Bob Stewart pictured on a visit to Moscow in 1961.
The following article celebrating forty years of the Communist Party of Great Britain was written by Bob Stewart and appeared in the September 1960 issue of the journal Labour Monthly. At the time Bob was 83 years old and had ‘retired’ from active work three years earlier. The piece is written from the perspective of being one of the last men standing’ from the formation of the CPGB in 1920.
“HISTORY will record that the birth of a Communist Party in Britain was the outstanding event of the 1920’s. The fact that it was nearly three years after the Bolshevik victory of 1917 indicates the difficulties encountered and overcome before it saw the light of day. Small as the event appeared, it was nevertheless the political culmination of more than a hundred years of British working class struggle against the rule of the capitalist class. These years had inscribed indelible victories as well as many defeats on the banners of the oldest working class movement of Europe.
Along the years it built the modern Trade Union movement which despite weakness, sectionalism and betrayal is still a powerful weapon and a training ground for militant workers. It embraced Chartism which meant the intrusion into politics of revolutionary ideas and practices on a mass scale. It eventually cast off the manacles of the Liberal Party even if it is not vet free from their illusions. It gave birth to the Labour Party out of the strange assortment of Fabians, Independent Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation which became the British Socialist Party, the latter becoming a leading component of the Communist Party, and was itself affiliated to the Labour Party. Due to historic circumstances which I have not space to detail, the Labour Party has rejected a scientific outlook. It rejected Marxism, abhorred revolution, and has spent half a century confusing and befuddling the working class with hopes that capitalism would change its spots or at least let the right wing leaders of Labour paint them a different hue.
Necessarily capitalism imputed foreign parentage to the C.P. as it had done to Chartism and to early Socialist or other progressive movements. The mud refused to stick. The C.P. was bone and flesh of the British working class. Of course it had and is proud of its international connections. That also is a fine tradition of our class. The more immediate circumstances attending the birth of the C.P. may be thus described. Prior to 1914-18 and during the First World War there were outside of the official Labour Party many of the most class-conscious and militant workers who were split up amongst a number of more or less Marxist sects, e.g., the Socialist Labour Party, Workers’ Socialist Federation, South Wales Socialist Society, and many lesser bodies in various localities. These were largely concerned about the purity of their gospel. There were also the shop stewards, the workers’ committees and many unattached rebels, New Age readers, Guildsmen, etc. Amongst them were great agitators and strike leaders who had with Tom Mann and others headed the struggles of workers on Merseyside, Clyde and elsewhere before World War I.
August, 1914, saw official Labour, like official Social Democracy, dip their flags of red and appear in the flamboyant colours of the capitalists they were supposed to fight against. A sorry spectacle indeed, relieved if but a little by the few who kept the flag aloft. The course of the war brought hellish experiences to the workers. Along came Military Service Acts, which gave rise to an Anti-Conscription movement, Munitions Acts, Rent Acts, high prices. Out of these struggles the clamant need for unity, discipline and wider understanding was arising here, as in every country.
Then came 1917, and the glorious victory of the Russian workers and peasants. The movement in Britain was reborn out of the fires of war. On July 31 and August 1, 1920, after months of negotiation, a convention was brought together in London by the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Unity Conference, representing chiefly British Socialist Party, Communist Unity Group, South Wales Communist Council. (The unification was completed in the early months of 1921. The Leeds Congress in January, 1921, brought in the Scottish Communist Labour Party, whose leading members included William Gallacher and J. R. Campbell; while the left wing of the Independent Labour Party, including Shapurji Saklatvala, came in a month or two afterwards.)
At this founding convention in August, 1920, well-known figures included Bob Williams of the Transport Workers Federation, A. A. Purcell, Colonel Malone, William Mellor, Joe Vaughan, Arthur McManus, Tom Bell, William Paul and Albert Inkpin. Of the Provisional Executive elected I fear I am now alone. Some have done their day and passed on. Others sought other fields and have faded from my memory. The convention was serious and full of zeal, sharply divided on the question of affiliation to the Labour Party, but when Paul and Hodgson had finished debate and affiliation was carried the Conference agreed in unanimity. I recollect that after the convention finished on the Sunday, a group comprising Bill Hewlett of Wales, Bill Jackson of Sheffield, Frank Simpson of Perth, George Anderson of Coatbridge, Fred Douglas and myself from Dundee were steered by Jock Laurie of Aberdeen to what he called the ‘Merble Airch’. Before long we were spectators at a B.S.P. meeting. Jock said, ‘the speaker’s gey cauld’. Off he went and how he managed it I had not time to find out before I was hustled through the crowd and found myself making what I suppose must have been the first report back of the first Party Conference, which was received with great enthusiasm. Then to the train, where fate had delivered a very orthodox clergyman into our carriage, and did we baptise him!
That was our send-off. What have we to show for our Party over the years? Not enough but still a lot. We played our part in pulling capitalism’s hands off Russia. We backed and fought for British Miners when officialdom turned their backs and even their guns on them. We expelled even big Bob Williams for his part in the Triple Alliance betrayal of the miners. The defeat of the miners opened the way for attacks on engineers, textile-workers, seamen, etc. In all of these struggles our members were active. In the heat of these struggles some succumbed and left us for easier paths. We fought the opportunist heritage brought in by local Councillors or personal egoists. The Government of the day soon recognised the new type of Party. Raids were frequent, our General Secretary, Albert Inkpen, was arrested and sentenced, active workers, especially in the minefields, were doing time. Our organisation was still lamentably weak and sectarian. Printers were blackmailed into refusing to print our articles and pamphlets. We started our own printing works. Our editors faced libel and sedition charges, so that we needed a double shift, sometimes a treble one.
By 1924 we had our first taste of Labour Government, rather sourish at that. Johnny Campbell put the cat among the pigeons and very much upset MacDonald & Co. By 1924 we began to put new life into the trade unions through the Minority Movement whose secretary was Harry Pollitt, later Arthur Horner. So 1925 opened new economic battles. Government was compelled to subsidise mineowners and assume emergency powers. To prepare for the next round they arrested twelve of our leading members. They were found guilty of conspiracy to utter seditious libels. Six, with previous convictions, were given twelve months.
Six were offered release if they would forswear their allegiance. But one and all refused and served six months’ sentences. Further attacks on the miners were more than decent workers were prepared to put up with, so came the General Strike and wholesale arrests, office raids. This greatest confrontation of the classes in Britain in our time sent their leaders shivering to sell the pass and leave the miners to their fate. Fierce punishment befell the workers in consequence of this betrayal. Victimisation was common and hard, hard times kept knocking at the door. The miners survived their desperate ordeal. . . .
1929. Once again a Labour government which succumbed to American capitalist pressure. The defection of McDonald, Thomas and Snowden and their descent into a ‘National Government’ did not stop the economic rot. Unemployed relief was cut to the bone. These tested our membership and they withstood the pressure and nobly headed or fought in the ranks of the unemployed, joined in hunger marches, fought the police and won concessions. Meantime the German monopolists had been set on their feet again by American and British investments. But being unable to rule in the old way, they washed out the remnants of democratic practice and forged a rod of iron for Hitler to wield while they cheered him on to the fight against the growing Soviet power. Fascism reared its black flags in Britain too, but the working class showed its strength and routed it. In 1935 we scored a real Parliamentary success by the return of William Gallacher who by his Communist attitude did much to add to his own and the Party’s prestige. We led the fight and formed the British section of the International Brigade which saved the honour of the British working class in the battlefields of Spain. 1939: that fatal year that saw the outbreak of that most vicious war of the centuries. Here also our Party gave freely of its dearest and best to bring the war to a victorious end. When it ended the British workers’ stored-up anger burst through to the defeat of Churchill and placed their hopes on the Labour Government, which shooed them off with meagre reforms and played a sorry second fiddle to American big business so that once again our Party is leading the fight against further war.
Now we have established the Party as a potent factor in British politics. Our numbers have grown. We have lost many brave and able leaders but we have raised able successors. Our camp of Peace grows daily and despite provocation we know that the forces of Peace will prevail. All our efforts are turned in that direction. Our literature is improving daily. Our Daily Worker is known the world over. We are no longer the feeble body of propagandists that we were in 1920 but a strong virile Party worthy of the class we find it an honour to serve.”
Early in the summer of 1931 I went to Northern Ireland, to Belfast, along with Bill Joss of Glasgow, a man who knew the “Irish question” from A to Z and from Z back to A again. I remember him giving the Irish some lectures on Ireland and Irish history, both political and economic, that left them speechless and if you can do that to an Irish audience you are a master of your subject. Although their mouths were shut, many eyes were opened.
The Irish Workers’ League (the Marxist party) had its main basis in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Waterford, but was finding it difficult to get a trade union basis in Belfast. Bill Joss and I were there to try and help with this problem. We were no longer working with Larkin but with Sean Nolan and a number of the local members.
The republican movement was quite strong in Belfast and Dublin, and I thought it right and necessary to try and work closely with them. Their politics were quite progressive and most of them detested the booze, so for me at least there was this added bond of unity.
