Benjamin Francis Bradley
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date of birth: 01 Jan 1898, London, England
Date of death: 01 Jan 1957
Benjamin Bradley was a leading figure in the Communist Party of Great Britain ["CPGB"] and an anti-colonialist. A metalworker by trade, he was posted to India in 1927 by the CPGB to promote militant trade unionism, becoming Vice-President of the All-India Trades Union Congress. Bradley was arrested for anti-government activities in March 1929, and sentenced in the Meerut Conspiracy Trials of 1932.
On his return to Britain, Bradley remained active in anti-colonial as well as Communist activities. From 1934 to 1940, he was Secretary of the League Against Imperialism which became the Communist Party’s Colonial Information Bureau. In this role, he produced the fortnightly Colonial Information Bulletin which consisted largely of reports on developments in British colonies. The paper was swiftly shut down when it expressed support for the war effort in spite of the CPGB’s Central Committee’s decision to back the Comintern -– although Bradley later appeared to change his mind about the war, concurring with his fellow Communists. Indian Political Surveillance files give evidence that Bradley was a regular participant and occasional speaker at India League meetings in the late 1930s and early 1940s. There, he came into contact with several Indian activists and writers, including Mulk Raj Anand, Iqbal Singh, Krishnarao Shelvankar and Sasadhar Sinha. The relationship between Bradley and Krishna Menon was, according to India Office reports, rivalrous but mutually beneficial. The India League provided Bradley and his fellow Communists with a useful platform for propaganda, while the CPGB’s association with the League served as a means of attracting the interest of the British working class in the plight of India. Reports also claim that Bradley, along with Michael Carritt and Harry Pollitt, was leading a group of Indian Communist students, and that he planned a Conference of Indian Peddlers and Seamen in July 1939 (L/PJ/12/452). These activities suggest his ongoing interest not just in the struggle against imperialism but also in mobilizing for the rights of working-class Indians in Britain.
Connections:
Aftab Ali, Surat Alley, Mulk Raj Anand, Ayana Angadi, Jyoti Basu, Reginald Bridgeman, Fenner Brockway, Michael Carritt, B. B. Ray Chaudhuri, Dwjendra Nath Dutt, Rajani Palme Dutt, Michael Foot, Sunder Kabadia, S. M. Kumaramangalam, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, Krishna Menon, Syedi Mohamedi, Harry Pollitt, Shapurji Saklatvala, Promode Ranjan Sen-Gupta, K. S. Shelvankar, Iqbal Singh, Sasadhar Sinha, Reginald Sorensen, Philip Spratt, C. B. Vakil, S. A. Wickremasinghe.
Network:
Rajani Palme Dutt
Mulk Raj Anand
Krishna Menon
Surat Alley
Organizations:
India League
Indian National Congress
League Against Imperialism
Involved in events:
Meerut Conspiracy Trial, 1932
Secondary works:
Howe, Stephen, Anticolonialism in British Politics: The Left and the End of Empire, 1918-1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)
Archive source:
L/PJ/12/448-54, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
CP/IND/BRAD, Archive of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Manchester People’s History Museum
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Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in India
by R. Palme Dutt & Ben Bradley
The Labour Monthly, Vol. 18, March 1936, No. 3, pp. 149-160
The Indian national struggle is to-day at a critical point. British Imperialism has succeeded in imposing its constitution of open subjection in the face of the opposition of the entire Indian nation. The first stage of the struggle against it has met with defeat. For the moment there is confusion in the national camp as to the path forward. At the same time the continuously worsening situation and sharpening struggle of the masses of workers and peasants calls ever more loudly for organisation and leadership.
If we look at the world situation we see that all over the world the anti-imperialist struggle is gathering strength and advancing. In Egypt the united mass struggle is exercising powerful pressure on British Imperialism. In China the popular forces of resistance to partition and for national unity and liberation are gathering around the central core of Soviet China, consisting of at least sixty millions who have already thrown off the imperialist yoke. In Abyssinia the entire people is fighting for their freedom with arms in hand and driving back the foreign invader, and the popular forces in all countries are supporting their struggle. In South America the People’s Anti-Imperialist Front is making great advances.
What of the situation in India? (Since the abandonment of mass civil disobedience we see a confusion of forces, and no powerful united movement of resistance to British Imperialism) which rules with more triumphant reaction than ever. Some voices are raised to advocate co-operation in working the new constitution. Others advocate retreat from the political field to concentrate on village industries or on the removal of caste disabilities. Gandhi has proclaimed his retirement from politics. The National Congress, apart from the electoral field, has given up for the time the attempt to direct the struggle, and even in the electoral field is sharply divided on the future policy, to accept office or not to accept office.
The peasants and workers, suffering under ever heavier economic distress, find themselves without united and centralised leadership in their sporadic struggles. Over the past ten years we have witnessed tremendous strike waves and economic unrest, hundreds of thousands of textile workers, railwaymen, jute workers and dockers carrying on insistent strike struggles with heroic determination against wage cuts and worsened conditions. Among the peasantry, the hardest hit section of the population, their inability to meet the demands of the landlord, money lender and collector, results in evictions, strikes and clashes with the armed forces of the government. Alongside this there is terrible mass unemployment seriously affecting not only the workers and peasants, but also the middle class.
