Interview with Sylvia Pankhurst on the Situation in England

In Bologna, we have had an interesting conversation with the intelligent and very active English comrade Sylvia Pankhurst from the Socialist and Communist Workers Federation and the editorial staff of « The Workers » Dreadnought.

Pankhurst spoke, as already noted, at the Congress as well, expressing her anti-parliamentary views. We have given her complete information on our abstentionist movement as the tendency which coincides with that followed by our comrade.

She explains very clearly in the article which follows the position of the Communist movement in England.

As we have already seen, the activity of the English proletariat is carried out prevalently in economic organisations with the result that the explicit formation of the communist political party is bound to run up against some difficulties.

There isn’t evidence of a political activity that is non-parliamentary, that is of the exquisitely political activity which is carried out through revolutionary class-action. Where our comrade counter-posed « direct action » to « political action », we took the latter to mean « parliamentary action », this is because we have been able to see that her thought is very close to ours despite bending the use of a few political terms.

Pankhurst has acutely observed that an electoral maximalism is inconceivable. We welcome the fact that such a view didn’t last very long in Italy either.

* * *

The situation in England is curious.

There is the completely counter-revolutionary « Labour Party », which through the fact that its Executive Committee is very powerful and is elected annually – the nominations being proposed months before – it is sluggish in its movements.

Then there are the Socialist parties which stand at the parliamentary elections as Labour candidates.

The situation is more or less this: no candidate can be elected if he isn’t supported and chosen by the « Labour Party » or one of the old capitalist parties.

A candidate must sign the reformist programme of the « Labour Party »: naturally in Parliament there is a certain party discipline and all the members of the labourist group are by definition anti-revolutionary excepting Maclean. Maclean hasn’t done anything of any particular note, nor has he declared himself as revolutionary in Parliament, but nevertheless he has defended the Russian Bolsheviks and would probably work with a Socialist party that had a decisive attitude.

The organisational power of the Labour Party and its overall structure attributes major importance, like as does the entire British political system, to experiments in parliamentary action that take place everywhere.

At the same time, in England there is a growing revolutionary movement in industry which is entirely hostile to parliamentarism. In this movement, it seems that not a single person is of a mind to capitulate to it – and if there are such people they haven’t had the opportunity to show themselves for what they are. It is as one would wish it, there are hundreds of good agitators and these people are in the ranks of the working class. This movement possesses a really high level of « intelligence ». Since it is really a movement composed of workers in the most important industries it is of maximum importance for revolutionary development. It is lacking though certainly today from a national cohesion. It is divided between the movement of workers’ councils, the Socialist Labour Party, the Workers’ Socialist Federation, the South Wales Socialist Society, some sections of the British Socialist Party, some independent local groups, and some old industrial organisations (federations and industrial unions). We are trying to build 4 political sections: the S.L.P.; W.S.F.; B.S.P. and S.W.S.S, (from the 2^nd to the 5^th of the above named organisations) these, working in harmony with the workers’ councils and the most advanced sections of the old economic organisations should constitute a considerable force.

The greatest obstacle to coalition at the moment is that of the B.S.P. and part of the S.L.P. holding to the politics of putting up parliamentary candidates at elections whilst the more advanced industrial sections are hostile to such politics and don’t wish to adhere to a party which practices it even if the Workers’ Socialist Federation, the Socialist Society of South Wales and the anti-parliamentary Socialist Labour Party have given their support on this point.

At present, in the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party conferences – as in the wider union movement, the question that the masses are fascinated by and which is causing such intense anxiety and producing crisis after crisis, is direct action versus parliamentary action. The supporters of direct action back the soviets and revolution, the parliamentarians – reforms.

I have exaggerated in writing this, but I am not mistaken in declaring that there are two directions which the two groups tend towards. Men like Smillie are halfway between the two political positions – they think they can use both direct action and parliamentary action and can use the general strike to constrain the government to nationalise industries and stop the intervention in Russia to cite the two latest examples. This they think they can do without a revolution breaking out. Clynes and Henderson – counter-revolutionary reformists – see the situation more clearly and say that the government will take certain measures against these pressures of the workers and that this will precipitate the revolution.

Once the followers of revolutionary direct action and the parliamentary reformists have taken up their respective positions, the intermediate sections declare for one or the other of them. The fact which will retard the revolutionary movement is that whilst the parliamentary reformists take up their positions openly, those who subscribe to direct action but who take up official policies and positions are not revolutionary – S.C. Smillie is a typical example. Those who are cut out to be good orators at conferences tend to be weak in the field of revolution or else their efforts are sporadic – yet the essential idea of the revolutionary ideal determines its progress.

