Chapter 13. ANARCHISM AND THE ORIGINS OF THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT, 1889–1910

Socialists develop theoretical ideas of the nature of their society, the nature of a more desirable future and the manner of the transition between them. Mass action develops through forms designed for immediate use which can have great implications hardly perceived by the majority of participants. Socialist theory and mass action may not combine on any great scale. When they do both are transformed. The result is an explosion of popular creativity, a ‘positive self-consciousness’ which makes particular struggles into general ones and abstract discussion into urgent questions of practice. The implications of such situations are revolutionary and circumstances can make them so.

Two such ‘pre-revolutionary’ situations occur in our period. One is that of 1889–1893, the other is the period of the Syndicalist revolt, 1910–1914, and again after World War One. It is the latter which concerns us here, although some further remarks on the former are necessary. Though the socialist movement as a whole was massively concerned in the organization of trades unions in 1889–1890 the net result of its concern in the later 1890s was an increase in electoral activity using trades unions as a base. Remarks appeared in various socialist papers (here disregarding the anarchists for the moment) which criticized the new trades unions. Yet the gist of these criticisms was that trades union activity by itself was not sufficient to bring about socialism. See for example a comment in Justice: the men “were led to expect too much and now find they cannot accomplish everything with their trade unionism — that it is but a very imperfect weapon with which to fight the capitalist — they are throwing it over altogether as no good, instead of using as a means to something better. This is wrong. Stand by your unions men! And use them to conquer political power for your class.”[380] The context makes it clear that ‘political power’ means power through institutions like parliament. Since the concern of these socialist bodies was to gain political power through existing institutions they had something of a vested interest in belittling the power of trades unions or of ‘economic struggles’ for social change. It is not surprising, therefore, that they showed little concern with the structure of trades unions and their fitness in providing a focus for such change. With the anarchists the situation was rather different. Hostile to electoral activity, they were more concerned with the possibilities for ‘nonpolitical’ trades union activity. It is true that against the anarchist revolutionary yardstick the trades unions would be rejected in disgust by some sections and that the pro- or anti-trades-union debate tended to dominate. Yet at the same time among the pro-trades unionists there was a real concern to disentangle the nature of trades union struggles and to assess the necessary conditions for trades unions to become revolutionary. The results of this investigation were patchy and inconclusive in the face of events. Yet at various times and in various ways they articulated the pragmatic concerns that were to be systemized by syndicalism.

The anarchists in the late 1880s and early 1890s were hostile to ‘officialism’ — bureaucracy as we should call it — counterposing spontaneous solidarity. They preached solidarity between skilled and unskilled sections and a concern for the unemployed by those in work. They were interested in extending the tactics used by workers in struggle and saw such extended struggles as rehearsals for revolution. They opposed calls for nationalization. A few examples will suffice here. The rejection of nationalization was for the most part from first principles, based in hostility to the state. Yet points could be made which showed an astute assessment of the situation. Of the social democrats’ statist obsessions, Freedom commented: “So anxious are they to put … economic administration under state control that they are perpetually urging us not to wait for the repair of the ancient political machine, i.e. not to concern ourselves with mere politics but to joyfully confide railways or land or what not to the control of Salisbury and Balfour or Gladstone and Morley or Rosebery and Co., tomorrow if only those chosen of the people can be persuaded to undertake the task.”[381] The point remains valid to this day. Have the miners, now enjoying all the benefits that nationalization can bring, been more noticeably content with their lot? Have the railwaymen? Yet the ‘socialist’ calls continue for nationalization as some kind of panacea.

The general tactical outlines for trades union activity were formulated at the Zurich Anarchist Congress in 1893. This took place during and after the chaotic International Socialist Congress of that year from which the anarchists were expelled on the votes of the German social democrat machine. The “practical, business-like and orderly” meetings showed the direction that was already being followed by the anarchists in the French trades union movement. General propaganda for the general strike, seen as a preparatory step for revolution, was to be coupled with practical demands such as the eight-hour day. In each particular situation direct action by the workers themselves rather than the use of legislative bodies was to be stressed. Anarchists should not try and build a party but make a movement. They should enter trade organizations as agitators, not office seekers. Anarchists should be “champions of the weakest and worst off, not flatterers of those who had slightly bettered their position.” They should use every opportunity to preach rebellion.[382] Delegates at these meetings included Mowbray and Roland of the West End tailors.

Mowbray, at least, propagandized these principles. In a piece on ‘Trades Unionism and the Unemployed’ he developed the general principles for English conditions. The trades unions were saying that unemployed men should not offer themselves for less than the union rate and otherwise did nothing for the unemployed, looking down on them with contempt. Meanwhile a largely ineffective policy of organizing parades of the unemployed was going on outside the unions. When a drastic drop in union membership took place the unions would bestir themselves, but only to the extent of holding discussions with vestries. This had the effect of demobilizing an already less than powerful unemployed agitation. What should be done, Mowbray said, was to immediately campaign round the following policy with both the organized and unorganized workers: Overtime should be stopped immediately; a day of eight hours or less should be enforced to absorb the unemployed; cooperative production should be started; and piecework should be abolished. Otherwise, said Mowbray, it was the unions’ fault if there was blacklegging. Political lobbying would do no good, economic power had to be applied to achieve economic ends.[383] In a later article he urged people to join unions as ‘trade’ members — that is, members who were not involved with Friendly Society benefits and activities: “The sooner the Friendly Society part of Trades Unionism is killed the better,” he wrote. If trades unions were to fight capitalism they should stick to economic struggle, and a “closer watch on officials and a general cutting down of useless expenditure would do no harm.”[384] In some quarters these points were understood and modest attempts were made to implement them.[385] These have to be understood as suggestions to be taken in conjunction with ‘self-help’ by the unemployed along the lines of C.C. Davis at Birmingham.