We held our meetings on the Customs House steps and they were very rowdy; many a donnybrook took place. During our meetings the place was alive with police trying to keep order and, I must admit, on occasions trying to keep the crowd from “getting at” the speaker usually me. Our opponents had another way of stopping us speaking. They would bring out the band with the big drum and stop in front of the meeting place, playing at top pitch. In this field of competition I could never compete and I never found a public speaker who could. On such occasions we packed up and then came back later when the band had blown themselves out or had gone for a drink.
Some time after I had left Ireland, Harry Pollitt told me of a chat he had had with the Chief Constable of Belfast. The Chief asked him, “Where is that flat-nosed bugger Stewart? The trouble I had with that man! He spoke for hours and hours at the Customs House steps and my young policemen got fed up waiting for his meetings to finish. He insulted the police. He insulted the Irish authorities. He insulted everybody in Ireland.”
The last rebuke was wrong, the rest correct. I have done a bit of insulting in my time, but that’s permissible when dealing with political enemies who insult the working class every day of their lives. I remember one meeting at the Customs House steps. The news broke that there were to be cuts in wages and unemployment benefits. This meant a big cut in policemen’s wages as well. I couldn’t resist a dig at that. With dozens of police around, I said, “Here they are, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, big, strong, intelligent, known throughout the world as the wildest and bravest men in any fighting force the Government says their wages are to be reduced by 10 per cent and not one of them gives a whistle.” I thought that would have caused a riot, but no, the audience burst into laughter and a few of the policemen even joined in. That’s what makes Ireland such a bloody nice place to work in. You never know what’s around the corner.
In the late summer of 1931 the Labour government was running into trouble and it looked certain that a general election was not far off. I was still parliamentary candidate for Dundee and the party there asked me to come over from Belfast to do a few meetings. The Belfast lads did not want to let me go, but I promised I would only be away for a week or so, and on that understanding I left. I walked out of the frying pan into the fire.
When I arrived in Dundee there was the usual welcoming party, several hundreds strong, and as always it was decided to have a demonstration, a march through the town to the Albert Square. It was not a big demonstration, but the Dundee police didn’t like it, giving a bit of provocation to the marchers en route. However, we got through the town and were entering the Square without trouble when I heard a commotion behind me and, looking back, I saw a young fellow being manhandled by the police. I went back to see what was wrong and try to smooth things over, but before I could say anything a couple of hulking policemen grabbed me and I was frog-marched all the way to the Bell Streel Gaol. Naturally there was a near riot as our supporters let go at the police for this unwarranted provocation. If they had let us alone for another ten minutes it would have been all over in peace, but maybe it was not meant to be peaceful as far as the police were concerned.
My wife ran about getting the bail money and I and five others got out. The papers were full of the incident and the word got around: “The police have got Bob Stewart and are kicking his arse off.” An exaggeration, but that’s what happens in such cases. I was speaking at an open-air evening meeting in Lochee, a Dundee suburb. Thousands assembled to hear the workers’ side of the story. The people were really incensed, and demonstrations went on for over a week. Mounted police were drafted into the city and further arrests were made daily. Another bad slip by the authorities, because this only further incensed the workers.
The Court case was a Fred Karno farce. At one point I laughed outright at the absurdity of it all. Two of the policemen who had picked me up and this was done literally-were big Geordie Clark, and big Ed Anderson. Both world champion athletes. They tossed the caber at the Highland Games like someone using a match to light a pipe. They were built like Aberdeen Angus prize bulls and both looked like one. Real Scottish policemen of the period. Mountains of oatmeal, and little in the top piece.
It was a snotty-nosed little magistrate called Paterson who heard the case. The charges were:
a) In Meadowside he (that’s me) assaulted George Clark, constable, and struck him with his fist.
b) Committed a breach of the peace.
c) Molested constables Clark and MacFarlane in the execution of their duty while arresting Grant.
d) Assaulted William Gorrie, constable, and kicked him and after arrest struggled with the constables and refused to walk.
In cross-examination, big Geordie Clark was forced to admit that I had been frog-marched to the police station. The magistrate asked me to plead and I said I would not; it was a lot of nonsense and absolutely irrational. “Do you think,” I asked, “if I wanted to assault policemen I would choose the world heavy-weight champions? Please grant me a little intelligence.” But Baillie Paterson, like most magistrates, was only a figure-head. The real strings were pulled from behind. He found me guilty. What a laugh; me, guilty of assaulting the world heavyweight champion and punching him in the face! Me, a wee fellow not half Geordie Clark’s weight! He could have thrown me as far as the caber with one hand. There never was justice in the courts and certainly this case was the proof.
So I went up the river to Perth Gaol for thirty days and, to add insult to injury, the magistrate in his best pompous style advised me “That in future, Stewart, you should keep away from crowds.”
While I was away from the crowds and in Perth penitentiary, the great Labour split came and with it the fall of the Labour government. In late August Ramsay McDonald had made his now infamous sell-out radio speech. A National Government, with the Tories well entrenched in the new cabinet, was formed all to defend the pound sterling on which, claimed Ramsay Mac, “the well-being not only of the British nation but a large part of the world has been built”. Cuts in unemployment benefits to the extent of £70,000,000 per annum, and cuts in wages. Means tests for the unemployed. But this only for the working class. No cuts in profits and dividends. No means tests for the rich.
On October 22, a few weeks after MacDonald’s “save the pound” appeal, the Daily Express published: “Baldwin’s ordinary shares have advanced this year by €650,000 in value”. Stanley Baldwin, leader of the Tory Party, and brought into the National Government cabinet by MacDonald, held huge blocks of shares in Baldwin Limited, a great steel combine. On the day the Daily Express published this news, Baldwin was stumping the country telling the unemployed they must accept a dole cut of 10 per cent to save the pound and save the nation. Equality of sacrifice was the slogan of the National Government.
In his sell-out of the working-class movement, MacDonald pretended to give it a decent burial. In his broadcast, with an affected broken voice and, presumably, tears in his eyes, he said: “I have given my life to the building of a political party. I was present at its birth. I was a nurse when it emerged from infancy. At the moment I have not changed my ideals.” But he had sold out to the capitalist class just the same.
I profoundly believe McDonald actually thought he was presiding over the death of the Labour Party and the British working-class movement. His ego was that big. But historically the working-class movement has an indestructible habit of moving on, despite all the predictions of its destruction, and MacDonald lived to see that.
With the Labour Party demoralised by the split, the National Government called a general election for Tuesday, October 27. I had come out of Cardiff Gaol to fight my first parliamentary contest at Caerphilly in 1921. Now I came out of Perth Gaol to fight my last parliamentary contest at Dundee in 1931. This time the prison authorities were not so lenient; they let me out of gaol on the Saturday before polling day, giving me two full campaigning days -if you include Sunday.
The candidates for Dundee were Marcus for Labour and Scrymgeour for Prohibition, the sitting members who had been returned in 1929. In the election they teamed up together, with Scrymgeour still seeking the Labour and Catholic vote. The anti-Labour forces put up two new candidates, Florence Horsbrugh (now Baroness Horsbrugh) for the Tories, and Dingle Foot for the Liberals, both, of course, standing on the Nationalist ticket. I was the outsider as the Communist candidate at least that was how it was meant to be, but this time we did shake some of the political pundits.
The main brunt of the Nationalist campaigning fell on Dingle Foot who was then a young man of twenty-six years of age. This is the same Dingle Foot who is now a Labour Member of Parliament, having successfully changed his coat and maintained his membership of the House of Commons. He is one of the Foot family of professional politicians which includes Lord Caradon, formerly Hugh Foot, and Michael Foot, the left wing Labour MP. The ‘old man’ Isaac was no fool at professional politics.
At this time Dingle was bitterly anti-Labour, anti-working class. In one of his speeches he said, “The National Government stands for sense and solvency, Labour for sob stuff and starvation.”
My election agent was a little fellow called Sweeney. He called at the Perth Gaol and we went over the election address which was despatched in the usual efficient manner. The people knew we were campaigning all right. Apart from holding our own meetings, our fellows went to the other candidates meetings and question-time became a furious battle. Most of the Foot and Horsbrugh meetings ended with three cheers for Bob Stewart and the singing of “The Red Flag”. When I came out of prison on the Saturday, my first job was to lead a delegation to the Public Assistance for a number of hardship cases. There were some families then in real poverty. On the Sunday night we held a huge meeting at the Albert Square with an audience of 5,000 and great enthusiasm. Some of our lads began to talk of victory and I had to caution them, although the support we were receiving was our best ever in any election campaign.
But I was long enough in the political tooth to understand what was going on. The election campaign was one of the dirtiest in history. Every stick was used to beat the candidates standing against the National candidates. We were called traitors, saboteurs, wreckers no word, no turn of phrase, was bad enough to stampede the people and gain National votes.
In Dundee unemployment was high and to find work was an impossible task for the unemployed. In the final days of the election, the local newspaper, the Courier and Advertiser, published an interview with a Mr. Charlie Finch, who was reported to be about to open a bottle and glass factory in Dundee, employing 950 workers. But, emphasised Mr. Finch, he would only open the factory if the National Government were returned. Well, they were, but I never heard of the opening of Mr. Finch’s glass factory. This was the sort of thing that went on. Nothing was base enough to blacken the opponents of the National Government, nothing too low to win “National” votes.
