Agonies of Confusion on the Brain: An Alternative History of the British Left

[morbidteaparty]

I originally thought of this during a (failed) PhD application to study the development and history of the British Left before the outbreak of World War I. Then I failed to secure funding and decided to withdraw my application, and left this to mothball.

Figured it could be interesting to revisit and expand (I seem to be doing this to all of my old timelines at the moment.)

Anyway, it's basically an investigation into the alternative development of the British left during the period.

 

[morbidteaparty]

The Election of 1880: The Natural Party of Government Return to Power

1880 saw the Liberals under the leadership of Lord Hartington (Spencer Cavendish) [1] win a large majority over Benjamin Disraeli's Conservatives to become the governing party for the first time since 1874, in part to the fierce oratory of William Gladstone during the Midlothian Campaign [2].

The election results were as follows:

Liberal Party-352 seats out of 652
Conservative Party-237 seats out of 652
Home Rule League-61 seats out of 652 [3]
Independents-2 seats out of 652 [4]

Following the election, Lord Hartington's government took office with Gladstone as Chancellor and Earl Granville as Foreign Secretary.

[1] The leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons since 1875, due to Gladstone's ill health he became Prime Minister despite his own reservations.
[2] Gladstone's campaign in the seat of Midlothian became noted for his robust stance on Disraeli's failings in foreign policy.
[3] The Home Rule League became Ireland's dominant parliamentary party at this election under the leadership of William Shaw.
[4] Both of whom would eventually join the Liberals. Henry Hyndman, later founder of the Democratic Federation ran for election in the seat of Marylebone but did not win.

 

[morbidteaparty]

The first explicitly socialist party in Britain emerged in the early 1880s, in the quixotic figure of businessman Henry M. Hyndman who supported British imperialism, was ambivalent towards democracy, while simultaneously subscribing to the ideas of the Henry George and the economic analysis of Karl Marx. [1] Hyndman's correspondence with Marx, culminated in the publishing of England for All which introduced Marx's ideas to a wider British audience for the first time, with Hyndman crediting Marx in his introduction. [2] Following the success of England for All, a diverse group of radicals began to coalesce around this quixotic figure, with a mixture of anarchists and socialists forming the informal "Marylebone Set". [3]

Henry M. Hyndman, founder of the Social Democrats
​

In 1881 this informal group founded the Social Democratic Association, as a socialist organisation, though given the diversity of it's membership it's ideological groupings stretched from Marxian thinking to anarchism, as well as a significant minority of trade unionists and land reformers, who viewed the new party as a necessary formation for the development of political socialism. Inspired by the German Social Democrats, the organisation rejected the idea of cooperation with the Liberal Party and the idea of "charitable scraps from the bourgeoise table." The new movement's constitution established a reasonably autonomous executive commitee which counterbalanced the rather domineering personality of Hyndman, who was almost exclusively focused on parliamentary politics. [4]

The commitee founded the movement's newspaper Justice that year, which protested the Liberal government's decision to send a large expiditionary force under the command of General Frederick Roberts to South Africa. [5] The party's first platform called for the establishment of universal suffrage, a 48-hour workweek, the abolition of child labour, compulsory and free and secular education, equality for women, and the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange by a democratic state, which later became known as the Marylebone Manifesto. [6] Despite it's small size (only numbering around three hundred members), the movement's newspaper, Common Justice had a reasonable circulation of around 3,500, and turned a profit giving the movement a degree of financial freedom not enjoyed by other movements. [7]

The fractured nature of it's coalition would soon rear its ugly head however....

BRIEF NOTES

[1] Indeed Hydman's views, which combined traditional Toryism, strong support for British imperialism and a belief in Marxist economics led many of his opponents to label him an exponent of "Red Toryism" or the "Revolutionary Reactionary."
[2] IOTL, Hyndman made no acknowledgement of Marx in his work, deeply offending him resulting in Marx ending his correspondence with Hyndman. ITTL, Hyndman's acknowledgement of Marx results in the new movement receiving a degree of tacit support from Marx and Engels, though the relationship was always at arm's length due to their disdain for the man.
[3] Prominent members included the artist, writer and all round renaissance man William Morris, biologist Edward Aveling, literary translator and Marx's youngest daughter Eleanor, Johann Eccarius a German tailor and trade unionist who had served as the general secretary of the First International in 1867, Robert Gammage a doctor who had been a leading figure in the Chartists of the 1840s, John Bedford Leno a leading Chartist and leader of the Reform League who had led the 1867 Hyde Park protests and the anarchists Frank Kitz and Johann Most, all of whom would be founding members of the SDA.
[4] Hydman's focus on parliamentary politics was one of the many faultlines which existed within the party, with several viewing parliamentary representation as necessary for the propagation of socialism, and others viewing it as detracting from campaigning for workers rights and development of trade unionism. The more hardline Marxian elements and the anarchist wing of the movement opposed parliamentary campaigning on ideological grounds.
[5] Cavendish, who held a more positive view of imperial expansion than his predecessor Gladstone decided to avoid humiliation in South Africa at the hands of the Boers, by despatching a 6,000 strong army of veteran troops under the command of Frederick Roberts, who had served on the Indian frontier and been a leading figure in the Afghan War (1878-1880.)
[6] The founding programme of the SDA was radical in it's demands, and contained a hybrid of ideologies though it displayed a clear Marxian influence.
[7] The small profit turned by the newspaper allowed the SDA to establish their first regional branch outside of London, in Manchester in January of 1882.

