The Russian Revolutionand its Impact on theLeft in Britain

1917-1926In the years following 1917, the aftershocks of theRussian Revolution fundamentally reshaped the politicsof the British left. Amidst the turmoil that extended fromthe end of the First World War in 1918 to the GeneralStrike in 1926, events in Russia seemed, in the eyes ofmany, to offer new possibilities for political, social andeconomic change.

Drawing on the TUC Library’s extensive collections, this new exhibition documents the attempts of Britishsocialists and trade unionists to interpret, emulate andcome to terms with the revolution, revealing the extent towhich Russia’s socialist experiment challenged acceptednotions of internationalism, solidarity and class-consciousness not just at home but overseas.

The TUC (Trades Union Congress) Library was founded in1922 and moved to London Metropolitan University fromCongress House in 1996. It is part of the University’sSpecial Collections, and is a library of internationalsignificance.

Before the deluge:Anglo-Russian working-class solidarity, 1890-1917

Throughout the nineteenthcentury, hostility to Russia’sautocratic rulers formed anintegral part of Britishworking-classinternationalism.

In the 1830s, the Chartistsforged close links with Polishémigrés, and the insurgentsof 1848 crushed by NicholasI’s ‘Holy Alliance’ werewelcomed with open armsby British radicals. As Russia’s ownrevolutionary drama beganto unfold from the 1870sonwards, its politicalprisoners and exiles wereeulogised by Britain’s liberaland radical newspapers asmartyrs to the cause. In London, Russianrevolutionary émigrésassociated with socialistssuch as Keir Hardie, WilliamMorris and Sylvia Pankhurst,and were regularly invited toaddress working-classmeetings across Britain. By the turn of the century,Russians formed an integralpart of London’scosmopolitan politicalmilieu, frequentingWhitechapel’s InternationalWorkingmen’s EducationalClub and participating in thetheoretical debates thatsurrounded the rise of theLabour movement. Suchcontacts set the tone forBritish socialist responses tothe coming revolution.

Left: Resolution passed by the NationalAmalgamated Furnishing TradesAssociation in support of Russian tradeunionists imprisoned and exiled toSiberia, 1915. Credit: TUC Library, Special Collections,London Metropolitan University

Botton left: Correspondence betweenRamsay MacDonald and the Shettlestonand Tollcross branch of the IndependentLabour Party, concerning the members’protest against the forthcoming statevisit of Tsar Nicholas II, July 1909. Credit: People’s History Museum

Below: Communique from the SecondInternational protesting Nicholas II’sEuropean tour, June 1909. Credit: People’s History Museum

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Collapse of the ancienrégime: 1917 as seen from Britain In February 1917, with Russia exhausted bythree years of war, a series of strikes andbread riots in Petrograd led to the collapseof autocratic rule and the abdication of TsarNicholas II.

In Britain, the socialist movement greetedthe fall of the Romanov dynasty withunanimous enthusiasm, but found itselfdivided on the way forward and on questionsof war and peace. Across the country,meetings passed resolutions conveyingfraternal greetings to the Petrograd Soviet ofWorkers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (one of twocompeting centres of revolutionary power)and calling for peace in Europe. Otherssupported the internationally-recognisedProvisional Government and shared itsdetermination to pursue the war withGermany to a victorious conclusion.

In August, a TUC delegation visitedPetrograd in an attempt to reassure the Provisional Government of Britain’scontinued support for Russia.

Top right: The Russian DailyNews, a newspaper produced byBritish expats in Petrograd,August 1917.

Middle: Report of a meeting held at the Royal Albert Hallcelebrating the collapse ofautocratic rule in Russia, March 1917.

Far right: British trade unionistsmeeting Russian soldiers inPetrograd, August 1917.

Right: Report of the Labour andSocialist Convention held atLeeds, June 1917. Primarilyorganised by the IndependentLabour Party (ILP), the meetingprovoked controversy after itpassed a resolution calling for theestablishment of Russian-style‘soviets’ of workers’ and soldiers'deputies in Britain.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, LondonMetropolitan University (unless stated otherwise).

