William, the eldest son of Bob and Margaret Stewart, was born in 1903. He was our grandad. He died in 1978 when I was four and so I have few memories of him but those that I do are incredibly vivid. He was a warm, kind and gentle man. This impression has only been strengthened by the many letters and photographs he left behind. Every new detail I come across makes me wish I’d known him longer and I don’t know whether it’s his or Bob’s story I’d rather tell.
Like his father, he joined the Dundee Branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain on its inception in 1920. He was 17 and remained a card carrying member for the next 58 years until his death. It would have been his commitment to these ideals and presumably family connections that led to him working for ARCOS during the earliest years of the Soviet Union’s existence. Bill worked on merchant steamships sailing from British ports to Odessa and Leningrad progressing from cabin boy to chief steward on the way. ARCOS – the All Russian Co-Operative Society was the body responsible for facilitating Anglo- Soviet trade in the wake of Lenin’s New Economic Policy. MI5, quite understandably, regarded it as a front organisation for espionage and other subversive activities and it was raided and shut down in May 1927. Britain then broke off all diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
However, it is not the idea of espionage that interests me particularly. Still less the movement of textiles, timber and coal across the Baltic to the benefit of British commerce. It is this photograph that I found amongst hundreds of others in an old suitcase in my mother’s loft. A lively group of young people assembled in a shabby room adorned with agitprop posters and photos of Lenin. Their style of dress ranges from the bohemian to the Bolshevik. The majority of the group are looking towards their left- it appears that someone else is taking a group portrait while a second photographer caught this image from another angle. A couple of the figures stare out in other directions in slight confusion. Despite this there is a distinct sense of that much maligned word ‘comradeship’. One of the young men carries an accordion and I suspect that there has been quite a bit of drinking going on. A much younger boy looks on grinning in the doorway. I love this photograph.
At the centre, in the back row is my grandfather. He’s the one wearing the budenovka- the distinctive early headgear usually worn by the troops of the Red Army in the 1920s. He looks like he’s having a good time. There is some writing on the back which explains that the picture features Russian and English communists with the affectionate declaration, “Don’t forget the Russian young communists! [Komsomoltsiev]” This is accompanied by signatures from several of those gathered there. It must have been a gift to Bill and it appears to have pinned up as a memento to serve as a reminder of his younger days.
It’s hard enough to imagine your parents in their youth let alone your grandparents and my hearts bursts for grandad when I look at this image. It marks him out as someone who, in contrast to my own mundane life, had adventures. Striking out to places far away from home carried away in a moment in history. I’m quite jealous of him to be honest. How on earth did he end up there? When you think of the USSR youthful optimism and idealism is far from what first comes to mind but it’s certainly present in this image captured almost one hundred years ago. But, as with any photograph of the young when the subjects are long dead, there is melancholy too. Whatever happened to Bill’s companions, particularly the young Russians, in the years that followed? I fear for them.
When I first came across the photograph I had the no idea of the circumstances surrounding it or when and where it was taken. The first clue was finding Bill’s ‘Continuous Cerificate of Discharge’- the log book that records the various voyages and their destinations. It would definitely have to have been taken between 1925 and 1927. However, it was finding a small battered autograph book that belonged to Bill that narrowed it down further. The pages are dotted with various signatures and messages in Cyrillic script from friends and comrades my grandfather met on his journeys. Yelena McCafferty of http://www.talkrussian.com provided the translations and the picture became clearer. The photograph was likely to have been taken around October or November 1925 while the SS Koursk, where Bill was working as an assistant steward, was docked at Leningrad. The messages reproduced below describe how Bill and his colleagues met a group of Russian members of the Kosomol during celebrations of the 8th anniversary of the October revolution and struck up a friendship. There is a sense of the Russians eager to know how the proletarian struggle is faring overseas and much talk of Britain working towards its own revolution which, of course, is inevitable and imminent. In the light of what happened in the years that followed I find it all incredibly moving.
Alan Stewart.
Wishing dear comrade William Stewart to be always in the leading line of the English proletariat fighting for the proletarian revolution. It’s not long until England is united with our union and until the creation of one powerful Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
[Signed]
Flat 6, 11 Voskresensky Pr., Leningrad
Dearest comrade,
It was so joyous for us, Komsomol members from Leningrad to see you, messengers of England’s youth, that England we so often see glimpses of in the news in our newspapers but which in essence we know so little about.