How can we transform this situation? How can we unite and mobilise a powerful movement of resistance to British Imperialism and for the needs of the masses? This is the key problem of the Indian situation.
The Indian National Congress will shortly be meeting in Lucknow. The representatives of the main body of the Indian national struggle will have to consider the problems of the path forward. What shall be the programme at the coming elections? What shall be the policy of the national representatives who are elected? What shall be the future line of direction of the national struggle to defeat imperialism? The left wing elements are pressing for a line of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism, for an advance of the programme to reflect the growing influence of socialist ideas, and for the organisation of the workers and peasants as the decisive practical task. The right wing elements are making gestures for unity with the Liberals and other elements outside the Congress, who have abstained from participation in the common struggle and stand for co-operation with imperialism. The discussion will be sharp. The decisions will be of far-reaching significance.
It is at this stage that the present proposals are put forward for the consideration of all who, whether inside or outside the Congress, are concerned for the advance of Indian national liberation.
The First Need—Unity
Every Indian patriot will recognise that the first need for the successful advance of the Indian national struggle, the key need of the present situation, is unity of all the anti-imperialist forces in the common struggle. This is the indispensable condition for the successful fight against the existing and ever-sharpening reaction and oppression.
But what is Unity? Talk of Unity, of the United Front, is to-day on the lips of all. But many different proposals are put forward in its name.
Thus some, as in the recent speeches of Babu Rajendra Prasad, late President of Congress, urge unity with moderate or right wing elements at present outside the Congress, such as the Liberals, the friends and allies of the British rulers, whose programme is one of co-operation with imperialism and entry into office in order to assist the slave constitution to function successfully. Naturally, the Liberals from their point of view, as shown in the recent speech of V.S. Srinivasa Sastri at Madras, heartily welcome such proposals of unity, provided they may maintain their programme of service to imperialism since they have no mass following themselves and only so may hope to win a basis to enter office and carry out their programme.
But will this strengthen the anti-imperialist forces? While it is evident that all elements, including from among the Liberals, who are prepared to break with co-operation with imperialism and accept the programme of the national struggle, are welcome to the common front, this can only be on condition of acceptance of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism for complete independence (as already laid down in the Congress programme by the Lahore decisions). It is obvious that a so-called “unity” with the friends of the British, achieved by surrendering the struggle against imperialism, could only weaken the united front against imperialism and not strengthen it.
The Anti-Imperialist People’s Front
From this it follows that Unity cannot be regarded as something abstract, but can only be unity on the basis of the anti-imperialist struggle.
Much as we may desire to see unity of the whole Indian people in the struggle against foreign rule, we have to recognise that there cannot be an abstract “unity” of the entire Indian population, 200 per cent. all sections and classes, against British Imperialism. Some sections have their interest bound up with imperialism, e.g., the princes, landlords, moneylenders, reactionary religious and political elements which live on exploiting communal differences, elements among the merchants and wealthy classes who favour co-operation with imperialism, etc. The cunning British rulers have known how to follow the old maxim “Divide and rule” and build up their dominion on elements of support within the population; and in consequence, in estimating the forces of the national struggle, we have to take into account the realities of the class structure of the population under the conditions of imperialism.
But there can be unity of the overwhelming majority of the population against imperialism, i.e., of all the popular masses who suffer under imperialist rule, and of all the elements from other classes who are prepared to join in the common struggle for national liberation.
What is the necessary basis for such unity of all the anti-imperialist forces, such as can unite all the forces of the National Congress, the trade unions, the peasants’ organisations, the youth organisations, etc on a common platform in a mighty common front?
It is clear that the essential minimum basis for such a grouping is (1) a line of consistent struggle against imperialism, and against the existing slave constitution, for the complete independence of India; (2) active struggle for the vital needs of the toiling masses.
This is the unity of the Indian people we want, the United Anti-Imperialist People’s Front for the struggle against imperialism.
The rôle of the National Congress in Realising Unity
At this point the question will be asked: what is the relation of the National Congress to the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front? Is not the National Congress, as many of its leaders claim, already the united front of the Indian people in the national struggle?
The National Congress has undoubtedly achieved a gigantic task in uniting wide forces of the Indian people for the national struggle, and remains to-day the principal existing mass organisation of many divers elements seeking national liberation. Nothing should be allowed to weaken the degree of unity that has been achieved through the National Congress, and the proposals that are here put forward are only intended to endeavour to find means to assist and extend that unity to a still wider front.
We on the left have many times criticised sharply the existing leadership and tactics of the National Congress. We have found many decisions and policies, such as the calling-off of mass civil disobedience in 1922, at the moment when it was ready to enter on its greatest strength, the uncertain voice on the aim of independence, the wavering in the relations to imperialism, the siding with the landlords against the peasants, the Delhi Pact, the co-operation in the Round Table Conference, the Poona calling-off of the struggle in 1934, disastrous to the true interests of the national struggle and equivalent to surrender to imperialism. We have traced these decisions and policies to the existing dominant bourgeois leadership, whose interests often conflict with the interests of the masses and with the interests of the national struggle. These issues, of the utmost importance for the future, need to be discussed and fought out. But this criticism against particular policies is in no sense intended as a criticism against the masses in the Congress. Our opposition to a particular leadership or to particular policies is only intended to assist the mass army of the national struggle represented by the Congress and to assist and strengthen the national struggle.