 

[morbidteaparty]

"Hyndman can accept only one position in such a body as the SDF, that of master...."


Despite the Social Democratic Association's initial success in establishing itself as a radical movement, it found its membership begin to chafe and fragment under the domineering leadership of Hyndman, who despite the checks on his power established by the autonomous general committee dominated the movement "as a personal fief." The tensions between Hyndman and the committee continued to fester, as Hyndman was a strong backer of the Pretoria Convention [1] which had seen the Boer Republics brought within the British sphere through the formation of the Federation of South Africa. [2] His support for British imperialism stood at odds with his commitment to the establishment of socialism as a viable force within British politics, and was one of the factors which turned the committee against him, though his own personal failings and general dictatorial approach to the party structure certainly contributed. In what later became known as the "Christmas Putsch" within some radical circles, the general committee accused Hyndman of the following:

• Defamation of colleagues for attacking their anarchist convictions at a meeting in Edinburgh. [3]
• Corresponding in the name of the organisation without prior authority and in defiance of the committee's wishes.
• Refusal to allow the Manchester branch to elect its own committee chair, with Hyndman declaring that the branch as subordinate to the London committee.
• Deliberate vetoing of committee proposals, such as plans to ally with trade unions.

Following extensive debate Hyndman was censured by a majority vote in favour of the committee, which pushed for his deposition. When this too was passed with a majority vote Hyndman resigned taking around a fifth of the membership (some hundred members or so) with him, though after his decision to switch his support to the Tory Democracy of Churchill in 1885, saw several of these members desert him and drift back into the SDA or join one of the other radical movements which had sprung up in the 1880s. The organisation elected William Morris as its new President and began shifting its programme to trade union organisation, looking to establish working relationships with the more radical unions. To break from the Hyndman years, the organisation rebranded itself as the Social Democratic Federation, with its newspaper rebranded Today's Justice with a "tripartite" editing committee of Ernest Belfort Bax, Eleanor Marx and William Morris. The movement's expulsion of Hyndman was welcomed by Engels who saw the development as necessary for the organisation's growth.

The logo of the Social Democratic Federation
​

The committee's policy of establishing links with trade unions saw the movement become active within the worker's rights movements of the major cities. The federation's decision to actively campaign for improvements in workers conditions brought into contact with some of the more reformist Christian Socialist elements as well as the London Labour League which represented the dockers and stevedores of London. The Manchester branch, which had been granted the right of committee following the leadership change, had begun to campaign for the improvement in sanitary conditions within worker's housing, as well as fairer rates of pay. It's agitation in both London and Manchester brought it to the attention of the authorities, who regarded it (along with the other socialist movements of the time) with healthy suspicion, with Morris, assistant secretary H.H. Champion and unionist delegate Tom Mann [4] arrested for "disturbing the peace" in early 1884 for giving a speech near Trafalgar Square.

Though the split in the movement between Hyndman and the committee had dented membership figures, the decision to prioritise the trade union's as a vehicle for socialism had begun to pay dividends with the membership gradually increasing to around 850 by the end of 1884, while the circulation of the newspaper remained around a healthy 2,500-3,000, while the increase in profile had seen the SDF begin to cooperate more broadly with other organisations in the pursuit of socialism.