Nine days before the poll the Courier and Advertiser published a prominent article praising another “National” leader who was then making his way in the world. His name was Adolf Hitler and according to the Courier he was the man who was to save the German nation.
On the final rally night-Monday-Dingle Foot invited all the candidates to speak from a platform in the Albert Square. He was providing loud-speaking equipment and a microphone. This was the first time this had ever been used in a Dundee parliamentary election. All the candidates refused, except me, so Foot and I had the meeting to ourselves. I asked for the other candidates’ time but Dingle would not agree. The local newspapers estimated that there was an audience of 20,000 but my reckoning was nearer 30,000.
At first Foot tried to play it funny. He was no doubt put out at being the only candidate to appear with the Communist candidate, but he would know later that this did him a power of good.
He started by saying, “I hope that when Bob Stewart and his pals come to power and I am hanged they will let me choose my own lamp-post.”
I intervened to say, “Dingle is growing up a bit too fast, we will reserve the lamp-posts for the important people,” and that cut him down to size. I remember his concluding remarks that night.
He said, “Do you want a member of the Trades Union Congress or a Member of Parliament for Dundee? I want you to send me to Westminster not as a bondsman of the Trades Union Congress, or as a catspaw of Moscow, but as a member of the National Government.”
I wonder who he thinks serves the nation now?
The split in the labour movement and the slanderous campaign of the National candidates, in which the former right-wing Labour leaders, MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas and others, were the most vehement of all, was too much for the working-class forces to surmount.
If anyone still thinks that the labour movement is strengthened when the right-wing leaders abandon and rupture the movement in this way, they ought to read the history of the 1929-31 Labour government. Working-class political success rests on the ability of the labour movement to purge itself of the right-wing leaders by political exposure, before they can sell out and not after.
In the 1929 general election, the Labour Party had won 288 seats. In 1931 Labour won only 51 seats and had a net loss of 228.
The Dundee result showed Florence Horsbrugh to be the first Tory candidate to be returned for Dundee this century (she remained M.P. for Dundee until 1945). Dingle Foot was top of the poll, the result being:
D. Foot 52, 048
F. Horsbrugh 48, 556
M. Marcus 32, 573
E. Scrymgeour 32, 229
R. Stewart 10, 262
Dingle Foot was so delighted when Sheriff Morton declared the result that he called for three cheers for Stewart, Marcus and Scrymgeour. Smart fellow!
The Tory government elected in 1924, largely because of the Zinoviev forgery, ran almost its full term of five years; 1929 had to be election year, and the election came in the spring. Parliament was dissolved and the date of the election set for May.
The 1929 parliamentary election will be remembered for two things: the return of the second Labour Government and the flapper vote. This was the first election in which women of twenty-one years of age voted. Before then the minimum age for votes for females was thirty years. Some people at the time said it was the flapper vote that made the return of a Labour government possible. This was definitely not true. The flapper vote did not assist the Labour or Communist candidates in 1929. While I have always wholeheartedly supported the elementary right of every adult to have a vote (except in extreme cases, such as insanity, etc.) I am not starry-eyed about the result and do not believe that new voters, the vast majority of whom have not been engaged in political action or discussion, will go to the polls and vote left with their first vote. I would say the same for votes at eighteen years of age. Very right and proper, but for those who think this will mean a mass increase in the left vote I fear there is a disappointment in store.
I was again the Communist candidate at Dundee in 1929, along with four others contesting for the two seats. No doubt because of the flapper vote, the Tories retained Frederick Wallace, a handsome military Tory gentleman who claimed to have fought the Russian Reds in 1919 after he had defeated the Germans. This sort of talk got him into serious trouble all through his campaign. The Liberals put up Henderson Stewart, a good looker and an able debater. Later he contested East Fife and was M.P. for that constituency for many years, pairing for a time with Bill Gallacher, who was M.P. for West Fife. Neddy Scrymgeour was the sitting member and was forward again in the interests of prohibition–although, be it noted, Neddy had been seven years M.P. for Dundee and all the time the public houses in the city had increased in number and the amount of whisky and beer consumed had likewise increased. In fact, during the years of Scrymgeour’s tenancy of the Dundee parliamentary seat the only trade in the city that had flourished was the liquor trade. Jute, ship-building, jam had their ups and downs but the liquor trade did well. In the 1924 general election Edmund Morel had been returned for Labour but died only months after taking his seat. In the resulting by-election Tom Johnstone, one of the early pioneers of the socialist movement, had stood for Labour and won. The Communists had not contested, giving Johnstone a clear run. By 1929 Johnstone had fallen out with some of the local right wingers and told them “where to put” their parliamentary seat, so a little lawyer fellow called Marcus stood for Labour in 1929. He was of Russian descent and was born in Grodno. His father, Nathan Marcus Tashen-ovsky, emigrated in 1911 and later Marcus became naturalised and took the family second name. At the start of the campaign the Scottish Nationalists declared they were to put up C. M. Greive, who was a rising young man in Scottish literature under the name of Hugh McDiarmid. I can’t remember why Hugh did not stand, but many years later he had a parliamentary contest in the 1964 general election as a Communist against the reigning prime minister, Sir Alex Douglas-Home.
The issues in the election for us were clear. Since the General Strike wages were at poverty level and unemployment was over two million. In Dundee in particular wages were below the national average in jute, and unemployment in all industries was rampant. The flapper vote was also important. In Dundee the 1924 electoral register showed 42,804 men and 35,493 women. The 1929 register showed 46,246 men and 62,880 women. It was estimated that in Dundee in 1929, 36,000 women voted for the first time in their lives. A number of candidates “cast their fly” for the flappers, and Harry Hope, a candidate in the neighbouring North Angus constituency, had the following advertisement in the newspaper on polling day:
TO THE WOMANHOOD OF ANGUS
VOTE HOPE
As can be readily guessed this left itself open to some bawdy jokes. The Dundee Tory candidate Fred Wallace added a bit of Christmas spice to his advertisement which read:
TO ALL WOMEN AND MEN OF GOODWILL
VOTE WALLACE
This showed the new importance of women. Up till then no one gave a damn for the women’s vote, accepting that most women did what some man told them to do.
I never had any claims to be beautiful, and as I was no chicken I treated the flappers as I did all others, with the greatest of respect, and sought to win their vote by reasonable political argument.
The campaign was a lively one, marred by a dirty attack by the Tories and the local press on Michael Marcus. Antisemitism was vigorously peddled by Tory canvassers who openly said a vote for Marcus was not a British vote but a vote for a Russian Jew. Unfortunately Marcus was neither a forceful personality nor an astute politician; he may have been a good lawyer, but he never really hit back in the right way at this sewer-type politics.
The Tory meetings were usually “snorters”, with many of our lads roasting the candidate at question time. Wallace had the real boss’s attitude, always wanting to dish out orders and tell everyone what they should do. But he wasn’t telling our fellows what to do at election meetings, they had been around too long for that. So Wallace complained to the press that at his meetings he was faced with dan audience of lions with Communist teeth”.
Of course he asked for much of what he got and maybe he baited the lads a bit. He was very fond of boasting how good a soldier he was and how he had fought and won in Northern Russia. I think he spoke so much about his military prowess that he began to believe it himself. Any-way, at his final rally he really let his verbosity get the better of him and shouted: “Men of Dundee, men of the fighting Black Watch with whom I had the great honour to fight shoulder to shoulder, we want our native land to flourish!” The truth was he was never in the Black Watch and according to the Dundee Courier, which took pleasure in giving him a full biography, he was with the Royal Artillery well behind the Black Watch in the fighting line. Strange how all the Tories contesting Dundee always wanted to appeal to the Black Watch for support. The funny thing was that if it had been left to the ex-Black Watch men to elect an M.P. the Communist candidate would have been a cert. Many of our supporters were men who had served in the Black Watch during the war, and had had enough and didn’t want any more wars. That’s why they campaigned for the Communist candidate.
But Wallace detested the Communists and Russia. One night our lads must have really got under his skin. The Courier reported he had had a rowdy meeting and had “thrown back” at his “tormentors” in the audience: “The practice of socialism has been operated in Russia since 1917 and has been a ghastly failure.” And for good measure, and to see that the voting public really got the message, in the same edition the Courier published a letter which said: “Bob Stewart and Marcus have not told the Dundee electors that under the Soviet government there are five million unemployed in Russia, that Moscow is swarming with beggars, that common people are huddled together worse than pigs, and that al homes in Moscow are under control of the government.” That last phrase could give a clue to the origin of the writer. My guess was he was a Tory landlord. Of course I tried to answer back, but in good British democratic parliamentary style the non-union D. C. Thomson press published neither my letters nor my speeches.
