Communist League (UK, 1919)

Political party in United Kingdom

Communist League

Abbreviation| CL
Leader| Guy Aldred
Founded| 16 March 1919 (1919-03-16)
Dissolved| Early 1920 (1920)
Split from| Socialist Labour Party
Succeeded by| Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation
Newspaper| The Communist
Ideology| Left communism
Anarcho-communism
Abstentionism
Political position| Far-left

* Politics of United Kingdom
* Political parties
* Elections

Part of a series on

Anarchist communism

Concepts

* Anarchy
* Anti-authoritarianism
* Anti-capitalism
* Anti-statism
* Class consciousness
* Class conflict
* Classless society
* Common ownership
* Common resources
* Commune
* Consensus decision-making
* Co-operative economics
* Egalitarian community
* Free association
* "From each according to his ability,
to each according to his needs"

* General strike
* Gift economy
* Give-away shop
* Market abolitionism
* Mutual aid
* Prefigurative politics
* Primitive communism
* Proletarian internationalism
* Stateless society
* Workers' control
* Worker cooperative
* Workers' council
* Wage slavery

People

* Berkman
* Bleikhman
* Bookchin
* Cafiero
* Covelli
* Déjacque
* Dixon
* Dumartheray
* Durruti
* Faure
* Galleani
* Goldman
* Kropotkin
* Malatesta
* Magón
* Makhno
* Meltzer
* Volin

Organizational forms

* Insurrectionary anarchism
* Platformism
* Synthesis federations
* Anarcho-syndicalism

Literature

* The Conquest of Bread
* Fields, Factories, and Workshops
* Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
* Anarchism and Other Essays
* Now and After
* Post-Scarcity Anarchism

Related topics

* Anarchism
* Autonomism
* Communization
* Council communism
* Left communism
* Libertarian socialism
* Social anarchism

* Anarchism portal
* Communism portal
* Politics portal

* v
* t
* e

Part of a series on

Left communism

Concepts

* Anti-Leninism
* Anti-Stalinist left
* Class consciousness
* Class struggle
* Communism
* Mass strike
* Organic centralism
* Proletarian internationalism
* Workers' council
* World revolution

Movements

* Bordigism
* In China
* Communization
* Council communism
* Situationist International

People

* Jan Appel
* Amadeo Bordiga
* Arrigo Cervetto
* Marc Chirik
* Onorato Damen
* Bruno Fortichiari
* Herman Gorter
* Paul Mattick
* Grandizo Munis
* Gavril Myasnikov
* Sylvia Pankhurst
* Antonie Pannekoek
* Lorenzo Parodi
* Otto Rühle
* Karl Schröder
* Julien Coupat

Organizations

Extant

* Communist Struggle
* Communist Workers' Organisation
* International Communist Current
* International Communist Party
* Internationalist Communist Party
* The Invisible Committee

Defunct

* Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation
* Communist Bulletin Group
* Communist League
* Communist Workers' International
* Communist Workers' Party of Germany
* Forward
* Hunan Provincial Proletarian Revolutionary Great Alliance Committee
* International Socialists of Germany
* League for Proletarian Culture
* Left Communists
* Marxist Working Group
* Revolutionary Socialist Party
* Revolutionary Workers Ferment
* Socialism or Barbarism
* Solidarity
* Workers' Group
* Workers' Opposition
* Workers' Socialist Federation
* Workers' Truth
* Tiqqun

Related topics

* Autonomism
* Classical Marxism
* Impossibilism
* Industrial unionism
* Ultra-leftism
* Workerism

* Communism portal
* Socialism portal
* Politics portal

* v
* t
* e

The Communist League was a small far-left organisation in the United Kingdom which existed during the year of 1919. Its stated goal was to establish a network of workers' councils that would "resist all legislation and industrial action directed against the working class, and ultimately assuming all power, establish a working class dictatorship".[1]

## History

[edit]

Following the Allied victory in World War I and the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution, a growing number of British anarchists became increasingly attracted to Marxist theory and began to synthesize a form of "anarcho-Marxism". This coincided with the re-emergence of anti-parliamentarism within the ranks of many left-wing political parties, including the Independent Labour Party (ILP), Socialist Labour Party (SLP) and British Socialist Party (BSP). This process culminated in an attempt to unite the anarcho-communists with the anti-parliamentary socialists under a single formation, an initiative that was taken up by dissident London branch of the SLP,[2] which in February 1919 proposed the convocation of a unity conference to bring together the nascent British communist movement. The London SLP preemptively drew up a provisional constitution for the new organization, including:[3]

>   1. a call for local workers' committees and councils to aim at seizing the means of production and creating a proletarian dictatorship;
>   2. the ultimate aim of a republic of federated communes;
>   3. and a declaration that the parliamentary vote is obsolete and that direct industrial action should be adopted as an alternative.

