Tag: History

Comrades: Anatole Naumovich Kaminsky (Part One).

Anatomy Naumovich Kaminsky (1907-1941)

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

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.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 15: In Gaol Again.

HMP Cardiff.

In 1921 I was attending the Party’s National Executive in London. It was close to May Day and McManus, who was booked to speak at a May Day meeting in South Wales, said he could not go and asked me if I would like to take his place. “Sure,” I said, “I have never been to South Wales and it will be a new experience.” As it turned out it was.

I went down by train to Aberdare but before reaching there the train stopped at a small station and along the platform came a group of fellows shouting, “Bob Stewart, Bob Stewart!” I stuck my head out of the window and said, “That’s me.” “Can you do a meeting for the Party in Mountain Ash tomorrow night?” they asked. “Yes, I’ll be there.” So, after the meeting in Aberdare I travelled to Mountain Ash. The meeting was in a cinema and was crowded out. As usual at the time, the “splits” were in the boxes taking notes of my speech, but this happened at all meetings so I ignored them. The meeting finished and the local fellows said they were very pleased with the attendance and the effect. The repercussions were then still unknown.

I returned to London, and on the following Saturday, 7th May 1921, came the police raid on the party offices at King Street, Covent Garden, when Inkpin the general secretary was arrested. The raid was made without a warrant, under the Emergency Regulations Act. It was carried out by Detective-Inspector Parker, acting under the instructions, so he said, of the Director for Public Prosecutions.

During the raid all personnel in the office were rounded up from their individual rooms and brought to the general office on the ground floor of the building. The rooms were ransacked and, while this was going on, the homes of the office workers, even those of the girl clerks, were being searched. The police authorities certainly put on all the trimmings to build the raid up into a first-class political scare.

When Inkpin came into the general office and he exploded at Parker for the unwarranted intrusion into private property. “I demand to see your warrant to search these premises,” he said. “I don’t need a warrant,” replied Parker. “I am acting under the Emergency Regulations.” Parker then started to question Inkpin about the publication and sale of the Communist Party pamphlet called The Statutes of the Communist International. “Who wrote the book?” asked Parker. “What do you mean who wrote it?” said Inkpin. “These are the Statutes adopted by the 2nd Congress of the Communist International.” “Where did the books come from?” persisted Parker. “They came from Moscow, from the Communist International,” replied Inkpin. During the interrogation Inkpin again protested to Parker about the manner in which the police were acting, forcing their way into all the rooms in the building, sorting out files of correspondence obviously with the intention of taking them away. But Parker brushed this aside and kept on asking questions about the pamphlet The Statutes of the Communist International. Inkpin continued to answer truthfully this was a record of the decisions of the Communist International which was sent by the International not only to Britain but to most countries throughout the world.

Now Detective Inspector Parker might have been a good man at detecting crime, but he did not seem to have the elementary knowledge required to comprehend the simple working of an international body. Maybe, of course, he had had his instructions not to try to understand. Anyway, after fifteen minutes of this sham he stopped asking questions and started giving instructions. To Inkpin he said, “I am going to arrest you under the Emergency Regulations Act No. 19. I am further going to search the premises and take possession of anything I think fit under an order signed by the Chief of Police.” He then turned to another detective and said, “Mr Hole, here is the order,” and to “Inkpin, “Come with me.” “What, without a warrant?” said Inkpin. “None necessary,” was the reply and he turned to leave. It was then he spotted me standing in a corner trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, but obviously not succeeding. “Who is that man?” he barked. “That’s Mr Stewart,” said Inkpin. “Get his name and address, and the name and addresses of all the others.” And with that little lesson of how democracy works in this land of the free he turned, taking Inkpin with him, and disappeared out of the door.

The place was alive with police and plain-clothes men. I ran from room to room trying to salvage what I could, but the police ransacked the place, almost everything went, even to the paper and the stencils. There were a number of spare files of our paper Communist and I knew that McManus had some papers ‘filed’ away for safety. I said to the policemen who were carting all the material away for examination., “Here, take these away; they are only in the damned way here. You’ll be doing something useful then.” “We don’t need these,” was the reply, “we have files of them ourselves.” So that saved something. After the raid, in the evening, I went out to try and contact some of the Executive members.  I went to the Corner House in the Strand and luckily, I bumped into a few of them and learned that there was to be a meeting at Bill Mellor’s house later to discuss what we could do under the circumstances. After the discussion, I had an argument with McManus because I said I thought that Mellor was deciding to leave us-to get out. McManus said I was a fool, but I was eventually proved right; William Mellor, despite all his thunder and aggressive revolutionary phrases, was afraid of being on the wrong side of the police authorities, and a short time after left the party.

After the meeting, I was sent to get a lawyer for Inkpin, to Torrington square, to see WH Thompson, a lawyer who was on the left. I found him in a strange way. I was ascending the stairs to his place when a young fellow came running past me. Suddenly, he stopped and said, “Jesus Christ! Bob Stewart!” “The latter’s right,” I replied. “What brings you here?” This fellow had been a conscientious objector in Wormwood Scrubs when I was there, so we wore the same old school tie. I explained the position. He worked for WH Thompson. He said, “He’s not here but I’ll tell you where to find him.  He has gone to see his girl friend,” and he gave me the address. I found WH, explained the position, where Inkpin was- Snowhill Prison- and he assured me that I could leave everything to him. I returned to my hotel in Villiers Street, near the Strand, a good evening’s work done. As I entered two big fellows ‘took’ me, one on each side. “Your name Stewart, Robert Stewart?” one of them said. “Yes, a good Scottish name.” “Well, we want you, we have a warrant out for your arrest.” Naturally, I thought it was in connection with the raid on the party office, but as soon as I got to Cannon Row Police Station I discovered I was booked at the request of the Welsh police for speeches made in Aberdare and Mountain Ash. So, I was stuck in a cell, arrested for sedition. I was interrogated by an inspector, a very clever fellow, to his own way of thinking. “Ah! I know you,” he said. “I have heard you speaking in Dumbarton.” “Up on the rock?” I asked. “Sure, there was always a big crowd there.” There was never a meeting on Dumbarton Rock in all history, so I continued to kid him but he twigged it and finally closed up.

Next day I was taken to Wales, to the Abercynon Gaol where I rested the night, and the day after I went before the magistrate. He was an old fellow, sitting at his desk. “Your name Robert Stewart?” he asked. “Yes, but what’s going on?” I replied. “You’re in Court.” “What Court? Only you, me and a policeman?” “Yes, and you are remanded to the Assizes.” And that was the strangest court I was ever in, but then the Welsh do many things in strange ways. Back I went to the cell and the policeman said, “I want to take your fingerprints.” “Not mine, I am no criminal, I draw the line at that.” “We’ll see about that,” he said and went off but he did not return for the fingerprints.

In due course I was taken to the Assizes at Pontypridd. A bunch of snuffy magistrates, local publicans and others of that ilk. The prosecutor was a little fellow called Lloyd. The charges were seditious speeches. Little Lloyd had a real go. He built up a terrible case against me, and said I should be ashamed to call myself a British subject, I was an agitator coming into the district in troublesome times stirring up strife and hatred, saying the miners were being treated worse than German prisoners and that Jimmy Thomas was a traitor to the working class- which appeared to be sedition, I don’t know why. In passing I may add that the selfsame Mr Lloyd was some time later pinched for embezzlement , but I suppose that that would not trouble his loyalty to Britain. The witnesses said their piece. The local secretary, who was a canny lad named Foot, was very good. But the other party witness, Billy Picton, undid the good work. Billy was one of the aggressive type; good in an industrial struggle, but not much use in a court of law. Asked about my reference to miners being treated worse than German prisoners, he replied, “Well, it’s bloody true, isn’t it?” – not very helpful in a court in which the scales have already been loaded against you. In the long run the trial came to an end. The magistrate said a lot of wise words, then asked if there was anything known about a past record. Innocent like, of course. Then out came the dossier. Tried, court-martialled; tried, court-martialled, on and on. When he finished reading out the record, I looked at him and said quietly, “A good record.” The magistrate said that this sort of thing must not be allowed to continue, it would not continue, and so on. The sentence would have to be appropriate to the offence. I would be made an example. The sentence was three months’ hard labour. Three months’ hard. You can do that, as the old lags say, on the door knob.

Well, there I was inside again. In Cardiff Gaol. Interesting, because Cardiff being a big seaport the gaol is very cosmopolitan- men from all nationalities are inside and going around the ring at exercise you saw all colours and all kinds of men. For the first three days I sat sewing a pillow case. That was my hard labour, putting in stitches and pulling them out again. Of course, reading the Bible in between. This was the compulsory reading, but a very valuable book for left wing propagandists. One day the artisan warder came to see me. “What the hell are you sewing pillowcases for?” he demanded. “You’re a carpenter, aren’t you?” I told him what I thought about his pillowcases, his prison and his magistrates, but he only laughed. He turned out to be a good sort. He didn’t like clergymen and that was an instant bond between us. The prison chaplain at Cardiff and I could not get on. Charlie Chaplin we called him. This was because of the way he walked, not because of his humour. One day in my cell he said to me, “Mr Stewart, in cases of your kind, it is the wives and children I am sorry for.” I said, “Don’t you try telling my wife you are sorry for her, because if you do you will end up being sorry for yourself.”

The artisan warder stopped the pillowcases lark and took me down to the workshop. There was method in this because part of the prison was being demolished and an old oak floor was being scrapped. “Can you do anything with this, Jock?” he asked me, showing me a bit of the wood. It was a good bit of oak. “You could make some nice things with that,” I said. And I did- bookcases, hallstands, cupboards, small stools and many other pieces of oak furniture found their way into the warder’s home from the floor of the Old Cardiff Gaol. I am quite sure the government got none of it.

One day the warder gave me a shout when I was working. “Come here, Jock, I have a job for you.” So, I picked up my tools. “No, no,” he said, “all you need is an oil can. We’re going round to the execution chamber to oil the joints of the hanging apparatus.” Two men, sentenced to death for murder, were to be hanged the next day. “I’ll not oil your bloody hanging apparatus.” “What! You not in favour of hanging?” “Oh yes I would hand prison warders at a bob a time,” I said; “the trouble is they usually hang the wrong people.” “Well come and see how it works,” he said. So off we went to the execution chamber. He oiled the necessary places then gave me a demonstration of the proper way to operate it by pulling the lever and pointing to the drop. He seemed to take delight in it.