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Hands Off Russia 1919-1924

In October 1917, the communistBolshevik faction overthrew theProvisional Government.

The following year, fearing the collapseof the Eastern Front, Allied troopsintervened in Russia’s nascent civil warin support of the anti-Bolshevik forces.In response, British socialists foundedthe Hands Off Russia campaign in 1919.By declaring British workers’ solidaritywith their Russian counterparts andportraying the Allied intervention as partof the international struggle betweenlabour and capital, Hands Off Russiaspread like wildfire across Britain.

In August 1919, Sylvia Pankhurstreported that ‘a deeply felt sense ofsolidarity with Communist Russia hasbeen growing steadily amongst theworkers. For months past, Hands OffRussia has found its way into theresolution of every labour and Socialistpropaganda meeting.’ The campaigncontinued its activities until Britain’sdiplomatic recognition of the SovietUnion in 1924, when its executivecommittee was superseded by theAnglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee.

Top right: Front page of The Worker, the official English-languagenewspaper of the Soviet Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern),May 1923.

Middle: Leaflet published by the ILP on behalf of Hands Off Russia, 1923.

Far right: Pamphlet written in support of Hands Off Russia by VladimirChertkov (Leo Tolstoy’s former secretary and émigré publisher), 1919.

Right: Pamphlet published by the Hands Off Russia committee, 1920.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, LondonMetropolitan University (unless stated otherwise).

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Hands Off Russia 1919-1924Throughout its five-year history, Hands Off Russiareflected British socialists’ fluid geopolitical loyalties andevolving conception of internationalism.

Half a century earlier, the worldview of working-classradicalism had been largely defined by hostility to Russiaand support for the Polish national cause. During the 1863uprising in Warsaw, former Chartists had openly called forwar with Russia in defence of Poland. Yet by the summer of1920, when the prospect of British military intervention inthe ongoing Russo-Polish War seemed imminent, theLabour Party and the TUC threatened a general strike.Campaign literature broke from traditional depictions ofRussia as an oppressive empire, instead portraying theSoviets as liberators of the former imperial borderlands.

Above: Anti-imperialist leaflet published by the Labour Party in support of theBolshevik government, 1920.

Top right: Manifesto of the Woolwich Hands Off Russia committee, 1923.

Middle right: Leaflet published by the ILP on behalf of Hands Off Russia, 1923.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, London MetropolitanUniversity (unless stated otherwise).

Above: Appeal to British workers for help in financing a loan to the Soviet Union,Soviet Russia Pictorial, November 1923.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, London MetropolitanUniversity (unless stated otherwise).

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The 1920 delegation visitIn the spring of 1920, against the backdrop of awar scare and an ongoing British trade embargo,TUC and Labour delegates visited Soviet Russia forthe second time.

Comprised of steadfast internationalists such asArthur Purcell and Margaret Bondfield, the 1920

delegation reflected thespirit of the Hands OffRussia campaign.Travelling from Petrogradto the Volga basin viaMoscow and NizhniiNovgorod, the party metwith both representativesof the Bolshevikgovernment and a widevariety of oppositionfigures, includingmembers of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party andthe anarchist theoretician

Peter Kropotkin (formerly a well-known politicalémigré in London).

The delegation’s published findings touched uponpolitical and economic questions, public health,women’s issues and material conditions in Russia.Although reserved in its praise for the Bolsheviks,their report unequivocally condemned the Alliedintervention and blockade as ‘criminal folly’.

Above left: Signedphoto addressed toMargaret Bondfieldfrom the BolshevikAnzhelika Balabanova:‘To dear comrade M.Bondfield. Bern 1915 -Moscow 1920.Remember how sadthings looked and howbright and hopeful theyare now in our freeproletarian Russia,cradle of universalsocialism.’

Top right: Take up thehammer with joy,propaganda posterincluding quote fromartist VladamirMayakovski, ROSTAposter, 1920.

All images copyrightTUC Library, SpecialCollections, LondonMetropolitan University(unless statedotherwise).