The National Congress can play a great part and a foremost part in the work of realising the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front. It is even possible that the National Congress by the further transformation of its organisation and programme, may become the form of realisation of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front; for it is the reality that matters, not the name.
But it is necessary to recognise that the National Congress, as it exists at present, is not yet the united front of the Indian people in the national struggle. Its constitution still leaves out the broadest sections of the masses. Its programme does not yet express with full clearness the programme of the national struggle. Its leadership cannot yet be recognised as the leadership of the national struggle. It does not at present draw out and guide mass activity, but rather acts as a brake upon it.
What is needed, without impairing the degree of unity that has been achieved through the National Congress, is to strengthen and extend this unity to a broader front and to develop to a new stage the organisation and leadership of the mass struggle against imperialism.
Draw in the Masses
The National Congress is at present based, not on the union of all elements supporting the national struggle, but on a restrictive individual membership, with certain limitations of franchise and of a special ideology or “creed,” which prevents it from embracing the broadest front of all who support the national struggle.
The mass organisations of the workers and peasants, the trade unions and peasants’ unions and all similar collective mass organisations, constituting the most important forces of the national struggle are at present outside the National Congress. Only when all these forces are combined, the mass organisations of the workers and peasants together with the National Congress, whether in a united front agreement or by the collective affiliation of these organisations to the Congress, will we have achieved a broad united national front capable of developing as a real Anti-Imperialist People’s Front and drawing behind it the overwhelming majority of the population, the workers, the peasants and the middle classes in a single army of the national struggle. Within such a bloc the working class can increasingly realise its rôle of vanguard, to lead to victory the Indian revolution.
The first aim should therefore be to establish a united front of the National Congress with all the existing mass organisations of the trade unions, peasants’ unions, youth associations or other anti-imperialist mass organisations, in a broad Anti-Imperialist People’s Front on the basis of the struggle against imperialism and its constitution and for organising the struggle of the masses for their immediate demands.
At the same time we should seek to amend the constitution of the National Congress in such a way as to permit of the collective affiliation with delegate representation, of the trade unions, peasants’ unions, youth organisations, etc. This collective affiliation should be carried out not only on an All-India scale (All-India Trades Union Congress to the National Congress), but equally in the provinces and on a district and local scale the whole way through, thus bringing the National Congress into direct and continuous association with the masses. This collective affiliation is important, not only for the immediately existing mass organisations, but for the whole network of trade unions and peasants’ unions gradually embracing wider and wider sections of the masses, which Congress should devote its most active efforts to assist in building up as the strongest pillars of the national struggle.
The possibility of such collective affiliation is illustrated, not only, by the examples of the European Labour Parties, but still more closely by the example of the old national-revolutionary Kuomintang (before the betrayal by Chiang Kai Shek) at the height of its strength when it grouped, along with individual political members, trade unions, peasants’ organisations and the Communist Party, and on this basis swept forward from strength to strength, proving the most powerful and victorious weapon up to then devised for the colonial struggle against imperialism.
While it may take a necessary process of time to carry through the campaign and introduce collective affiliation into the constitution of the Congress, no time should be lost in already setting up on a local, district, provincial, and if possible All-India scale, joint bodies of the Congress Committees, Trade Unions, peasant unions, youth associations, Congress Socialist groups and other groups and anti-imperialist organisations, uniting for the purposes of combining the campaign against imperialism in the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
Actually united front bodies have been already set up in localities—not permanent but temporary bodies, which show the possibilities—in places like Bombay, Calcutta and elsewhere. United front demonstrations and meetings were held in Bombay in February last year against the new slave constitution; these and similar actions were supported by Trade Unionists, Congress Socialists, Congress-men, Communists, etc. These actions of course were only the very first signs, but they show the urge for, and possibilities of, the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
Democratise the Constitution of the Congress
In order that the Congress shall really become based on the masses, it is not sufficient merely in a formal fashion to draw the mass organisations into its structure; it is necessary to elicit the initiative and responsibility of the masses in the direction and policy of the Congress, so that the policy shall really become governed from below.
The existing working of the Congress machinery cannot be regarded as democratic. In practice a very small handful of leaders hold absolute control. In particular, the Working Committee, which has the greatest power and takes the most important executive decisions, is not an elected body, and cannot be regarded as representative of the sections of opinion in the rank and file of the Congress. Similarly, in the provinces am localities the degree of control from below is very weak.
An exhaustive overhauling of the constitution is necessary in order it bring it into accord with modern democratic conceptions of a popular party, and to ensure, not only the forms of democracy, but that these shall be realised in the practical working—i.e., widening of facilities for raising issues and putting forward resolutions from the membership prior circulation of agenda with opportunities for discussion, mandating of delegates, etc., active political life and discussion in all the local organisations, electing from below of all committees and officers, etc.
Centralised direction is essential for the purposes of the struggle, but this centralised direction must be on the principles, not of personal dictatorship, but of democratic centralism, i.e., elected from below and responsible to the representatives of the lower organs.
