Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Socialist Labour Party was a socialist political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It was established in 1903 as a splinter from the Social Democratic Federation

Social Democratic Federation

The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...

(SDF) by James Connolly

James Connolly

James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of...

, Neil Maclean and SDF members impressed with the politics of the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

socialist Daniel De Leon

Daniel De Leon

Daniel DeLeon was an American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1890 until the time of...

, a Marxist theoretician and leading figure of the Socialist Labor Party of America. After decades of existence as a tiny organisation, the group was finally terminated in 1980.

Formation

The British Socialist Labour Party began as a faction

Political faction

A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...

of the Social Democratic Federation

Social Democratic Federation

(SDF) headed nationally by Henry Hyndman

Henry Hyndman

Henry Mayers Hyndman was an English writer and politician, and the founder of the Social Democratic Federation and the National Socialist Party.-Early years:...

. A group of Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

members of the organisation, led by an engineering worker named George Yates

George Yates (politician)

-Biography:An engineering draughtsperson, Yates became an active trade unionist in Leith, Scotland, and joined the Social Democratic Federation...

, strongly criticised the party leadership of the SDF for supporting the entry of conservative socialist Millerand into the bourgeois French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

cabinet at the 1900 Congress of the Second International

Second International

The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...

. The group attacked the party leadership as reformist

Reformism

Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...

and began to publish their critique abroad in The Weekly People, edited by Daniel DeLeon, official organ of the Socialist Labor Party of America.

The tendency, initially known as the "Glasgow Socialist Society," took over publication of James Connolly

James Connolly

's newspaper, The Socialist
The Socialist (SLP newspaper)
The Socialist was the newspaper of the Socialist Labour Party , a De Leonist organisation in Britain founded in 1903.The newspaper was set up by James Connolly in 1901. He was its first editor, after which George Yates took over. During Yates' editorship, it was the focus of the De Leonists...

, in Scotland in 1902. A purge followed in the SDF at its 1903 Annual Conference, with the dissident

Dissident

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....

radical

Political radicalism

The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...

s denounced as "Impossibilists

Impossibilism

Impossibilism is an interpretation of Marxism. It emphasizes the limited value of reforms in overturning capitalism and insists on revolutionary political action as the only reliable method of bringing about socialism.-Origins of the concept:...

" by the SDF leadership.

On 7 June 1903 the Socialist Labour Party was formally established at a meeting in Edinburgh, with the already extant monthly newspaper The Socialist declared its official organ. The party began with a membership of only about 80 individuals in 4 branches, all in Scotland — two in Edinburgh, one in Glasgow, and one in Falkirk

Falkirk

Falkirk is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies in the Forth Valley, almost midway between the two most populous cities of Scotland; north-west of Edinburgh and north-east of Glasgow....

.

Although deeply influenced by the Socialist Labor Party of America

Socialist Labor Party of America

The Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876 as the Workingmen's Party, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has...

, members of the fledgling British organisation sought their intellectual independence from the start. Whereas the American SLP strongly opposed advancing ameliorative "immediate demands," the new British organisation did not follow, instead initially choosing to adopt a programme of immediate demands matching those of the SDF from whence it sprung. Indeed, there was some discussion as to whether the new party should adopt an altogether different name so as to further delineate themselves from their American counterparts. Trade unionist Tom Bell

Tom Bell (politician)

Thomas "Tom" Bell was a Scottish socialist politician and trade unionist. He is best remembered as a founding member of both the Socialist Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain and as the editor of Communist Review, the official monthly magazine of the latter.-Early years:Thomas...

, a delegate to the inaugural conference, later recalled:

"The question of the name of the new party required a little thought. We were anxious not to created the impression which the official SDF was trying to encourage, that we were only the tools of the American SLP. We thought of 'Republican Socialist Party,' etc., etc. It was Connolly who with characteristic directness proposed 'The Socialist Labour Party.' 'It doesn't matter what you call yourself,' he declared, 'you'll be dubbed the SLP anyway.' And the SLP we became."

Radical Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

nationalist and trade union leader James Connolly attempted to play a vital role in the British SLP's formative days, energetically traveling back and forth across Scotland, addressing dozens of meetings on behalf of the organisation. His efforts were largely ineffectual, however, as no major influx of Scottish workers into the SLP's ranks was forthcoming. The party's development was further hampered by Connolly's departure to the United States in September 1903, exacerbated by the resignation of the editor of The Socialist, George Yates, that same month. Still, the tiny group managed to persevere, with a young engineer named Neil Maclean serving as National Secretary.

