Next Meeting: Wakefield Socialist History Group

ON Saturday 24 March, the Wakefield Socialist History Group are holding an event at the Red Shed (Wakefield Labour Club), Vicarage Street, Wakefield WF1 on SOCIALISM AND THE USA: MARXISM AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN AMERICA.  It starts at 1pm.

Early Syndicalism discussed in Wakefield

YESTERDAY, the Wakefield Socialist History Group debated syndicalism at the start of the last century.   The speakers included Robin Stocks who has written 'The Hidden Heroes of Easter Week'; the Huddersfield historian Alan Brooks; and Robin Stocks who spoke about the South Wales' miner and syndicalist, Noah Ablett.
The title of the meeting at the Red Shed was 'SYNDICALISM & the GREAT UNREST'.
Alan Stewart, the convenor of the event, drew our attention to Bob Holton's book 'British Syndicalism' (1979), which described the developments before and after World War I asRobin Stocks,  a form of proto-syndicalism. 
In the introduction for the meeting  it was stated:
'The early years of British syndicalism saw, Holton (1976) suggests. a "slow and unspectacular advance."  He says there were three "currents of revolutionary  industrial feeling" at this stage.
The first, centred around the writings of Daniel de Leon, the American socialist.  Though sometimes marred by a certain "sectarian rigidity" his works -brought back to Britain by seamen and other workers- were lively and accessible (Challinor 1977).
'His ideas were welcomed in particular by dissidents in the Social Democratic Federation who felt the SDF had lost momentum and was neglecting industrial struggles.  In 1903 a GS Yates of Leith led a de Leonist breakaway.  The Socialist Labour Party was formed. It in turn spawned the British Advocates of Industrial Unionism (1906).
'Now de Leon had been involved in the establishment of the American IWW (Wobblies) in 1905.  Yet Holton (1976) notes that there were problems with applying the "dual unionism" strategy to British conditions.'
There did not appear to be much reference to or attempt to discuss the founding conference of the 'Leeds Soviet'  a hundred years ago this month, which was considered in detail by Chris Draper on this Blog in January this year:
'HISTORY's most remarkable social experiment began one hundred years ago. As the Russian war effort disintegrated, autocratic Czarism was abolished and a revolutionary SOVIET system substituted.  Soviets were collectives of workers and soldiers organised to end the war and radically democratise Russia.  In March 1917 (February in the old Russian calendar) the PETROGRAD SOVIET led the revolution and despatched a four-man delegation to England to encourage British workers to follow their lead.  On 3 June 1917, over a thousand workers’ representatives met at LEEDS COLISEUM, Cookridge Street to emulate their Russian comrades and organise a British network of ”extra-parliamentary Soviets with sovereign powers”. 
www.northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-leeds-soviet-1917.html 

Spanish Civil War event in Wakefield

Subject: Spanish Civil War meeting at Red Shed

 

Thirty six people packed into the Red Shed meeting room in Wakefield last Saturday (11 March) to discuss the Spanish Civil War and to remember those who so bravely fought against fascism.

The first speaker was the author and campaigner Granville Williams.  Granville noted that the Soviet Union, through the Comintern, was urging young workers to go to Spain.  However between 1936 and 1938 there were massive purges in the Soviet Union.  This "terror in the Soviet Union was projected into Spain" with the "persecution and extermination of Trotskyists."

Granville paid particular tribute to POUM which had "brilliant leaders" and activists who had led struggles including mass strikes.

The second speaker was Bob Mitchell, a former councillor and former Mayor of Wakefield.  He said the "democrats of Spain were defending an elected Government" and "defending reforms against a fascist and military coup."  All wars generated poetry, he said, but the Spanish Civil War in particular spawned an "immense body of work."  Bob then read a moving selection of poetry by John Cornford, Frank Ryan, Frank Edwards and others.

The final speaker was the environmental campaigner Tim Padmore.  Tim spoke in particular about a new production of the play, "Dare Devil Rides to Jamara", which tells the story of two volunteers Clem Beckett and Chris Caldwell who went to fight with the International Brigades in Spain.

The event was organised by the Wakefield Socialist History Group.  The Group's next event is on Saturday 1 April 1pm, again at the Red Shed, when Dr Martin Crick and Paul Bennett will speak at a meeting on "British Socialism and World War One." Fraternally

Alan Stewart

Convenor, Wakefield Socialist History Group

07931927451