One day towards the end of my term, in came Jock Wilson, the Welsh Party Organiser, to see me; well, really to tell me something- that I had become a parliamentary candidate because Alfred Irons, the MP, had died. A by-election was pending at Caerphilly and the party had decided to contest their first ever parliamentary election as a party and I had been chosen as the candidate. Well, anyway, being in gaol, I couldn’t speak back. There had been quite a barney with the prison authorities. A report in The Communist appeared as follows:

We had expected difficulties to be put in the way of Robert Stewart’s Candidature in the Caerphilly mining constituency. They have already begun, and the Prison Governor has taken a hand. We wished to know when Stewart would be released for the purpose of the election campaign.

The party had sent a letter to the Governor of Cardiff Gaol in the following terms:

Dear Sir,

I should be very much obliged if you would kindly let me know on what date Robert Stewart, the National Organiser of the Communist Party, whom we understand to be present in Cardiff Gaol, will be released.

Yours faithfully

(signed) Fred H. Peat, acting secretary

Back came the reply:

HM Prison,

Cardiff

23rd July, 1921

In reply to your letter of inquiry it is regretted that the information asked for cannot be given.

I am your obedient servant

(signed) HJ Perwin

One night before the end of my time I was pleasantly surprised when the head warder came and asked if I would like to be released a day early. “Fine,” I said. But really the authorities were afraid of a demonstration, because when I had been taken from Pontypridd to Cardiff Gaol to start my sentence there was a bus load of policemen in the front and a bus load of policemen behind all the way. Certainly a good few tons of policemen to hold mine nine stones of communism. No doubt they were also taking no chances when I was leaving.

Out of the gaol, I went to Alf Cook’s house to discuss the political situation, and I had just arrived when a telegram was delivered from Moscow informing us of the death of Bill Hewlett in a monorail accident in Russia. It had been a bad accident and Jim Stewart of Lochgelly was also injured. So, I had the sad task of making arrangements for someone to break the news to Mrs Hewlett.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 14: Scottish Party Organiser.

After the formation of the British Communist Party at the Leeds Conference, the main task was to build and strengthen the organisation. I was elected as the Scottish organiser, a very tough assignment.

The main political problem then was the beginning of mass unemployment, the fight for work, and the divisions which this creates in the working-class movement. During the war most big factories had established their “factory committees”. But now many of the factory committee members had become
unemployed, and factory committees had employed and unemployed workers working together. This, however, gradually ceased and there began the unemployed workers’ committees which led to the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement which was to play such an important role in the working-class struggles of the 1920s. This segregation of employed and unemployed workers was not then and never has been a good thing for workers in struggle. One section is always played off against the other by the boss and inevitably the boss wins.

Naturally our fellows, being the most militant, suffered most and were the first victims in the factories. Many joined the ranks of the unemployed, and while this meant they had time for political campaigning it cut them off from the much more decisive political work in the factory organisation.

In this setting we commenced to gather together the socialist fragments and build the Communist Party in Scotland. We inherited the British Socialist Party branches, the Communist Labor Party branches, and Socialist Prohibition Fellowship Party branches. All rather loose in organisation, and as I very soon found out, very inflated in assumed membership. The Communist Labour Party were supposed to bring over 4,000 members but I doubt if there was half that
number. The British Socialist Party claimed to bring over 10,000 members. If they did, there were thousands I never saw and I very much doubt if anyone else ever saw them. Propaganda was our strong point. We had many excellent speakers, and all dead sure of themselves. Tom Bell, for years the editor of The Communist; Willie Gallacher, for fifteen years M.P. for West Fife; Johnnie Campbell, who became editor of the Daily Worker, and Bill Joss, one of the ablest lecturers in the Scottish Labour College. These and many others made up a brilliant team of socialist agitators for the Scottish district of the new party.

Copies of The Communist- a forerunner of The Daily Worker.

Then there was the selling of our paper, The Communist, an extremely important part of our political work. With self-sacrificing effort of fellows like big Pat Quinlan, Malcolm McFarlane and others the sales rose by thousands. Nothing was a handicap to them. They were out on sales late and early, in snow, sleet and rain, nothing deterred them. At this period I remember one strange incident that came up in the ordinary course of the work. In Glasgow there was a big Irish docker named Jimmy Fearns. He originally came from Newry in Northern Ireland, and I think he was one of the founders of the Irish Citizen Army. Jimmy was out of work and, like most people in his circumstances, living in one of the model lodging houses for which Glasgow was famous-or infamous, depending on which way you look at it. I never knew why the name “model” was given to these dens of human suffering, they were certainly revoltingly original, but never model. One morning Jimmy came to me and said:

“Bob, can’t we do something for the modelers?”

“Have they any grievances?” I asked.

“Sure they got nothing but grievances.”

So we had a meeting with a number of representatives from the models, mostly men living apart from their wives and families and trying to keep two homes going. We got their grievances, published a leaflet and distributed it around the lodging houses. Because of this agitation a number of these places became cleaner and started to provide more up-to-date cooking and washing facilities.

The story was not without sequel. We were amply repaid for our work. For us there was the guarantee that our meetings in Glasgow were conducted in a peaceful atmosphere. The modelers were very handy fellows when the occasion arose. They lived in a society in which “might was right” and if there was any attempt to break up our meetings they soon put an end to that nonsense, saying “they defended those who defended them.”

The Scottish organisation took shape on the basis of our propaganda meetings. We had branches in every big borough from Glasgow to Aberdeen and a lone scout or two in places like Inverness, Dumfries, Perterhead and Fraserburgh. We listed speakers for the meetings, checked that they were advertised- because in those days it was a hit or miss business, sometimes the speaker did not turn up, sometimes the meetings were not advertised and there was no audience. All arrangements had to be checked and re-checked.

This meant money, and sometimes the sums were large, at least large for us. Two members of the Scottish Executive who did a magnificent job on finance for the party were John Inches and George Whitehead. By their work the Scottish Party was entirely self supporting, and with good finances the
political and organisation work of the party received most attention. Thus early I already understood that freedom from financial worry is a boon to a Communist Party organiser.

The most distinguishing feature of the Scottish Party then was its solid industrial base. In fact, the party was so working-class that there was a real antipathy to what was termed “the intellectuals”. It was entirely wrong of course and was combated by the Party. At that time we had a number of students; one of them, Phil Canning, later to be elected as a Communist Councillor in Greenock for many years, became an outstanding representative of the working class. Our students became swallowed up in revolutionary thought and began to absent themselves from their university classes, thinking the revolution was round the corner. I had long conversations with them, and patiently explained that just as in the workshop a Communist had to be a capable worker and win the respect of his mates, so in the college and university the students must do the same. If a Communist could not pull his weight then his “preaching” will fall on deaf ears. A student with a degree was a much more valuable political worker than a student without a degree.

Our solid industrial base came largely from the members who had come to the party from the Clyde Workers’ Movements and the militant workers from the mines and the railways who also had an excellent record of militancy during the war. But they also brought a number of problems. Our relations with the Labour Party were not good. This was partly of our own making, in that many of the groups that had preceded the new Communist Party and helped to form it had a very abusive attitude towards the Labour Party. Many of these members were strong political individualists and spent the greater part of their political life calling the Labour Party names. Not that sometimes the abuse was not called for, but nevertheless it was not the right way to go about trying to cement relationships that certainly would have helped us to gain more working-class unity in action.

We also inherited a problem from the Socialist Labour Party, who had laid down that their members would not accept trade union office lest they be corrupted. We naturally had to fight against that principle; corruption in the trade unions was then and still is an occupational hazard for which membership of the Communist Party is a good antidote. This, however, was one of the reasons why many militant trade union leaders in Scotland did not immediately join our party.

Our principal problem in industry was to get a balanced understanding of the political work of the party, engaging in every struggle in the social field and blending this with our industrial work in the fight for wages and better working conditions. This conception was foreign to British politics and therefore the hardest nut to crack for our party. A break had been made during the war in the rent struggles on the Clydeside, which culminated in the pressure on the authorities being so great that a new Rent Act was passed in Parliament. The Clyde Workers’ Movement had played a decisive part in this fight, organising the workers in the factories and combining with the tenants’ organisations. In fact, it can truly be said it was this successful combination of social and industrial struggle that was the main reason for the success gained.

We also had to try and overcome strong syndicalist traditions which still endured in industry. In this there was good and bad. I well remember when the late Jack Tanner came to the party, at that time a strong syndicalist-in fact, he edited a paper called The Syndicalist from somewhere in Fetter Lane, London. But Handsome Jack, as he was called, developed ambitions to become a trade union leader and the Communist label did not make for an easy passage, so Jack
changed the label.

Tom Mann in 1920.

Another syndicalist, but one who was quickly shedding his syndicalist ideas and who came to the party, was Tom Mann. A great national and international figure and the first Labour candidate to contest Aberdeen; a fine trade unionist, a first-class politician, a great social mixer, known to everyone left, right and centre, respected by all and one of the best speakers the Communist Party ever had; Tom Mann was a great asset to the British trade union movement and an excellent representative of the Communist Party.

In these early days the party attracted all kinds of industrial do-gooders and the sieve of struggle sorted them out. In Scotland we got our quota, but the vast majority of our members were fine men and women, with the success of the working-class struggles and the achievement of socialism as their main aim. We had leading miners from every coalfeld, engineers like Willie Gallacher and Hugh Hinselwood, Tom Bell and Jim Gardner (later to be the general secretary of the Foundry Workers Union) from the foundry workers, from the railways Jimmy Davidson and Jimmy Figgins who many years later was general secretary of the N.U.R., and George Whitehead from the Clerks. They and many others were held in the very highest esteem in the unions and the factories, enhancing the prestige of our party.