A Clear Programme of Anti-Imperialist Struggle
Then again much requires to be done to establish and ensure universal acceptance of a clear and unambiguous programme of anti-imperialist struggle both in the National Congress and for the whole Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
At present, despite the decisions of the Lahore Congress on the aim of independence, there is still much confusion even on the central aim. Definitions of the meaning of “Purna Swaraj” are as thick as blackberries on a bush, and cover the most contradictory notions. The latest definition by the Wardha meeting of the Working Committee in September, 1934 (“includes unfettered control over the army and other defence forces, external affairs, fiscal and commercial matters, and financial and economic policy”) goes back on the goal of independence and returns to the pre-Lahore aim of Dominion Status.
It is essential to establish in unmistakable terms the aim of complete independence of India as the unchangeable aim of the Indian national struggle, and therewith the rejection of all compromise and negotiation with imperialism for half measures, co-operation in working the constitution, etc.
Further, it is essential to link up the programme of the fight for independence with the immediate political demands of the struggle against imperialism and with the immediate demands of the workers and peasants for their vital needs.
The details of such a programme could be worked out in common by representatives of all the organisations concerned. Thus for example, such a programme might include:
(1) The aim of complete independence for India.
(2) Freedom of speech, press, organisation, assembly, strikes and picketing.
(3) Repeal of all exceptional and repressive laws, ordinances and anti-labour laws (Criminal Amendment Act, Press Act, etc.).
(4) Release of all political prisoners, detenus and internees.
(5) Against reductions of wages and dismissals of workers; for an adequate minimum wage and 8-hour day; for 50 per cent. reduction in rents and against the seizure of peasant land for debt by imperialists, native princes, zemindars and moneylenders.
The particular immediate demands of the struggle could be worked out and varied according to the locality and the particular conditions and stage.
A central rallying slogan for the whole movement could be provided by the demand for a Constituent Assembly; the conditions under which this demand could be usefully taken up and made the centre of agitation and propaganda are considered later in the present article. A platform of this type requires to be established as the common platform of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
Similarly, the constitution and platform of the Congress requires to be worked out anew in the light of this, laying down in simple and clear form the aim of complete independence, the line of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism and the fight for the needs of the workers and peasants. Such a platform can unite all sincere elements of the national struggle, while excluding only those elements which seek to co-operate with imperialism.
The Tactics of Mass Struggle
A similar clearing is necessary with regard to the basic tactics of the Congress and of the national struggle.
The existing ideology of “non-violence,” which is still made a compulsory part of the Congress creed, is to-day a survival which is more and more visibly at variance with the realities of the struggle and less and less corresponds to the outlook of large sections of the national movement. Many prominent members of the Congress, who have formally to subscribe to this dogma as the condition of their participation in its mass activities, to-day privately declare their disbelief in it. This is not a healthy situation. While many sections may still be under the influence of the theories of “non-violence,” to make this a dogma compulsory on all sections is to place an obstacle in the way of the unity of the national front. In fact the experience of the nearly two decades since the war has abundantly shown that the conception of “non-violence” has been used, not merely in opposition to the fruitless policies of individual terrorism or sporadic outbreaks of a minority, but to shackle and hold in all effective mass activity and the development along the lines of the class struggle of the most powerful weapons against imperialism or mass resistance to imperialist violence, and thus leaving free play for the violence of imperialism, has been a dangerous and paralysing influence on the advance of the national struggle and the principal cause of the relative stagnation and failure of advance in India, despite the enormous sacrifices made, compared with other colonial countries. China and Abyssinia have shown how a people fights for its freedom against the imperialist enemy. In Egypt to-day, the higher degree of aggressive mass activity is reflected in the far greater readiness of British Imperialism to offer concessions. It is essential that the Indian national movement should free itself from the paralysing conceptions of passive “non-violence” if it is to defeat its enemy. A sharp, ideological struggle needs to be conducted on this question, but a struggle in the ideological field by way of ceaseless explaining and winning over. This issue should not be allowed to split the national front.
The Congress creed in consequence needs revision in accordance with the real conditions of the struggle. The dogma of “non-violence” should be omitted. The entire emphasis should be placed on the development of the mass struggle, on the work of organisation of the workers and peasants as the primary task in the field of organisation, on the active taking up of the immediate demands of the workers and peasants for their vital needs, and the linking of this struggle with the political anti-imperialist struggle.
Consolidation of the Left Wing
In order to realise the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front and to carry through these urgently necessary changes in the constitution, organisation, policy and work of the National Congress, it is essential that all left wing elements in the Congress should fight in unison on a common platform for these vital needs.
In the past there has been much dispersion of effort, division and mutual sniping between the left wing forces, thus playing into the hands of the domination of the right wing leadership. While it is necessary and desirable that the differences of political outlook and conception which exist between the different groupings should be thoroughly discussed and cleared in comradely discussion, this should not stand in the way of the fullest co-operation and common working on all the issues on which agreement can be reached, both within the Congress and in the immediate daily struggle.
Congress Socialists, Trade Unionists, Communists and Left Congressmen should all be able to unite on the essentials of a minimum programme of anti-imperialist struggle for complete independence of organisation of the masses and development of mass struggle, and of the fight for changes in the Congress constitution, policy, organisation and leadership to forward these aims. The Congress Socialist Party can play an especially important part in this as the grouping of all the radical elements in the existing Congress. It is of the greatest importance that every effort should be made to clarify questions of programme and tactics in the Congress Socialist Party.