In the campaign we hammered home the lessons of the General Strike and the need for working-class unity. All the other candidates dodged the issue with general platitudes, except Wallace who said, “The General Strike marked an epoch in British industrial history, because for the first time for nearly a century since trade unions were formed, there has developed in the minds of trade union leaders the realisation that the strike weapon has outlived its usefulness.”
Our campaign, while not at the same high level as those of previous elections, was quite good. I remember a meeting in the Kinnaird Hall with over a thousand present, at which Tom Mann spoke for two hours, taking off his jacket midway through his speech because he said he was becoming a little heated. So was the candidate, waiting for his turn to speak. There was not much time left for me after Tom, but he did a valuable job in the election. He was a well built, handsome man and very, very popular with the women jute workers. He certainly could, with success, have made a play for the flapper vote on looks and physique. He was a powerful working-class orator, with a great gift of making friends readily.
At our final rally I had a speaker from Germany, comrade Gaspar, a member of the executive of the German Communist Party. He spoke that night of the emergence of the German fascist party and the utter refusal of the German social-democrats to unite with the German communists in face of the fascist menace. I wonder how many Dundonians in 1939, when Hitler declared war, thought of the speech made by Gaspar on working-class unity in the Caird Hall ten years earlier.
The main thing I remember about the 1929 parliamentary election campaign was the inability of the party to win votes from numbers of men and women who openly admitted that the policy of the Communists was correct. There was a profound fear that after five years of reactionary Tory government, the Tories might again be returned to power. There was an intense desire to get the Tories out, and to do this many voters who would otherwise have voted for the Communist candidates, voted Labour to get, as they said, a Labour government. Many thousands of men and women recognised the weakness of Labour with the right wing in control of the Labour Party, but they saw a Labour vote as the only alternative to Baldwin and the Tories. While in Dundee this feeling did not have the same effect as in the other constituencies where the Communists were contesting, near the end of the campaign in Dundee, Marcus, the Labour candidate, said publicly, “Give the second vote to Scrymgeour,” hoping Scymgeour would reciprocate, which he did. The Dundee result was:
Scrymgeour (Prob.) 50, 073
Marcus (Lab.) 47, 602
Henderson Stewart (Lib.) 33, 890
Wallace (Con.) 33, 868
Stewart (Comm.) 6, 163
The election resulted in a decided swing to Labour, which won 288 seats. The Tories won 250 seats and the Liberals 53.
Ramsay McDonald again visited Buckingham Palace and became prime minister. But in less than two years from McDonald’s taking office the truth of all the Communist Party had been saying in the 1929 parliamentary general election campaign was to become a living reality for the British working class.
In 1925, with their big majority in Parliament, the government and the Tory Party intensified their offensive against the working class. In the discussions we had in the party leadership it was quite clear to us the way the wind was blowing. The big industrial fight was against wage cuts, particularly in the mining industry. The wages and conditions of all workers were under attack. Stanley Baldwin, the Tory prime minister, was adamant that “the wages of all workers must come down.”
In June the mine owners issued notices at the pits terminating all existing national and district agreements and demanding wage cuts and longer hours. The Miners’ Federation called on the T.U.C. to support them in their fight against these demands. The T.U.C. and the Miners’ Federation leaders met Baldwin, but his answer to their request to stop the wage cuts was a blunt “no”. The government was fully supporting the coal-owners.
At a further meeting of the T.U.C. and the miners’ leaders a resolution for action was passed and it was agreed that, as from the 3rst July, the transport unions would instruct their members not to move coal by road or rail. Now the chips were down and the government’s bluff was called. They gave way and instituted legislation giving the coal-owners a subsidy for nine months to maintain the wages and hours of labour of the miners. The Daily Herald called this Red Friday, the day of trade union victory, to distinguish it from Black Friday in 1921 when the Triple Alliance was burst asunder and the employers won.
While recognising and sharing in the victory, the Communist Party warned that the government was only biding its time and was making preparations for a real attack. Government ministers at their meetings in the country were saying, “We are not to be dictated to by the T.U.C. The wages of workers must come down.”
In September came the first blow, strangely enough, at the conference of the Labour Party. Since the birth of the Communist Party its members had worked unceasingly and unselfishly for the unity of the labour movement. On September 31 the Labour Party conference passed a resolution excluding Communists from acting as delegates to the Labour Party conference. Up till then many Communists had been delegates from their trade unions.
Following this decision, only days later, came the second blow from the Tory Party conference, where the delegates demanded “action against the Communists strong measures against the revolutionary movement in Britain” There is no doubt in my mind that the decisions of these two conferences, particularly that of the Labour Party, laid the foundation for the sweeping offensive against the working class which followed in 1925 and 1926.
In October came the arrest of the Communist Party executive members, known then and since as the “Arrest of the Twelve”. I was working in Liverpool when it happened. I read of the arrests in the newspaper and immediately packed my bag and came to London. When I got to King Street I was told the executive had been bailed out and were in session, although no one seemed to know where they were. Everyone was very cagey, as well they might be in such a situation. I was about to leave the office when a word whispered in my ear, “Meynell” gave me the clue. The executive were meeting at Francis Meynell’s house. He later became Sir Francis Meynell and for a time was editor of our paper, The Communist. A very nice and interesting fellow–no doubt about that but certainly never a revolutionary.
When I arrived, the executive were in the middle of a discussion. We had an extraordinary problem and no one was shirking the issue. The leaders of the party had been charged with: “Uttering and publishing seditious libel- conspiring to incite soldiers to mutiny- receiving Moscow gold.” A load of balderdash, of course, but it was clear to us the authorities were in deadly earnest and in the attack on the working class the Communists were to be the first for the Tory chopper. These people knew quite well who were best able to mobilise the working class for struggle, and so the leaders of the Communist Party were to be safely “got rid of” for a time.
After discussion it was decided to elect an acting executive and officials, and that no publicity would be given to this, because naturally the new leaders could easily follow the twelve into prison, so an entire silence was maintained. To my astonishment I was elected acting general secretary. This was a new role for me, and also in new conditions. Before, I was always one of those in jail looking out at the fight. Now I was outside and with a heavy responsibility.
Thousands of branches of the Labour Party, the trade unions, hundreds of trades councils, poured in protests to the Home Office against the arrests and demanding the twelve be released. Many trade union national executives, including the Miners’ Federation, protested in letter and person to the Home Secretary. It has always amazed me that, in circumstances where it is obvious that injustice has been done, certain people will make a stand yet at the same time remain blind to the political realities which cause such injustices. Of course we had to make preparations for the trial. Willie Gallacher, Johnnie Campbell and Harry Pollitt were to defend themselves to ensure that the politics of the case were adequately represented in Court. The others, Albert Inkpin, Wal Hannington, Bill Rust, Tommy Bell, Robin Page Arnot, Ernest Cant, Tom Wintringham, Arthur McManus and John Murphy were to be represented by Sir Hendry Slesser, M.P. and Mr. Arthur Henderson Jnr., instructed by W. H. Thompson.
The trial of the Twelve, which was held in No. 1 court of the Old Bailey and was presided over by Mr. Justice Rigby Swift, will go down in history as one of the biggest political trials of this century. It should also be recorded as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated in a British court of law.
On the morning the trial opened hundreds were waiting to get into the Court, many of them without hope, yet they stayed there all day getting bits of news of what was happening inside. The case for the prosecution was a regurgitation of the unfounded accusations brought against Albert Inkpin in the 1921 trial in connection with the sale of the pamphlet The Statutes of the Communist International; this, of course, to try to prove that the Communist Party was seeking to destroy the constitution of the British government by revolutionary means and (as also suggested in Court) probably to murder leading members of the government; and secondly, that the Communist Party was inciting the armed forces to disobey orders and thus violating the 1797 Mutiny Act. Pollitt pointed out in his defence that this Act had been passed by the government of Pitt to deal with an actual mutiny in the British Navy and was certainly never meant to deal with working men in a political trial in 1925. The accusation that the British Communist Party was receiving “Moscow gold” was one of the supposed trump cards of the prosecution, but it never trumped anything. The highest figure mentioned by the prosecution was £14,000, which Gallacher proved was the income from the sale of our newspaper; and if one took into consideration the contributions paid by the membership, then 5,000; the total income came to a much more substantial amount, and thus the sum of £14,000 was more than accounted for.
But no matter the poverty of the case for the prosecution, or the excellence of the case for the defendants, the case was prejudged before it started. The jury retired and in twenty minutes was back with a verdict of guilty. The proof that this was a prejudiced verdict can be seen by the action of the judge. Remember, according to the charges, the Twelve were guilty of sedition, incitement to mutiny, receiving money illegally and intent to destroy the British government by force. Yet Mr. Justice Rigby Swift was prepared to allow seven of the defendants to go free if they repudiated the Communist Party! Addressing the prisoners he said: “The jury have found you twelve men guilty of the serious offence of conspiracy to publish seditious libels and to incite people to induce soldiers and sailors to break their oaths of allegiance. It is obvious from the evidence that you are members of an illegal party carrying on illegal work in this country. . . . Five of you, Inkpin, Gallacher, Pollitt, Hannington and Rustwill go to prison for twelve months.” Then came
sos alache months, Handingaone and upon 80 ., Continuing, the judge said: “You remaining seven have heard what I have had to say about the society to which you belong. You have heard me say it must be stopped. … Those of you who will promise me that you will have nothing more to do with this association or the doctrine it preaches, I will bind over to be of good behaviour in the future. Those of you who do not promise will go to prison.” And there it was, men supposedly found guilty of the worst charges in the crime calendar were to be let off all they had to do was to cease being Communists. Very touching, but it gave away the aim of the whole trial, which was to try and destroy the Communist Party and so behead the working-class movement. To Mr. Rigby Swift’s chagrin the seven remained silent, and with a grunt he sent them all to prison for six months.