At that time we had not reached the stage of factory organisation, but there is no doubt that the work of our industrial members at the formative stage of the party laid a firm base for party industrial work in Scotland which has endured, expanded and strengthened until the present time. One of the big disappointments when the party was formed in Scotland was that John McLean, one of the foremost members of the British Socialist Party, did not join the new
Communist Party.

John McLean.

McLean was undoubtedly one of the greatest British socialists of all time. Lenin spoke of him as a fearless fighter against imperialist war. When the first All Russian Congress of Workers and Soldiers’ Councils met, John McLean and Karl Leibknecht were appointed honorary members of the presidium in recognition of the great international character of their socialist work. Later McLean was appointed as the first consul for Russian affairs in Great Britain. In this job he did a vast amount of work and many Russians then living in Britain thanked him for his assistance.

McLean’s main aim was to have Labour Colleges in every county and city in Scotland and he succeeded in doing so in all the main cities and in many of the counties. These colleges brought many thousands of Scottish workers closer to the understanding of socialist principles. As a school teacher and a mass working-class leader McLean naturally gravitated to this form of mass socialist education. I was an Executive member of the Scottish Labour College, worked with McLean, and came to appreciate his outstanding capabilities in this form of work.

I am many times asked, “Why did McLean not join the Communist Party?’ I have always found some difficulty in answering. John McLean was a Communist. His life and work was that of a dedicated Communist motivated by sincere socialist principles. He was a most energetic man and never at rest, a powerful debater and a skilful propagandist. He could hold a crowd for hours with his oratory. He was a comparatively easy man to work with, but more an individualist worker than a collective one. There can be no doubt that the long spells in His Majesty’s prisons totally undermined his health and that this had an effect on his thinking in his later years, when he became obsessed with the idea that he would be poisoned. He refused to eat in anyone’s house and on occasions refused food even from his wife. I noticed this particularly when he came down to assist me in the Caerphilly by-election in which I stood as the Communist candidate.

He told me he did not like a number of the leading members of the Communist Party, but I think he would not be alone in that, and we had a number of discussions on this question. Yet such things should not detract from the indispensable contribution John McLean made to the advancement of the British working class. He was truly a giant in the British labour
movement and an international socialist of whom the British people can be proud.

His early death in 1923 was a great blow to the Scottish working class.

The Family Firm.

The Stewart Family pictured in the mid 1920s: -R: Bob, Rab, Annie (Nan), William and Margaret.

To the best of my knowledge the last person in my family to still be fully committed to a Marxist-Leninist revolution died in 1978. He was my grandfather William Stewart and he was lovely. However, even though those that remain have spent the intervening forty-four years failing to overthrow the capitalist system, communism has loomed ever present in the background in our lives for all sorts of reasons. It is a bittersweet inheritance. I suppose there is nothing surprising in its presence as, from the inception of the CPGB in 1920, communism essentially became the family business for the next fifty years. Practically everyone was involved.

At the end of 1955 – a few months before Khrushchev would acknowledge the crimes of Stalin for the first time in his ‘secret speech’ MI5 picked up some office gossip about the Stewart family through one of the bugs it had placed in the offices at the Communist Party’s HQ in King Street, Covent Garden. Reuben Falber, who, when Bob Stewart finally retired in 1957, would go on to be responsible for distributing funds from Moscow, was overheard talking to fellow party worker Betty Reid about a recent scandal involving Bob’s nephew Greg – a Cambridge student who had just been unforgivably rude to one of the comrades at Central Books. Here’s part of the transcript in the security files:

‘They’re a family that-well, they’re a law unto themselves because you’ve got a combination of the old fellow’s prestige and money. BETTY asked where the money came from. Regret FALBER’s reply was whispered and could not be followed.

(From the MI5 Security File on Bob Stewart KV2/2790 – The National Archives)

The ‘old fellow’ is, of course, Bob Stewart and quite clearly the whole family had something of a reputation within communist circles. In fact, Betty Reid, in a conversation recorded about eight months later, was of the opinion that the Stewart children – William, Rab and Nan, had been “thoroughly spoiled all their lives.” This kind of attitude is elaborated further in an earlier document I came across in my grandfather’s security file on a recent visit to the National Archives. It’s dated 17th October 1932 and appears to be a memorandum from Special Branch to MI5 concerning the activities of Bob and his three children. I reproduce it here in full partly because I think it’s an interesting account of how the Stewarts and other similar families were viewed within the movement but mainly because I love the description of my grandfather.

The following information has been received.


WILLIAM STEWART, who used to drive the Soviet Ambassador’s car has given up driving altogether and is now employed in the Embassy as a ‘trusted’ man. He recently stated that he was engaged there on work of a secret nature, which included a little clerical labour.

His hours are from 5pm until 1am and his wife also has a job at the Embassy.

He is forbidden to undertake Communist Party of Great Britain work.

He now wears a small moustache, Charlie Chaplin style, which gives him an altered appearance, and carries an ash walking-stick. He often wears a light green shirt, brown jacket and shorts (at other times grey flannel trousers), light brown rabbit-skin hat, and brown shoes. He apes the appearance and mannerisms of a university student.

His father, ‘Bob’, is at present in Belfast where he is assisting the Irish Revolutionary Workers’ Party.

His brother, who lived with Ralph Edwin BOND, and was attached to St. Pancras Local Communist Party of Great Britain, has now secured a situation at Arcos Ltd. as also has his wife. Both have been transferred to Islington Local.

His sister, who was active in the Young Communist League of Great Britain, and who went to Russia on several occasions, has gone to live there permanently. She also was employed at Arcos and married a principal of that concern. As he has been recalled to Russia, she has accompanied him.

The state of affairs here outlined indicates how the movement is ‘exploited as a meal ticket’ (to use the phrase of certain disgusted genuine Communists) by certain fortunate families.

The CAMPBELL family is another case in point. The sum of over £20 weekly is received in John Ross Campbell’s home from Soviet sources.

The WATKINS’ are in the same position, whilst there is a host of others.

There is keen resentment in the ‘movement’ over this condition of things. It is freely expressed that no man and wife should be allowed to hold a situation while other ‘Comrades’ are unemployed. This objection has taken root and considerable trouble on the point seems likely to develop.

SUPERINTENDENT.

(From the MI5 Security File on William Stewart KV2/4494 – The National Archives)

Alan Stewart.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 12: Fourth Court Martial.

Dundee Jail. Bob Stewart wrote most of the poems in Prison Rhymes here.
In the "Clink"-Edinburgh Castle

On jam and bread and bully beef,
They feed us in the clink,
There's a guard that's got the wind up,
And not a drop to drink.
We are short of fags and matches
And squeezed in very tight,
But we don't go short of scratches
When the flea-bags' come at night.

We are exercised each morning,
Deep down in Castle moat,
We play football and pitch and toss
And get the sergeant's goat.
We throw kisses to the ladies
And curses at the Yanks,
And when they pitch us cigarettes
There's mutiny in the ranks.

When the lovely war is over
And we're back at 'joyful' work,
When we've hypnotised old "Jerry"
And camouflaged the Turk,
When we meet again in "civvies"
What a tale we'll have to tell,
Of the clink up in the Castle,
Good old forty-second Hell.

Bob Stewart's Prison Rhymes

So I did my time in Dundee and with my remission I came up for my fourth court martial. Back to Edinburgh and this time to the Castle, with “Bobby” Moncrieff in charge. “Ha-ha,” they all warned with glee, “wait till Bobby Moncrieff gets hold of you.” But I knew Bobby, he was one of the family from Perth who made their fortune in ink. He was in command of the Dundee-Perth regiment of the Black Watch. I used to watch him march the jute workers through Dundee, men with the lowest wages in the country, hardly a bite in their belly, and Bobby howling at them “Bout turn!” “Forward march!” trying to make them into big brawny soldiers fit to be killed. Oh, I knew him all right, and I had known many of his kind in my time. But he didn’t put the fear of death into me.

However, I arrived at the Castle and got shoved into the guard-room. The sergeant said to the corporal, “Search that man.” “Not necessary,” I replied, “I’ll turn out my pockets.” So I counted my money, took out a box of matches and counted them. “What are you doing?” the sergeant hollered. “The Black Watch has a reputation! “I know,” I answered, “that’s why I’m counting my matches.” Soon I am shoved into another room with all the other delinquents. Like every other place, you soon make friends. First the meal. Beef and
potatoes are served. But no fork and knife. “Where’s the tools?” I asked. No answer. So I sit, and the other lads, possibly hungrier than myself, ask, “Aren’t you going to eat it?” “Not without tools.” “Can we eat it?” “Better leave it till we sort this out.”

Back comes the sergeant. “Not eating the food, Stewart?” he says. “No, and I won’t until I get a fork and knife.” “Well, we will get you some sandwiches.” When the sandwiches came there was a rush for the plate of beef and potatoes that certainly did not say much for the culture practised in the British Army.

Into the guard-room came a wee drummer boy. I remember him well because he was so tiny. A jockey of jockeys, you might say. A bit nosey, he starts his own investigations. “What are you in for?” he asked me. “Because I won’t fight.” “Why won’t you go and fight?” “Because it’s not my quarrel.” “Christ, it’s no’ mine either:” Round and round he goes, asking his questions and getting his answers, until he comes to a fellow sitting very despondent and taking no heed of the proceedings. “How long have you been absent?” asks the nipper. No reply. Then he looks into the fellow’s face. “You’re no’ absent, he said, “you’re lost!” The lighter moments come and very often can linger much longer in memory than the tribulations. I did see Bobby Moncrieff but he must have been in a subdued mood. The war weariness was weighing heavily on everyone, even the Top Brass were feeling the weight of the loss of millions of good lives.

So I am again sentenced and returned to Dundee Gaol.

It was in Dundee Gaol I had a real barney with one of the religious mentors. The normal chaplain had gone to the front to administer religion to the soldiers, because you can’t very well preach the old adage “Fix your bayonet and say Be Holy or I’ll make you holy” if you don’t sometimes obey it yourself. Anyway, that honest little chaplain was succeeded by a little guy called McDonald. A little weasel. He and I never got on. Coming through the prison one day while I was whitewashing the walls, he said, “That’s a nice clean job you’re making of the walls, Stewart.” “I’m not cleaning the walls,” I replied, “I’m covering up the dirt.”

