The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace camp ...

, based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. Its members are signatories to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war", and campaign to promote peaceful and nonviolent solutions to conflict. The PPU forms the British section of War Resisters' International.

History

Formation

The PPU emerged from an initiative by Hugh Richard Lawrie 'Dick' Sheppard, canon of

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London ...

, in 1934, after he had published a letter in the '' Manchester Guardian'' and other newspapers, inviting men (but not women) to send him postcards pledging never to support war. Andrew Rigby, "The Peace Pledge Union: From Peace to War, 1936–1945" in

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, ...

, Thomas Paul Socknat ''Challenge to Mars:Pacifism from 1918 to 1945''. University of Toronto Press, 1999. (pp. 169–185) 135,000 men responded and, with co-ordination by Sheppard, the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

Reverend John C. B. Myer, and others, formally became members. The initial male-only aspect of the pledge was aimed at countering the idea that only women were involved in the

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pe ...

. In 1936 membership was opened to women, and the newly founded '' Peace News'' was adopted as the PPU's weekly newspaper. The PPU assembled several noted public figures as sponsors, including Aldous Huxley,

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

Storm Jameson Margaret Ethel Storm Jameson (8 January 1891 – 30 September 1986) was an English journalist and author, known for her novels and reviews and for her work as President of English PEN between 1938 and 1944. Life and career Jameson was born in ...

, Rose Macaulay, Donald Soper,

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both describ ...

Reginald Sorensen Reginald William Sorensen, Baron Sorensen (19 June 1891 – 8 October 1971) was a Unitarian minister and Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for over thirty years between 1929 and 1964. Early li ...

, J. D. Beresford, Ursula Roberts (who wrote under the pseudonym "Susan Miles") and Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier (a former army officer turned pacifist). The PPU attracted members across the political spectrum, including Christian pacifists,

socialists Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the econ ...

, anarchists and in the words of member Derek Savage, "an amorphous mass of ordinary well-meaning but fluffy peace-lovers". In 1937 the

No More War Movement The No More War Movement was the name of two pacifist organisations, one in the United Kingdom and one in New Zealand. British Group The British No More War Movement (NMWM) was founded in 1921 as a pacifist and socialist successor to the No-Consc ...

formally merged with the PPU. George Lansbury, previously chair of the No More War Movement, became president of the PPU, holding the post until his death in 1940. In 1937 a group of clergy and laity led by Sheppard formed the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship as an Anglican complement to the non-sectarian PPU. The Union was associated with the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

group, ''Heddwchwyr Cymru'', founded by

Gwynfor Evans Gwynfor Richard Evans (1 September 1912 – 21 April 2005) was a Welsh politician, lawyer and author. He was President of the Welsh political party Plaid Cymru for thirty-six years and was the first Member of Parliament to represent it at Westm ...

. In March 1938, PPU George Lansbury launched the PPU's first manifesto and peace campaign. The campaign argued that the idea of a war to defend democracy was a contradiction in terms and that "in a period of total war, democracy would be submerged under totalitarianism". A large part of the PPU's work involved providing for the victims of war. Its members sponsored a house where 64 Basque children, refugees from the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

, were cared for. PPU archivist William Hetherington writes that "The PPU also encouraged members and groups to sponsor individual

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

refugees from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

to enable them to be received into the United Kingdom".William Hetherington, "Peace Pledge Union" in ''The World Encyclopedia of Peace''. Edited by Linus Pauling,

Ervin Laszlo Ervin may refer to: *Ervin (given name) *Ervin (surname) *Ervin Township, Howard County, Indiana, one of eleven townships in Howard County, Indiana, USA See also * Justice Ervin (disambiguation) * Earvin * Ervine * Erving (disambiguation) * Erwan ...

, and Jong Youl Yoo. Oxford : Pergamon, 1986. (p.243-7). In 1938 the PPU opposed legislation for air-raid precautions and in 1939 campaigned against military

conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...