Above: TUC and Labour delegates in Russia, May 1920. MargaretBondfield is in the centre, and A. A. Purcell eighth from the left.

Left: TUC delegation report, 1920.

Lenin’sdealth1924

In January 1924, Vladimir Lenin, the Marxist theorist,Bolshevik leader and Soviet head of state, died after a long illness.

In Britain, news of his death broke the day after the formationof the first ever Labour government, eliciting tributes from allsections of the socialist movement. Although a controversialand divisive figure in his lifetime, Lenin was nonethelessportrayed as the father of the revolution and a supremeintellectual authority for socialists around the world in thedays following his death. Through British socialist literatureand Soviet publications aimed at English-speakingaudiences overseas, the exalted image of Lenin long familiarto Russians was relayed to the British public.

Above: Sketch of Lenin published by The Worker, the officialorgan of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s NationalMinority Movement, January 1925.

Above: Tribute to Lenin publishedin The Worker, January 1924.

Top right: From 1924 issue ofCommunist International.

Left top to bottom: Leninmemorial number of SovietRussia Pictorial, March 1924.and obituary of Lenin .

All images copyright TUC Library,Special Collections, LondonMetropolitan University (unlessstated otherwise).

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Fred Bramley and the1924 TUC delegation visit

In 1924, the All-Russian Council of TradeUnions invited another TUC delegation tovisit the USSR to report back on thesituation confronting Soviet tradeunionists at the time.

The delegation arrived in November andreturned to Britain in late December. Uponarrival in Moscow, the party were grantedaccess to the Comintern’s archive in orderto prove that the notorious ‘Zinovievletter’, published by the Daily Mail amonth earlier, was a forgery.

The delegation consisted of severalprominent trade unionists of the time,including the dockers’ leader Ben Tillett,Arthur Purcell (a veteran of the 1920delegation) and the TUC’s General SecretaryFred Bramley. Bramley’s personal papersoffer a unique documentary andphotographic insight into the delegates’experiences in the USSR.

Top: Members of thedelegation at the Bakurailway station,Azerbaijan, December1924. Ben Tillett and FredBramley on the left.

Left: Letter to the TUCdelegates from DavidRiazanov, the head of theMarx-Engels Institute inMoscow, asking for help inacquiring archivalmaterials from theBishopsgate Institute inLondon, December 1924.

Left: Soviet governmentpermit granting FredBramley access to stateinstitutions, factories andindustrial facilities acrossthe Soviet Union, 20November 1924.

Right: Arthur Purcell at theBaku railway station,Azerbaijan, December1924.

All images copyright TUC Library, SpecialCollections, LondonMetropolitan University(unless stated otherwise).

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Fred Bramley and the 1924 TUC delegation visitIn September 1924, the TUC Congress inHull had hosted a Soviet delegation for the first time.

While in Moscow in November, the TUC’sown delegates reciprocated this gesture by attending the Sixth Congress of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions(VTsSPS) at the invitation of its chair, MikhailTomsky. Their arrival, Bramley later recorded,‘aroused great enthusiasm’ amongst theSoviet attendees. Purcell, Bramley and Tilletttook turns addressing the audience, eachconveying fraternal greetings on behalf oftheir respective unions. Two days later, theywere received by a 100,000-strong

demonstration of Moscow trade unionistswho ‘gave expression to unreservedenthusiasm and interest in our delegation’,exhibiting ‘the revolutionary sentimentswhich now inspire the Russian people’.

These contacts played an important role insubsequent development of Anglo-Sovietlabour relations, and led directly to theestablishment of a ‘unity committee’ thefollowing year.

Right: Moscow workers’ demonstration in support of the TUC delegation, with membersof the delegation standing on the rostrum in the background, November 1924.

Below: Letter to the TUC from a group of Menshevikémigrés (opposed to theBolsheviks) complaining about the delegation’s findings, December 1924.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, London Metropolitan University(unless stated otherwise).

Top: Members of the TUC delegation with theirSoviet counterparts in Moscow, November 1924.