A more spectacular attempt to commit a union to direct action had already been made in Leicester by George Cores, an anarchist on the executive committee of the Leicester branch of the Boot and Shoe Makers Union. Unemployment in the trade was high, and Cores moved a resolution at a meeting of about 250 members which stated that “hundreds … are in such a state of starvation that they will be compelled and entitled to take the means of subsistence by illegal means unless help is speedily forthcoming.” Alderman Inskip, a former official of the union, attempted, to oppose it. He was shouted down, much to his astonishment, and the motion was carried by acclamation. Inskip, however, organized a further meeting with about 1,000 members present, and despite appeals by Cores to “resent official dictation” the resolution was defeated. The meeting broke up in such extreme disorder, however, that this result was of dubious value.[386]

We have already seen how direct action was urged upon the miners during their strike in 1893, by the Commonweal and by local anarchists. The miners, it was suggested, should burn the coal stocks, sabotage the machinery, pay no rent and loot food shops. Any distaste for a lip-licking relish for the spectacular ought not to hide from us the consistency of these suggestions with both the French syndicalism then developing, and the ideas which later became current in England. In practical terms, however, the response to these calls by the anarchists was limited, though the Hull dock strike echoed them. As time passed, the social and political situation in the late 1890s and early 1900s became less and less conducive to expansive direct action and anarchists in the unions were forced by circumstances to be cautious.

The anarchists in England, however, did provide the means whereby the ideas of the French revolutionary syndicalists could reach a wider audience. The earlier contacts between the revolutionary French and the reformist English trades unions had been fraught with misunderstanding. At an international congress called by the Parliamentary Committee of the T.U.C. in 1888 in London, Tortellier, “a notorious Anarchist” and a delegate from the Joiners Union in Paris, put an amendment on the question of the eight-hour day. This was to the effect that the workers could expect nothing from legislators and could “only rely on their own strength.” A social democrat commented later: “Had M. Tortellier meant the strength of organizations or of Trade Unions he would have said so. But for several years it has been notorious that this Anarchist believes only in the strength of insurrection, aided by the chemical resources of civilization. This resolution, which really proclaimed as plainly as in common prudence it was possible to proclaim, that revolution — violent physical force revolution — alone could solve the problem … was cordially endorsed by the English delegates. … So anxious were the English to avoid Socialism [i.e. Labor representation] that they fell into the arms of the dynamite party.”[387]

With the development of the new unionism and in response to physical and legal difficulties the interest of trades union leaderships in Labor representation in Parliament grew. Freakish happenings like the 1888 congress were not relished and social democrats in the trades unions were determined to make sure they were not repeated. At the 1896 International Workers’ Congress in London they tried to enforce a strict application of the Zurich resolution expelling anarchists from the proceedings. Will Thorne, the socialist secretary to the congress, wrote to an inquirer: “In reply I may say that all Trades Unions recognize the necessity of political action: that being so the Zurich resolution covers them. But these people who are complaining about not being admitted to the next international congress don’t believe in the necessity of political action: That being so the Zurich resolution will shut them out. Best wishes from, yours fraternally, Will Thorne.”[388] However, Tom Mann and Keir Hardie, among others, protested strongly at the conference sessions and appeared at an anarchist meeting welcoming the foreign anarchist delegates to repeat their protests.[389] After much heat the congress voted that no one should be excluded. The French trades unions, together with the Dutch, who were also influenced by libertarian and syndicalist ideas, made a significant showing at the congress, much to the distaste of the social democrats.

Something of the new French movement began to filter into anarchist propaganda in England. The ‘International Notes’ in Freedom gave regular snippets of news. Occasional articles appeared which showed a French influence without necessarily making any great effort to adapt the theory to English practice.[390] The propaganda tended to remain general: “In every factory and every field toil the men and women we wish to educate and enlighten. We do not seek their votes; we ask them to think and to act, to unite and to organize, to encourage the spirit of solidarity on all occasions and … use the weapon they have in their own hands … the GENERAL STRIKE.”[391] Yet, in private discussion, anarchists were talking over the practical problems which were to become so much of a general concern in a later period. Of unions in London it was said in 1901 that they were either too small and ineffective or too big. In the latter case the result was branch apathy and ‘uncontrolled officialism’. The activity of social democrats, which involved capturing positions in the unions, then using those positions as a base for a political career, was said to be undermining the ability of the unions to fight economic battles.[392] It was this rather submerged, more pragmatic stream of thought of the anarchist activists that was to be of more immediate influence in the later stormy period. Freedom can be criticized for smothering particular cases with overgeneralization. Nevertheless the French influence was persistent, if small, in its columns through the years of reaction in the Boer War.

