| This book developed out of an interest in a
political movement known as 'left' or 'council' communism, which achieved
brief prominence -- particularly in Germany -- at the end of the First
World War. |
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| Before the war the future left communists generally
belonged to the left wing of the social democratic parties of the Second
International. After these parties had lined up in support of their respective
ruling classes at the outbreak of the armed conflict in 1914, the left
communists were soon to be found among the revolutionary minority which
called on the working class to 'turn the imperialist war into civil war'.
At the same time they also began to formulate a radical critique of the
social democratic ideas which had led to the Second International's integration
into capitalist society and to its support for the war. |
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| The left communists were quick to acclaim the
1917 Russian revolution and in its wake participated in the formation of
communist parties as constituents of a new, Third International. The left
communists confidently expected their Russian comrades' support in the
struggle against the treacherous social democratic and trade union leaderships,
and against outmoded forms of working-class action such as parliamentarism.
These hopes were soon dashed, however, when the Third International adopted
the tactics which Lenin had outlined in his notorious attack on the left
communists, Left-Wing Communism – an Infantile Disorder. |
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| Besides disagreeing with the Bolsheviks over
the most appropriate tactics for use in the class struggle in Western Europe,
the left communists were also critical of the direction taken by events
within Russia itself, especially after the introduction of the New Economic
Policy (1921). which they regarded as a 'reversion to capitalism'. Eventually
the left communists argued that Russia was a capitalist state run by the
Bolsheviks and that the Third International's policies simply reflected
the interests of the Russian capitalist state in the field of foreign policy.
Thus the left communists were driven to form a new -- anti-Bolshevik --
Fourth International. in which the interests of the world revolution would
take precedence over the interests of any of the new International's constituent
national parties. Consequently the term 'left' communism soon became obsolete,
since the 'orthodox' communists (that is, the Bolsheviks) were now recognised
as belonging to the capitalist political spectrum. Thereafter the
left communists became more widely known as 'council' communists, because
of their emphasis on workers' councils (or soviets), rather than political
parties, as the means which the working class would use to overthrow capitalism
and administer communism. |
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| In the chapter of 'Left-Wing' Communism,
An Infantile Disorder which dealt with the revolutionary movement in
Britain, Lenin's attack was mainly directed against a group called the
Workers' Socialist Federation. The WSF had started out as an organisation
of militant suffragists, but its political views were transformed in the
direction of revolutionary communism by the impact of the Russian revolution.
The WSF existed until mid-1924 and changed its name several times during
this period, so for the sake of convenience it is usually referred to in
this book as the Dreadnought group, after the title of its weekly
publication the Workers' Dreadnought, which was edited by Sylvia
Pankhurst. |
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| It was as a history of the Dreadnought group
- left communism's representatives in Britain - that this book was originally
conceived. As the work of researching the Dreadnought group's ideas
and activities during 1917-24 progressed, however, it was exciting to discover
that other anti-parliamentary communist organisations existed in Britain
at that time and that anti-parliamentary communist ideas survived the Dreadnought's
demise. |
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| As well as in the pages of the Workers' Dreadnought
anti-parliamentary communist ideas were also put forward by a newspaper
called the Spur, which was edited by Guy Aldred. Whereas Sylvia
Pankhurst and her comrades were chiefly influenced by post-First World
War left communism. Guy Aldred and his comrades drew much of their inspiration
from nineteenth-century anarchists such as Bakunin. The Spur was
not the publication of any particular organisation, but had close links
with several revolutionary propaganda groups throughout Britain. As far
as the history of anti-parliamentary communism is concerned the most significant
of these was the Glasgow Anarchist Group an organisation which could trace
its lineage back through a succession of Clydeside-based groups which had
propagated an anarchist-influenced version of anti-parliamentarism since
the 1890s. |
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| In 1920 the Glasgow Anarchist Group renamed
itself the Glasgow Communist Group in order to express its affinity with
the Russian revolution and its support for revolutionary unity in Britain.
However, the Glasgow group also soon became disillusioned with the tactics
foisted on the Western European revolutionary movement by the Bolsheviks,
and in 1921 it took the initiative in the formation of an Anti-Parliamentary
Communist Federation to directly oppose the Russian-backed Communist Party
of Great Britain. |
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| The APCF sustained the anti-parliamentary communist
tradition in Britain until the end of the Second World War. During this
time it suffered two splits in its ranks. The first of these took place
in 19334, when Guy Aldred and some of his comrades broke away to form the
United Socialist Movement. The second split took place in 1937, with the
departure of some anarchists who were later involved in the formation of
the Glasgow Anarchist Federation at the beginning of the Second World War.