With the Twelve safely tucked away in Wandsworth Gaol and the attack against the working class mounting, I called a special extended executive meeting of the party for the weekend January 9-10, 1926. We invited party trade union leaders and representatives from every district. It was crystal clear that the government were about to challenge the trade unions and show them who was master. For the executive meeting I prepared the main report, which dealt with the imperative need for unity of the working-class forces to defeat the govern
ment’s offensive against the wages and living standards of the workers. I take three points from my speech to illustrate its general character:
“We must change the leadership of the labour movement.
We cannot leave McDonald, Thomas and the Labour right wingers to use the movement for the benefit of the [capitalists.”
We must build a definite left wing in the labour move-ment. This cannot be all Communist, but if it does not include Communists it ceases to be left.”
“There can be nothing in the nature of a revolutionary victory in this country unless we build a mass Communist Party.”
In line with this report we had a special report from Arthur Horner dealing with our work in the factories and the necessity of building Communist groups in the factories, working in unity with the Labour left. The resolution said on this:
“This enlarged Executive declares that the industrial crisis emphasises the correctness of the Party policy in insisting on militant groupings organised in factories, pits and depots.”
This meeting, the discussion and the hammering out of party policy, laid the basis for our work up to and during the General Strike of 1926. Because of our correct policy and the work of our members, despite our semi-legality, we were a real force during the general strike, uniting and leading the working class in many areas of the country.
The history of the General Strike is known and has been the subject of countless books, so I will not dwell too much on it.
The leadership of the trade unions could not possibly refuse the call to support the miners when the government made their challenge, but it was painfully obvious to the politically initiated that the trade union leadership had no belly for the
struggle. Yet what wonderful memories exist of those days!
There was the mammoth May Day march, a really wonderful demonstration of workers’ power. I marched that day with Tommy Bell who had just come out of prison after doing his six months. What must Tommy have felt, to leave a prison cell and participate in such a demonstration?
A few days later all means of manceuvre between the
T.U.C. and the government ceased. The government’s mind was made up, the hour of confrontation had arrived and the general strike was on. The great contention of the period was that it was not only a general strike but a national strike, and so in many parts of the country the workers actually began to run the affairs of the community. They controlled food distri-bution, gave out permits for transport of goods, and so on.
This happened mainly where the trade unions were led by Labour militants and Communists, and was quite prevalent in the coalfields.
During the strike there was an unquenchable thirst for news. The government published the British Gazette under the editorship of Churchill, and the T.U.C. the British Worker.
News of what was happening in the country was hard to come by, but in this regard our office at King Street was one of the best clearing houses. The most active news-bringers to London from the country were the scouts who came on their motor-bikes. Most of them were our fellows, and they not only deposited their news bulletins at the respective trade union Offices but also at King Street, where we engaged them in discussion and consequently got much more from them than the written news which was considered sufficient by the orthodox trade union people.
We published our own news of the strike from King Street which was, I think, the best and most objective of the news sheets published. The British Gazette, under Churchill, spewed out its anti-working-class, anti-Communist venom, and the British Worker was good and helpful but not nearly forceful enough in giving a lead to the strikers. We had real difficulties in getting our bulletins printed and published. Stencils were
cut in several places and printing was moved from place to place. The distribution was done mainly by women, who did wonderful work during the strike. In distribution, prams came in very useful and many a policeman was passed by a smiling mum with a chirpy baby in the pram sitting atop several quire of our news bulletins. But not all got past, and several of our women were arrested. Two I remember were Mariorie Pollitt and Sadie Span, but there were many more. There were many arrests during the strike, and Tommy Jackson, who was acting chairman of the party, found his way inside much to his disgust.
Despite the brave words of the British Worker, despite the militant mood of the working class, there was no effort by the trade union leaders to mobilise the workers for the struggle.
Instead the strike was turned into a playground. Football and cricket matches were organised, sports events and entertainments to pass the time. I repeat, to pass the time. I remember some years later trying to explain to a continental audience why this thing happened during the strike period, but the only response I got was incredulous looks. To them it did not make sense, and I could certainly see their point of view. The real reason, of course, was the firm determination by the trade union leaders to dampen down the fires of struggle. J. H.
Thomas and others were desperately afraid the strike would become a real political challenge to the government, and they were determined this would not happen. That is the only reason that explains why, after nine days, when the working-class challenge was really mounting and biting, the T.U.C. called off the strike.
It is this mentality and action that differentiates the reformist from the militant. The reformist says,
For the love of
heaven, keep quiet. God said it to the father. The father said it to the child. The teacher said it to the child. The child grows up with it. The gaffer says it to the worker. Keep your nose clean, don’t make any trouble. Be humble. Leave it to us, and everything will be all right.” The way of the militant is simple. Everything you get must be fought for. The harder
you fight the more you get, and to win political power is the
main aim.
The kind of thing that was happening during the nine days of strike was described in Lord Samuel’s autobiography. He was an important go-between, with the government on one hand and the T.U.C. on the other. I think he was a bloody old scoundrel, but at this time he had a reputation as a radical and he used it to the fullest. Many back doors were opened during the strike and discussions went on that the workers never knew about, and still don’t know. But the sum total of these was the sell-out of the interests of the working class and victory for the government and the employers.
In the aftermath of the strike the workers took a very heavy beating. Of course there was the promise of no recriminations, no punishments for the workers, but this was rubbish. Rail-waymen were put on two or three days a week and their wages were cut. Hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs altogether, and the militants were the worst off of all. They took the biggest beating, to teach them a lesson and to teach others not to be militant. The trade unions lost heavily in membership, and many unions exhausted their funds paying strike benefit. The labour movement was in retreat, no doubt about that, and so was our party as part of the labour move-ment. The history of the party shows that when the labour movement goes back so does the party and when the labour movement goes forward the party goes forward too. The general strike period was no different. Of the thousands of members we won during the nine days, the vast majority left when the strike was sold out.
On October 16-17 the Party Congress was called. The executive was re-elected and the policy of the party debated and decided on. We knew there would be a long climb back to restore confidence to the working class. We knew there would be a recession in the struggle, but there will always be workers who will fight against injustice no matter what the odds; and, just as important where the fight takes place, there will always be other workers who will come into the fight as
it develops. No matter how deep the wound the working class receives, it will always get over it. That much I know by all my experience. The problem often is to get over it in the quickest possible time.
I wasn’t sorry to have Inkpin, Gallacher, Pollitt and the others back in harness after their spell in prison. Men of their calibre were worth their weight in gold in the autumn of 1926.
I relinquished my acting general secretaryship with the greatest of pleasure, kidding Inkpin and the others that while they were inside and I was in charge we had trebled our membership, forgetting to mention the loss after the strike period.
This was the first parliamentary election ever to be contested by the British Communist Party. The decision to contest was taken by the Party Executive on July 16th 1921. The main reasons were, firstly, the severe attack on the party at the time sixty-eight leading Communists had been arrested and many of them, like myself, were doing hard labour. Secondly, the economic position was becoming desperate. In July, the unemployment figures, according to the Labour Gazette, were 2,178,000. Thirdly, it was a mining constituency and the betrayal of the miners by the right-wing Labour leaders had just taken place. Black Friday was only a few months before the by-election. During the miners’ struggle the party had supported them wholeheartedly throughout and in fact was the only political party to give full support, and we were therefore entitled to stand in a mining constituency. No doubt the reason that I was selected as the candidate was because I had been arrested for delivering speeches in favour of the miners’ wage demands and, when the election date was announced, was actually in jail only a few miles from the constituency. For these reasons the party decided that a contest was necessary and completely justified.
The selection of a Labour candidate created some trouble. A whole number of right-wing labourites, including Ramsay McDonald, were angling for what was considered a safe seat. However, the miners were so disgusted with the action of the right-wingers during the struggle of the Triple Alliance (miners, transport workers and railwaymen) and the final sell-out of Black Friday, that they had no hope of support from the miners’ lodges. The eventual choice of candidate for Labour was Morgan Jones. Like myself, he had been a conscientious objector during the war, but only on religious grounds. He was one of the big guns of the Independent Labour Party, a Baptist lay preacher and at the time of the election, Chairman of the Bible Classes in the valley and, as Tommy Jackson said, “this endeared him to the old women of both sexes”. He was a nice chap but not a virile working-class politician. The Coalition (Tory- Liberal) candidate was Ross Edmunds.
