together. I remember recounting a similar story to my toddler at a visit to the Natural History Museum once as we filed past a row of stuffed bears. “Look- that’s the bear that stole Daddy’s hair,” I said, going on to invent a suitably outlandish tale which my child, now a teenager, still remembers. My dad’s story was better though and the care he took to tell it showed the care our grandad took in embellishing it in the first place and none of it is surprising as clearly we are all a ludicrously sentimental lot in our family.

When I realised the whole saga was just a story told by Bill to Robin I cried for a bit. And then I was ok.

Our grandfather, Bill Stewart, our dad in his arms, sometime in 1935 or thereabouts.

Alan Stewart.