But I really detested him because he took advantage of his pulpit every Sunday to have a go at the Bolsheviks. Telling how Lenin ate children, Trotsky shot all the workers, and so on. The microbes eating each other up. I was sorely tempted to have a go at him, but Dave Donaldson was waiting to go out for another court martial, which is always a break, you understand, so I had to bide my time. When Dave went the storm broke.

The Weasel commenced his usual sermon with the evil doings of the Bolsheviks, then got on to his main theme, “They must be crushed like rats, etc., etc.” I could stand it no longer, so I jumped up. “You dirty miserable little coward,” I said, “standing up there in your coward’s castle maligning men who can’t speak back. Well, here’s one that speaks back, you dirty contemptible little rascal! They should put you in a prison cell not a prison pulpit.” During this outburst he sat down too surprised to say a word and he never rose again. It must be the shortest prison service on record in British prisons.

We were all marched out. One of the warders who knew me said, “You must write to the Prison Commissioners, Bob, complaining of the chaplain using his pulpit for political purposes.” “No,” I replied, “I have done what I wanted to do. Let it rest meantime.” Next came the Head Warder. “You’ll have to apologise to the chaplain,” he said. “That’s what I’m waiting for,” I replied. “Send him up here.” But he never came and the matter ended there.

During my stay in Dundee Jail I fancied myself as a poet and wrote a number of prison rhymes. I can make an apology for these because prison is not the best place to practise literary ambitions. However, when I came out of jail, the Prohibition and Reform Party published them in pamphlet form and they were a best-seller. Many thousands of copies were sold, giving a much-needed boost to the party funds.

The library in Dundee Gaol was composed of a few old copies of monthly and quarterly magazines. When I first asked for a book the warder said, “Christ, nobody reads here.” It was at this time that, through questions in Parliament and outside pressure, certain concessions were granted, so that newspapers and books could be sent to friends in prisons. An exception was The Tribune, published with great difficulty by the No-conscription Fellowship, which was the most hounded and persecuted little paper at that time. It was then edited by a group of women, amongst whom was Joan Beauchamp, who became the wife of W. H. Thompson, a famous expert on Compensation Law and Labour Law questions. The Socialist Monthly was also banned. Despite this banning, we still got these papers. I took up the question of supplies of newspapers with the Prison Commissioners, and finally we got a number of daily and weekly newspapers and a number of books as well. In fact, one of the new governors, on occasions, borrowed my books from me.

We got one or two of the warders, particularly the female warders, interested, and were able to circulate rationalist, progressive and socialist literature quietly in prison. Now and again our privileges were threatened when the newspapers turned up where they ought not to be, but we weathered the storms.

News from the outside only adds to the impatience and yearning for release-it was always galling to be divorced from activity as well as from home and friends.

It was while I was doing my term for the fourth court martial that the war finished, but still I was confined to gaol. Month after month was passing and not a word said about my release. One day I was communing with myself. “What am I doing in here? It was in April 1919. I was going with a bucket of water and a brush to clean some windows. “Ach,” I said, “I’m finished.’ So I went back to my cell and the warder hurried after me. “What’s up?” “I’m finished.” “What do you mean, you’re finished? “I’m through. I’m not going to do another damned thing. I’m not going to work, eat or drink in this prison.” Up came the Governor, but I held my ground. “I’m finished,” I said. “There’s neither sense nor reason for my being here. The war ended months ago and to keep me here is sheer malice. I am not going to continue.” That started the ball rolling and in a few days Dave Donaldson and I were out. They called a cab to take us home.

My first reception was from my little daughter, who on seeing us ran to her mother saying there were two dirty- looking soldiers coming into the house. But we had a real party to celebrate the occasion. So many people came that we had to borrow trestle-tables from the co-operative shop next door to accommodate all the guests.

So that was the end of the court martials. More prison sentences were to come, but I didn’t know that then. Left-wing politics in the twenties were not be to a bed of roses after all.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 11: Third Court Martial.

Edinburgh Castle.
Duffy, he got huffy,
And says he to little John,
“You've got no business talkin'
When you're out at exercise,
I've tould you that, I'm sure, until I'm sick."
“Ach, Duffy dear, recall the days,When you were human too,
Before you took a screw’s job in the nick.”
"There's got to be no more of it
Or else I'll lock you up;
Will yez promise that ye won't talk any more?"
“Ach bless yer heart, I couldn't promise,such a stupid thing,
I'd be speakin' to mesilf behind the door."

Bob Stewart’s Prison Rhymes

I was taken from Calton Gaol to East Linton to await my third court martial. The officer in charge there was a Broughty Ferry man (Broughty Ferry is a suburb of my home town, Dundee) and he asked me, “Is it true, Stewart, that while you were in Calton you got home at weekends?”‘ “If it is,” I answered, “I never noticed it.” “Well, that’s what they said in the Ferry.” “It isn’t the only lie they told about me in the Ferry.” As the Ferry was, and still is, the stronghold of Toryism since it became the home and playground of jute millionaires, I was certain I was right, but if anyone believed that conscientious objectors got weekends out from Calton Gaol they would believe anything.

Keeping me company in the line of court martials was a very fine man called Alex McCrae. A little chap who had been in Smyrna when the war broke out. When he came home to Britain he had declared his conscientious objection. His wife, a very pretty lass who was active in the No-conscription Fellowship, came to East Linton the day I arrived, to see her husband. Knowing this, McCrae asked the Broughty Officer in Charge if he could have a night out with his wife, which was granted. So when I arrived at East Linton I got a seat at a table set for four, McCrae, two of God’s own, Christadelphians I think, and myself. Knowing McCrae would be absent, these two others shared the third meal between them and never said “Would you like an extra bite?” I was so enraged that I rounded on them. “I don’t know which Bible class you were brought up in but there’s not a prostitute in the whole of Glasgow as mean as you two.’

Then off I went to Leith Street School for the court martial. The two men in charge were rankers, had risen from the ranks to this exalted position, and didn’t they let everyone know it. My wife arrived and they refused to let her see me. I got to know and demanded to see the orderly sergeant. “This is a
bloody lousy trick,” I said, “keeping my wife and kid from seeing me.” “I know,” he replied, “but it’s that fellow Cross (the ranker), he refused permission. But hang around and I think it will be all right when he goes.” And it was.

But at the court martial I got my own back good and proper. It was a real field day. Edinburgh Castle was the headquarters of Scottish Command and most defaulters passed that way. So there we were, a huge crowd in Leith Street, sergeants, corporals, privates, all in the queue; and there in the court- the Colonel and his henchmen.

Command: “Prisoners and escorts in!” So in we march, and are ranged in front of the Court. The Chairman said, “I am Colonel so-and-so, this is Captain —-and this is Lieutenant —-. By regulation I have to ask you, each one separately, if you are satisfied with the composition of the Court.” He didn’t say what would happen if anyone objected. Then he went on. “Sergeant —-, are you satisfied?” “Yes, sor.” Then it came to Private Stewart. No answer. A repeat, a bit louder, and still no answer. So he passes on until the queue is finished then bawls out, “All except Stewart.” At least there is no “Private” this time. He
then turned direct to me and shouted, “Are you satisfied?” “Before we come to that I would like to ask you a question,” I said. “What is it?” “How much notice should an accused get before he is court martialled?” “Well, that depends on the conditions.” “In the present conditions?” I asked. “Twenty-four or forty eight hours.” “What happens if you don’t get any notice?” I asked. Suddenly he whipped round on them lieutenant. “Did this man get notice? “Didn’t think it was necessary,” replied the lieutenant. “Case adjourned–prisoner and escort out!” shouted the colonel. “Wait here, Lieutenant.” My escort was standing, his eyes like glass, and the order had to be repeated. When we reached the corridor he was besieged by his mates. “What happened? What did he get?” “Made a bloody mess o’ them, case adjourned.” “Holy jees!” So the story buzzed around the escorts and accused, and all seemed highly pleased. Then the door opened and out came the lieutenant in a furious rage. “Take him back to barracks,” he shouted; then howled, “And see he gets no privileges.”

So we reach the street and then I find the escort is blazing mad. He had schemed that he could leave me after sentence and visit his wife who lived in Leith, only a mile away. “Well,” I said, “that’s tough on you, you haven’t done anything wrong. Why should you be deprived of a night with the wife? Why not buzz off and I will meet you in the morning?” “Can I trust you?” “Sure, I’ll be at the station in the morning.” So off he went to see his wife and I to see an old pal, Jimmie Leven, who lived out in Gorgie. There I had a great welcome, a bath and a good feed. In the evening Jim and I went to a Peace Committee meeting and I made such an impassioned speech that the secretary thought the war had come to his meeting.

I was soon back again and this time no mistake. All regulations duly observed – ‘Refused to Parade’ was the charge. So I was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour (later remitted to one year). I was sent to the state prison in Edinburgh Castle. But I was not long there. My mother was much too old to make the journey to Edinburgh but naturally she wanted to see her youngest son as many times as she could. So she came a few times, and in the process discovered that the Governor came from the same part of the country as she did. When she had said good-bye to me, the Governor invited her into his office to chat–as we Scots say, “Hame crack ower farms and farmers, cattle and crops, lairds and tenants and the hamely fare o’ the countryside.” I remember my mother telling me about him saying to her, “What I canna understand, wumman, hoo wi’ a maither like you Robert’s an atheist.” “Aye;” she replied, “he was aye a great Bible student.”

My mother died while I was in the state prison, but military regulations would not allow me permission to attend the funeral. There was much local feeling about this because my mother was greatly respected by all her neighbours, and protests were made to the Lord Provost of Dundee. He did intervene and said he would vouch for my return. I was then transferred to civil imprisonment again in Calton Gaol for a few hours, and taken under a most inhuman warder to Dundee, where I arrived too late to see my mother buried; but I met the family, among them my two soldiering brothers who had managed to get leave. The warder was in a hurry to get back to Edinburgh and so he dumped me in Dundee Gaol. More deputations to the Lord Provost and the upshot was that it was decided I would do the rest of my time in Dundee. Dundee was a smaller prison than Calton, and at that time, much to the chagrin of the warders, not fully occupied. How well I remember their glee at reception of new prisoners. Not that they were more devoted to duty or softer-hearted than the turnkeys at Calton, but the massacres in Europe were eating up hosts of men, and patriotic as the warders naturally were, they were not at all anxious to be called up to the front for service.