Morgan Jones had the full Labour election machine behind him- the Labour Party, the Miners Federation and the Daily Herald. Even the Free Church Council campaigned vigorously on his behalf. The Daily Herald laid it on thick. “A brilliant young man with a promising career before him–a man who was born among you a fine Baptist who can speak Welsh.”
The government candidate, Edmunds, had the traditional Tory and Liberal Party machines and all the capitalist newspapers on his side. To match this, we were a handful of rebels, maybe sixty in all mostly strangers to the district–with no election machinery, no tradition, no money, nothing to give except the “message” of working-class struggle to gain political power. Our main slogan during the election was ” All Power To The Workers”. Yet we conducted such a powerful political campaign that three days before the poll the Labour Party got the wind up, and in the Labour camp, with its big battalions, the word went out to smash the Communists. The Labour Party bullied, cajoled and wheedled and finished with an SOS- “Don’t split the vote and let the Coalition candidate in”, while the chapels worked overtime calling for the protection of Morgan Jones from the ungodly Reds.
We had a wonderful team of speakers- -Bill Gallacher, Helen Crawfurd and John McLean from Scotland, Walton Newbold, Arthur McManus, Bert Joy, Harry Webb, Joe Vaughan, who came within a hair’s breadth of winning Bethnal Green for the Communist Party in the 1924 parliamentary election, Tommy Jackson and myself. Open-air speaking was our strength. We opened our meetings in the Square in Caerphilly at ten o’clock in the morning and closed them at eleven o’clock at night. We swept the Coalition candidate supporters from the streets altogether, they retired from this arena defeated. Early on in the campaign, a Coalition speaker challenged Harry Webb during one of his speeches to a debate, and this was arranged to take place at Abertridwr. The hour arrived for the debate but not the Coalition speaker; he did not turn up. Bill Gallacher had a debate in public with a group headed by Captain Gee, VC. It was a political massacre of Coalition policies. One of my happiest recollections of the election was of a meeting when Edmunds asked me to state where I stood in relation to the industrial strife in British industry, and then I watched his face as I replied. His fixed conception of the inevitability of the master-worker permanent industrial relationship took a very hard knock.
I remember one night Gallacher and I were speaking at a place called Sengenet. The local synod had been having a meeting and when they finished a number of ministers came around the meeting to have some fun. “Ah! The Bolsheviks! Why don’t you read the Bible?” shouted one of them. Now that was a real question! Challenging Bill Gallacher and me to read the Bible! We gave them Bible lessons they had never dreamed of. Then, when they were quietened, and the audience were laughing their heads off, I told them quietly, “That’s what you get for putting people like Gallacher and me in gaol and making the Bible compulsory reading.”
Another time Tommy Jackson was holding forth to an audience in Caerphilly, when on looking up he noticed that the tower of the castle was leaning to one side. “There you are,” he said, “even the castle tower is leaning to the left.” It was just as well he was holding the meeting at that stance because if he had gone to the other side he would have seen it leaning to the right. Still, Tommy was always one to make the best of any situation.
Apart from our splendid team of propagandists we had dozens of hard workers on the knocker, selling our pamphlets, chalking, arguing in the streets and in the pubs. Everywhere there were people, our fellows were there. Many of them were unemployed and had come from all over Scotland, London, the Midlands and from every part of Wales- to help the party. To go into the committee rooms late in the evening and watch this bunch getting their shake-downs ready for the night was like walking into a picture from John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook The World. But they were a real bunch of first-class fighters. Dai Davies had charge of the Election Address and the job was done competently and on time.
In our campaign it was the transport that took the eye. One national newspaper talked of “Bolshevik emissaries rushing through the Caerphilly Division in expensive cars.” Actually, what happened was that Jimmy Shand came down with his big car from Liverpool and it did valuable service. It was certainly a big flash car; it seemed to hold dozens at a time and with great speed transported speakers and workers to the assigned places. Jimmy was possibly one of the best car drivers I ever knew, certainly one of the few I would sit back and trust on a pitch-black night, driving on a Welsh mountain-side.
The night before the poll I was talking to some journalists who were covering the election. They said, “Your speakers are first class, they have made a great impact. They have destroyed any chance the Coalition candidate had of pulling a patriotic vote-catching stunt, but in attacking and exposing the weakness of his policy you have created a real fear that a split vote will let the Coalition candidate in. You have frightened the Labour crowd and made them work as they have never done before. Your campaign has made the voters class-conscious enough to make them vote Labour but not enough to make them whole-hog Communists.” One should never under-estimate the wisdom of press reporters when speaking off the record and not for their papers, because the final result on polling day bore out their estimation:
Morgan Jones (Lab.) – 13, 699
Ross Edmunds (C. & L.)- 8, 957
Bob Stewart (Comm.) – 2, 592
We lost our deposit. We had spent all our money. In a constituency twenty miles broad, to cross which meant climbing three mountains real ones, not home-made mountains, as Ernie Brown called the slag heaps at the pits. We had given all the energy we had in a tremendously exhausting campaign. What did we get in return? In South Wales mining districts in 1921 there was mass unemployment, a psychology of gloom and despair. Labour was chanting “Leave it all to Parliament- direct action is dead”. We roused enthusiasm in many who had lost hope; we won an understanding that action by the rank and file was essential. We put light back in eyes grown leaden with despair, the spring back in the step of many a young miner, we painted a picture of a future of opportunity and prosperity.
For the first-ever Communist parliamentary election contest this was a real achievement. As the crowds waited for the result of the election, Gallacher, in his inimitable way, started a sing-song and soon everyone had joined in. When the result was announced, you would have thought by the shout that greeted the Communist vote that we had won the seat. We did not win the seat but we won many other things including, most of all, the appreciation that the British Communist Party had a right to take its place in parliamentary elections, against the alleged statesmen whose policies spelt ruin to Britain.
The Unity Conference, 1920. Bob Stewart in the front row seventh from the left.
I came out of gaol in April 1919 and entered an entirely changed world from the one I had left. The heroes had returned from the war to find the golden promises of a land fit for heroes to live in had not materialised. Many were unable to find work. Many, when they found it, got low wages on which they could not adequately provide for their wives and children. The housing shortage became a serious social problem as the soldiers, married during the war, tried to set up house with their war-wives and young children. The landlords, taking advantage of the shortage, found ways and means to raise rents.
Foresters Hall in Dundee.
The Dundee I came back to had all these problems and more. Lack of work, low wages, unemployment, bad housing and a housing shortage, and to add to the confusion, thousands of war disabled demanding work and maintenance. During the war our party had absorbed many facets of socialism into its policy, so we changed the name from the Prohibition and Reform Party to the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship. We ran meetings every Sunday night in the Foresters Hall. They were always packed out, with hundreds left outside. Invariably there was a queue to get in an hour before starting time to make sure of a seat. My Prison Rhymes now became a bestseller. So, with the money from the collections and the booklet we were doing very well financially.
We got a new hall, the Unity Hall we called it, relaid the floor, bought the best seats available and certainly made it one of the finest little halls in the city. Despite this veneer of success, it became evident to those of us who were thinking politically that we were not making any real political advance, and certainly not making the basic political progress towards socialist organisation that the economic conditions warranted.
While in prison I had written to the monthly paper of the Socialist Labour Party, The Socialist, on the question of unity and the necessity for the various social sects and parties to get together. The Russian Revolution had had a profound effect in Britain. In all the left groupings our thinking had changed or was in the process of changing.
In all the left parties the need for, and the road to, unity was being discussed. In fact, in July 1919, only a few weeks after I came out of gaol, meetings seeking to establish unity had been held in London. Members of the British Socialist Party, the Workers’ Socialist Federation, the Socialist Labour Party and the South Wales Socialist Society had taken part. Although our party was not present, I got to know later that while agreement was won on a number of political principles, there was a fundamental division on the question of the attitude to the Labour Party. The B.S.P. members made crystal clear their demand that any new united party must be affiliated to the Labour Party. The W.S.F, and the SouthWales S.S. said it was useless to approach the Labour Party. Thus early, at the very first meeting, battle lines on this supremely important political principle were taken up.
Early in 1920 I was doing a meeting in Aberdeen. When I finished, I returned to the house of Jimmy Gordon to find Tommy Bell and Arthur McManus waiting for me. They were working for a unity conference and, after a discussion, asked me to use my influence to get our party to attend. So, I put it to the party and after due consideration we decided to participate and I was sent as a delegate.
This conference was held in early April 1920, in the William Morris Hall in Nottingham. There were members from the main left parties there. The B.S.P., the W.F., the South Wales S.S. and the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship. The Socialist Labour Party had split on the question of “attitude to the Labour Party” and only a section were represented at Nottingham. Of the people I remember, there was John S. Clarke, Tommy Bell and Arthur McManus from Scotland, Willie Paul who was leading the S.L.P. section, Bill Gee, a perambulating propagandist well known in all parts of the country, Charlie Pentie from Woolwich, Jock McBain, a foundry worker, Bill Hewlitt from Wales who was tragically killed in an accident in Moscow in 1921, Tommy Jackson, and of course others.