It is in this way that the first stage of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front could be built up already in the common fight, stressing particularly the local, district and provincial basis.
At the same time it is essential to recognise that the task of consolidation of the left wing forces renders more necessary and responsible than ever the rôle and the activity of the Communists in this process, since they have the most responsible rôle to play in ensuring the political clearness of the fight, in pressing forward the drive to unity in action, and guiding the aims of the movement towards the goal of political and social liberation.
Through the consolidation of the left wing forces the first stage of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front can be built up already in the common fight, particular stress being laid in the early stages upon its development on a local and district basis.
The Anti-Imperialist Front in the Elections
The question of the elections is of cardinal importance for the anti-imperialist front.
On the one hand, it is essential that the clear line of the anti-imperialist front, the line of consistent struggle for complete independence, against all co-operation with imperialism and its constitution, and for the demands of the masses, should be challengingly voiced at the elections, and that the outlook of these vast sections of the national movement must not be stifled.
On the other hand, it is essential that unity of the national front should be maintained against the imperialists and their allies, and there should be no splitting of the vote for the benefit of the reactionary right wing elements outside the Congress who stand for co-operation with imperialism.
The best means to realise this requires the most earnest consideration of all supporters of the national struggle.
We would suggest that the anti-imperialist bloc, constituted on its programme of complete independence, no co-operation with imperialism, and active struggle for the demands of the masses, should seek, agreement with the existing leadership of the Congress (within which the Congress Socialists, grouping the radical elements, represent already a substantial minority of roughly one-third of the forces and a potential majority), to run its candidates directly on this programme in a certain number of seats (or to be able to include them as a group with their specific programme within the Congress panel), as recognised candidates of the united national front, co-operating with the Congress candidates in other constituencies who run on the official programme. The details of this arrangement will need careful working out; but with goodwill on both sides, such an arrangement should be possible.
Every effort requires to be made to prevent a splitting of the national front in the elections; but such unity should not be utilised to stifle the left wing forces of the anti-imperialist bloc.
The Constituent Assembly as the Central Slogan of the Struggle
In order to concentrate the struggle against the slave constitution imposed by the British Government, we cannot rest satisfied with the negative programme of rejection of the constitution and refusal of co-operation, but must counterpose our positive slogan.
Corresponding to the existing stages of the movement, the time is now undoubtedly favourable to launch as our central slogan the demand for the convening of a Constituent Assembly based upon a universal and equal franchise and direct and secret ballot. In the past there has been much discussion on the slogan of a Constituent Assembly. On the one hand, it has been presented in such a form as if the existing National Congress were to be regarded as already the Constituent Assembly of the Indian people. On the other hand, it has been presented as if it were to be regarded as an alternative to the aim of Soviets, as the political aim of the Indian Revolution. Both these outlooks are incorrect and require to be combated. But this necessary criticism of misleading conceptions has given rise to the alternative danger of the conception that the slogan of a Constituent Assembly is as such and at all times inadmissible and in inevitable opposition to the aim of Soviets. This would be a serious misunderstanding; the example of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution has shown how, in a given situation, the slogan of a Constituent Assembly can be a most powerful mobilising force which can be combined with the propaganda of Soviet Power as the ultimate aim.
Is the situation now in India such that this slogan of a Constituent Assembly would be a correct slogan of action for the coming stage? Yes. At a time when the British Government is imposing its new constitution of slavery upon the Indian nation, and preparing its mockery of elections from which the voice of nine-tenths of the people is excluded, and the remainder barred from effective representation with any power to their representatives it is essential to spread broadcast, in opposition to the line of imperialism, the demand for a Constituent Assembly freely elected upon a basis of universal suffrage. In putting this forward the Communists will in no wise weaken their propaganda for the aim of Soviet Power. The Constituent Assembly is a slogan for mobilising the masses at the present stage of the struggle.
But at the same time it is necessary to explain on every occasion on which the issue of a Constituent Assembly is raised, both within the National Congress, and in mass propaganda, that a real Constituent Assembly can only be realised as a result of a broad movement of the masses of the people in active struggle. The significance of the slogan of a Constituent Assembly is as a mobilising slogan of the mass struggle at the present stage. As such it should become the central slogan of action of the present stage of the national struggle and of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front, uniting all the partial and immediate struggles it this central political fight.
**********
The need for the speedy realisation of the broadest Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in India is the more urgent, not only for the reasons of the situation now existing within India, but in view of the whole international situation as it is developing and affecting India. The war question is now of burning urgency. The Italian war on Abyssinia, alongside the ever-extending Japanese aggression in China, is the signal of the advance of imperialism to a new world war. The sympathies of the Indian people are warmly united with the Abyssinian people in their resistance to the Italian war of aggression, and with the Chinese national struggle against Japanese, and all other imperialists. But at the same time it is necessary to sharpen the struggle against the war preparations of British Imperialism, which fall with merciless heaviness on the Indian masses. The imminence of a new world war makes more than ever necessary the unity and readiness of the national front in India.