BRIEF NOTES

[1] The Pretoria Convention, following the British victory over the Boer Republics, established the Federation of South Africa, a loosely affiliated federation of the Boer states and British territories which held self-governance (based on the Canadian model.) The convention granted the Boers significant autonomy, though they were now considered imperial subjects. The British decision to send further troops to quell the Boer resistance had come following the initial failure in the face of the Boer's guerrilla tactics. The British, under the command of General Roberts and utilising native knowledge eventually forced the Boers further and further back, occupying Pretoria by the end of 1881. It would be this that forced the Boer Republics to the negotiating table.
[2] The Federation was established with its capital in Cape Town, which was home to the federal parliament which was elected on a system of qualified franchise (which saw the Cape Franchise system extended to the federal elections, though it's qualifications were a minimum property ownership of £55, just over double that of the Cape.) The individual states were allowed to maintain their own franchise systems, while the indirectly elected senate (elected by state parliaments) was established as a counterbalance to the popularly elected House of Assembly.
[3] While the anarchists were a small, relatively insignificant faction of the SDA, the group's charter established that it was open to all of a radical persuasion and its absorption of the Manhood Suffrage League had seen several anarchists enter the organisation. Hyndman's attack on their views at a public convention was seen as sectarianism and "against the spirit of comradeship that we subscribe to."
[4] IOTL, Champion and Mann were founders of the Independent Labour Party, though before that they were active campaigners in the SDF.

 

[morbidteaparty]

In the aftermath of the abdication of Hyndman the SDF had begun to expand into the industrial heartlands of the Midlands and the North, with two branches established in Birmingham and Liverpool in mid-1884. The new leadership, in contrast to Hyndman’s “closed fist” approach pursued a cooperative approach with the other burgeoning socialist movements including what became known as the “Socialist Speeches” held in prominent locations such as Trafalgar Square. [1] This would prove to be controversial, as the Metropolitan Police regarded them as a menace to public order, and the speakers were often detained halfway through a rhetorical flourish. The police’s tactics would soon see the SDF become active in campaigning against “the suppression of socialism”, particularly as the Salvation Army were able to proselytize on the streets without official harassment.

While the committee began to debate their method of protest and agitation against the police, the more intellectual wing of the party led by H.H. Champion expanded upon the organisation’s original manifesto. Producing a pamphlet, The Socialist Ownership of Gas and Water in late 1884 Champion argued that the organisation should commit itself to the government ownership of municipal utilities, as well as municipalisation and nationalisation of land and many industries, canals, railways, water and gas companies, tramways, docks, hospitals, markets, libraries and even lodging houses. [2]

The decision to work closely with the burgeoning trade unionists saw the SDF become affiliated to the newly established Union of Dockers [3] in January 1885 following extensive talks between the SDF and the loose coalition of workers groups that represented the dockers of London. The SDF’s union affiliations saw its membership expand rapidly, with five new branches established and its number of registered members rising to sit around 1100. The shift to a more union oriented programme was not without dissension however, and at a particularly raucous meeting in March 1885 the anarchists Frank Kitz and Johann Most who had been founding members in 1881 were expelled from the organisation following reports that they had harassed non-anarchist members. Their expulsion saw the majority of the anarchist faction resign in solidarity, leaving the SDF a more homogenous movement though it was still comprised of ethical socialists, “gradualists” [4] and Marxists.

The SDF following the expulsion of Hyndman in 1883 had remained steadfast in its refusal to campaign in parliamentary elections, preferring instead to commit itself to steadily build up its organisation and build alliances with the emerging unions. That said it watched the 1885 election with interest, particularly as several candidates sympathetic to the cause of labour stood for election. The most notorious of these campaigns was the election of the young Irish born playwright Oscar Wilde to the newly created seat of Islington East in a campaign characterised by his witty and flamboyant speeches. [5] While the Liberals lost seats, the “Lib-Lab” alliance which had seen labour interests campaign for sympathetic Liberals picked up several seats in industrial areas. While the Liberals were hamstrung by their failure to win a majority, the election demonstrated the rise of the labour movement as a burgeoning political force. Would its time soon come?

BRIEF NOTES

[1] Whereas religious organisations such as the Salvation Army were allowed to preach in the streets, the Metropolitan Police banned the Socialists from similar activities. Members of the SDF simply continued to speak and to incur fines, attracting public attention to the movement.

[2] The platform was inspired by both Georgism and the land nationalisation movements of the early 1880s, and was seen as a shift from highly doctrinal Marxism to a more heterogeneous platform.

[3] The forerunner of OTL Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union.

[4] The Fabians

[5] Wilde came into the world of politics entirely through happenstance. Considering casting Henrietta Hodson in the lead role in The Duchess of Padua he came into contact and became friendly with her lover Henry Labouchère, the Radical MP and theatre producer. Wilde gradually became more involved in the local politics eventually standing and winning in Islington East as a Liberal candidate, bringing one of the great wits of the age into the House of Commons.