Above: Arthur Purcell with a Red Army soldier,November-December 1924 (precise date andlocation unknown).

Above: Pamphlet written by Arthur Purcellafter the delegation visit, 1925.

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After leaving Moscow, the delegation visitedthe industrial heartlands of Eastern Ukraine,the Don river basin and the Caucasianrepublics of Azerbaijan and Georgia. Alongthe way, they came into contact with a widecross-section of Soviet society.

Visiting factories, oilfields and workers’recreational facilities, the delegates wereconsistently impressed by the revolutionarygovernment’s provision for its citizens’material needs. They concluded that Soviettrade unions, freed from the obligation toprotect workers from economic exploitation,were better able to provide for theirintellectual and cultural development.Despite conceding that the Soviet Union wasundemocratic and illiberal in comparisonwith Britain, they argued that the state’saccomplishments had ‘reconciled all but avery small minority to renouncing rights ofopposition that are essential to politicalliberty elsewhere […] This causes noresistance partly because these rights havebeen replaced by others of greater valueunder the Soviet system.’

Fred Bramley and the1924 TUC delegation visit

Left: Communique from tradeunionists in Soviet CentralAsia to the 1924 TUCdelegation, delivered at theMoscow congress. The firstparagraph reads: ‘Dear comrades, we bestowupon you these robes ofhonour as a symbol of thefraternal bonds between theSoviet workers of Central Asiaand the English proletariat.’

All images copyright TUCLibrary, Special Collections,London MetropolitanUniversity (unless statedotherwise).

Left: Members ofthe TUC delegationmeeting with thehead of the All-Ukrainian TradeUnion Council,Fedor Ugarov,November 1924.Ugarov is in thecentre, with FredBramley directly tohis right.

Right: Fred Bramleyaddressing theVTsSPS congress,November 1924.

Below: Members ofthe TUC delegation inRussia, November-December 1924(precise date andlocation unknown).

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Gender and revolution:the women’s delegationand representations ofRussian female workers1925In the spring and summer of 1925, a party offour women trade unionists headed by MaryQuaile (then a member of the TUC’s GeneralCouncil) visited the Soviet Union.

The visit came against the backdrop of bothworsening working conditions for women anddeclining female union membership in Britain,

problems that wereto some extentmirrored in theUSSR during thestate capitalist‘New EconomicPolicy’ of the mid-1920s. For nearly fourmonths, the TUC

delegates travelled between Moscow,Leningrad, Ukraine and the Caucasus, laterpublishing a wide-ranging report on workplaceconditions and social provision for Sovietwomen. The delegates’ admiration for Sovietinnovations in childcare, healthcare andwomen’s education attests not only to thecommon struggle of women around the worldfor gender equality, but to the ways in whichthe Soviet Union symbolised that struggle formany in the early twentieth century.

Above: More traditional, patriarchal notions of feminine fragility persisted alongside theheroic image of Soviet women. This leaflet, written by the Anglo-American journalistPercival Phillips, accuses the Bolsheviks of torturing Russian women.

Right: Socialist banner presented to the TUC women's delegation by Soviet workers, 1925.Credit: People’s History Museum.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, London Metropolitan University(unless stated otherwise).

Top: The TUC women's delegation in the Soviet Union, 1925.

Above: Members of the women's delegation meeting Soviet working women inMoscow, 1925.

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Gender and revolutionThe materials collected by the TUC women’s delegation reflecteda fascination with Soviet female workers, who were seen asembodying the ideal of emancipated socialist womanhood.

Clockwise from top left:

Magazine: Krest'ianka (Peasant Woman): Organ ofthe Section for Work Amongst Working and PeasantWomen of the Central Committee of the RussianCommunist Party, January 1925.

English translation of a Soviet pamphlet on womenworkers, late 1920s.

Magazine: The Peasant-Woman, December 1924.

Magazine: The Woman Worker, December 1924.

Magazine: The Ukrainian Countrywoman, 1925. The photograph is of Lenin's wife, NadezhdaKrupskaya.