In conclusion, it should be stated that these proposals are put forward for the consideration of all supporters of the struggle for national liberation in India as an attempt to trace the main outline of the path of advance in the present immediate situation and with the given relations of forces The realisation of this next stage of advance, the realisation of a broad based, all-embracing and powerful Anti-Imperialist People’s Front should rapidly open the way to new perspectives for the Indian national movement.
by R. Palme Dutt & Ben Bradley
The Labour Monthly, Vol. 18, March 1936, No. 3, pp. 149-160
The Indian national struggle is to-day at a critical point. British Imperialism has succeeded in imposing its constitution of open subjection in the face of the opposition of the entire Indian nation. The first stage of the struggle against it has met with defeat. For the moment there is confusion in the national camp as to the path forward. At the same time the continuously worsening situation and sharpening struggle of the masses of workers and peasants calls ever more loudly for organisation and leadership.
If we look at the world situation we see that all over the world the anti-imperialist struggle is gathering strength and advancing. In Egypt the united mass struggle is exercising powerful pressure on British Imperialism. In China the popular forces of resistance to partition and for national unity and liberation are gathering around the central core of Soviet China, consisting of at least sixty millions who have already thrown off the imperialist yoke. In Abyssinia the entire people is fighting for their freedom with arms in hand and driving back the foreign invader, and the popular forces in all countries are supporting their struggle. In South America the People’s Anti-Imperialist Front is making great advances.
What of the situation in India? (Since the abandonment of mass civil disobedience we see a confusion of forces, and no powerful united movement of resistance to British Imperialism) which rules with more triumphant reaction than ever. Some voices are raised to advocate co-operation in working the new constitution. Others advocate retreat from the political field to concentrate on village industries or on the removal of caste disabilities. Gandhi has proclaimed his retirement from politics. The National Congress, apart from the electoral field, has given up for the time the attempt to direct the struggle, and even in the electoral field is sharply divided on the future policy, to accept office or not to accept office.
The peasants and workers, suffering under ever heavier economic distress, find themselves without united and centralised leadership in their sporadic struggles. Over the past ten years we have witnessed tremendous strike waves and economic unrest, hundreds of thousands of textile workers, railwaymen, jute workers and dockers carrying on insistent strike struggles with heroic determination against wage cuts and worsened conditions. Among the peasantry, the hardest hit section of the population, their inability to meet the demands of the landlord, money lender and collector, results in evictions, strikes and clashes with the armed forces of the government. Alongside this there is terrible mass unemployment seriously affecting not only the workers and peasants, but also the middle class.
How can we transform this situation? How can we unite and mobilise a powerful movement of resistance to British Imperialism and for the needs of the masses? This is the key problem of the Indian situation.
The Indian National Congress will shortly be meeting in Lucknow. The representatives of the main body of the Indian national struggle will have to consider the problems of the path forward. What shall be the programme at the coming elections? What shall be the policy of the national representatives who are elected? What shall be the future line of direction of the national struggle to defeat imperialism? The left wing elements are pressing for a line of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism, for an advance of the programme to reflect the growing influence of socialist ideas, and for the organisation of the workers and peasants as the decisive practical task. The right wing elements are making gestures for unity with the Liberals and other elements outside the Congress, who have abstained from participation in the common struggle and stand for co-operation with imperialism. The discussion will be sharp. The decisions will be of far-reaching significance.
It is at this stage that the present proposals are put forward for the consideration of all who, whether inside or outside the Congress, are concerned for the advance of Indian national liberation.
The First Need—Unity
Every Indian patriot will recognise that the first need for the successful advance of the Indian national struggle, the key need of the present situation, is unity of all the anti-imperialist forces in the common struggle. This is the indispensable condition for the successful fight against the existing and ever-sharpening reaction and oppression.
But what is Unity? Talk of Unity, of the United Front, is to-day on the lips of all. But many different proposals are put forward in its name.
Thus some, as in the recent speeches of Babu Rajendra Prasad, late President of Congress, urge unity with moderate or right wing elements at present outside the Congress, such as the Liberals, the friends and allies of the British rulers, whose programme is one of co-operation with imperialism and entry into office in order to assist the slave constitution to function successfully. Naturally, the Liberals from their point of view, as shown in the recent speech of V.S. Srinivasa Sastri at Madras, heartily welcome such proposals of unity, provided they may maintain their programme of service to imperialism since they have no mass following themselves and only so may hope to win a basis to enter office and carry out their programme.
But will this strengthen the anti-imperialist forces? While it is evident that all elements, including from among the Liberals, who are prepared to break with co-operation with imperialism and accept the programme of the national struggle, are welcome to the common front, this can only be on condition of acceptance of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism for complete independence (as already laid down in the Congress programme by the Lahore decisions). It is obvious that a so-called “unity” with the friends of the British, achieved by surrendering the struggle against imperialism, could only weaken the united front against imperialism and not strengthen it.
The Anti-Imperialist People’s Front
From this it follows that Unity cannot be regarded as something abstract, but can only be unity on the basis of the anti-imperialist struggle.