As a matter of record, I helped some of them make out their claims for exemption on compassionate, domestic or other grounds. So the warder who locked me up for resisting military service then asked my assistance to fill up his application form for exemption so that he could continue to lock me up!

Jute being the staple industry of Dundee, the situation in its prison was more or less the same. Teasing jute ropes, making and sewing sacks for coal, copper, meat-packing, etc. The working day was ten hours, sixty sacks, sides and bottoms, being the daily norm: a smaller number of coal sacks, which were heavy and hard to bore with the needle. Of course, all material was hand sewn, there were no machines, and the work was primitive and not very economic. At times my work was in association with a fellow called Tammy Sword, a local worthy doing his fifty-second sentence for being drunk and disorderly. When he got really drunk he boasted that it took half a dozen policemen to carry him to gaol, where he was more at home than in his own home.

The warders appreciated Tammy’s capacity as a sewer. He set a hard pace for his fellow prisoners, but he had a soft spot for me. “Dinna sew any, Bob,” he would say,”tak’ some o’ mine to mak’ up your lot.” Dave Donaldson and I were
couriers in a romance with his sweetheart, who was doing time in the female part of the gaol. Dave was working with the artisan warder who did the maintenance work, and so was able to move around. In this way amorous notes were exchanged between Tammy and his lass with great regularity. Dave Donaldson was a beam and scale maker, and was handy at pipe fitting and whatever small smithy work had to be done. When necessary I was his labourer. We changed over when there was a carpenter’s job to be done, I then becoming
the skilled man. We painted and whitewashed too, and were getting quite proud of our skill until Willie Findlay, another “conchie” and a painter by trade, came to do his hard labour. Then we sadly gave in and admitted that painting was a trade.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 10: Second Court Martial.

Calton Jail.


Oh, Calton Gaol! Oh, Calton Gaol!
Sae sombre, grim and grey,
Within thy wa’s were gallant hearts,
Held captive many a day,
For they refused to bend the knee,
To tyrant’s cruel sway,
Their stand remembered aye shall be,
They stood for liberty.

Bob Stewart’s Prison Rhymes


The days wore on to my second court martial. Now I was really beginning to know the ropes. Culprits for the court were lined up outside the court-room in good time, in charge of a sergeant. There was the usual to-ing and fro-ing, standing to attention, saluting and so on. Yours truly, of course, was taking no part in the proceedings and a young soldier standing near me said, “Some funny things come up in times of war.” “No, no,” I replied. “No different from time of peace. Only different uniforms.” “You should be shot,” he came back. “Well, if I wait till you save up to buy a gun I don’t doubt I’ll have my old age pension before that.” After a turn down the line, he came back and said, “Christ! that was a good one!”

The sentence of the court conformed to regulations. “For failing to obey military order, etc., etc. . . One year’s imprisonment with hard labour ” (subsequently reduced to six months). In due course I was escorted Calton Gaol, Edinburgh , and handed over to the authorities. The authorities, by trial and error, had discovered by this time that even their notorious “glass-houses”, the military detention barracks with their “at the double” man breaking exercises, only stiffened the resistance of the objectors to military service. The refusal to obey the “lion-tamers” was having a bad effect on the other prisoners who became inclined to emulate them, and so the government made a virtue out of necessity, and a show of their “humanity”, by transferring the objectors to civil jails.

Calton Gaol was grim and grey, old and forbidding both inside and out. Reception was not quite so noisy as the Scrubs. I remember the warder fussing around, listing the King’s property in my possession, which tended to get less and less as I passed through the guard-rooms where other soldiers were
always short of kit.

“Whit’s your size in buits?” Try them on. “Have you had a bath?” Oh, aye, you look clean. “Where’s your moleskins?” In Scottish prisons the dress includes moleskin breeches tied at the knees with tape, long stockings which never matched, rough cotton shirt (Kirkcaldy strip to the trade), moleskin jacket, glengarry cap, and of course a badge with hall and cell number. “Oh, Stewart, whit’s your religion? “I haven’t any.” “Ye maun hae a religion, a’body has in here.” “Well, here’s one that doesn’t.” “Well I’ll just mak’ ye a Quaker, there’s a lot o’ your kind Quakers.’ So down on my cell card alongside age, height, etc., goes Quaker. Now comes the chaplain. What are you in for?” “Me? Twelve months.” “That’s not what I mean. What have you done?” “Oh, I refused to do anything.” I think he then began to tumble to the position so he went outside and looked at the card. “I see you are a Quaker.” “Not me, I neither quake nor shake.” “It says so on your card.” “Ah yes, I had a soldier’s suit on yesterday but
that did not make me a soldier.” So ended the spiritual ministrations and Quaker was crossed out and atheist inserted in a bold hand.

A favourite prison tale is told of this chaplain, who was alleged to be fond of a
“wee drap”. One of his congregation became suddenly religious and requested the chaplain to read a bit chapter to him as he had no glasses. This the chaplain
did with great pleasure but he was not so happy when he heard the convert’s explanation–that next to the taste of rum the smell can be comforting.

To supplement the swashbuckling sermons of the professional chaplain who wielded the Sword of Gideon over us on Sunday mornings, we had a diversion to amateurism on Sunday afternoons with an Evangelist; accompanied by a lady
organist.

Here is the routine. When the fleshpots were removed after dinner came the order: “Stools down to the Hall for Bible Class!” Down we clattered to the Hall, and set our stools, spaced well apart to avoid conversation between prisoners (it
did not!).

Mr. Bannerman the preacher opened the service with prayer (that was a signal for whispers). Then came a hymn accompanied by a wheezy harmonium. A bit doleful, but it revealed to me where the griddlers, back court and street singers had received their training. Then the prisoners recited texts from the Bible, still more doleful, but it gave the prisoners a feeling of participation which they enjoyed. Then a short sermon, a bit weepy. Another hymn or two, then an announcement that anyone who recited the 15th Chapter of St. Luke without a mistake would receive a Bible on release. On my second Sunday I gave St. Luke full voice! I got that Bible when released.

There were always “Conchies” passing in and out of Calton Gaol, many of them religious, who enjoyed reciting texts. I thought I might diversify the service a bit, so started to quote the poets: Tennyson, Burns, Shelley. Other “Conchies” soon followed suit with their favourites, from Omar Khayyam to Walt Whitman. It got too much for Mr. Bannerman, who said we must take only texts from the Bible. I think he had been taken to task by his superior. After that we had a bit of difficulty in persuading some of the lads not to utter some of the rather bawdy texts from the Good Book which might offend the lass at the music box.

One Sunday we had visitors from outside to see what we looked like. As usual the texts were invited. After a few regulars had said their piece I took a turn with: “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees–Hypocrites” etc., etc! That tore it! I think the visitors were taking it to heart. The outcome came the next Sunday when Mr. Bannerman told us we were getting into a rut with our texts, so we must take them in future from the 19th Psalm, which had plenty of verses, but it was deadly dull. So I tried my hand at making my own texts. They sounded much the same, and there were no complaints.

One day I was sitting in my cell at Calton when the door opened and in comes the warder. “I wonder at you, Stewart,” he says, “all these nice people who come to see you, your wife, your wee lassie and the others, all such nice people.” “Well, what of it?” I asked, puzzled. “On your card it says you are
an atheist and I thought all atheists were thieves, robbers, devils or whoremongers.” “How many atheists have you in this jail?” I asked. “Only you,” he answered. “Well, if all the others are Christians it doesn’t say very much for Christianity, does it? So the poor old joker went out, locked the door and made off quite confused.

It was in Calton Gaol I first heard of the March Revolution in Russia. One day I was going round the exercise ring when in beside me came my old pal Dave Donaldson who had just been convicted again and given another dose. “There’s been a revolution in Russia. They’ve set up Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils,” he whispered. “There will be a revolution here in six months.” “Hae ma doots,” I said, but the warder put an end to our observations on this epoch-making event.

Time marches on. Sometimes much better than the army. My time came to an end, and I was sent for by the chief warder, the Governor being away. “Well, Stewart,” he says, “you are to get another chance to shoot the Germans.” “Look, brother,” I replied, addressing him in good trade union language, “if
ever I take it into my head to go shooting it won’t be Germans I’ll be looking for.” “And who will you be looking for?” “Warders.” And with that I moved to my third court martial.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 9: The First Court Martial.

Wormwood Scrubs.

Viscount Peel, for the Government, said these men, conscientious objectors, must not be released, as their purpose was to abolish conscription.

I hear the sounding tread, my Lords,
Of many a million feet,
As the toilers of the earth, my Lords,
March down to your defeat.
To destroy your laws and statutes,
That have made of earth a hell,
And in memory of the gallant hearts
You stifled in the cell.

Bob Stewart’s Prison Rhymes

So I was booked for a crime: Refusing to go on parade.

Details of my civil trial were handed over to the Chairman, Colonel in Charge. “Stewart,” he said, “take my advice, behave yourself and soldier properly.’ I replied, “I am old enough to be responsible for my own behaviour, and as for soldiering, certainly not in this war.” “Right, you leave me no alternative,” he said. “One hundred and twelve days with hard labour.”

So that was it, one hundred and twelve of the best in Wormwood Scrubs.

Arriving in London, I was handed over by my military escort to the civil authority which in fact was much less civil than the army. I shook hands with the military escort and was handed over to the Scrubs’ gate warder. Then, as nowadays, the warders liked to be called officers, but a screw by any other name is still only a turnkey, himself under just as close a surveillance as the prisoners in his charge. They differ a lot. Some are sadistic and cruel, extra officious and bent on promotion. Others, under their official skin, are reasonably human. All of them are fearful of the economic consequences of losing their steady and comparatively lazy occupation which carries a pension with it. So they sweat to keep their record clean.

