The Socialist League was an organisation inside the British Labour Party, which sought to push it to the left. It was formed in 1932, through a merger between the National ILP Affiliation Committee (NILP) and the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda (SSIP), and ceased to exist in 1937.

Political origins

The Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda was created by G. D. H. Cole in June 1931, and principally consisted of

guild socialists Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influent ...

, including Frank Horrabin and Bill Mellor. Cole hoped to attract trade unionists, but although

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in th ...

agreed to become honorary chairman,

Arthur Pugh Sir Arthur Pugh (19 January 1870 – 2 August 1955) was a British trade unionist. Born in Ross-on-Wye, Pugh was apprenticed to a farmer who also worked as a butcher, but soon moved to Neath to work in the steel industry, where he became active in ...

was the only prominent trade unionist to become actively involved.Ben Pimlott, ''Labour and the Left in the 1930s'', 1977, pp. 42-58. The National ILP Affiliation Committee was founded by a group of

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 ...

(ILP) members who disagreed with their party's decision in 1932 to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. Led by

Frank Wise Frank Joseph Scott Wise Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (30 May 1897 – 29 June 1986) was a Australian Labor Party (Western Australian Branch), Labor Party politician who was the 16th Premier of Western Australia. He took office on 31 J ...

, they entered into negotiations with the SSIP about a merger, which was achieved in October 1932, forming the Socialist League. Wise was chosen as the new league's first chairman; Cole opposed this, hoping that Bevin would take the post. Cole voted against the merger but remained for a time with the League; Ernest Bevin disassociated himself from the new organisation and its activities.

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 resign ...

was expelled from the

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 ...

in 1932 and went on to join the Socialist League. By 1934 he was National Secretary.

Relations with the Labour Party

Unlike its two predecessors, the League gained affiliation to the Labour Party. Its members included six Labour Members of Parliament:

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

, Seymour Cocks,

Stafford Cripps Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, he first entered Parliament at a by-election in 1931, and was one of a handful of La ...

, David Kirkwood, Neil Maclean and

Alfred Salter Alfred Salter (16 June 1873 – 24 August 1945) was a British medical practitioner and Labour Party politician. Early life Salter was born in Greenwich in 1873, the son of Walter Hookway Salter and Elizabeth Tester. Following education at The ...

. It gained great success at the 1932 Labour Party conference, winning votes committing the party to socialist legislation and, in particular, the nationalisation of the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government o ...

and joint stock banks. The group next moved to develop its own policy platform. This advocacy of a platform separate from that of the Labour Party alienated some of its prominent supporters, outside and inside the House of Commons, and by the end of 1933 G.D.H. Cole, David Kirkwood M.P.,

Frederick Pethick-Lawrence Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence, PC (né Lawrence; 28 December 1871 – 10 September 1961) was a British Labour politician who, among other things, campaigned for women's suffrage. Background and education B ...

, Arthur Pugh and Alfred Salter M.P. had all resigned. This brought Cripps to greater prominence, and he was elected chairman of the League that year. The League moved from research and propaganda to lobbying inside the Labour Party for particular policies.

The Unity Campaign

Its greatest effort was the Unity Campaign of 1937 which, in a response to events abroad, attempted to bring together all left-wing political forces in the country, notably the ILP and the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

, in an anti-fascist

united front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political ...

. Launched in January 1937 in Manchester, it signed up supporters, simultaneously, at the city's Free Trade Hall, the Princess Theatre and the Theatre Royal.

Aneurin Bevan Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Heal ...

and

Ellen Wilkinson Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, s ...

were among the signatories to this campaign for unity on the left and arms for Spain. The fortnightly ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on th ...

'' magazine, financed by

and

George Strauss George Russell Strauss, Baron Strauss PC (18 July 1901 – 5 June 1993) was a long-serving British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 46 years and was Father of the House of Commons from 1974 to 1979. Early life ...

(Labour MP for Lambeth North), was set up as the mouthpiece for the movement. For several weeks thereafter speakers for the campaign— Jimmie Maxton, Fenner Brockway,

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 ...

, Nye Bevan, Ellen Wilkinson, Stafford Cripps, Barbara Betts, Bill Mellor and

Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...

—spoke at meetings up and down the country. The Labour Party, however, regarded this as yet another form of "entry-ism" by the Communist Party and on 27 January 1937 it disaffiliated the League, giving its members until June to quit either the Labour Party or the League. The League dissolved itself in May 1937. At a conference in Hull "a Labour Unity Committee was formed, consisting of many ex-members of the League and their pro-Unity Labour Party friends" to campaign on similar issues, but events in the USSR and in Spain rapidly undermined its appeal.

Britain after a Socialist Victory

Looking to the future after victory at the polls, the Socialist League was obsessed by the fear that capitalists would fight back once they lost power.

Harold Laski Harold Joseph Laski (30 June 1893 – 24 March 1950) was an English political theorist and economist. He was active in politics and served as the chairman of the British Labour Party from 1945 to 1946 and was a professor at the London School o ...

repeatedly warned that a socialist government would have to use violence to get its way. The Socialist League demanded that a future socialist government should immediately pass an Emergency Powers Act, establishing a temporary dictatorship that would be ready to suppress the capitalist counter-revolution. The mainstream Labour Party, however, believed firmly in parliamentarism at all times, and rejected any suggestion of a socialist emergency.

Charles Loch Mowat Charles Loch Mowat (4 October 1911 – 23 June 1970) was a British-born American historian. Biography Mowat was educated at Marlborough College and St John's College, Oxford. John Ramsden (ed.), ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century ...

, ''Britain between the Wars, 1918-1940'', (1955), p 549.

Executive

References

* Davies, A.J. ''To Build A New Jerusalem'' (Abacus, 1996) *

Mowat, Charles Loch Charles Loch Mowat (4 October 1911 – 23 June 1970) was a British-born American historian. Biography Mowat was educated at Marlborough College and St John's College, Oxford. John Ramsden (ed.), ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century B ...

. ''Britain between the Wars, 1918-1940'' (1955) pp 547–50, 581-2 * Pimlott, Ben. "The Socialist League: Intellectuals and the Labour Left in the 1930s," ''Journal of Contemporary History'' (1971) 6#3 pp. 12–3
in JSTOR

Notes

{{Authority control Defunct socialist parties in the United Kingdom History of the Labour Party (UK) Independent Labour Party Organisations associated with the Labour Party (UK) Labour Party (UK) factions