All images copyright TUC Library, SpecialCollections, London Metropolitan University (unless stated otherwise.)

These depictions of women from across the Soviet Unionshowed the revolutionary government transforming thetimeless Russian krest’ianka – the peasant woman – intothe modern rabotnitsa, the archetypal proletarian hero.By emphasising the dignity of socialist labour and theenlightening power of the Leninist gospel,representations of Soviet women during the 1920schallenged contemporary gender norms. For manyBritons, such images would have recalled the wartimerealities of the Home Front, when women began to takeon numerous occupations formerly reserved for men.

Report of the TUCwomen’s delegationto the Soviet Union,1925.

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Translating the revolution:Soviet literature in 1920sBritainThe early twentieth century witnesseda fascination with Russian politics,society and culture amongst Britishintellectuals.

The socialist movement wasnot exempt from this.In the years after1917, interest inboth Lenin’swritings and thoseof other leadingBolsheviks increaseddramatically in Britain.A wide variety of left-wing organisationsworked with Russianspeakers such asAndrew Rothstein,the son of a Tsarist-era revolutionary, totranslate and publish avariety of Marxist-Leninisttracts.

The Soviet authorities likewiseendeavoured to satisfy Britishreaders’ curiosity. During the 1920sand 1930s, the Moscow-based‘Cooperative Publishing Society ofForeign Workers in the USSR’produced English renditions of Sovietliterature aimed at British andAmerican migrants to the SovietUnion, and the Comintern’sInternational Lenin School providedrevolutionary training for foreigncommunists from 1926 onwards.

Above: Communique from thePetrograd Soviet of Workers’ andSoldiers’ Deputies, March 1917;English-language pamphlets by Lenin,Leon Trotsky and the Soviet diplomatMaxim Litvinov, 1918-1919; anEnglish translation of the Sovietconstitution, 1923; and a selection ofEnglish-language pamphletspublished by the CooperativePublishing Society for Foreign Workersin the USSR, early 1930s.

All images copyright TUC Library,Special Collections, LondonMetropolitan University (unless stated otherwise).

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By the early 1920s, theRussian Revolution hadbecome a subject ofimmense public interest anda staple of British literaryculture, with journalists,polemicists, politicalactivists and travel writersregularly visiting Russia tosee the new socialist statefor themselves.

While many were highlycritical, depicting theBolsheviks as bloodthirstyopportunists, others foundmuch to admire in theorganisation of socialistsociety and in the militantidealism of those theyencountered. As they passedjudgement on Russia’srevolutionary experiment fora British audience, thesewriters engaged in series ofbroader debates on themerits of revolution,prospects for politicalchange at home, andBritain’s place in the world.

British writerson Soviet Russia

Top row left to right: Herbert Keeling lived in Russiaduring the years of war and revolution, and published anattack on the day-to-day realities of Bolshevik rule in1919. The front cover of his book depicts Leon Trotsky as a spider.

First published in 1919, the American journalist JohnReed’s account of the October Revolution, Ten Days ThatShook The World, quickly became a classic of the modernsocialist canon.

Second row left to right: The British novelist and journalistArthur Ransome reported from Russia for the London DailyNews throughout the First World War and the events of1917. He developed close relationships with theBolshevik leadership, and later published this defence ofthe revolutionary government.

In January 1918, Reed was offered the position of Sovietconsul in New York - one he never actually took up, owingto Lenin’s disapproval of the appointment and the factthat he did not actually return to America for several moremonths.

Above: Russian by birth, thehistorian and Fabian socialistJulius West spent the years1915-1917 in Russia, workingprimarily as a journalist. In thisFabian pamphlet written shortlybefore the October Revolution,he sought to interpret events inRussia for a British audience.

Above: An admirer of theBolsheviks and frequentcommentator on Russianaffairs during the years ofwar and revolution, RobertPage Arnot helped found theCommunist Party of GreatBritain in 1920.