In this book the APCF is regarded as the genuine standard-bearer of anti-parliamentary
communism in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s, but the ideas of the USM
and the Anarchists are also examined and discussed. |
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| As research brought more and more information
to light about the history of anti-parliamentary communism in Britain,
the need for an accurate, comprehensive and sympathetic study of the subject
became increasingly obvious. Biographies of Sylvia Pankhurst dwell at length
on her pre-1917 suffragist ideas and activities; references to her years
as an anti-parliamentary communist are conspicuous only by their absence.
Nor are the histories of the early years of the CPGB much more enlightening.
The Dreadnought group participated in the communist unity negotiations
which preceded the formation of the CPGB, but its ideas were at odds with
the tactics which the CPGB eventually adopted. This enables historians
of the CPGB to portray the Dreadnought group as an 'infantile' tributary
flowing into the Leninist mainstream, later to emerge as an effluent which
disappears into the void. None of them assess anti-parliamentary communist
ideas in their own right, and even their most banal 'factual' comments
about the anti-parliamentarians are frequently mistaken. |
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| Guy Aldred and his comrades have escaped such
treatment, but only because they withdrew from the unity negotiations at
an early stage. Their reward for this has been that historians ignore them
altogether -- a fate which has also befallen the anti-parliamentary communists
active in Britain after 1924. Only the few present-day revolutionary groups
which acknowledge a political debt to the past work of the anti-parliamentary
communists have shown any interest in setting the record straight. Yet
all too often even these groups accounts are flawed by superficial research
and a tendency to bend the facts to suit their own preconceptions. |
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| This book is, therefore, the first serious,
lengthy and detailed account of the theory of anti-parliamentary communism
and of the history of the groups which adhered to this theory in Britain
between the two world wars. Yet it would be misleading to give the impression
that it has been written simply out of a concern to establish the historical
truth. There is a political assumption underlying this book's choice of
subject. That is, that the anti-parliamentary communists are worthy of
our attention because the views they held place them among the relatively
small number of groups and individuals which have put forward a genuine
alternative to world-wide capitalism. |
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| This alternative, which the anti-parliamentarians
described interchangeably as socialism or communism, was far removed from
what is popularly understood by these terms, such as the policies of the
Labour Party or the system which developed in Russia after 1917. For reasons
which this book will explain, the anti-parliamentary communists regarded
the Labour Party as a capitalist organisation and Russia as a capitalist
state. The socialism/communism advocated by the anti-parliamentarians meant
the complete abolition of the system which forces the dispossessed majority
into dependence on wage slavery. producing wealth for exchange in a market
economy, to the profit of a privileged few who rule society in their own
interests. It would involve wrenching the world's productive resources
out of the hands of their present controllers, and transforming and developing
them to produce wealth directly for use, so that everyone’s individually-determined
needs would be provided in abundance. |
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| Political organisations popularly identified
with socialism/communism have often paid lip service to such ideas. On
attaining power, however, they have always maintained in existence the
very money-market-wages system they purported to oppose. At no time have
the measures advocated by the anti-parliamentarians ever been put into
practice in any of the so-called socialist or communist states in the world.
Capitalism still exists everywhere, with all the consequences of its normal
way of functioning: unemployment, war, relentless insecurity and material
deprivation for the vast majority of the world's inhabitants, and so on.
As long as this state of affairs continues groups such as the anti-parliamentary
communists will always be important, because the socialist/communist ideas
they propagated offer the working class its only solution to the wars and
barbarism which the present world system holds in store. As the anti-parliamentarians
frequently warned: 'All Else Is Illusion.’ |
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| The relative obscurity in which the anti-parliamentary
communists expended most of their efforts has made the job of researching
some parts of their history a difficult task. It can be confidently asserted,
however, that enough material has been located to form the basis of a detailed
and comprehensive account of what the anti-parliamentarians were doing
and thinking at each stage of the period covered. What is just as certain
is that this book is unlikely to be the final word on the subject. For
example, not long after the original research for this book had been completed
and submitted for examination as a doctoral thesis, a comrade in Norway
informed me that in an archive in Copenhagen he had come across correspondence
revealing the practical solidarity given to two council communist refugees
from Nazi Germany by anti-parliamentarians in Glasgow in the mid-1930s.
Unfortunately, this discovery came too late for its findings to be included
in this text. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that this book will inspire
others to take an interest in its subject, and to make similar discoveries
which will help to correct, improve or expand the account presented here.
If this happens the hard work which has gone into writing this book will
have been well worth the effort. |
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