The Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates was established on 3 June 1917 at the Leeds Convention held in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, England. The founding conference was attended by 1,150 delegates. It was inspired by the events of the Russian

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

. When news of the February Revolution (8–12 March 1917) in Russia spread to the British Isles, it inspired the

labour movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

to celebrate the event. The first event was a meeting organised in the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

, London, on 31 March. This was attended by 10,000 people with a further 5,000 outside, for whom there was no space. The Leeds Convention established the organisation, which had the support of both the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

and the

British Socialist Party The British Socialist Party (BSP) was a Marxist political organisation established in Great Britain in 1911. Following a protracted period of factional struggle, in 1916 the party's anti-war forces gained decisive control of the party and saw t ...

. However, a few months later, the Bolshevik

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

took place; the participants had different attitudes towards it, and the council collapsed.

The Leeds Convention

The Leeds Convention, originally to be held at the Albert Hall, Leeds but then moved to the

Coliseum Theatre The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre o ...

, was held on Sunday 3 June 1917. It was organised by the United Socialist Council, a body which contained representatives of the

(BSP), the

(ILP) and the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fa ...

, and was attended by 1,150 delegates from various political organisations, trades unions and pressure groups. The event was claimed to be a "Democratic Conference to establish Democracy in Great Britain" and "To Follow Russia" and four resolutions were passed - 1. hailing the Russian Revolution; 2. on foreign policy and war aims, calling for a negotiated end to the war; 3. on civil liberties, including calls for equal political rights, freedom of speech, and release of political and religious prisoners (including conscientious objectors); 4. to form Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in Britain "for initiating and co-ordinating working-class activity". It heard messages of support from

George Lansbury George Lansbury (22 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician and social reformer who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Apart from a brief period of ministerial office during the Labour government of 1929–31, he spent ...

, Clifford Allen and the Executive of the Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Deputies in Petrograd.

Speakers

The convention was addressed by: The organising committee was made up of Henry Alexander (B.S.P.),

Charles Ammon Charles George Ammon, 1st Baron Ammon, PC, DL, JP (22 April 1873 – 2 April 1960) was a British Labour Party politician. Background and education The son of Charles George and Mary Ammon, he was educated at public elementary schools. He was ...

William Crawford Anderson William Crawford Anderson (13 February 1877 – 25 February 1919) was a British socialist politician. Born in 1877 at Findon, Aberdeenshire, the name Crawford in fact does not appear on his birth certificate. His father Francis Anderson was a ...

, M.P.,

Charlotte Despard Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the I ...

Edwin C. Fairchild Edwin Charles Fairchild (1874–1955) was a socialist activist and conscientious objector during the First World War. Biography A long-term member of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), Fairchild was a member of its radical Central Metro ...

, Joseph Fineberg,

Fred Jowett Frederick William Jowett (31 January 1864 – 1 February 1944) was a British Labour politician. Early life Jowett was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on 31 January 1864. He received little formal education and at the age of eight was workin ...

, M.P.,

Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 ...

, MP.,

Tom Quelch Thomas Quelch (1886–1954) was a British journalist and the son of veteran Marxist Harry Quelch. a member of the British Socialist Party in the early part of the 20th century, becoming a communist activist in Great Britain in the 1920s. Quelch j ...

Robert Smillie Robert Smillie (17 March 1857 – 16 February 1940) was a Scottish trade unionist and Labour Party politician. He was a leader of the coal miners, and played a central role in moving support from the miners away from the Liberal Party to the La ...

Philip Snowden Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, PC (; 18 July 1864 – 15 May 1937) was a British politician. A strong speaker, he became popular in trade union circles for his denunciation of capitalism as unethical and his promise of a socialist utop ...

, MP., and Robert Williams. The Joint Secretaries of the Convention were

Albert Inkpin Albert Samuel Inkpin, (also written Inkpen) (16 June 1884 – 29 March 1944) was a British communist and the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He served several terms in prison for political offences. ...

(B.S.P.) and Francis Johnson (I.L.P.). Others in attendance at the Leeds Convention included

Ben Tillett Benjamin Tillett (11 September 1860 – 27 January 1943) was a British socialist, trade union leader and politician. He was a leader of the "new unionism" of 1889 that focused on organizing unskilled workers. He played a major role in founding ...

Arthur MacManus Arthur MacManus (1889– February 27 1927) was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician. Biography Early years Arthur MacManus was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1889, later moving to Glasgow, Scotland, with his parents. Political c ...

J. T. Murphy John Thomas Murphy (9 December 1888 – 13 May 1965) was a British trade union organiser and Communist functionary. Murphy is best remembered as a leader of the communist labour movement in the United Kingdom from the middle 1920s until his resigna ...

Margaret Bondfield Margaret Grace Bondfield (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor in th ...

and

Alf Mattison Alf Mattison (1868–1944) was a socialist, local historian and photographer in Leeds and is known for his activity in the founding of the Independent Labour Party. Early life Alf Mattison was born in Hunslet on September 12, 1868. He was one o ...

References

External links

What Happened at Leeds
Report of conference proceedings from ''The Herald'', 1917, republished in Nottingham : ''British Labour and the Russian Revolution: the Leeds Convention'' (introduced by

Ken Coates Kenneth Sidney Coates (16 September 1930 – 27 June 2010) was a British politician and writer. He chaired the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and edited ''The Spokesman'', the BRPF magazine launched in March 1970. He was a Labour Party Memb ...

), Nottingham: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for the Spokesman (1974), and also th
centenary edition
of this publication (2017), with additional material relating to the event,
"The February Revolution and its impact in Britain"
Warwick Modern Records Centre. *White, Stephen, "Soviets in Britain: The Leeds Convention of 1917", ''International Review of Social History'', 19(2), (1974), pp. 165–193. *Pete Jackson
"The Leeds Convention of 1917"
''Socialist Review'' 425 (29 May 2017). *Christian Hogsbjerg
"A most remarkable gathering"
''Socialist Review'', 425 (31 May 2017)

at the Swarthmore Centre organized by the Ford-Maguire Society and Leeds Trades Council. *Pete Jackson
"The Russian Revolution and the British working class"
''International Socialism'' 156 (2017). {{Authority control 1917 establishments in England British Socialist Party Early Soviet republics Independent Labour Party Organizations established in 1917 United Kingdom in World War I

The Leeds Convention

Speakers

See also

References

External links