The Scrubs was one of the largest and in consequence most regimental of what were known in official jargon as ‘His Majesty’s Prisons’, which of course he never used as a personal residence. I was turfed into a reception cell to await disposal. It was a dirty, begrimed hole, some thirteen feet long and six
and a half broad, its dingy walls covered by names of former occupants and an occasional word of advice, like “Sleep on it”, and some uncomplimentary remarks about officers and prison food. Scribbling on walls seems to be a favourite occupation of the Britisher in prison, possibly arising from, or maybe giving rise to, our high literary accomplishments as a nation. In one cell that I afterwards occupied, a previous occupant had written with a needle on the brickwork an almost complete catalogue of the books in the prison library. It must have been a long and tedious task.


I got a pint of skilly for breakfast and a concoction which would have horrified my wife, called soup, for dinner. Late afternoon I was officially received, my height and weight were taken, my personal possessions together with every article of kit enumerated to the barking of a head warder, then a bath in three or four inches of tepid water, and a suit of prison clothes, not ready to wear but already well worn. Then we were lined up to pass the doctor, face to the wall, while the warder shouted “Stand apart, stop talking.” In to the medico, one at a time, “Shirt up and trousers down for the doctor.” Amusing but strange to me that members of this humane profession should lend themselves to this farcical medical examination and humiliation of their fellows.

“Get them books, get up them stairs.” Them books were one Bible and one Prayer Book, which are the compulsory library of each prisoner during his stay except when on punishment.

So I became a number on the third corridor of the D hall, which at the time was entirely occupied by the “conchies”, that is those who had been tried in civil courts handed over to the military, court martialled and sentenced.

At the Scrubs, what was named the Supreme Appeal Tribunal held its sessions to re-examine each case lest any more-than-usually flagrant injustice had been perpetrated by the lesser tribunals. It was presided over by one of the Salisbury family, Lord James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury. This was to guarantee true impartiality, as such members of the British aristocracy would be sure to distinguish true conscientiousness from mere honest refusal of men to be conscripted to fight any enemy selected for them. In reality, the tribunal’s business was to separate the “sheep” from the “goats” by offering an alternative to prison sentence, in the shape of the Home Office work schemes, or removal to Dartmoor or Wakefield, where the locks were removed from the cell doors and a certain amount of freedom of association allowed. Those who refused to submit to alternative service, which meant voluntary service in the prosecution of the war, were condemned to the established routine of serving sentences in civil prisons, repeated court martials and further sentences. They were known as the “absolutists” who
resisted all attempts to make them conform to any measures of military discipline.

So I go before the Supreme Tribunal, the Marquess of Salisbury in the chair. “I have your papers here, Stewart,” he said. “Nothing much we can do with you.” “Good,” I replied. “You can do without me altogether if you like.” But he did not like. My impression of him was that impartiality was not his strong point. So at the Scrubs I was to be for one hundred and twelve days without a visitor or a letter. Many letters came but were held back and I only received them when my time expired.

A cell in Wormwood Scrubs few years before Bob’s time there.

My new abode was the usual brick-walled domicile, thirteen feet by about seven feet. Its furnishing, a six feet by thirty-inch board bed. Top and bottom sheets of canvas, one or two blankets according to season, a bedcover, a small table under a pane of obscure glass through which a flicker of gaslight shone, sufficient to strain your eyes when reading. A small shelf for books, and a pint pot, a tin basin and a jug for water, a minute portion of soap, a very small weekly supply of toilet paper and a slop pot for natural necessities. A window in the outer wall with twenty-one very small panes of obscure glass. Woe betide any prisoner who was caught (as many were) trying to get a cock-eyed view of the outside world by standing on the stool provided to be sat on and not stood on. A copy of the prison regulations and diet sheet was hung on the wall. A mark on the centre of the wall, I learned, indicated where the prisoner should stand when the Governor made his inspection, at which time the prisoner must place his cap on top of his bed.

Religion is a very important part of prison routine. In fact you can hardly get into prison unless you have a religion. In the Scrubs, because it was so big, they had a “bunch’ of chaplains. The one I saw was a big red-faced fellow. “Religion?” he asked me curtly. “Don’t need one,” I answered just as curtly.
“Don’t you believe in God?” “Which one?” That did it. “No chapel,” he shouted to his aide and that was my religious interview at an end.


I soon ran into my first bit of trouble. As I have said, the screws regard themselves as officers and like to be called Sir. I have never said Sir to anyone in my life, and certainly did not see why I should make an exception for the screws in the Scrubs. One of them said to me, “Call me Sir.” “Why?” I asked. Well, there is no direct answer to that but it meant I did two weeks in very, very solitary confinement. After that I went to sewing mail bags for an hour or two a day and also did a bit of artisan work as a joiner. We had exercise once a day, and with the large contingent walked from nowhere to nowhere and back again. What a silly exhibition.

After the first fortnight a prisoner is staged–that is, he is now considered fit to work in association. You are marched before the inspector. “What was your occupation in civil life?” “Agitator.” “What, no trade?” “Yes, carpenter.” “Could you earn a living at it?” “I could earn more than I get in here.” So I am passed to the carpenter’s shop and am given a test, then set to labour, making furniture and fitments for the H.M. Office of Works. Now there were greater opportunities of getting to know my fellow victims.

When we were working, on a platform overlooking us all paced the disciplinary warder who had no responsibility for work. He was the watch dog and his growling and barking often annoyed the artisan warder more than it did the prisoners. Artisan warders were, in my experience, more intelligent and less cunning than their mates. Their job was to get the work completed and in the process they had to discuss problems with the working prisoner. Thus there was
formed an association. All tools, of course, were checked, and at the end of the work locked up in a cupboard with drawings of each tool to show where it should be put (like kids in a kindergarten). Pencils had to be sharpened by the disciplinary warder on the bridge–he painted one end and notched the other lest the lead be pinched for writing purposes. There was a powered saw and a planer but the grindstone was hand-driven. It may have been meant for punishment but actually it made gossip a bit easier, as one had to hold the tool while another turned the grinder.

Here it was I first met Dick Penifold of Brighton, who afterwards became a devoted member of the Communist Party and a leader in the co-operative movement. I remember when we were given one week’s solitary confinement and loss of one day’s remission. It was Good Friday. On exercise I contrived to fall behind Dick and whispered, “You’ll get an Easter Egg with a red flag on it for tea.” Dick laughed too loud and we were carpeted before the Governor next morning. Result, no association for one week, loss of eight marks and one day’s remission, which meant nothing.

Although a prison day seems much longer than the normal twenty-four hours, the one hundred and twelve days passed and my stay in the Scrubs came to an end. So I was taken to the Governor and then to reception to be transported to Dreghorn in Scotland for my next court martial. But the escort did not turn up and I had to do an extra day. Just my luck, overtime without pay.

Next day, in breezed a bright little corporal, well polished and full of himself, to take me to Scotland.

When I asked what had detained my escort the day before, he rattled off a story about how the escort had fallen among thieves, and bad lassies, which I guessed was bunkum. When later on I met the missing escort I got the true story. The alleged robbery was a cover-up for some inefficient book-keeping, which together we sorted out, greatly to his relief. Some years after the close of that war I was speaking at Buchanan Street, Glasgow to a very appreciative audience. At the close a neatly but poorly clad middle-aged man said:
“You won’t remember me!”
“No, laddie, I canna place you.”
“I was the escort that got lost in London.
“The uniform made you look a bit smarter!”
“Oh, aye, Bob. I didn’t believe you when you said you’ll need to be a real hero to live in Lloyd George’s Land Fit for Heroes’, but by Jesus you were right!”

He was with millions on the dole- the forgotten men.

When the little fellow and I got outside the gates at the Scrubs I dumped my kitbag on the sidewalk. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I’m not carrying it,” I replied. “It’s not my kitbag, it belongs to the king, let him carry it.” So there and then began a first-class row, not about the king, he was unimportant, but about the more mundane problem of who should carry the kitbag. Finally we made a deal. We would take turn about and leave it at King’s Cross Station in the left luggage until train time. The wee fellow wanted to see London but was not too keen to do the sights accompanied by such a scruffy soldier as myself.

We were an incongruous couple, my smart escort and I, to be parading in public, but queer sights are common in London and except when we lined up at a theatre queue, small attention was paid to us. Then my escort showed off the handcuffs to show our relationship, or the absence of it, to the girls whom he was trying to impress. I don’t think he made much headway because at this time, in 1917, people were showing signs of war weariness and accustomed to seeing even dirtier conscripts than I. I don’t remember much about the show that night except that one of the performers was a countryman of mine, Harry Lauder, that much lauded Scots comedian who made a large fortune out of representing his fellow countrymen as either half drunk or half daft. He achieved further fame and fortune, a knighthood and a castle, and was a welcome guest at the tables of the great when he took to occasional anti-Labour tirades. During the show I wrote postcards to my wife and friends and was so busy that when “the King” was played the whole audience dutifully rose except me; but as the escort was more concerned with a young lass and getting her address for future purposes he did not notice the incident.


The show being over we left for King’s Cross, lifted the offending kitbag and boarded the train for my native heath. Into the guard-room on arrival at the barracks, where my escort explained that our late arrival was due to the prisoner being sick. As I was not asked for an explanation or opinion it passed, although by the manner in which my escort explained to the lieutenant the delights of London I very much doubt whether he was believed.

This officer was an agreeable chap who had been wounded and shell shocked. During his convalescence he was appointed to a non-combatant labour corps composed of conscientious objectors who were prepared to fit into military requirements which entitled them to pay, and their wives to allotments. This corps was usually an odd assortment of Christians from every sect- Orthodox, Auld Kirk, Free Kirk, Quakers, Christadelphians, Episcopalians, Roman and other Catholics, and other idealists, I.L.Pers and other near-socialists, and many who objected to killing or being killed in war. I always found them rather timid and less friendly than the regular soldiers with whom I fraternised in various guard-rooms.