Above: Later the Labour MPfor Battersea North, WilliamStephen Sanders hadparticipated in the 1917 TUCdelegation to Russia and hadsupported the ProvisionalGovernment’s efforts tocontinue the war. In 1918, he attacked the Bolshevikauthorites in this pamphlet.

Anti-Bolshevik Russianémigrés in BritainIn the years following the October Revolution, hundreds ofthousands of Russians opposed to the Bolsheviks fledRussia for Western Europe.

Although the majority settled in France, Germany andacross Central Europe, many others came to Britain, where– like their pre-revolutionary counterparts – they sought toenlist public support for their cause. In June 1918,Alexander Kerensky, the head of the second ProvisionalGovernment, addressed the Labour Party conference inLondon and called for Western military intervention againstthe Soviets. Both socialist émigrés and more conservativegroups such as the Russian Liberation Committee publishednewspapers and pamphlets that detailed instances ofpolitical oppression and drew interested Britons’ attentionto deteriorating conditions in Russia.

Left: Leaflet detailing thesuppression of the OrthodoxChurch circulated by the RussianLiberation Committee, 1922.

Right: Anti-Bolshevik pamphletpublished in 1919 on behalf ofthe 'League for the Regenerationof Russia', founded by thedissident socialist and formerterrorist Boris Savinkov.

Below left: Pamphlet publishedby the Russian LiberationCommittee, 1918.

All images copyright TUC Library,Special Collections, London Metropolitan University (unlessstated otherwise).

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Above: One of the most important figures in the Russian‘Silver Age’, the writer Leonid Andreev had supportedthe February Revolution but opposed the Bolsheviktakeover in October. In this 1919 pamphlet, writtenshortly before his death in emigration in Finland,Andreev used his celebrity status amongst Britishreaders to appeal for further Allied military interventionagainst the revolutionary government.

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The information war:Rosta-Wien, Soviet Russia Pictorial and the People’s Russia Information BureauIntent upon securingdiplomatic recognition andfostering working-classsolidarity, Russia’srevolutionary governmentalso made extensive use ofoverseas propaganda.

In the immediate aftermathof the October Revolution,sympathetic Britishorganisations such as the People’s RussianInformation Bureauattempted to influencepress coverage of Russianaffairs in the Bolsheviks’favour.

From 1920 onwards, theMoscow-funded Viennesenews agency Rosta-Wienpublished informationfavourable to the Russiangovernment in severalEuropean languages,including English. Later on,Soviet organisations such as the Comintern and theSociety for CulturalRelations produced English-language literature thathelped disseminatepositive, inspiring images of Soviet socialism.

Top left: The English-language Rosta-Wien, April 1921.

Top right: May Day edition of Soviet Russia Pictorial, 1923. Published monthly throughout the early 1920s by theComintern, this magazine existed to raise funds for famine relief in Russia.

Above: left to right - English-language issues of the Weekly News Bulletin published by the Society for Cultural Relationswith the Soviet Union. Established in 1924, the Society for Cultural Relations disseminated information about Sovietscientific and technical accomplishments, art and literature, and helped Britons visit the USSR.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, London Metropolitan University (unless stated otherwise).

The Red Scare: from theZinoviev letter to theARCOS raid, 1924-1927

In January 1924, the Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald formed a minoritygovernment for the first time, quickly recognising the Soviet Union and beginningnegotiations on a second Anglo-Soviet trade agreement.

Under intense political pressure, MacDonald’s government collapsed in October the sameyear. In the midst of the ensuing election campaign, the Daily Mail published a letterpurportedly from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Comintern, calling on Labour to bringabout a revolutionary situation in Britain. Although the Conservative Party won the electiondecisively, the extent to which the Zinoviev letter actually influenced the vote is unclear. Theletter nonetheless became a touchstone for anti-communist sentiment in Britain, and wasnot conclusively shown to have been a forgery until 1999.

Left: Pamphlet calling for an investigation into the Zinoviev letter, 1928.

Right: In addition to their official published report, the 1924 TUC delegation to the USSR (havingbeen granted access to the Comintern’s archive in Moscow) also produced a pamphlet thatattempted to prove the Zinoviev letter was a forgery.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collections, London Metropolitan University (unlessstated otherwise).