After the Boer War the French syndicalist influence was to be augmented from another direction. This had its origins in battles within the S.D.F. during the war which initially had little to do with direct action and anti-officialism, except insofar as it was directed towards the leadership of that body. A group of Scottish rebels had grown increasingly irritated by the group round Hyndman, who effectively controlled both justice and the organization itself. Their anger was directed at the opportunist and chauvinist backslidings of this controlling group from Marxist principle. Their attacks were given theoretical content by the writings of the American Daniel de Leon and increasingly expressed through the columns of the New York de Leonist newspaper the Weekly People. The rebels controlled the Scottish branches of the S.D.F. and from this base started to produce a paper — the Socialist — in opposition to Justice, from August 1902. Unable to quickly swing the English branches behind them, though there was considerable discontent in the English ranks, they seemed to have resolved on a split at an early date. The crunch came in 1903 at the S.D.F. annual conference, and the Scots — who were expelled — returned to form a separate party, the Socialist Labor Party (S.L.P.), named, on James Connolly’s blunt suggestion, after the name of de Leon’s American organization. The English Marxist purist malcontents within the S.D.F. were expelled in 1904 and formed a separate Socialist Party of Great Britain (S.P.G.B.) — the precipitate action of the Scots had completely alienated the majority of the more difficultly placed English. The S.P.G.B. — which some wags were later to suggest stood for the ‘Small Party of Good Boys’ — never escaped from the status of completely uninfluential sect. It has been suggested by an informed observer[393] that the S.L.P. would have suffered the same fate had it not been for events in America which de Leon’s disciples in Scotland slavishly copied.

The American S.L.P. had first had a ‘party-centered’ attitude to trades unions which had led to the formation of an initially successful S.L.P.-dominated separatist Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. This was seen as a bulwark against and a refuge from corrupt and opportunist trades unions and their officials (‘labor fakirs’). The emphasis shifted, however, and a number of different groups (including anarchists who approached the question from a different direction) began to give industrial organization the first place and see industrial unionism not only as a transcendence of sectional trades unionism but as the basis of a new socialist society. Industrial unionism both organized the workers as a class and provided the form through which the workers would control industry and society. Political power gained through elections represented only a rubber stamping of a position already gained by industrial action. This shift in emphasis was enthusiastically supported by de Leon and so was its practical outcome, the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), which was formed in 1905. After some confusion the British S.L.P. endorsed this radical shift from orthodox social democratic practice. They assiduously distributed American industrial unionist pamphlets and took steps to set up their own industrial union. In the event a propaganda body, the Advocates of Industrial Unionism, was founded in Binningham in 1907 to form the core of such industrial union.

But the influence of industrial unionist ideas was considerable among all the socialist groups before this time, though the various uses to which these ideas were to be put were not all to the liking of the sectarian and dogmatic S.L.P. It is not at all easy to trace the way in which ideas are adapted and changed, used or discarded, in a culture that is largely unwritten. For all the documentary evidence available to us — files of newspapers, memoirs, conference reports, etc. — we still cannot properly grasp the shifts in atmosphere and ideas that are often of greater importance than any formalization in organizational splits and reshuffles. Nevertheless it is clear that on the speaking pitches, in the arguments in tea shops and pubs, industrial unionism became a topic of importance from about 1904 onwards. The evidence would seem to show that there was a quickening of the pulse of socialist thought by mid-1903. Freedom was writing: “There is not the slightest doubt that we are on the eve of a new revival of the Socialist movement in this and other countries.” It pointed out however that whatever form this new socialism took it would not be social democratic since one of the reasons for its emergence was “precisely the failure of Social Democracy to bring about the great changes which mankind needs.”[394] And Freedom was right.

This sense of waking up is reflected in the anarchist movement in the reports of groups published in Freedom. They do not show a uniformly steady growth. Groups report after having come into being and are full of enthusiasm. A spread of anarchist ideas gets going and then seems to rather fade away — at least as far as reports go. Without the most detailed knowledge of the socialist milieu in a particular town or area of a city at a particular time it is impossible to say to what extent there was a constant anarchist presence. Nor is it possible to accurately gauge the effectiveness of anarchist propaganda when we know it took place. With this in mind it is nevertheless true to say that in London, Leeds, Birmingham, Dundee, Paisley, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford and Hull, a revival of propaganda took place between 1903 and 1905. In London, Sam Mainwaring, the veteran Socialist League anarchist, published two numbers of a paper called The General Strike in September 1903 and March 1904. Mainwaring, a member of the London Trades Council for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, used his experience to give a detailed denunciation of officialism in trades unions. (This was in the context of unofficial action on the Clyde which was crushed because the Engineering Union officials would allow no strike pay.) The paper also gave news of strike movements abroad. As an attempt to apply French syndicalist thinking to English conditions it was a brave start. However, 1904 was a year of quite widespread unemployment, particularly in the engineering trades, and Mainwaring had to leave London for South Wales in search of work. There was no one prepared to carry on the paper and no further issues were published.