Somehow it was particularly joyous to see in you the signs of being relentless fighters, healthy in both spirit and body. You are not yet the powerful Lenin-like party, but you are a wonderful material, fire bricks which will be used to make it. When in the place of a group of young, stubborn Komsomol members, in the place of a small working league comes a broad, mass, proletarian Bolshevik party – then your cause will win. Until then we will bring this day closer together. We will be proud to see that you have found something to learn from our way of life and work. May your visit be an initial point in our closely-knit connection, friendship, correspondence. Please write to us about the way you live, work, what’s happening in Komsomol, about the progress of your work in the unions, work cells, printed press, among farming community. We will write to you everything you are interested in.
Hello! “Stay alive”!
On behalf of the youth section of the Central Club of the Professional Union of Soviet and Clerical Employees.
Leningrad. Bureau Organiser.
09.11.25 K. Vasilevsky
I am walking on Prospekt 25 Oktyabrya on the 8th anniversary of the October revolution, from the commemoration evening in honour of the October revolution and suddenly I hear energetic sounds of our Internationale in English. I was very happy to find out that you are English Komsomol members and did my best to show you our way of living. I think you will remember the days spent with Russian Komsomol members, and when you have Soviets in power I hope to shake handswith you once again in England in a workers’ club. So far you have a lot of fight on your hands to reach power, but you will be able to build socialism quicker and easier compared to our backward country (in the economic sense). We, Russian Komsomol members, will come to help you when needed and will help you to carry out a social revolution.
It’s not long until the slogan of the Communist manifesto becomes reality and the proletarians of all countries join in one World Republic of Soviets.
Written by one of the army of a million and a half Russian Lenin Komsomol members, a member of the Leningrad Organisation, Central City District, Membership card №92039.
Leo Aksberg
Flat 5, 82 Prospekt 25 Oktyabrya, Leningrad
Postscript
Here’s a few items I wanted to get into the main article but they wouldn’t quite fit:
Bill obviously made firm friends on these trips. Here’s a translation from a book on the SS Koursk published in Odessa in 1972 in a series about ‘heroical ships of the Merchant Marine Fleet’. I found it amongst all the jumble of letters and documents I’ve been sifting through. I think the translation is, as the writer admits, only rough as I don’t think Comrade William Stewart ever reached the rank of captain.
“In April 1923, a British Court decided to return several ships to the young Soviet Republic. But before this decision, the British Government had already returned nine former Russian ships among which was the Steamship “Koursk’. The Koursk was included in the ARCOS Fleet and commenced voyages between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
The crew of the SS Koursk mainly consisted of Russian seafarers but the Captain of the ship was a young Englishman – Communist William Stewart. William Stewart has kept good memories of the Koursk and her crew, about the excellent work and the consistently good human relations between seafarers and the communal help existing between them. Several Russian seafarers still remember William Stewart with a great sense of pleasure, for example, a former second engineer of the SS Koursk, P. Sirenko, recently remembered the following about William Stewart:
“In 1929, the SS Transbalt, on which I was working as a fireman, was lying in the London Docks. Whilst repairing the boilers, I fell and broke my arm. Our Captain approached the Port Authorities and requested that I be admitted to hospital. However, a large sum of money was involved in order to find me a place in a hospital and even so there was no free place. Suddenly, a young Englishman came aboard our ship. He spoke to the Captain and the ship’s doctor and then came to see me. “May I introduce you, Pavel, to Comrade William Stewart. He was once the Captain of the SS Koursk and has promised to help you”. A kind Englishman shook my hand, smiled and invited me to his car. He drove me to a hospital in Greenwich which was a naval hospital named after Queen Victoria. He spoke to an administrator of the hospital and I was given a bed in a very nice ward. During my stay in hospital, William Stewart visited me several times and we had many discussions when he warmly remembered his days as Captain of the SS Koursk when the ship was part of the
ARCOS fleet.
When I recovered, Captain Stewart came to collect me and drove me to my ship. On saying goodbye, he asked me to send his best and warmest regards to his friends on the SS Koursk'”
Breaking the Fetters 