Much as we may desire to see unity of the whole Indian people in the struggle against foreign rule, we have to recognise that there cannot be an abstract “unity” of the entire Indian population, 200 per cent. all sections and classes, against British Imperialism. Some sections have their interest bound up with imperialism, e.g., the princes, landlords, moneylenders, reactionary religious and political elements which live on exploiting communal differences, elements among the merchants and wealthy classes who favour co-operation with imperialism, etc. The cunning British rulers have known how to follow the old maxim “Divide and rule” and build up their dominion on elements of support within the population; and in consequence, in estimating the forces of the national struggle, we have to take into account the realities of the class structure of the population under the conditions of imperialism.
But there can be unity of the overwhelming majority of the population against imperialism, i.e., of all the popular masses who suffer under imperialist rule, and of all the elements from other classes who are prepared to join in the common struggle for national liberation.
What is the necessary basis for such unity of all the anti-imperialist forces, such as can unite all the forces of the National Congress, the trade unions, the peasants’ organisations, the youth organisations, etc on a common platform in a mighty common front?
It is clear that the essential minimum basis for such a grouping is (1) a line of consistent struggle against imperialism, and against the existing slave constitution, for the complete independence of India; (2) active struggle for the vital needs of the toiling masses.
This is the unity of the Indian people we want, the United Anti-Imperialist People’s Front for the struggle against imperialism.
The rôle of the National Congress in Realising Unity
At this point the question will be asked: what is the relation of the National Congress to the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front? Is not the National Congress, as many of its leaders claim, already the united front of the Indian people in the national struggle?
The National Congress has undoubtedly achieved a gigantic task in uniting wide forces of the Indian people for the national struggle, and remains to-day the principal existing mass organisation of many divers elements seeking national liberation. Nothing should be allowed to weaken the degree of unity that has been achieved through the National Congress, and the proposals that are here put forward are only intended to endeavour to find means to assist and extend that unity to a still wider front.
We on the left have many times criticised sharply the existing leadership and tactics of the National Congress. We have found many decisions and policies, such as the calling-off of mass civil disobedience in 1922, at the moment when it was ready to enter on its greatest strength, the uncertain voice on the aim of independence, the wavering in the relations to imperialism, the siding with the landlords against the peasants, the Delhi Pact, the co-operation in the Round Table Conference, the Poona calling-off of the struggle in 1934, disastrous to the true interests of the national struggle and equivalent to surrender to imperialism. We have traced these decisions and policies to the existing dominant bourgeois leadership, whose interests often conflict with the interests of the masses and with the interests of the national struggle. These issues, of the utmost importance for the future, need to be discussed and fought out. But this criticism against particular policies is in no sense intended as a criticism against the masses in the Congress. Our opposition to a particular leadership or to particular policies is only intended to assist the mass army of the national struggle represented by the Congress and to assist and strengthen the national struggle.
The National Congress can play a great part and a foremost part in the work of realising the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front. It is even possible that the National Congress by the further transformation of its organisation and programme, may become the form of realisation of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front; for it is the reality that matters, not the name.
But it is necessary to recognise that the National Congress, as it exists at present, is not yet the united front of the Indian people in the national struggle. Its constitution still leaves out the broadest sections of the masses. Its programme does not yet express with full clearness the programme of the national struggle. Its leadership cannot yet be recognised as the leadership of the national struggle. It does not at present draw out and guide mass activity, but rather acts as a brake upon it.
What is needed, without impairing the degree of unity that has been achieved through the National Congress, is to strengthen and extend this unity to a broader front and to develop to a new stage the organisation and leadership of the mass struggle against imperialism.
Draw in the Masses
The National Congress is at present based, not on the union of all elements supporting the national struggle, but on a restrictive individual membership, with certain limitations of franchise and of a special ideology or “creed,” which prevents it from embracing the broadest front of all who support the national struggle.
The mass organisations of the workers and peasants, the trade unions and peasants’ unions and all similar collective mass organisations, constituting the most important forces of the national struggle are at present outside the National Congress. Only when all these forces are combined, the mass organisations of the workers and peasants together with the National Congress, whether in a united front agreement or by the collective affiliation of these organisations to the Congress, will we have achieved a broad united national front capable of developing as a real Anti-Imperialist People’s Front and drawing behind it the overwhelming majority of the population, the workers, the peasants and the middle classes in a single army of the national struggle. Within such a bloc the working class can increasingly realise its rôle of vanguard, to lead to victory the Indian revolution.
The first aim should therefore be to establish a united front of the National Congress with all the existing mass organisations of the trade unions, peasants’ unions, youth associations or other anti-imperialist mass organisations, in a broad Anti-Imperialist People’s Front on the basis of the struggle against imperialism and its constitution and for organising the struggle of the masses for their immediate demands.
At the same time we should seek to amend the constitution of the National Congress in such a way as to permit of the collective affiliation with delegate representation, of the trade unions, peasants’ unions, youth organisations, etc. This collective affiliation should be carried out not only on an All-India scale (All-India Trades Union Congress to the National Congress), but equally in the provinces and on a district and local scale the whole way through, thus bringing the National Congress into direct and continuous association with the masses. This collective affiliation is important, not only for the immediately existing mass organisations, but for the whole network of trade unions and peasants’ unions gradually embracing wider and wider sections of the masses, which Congress should devote its most active efforts to assist in building up as the strongest pillars of the national struggle.