The movement in Scotland was less transient in its revival in 1903. Groups were active in Paisley, Dundee and Glasgow, and later in Edinburgh. (The Paisley group formed round a nucleus expelled from Paisley I.L.P. in 1902 for being tainted with anarchist ideas.) The propaganda took the traditional forms of open-air speaking, literature distribution, etc., but as in Mainwaring’s case there was a noticeable shift in emphasis towards syndicalism. Paisley and Glasgow cooperated in bringing out a paper, the Voice of Labor, in January 1904, which urged direct action trades unionism. Only one issue appeared. With this disappointment the head of steam seemed to drop somewhat. Nevertheless a motion at Paisley Trades Council which called upon that body to “come into line with those Trades Unions which stand on the basis of the General Strike” was carried by a large majority.[395] The Dundee anarchists were working on the project of forming “a labor union on Libertarian lines.”[396] The prospects of success for this latter venture are hard to assess. Such a union did not come into existence, yet in 1907 the Dundee anarchists were trying to reform the Jute Workers Union on federalist lines. This project, too, fell through. In Leeds attempts were being made to form an ‘International Revolutionary Labor Union’ in May and June 1906, its object being “to obtain Labor’s immediate demands without resorting to political tactics. In other words, what is known as Direct Action and the General Strike are the means chosen for compelling capitalist concessions while overthrow by revolutionary means is kept constantly in view.”[397] Regular meetings were being held. Nothing more is heard of this experiment shortly after this point, though it is probable that it was of some importance among immigrant Jewish workers.

These unsuccessful beginnings in papers or separatist trades unions are important because they show the direction in which anarchist ideas were running. They show, too, that there was enough confidence (or overconfidence) in the anarchist movement to allow some militants to go ahead with these projects. Poor organization as much as lack of response to their propaganda explains their demise. By 1905 there was beginning to be publicity for French syndicalists in the British press generally. Yet some preparatory work had already been done by the anarchists and the movement as a whole was becoming more extensive and confident despite its early setbacks. Industrial unionist and syndicalist ideas were being absorbed and experimented with. They needed time and changing conditions to bear fruit.

Guy Aldred, a curious figure of some importance in our story, was an obsessively regular attender at open-air meetings from 1902 onwards, in “North London, Clerkenwell Green, Hyde Park and other centers of discussion.” In him we have a particular example of the way in which these new ideas were developing. In his memoirs,[398] in accounts of his activities which betray a colossal egoism, we can find tantalizing glimpses of the incredible variety of causes espoused as a myriad of religious, free-thought and political speakers as well as pure cranks battled for a hearing. This variety both explains the general development of ideas more as a process of seepage than anything else and also demonstrates the difficulty of separating one ideological strand from many. Aldred himself developed from a Christian ‘boy preacher’ to a free-thought propagandist. By March 1905 (at the age of eighteen) he had become a socialist and had joined the S.D.F. and was speaking from their platform in Clerkenwell Green and elsewhere. But by this time he had already been completely unimpressed by de Leon as a person, though he took some note of his ideas. He had heard him speak on Clerkenwell Green in 1904 — the greatest effect being apparently that he read Bakunin as a result of de Leon’s bitter denunciations of anarchism. From the S.D.F. platform Aldred kept up his free-thought propaganda, often mentioned Bakunin in a friendly manner and was being courted by the S.P.G.B. By 1906 he was reading industrial unionist material with quickening interest and, he says, “I studied Anarchism and began to associate with Anarchists.” This eclectic sprint through most of the ideological fields open to him, in late 1906, left him an anti-parliamentarian near-anarchist. It is tempting, if wrong, to see in him a model development. As a necessary corrective perhaps it should be said that W.C. Hart’s book Confessions of an Anarchist, which chronicled the disillusionment of an anarchist militant of the 1890s, was also first published in 1906. If Aldred represented the wave of the future there were also considerable cross-currents.

Nineteen hundred and six was, without doubt, a key year. In January there was a landslide Liberal election victory which brought with it thirty Labor Party M.P.s together with thirteen Liberal-Labor M.P.s representing the miners. Great things were hoped for from the Labor representatives; yet they turned out to be, from the point of view of the socialists, a complete disappointment. They were cautious in the extreme, tail ending the Liberals in most things and did not even allow themselves flamboyant window dressing to please their public. Even the moderate Reformers Hand Book for 1907 had harsh things to say of them: “…their half measures have pleased nobody … On many matters both legislative and administrative they have exhibited an almost incredible political cowardice.” For the more militant socialists this represented the failure of the parliamentary tactic rather than any lack of suitability of the candidates. In John Burns they had an example of a man who had risen to cabinet rank directly out of his fame as a leader of the 1889 dock strike who had apparently lost any sympathy for the people he represented. In the conformist and careful behavior of the Labor members they had an example of the muffling effect that parliament had on socialists. Direct action, industrial unionist and syndicalist propaganda began to appear far more relevant. As Aldred puts it: “My Anti-Parliamentarian and Socialist Revolt against Laborism dates from the elevation of John Burns to Cabinet rank, and the definite emergence of the Labor Party as a factor in British politics.”[399]

The worsening economic condition of the working class deepened the relevance of the new ideas. Between 1900 and 1914 prices steadily rose, with an accelerating rise after 1905. Wages lagged behind the rise in prices and a real drop in living standards was taking place. Depression and unemployment was to hold back active discontent temporarily (though many strikes took place in 1908 in attempts to stop wage cuts) but by 1911 the country’s economy was booming and unemployment was low. This situation encouraged a rise in trades union membership, steady after 1905 and extremely rapid after 1911. At the same time the trades union leaderships were absorbed in parliamentary maneuverings and were nervous of spoiling the election image of the Labor Party and the alliance with the Liberals. Trades union caution was also due to the fact that the leaderships had emerged in the difficult period of the 1890s. The rapidly developing rank-and-file discontent therefore found itself in opposition to parliamentary action as a means of improving their livelihood and found itself frustrated by a cautious and reformist bureaucracy within the unions. Thus the period from the disappointments of 1906 to the explosions of 1910–1914 was a most important one of preparation in an atmosphere of deepening bitterness.