We had a day’s discussion, forenoon and afternoon. We hammered things out as best we could, collated the points of agreement and decided to issue a manifesto. We then went for a walk and left Tommy Jackson to draft the document. When we came back, we found a dance band playing in one part of the place and Tommy Jackson sitting with the dance music bellowing all around, a few beer bottles at his elbow, discarded manuscripts littering the floor at his feet, beads of perspiration trickling from his forehead. But he had done the job. The Manifesto of the Communist Unity Group was drafted. We went over it, slight changes being made, and then adopted the document. So, from the Nottingham Conference the call for Communist Unity went out. The Manifesto declared, among other things: “To create this force…by unity of all elements scattered throughout the various groups and Parties as the first essential to the formation of a Communist Party in Britain.” The Manifesto had twenty-two signatories.
The Manifesto from the Nottingham Conference produced immediate results. It provided the yeast to ferment the unity discussions and drew the left elements closer together. It really paved the way for the next big step forward, the Communist Unity Conference which was held in London on July 31st and August 1st 1920, on Saturday July 31st in the Cannon Street Hotel and the following day in the International Socialist Club, 28 East Road, London E.C.
The Cannon Street Hotel where the Unity Conference took place in 1920.
The conference was summoned by a Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Unity Conference representing the Communist Unity Group, the B.S.P, and the South Wales Communist Council under the names of Arthur McManus, chairman, and Albert Inkpin, secretary. There were 152 delegates present holding 211 mandates. McManus was unanimously elected to preside.
Up to this time, when any discussions on unity had been held, many groups and individuals continued, after the discussions and decisions, to propagate their former minority viewpoints. Majority decisions were not being accepted. In order to get over this difficulty at the London Conference, it was agreed that “All bodies participating in summoning the conference are pledged to abide by its decisions on points of tactics and to merge their organisation into the new Communist Party. Representation at the Conference will be held to imply that branches, groups and societies represented will also accept its decisions and become branches of the Communist Party.”
This was accepted by the conference-a very big step forward at that time. With this understanding, the conference turned its attention to discussion and agreement on the main points of policy for the new party.
The first resolution covered the main aims of the party:
“The Communists in Conference assembled declare for the Soviet (or Workers’ Councils) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production. Declare the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means of combating counter-revolution during the transition period between capitalism and communism and stand for the adoption of these measures as a step towards the establishment of a system of complete communism wherein the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This Conference therefore establishes itself the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adhesion to the Communist International.”
In the discussion on this resolution, a number of speakers kept referring to the “use of the gun” as the real, and, for some, the only way to power. Naturally, after my prison experiences, this kind of talk irked me. In speaking to the resolution I said: “I do not want to stress too much the point being made about ‘men with guns’ but I do hope the sincerity of delegates not ‘gun-minded’ will not be questioned. Even the capitalist, powerful as he may be, will not be able to use guns except in so far as he can persuade the members of our class that our policy is detrimental to working-class interests. Whether guns come soon, late or not at all, there will be times when it is far more revolutionary to refuse to have anything to do with guns. I think the provisional executive which is to be set up by the conference will be far wiser to devote themselves to building up such organisation as will make it possible to win the maximum of our party policy with the minimum of violence.” On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat question I said: “I don’t know much about this, and I don’t think anyone else does here, but we know it is necessary and if the working class is to achieve power and we will require to do as the circumstances determine.”
It may be a strange thing, but I have invariably found that the people who want to “shoot it out’ are the worst stayers in the movement. They do not seem to be able to cope with the hard grind of day-to-day politics. Maybe, of course, that’s why they want to use guns.
This resolution, while causing a fair discussion, was passed unanimously, and then the conference turned to the subjects causing deep divisions in the left forces-attitude to the Labour Party and the advisability of parliamentary political action.
Tom Bell and a number of delegates were against having anything to do with parliament. In an appealing speech, Tom said: “Nothing can be hoped for from the Chamber of Parliament. Can Communist members of Parliament take the oath of allegiance? In all cases, Communists must hold their mandate from the party and not from their constituencies. The only Communist allegiance is to, communist principles not to royalty or decadent capitalism.”
He was followed by delegates who put much the same point of view, but some with harsher words.
I spoke on this resolution and, with several others, put the point of view that we could not divorce ourselves from parliamentary action, that we must use parliament. “Our job is to be where the laws are made.” I remember Ellen Wilkinson delivering a revolutionary speech for parliamentary action, saying: “A revolution must mean discipline and obedience to working-class principles.” Ellen finally landed up as a minister in a Labour government. She certainly used parliament, but I am afraid not for the revolutionary principles she espoused that day.
When the vote was taken, a large majority were for the resolution supporting parliamentary action by the new party.
A fierce, no-punches-pulled debate on the attitude of the new party to the Labour Party concluded the policy debates. The big battle was whether or not the new party should seek affiliation to the Labour Party; or rather, to put it in its correct context, whether to resume the affiliation to the Labour Party already standing in the name of the British Socialist Party which was the biggest section of the new Communist Party.
The conference had two alternatives: (a) to seek affiliation,or (b) not to seek affiliation.
Hodgson moved (a) and Paul moved (b). The B.S.P. speakers in the debate came down heavily for affiliation because they knew by practical experience the value of affiliation to the mass Labour Party. Paul, Bell and others were violently against. In fact, the day before the conference opened Tom Bell had written an article in The Call against affiliation, saying: “Never was the time more opportune for Communists to proclaim their open hostility to the utopian aims of the Labour reformists, and pursue an independent course.”
Many delegates put the point that the last thing the right-wing Labour leaders wanted was the affiliation of the Communist Party. I remember George Dear putting this point in a very skillful way. He referred to a speech made by Jimmy Sexton, secretary of the Docks Trade Union, at the Scarborough Labour Party Conference, where Sexton had said: “Here is the British Socialist Party with 10,000 alleged members, paying £50 a year affiliation fees. They monopolise the conference, get five speakers to the rostrum the first day, demand a bloody revolution and Jim Thomas’s head on a charger, and then foist Colonel Malone on us. What the hell do they want for fifty quid?”
There were no kid gloves used, and the protagonists were nearly equal. This also showed in the vote. One hundred were for affiliation, 85 against. It was then agreed the matter be dealt with by the new Executive and be reported to the next conference.
Arthur McManus- The First Chairman of the CPGB. Albert Inkpin- The First General Secretary of the CPGB.
There were sixteen nominations put forward for the six positions on the Executive Committee. On an exhaustive vote, the following were elected: Fred Shaw 123 votes; I got 117; Dora Montifiore 115; Colonel Malone 106; W. Mellor 100, and George Dear 100. I must add here that Colonel Malone was the man who won some fame for himself by threatening to hang Winston Churchill from a lamp-post, for which he got six months hard labour. Arthur McManus was elected chairman and Albert Inkpin secretary.
The task set the Executive was to win further unity of the left movement and to take charge of the paper Communist, the official organ of the party. The headquarters were at 21a Maiden Lane, Strand, London.
During this conference in London a letter was sent by Lenin to the delegates. Lenin had taken a great interest in the attempts to forge left unity in Britain, in the problems of unity and in the tactics of the left groupings, as the letter from him to the conference shows:
Having received the letter from the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain dated June 1920 I hasten to reply, in accordance with their request, that I am in complete sympathy with their plansfor the immediate organisation of a Communist Party in England. I consider the policy of Sylvia Pankhurst and the S.D.F. in refusing to collaborate in the amalgamation of the B.S. P., the S.L.P and others into one Communist Party, to be wrong. I personally favour participation in Parliament and adhesion to the Labour Party on condition of free and independent Communist activity. This policy I am going to defend at the second congress of the Third International on July igth in Moscow. I consider it most desirable that a Communist Party be speedily organised on the basis of the decisions and principles of the Third International and that the Party be brought into close touch with the industrial workers of the world and bring about their complete union.
N. LENIN July 18th 1920.
In the first edition of the Communist, dated August 5th 1920, I gave my opinion of the London Conference.
“The value of the conference was its evident eagerness and sincerity; its old men were young and its young men did not lack wisdom. The Leftest of the Left and the Rightest of the Right showed an evident anxiety to keep the CPGB free from that ineptitude for action that has hitherto been not an uncommon feature in the debating stage of our growth. Minor differences were relegated to their proper position.”
But the major differences were firmly entrenched. The main one was the affiliation question, and after that, parliamentary action. In the first edition of The Communist, McManus also wrote his impressions of the London Conference, and showed that the deep divisions on affiliation were still dominant. He wrote: “The voting on the Labour Party was such as indicated a strong, evenly divided opinion on the question of affiliation, and while according to the result the minority are honourably expected to acquiesce to the decision, there is also the obligation placed on the majority to fully appreciate the character and strength of the minority.”
At the first meeting of the new Executive held in August, discussion on affiliation brought the motion that an immediate application be made to the Labour Party. An amendment was then moved that the application make clear the objects, methods and policy of the Communist Party as set forth in the resolution passed by the London Conference. Naturally the amendment was accepted, but no doubt the supporters knew where they wanted to be, as time proved. The Executive unanimously accepting that an application be made, the following letter was sent to the Labour Party. As it is now an historic document, I quote it in full.
