Professor William Thomas Goode, M.A. (1859-1932) was a British academic, linguist and journalist. As special correspondent for ''

The Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', he interviewed

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

in 1919. On his return journey from Moscow, he was arrested by

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n authorities and then detained aboard a British warship. He was active in the Labour Party until his death.

Early life

Goode was born in the fourth quarter of 1859 in

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...

, Warwickshire, one of nine children of Sarah (née Adams) and William Goode, of Westgate, Warwick. Goode held an M.A. degree from London. By 1881 he was lodging at 1 Georges Villa, Lambeth, London. 1881 Census of the United Kingdom, RG11/607/Folio 127, page 75

Career

He was Master of Method at

Owens College Owens may refer to: Places in the United States * Owens Station, Delaware * Owens Township, St. Louis County, Minnesota * Owens, Missouri * Owens, Ohio * Owens, Virginia People * Owens (surname), including a list of people with the name * Ow ...

, Manchester from 1891 until his resignation in 1898. For the first two decades of the 20th century, Goode was principal of

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

's Graystoke Day Training College for Teachers. He was a Professor of Languages. In 1911 he was awarded a second, honorary, M.A. by the

Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. Afte ...

. He lectured in Australia and New Zealand. He was a special correspondent for ''

'' in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

in 1918 and in Finland, the

Baltic provinces The Baltic governorates (russian: Прибалтийские губернии), originally the Ostsee governorates (german: Ostseegouvernements, russian: Остзейские губернии), was a collective name for the administrative units ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

in 1919. His journalism was usually signed W. T. Goode.

Lenin interview

In 1919, Goode travelled to and spent a month in Moscow. Near the end of his stay there, he visited

The Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of the kremlins (Ru ...

, where he was granted a brief interview with

. Although Goode was accompanied by a translator, and offered to use German or French, the interview was conducted, by both participants, in English. He had time for just three questions: * how far did the proposals which William Bullitt took to the 1919–1920 Paris Peace Conference still hold good? * what was the attitude of the Soviet Republic to the small nations who had split off the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

and proclaimed their independence? * what guarantees could be offered against official propaganda among the Western peoples, if by any chance relations with the Soviet Republic were opened? Lenin answered all three, and made a short statement calling for the publication of the Soviet constitution in the UK and extolling that system's virtues. While in Moscow, Goode also interviewed several other Soviet leaders, including: * Georgy Tchitcherin, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs * Nikolay Miliutin, then Associate Commissar for National Economics *

Semyon Sereda Semyon Pafnutyevich Sereda (russian: Семён Пафнутьевич Середа; 1 February 1871 – 21 May 1933) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician. He was the son of a railway employee. From 1896 to 1917 he worked as ...

, Commissar for Agriculture * Schmidt, Commissar for Labour * Grigory Melnichansky, secretary of the Moscow Alliance of Professional Alliance *

Leonid Krasin Leonid Borisovich Krasin (russian: Леони́д Бори́сович Кра́син; 15 July 1870 – 24 November 1926) was a Russian Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary politician and a Soviet diplomat. In ...

, Commissar for Transport *

Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People ...

, Commissar for Education and Mikhail Pokrovsky, his deputy * Lev Kamenev, President of the Soviet, and

Dmitry Kursky Dmitry Ivanovich Kursky (russian: Дми́трий Ива́нович Ку́рский; – 20 December 1932) was a Russian Soviet jurist and statesman. Kursky joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904. ...

, Commissar for Justice *

Maxim Litvinoff Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat. A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov wa ...

Kliment Timiryazev Kliment Arkadievich Timiryazev (russian: Климент Аркадьевич Тимирязев, surname sometimes transliterated as Timiriazev; – 28 April 1920) was a Russian Imperial botanist and physiologist and a major proponent of the ...

Each of those interviews formed a chapter in his subsequent book, ''Bolshevism at Work''.

Return from Moscow

Goode returned from

via

, where he was arrested, as Estonia was at war with the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

forces in Russia. He later claimed that his arrest was carried out at the behest of the British authorities. After his release, he was detained aboard a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

cruiser, for several days. On 4 November 1919, once news of Goode's detentions became known in England,

Joseph Kenworthy Joseph Montague Kenworthy, 10th Baron Strabolgi (7 March 1886 – 8 October 1953), was a Liberal and then a Labour Party Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Education and naval service Strabolgi was born at Leamington in Warwickshire an ...

asked a question about them in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

. In response, Cecil Harmsworth, the

Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is a vacant junior position in the British government, subordinate to both the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and since 1945 also to the Minister of State for Foreign Affa ...

, said that Goode had been detained by the Navy only while instructions for what to do with him had been obtained and he had quickly been released. In reply to a follow up question from Kenworthy, Harmsworth said that Goode was not owed an apology.

Politics

Goode spoke publicly and favourably of Bolshevik policies and conditions in the USSR. He said: He became president of Tavistock Labour Party in 1927.

Death

Goode moved to The Shack,The Shack: Dolvin Road,

Tavistock Tavistock ( ) is an ancient stannary and market town within West Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy from which its name derives. At the 2011 census the three electoral wards (North, South and South West) had a population of 13 ...

, in 1923. He died on 5 August 1932, aged 72, after a period of illness. He was buried at Tavistock New Cemetery. He left an estate of 34,932. Never having married, his sole executor was his nephew, H. J. London.

Works

* * (foreword)