Attitudes towards Nazi Germany

Like many in the 1930s, the PPU supported aspects of appeasement, with some members suggesting that

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

would cease its aggression if the territorial provisions of the Versailles Treaty were undone.David C. Lukowitz, "British Pacifists and Appeasement: The Peace Pledge Union", ''Journal of Contemporary History'', Vol. 9, No. 1, January 1974, pp. 115–127 It backed Neville Chamberlain's policy at

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

in 1938, regarding Hitler's claims on the Sudetenland as legitimate. At the time of the Munich crisis, several PPU sponsors tried to send "five thousand pacifists to the Sudetenland as a non-violent presence", however this attempt came to nothing. ''Peace News'' editor and PPU sponsor John Middleton Murry and his supporters in the group caused considerable controversy by arguing Germany should be given control of parts of mainland Europe. In a PPU publication, ''Warmongers'', Clive Bell said that Germany should be permitted to "absorb" France, Poland, the Low Countries and the Balkans. However, this was never the official policy of the PPU and the position quickly drew criticism from other PPU activists such as Vera Brittain and Andrew Stewart. Clive Bell left the PPU shortly afterwards and by 1940 he was supporting the war. Some PPU supporters were so sympathetic to German grievances that PPU supporter Rose Macaulay claimed she found it difficult to distinguish between the PPU newspaper ''Peace News'' and that of the

British Union of Fascists The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, f ...

(BUF), saying, "occasionally when reading ''Peace News'', I (and others) half think we have got hold of the ''Blackshirt''

UF journal The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

by mistake". There was Fascist infiltration of the PPU and MI5 kept an eye on the PPU's "small Fascist connections". After Dick Sheppard's death in October 1937,

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...

, always hostile to pacifism, accused the PPU of "moral collapse" on the grounds that some members even joined the BUF. However, several historians note that the situation may have been the other way around; that is, BUF members attempted to infiltrate the PPU. On 11 August 1939, the Deputy Editor of Peace News, Andrew Stewart, criticised those "who think that membership of British Union, Sir Oswald Moseley's Fascist organization, is compatible with membership of the PPU". In November 1939, an MI5 officer reported that members of the far-right Nordic League were attempting "to join the PPU en masse". Historians have differed in their interpretation of the PPU's attitude to Nazi Germany. The historian

Mark Gilbert Mark David Gilbert (born August 22, 1956) is a former outfielder in Major League Baseball who served as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa from 2015 to 2017. Gilbert played for the Chicago White Sox in 1985.Kristallnacht events were a regular feature of British colonial rule". But David C. Lukowitz argues that, "it is nonsense to charge the PPU with pro-Nazi sentiments. From the outset it emphasised that its primary dedication was to world peace, to economic justice and racial equality," but it had "too much sympathy for the German position, often the product of ignorance and superficial thinking". Research by the historian Richard Griffiths, published in 2017, suggests considerable division and controversy at the top of the PPU, with the editors of ''Peace News'' being generally more willing to play down the dangers of Nazi Germany than were many members of the PPU Executive. Controversy over the PPU's attitude towards Nazi Germany has continued ever since the war. In 1950,

Rebecca West Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books ...

, in her book ''The Meaning of Treason'', described the PPU as "that ambiguous organisation which in the name of peace was performing many actions certain to benefit Hitler". The publishers removed the phrase from subsequent editions of the book following representations by the PPU, but West refused to apologise. As recently as 2017, the right-wing commentator and retired colonel

Richard Kemp Colonel Richard Justin Kemp (born 14 April 1959) is a retired British Army officer who served from 1977 to 2006. Kemp was an infantry battalion commanding officer. Among his assignments were the command of Operation Fingal in Afghanistan from ...

alleged on ''Good Morning Britain'' that the PPU were "arch-appeasers" who had supported the absorption of the Low Countries into Germany's sphere of influence. This was denied by the PPU representative on the programme, who stated that the PPU had campaigned against arms sales to Fascist regimes when the UK government was selling weapons to

Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until Fall of the Fascist re ...