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Towards internationalunity? The Anglo-RussianJoint Advisory Committee,1925-1927 During the 1920s, the international trade

union movement was split between twoumbrella organisations: the InternationalFederation of Trade Unions (IFTU, alsoknown as the ‘Amsterdam International’),and the Soviet-backed Red Internationalof Trade Unions, or Profintern, which wasfounded in 1921.

Unlike the IFTU, which it repeatedlyattacked as irredeemably bourgeois, theProfintern promoted communist agitationwithin the trade union movement.

To this end, with help from the CommunistParty of Great Britain, the Profinternestablished a British surrogate – the‘National Minority Movement’ – in 1924.

The National Minority Movementcampaigned for unity between the IFTUand Profintern, glossing over theideological differences between the twoand emphasising the fraternal bonds ofproletarian internationalism.

Above: Cartoons published inArthur Purcell’s journal TradeUnion Unity attacking the IFTU’santi-communist tendency andcalling for an Anglo-Russianworkers’ alliance, 1925-1926.

Left: Poster for the NationalMinority Movement’s Batterseaconference, January 1925. Theillustration is taken from thefront cover of the Comintern’seponymous magazine.

Right: Daily Graphic report onthe Russian delegationnegotiating the formation of the Anglo-Russian Committee, April 1925.

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Towards internationalunity? The Anglo-RussianJoint Advisory Committee,1925-1927Following the success ofthe 1924 delegation visit,the TUC was also inclinedto seek reconciliationbetween the IFTU andProfintern.

In April 1925, a meeting inLondon between Britishand Russian trade unionistsled to the formation of the Anglo-Russian JointAdvisory Committee, aworking body intended tocoordinate negotiationsbetween Amsterdam andMoscow.

Although the TUC’s effortsin this respect ultimatelyamounted to nothing, theAnglo-Russian Committeeitself lasted for over twoyears, during which itserved as a forum forcontacts between the TUCand the Soviet tradeunions. Ideological andstrategic differences,however, made suchcontacts increasinglyproblematic, with the twosides quarrelling in publicduring the 1926 GeneralStrike.

Above: Soviet trade unionists attendingthe TUC conference in Hull, September1924. Centre front: Mikhail Tomsky, thechair of the All-Union Central Council ofTrade Unions (VTsSPS).

Above: Memorandum on the establishmentof the Anglo-Russian Joint AdvisoryCommittee, April 1925.

All images copyright TUC Library, SpecialCollections, London Metropolitan University(unless stated otherwise).

On 3 May 1926, an escalating crisis in the British coal-mining industry led the TUC todeclare a national strike.

The strike lasted only ten days, and was afterwards widely regarded as a failure, with mostminers returning to longer working hours and reduced wages. In the Soviet Union, however,it attracted widespread attention and generated great enthusiasm. Miners in Ukraine’sDonbass region, the centre of the Soviet coal industry, raised funds for their Britishcounterparts and publicly expressed solidarity with the strikers. Party newspapers such asIzvestiia (The News) devoted extensive coverage to events in Britain, declaring the strike‘one of the greatest historical events in the fight between capital and labour’.

‘Victory to the Englishminers!’ The 1926 GeneralStrike, ‘Red Money’ andSoviet workers’ solidarity

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Right: General strike 1926.Pickets at London docks.

All images copyright TUCLibrary, Special Collections,London Metropolitan University(unless stated otherwise).

‘Victory to the English’The 1926 General Strike,‘Red Money’ and Sovietworkers’ solidaritySuch expressions of solidarity could not conceal the serious ramifications of the strike’sfailure for relations between the TUC and the Soviet trade unions.

The decision to end the strike before its demands had been accepted led to accusationsfrom Moscow that the TUC had betrayed British workers. The TUC, in turn, accused its Sovietcounterparts of meddling and dictating strategy from Moscow – a charge the latter deniedon the grounds that the strike, far from merely being an internal British affair, was of concernto the whole international workers’ movement. Mutual resentment was increased by theTUC’s refusal to accept a £26,000 donation from the Soviet trade unions. Funds raiseddirectly by Soviet workers for the strikers were accepted by the Miners’ Federation, leadingto accusations of ‘red’ money in the right-wing press and an official protest from StanleyBaldwin’s Conservative government.