As was the case with the American party of the same name, from which it drew inspiration, the Socialist Labour Party considered itself a highly principled and uncompromising organisation. The group refused to work in tandem with "reformists" such as those populating the SDF or the Independent Labour Party

Independent Labour Party

The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...

. The SLP instead focused on producing and distributing its own propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

, leaflets, pamphlets, and papers calling for establishment of a bloc of industrial unions as a necessary first step to socialist revolution

Revolution

A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

. The group insisted that its members should avoid taking part in unemployment

Unemployment

Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...

demonstrations as these were "sentimental" and built false hopes in the viability of the existing system. Echoing the perspective of the American SLP, the majority of the Scottish SLP argued for the use of political action for propaganda and publicity purposes.

The SLP was a highly disciplined

Party discipline

Party discipline is the ability of a parliamentary group of a political party to get its members to support the policies of their party leadership. In liberal democracies, it usually refers to the control that party leaders have over its legislature...

and centralised

Centralization

Centralisation, or centralization , is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, become concentrated within a particular location and/or group....

organization. Following the lead of its American counterpart, it mandated that its central press should be directly owned by the party. The party sought to enforce the ideological purity of its printed propaganda through a strict requirement that no branch be able to distribute any literature not previously approved by the SLP's Executive Committee. The party saw the path to socialist revolution blocked by a conservative bureaucracy

Bureaucracy

A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...

at the top of the established trade union movement, committed to a "pure and simple" policy of increasing wages and improving conditions in the shop rather than fighting for socialist organization of industry as a whole. Instead, the party sought to establish a network of explicitly socialist unions which would do battle with the so-called "labour fakirs" of the existing union movement. The organization never had sufficient numbers to carry its professed desires into action, however.

The Socialist Labour Party remained headquartered in Scotland, the location of an overwhelming percentage of its members, although it did establish some individual members and small section in Northern England, especially Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. The organization was thus well-placed to play a leading role in the Red Clydeside

Red Clydeside

Red Clydeside is a term used to describe the era of political radicalism that characterised the city of Glasgow in Scotland, and urban areas around the city on the banks of the River Clyde such as Clydebank, Greenock and Paisley...

movement. They had a great deal of influence on the Clyde Workers Committee, but failed to win it to socialism. Other members, such as J.T. "Jack" Murphy, were influential in the Sheffield Workers Committee and gradually abandoned the DeLeonist strategy of creating dual unions, coming to adopt the strategy of working within existing unions and "boring from within" in an effort to win them to their ideas.

The question of international affiliation

The new party determined to send a delegation to the 1904 Amsterdam Congress

International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904

The International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 was the Sixth Congress of the Second International It was held from 14 to 18 August 1904.The Congress was held in the Gebow, Amsterdam....

of the Second International

Second International

and selected a group of five to represent the organisation there. Upon arriving, the SLP Scots were told by the credentials committee of the congress to submit their credentials for participation to the British delegation, a group which included the rival Social Democratic Federation. The SLP delegation refused and were excluded from the congress for the remainder of the proceedings. This experience served to heighten the suspicion of the party towards the International and the party remained henceforth unaffiliated.

Following the Congress, the leading figure of the American SLP, party editor Daniel DeLeon, paid his Scottish followers a visit en route home to America. A historian later recalled that "DeLeon's visit was no more than a moderate success. His speeches savoured more of the university lecture room than the socialist platform. He had none of the flowering rhetoric at that time deemed essential."

By July 1905 the party had established a total of nine branches, including groups at Oxford, Southampton, Birmingham, and London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The Oxford branch was particularly influential, with the party making inroads with the trade unionists enrolled at Ruskin College and the party's literature playing a role in the local strike movement as well as the establishment of the Central Labour College

Central Labour College

The Central Labour College was a British higher education institution supported by trade unions. It functioned from 1909 to 1929.The college was formed as a result of the Ruskin College strike of 1909. The Plebs' League, which had been formed around a core of Marxist students and former students of...

and Plebs League.

The SLP published a wide array of literature from the Marxist canon and emerged as the single most important distributor of Marxist literature in Great Britain. IIt has been noted that "there can have been scarcely a single person involved in the foundation of the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

who was not, at some time, influenced by the SLP and its literature.

The industrial unionism of the IWW

In 1905 in the United States there was established the Industrial Workers of the World

Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...