Second World War

Initially, the Peace Pledge Union opposed the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

and continued to argue for a negotiated peace with Germany. On 9 March 1940, 2,000 people attended a PPU public meeting calling for a negotiated peace. PPU membership reached a peak of 140,000 in 1940. For some members of the PPU, the focus was less on a negotiated peace and more on "nonviolent revolution" in both Britain and Germany. In 1940, the PPU published a booklet called ''Plan of Campaign'', reprinting an article by the Dutch Christian anarcho-pacifist Bart de Ligt. He called for war to be made impossible by direct action, including "the most effective non-co-operation, boycott and sabotage". Not all PPU members were happy with this approach and the booklet was withdrawn from sale in London. In February 1940, the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

'' newspaper called for the PPU to be banned. While the government decided not to ban the PPU, a number of PPU members faced arrest and prosecution for campaigning against war. In May 1940, six leading PPU activists—Alex Wood, Stuart Morris, Maurice Rowntree, John Barclay, Ronald Smith and Sidney Todd—were charged over the publication of a pacifist poster that was aimed at encouraging people of all nationalities to refuse to fight. The charge read out in court was that they "did endeavour to cause among persons in His Majesty's Service disaffection likely to lead to breaches of their duty". They were prosecuted by the Attorney-General, Donald Somervell KC. They were defended by

John Platts-Mills John Faithful Fortescue Platts-Mills, (4 October 1906 – 26 October 2001) was a British barrister and left-wing politician. He was the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Finsbury from 1945 to 1948, when he was expelled from the party effecti ...

and were convicted but not imprisoned. The PPU Council voted by a majority to withdraw the poster in question, although this seems to have been a controversial decision within the PPU. Other PPU members were also arrested, for holding open-air meetings during the war and selling ''Peace News'' in the street. In 1942, PPU General Secretary Stuart Morris was sentenced to nine months in prison for dealing with secret government documents relating to British rule in India, which he was alleged to have been planning to pass to Gandhi or others in the nonviolent wing of the Indian independence movement. The trial was held in secret. The PPU Council disassociated itself from Morris' actions. The critical attitude towards the PPU in this period was summarised by

, writing in the October 1941 issue of '' Adelphi'' magazine: "Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively, the pacifist is pro-Nazi". Following the fall of France, support for the PPU dropped considerably and some former members even volunteered for the armed forces. The PPU abandoned the focus on peace negotiations. PPU members instead concentrated on activities such as supporting British conscientious objectors and supporting the Food Relief Campaign. A few members of the PPU joined the Bruderhof in the Cotswolds, which was seen as a radical peace experiment. This latter campaign attempted to supply food, under

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

supervision, to civilians in occupied Europe. From 1941, the PPU campaigned against the bombing of German civilians and was one of several groups to back the Bombing Restriction Committee (most of whose members were not pacifists or even opposed to the war as a whole). The Birmingham branch of the PPU declared, "We pacifists, while determined to resist the Nazi system, believe that nothing can justify the continuation of this slaughter and the moral degradation that it involves". Throughout the war, Vera Brittain published a newsletter, ''Letters to Peace Lovers'', criticizing the conduct of the war, including the bombing of civilian areas of Germany. This had 2,000 subscribers. By 1945, membership of the PPU had fallen by more than a quarter, standing at 98,414 when the war ended (compared to around 140,000 in 1940).

After the Second World War

Since 1945, the PPU has consistently "condemned the violence, oppression and weapons of all belligerents". Immediately after the war, there was a focus on support for famine relief in Europe and elsewhere. The PPU condemned the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in August 1945 and in October 1945, prominent PPU members were among the signatories to an open letter asking what the moral difference was between mass killing by Nazis in concentration camps and mass killings by atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was followed by the publication of the PPU leaflet ''Atom War''. In 1947, the PPU voted to make a priority of campaigning for the abolition of conscription (known in law as National Service). Conscription in the UK was phased out from 1960 and ended completely in 1963. In the 1950s, the PPU paid more attention to ideas of nonviolent civil disobedience, as developed by Mohandas Gandhi and others. This was not without controversy even within the PPU, with some members resigning as they objected to the use, or what they saw as the too frequent use, of methods of civil disobedience. However, members of PPU were well represented in the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) founded in 1957, which organised the first of the Aldermaston marches in 1958. In practice, however, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the PPU lost some members to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, even though CND was not a pacifist-only organisation and, at least in its early days, was less focused on direct action. Some recovery in the PPU's fortunes took place after 1965, when Myrtle Solomon was general secretary. The PPU organised protests against the US war in Vietnam and handed out leaflets to US tourists in Britain stating "not only are Vietnamese being killed, but American men are dying for a cause war cannot achieve". The PPU also opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and condemned both the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands and the British response. It has also promoted the ideas of pacifist thinkers such as