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Left: Pamphletsprepared by theAnglo-RussianParliamentaryCommittee andVTsSPS refutingallegations of‘Red Money’that appeared inthe British pressduring andimmediatelyafter theGeneral Strike,1926.

Walter Citrine and the anti-communist turn

During the summer of 1927, the TUC withdrew from the Anglo-Russian Committee andformally broke off relations with the Soviet trade unions.

After the ARCOS raid, the weightof anti-communist sentiment inthe country as a whole, andwithin the leadership of thetrade union movement inparticular, became irresistible.The TUC’s volte-face wasoverseen by Walter Citrine, whohad succeeded the late FredBramley as General Secretary ofthe TUC in 1925.

A convinced anti-communist,Citrine subscribed to a moretraditional view of tradeunionism as defending theinterests of a settled economicclass through non-revolutionarymeans, and later served asPresident of the IFTU. Relationswith the Soviet trade unionswere not re-established until1929, and would never again beas close or cordial.

Above: As General Secretary of the TUC (1926-1946),Walter M. Citrine played a crucial role in British tradeunionism’s anti-communist turn after the General Strike.

Far left and middle: Pamphlets written by Walter Citrinein an attempt to expose communist influence in Britain’strade unions, together with a response from J. R.Campbell, a communist and the former editor of Workers’Weekly, 1928.

Left: Telegram from the VTsSPS to the TUC on the latter’swithdrawal from the Anglo-Russian Joint AdvisoryCommittee, September 1927.

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Through the ‘red-tintedspectacles’ British reflections on the Soviet experiment

The British labour movement’s fascination with the SovietUnion did not come to an end in 1927.

Subsequent decades saw furtherdelegation visits, allaccompanied by the sameadmiring reports and fraternalgreetings.

Yet the ideological stakes werenever again so high as in the1920s. The tensionsencapsulated in that decade’sdalliance with Sovietcommunism – betweenrevolutionary and democraticconceptions of trade unionism;and between the idealisticinternationalism of the TUC’sdelegates and the traditionalvision of a working-classmovement hermetically sealedagainst the excesses of foreignsocialist experiments – continueto permeate Labour politicstoday. Such continuities attestnot only to the historicalambiguities of socialist politicsin Britain, but to the significanceof the Russian Revolution as aglobal event – one as

contentious and contested now as it was a hundred years ago.

Above: Issue of ‘Ukrainian Woman’, magazinegiven to TUC women’s delegation 1925.

All images copyright TUC Library, Special Collec-tions, London Metropolitan University (unlessstated otherwise).

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Acknowledgements

'The Russians were in deadlyearnest; they didnot play politics as though itwere a game of cricket inwhich the rules were moreimportant than the result.Here was an experiment whicharoused both furiousenthusiasm and furious hate[…] It was a positiveexpression of positiveprinciples which those whoaffirmed them would dierather than surrender.’

(Harold Laski, British politicaltheorist, 1947)

Thanks to everyone who helped with this exhibition:The Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust who helped fund thisexhibition

Curator – Dr Ben PhillipsHelp with images – Dr Chris CoatesDesign – Becky ShandCoordinator – Jeff Howarth (TUC Library)

This exhibition is copyright of the Trades Union Congress LibraryCollections, Special Collections at London Metropolitan University.

To borrow this exhibition or any of the others available, or to arrange anappointment to visit the library, please contact:

Trades Union Congress Library CollectionsSpecial CollectionsLondon Metropolitan UniversityWash HousesLondon E1 7NT

Tel: 020 7320 3516Email: tuclib@londonmet.ac.ukWebsites: www.londonmet.ac.uk/tuc and www.unionhistory.info

Above: Distribution of leaflets, international youth day celebration, 1924.

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