The Communist League was founded in March 1919 by the London District Council of the Socialist Labour Party and various anarchist groups in London and Scotland, including Guy Aldred's Glasgow Anarchist Group.[4] The anarchist newspaper Freedom published a report on the founding conference in which it noted that, despite the League not being itself a specifically anarchist organization, its anti-parliamentary program provided a big step in the direction of anarchism for many of its members,[3] while also reporting on early disputes between the League's members over theoretical issues such as "economic determinism" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat".[2]

The establishment of the Communist League was welcomed further in April 1919 at a London anarchist conference, which claimed that the new-found anti-parliamentarism among socialists and communists was due to anarchists' past propaganda work and called for closer cooperation between anarchists and the Communist League, which eventually resulted in a joint conference being held between the two.[2][5] Anarchist criticisms of the League even led to the decentralisation of the organization's governing body into a "Local Delegate's Committee", which followed the anarchist model of elected delegates subject to instant recall, with the aim of preventing the rise of "boss domination and cliqueism".[5]

The League set about "agitating, educating and organizing" the working class, entering into workers' committees in order to develop their class consciousness, which the League argued would eventually lead to the overthrow of capitalism and the committees then taking over the administration of the newly-established communist society.[6] As its official organ, the League began publishing a newspaper, The Communist, in which George Rose remarked that:[2][3]

> we know that there must develop the great working class anti-Statist movement, showing the way to Communist society. The Communist League is the standard bearer of the movement; and all the hosts of Communists in the various other Socialist organisations will in good time see that Parliamentary action will lead them, not to Communism but to that bureaucratic Statism correctly named by Hilaire Belloc the ‘Servile State’.... Therefore, we identify ourselves with the Third International, with the Communism of Marx, and with that personification of the spirit of revolt, Bakunin, of whom the Third International is but the natural and logical outcome.

> — George Rose, May 1919

The organization quickly expanded over the subsequent months, forming a number of branches mostly in London and Scotland. A South Wales branch was also established by coal miners in Treherbert, led by the Welsh trade unionist William Mainwaring, who registered his disagreement with one particularly section of the League's constitution, stating that: "to say [the parliamentary vote] is obsolete will lead many to suppose that it once was useful."[3] The League later entered into negotiations with the aim of merging with other anti-parliamentary communist groups such as the Workers' Socialist Federation (WSF),[3] but this proposal was rejected by the WSF's leader Sylvia Pankhurst.[7] Attempts by Aldred to open discussions with the ILP, the SLP and the BSP did not prove fruitful either.[5]

Although Aldred had expressed in an October 1919 article that the revolutionary moment was "drawing closer and closer together on a platform of practical revolutionary effort", divisions still existed over the question of parliamentary elections. In an attempt to find a "tactical compromise" between the parliamentary position of electoral participation and the anti-parliamentary position of the election boycott, the Communist League decided to imitate Sinn Féin's abstentionist tactic of using elections as a platform for their propaganda, while pledging not to take their seats if elected. When a by-election was called in Paisley, the Communist League attempted to put this proposal into action, offering to support an SLP candidate that stood on an abstentionist platform. However, the local SLP leader William Paul ended up declining the offer to stand entirely and took on the hardline anti-parliamentary position. Declaring that "every vote withheld is a vote for socialism", Paul called for an election boycott that particularly targeted the Labour Co-op candidate John Biggar,[5] resulting in the victory of the Liberal candidate and former Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.

Tensions between the anarchists and the Marxists within the League had also heightened during the latter half of 1919, with fierce debates breaking out over the theoretical differences that had been present in the organization since the founding conference.[3] By the turn of 1920 these tensions completely boiled over, leading to the complete dissolution of the Communist League.[2] Aldred went on to found the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation the following year,[7] while the Stepney branch of the League took part in the establishment of the Communist Party (British Section of the Third International) along with Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Socialist Federation and E. T. Whitehead's Labour Abstentionist Party.[8]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Shipway 1988, p. 12.
2. ^ a b c d e Federation 1996, p. 13.
3. ^ a b c d e f Jones 1991, p. 7.
4. ^ Shipway 1988, pp. 11–12.
5. ^ a b c d Jones 1991, p. 8.
6. ^ Shipway 1988, p. 87.
7. ^ a b Federation 1996, p. 14.
8. ^ Shipway 1988, p. 11.