Certain changes had taken place in the nature of the anarchist movement by this time. In the early 1890s the working-class anarchist movement was based on a network of militants who had developed in a libertarian direction within the Socialist League. Commonweal, the Anarchist and Liberty were all edited by ex-Socialist League militants. Freedom and the Torch also involved people who had been intimately involved with the League. Inevitably, therefore, there was a certain ‘party’ sense about the movement at that time. (The phrase ‘anarchist party’ was actually used by some anarchists in this period, though admittedly the word also then had the sense of ‘body of opinion’.) The sense of common organizational origins gave a sense of unity and separateness.[400] With the collapse of every paper except Freedom and the apparent demise of the British anarchist movement this sense was lost. As we have seen, Freedom, now not one of a number of anarchist papers but the anarchist paper, came under attack at the 1897 conference as a middle-class paper, out of touch with the working class, and so on. Various muffled pleas, denunciations and individual initiatives connected with the need for a popular anarchist propaganda paper emerged from time to time. Before 1907, however, no successful attempt was made.

The result was that, though Freedom was used as a medium for national communication between groups by furnishing addresses and so on, the growth of the anarchist movement after the Boer War was not centered on Freedom, nor did it emerge en bloc from any one socialist group as a result of a major split. Its growth was decentralized, originating in the activity of odd local militants, the occasional pamphlet sold through an I.L.P. club bookstall or whatever. The process might be helped by the occasional visit by someone like John Turner, who after 1898 was stumping the country as national organizer for the Amalgamated Shop Assistants Union and delivering speeches to anarchist-sponsored meetings on the side. Contact with the local English-speaking Jewish anarchists could play its part. The various socialist bodies often provided the service for socialists which Marx said capitalism did for the workers: it brought them together and out of their association produced a counter-consciousness. Anarchist groups often emerged from disputes within S.D.F. or I.L.P. branches. So while Freedom and Freedom Press pamphlets could provide some theoretical armament, the growth of the anarchist movement was dependent on local organization. These circumstances firmly placed the anarchists in their immediate socialist milieu and left them open to new currents in all the socialist groupings. They were not just bringing ideas from outside, they were developing them on the spot. This might not be particularly convenient from the historian’s point of view, yet it does explain a pervasive anarchist influence without any apparent strong organization at the center of it.

For if Freedom was the center it was a hollow one. If the militant anarchists were a part of the wider movement, Freedom was apart from it.

It was not a question of the movement controlling the paper — for better or worse the traditional anarchist mode of publishing newspapers has been by an autonomous group more or less sensitive to criticisms from the rest of the movement. There was a group of two involved in publishing Freedom with a passive group of contributors who took little part in editorial activity. Aldred wrote later “…the Freedom Group, at this time, as a group never functioned. I never saw its members and they certainly never held regular meetings. Nor did the group seek converts. It operated as a close corporation or not at all. Its policy was decided by Keell who was incapable of really intelligent decision inspired by imagination; and Marsh whose attitude was dilettante.”[401] The comments are hostile in spirit but substantially true in fact. (Keell had joined Freedom in 1903 as printer, on the illness of Cantwell, who died in December 1906.) Marsh’s ability to keep the paper afloat through the difficult years of the Boer War and reaction was no guarantee that he would be able to take advantage of and speak to the new militancy. Anarchists sold Freedom because there was nothing else, but the critical attitudes of 1897 persisted: Marsh and Keell devoted their energies to Freedom and took no part in the general movement as speakers, etc., and so remained insulated from criticism.

However, one man who had contributed to Freedom and in the loosest sense was a member of the Freedom Group was more in touch with the general movement. This was John Turner. He was in close touch with the Jewish anarchists of the East End[402] and had spoken at many of their meetings. He had achieved some notoriety and much publicity after being refused entry to the United States in 1903, and as an anarchist was held in Ellis Island for several months pending an appeal. As I have said, he used his job to enable him to speak to meetings up and down the country and seems to have been an able exponent of anarchist ideas. Since his contributions to Freedom were on labor topics and he was himself a trades union official the new mood in the working class was immediately apparent to him. He took steps to publish a paper which would fill the need for popular propaganda and which was to be used as a base round which to organize ‘direct actionist and anarchist groups’. This was the Voice of Labor, the first number of which was published in January 1907 as a weekly — the first such anarchist paper since the Commonweal.

The paper ran until September of the same year. Its policy was outlined in its first issue: “Direct Action … is what we stand for … we shall insist at every turn that nothing is gained without activity in organization, in agitation, in the Strike in all its forms and that only by these means will the workers in the end be able to claim their own.” This activity was constantly counterposed to parliamentary passivity in every issue of the paper. Yet though the paper was written in a much more punchy style than Freedom and though the coverage of labor disputes in Britain and abroad was full and relevant, there were developing contradictions in the paper. The direct action talked of by John Turner was action instigated and directed by the official structures of the unions. His propaganda was fundamentally directed towards trades unionists and was designed to encourage them to fight directly for gains in wages and conditions rather than allowing Parliament to mediate these demands. Even here he was prepared to compromise. For example, his union, the Shop Assistants, was committed to abolishing the ‘living-in’ system, where employes not only lost a job if they were sacked but also lost a roof over their heads. This commitment was being followed through with some success by industrial action, but at the same time the Shop Assistants Union-sponsored M.P. was pressing for legislation to make the living-in system non-compulsory. John Turner’s comment was only that industrial action might well succeed before the bill was made law.[403] Thus Turner stood for militant official trades unionism, though he was prepared to countenance parliamentary action if it had any prospects of success.