(IWW), a revolutionary industrial union which sought to organize workers across all industries as a prelude for the socialist transformation of the economy. American Socialist Labor Party theoretician Daniel DeLeon was among the radical leaders who joined together to establish the new organisation — a group which included Eugene V. Debs

Eugene V. Debs

Eugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...

of the Socialist Party of America

Socialist Party of America

The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...

and William "Big Bill" Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners

Western Federation of Miners

The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...

. Parallel attempts to establish the IWW organisation were made in Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and elsewhere.

The leadership of the Glasgow-based Socialist Labour Party was quick to follow the lead of DeLeon and the American SLP, giving hearty endorsement of the new IWW organisation. This decision came at the cost of nearly tearing the British SLP asunder, however. Socialist Labour Party activist Tom Bell

Tom Bell (politician)

, then a 24-year old in charge of the party's literature department remembered in his autobiography about the 1905 decision to endorse the IWW:

"[The decision] was so sharp and radical, and so opposed to our traditional attitude towards the leaders of the trade unions and Socialist Party, as to cause a certain confusion in our midst.... There was resentment at...committing the party to such a change of policy without discussion.... We had fierce discussions in Glasgow on the question of policy and finally, with a majority group in our branch, I resigned from the party. We remained outside for nearly a year."

Despite its espousal of revolutionary industrial unionism, the SLP still believed in use of the ballot box for educational purposes in the short term and as a transformative tool in the future, when the working class had come over to its ideas. It maintained its party organisation but established a propaganda group, the British Advocates of Industrial Unionism. Some party members took the ideas of the bitterly anti-political IWW to heart with fervour. In 1908 a syndicalist minority tendency, the Industrialist Union, headed by E. J. B. Allen, organised itself and exited the SLP, disclaiming all political work.

With eyes to America, the SLP started its own federation of industrial unions, akin to the Industrial Workers of the World. The British incarnation, established in February 1906, was known as the British Advocates of Industrial Unionism (BAIU). This group was essentially a propaganda society at its inception, attempting to disseminate the ideas of Daniel DeLeon about revolutionary industrial unionism. This group was reorganized in 1909 as the Industrial Workers of Great Britain

Industrial Workers of Great Britain

The Industrial Workers of Great Britain was a group which promoted industrial unionism in the early 20th century.The Industrial Workers of the World was founded in Chicago in 1905. It called for industrial unionism and aimed to organise workers in all industries, and many of its activists were...

, with a move made to actually recruit industrial unionists in opposition to the established trade union officialdom, regarded by the SLP as among the most bitter and incorrigible enemies of the radical working class. Goals and desires notwithstanding, the tiny SLP was singularly unsuccessful in its efforts to challenge the established unions of the TUC.

Purity had come at a price. The staunchly anti-reformist, anti-compromise, impossibilist

Impossibilism

SLP found itself largely isolated from the British working class, a small sect

Sect

A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

in a big working class ocean. The party's agitation for industrial unionism did have appeal to others in the radical political sphere, however. The idea of industrial unionism permeated the left wing of the Social Democratic Federation, becoming more or less a permanent ideological feature of that organization and its successor after 1911, the British Socialist Party

British Socialist Party

The British Socialist Party was a Marxist political organisation established in Great Britain in 1911. Following a protracted period of factional struggle, in 1916 the party's anti-war forces gained decisive control of the party and saw the defection of its pro-war Right Wing...

. This common orientation, a rejection of traditional craft-based trade unionism and towards industrial unionism including unskilled workers, was to make the call for a new Communist Party an appeal which many SLP activists found impossible to resist.

The SLP and the emerging communist movement

As a result of their work in the industrial field and their relentless focus on educational work, something they had in common with Scottish radical John MacLean

John MacLean

John MacLean may refer to:* John MacLean , US musician, formerly of Six Finger Satellite, now of The Juan MacLean* John MacLean , professional ice hockey player and coach...

of the BSP, the SLP had grown to the point at which it could claim over 1,000 members in 1919. Their official organ, The Socialist, boasted a circulation of 8,000 by the start of the next year.

The Socialist Labour Party was also extremely active in publicizing the struggle for national self determination then taking place in Ireland. That one of the leaders of the Irish national liberation struggle, James Connolly, had also been a founder of the SLP being noted proudly by writers in the SLP press in this period.

