How Sylvia Pankhurst became a left wing communist
TitleHow Sylvia Pankhurst became a left wing communist
ReferenceTAPE/167
Date
18-Mar-89
Scope and ContentA talk given by Dr Ian Bullock to the Sylvia Pankhurst Society at the YWCA, Great Russell Street, London, entitled `How Sylvia Pankhurst became a left wing communist'
This is a summary found in a ring binder.
The speaker states that Sylvia Pankhurst was one of the first people to support the Bolsheviks in Russia. Sylvia Pankhurst’s own society “Workers’ Socialist Federation” changed its name to “Communist Party” fourteen months before the Communist Party of Great Britain was formed. They preferred to keep it local. Sylvia was expelled from the orthodox C.P. in 1921. She then joined another left wing fringe Communist grouping.
This splitting up of the Communist grouping into splinter groups caused Lenin to write a pamphlet, upon “infantile disorder”. This pamphlet dealt mainly with Germany, but Britain comes second, and two British Communists are concentrated upon by Lenin. They were Sylvia Pankhurst and William Gallagher. Lenin attacks Sylvia and William for ignoring the parliamentary process to further their cause. Sylvia and William see parliament as backing up / supporting a corrupt bourgeois regime.
The speaker also informs the listener how the First World War introduced state intervention in travel passports and other such measures to control the population. Population control and information gathering has increased throughout the twentieth century. Sylvia appears to equate universal suffrage with the coming of restrictions of popular liberties, i.e. the worker was reduced to servitude, i.e. they gave the men the freedom to vote, but shackled them to the factory system. The speaker notes that the Russian revolution brought universal suffrage years before it was adopted in Great Britain.
There are several publications by Sylvia Pankhurst in the WCML collection.
This is a summary found in a ring binder.
The speaker states that Sylvia Pankhurst was one of the first people to support the Bolsheviks in Russia. Sylvia Pankhurst’s own society “Workers’ Socialist Federation” changed its name to “Communist Party” fourteen months before the Communist Party of Great Britain was formed. They preferred to keep it local. Sylvia was expelled from the orthodox C.P. in 1921. She then joined another left wing fringe Communist grouping.
This splitting up of the Communist grouping into splinter groups caused Lenin to write a pamphlet, upon “infantile disorder”. This pamphlet dealt mainly with Germany, but Britain comes second, and two British Communists are concentrated upon by Lenin. They were Sylvia Pankhurst and William Gallagher. Lenin attacks Sylvia and William for ignoring the parliamentary process to further their cause. Sylvia and William see parliament as backing up / supporting a corrupt bourgeois regime.
The speaker also informs the listener how the First World War introduced state intervention in travel passports and other such measures to control the population. Population control and information gathering has increased throughout the twentieth century. Sylvia appears to equate universal suffrage with the coming of restrictions of popular liberties, i.e. the worker was reduced to servitude, i.e. they gave the men the freedom to vote, but shackled them to the factory system. The speaker notes that the Russian revolution brought universal suffrage years before it was adopted in Great Britain.
There are several publications by Sylvia Pankhurst in the WCML collection.
Extent1 Cassette tape
Physical descriptionNWSA copy
LanguageEnglish
Persons keywordPankhurst, Sylvia, Bullock, Ian
Conditions governing accessOpen
Levelfile
Normal locationZ (Room 24)