I met one bright exception to this rule, although I have now forgotten his name. We were introduced by a corporal from Leith, a ship’s painter in civil life, who brought him into the guard-room saying, “Here’s a pal for you, Stewart, he wouldn’t eat his bloody dinner so now he’s for it.” He really was a fine pal, and well read, he knew Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, histories, sonnets and all. I learned much about literature from him and we had as good a time as ever I had in the guard-room, and not without fierce debates about politics. He was a member of the I.L.P, and I tried hard to cure him of that mixture although my own politics were mixed enough then. It transpired from the prisoner’s story that the rations were being cut, which he thought was being done by two officers in charge who were then helping themselves, and taking a “load” on their weekends home. To my query, “Well, what about it?” he replied, “This crowd will not stand up to the officers.” No one would bell the cat.


I suggested a round robin and after days of patient work a typist orderly was found with courage enough to type the complaint, which was then signed by quite a number, and was sent on my advice to Scottish Command. Long afterwards, I learned through the grapevine that an enquiry had been held and the officers in question transferred. They were an objectionable pair of super-patriotic bullies, dressed up in their brief authority, full of swank and swagger well behind the lines.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 8: The Call to Military Service.

When War's insane alarming blast
With discord rent the air,
And rage of lust and devilry
Convulsed earth's bosom fair,
When workers, forced from useful toil,
To waste the wealth they'd made,
Were fed and clad and gun equipped,
To ply the warrior’s trade.

Bob Stewart’s Prison Rhymes.

With the enactment of the Military Service Acts in 1916, military service was imposed on all males of military age. Prior to that date, Britain’s armies were alleged to be composed of volunteers, a veneer that concealed the fact that unemployment, poverty and low wages had for a long time been the main recruiting officers for the fighting services. Very few artisans ever joined the army voluntarily, so that in the main it was recruited from the unskilled labouring and agricultural workers.

The technique of modern war, developed from 1914, demanded the widening of the pool to include the more highly skilled engineers and other craftsmen. The terrible wastage of officers and men could not be quickly replaced by the ballyhoo of pipe and brass bands, by clerical sermonising, or by indirect pressure, so compulsion by law came to fill the gap.

To sugar the pill and provide cover for “indispensables”, one-man businesses, etc., clauses were included in the Acts by which military service tribunals could grant exemptions. To meet religious susceptibilities, a clause enabled tribunals to exempt from military service those who had a conscientious objection to the shedding of human blood or taking of life. It was under this latter clause that many of the people not protected by other exemption clauses filed their exemption claims, which were generally rejected, and in the end some ten thousand “conchies,” as they came to be called, were tried in civil courts and handed over to the military authorities, where if they did not submit to military service they were court martialled and sentenced to prison.

My own case will illustrate what happened.

After my appeal to the tribunal had been rejected, as I was not a member of any religious or semi-religious organisation but a well-known socialist and anti-militarist, it being assumed that only religious people like Quakers, Christadelphians, priests in holy orders and their like could aspire to a conscientious objection to killing their fellow men, I was called to present myself for military service, which I refused to do. Then came the law in the shape of two local detectives to take me to the police court to be charged with “absent without leave”. However, the Chief Constable, who prosecuted, asked for a remand for a week, which gave me a little more time to prepare my wife to carry on my trade union and other work and also for me to put in a few more “no-conscription” meetings, much to the annoyance of the local respectables, who if they couldn’t get me shot at least expected me to be put out of sight for a long time.

However it was back to the police court again, where a military guard was already waiting to take me over. After the preliminaries, an officer from the recruiting office took the witness stand to prove that on a given day I was ordered to appear and did not do so. I was therefore marked absent and
a warrant issued for my arrest. He looked rather pleased with himself, as did the magistrate, but their expressions changed when I asked, “Under what regulations do you mark a man absent?” “Under the King’s Regulations,” was the reply. “Under which one?” I persisted. The beak looked blank. The assessor said, “Can you help us, Mr. Stewart?” a rather unusual form of address to a prisoner at the bar. So I helped them by quoting the appropriate paragraph from the manual of military law which contains the King’s Regulations, in which it was clearly stated that a man could not be posted absent until twenty-one days had expired from the date of his call-up. Naturally the word of a prisoner cannot be taken as final, so a messenger hurried to the Sheriff Court next door to find a copy of the manual, which of course bore out my contention. The magistrate and his assessor consulted and it was then announced, “I am afraid we can’t convict.” So out again I went free, to the great glee of a small crowd who had gathered to see what would happen to Stewart, and the extreme chagrin of the military escort, beautifully polished, a straight slim soldier, handcuffs at the ready, waiting for me to be convicted. “Aye laddie,” I said. “You’re too early,” and off I went.

So the responsible military authority had to start all over again with my call-up, the time allowance and the other routine. Actually it was by sheer accident that I had discovered this paragraph, which I came across when I was looking for a way out for another man who had declared his conscientious objection, and had asked me to assist in the preparing of his case.

Dudhope Castle.

But time is inexorable, and everything was in order on the next occasion, when I was duly convicted, handed over to the guard and taken to Dudhope Castle, an ancient and dilapidated building which served as the local military prison, there to await an escort to my regiment.

During the period of conscription, my wife and other women were busy in assisting other objectors who were arrested, bringing them food while they were waiting to be transferred to their regiments. So it was no surprise to me when a guard told me, “Your wife’s ootside, Bob, and she’s brought you a parcel,” which he handed over to me. This instantly made me quite popular. I once told Sir Borlase Childs, Director of Personnel to the War Office, that “Soldiers are either one of two things, hard up or fed up” – and when they are hard up, tea and cakes are very acceptable. So we had a good feed and a wee concert in the guard-room, a nice introduction, but not a typical one, to my military career.

Next morning in came the Provost Sergeant, who had an evil reputation, and with him the Officer of the Day. “Shun!”‘ shouts the sergeant, and everyone shuns except me. The officer looked horrified. He turned to have a word with the sergeant, who told him who I was, and then they made a speedy exit. Immediately, in marches the sergeant and two privates. “Stewart!’ he shouts. “That’s me.”‘ “Out!’ And out I went into solitary confinement, no doubt to teach me a lesson to shun when ordered to do so.

So down I went into the infamous “rat-pit” all on my lonesome. Not that I minded very much, because I always get on very well in my own company. Then I have furious arguments with myself as to whether I am doing right or wrong, and if nothing else, it helps to pass the time. So in the rat-pit I remained, but not for long. A few days later an escort came to take me to my regiment at Hamilton Barracks, about seventy miles from Dundee.

On arrival at the barracks, I was, after examination of the necessary papers, dumped in the guard-room where about a dozen others, mostly absentees, were sleeping or playing cards. I can recall this well because it was Hogmanay, the evening of the 3rst December, which is a night to celebrate in Scotland. In the guard-room were over a dozen soldiers, all patriots absent without leave, or in on some other charge. There was one, Charlie by name, a bit of a Glasgow comic, who was keeping a wound in good condition so that he would not have to return too quickly to his regiment. So we stand around for a bit and then the old arguments come up.

“Why don’t you go to the war?”


“Because it’s not my war.”

And then comes the serious discussion about the reasons and necessity for wars. But Charlie could not prevent his mind wandering to the sesonal celebrations. “Christ, ” he said, “in Glasgow there’s my faither, my maither and my big braither and sister, a’ the neebours roondaboot, they will a’ be in the hoose. And there’s my picture above the mantelpiece and they’ll be saying ‘Well, here’s tae ye, Charlie’, plenty o’ nips in the bottle, and here’s me in this bloody place and canna get even a drink o’ water. What a bloody rotten Hogmanay, what a bloody rotten war.”

We bedded down at last under the scruffy blankets and in the morning I wrote a postcard home to my wife saying I was well, the company was friendly but the blankets were lousy. The censor scored that bit out but the blankets were removed for delousing that day.

Next morning I was served out with kitbag and clobber. This accompanied me from barracks to prisons and back again, and grew lighter and lighter with each move until, at my discharge in 1919, only the suit and cap were left to comply with the order of return. But more of that to come. It came to my turn to be ordered on parade, which I ignored, and was conducted under guard to the orderly room where a very young officer barked “Attention!” “Not me, laddie,” I replied, and so I was remanded for my first court martial.

Breaking the Fetters Chapter 7: 1914- Declaration of War.

It was commonly said that the First World War came like a bolt from the blue. That was true for the mass of the population, but it was not true for the government of the day or for the socialists.

In 1912, as I remember, a tremendous campaign was waged by the government for what was then called National Service. The chief propagandist for this was Lord Roberts, “Bobs”. who of course was reputed to have won the South African war. It is never the common soldiers who win wars. Lord Roberts did a tour of the whole country with all the biggest halls in the big towns put at his disposal. When he came to Scotland I followed him around, holding meetings immediately after him. My meetings were naturally in the open air, but nevertheless we got big audiences. We were quite clear in our minds what the intention of the government was and impressed upon the people that the demand for national service was only the introduction to military conscription, no matter how they dressed it up. The workers would be conscripted for war when war came.

On the 4th of August 1914, war against Germany was declared. I spent the following two years, up until the time of my arrest, speaking on anti-war platforms against the prosecution of the war. In this period it was very difficult, but our little organisation in Dundee, and in a number of places throughout Scotland, kept going from the first day war was declared.

Our job was made more difficult by the division in the labour movement. The members of the Labour Party were at sixes and sevens in their attitude to the war. The Labour Party then was described as a federation, consisting of trade unions, trades councils, socialist societies and local parties. The co-operatives were not, at that time, a political party, nor was there individual membership of the Labour Party. That came in 1918. In the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party claimed 60,000 members, the British Socialist Party 10,000 members and the Fabians 2,000 members. A variety of socialist societies like the Clarion Fellowship, the Church Socialist League, the Herald League, etc., were with the Second International, but with the outbreak of the war, and despite excellent decisions on international solidarity passed before war was declared, the Second International was torn to tatters.

Of the press, the Daily Citizen and the Daily Herald cracked up either before the war or in 1914, and then the Herald became a weekly. Other weeklies were the Labour Leader, Justice, the Clarion, New Age, New Statesman, the Railway Review and a number of small local weeklies run mostly by the I.L.P. There was the Irish Worker run by Connolly and Larkin in Dublin. There were fifty monthlies and a number of trade union journals. But the vast mass of the material published was reformist. Little of it was written from the Marxist standpoint of scientific socialism, although many anti-war articles continued to find a space.