What he did not understand, and in his position probably could not understand, was the rising tide of anti-officialism in the unions. When revolts against the officials of a union took place it was his opinion that it was because the officials were not doing their job and they had to be weaned from whoring after parliamentary gods in order to do so. It does not seem to have occurred to him that the question which was to be increasingly put was: Who should control the unions, the officials or the membership? Militant reformist leadership might reduce tension, but it could not abolish the developing horizontal split in the unions.

Much can be explained by John Turner’s experiences.[404] From the time of the Harrow Road ‘riots’ in 1891 until its amalgamation with another small union in 1898, Turner had been the (unpaid) president of the United Shop Assistants Union. On amalgamation the total membership of the union was approximately 700. Turner became paid national organizer and threw himself into a recruiting drive around the country. The membership grew rapidly as a result of prodigious efforts on his part. But his experiences in the ‘United’ Union had brought about a change of approach. Branches then had come into being as different workplaces had come into conflict with their employers and then faded away as victory or defeat seemed to make union membership less important or more dangerous. Now Turner, to ensure a stable membership, had introduced unemployment and sickness benefits and as a result had members “of a good type, paying what was, for those days, a fairly high contribution.” His policy worked, but he was now primarily organizing a union, whereas previously he had been primarily organizing conflicts with employers. By 1907 the pressure had relaxed somewhat and Turner was a fairly comfortably off trades union official of some importance. By 1910 the Shop Assistants Union had a membership of 13,000 in the London area, making it the largest union in the district.[405] In 1912 John Turner became president of the union. Although he called himself an anarchist until he died it did not show itself in his union activities. Heartbreaking experience as it might have been, the small union before 1898 had been anarchistic, that after 1898 was no different to the other ‘new’ unions either in power distribution or policy. There were straws in the wind by 1906. The executive of the union was being seen in some quarters as a bureaucratic interference with local militancy and initiative.[406] And complaints were to grow. By 1909 Turner was being accused from one quarter of playing the “role of one of the most blatant reactionaries with which the Trades Union movement was ever cursed.”[407]

Thus though he was, theologically speaking, an anarchist, his social position made him a somewhat anomalous editor of a paper preaching direct action. Things started quite well. Turner recruited Aldred after hearing his progressively anarchistic speeches from the S.D.F. platform on Clerkenwell Green. Aldred, whatever his faults, was blessed with incredible energy, and he was soon speaking at open-air meetings the length and breadth of London. A number of already existing anarchist groups were federated to form the rather grand-sounding Industrial Union of Direct Actionists (I.U.D.A.). There were six groups in London, at Clerkenwell, Lambeth, Plaistow, Walthamstow, Walworth and Whitechapel. Outside London there were groups at Leeds, Liverpool, Dover and, peculiarly enough, Weston-super-Mare. Involved in this venture were old Socialist League anarchists like F. Goulding and Charles Mowbray, as well as new militants like Charles Lahr, A. Ray, F. Large, Beavan (Liverpool), Melinsky (Leeds) and S. Carlyle Potter (Dover).[408] This federation should not be taken seriously. Each of the groups concerned carried on much as before with their open-air propaganda. The elaborate business with which Aldred surrounded the I.U.D.A. did not alter the situation materially. Nevertheless 1907 was a year of increasing activity among anarchists. The Voice of Labor, though never out of financial difficulties, had a rising circulation (though no figures were provided) which continued to rise despite an experiment in bringing out ½d [halfpenny] editions which newsagents refused to sell.[409] There were hopes that the paper might soon become self-supporting. Yet the paper suspended publication in September. The reasons given were financial. There was more to it than that.

Aldred was with John Turner — apart from the foreign correspondents — the most regular contributor to the Voice of Labor. His memoirs indicate that Turner had rather taken him under his wing. Yet Aldred could not but be aware of Turner’s position as a trades union official and the hostility towards such people in industrial unionist material. (The S.L.P., for example, did not allow trades union officials to join.) The break came after Aldred’s visit to Liverpool in late August 1907. Liverpool had provided critics of the Freedom Group in previous years. This critical attitude did not seem to have changed and Aldred reports that “the local comrades anxiously discussed with me Kropotkin’s relationship to the Freedom Group.” Aldred continues, “On my return to London I gradually fell out ‘with the Freedom Anarchists. … Their Anarchy was merely Trade Union activity which they miscalled Direct Action. Their anger knew no bounds when I insisted that Trades Unionism was the basis of Labor Parliamentarianism. … In 1907 I denounced John Turner as a Labor Fakir. The description was correct and was uttered when challenge drew it forth.”[410] The occasion was a shop assistants’ strike in Kentish Town when Aldred refused “to write an article in the Voice of Labor booming J. Turner’s conduct … when we knew he was acting treacherously towards the parties concerned and sending Anarchism to the devil into the bargain.”[411]

The Voice of Labor collapsed through internal dissension as much as lack of cash. John Turner was to be a regular speaker at the larger anarchist meetings in the London area and to write pieces in Freedom. He also spoke on behalf of Mann’s organization, the Industrial Syndicalist Education League. But the Voice of Labor was to be his last real agitational effort in the movement for twenty years. From this point on he increasingly turned to purely trades union matters. Aldred however never ceased to play the role of agitator. In fact in the last issue of the Voice of Labor an advertisement appeared for a new fortnightly journal, the Herald of the Revolt, to be edited by Aldred and scheduled to appear on the first Saturday in October 1907.