## Bibliography

[edit]

* Federation, Anarchist Communist (1996). "Anarchist Communism in Britain". Organise! (42). London: 11–18. OCLC 500079933. Archived from the original on 1 April 2006.
* Hayes, Mark (2005). The British Communist Left: a contribution to the history of the revolutionary movement 1914-1945. London: International Communist Current. ISBN 1897980116. OCLC 642281773.
* Jones, Rob (October 1991) [1989]. "Anti-Parliamentarism and Communism in Britain, 1917-1921". Discussion Bulletin. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Industrial Union Caucus in Education. OCLC 13302352. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
* Shipway, Mark (1988). Anti Parliamentary Communism: the movement for workers' councils in Britain, 1917-45. London: Macmillan. ISBN 033343613X. OCLC 468642120.

* v
* t
* e

Far-left politics in the United Kingdom

Groups|

| Extant|

| Marxist–Leninist|

* Communist Party of Britain
* Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
* Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
* Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)
* Communist Party of Ireland
* EPSR Supporters
* Irish Republican Socialist Party
* New Communist Party
* Revolutionary Communist Group
* Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
* Stalin Society
* Workers' Party of Ireland

|

Trotskyist|

* Alliance for Workers' Liberty
* Socialist Action
* Socialist Party (England and Wales)
* Socialist Party (Ireland)
* Socialist Party Scotland
* Socialist Workers Network (Ireland)
* Socialist Workers Party
* WIRFI Supporters
* Workers Revolutionary Party

Anarchist|

* Anarchist Federation
* Class War
* Freedom Press
* Solidarity Federation
* Haringey Solidarity Group

Left Communist|

* Communist Workers' Organisation
* Socialist Party of Great Britain
* Socialist Studies

Miscellaneous|

* 32 County Sovereignty Movement
* Communist League
* Counterfire
* Independent Working Class Association
* Industrial Workers of the World
* London Black Revolutionaries
* Saoradh
* Scottish Socialist Party
* Workers Party of Britain

Electoral alliances|

* Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

Defunct|

| Marxist–Leninist|

* Association of Communist Workers
* Black Unity and Freedom Party
* British and Irish Communist Organisation
* Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity
* Communist Labour Party (Scotland)
* Communist League of Great Britain
* Communist Organisation in the British Isles
* Communist Party of Great Britain
* Communist Party of Scotland
* Communist Workers League of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
* Leiston Communist Party
* Marxist Forum
* Revolutionary Communist League of Britain
* Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent
* Revolutionary Marxist–Leninist League
* Revolutionary Policy Committee
* South Wales Socialist Society
* Straight Left
* Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought
* Workers Party of Scotland
* Working People's Party of England

|

Trotskyist|

* The Club
* Communist Forum
* Communist League (1932)
* Communist League (1990)
* International Group
* International Marxist Group
* International Socialist Group
* International Socialist Group (Scotland)
* International Socialist Network
* League for Socialist Action
* Left Fraction
* Leninist League
* Marxist Group
* Marxist Party
* Marxist Worker
* Militant Group
* Militant Tendency
* Movement for Socialism
* Permanent Revolution
* Red Action
* Revolutionary Communist League (Chartist)
* Revolutionary Communist Party (1944)
* Revolutionary Communist Party (1978)
* Revolutionary Democratic Group
* Revolutionary Socialist League (1938)
* Revolutionary Socialist League (1957)
* Revolutionary Socialist Party
* Revolutionary Workers' Party
* Scottish Militant Labour
* Socialist Appeal
* Socialist Alternatives
* Socialist Democracy Group
* Socialist Group
* Socialist Labour Group
* Socialist Solidarity Network
* Socialist Unity Network
* Solidarity (Scotland)
* Workers' International League (1937)
* Workers' International League (1985)
* Workers' Internationalist League
* Workers League
* Workers' Socialist League

Anarchist|

* Anarchist Federation of Britain
* Anarchist Workers Association
* The Angry Brigade
* King Mob
* Movement Against the Monarchy
* Rose Street Club
* Space Hijackers
* United Socialist Movement
* Walsall Anarchists
* WOMBLES
* Worker's Friend Group

Left Communist|

* Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation
* Communist Party (British Section of the Third International)
* Communist Unity Group
* Revolutionary Socialist Party
* Scottish Workers' Republican Party
* Socialist Labour Party
* Socialist Propaganda League
* Workers' Socialist Federation

Miscellaneous|

* Big Flame
* Common Wealth Party
* International Socialist Group
* Red Star
* Scottish Republican Socialist Movement
* Socialist Union
* Society of Gentlemen Supporters of the Bill of Rights

Electoral alliances|

* Red Front
* Socialist Unity

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template