Roughly speaking, on the first real test for socialist internationalism, the red flags turned to tartan with the complete collapse of the Second International and the triumph of the right-wing pro-war people in the British Labor Movement. In Scotland, the I.L.P. called a truce, although a number of their members continued to conduct anti-war propaganda. Forward, the I.L.P. paper Tom Johnstone’s rag-bag I used to call it–had a peculiar line. One writer, who wrote under the pseudonym of “Rob Roy’ was for the war lock, stock and barrel, yet Tom Johnstone and others confined themselves to exposures of the kind of thing that comes up in any war-paying too much for guns, not getting good guns for the money paid, and so on.

On the 4th August, the day on which war was declared. I was at a meeting in Peterhead speaking for the Prohibition and Reform Party. The meeting was on the links facing the prison and anyone who couldn’t make a good socialist speech looking at that view didn’t know anything about socialism. I was quite a popular speaker in Peterhead because I had made it my job to become acquainted with the fishermen’s problems. The Peterhead fishermen had what they called a Parliament, which they held on the dockside. A good democratic practice that could well be emulated in many places at the present time. This Peterhead Parliament had endured for over 100 years. I used to go down to the dockside and listen to the parliamentary discussion, and many things I learned,
both in policy and procedure. Because of my interest in their affairs I was always a welcome visitor.

We had a very big meeting on the links that day and I was just getting into my stride when I was drowned out by the music of a passing band.

“What on earth’s that?” I said.

“It’s the Naval Reserve going to the station,” came the reply from the audience.

Of course in most fishing centres there were a good number of men of the Naval Reserve. They got a retainer, which added to their income and acted as a sweet little pill to recruiting. I stopped the meeting and we all followed the band and the reserves to the station. Wives and mothers were weeping, but most people didn’t know what it was all about. Wars are always sprung on the people. They don’t know their enemies until they are told. They certainly are not allowed to pick their enemies, otherwise a lot of people would disappear. The band was from the Salvation Army and I always remember the tune, “Lead Kindly Light”. Where they were being led I tried to tell them when we resumed the meeting on the links.

In the evening we held another meeting in the Fish Market, which was crowded despite the rain. My chairman was a fisherman called Mitchell, the first fisherman socialist and rationalist I ever met. A very clever man, who according to Dr. Williamson, superintendent of the fish hatchery Aberdeen, was one of the best scholars in marine zoology he had ever had. Mitchell worked on the trawlers, was torpedoed during the war and lost. I remember the introduction to my speech that night. I said: “Whatever else may transpire in the coming war, you will all learn in the course of it or in its aftermath that it is a capitalist war. It is not worth sacrificing the bones of your domestic cat, or your pet canary, even less those of your husbands, brothers and sons.”

When war was declared, many of the lower-paid workers volunteered, which was natural enough because a soldier’s pay was better than a labourer’s. It also had an appeal to the wives because their army separation allowance came regularly, whereas sometimes the wages didn’t. But in the main the artisans and better-paid workers stayed at the work bench, and it was here in the factories and in the industrial field that the government’s problems began to show.

There were several threats of strikes in 1914, but the call came for industrial truce. The right-wing leaders of the unions tried hard to hold the workers in check, the slogan being “The country is in danger’, but they never tried to explain what part of the country the workers actually owned. I don’t know of any honest working man who got anything out of the war.

The industrial truce meant handcuffing the workers. In July 1915 came the Munitions of War Act which meant that it was a penal offence to leave your work without the consent of your employer, and, worse, also a penal offence to refuse to take a new job, whatever the rate of pay. Offenders against the Act could appeal to the Munitions Tribunals where the chairman had the final say. No appeal against his decision could be accepted. There was the dilution of labour and imported labor imposed by the government with the assistance of the trade union leaders. Then came the rent increases and the steep rise in the cost of living. The militants had certainly plenty to battle against.

As the war proceeded, the lefts in the labour movement began to fight back, particularly in the workshop. Industrial unionism, a principle which had been gaining ground in industry for some years, began to find a real practical expression. Best known were the Workers’ Committees on the Clyde, the formation and activity of which are graphically described in Willie Gallacher’s book Revolt on the Clyde and in his Last Memoirs. These grew out of the shop stewards movement, which early in the war was operating as a parallel force with the district committees and local branches.

As the months passed, the war became less and less popular, and the anti-war meetings better appreciated and better attended. Naturally the position of a speaker was very difficult because we often had in the audience people stricken with anguish through the loss of husbands or sons. One also had to fight against the clever official attitude to the war. “We are against war in general but not this particular one. We are not to blame for this war, it was forced on us by the Germans in their lust for expansion” and so on. This was the main stock-in-trade of the Labour people.

The capitalist need for labour meant that the doors of national and regional committees were opened to Labour men and women. They were used in recruiting campaigns and helped to get conscription accepted. They helped to organise the demonstrations with brass bands, pipe bands, flute bands, popular singers, variety artists and top spellbinders like Ben Tillet and Bottomley. The latter was all for a business man’s government and himself made good business out of it. He was not only one of the top speakers at the recruiting meetings, but one of the best paid.

In politics there was the usual intrigue. The position at the front was not too good. We, of course, had the world’s best generals and the best armies; we always have; but for some unknown reason we were retreating. So Lloyd George
squeezed out Asquith because he was too tame, which was no doubt true because he was a man somewhat above the battle. He was a lawyer with a fine gift of words, who in the constituency of East Fife could hold his constituents enthralled with the necessity of changing the kitchen arrangements in the House of Commons. All very well in its way, but not good enough for a main post in a capitalist war cabinet.


On 7th December 1916, Lloyd George became prime minister and secured the support of Conservative, Labour and about half of the Liberal M.P.s in the House. Bonar Law and Balfour, much to everyone’s surprise, agreed to serve under Lloyd George. The prosecution of the war was taken out of the hands of the cabinet and entrusted to a war council of five, headed by Lloyd George himself. Henderson, the Labour leader, was a member of the war council, being a Minister without Portfolio. Another Labour leader, Barnes, was Pensions Minister, a post held by Henderson in the preceding Asquith coalition.

Unfortunately they did not go in on their own but took the Labour Party with them. “Prosecute the war to end war!””Fight for a land fit for heroes to live in!’ are samples of the slogans that began to be propagated in the labour movement. There were oceans of condemnation for German imperialists and none for their British counterparts: but that came as the casualty lists grew bigger and bigger.

The volunteers began to dry up, so the Derby Scheme was introduced. This was named after Lord Derby, its initiator. Fighting for his country meant a lot to Lord Derby, who owned a very large slice of it. In this scheme men who had not already volunteered could attest themselves as ready to enlist and were given a khaki armlet to put on their sleeve so that people would know they were patriots although not yet in the firing line. None of them had any desire to be there because it was being forced home to them every day that war in the trenches was no picnic but a deadly business in the slaughter of human beings who did not know what the war was about. As the volunteers dried up there came the recruitment of special battalions. There were sportsmen’s battalions and, for the smaller men, bantam battalions. I said at the time that if the war lasted long enough they would be recruiting canary battalions.


The capitalist capacity to divide and conquer operated in every field to try and win the acceptance of the Military Service Acts. Single men versus married men; big business men against small business men; the indispensable workers against the dispensable. The times I have sat at the tribunals and watched managers of jute works come in with about a dozen workers to state their case. Dispensable or indispensable? The workers were never asked their opinions. They had no right to an opinion. The manager had a right to an opinion, the tribunal had a right to an opinion, in fact they said they had the most right and used it too; and if they were a Court of Appeal they knew their job was to turn down the appeal, which they invariably did. Men must be found for the front, and no trick to achieve that end was left out.

The Military Service Acts brought the big fight against conscription. In the true British tradition, unity was scorned-not one organisation but a whole number were in the struggle. There was the Anti-Conscription League, mainly fathered by the trade unions; the No-Conscription Fellowship; the Fellowship of Reconciliation; the Society of Friends. There were Socialist objectors, Christian
objectors, Quaker objectors. Objection was the word that counted and the government had a great objection to any kind of objector. The conscientious objectors were quite voluble in their objection to the war and the Christian objectors did valuable work in their objection to conscription. Naturally the official leaders of the church did not take that line. They are part of the establishment of capitalist governments, and as a consequence have the job of bringing in God on the side of the establishment they are working for. This is covered up with beautiful language, texts from both the Old and New Testaments, and for them it is quite easy to justify service for war, just as it is easy to warrant resistance to war. You pay your money and take your choice. Well, you get your Bible and take your choice anyway.


In the case of the conscientious objector it was the refusal to serve that was the important thing, not the opinions held against war. Refusal to serve was penal and you were entitled to be treated as an enemy.

In 1915 the local organiser of the Scottish Horse and Motormen’s Union was called up and the job fell vacant. I applied for it and got it, the pay being 30s a week. This gave me the opportunity to do my work during the day and attend anti-war meetings in the evening. It also meant I got back into the Trades Council as a delegate and was able to play a part there against conscription. We had quite big meetings in Dundee at the time, in the Albert Square, and sometimes, in bad weather, indoors. At the Square a number of forces men
would drift into the audience, men from the Black Watch, the Camerons or Argylls and often a sailor or two, so one had to be careful in speech; but in dealing with human beings, and usually seeing the human side of problems, I became quite skilful in speaking. After all, soldiers and sailors are human
beings and certainly they were getting tired of the war. They came and went. Many only travelled one way. Naturally they were being led by the very best generals but that did not prevent the human sacrifices of Passchendale and the Somme. After the wars, when the memoirs are written, we hear, of
course, of the idiots who were leading the armies, but during the wars this is kept a close secret. The hospitals became filled to capacity with the wounded but the war went on.

Of course war is a profitable business for some, and while they babbled about the war to end war and so on, some of the business people were in no hurry to end it. Many people like this I knew in Dundee–I could give names but I won’t because of libel actions people for whom the war was an extremely profitable business. Fortunately I am long-living and have an extremely good memory for such things.

Links

War Resisters and the ILP in Dundee – Part 1
War Resisters and the ILP in Dundee – Part 2