For one reason and another the Herald of Revolt did not appear until 1910. Firstly there were difficulties over printing a number of pamphlets. Then Aldred became involved with Rose Witcop (the seventeen-year-old youngest sister of Milly Witcop, the companion of Rudolf Rocker). Though the relationship was sober enough in all conscience it caused domestic ructions on both sides. (These were not soothed by a pamphlet by Aldred published in late 1907 advocating free love.) The result was that Aldred and Rose Witcop set up home in Shepherd’s Bush, a suburb on the then far west of London — well away, in fact, from their previous East London haunts. Here Aldred began a local propaganda, and the rather artificially constructed I.U.D.A. fell into its constituent parts. Since the Herald of Revolt was apparently intended to fill the gap left by the demise of the Voice of Labor and to be the I.U.D.A. journal, the immediate purpose of the paper disappeared. Then in 1909 he became involved in publishing a paper called the Indian Sociologist, which resulted in a twelve-month jail sentence. The paper, published from Paris by a group of Indian nationalists, had been printed in England for three issues. It had been suppressed when a prominent Indian civil service officer was assassinated in London by an Indian nationalist. Aldred took it upon himself to print another issue of the paper because it was banned rather than because he agreed with the aims of Indian nationalism. He was speedily arrested and jailed.[412]

Yet despite the absence of a popular anarchist propaganda paper the movement continued to grow. In November 1907 the movement in London was reported as gaining strength. The same month a conference was held in Manchester and the ‘International Anarchist Federation of the English Provinces’ was formed. This was intended to make speaking tours possible by sharing expenses where possible and to help isolated anarchists to conduct propaganda. The following month a meeting of the Federation numbering forty delegates had representatives from Manchester, from two groups in Liverpool, from Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow and Southport. Groups were being formed in Birmingham, Sunderland and, hopefully, in Burnley. And this time the activity was sustained.

In Liverpool during 1908 the anarchists “set themselves the task of building up an industrial organization, appealing to all who can act in sympathy from a class-conscious and non-parliamentary viewpoint to assist.”[413] Discussions were being held with the I.L.P. and S.D.F. members and had met with an initially enthusiastic response. The experiment foundered, whether because of the militant anti-parliamentary attitudes of the anarchists or because of nervousness of losing initiative on the part of the other groups involved. This was a most successful propaganda exercise, however, since the questions of syndicalism, direct action and anti-parliamentarianism had been hotly discussed for several months. The Liverpool Direct Action Group kept on pounding away at their syndicalist propaganda.

In 1908 the anarchists were active in the unemployed agitation in Leeds, where some 15,000 people were out of work. Following on their propaganda a ‘Leeds Non-Political Committee on Unemployment’ of 350 people was formed. Its aims were to organize the unemployed on the basis of direct action throughout the United Kingdom; to block manipulation by political parties; to assess the extent of unemployment and distress; and to organize unemployed and employed together to demand their full share of production. The unemployed were holding two meetings a day in Victoria Square with thousands present and were addressed by speakers including Kitson, an anarchist described as “the organizer of the unemployed.” On 17^th September, a crowd of 5,000 gathered at 9pm to demand that the 200 people who had not eaten that day be fed. The mayor was sent for (it appears he thought it politic to come) and a deputation waited on him “stating that if the hungry people did not get food that night in a peaceful manner they would have to get it by force.” Seven pounds was hurriedly gathered together and spent on food at midnight.[414] At a demonstration on 24^th September, 20,000 people were present and propaganda was started to organize a No Rent campaign to force aid for the unemployed.

However the authorities had their revenge. A joint demonstration of unemployed and suffragettes was attacked by the police when it attempted to hand in resolutions to Asquith, who was visiting. Kitson was rather badly beaten and arrested. His arrest brought Charley Kean from Birmingham who continued the agitational work. When he left, however, the agitation degenerated and fell into the hands of “politicians” who indulged in “mere begging,” to quote Freedom. In Deptford, London, a vigorous ‘direct action’ unemployment agitation was likewise under way and led to several clashes with the police and a number of arrests.

By September 1909 the London anarchists had held conferences to discuss a maximum use of their propaganda forces and had established eight regular speaking pitches. These were manned by a group of speakers including Ray, Ponder, Kitz, Pain, Barrett and others. This did not include other people who were speaking more irregularly — or individualistically — in Hyde Park, Regent’s Park or Victoria Park and other places. At the same time debates with I.L.P. and S.D.F. branches increased and a common understanding was beginning to develop with sections of the industrial unionists — particularly with the Industrialist League. Similarly, outside London new groups were emerging in Leicester, Bradford and Huddersfield. Propaganda was conducted in Edinburgh, Kilmarnock, Paisley, Darlington and Hull, which indicates that even if there were no groups in some of these places, there were contacts with individuals. In the provinces, too, the emphasis seems to have been on syndicalist, direct-action and industrial unionist ideas.