Bit by bit the revolutionaries are starting to stabilise their positions and dissipating their uncertainty of thought.

A fact that retards this development is the coalition that I’ve indicated and the belief that the Russian communists – respected because they have achieved their ends – believe that the parliamentary struggle was essential up to when the soviets were formed. What has been missed? That the revolutionaries had earned a security which made them capable of initiating a vigorous independent action and increase in strength.

We need the courage to cut a new path through the obstacles: We can’t just chatter, we must act.

The feeling that this is the same movement which is starting on the path to revolution in countries everywhere will be a big help.

The parliamentary situation becomes ever more futile: the government is always augmenting its power. This stimulates the masses into realising that parliament must be replaced by the Soviets when the general situation is ripe.

I must return to my observations that in the old official labour movement the question of direct action is that which is gripping masses. But whilst there is great enthusiasm for it in the movement, it is paralysed by the fact that no party has officially adopted it. This is an awkward question for the fractions that exist in the socialist movement.

The British Socialist Party is timid, it chooses not to adopt the idea of the Workers Councils that would revolutionise the industrial situation for fear that this would impair its prestige before sections of the Trades Unions which are opposed to it. It wishes not to express an opinion on the divisions which are rending the industrial movement into antagonistic sections, it wishes not to express an opinion on direct action saying that this problem is a matter of industrial organisation.

The Socialist Labour Party has a strong parliamentary section but is, I believe, convinced that it is useless to aim for the conquest of a parliamentary majority (that has up to now been the sole aim of the British Socialist Party) but the men of the Socialist Labour Party have been really active pioneers in the Workers’ Councils and the direct action movement.

The South Wales Socialist Society whilst having done excellent work, has been inclined to limit its vision to the miners. The Workers’ Socialist Federation is the youngest of the four sections and had as its origins the Women’s Suffrage Movement and whilst its propaganda has had considerable influence, its present numerical strength is not extensive.

It could be that we will have to form a new communist party and abandon the idea of coalition: this could be decided in the months to come. The present proposal is that the four associations unify on the following essential bases:

« Dictatorship of the proletariat – Third International – the Soviets »

In three months time, the united parties will deliberate on affiliation to the Labour Party and parliamentary action.

The British Socialist Party having the greatest forces numerically may welcome the union convinced that it will be able to prevail in any deliberations. How the vote will go in the other organisations I don’t know: Our own vote isn’t finished yet, but as soon as it is done there will loom the fact that our associates won’t subscribe to the union unless the vote is completed within three months.

My opinion is that the direct action movement which is large and developing fast is the genuine revolutionary movement, even if its final objectives aren’t very clear – though it should be stated that many of its elements are consciously communist: it appeals forcefully to the masses and proclaims « let us control the advancement of our industries and our interests, suppress the bosses and let us take what we as workers need through our own strength and not by way of representatives ». In my opinion, communists should join with this movement and make sure that it becomes completely communist giving to it a revolutionary direction in the shortest time possible.

The present situation is this, that the British government senses, and expects an imminent period of revolution much more than the workers’ movement. This is demonstrated by their improvements to the police force, by means of military instruction, by their numerical growth, the intensification of discipline to make it of use to the political services. They prove this also with their secret circular to army officers which asks if they would be available to fight against the revolutionaries, acting as a black guard, and asking what effect labourist ideas have on them, etc.

The recent strike by the railway men was imposed on them by the government which was trying to lower pay at the time that the cost of living was going up. The government used the cars of the enlisted volunteers in the black guard to drive around in, with Hyde Park as a central transport depot. It was (in my opinion) a taste of what the government will do when struggle that is more serious than the present strike will be required of the workers.

All our energy must be consecrated to the development of the industrial revolutionary movement and to learning how we should prepare for it so as to gain the means of production, and to see to it that the masses take control, and learns to keep up the pace through the crises in the world of labour, giving leadership.

To waste our energy in the parliamentary struggle seems to me to be putting lesser before greater things.

The parliamentary Labour Party uses all its strength to stifle proletarian protests because it aspires to the middle-class vote which it fishes for in elections.

We see a great development quite soon: the question is this: Will we be able to meet the challenge? Have the communists sound enough elements amongst them to be able to accelerate the pace ?

I hope that it will be so, but I am sure that a large amount of propaganda and an ample diffusion of literature will assist in speeding up victory; and naturally it is essential that we are able to acquire a clear knowledge of our programme.

E. SYLVIA PANKHURST