August 10th 1920
Dear Sir, At a National Convention held in London on Saturday and Sunday, 31st July and 1st August last, the Communist Party of Great Britain was established. The resolutions adopted by the Convention, defining the objects, methods and policy of the Communist Party, read as follows:
(a) The Communists in conference assembled declare for the Soviet (or Workers’ Council) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production; declare for the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means of combating the counter-revolution during the transition period between Capitalism and Communism; and stand for the adoption of these means as steps towards the establishment of a system of complete Communism wherein all the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This conference therefore establishes itself the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adherence to the Third International.
(b) The Communist Party repudiates the reformist view that a social revolution can be achieved by ordinary methods of Parliamentary Democracy but regards Parliamentary and electoral action generally as providing a means of propaganda and agitation towards the revolution. The tactics to be employed by representatives of the Party elected to Parliament or local bodies must be laid down by the Party itself, according to national or local circumstances. In all cases such representatives must be considered as holding a mandate from the Party and not from the particular constituency for which they happen to sit. Also, that in the event of any representative violating the decisions of the Party as embodied in the mandate which he or she has accepted, or as an instruction, that he or she be called upon to resign his or her membership of Parliament or municipality and also of the Party.
(c) That the Communist Party shall be affiliated to the Labour Party.
At a meeting of the Provisional Executive Committee held on Sunday last, we were directed to send you the foregoing resolutions, and to make application for the affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party.
Yours faithfully, ARTHUR MCMANUS (chairman) ALBERT INKPIN (secretary).
One month later came the reply from Arthur Henderson, then secretary of the Labour Party, saying the application had been considered by the National Executive of the Labour Party and he had been “instructed to inform you (the Communist Party) that the basis of affiliation to the Labour Party is the acceptance of its constitution, principles and programme, with which the objects of the Communist Party do not appear to accord”. This reply led to further correspondence in which the words “do not appear to be in accord with the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party” figured prominently. The Communist Party asked: “Does the Labour Party rule that the acceptance of Communism is contrary to the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party, or is it the methods of the Communist Party to which exception is taken?”
Arthur Henderson, secretary of the Labour Party. Not too keen on CPGB affiliation. Lenin wrote that he was “as stupid as Kerensky.”
Back came Henderson: “Your letter raises a definite issue-the obvious conflict between the fundamentals of the Labour Party constitution, objects and methods, and those of the Communist Party.” He then went on to quote the following from the article by McManus in the Communist:
“One impression I should like to make definitely clear as gathered from Sunday’s experience (the London Conference), and that is that those arguing for affiliation to the Labour Party did not urge for, nor contemplate working with the Labour Party. The antagonism to the Labour Party was general, but those for affiliation held the opinion that such antagonism would best be waged within their own camp.”
To a man of Henderson’s calibre, this was meat and drink in argument, and he went on to quote part of a previous letter from the Communist Party, which said: “You have made a definite refusal to our request for affiliation on the ground that our objects do not appear to be in accord with those of the Labour Party. To be frank, we never supposed they were. Our worst enemy will not accuse us of ever pretending they were.”
No doubt, looking back, many things were said in the correspondence that, to put it mildly, did not smooth the way to affiliation. Really, the big difference between the parties was one of methods, Henderson and the Labour Party contending that the Communists would use violent methods while the Labour Party would not. Yet the fact was that the Labour Party, and Arthur Henderson in particular, had just supported the most violent war in human history.
After the correspondence, the Labour Executive decided to place the question on the agenda of the next Labour Party Conference. This took place on Tuesday 21st June, at Brighton. The affiliation question came up in the form of a resolution from the Norwood Labour Party, which said:
“That this Conference, whilst appreciating the difficult position of the National Executive Committee when called upon to deal with the application of the Communist Party for affiliation, owing to the various shades of opinion in the Labour Party which they represent, this Conference of the National Labour Party, in the interest of unity of the earning sections of the community who are opposed to the capitalist system, agrees to accept the affiliation of the Communist Party on the condition that the constitution of the Labour Party is accepted and the rules of the Communist Party are in conformity with the same.”
This was moved by W. A. Hodgson and seconded by Duncan Carmichael of the London Trades Council. An amendment “That the request for affiliation be not accepted was moved by Bert McKillop of the Social Democratic Federation and seconded by W. J. Brown of the Clerical Officers Association, Civil Service.
In a debate, A. J. Cook and Herbert Smith of the Miners Federation, and Bob Williams of the Transport Workers supported the resolution, while Manny Shinwell and Fred Bramley of the Furnishing Trades spoke against. The debate was very unreal. It did not deal with policy. The speakers for the resolution did not adequately show the need for affiliation to strengthen the left political forces and to win a more working-class policy. They tended to appeal to the right wing to accept unity. No one spotlighted the glaring evidence that the right wingers were afraid of affiliation because it meant the strengthening of the left wing of the Labour Party.
Naturally the right wingers played on this weakness, talked of “the methods of the Communist Party”, “acceptance of violence by the Communist Party”. Arthur Henderson, who was then Labour Party secretary, gave a most hypocritical performance in summing up for the National Executive. Just before the conference, a by-election had taken place at Woolwich. The Labour candidate was none other than Ramsay McDonald. During this by-election the Communist Party had issued a leaflet, part of which was quoted by Henderson to prove that the Communist Party were not to be trusted and would not support Labour candidates. The leaflet said: “The Communist Party feels it cannot allow the decision to run Ramsay McDonald to pass without comment… While the coalition candidate stands for capitalism in all its manifestations … the Labour Party candidate also stands for capitalism in all its manifestations.” Henderson made use of this in 1921to show that the Communists would betray the Labour Party. Yet ten years later Ramsay McDonald proved the Communists completely correct, when he betrayed the British working class, tried to destroy the Labour Party and deserted to the Tory National Government. Such was the verdict of history.
On the Wednesday morning, after Henderson had spoken, the Previous Question was moved. The voting resulted in 4,115,000 for, 224,000 against. So ended the first round of the question that was going to continue to push its way to the forefront of British politics and is still with us today.
At a meeting of the Communist Party Executive Committee in November, arising from a report on the work of the Third International, the need to further extend the organisation of the Communist Party was agreed upon, and a decision taken to organise a further Unity Conference. Discussion with a number of left groupings who had not been present at the London Conference took place. Among these was the Communist Labour Party. One of the leaders of this Party, Willie Gallacher, had been in Moscow at the time of the London Conference. In discussions with Lenin, Gallacher’s thinking on scientific socialism had changed and Lenin had got him to promise that on his return to Britain he would work for the unity of the working-class movement and for a united Communist Party.
A joint committee to prepare for the conference was formed, to compile the agenda and draw up the basis of representation! A manifesto was produced under the signatures of McManus and Inkpin of the C.P.G.B, J. V: Leckie of the Communist Labour Party, George Peat of the Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committees and E. T. Whitchead of the Communist Party B.S. T.I. (British Section Third International). The manifesto read as follows:
Comrades,
We address this statement and appeal to you in the hope of clearing away for all time the differences of opinion which have served to keep us apart in the past, thereby preventing the consolidation of the revolutionary forces in this country.
It is not our purpose to explain or justify those differences but simply to record the fact that our task has been much simplified by the decisions of the recent congress of the Third International. These decisions prescribe for the world movement the basis upon which such efforts as ours should be founded and constitute a clear and definite demand that a united Communist Party shall be established in Britain.
To this end the following organisations have assented to the proposal for the formation of a united Party, and have elected representatives to the above committees: Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Labour Party, Communist Party (B.S.T.I.), Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committee (in a consultative capacity), and the left wing group of the I.L.P. (in an informative capacity).
The Committee has set about its task and has held a preliminary conference. We appreciate that the heartiest co-operation is essential if the united Party is to contain all the features which mark a real live revolutionary organisation. To this end we seek such assistance and urge that all the groups and bodies not in touch with the proceedings should communicate at once with the secretary, when the fullest information will be supplied. In the meantime we would counsel the closest observation of what is being done thus ensuring that when the National Convention takes place about the end of January the results will justify the hopes we place in the Convention.
The Bull and Mouth Hotel in Leeds. Later renamed the Victory Hotel and the location of the the 1921 conference where the CPGB was formalised. Demolished years ago, there’s now a Gregg’s on the site.
This appeal was the forerunner to the Leeds Conference, which was held in the Victory Hotel, Leeds, on the 29th January 1921. Jack Tanner was voted into the chair. There were 170 delegates.
Two resolutions were on the agenda, a unity resolution which was moved by Leckie and seconded by Watkins, and a merging resolution, which was moved by Gallacher and seconded by Paul. There were none of the fierce polemics which had raged at the London Conference, and the proceedings took place in a quiet and orderly atmosphere. A new Executive was appointed which had representatives from the former parties, and there were also representatives selected on a geographical basis. McManus was elected as chairman of the party and Inkpin as secretary.
It can be truly said that from the Leeds Conference the foundation of the British Communist Party was laid. Then the wagon began to roll.
Breaking the Fetters 