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

, Martin Luther King Jr., and

Richard B. Gregg Richard Bartlett Gregg (1885–1974) was an American social philosopher said to be "the first American to develop a substantial theory of nonviolent resistance" based on the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi, and so influenced the thinking of Martin ...

. The group had a branch in Northern Ireland, the Peace Pledge Union in Northern Ireland; in the 1970s this group campaigned for the withdrawal of the British army, as well as the disbandment of both Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups. The Peace Pledge Union's 21st-century activity has included taking part in British

protests against the 2003 Iraq War Beginning in late 2002, and continuing after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, large-scale protests against the Iraq War were held in many cities worldwide, often coordinated to occur simultaneously around the world. After the biggest series of demon ...

. In 2005, the PPU released an educational CD-ROM on Martin Luther King's life and work that was adopted by several British schools. In recent years, the PPU has focused on issues including Remembrance Day, peace education, the commemoration of World War One and what they describe as the "militarisation" of British society.

White poppy campaign

The PPU's most visible contemporary activity is the White Poppy appeal, started in 1933 by the Women's Co-operative Guild alongside the Royal British Legion's red poppy appeal. The white poppy commemorated not only British soldiers killed in war, but also civilian victims on all sides, standing as "a pledge to peace that war must not happen again". In 1986,

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

expressed her "deep distaste" for the white poppies,Margaret Thatcher Foundation
/ref> on allegations that they potentially diverted donations from service men, yet this stance gave them increased publicity. In the 2010s, sales of white poppies rose. The PPU reported that around 110,000 white poppies had been bought in 2015, the highest number on record.

Notable members

Members of the PPU have included: Vera Brittain,

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

Clifford Curzon Sir Clifford Michael Curzon CBE (né Siegenberg; 18 May 19071 September 1982) was an English classical pianist. Curzon studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and subsequently with Artur Schnabel in Berlin and Wanda Landowska and N ...

Alex Comfort Alexander Comfort (10 February 1920 – 26 March 2000) was a British scientist and physician known best for his nonfiction sex manual, '' The Joy of Sex'' (1972). He was an author of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a gerontologis ...

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the '' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cr ...

, Ben Greene,

Laurence Housman Laurence Housman (; 18 July 1865 – 20 February 1959) was an English playwright, writer and illustrator whose career stretched from the 1890s to the 1950s. He studied art in London. He was a younger brother of the poet A. E. Housman and his s ...

, Aldous Huxley, George Lansbury, Kathleen Lonsdale,

George MacLeod George Fielden MacLeod, Baron MacLeod of Fuinary, (17 June 1895 – 27 June 1991) was a Scottish soldier and clergyman; he was one of the best known, most influential and unconventional Church of Scotland ministers of the 20th century. He ...

, Sybil Morrison, John Middleton Murry, Peter Pears,

Max Plowman Mark Plowman, generally known as Max Plowman, (1 September 1883 – 3 June 1941) was a British writer and pacifist. Life to 1918 He was born in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, Middlesex. He left school at 16, and worked for a decade in his fathe ...

Arthur Ponsonby Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede (16 February 1871 – 23 March 1946), was a British politician, writer, and social activist. He was the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria and ...

, Myrtle Solomon, Donald Soper,

Sybil Thorndike Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson (24 October 18829 June 1976) was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969. Trained in her youth as a concert pianist, Thorndike turned to the stage when a medical problem with her ...

, Michael Tippett and Wilfred Wellock.

References

External links

*
About Dick Sheppard
on the PPU website {{Authority control 1934 establishments in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1934 Organisations based in the London Borough of Camden Peace organisations based in the United Kingdom Conscientious objection organizations