There had been developments in these ideas. As we have seen, John Turner had tried to adapt French syndicalism to orthodox English trades unionism. There were anomalies in his position, yet it was the one largely taken by Tom Mann in following years and represented one persistent aspect of the upsurge. A persistently grumbling anti-officialism was more audible in industrial unionist quarters. Here too there had been adaptations to English conditions. The S.L.P. had formed the British Advocates of Industrial Unionism in 1907, which was as far as they felt able to go in forming an organization on the pattern of the I.W.W. When the I.W.W. split in 1908 after political action ceased to be an aim of the organization a split developed within the B.A.I.U. The ‘anti-political’ faction in which E.J.B. Allen was prominent — he had been editor of the B.A.I.U. paper, the Industrial Unionist — set up a paper in London in June 1908 called the Industrialist. Its anti-parliamentarianism at this point was pragmatic and represented a reading of de Leonism in conflict with the de Leonists. Since economic power preceded political power for the bourgeoisie, the argument ran, this must be the case for the working class. Economic power for the working class “consists in their unity and organization on class lines in the workshops.”[415] Until this was achieved there was no point in parliamentary action. The membership of the B.A.I.U. included members of the various parties who believed in parliamentary action, as well as those — like the anarchists — who did not. But they had come together “to help to bring about revolutionary unity in the field of industry which must precede all efficient action of whatever sort by the working class.”

As a result of the publication of the Industrialist, the group responsible were expelled from the B.A.I.U. by its S.L.P.-dominated executive and another organization, the Industrialist League, was set up. This started with seven branches — all in London except for one in Tredegar and a number of contacts elsewhere — but by August 1909 it was boasting fourteen branches spread round the country. They were concerned at this point to make it plain that they were not an anarchist body, though anarchists were free to join.[416] Yet there were interlocking activities by both anarchists and the Industrialist League. Jewish tailoring workers in the East End who broke away from the A.S.T. over the question of sympathy strikes and who were heavily influenced by Rocker’s group round the Workers’ Friend were helping the Industrialist League speakers.[417] E.J.B. Allen spoke at the anarchist Chicago commemoration meeting at the Charlotte Street club together with Ponder, an anarchist member of the Industrialist League, Rocker and Malatesta. He also spoke at the Charlotte Street club the following month on ‘Anti-Parliamentarianism’.[418] It has to be admitted, however, that E.J.B. Allen’s relationship with Freedom became somewhat cold after the publication of his pamphlet ‘Revolutionary Unionism’ in June 1909. In the section entitled ‘The Treachery of Officials’ he detailed a couple of cases of bureaucratic demobilization by the executive of the Shop Assistants Union — of which John Turner was a member. And while Turner himself rather humorously pooh-poohed these cases, Keell, who had already fallen out with Aldred over Turner’s position, could not be expected to remain friendly. The Industrialist had, at first, been printed by Keell. It found new printers.

Yet despite this contretemps the anarchist influence within the Industrialist League continued to grow, though it was resisted by some members. (One member, Ponder, was in fact expelled for trying to commit the Industrialist League as a whole to an anarchist line.) In April 1909 the Newcastle anarchists reported that they were forming a club to enable closer cooperation with Industrialists. Anarchists were being invited to speak to Industrialist League branches. In Bradford when the Industrialist League speakers did not turn up for the May Day meeting in 1910 the anarchists were invited to substitute “as kindred spirits.” Joint meetings were held, and so on. In fact in some places the Industrialist League proved to be a stepping stone directly to anarchism. In November 1910 an anarchist group in Plymouth reported for the first time in Freedom. A group had been expelled from the Plymouth S.D.F. for preaching direct action rather than parliamentary politics. A minority had joined the S.L.P., while the majority joined the Industrialist League. After they had been introduced to anarchism by J. Walters, however, this latter body formed themselves into an anarchist-communist group. The same thing was to happen with the Hull Branch of the Industrialist League where a large majority of the branch seceded in 1912 to form an anarchist group.

The Industrialist League was the largest of the anarchist-influenced industrial unionist groupings. There were several other small groups, however, which had syndicalist and industrial unionist leanings. One of these, the ‘Revolutionary Unionists’, with members in Liverpool and Brighton became, in Liverpool at least, an integral part of one anarchist group. Perhaps one further point could be made. The Ruskin College strike of early 1909 by left-wing working-class students against the paternalist and anti-socialist administration led rapidly to the formation of a new body, the Central Labor College. This institution proved a very fertile source of creative thinking in the Syndicalist Revolt. Something has been made of contacts between the Ruskin rebels and the S.L.P. Whatever their influence it could not have much affected the influence from another quarter. Ferd Charles, the Walsall anarchist and ex-prisoner, not only had a place on the management committee of the new college as a member of the Oxford Cooperative Society but also acted as a “lecturer and tutor in industrial and political history.”[419] These positions he held from 1909 until the college moved to London in mid-1911. He was very probably the means whereby George Davison, an extremely rich ‘philosophical anarchist’, became a considerable financial supporter of the Labor College from about 1910 until 1914.

Thus when Tom Mann returned from Australia in 1910 to put his enormous personal prestige and organizational ability behind the simmering revolt the ground had been prepared. Economically, working-class conditions were being undermined. The trades union hierarchy remained largely wedded to parliamentarianism and moderation, and as union membership increased became increasingly bureaucratic. Yet Parliament had proved an ineffective tool with which to improve the living conditions of the working class and moderation among the officials had curbed effective direct action. The ideas of syndicalism taken from foreign anarchist practice and British anarchist propaganda, and industrial unionism taken from American sources (also influenced by anarchism), had prepared the way ideologically. The result was an explosion of industrial revolt of unprecedented extent and sustained power.