People's Convention 1940-41
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People's Convention 1940-41
The People's Convention was a conference that was proposed by the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1940–1941. Its advocates attempted to persuade Labour Party and trade union members that the current government was solely for the rich and was dominated by those who through appeasement had "caused" the Second World War, who opposed the Soviet Union, and who were profiteering from the war. Its literature did not, however, explicitly state that it was communist-backed. The Convention was the initiative of the Hammersmith Trades Council and Labour Party, and Denis Nowell Pritt, Member of Parliament for Hammersmith North, who had both been expelled from the Labour Party in 1940. It was backed by Palme Dutt, Robin Page Arnot, Harry Pollitt, and Willie Gallacher, all well-known communists. Many of the founder members were members of the People's Vigilance Committee, which had been formed by communists expelled from the Labour Party. A few supporters, such as Richard Squance, ...
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Communist Party Of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB founded the ''Daily Worker'' (renamed the ''Morning Star'' in 1966). In 1936, members of the party were present at the Battle of Cable Street, helping organise resistance against the British Union of Fascists. In the Spanish Civil War the CPGB worked with the USSR to create the British Battalion of the International Brigades, which party activist Bill Alexander commanded. In World War II, the CPGB mirrored the Soviet position, opposing or supporting the war in line with the involvement of the USSR. By the end of World War II, CPGB membership had nearly tripled and the party reached the height of its popularity. Many key CPGB members became leaders of Britain's trade union movement, including most notably Jessie Eden, Abraham Lazarus ...
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Robin Page Arnot
Robert "Robin" Page Arnot (15 December 1890 – 18 May 1986), best known as R. Page Arnot, was a British Communist journalist and politician. Early years Robert Page Arnot, known to his friends as "Robin", was born in 1890 at Greenock, the son of a newspaper editor. He attended Glasgow University where he helped to form the University Socialist Federation in 1912, along with G.D.H. Cole and others. He also wrote for the ''Labour Leader'', publication of the Independent Labour Party, using the pseudonym "Jack Cade." In 1912 the Fabian socialist Beatrice Webb established a Committee of Enquiry into the future control of industry. Out of this sprang the Fabian Research Department, which later evolved into the Labour Research Department. One of the volunteers attracted by the project was Robin Page Arnot, who became its full-time head in 1914 – a position which he retained until 1926. In 1916 Arnot refused conscription to the British army and was imprisoned as a conscienti ...
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Political History Of The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch, currently Charles III, King of the United Kingdom, is the head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the British government, on behalf of and by the consent of the monarch, and the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in the Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh parliaments. The British political system is a two party system. Since the 1920s, the two dominant parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics, the Liberal Party was the other major political party, along with the Conserv ...
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Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scott ...
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English Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. They are split into the West Midlands and East Midlands. The region's biggest city, Birmingham often considered the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands, is the second-largest city and metropolitan area in the United Kingdom. Symbolism A saltire (diagonal cross) may have been used as a symbol of Mercia as early as the reign of Offa. By the 13th century, the saltire had become the attributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia. The arms are blazoned ''Azure, a saltire Or'', meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The saltire is used as both a flag and a coat of arms. As a flag, it is flown from Tamworth Castle, the ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, to t ...
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Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre A national trade union center (or national center or central) is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. In some regions, such a ..., a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances O'Grady, Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway, Frances O'Grady became General Secretary of the TUC, General Secretary in 2013 and presented her resignation in 2022, with Paul Nowak (trade unionist), Paul Nowak becoming the next General Secretary in January 2023. Organisation The TUC's decision-making body is the Annual Congress, which takes place in September. Between congresses decisions are made by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, General Council, which meets every two mont ...
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Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The two cities and the surrounding towns form one of the United Kingdom's most populous conurbations, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which has a population of 2.87 million. The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort ('' castra'') of ''Mamucium'' or ''Mancunium'', established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchest ...
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Richard Squance
William John Richard Squance (1 January 1880 – 22 August 1948) was a Welsh trade unionist. Born in the Landore area of Swansea, Squance found work as a cleaner for the Great Western Railway in 1894, and four years later became a fireman on the railway. He joined the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF), at which time he was based in Aberdare. ntitled article ''Railway Gazette International'', vol.89, p.249 In 1907, Squance became an engine driver. He moved to Goodwick to take up the post, and was elected as secretary of the local branch of ASLEF, and he maintained leading roles in local branches as he moved, first to Newport, then to Llanelli. There, he chaired a joint committee of unions during the railway strike of 1911. Increasingly radical, he supported two drivers who refused to move Irish freight during the 1913 Dublin lock-out, organising solidarity action which ultimately led to most of the South Wales railway workers going on stri ...
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People's Vigilance Committee
People's, branded as ''People's Viennaline'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austrian airline headquartered in Vienna. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport in Switzerland. History Founded as People's Viennaline in 2010, the first revenue flight of the company took place on 27 March 2011. For several years, People's only operated a single scheduled route between its homebase and Vienna. However, the route network has since been expanded with some seasonal and charter services. In November 2016, People's inaugurated the world's shortest international jet route (and, after St. Maarten-Anguilla, second shortest international route overall). The flight from St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport, Switzerland, to Friedrichshafen Airport, Germany, took only eight minutes of flight over Lake Constance and could have been booked individually. The airline faced severe criticism for this servic ...
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Willie Gallacher (politician)
William Gallacher (25 December 1881 – 12 August 1965) was a Scottish trade unionist, activist and communist. He was one of the leading figures of the Shop Stewards' Movement in wartime Glasgow (the 'Red Clydeside' period) and a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He served two terms in the House of Commons as the last Communist Member of Parliament (MP). Early career Gallacher was born in Paisley, Scotland on 25 December 1881, the son of an Irish father and a Scottish mother. His father died when he was seven years old, and one of his earliest ambitions was to earn enough money so that his mother would no longer have to work as a washerwoman. With his sisters, he finally achieved this goal at the age of nineteen, but his mother died shortly afterwards at the age of 54. He began working at ten years old, and left school aged twelve. After a spell as a delivery boy for a grocer – where he had his first dispute with an employer – he found work in ...
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Harry Pollitt
Harry Pollitt (22 November 1890 – 27 June 1960) was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt spent most of his life advocating communism. Ideologically a Marxist-Leninist, Pollitt was an adherent particularly of Joseph Stalin even after Stalin's death and disavowal by Nikita Khrushchev. Pollitt's acts included opposition to the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and Polish–Soviet War, support for the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, both support and opposition to the war against Nazi Germany, defence of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, and support for the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. He contested a number of parliamentary elections, but never won, despite coming close in 1945. Throughout his time as leader of CPGB, he was in direct secret radio contact with Moscow as CPGB's "Code Holder", and wa ...
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Palme Dutt
Rajani Palme Dutt (19 June 1896 – 20 December 1974), generally known as R. Palme Dutt, was a leading journalist and theoretician in the Communist Party of Great Britain. His classic book ''India Today'' heralded the Marxist approach in Indian historiography. Early life Rajani Palme Dutt was born in 1896 on Mill Road in Cambridge, England. His father, Dr. Upendra Dutt, was an Indian surgeon, his mother Anna Palme was Swedish. Anna Palme was a great aunt of the future Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme. His sister was the statistician Elna Palme Dutt, who went on to become an official of the International Labour Organization in Geneva. He, along with his older brother Clemens Palme Dutt, was a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Dutt was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge and Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree in Classics, after being suspended for a time because of his activities as a conscientious objector in W ...
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