From 1918, excited by the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

success in the Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

, the SLP opened talks with the British Socialist Party

British Socialist Party

with the aim of forming a British Communist Party. The leadership could not agree with the BSP's plan to affiliate the new party to the Labour Party, however, and refused to join in the foundation of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

This decision by the party leadership incensed many rank and file

Rank and file

In politics and labor unions the rank and file are the individual members of an organization, exclusive of its leadership. The phrase originated in the military, denoting the horizontal "ranks" and vertical "files" of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the noncommissioned officers....

members of the organization. A section of the organization, including key figures such as shop steward movement activist Jack Murphy

J. T. Murphy

J.T. "Jack" Murphy was an English trade union organiser and Communist.-Early years:J.T. Murphy, best known by his nickname of "Jack," was born in 1888 and grew up near Sheffield and became a metal-worker...

formed an organised faction

Political faction

called the Communist Unity Group

Communist Unity Group

The Communist Unity Group was a small communist organisation in the United Kingdom.The origins of the group lay in the Socialist Labour Party...

, which ultimately left the SLP to join the CPGB at its founding convention in the summer of 1920. Other leading members of the SLP such as Arthur MacManus

Arthur MacManus

Arthur MacManus was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician.-Political career:MacManus joined the De Leonist Socialist Labour Party and began work at Singers in Clydebank, then known as part of the Red Clydeside...

and William Paul also joined. The loss of such key activists was a great blow to the SLP.

Decline and final disbanding

A small remnant of the SLP was reorganised by William Cotten and survived for many years. Although the party seems to have been moribund by the 1960s it was revived by younger people and only finally dissolved in 1980.

One splinter group in Edinburgh, the British Section of the International Socialist Labour Party, turned towards Trotskyism

Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...

and became the Revolutionary Socialist Party

Revolutionary Socialist Party (UK)

The Revolutionary Socialist Party, initially known as the International Socialist Labour Party, was a political party in Britain. It emerged out of a Scotland-based faction of the Socialist Labour Party, which had left the SLP in the early 1930s. The party was mainly based in Edinburgh, where it...

, fusing with the Revolutionary Socialist League

Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1938)

The first RSL was formed in early 1938 with the merger of two different parties, the Marxist League led by Harry Wicks and the Marxist Group led by C. L. R. James....

in 1938.

Conferences of the SLP

{| class="wikitable"

|-
! Year
! Name
! Location
! Dates
! Delegates
|-
! 1903
| align="center" | Inaugural Conference
| align="center" | Edinburgh
| align="center" | 7 June
| align="center" |
|-
! 1904
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! 1905
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! 1906
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! 1907
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
|-
! 1908
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
| align="center" |
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|-
Source: Raymond Challinor, The Origins of British Bolshevism, passim.
|}

Prominent members

E.J.B. Allen
Ernest John Bartlett Allen
Ernest John Bartlett Allen was a British socialist active in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.Allen was born in South Hinksey, Berkshire and graduated from Oxford University...
Tom Bell
John S. Clarke
John Smith Clarke
John Smith Clarke was a British lion tamer, politician, poet, newspaper editor and art expert.-Early years:...
James Connolly
James Connolly
James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of...

David Kirkwood
David Kirkwood
David Kirkwood, 1st Baron Kirkwood, PC was a socialist from the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, viewed as a leading figure of the Red Clydeside era.Kirkwood was educated at Parkhead Public School and was trained as an engineer....
Arthur MacManus
Arthur MacManus
Arthur MacManus was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician.-Political career:MacManus joined the De Leonist Socialist Labour Party and began work at Singers in Clydebank, then known as part of the Red Clydeside...
Neil Maclean

John William Muir
John William Muir
John William Muir was the editor of The Worker who was prosecuted under the Defense of the Realm Act for an article criticising the war....
J.T. "Jack" Murphy
J. T. Murphy
J.T. "Jack" Murphy was an English trade union organiser and Communist.-Early years:J.T. Murphy, best known by his nickname of "Jack," was born in 1888 and grew up near Sheffield and became a metal-worker...
William "Bill" Paul
William Paul (British politician)
William Paul , often known as Willie or Bill Paul, was a British socialist politician.Born in Glasgow, Paul became an active socialist and joined the Socialist Labour Party . In 1911, he moved to Derby, where he ran a market stall selling hosiery and drapery...
George S. Yates
George Yates (politician)
-Biography:An engineering draughtsperson, Yates became an active trade unionist in Leith, Scotland, and joined the Social Democratic Federation...