The possibility of such collective affiliation is illustrated, not only, by the examples of the European Labour Parties, but still more closely by the example of the old national-revolutionary Kuomintang (before the betrayal by Chiang Kai Shek) at the height of its strength when it grouped, along with individual political members, trade unions, peasants’ organisations and the Communist Party, and on this basis swept forward from strength to strength, proving the most powerful and victorious weapon up to then devised for the colonial struggle against imperialism.
While it may take a necessary process of time to carry through the campaign and introduce collective affiliation into the constitution of the Congress, no time should be lost in already setting up on a local, district, provincial, and if possible All-India scale, joint bodies of the Congress Committees, Trade Unions, peasant unions, youth associations, Congress Socialist groups and other groups and anti-imperialist organisations, uniting for the purposes of combining the campaign against imperialism in the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
Actually united front bodies have been already set up in localities—not permanent but temporary bodies, which show the possibilities—in places like Bombay, Calcutta and elsewhere. United front demonstrations and meetings were held in Bombay in February last year against the new slave constitution; these and similar actions were supported by Trade Unionists, Congress Socialists, Congress-men, Communists, etc. These actions of course were only the very first signs, but they show the urge for, and possibilities of, the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
Democratise the Constitution of the Congress
In order that the Congress shall really become based on the masses, it is not sufficient merely in a formal fashion to draw the mass organisations into its structure; it is necessary to elicit the initiative and responsibility of the masses in the direction and policy of the Congress, so that the policy shall really become governed from below.
The existing working of the Congress machinery cannot be regarded as democratic. In practice a very small handful of leaders hold absolute control. In particular, the Working Committee, which has the greatest power and takes the most important executive decisions, is not an elected body, and cannot be regarded as representative of the sections of opinion in the rank and file of the Congress. Similarly, in the provinces am localities the degree of control from below is very weak.
An exhaustive overhauling of the constitution is necessary in order it bring it into accord with modern democratic conceptions of a popular party, and to ensure, not only the forms of democracy, but that these shall be realised in the practical working—i.e., widening of facilities for raising issues and putting forward resolutions from the membership prior circulation of agenda with opportunities for discussion, mandating of delegates, etc., active political life and discussion in all the local organisations, electing from below of all committees and officers, etc.
Centralised direction is essential for the purposes of the struggle, but this centralised direction must be on the principles, not of personal dictatorship, but of democratic centralism, i.e., elected from below and responsible to the representatives of the lower organs.
A Clear Programme of Anti-Imperialist Struggle
Then again much requires to be done to establish and ensure universal acceptance of a clear and unambiguous programme of anti-imperialist struggle both in the National Congress and for the whole Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
At present, despite the decisions of the Lahore Congress on the aim of independence, there is still much confusion even on the central aim. Definitions of the meaning of “Purna Swaraj” are as thick as blackberries on a bush, and cover the most contradictory notions. The latest definition by the Wardha meeting of the Working Committee in September, 1934 (“includes unfettered control over the army and other defence forces, external affairs, fiscal and commercial matters, and financial and economic policy”) goes back on the goal of independence and returns to the pre-Lahore aim of Dominion Status.
It is essential to establish in unmistakable terms the aim of complete independence of India as the unchangeable aim of the Indian national struggle, and therewith the rejection of all compromise and negotiation with imperialism for half measures, co-operation in working the constitution, etc.
Further, it is essential to link up the programme of the fight for independence with the immediate political demands of the struggle against imperialism and with the immediate demands of the workers and peasants for their vital needs.
The details of such a programme could be worked out in common by representatives of all the organisations concerned. Thus for example, such a programme might include:
(1) The aim of complete independence for India.
(2) Freedom of speech, press, organisation, assembly, strikes and picketing.
(3) Repeal of all exceptional and repressive laws, ordinances and anti-labour laws (Criminal Amendment Act, Press Act, etc.).
(4) Release of all political prisoners, detenus and internees.
(5) Against reductions of wages and dismissals of workers; for an adequate minimum wage and 8-hour day; for 50 per cent. reduction in rents and against the seizure of peasant land for debt by imperialists, native princes, zemindars and moneylenders.
The particular immediate demands of the struggle could be worked out and varied according to the locality and the particular conditions and stage.
A central rallying slogan for the whole movement could be provided by the demand for a Constituent Assembly; the conditions under which this demand could be usefully taken up and made the centre of agitation and propaganda are considered later in the present article. A platform of this type requires to be established as the common platform of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.
Similarly, the constitution and platform of the Congress requires to be worked out anew in the light of this, laying down in simple and clear form the aim of complete independence, the line of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism and the fight for the needs of the workers and peasants. Such a platform can unite all sincere elements of the national struggle, while excluding only those elements which seek to co-operate with imperialism.
The Tactics of Mass Struggle
A similar clearing is necessary with regard to the basic tactics of the Congress and of the national struggle.
The existing ideology of “non-violence,” which is still made a compulsory part of the Congress creed, is to-day a survival which is more and more visibly at variance with the realities of the struggle and less and less corresponds to the outlook of large sections of the national movement. Many prominent members of the Congress, who have formally to subscribe to this dogma as the condition of their participation in its mass activities, to-day privately declare their disbelief in it. This is not a healthy situation. While many sections may still be under the influence of the theories of “non-violence,” to make this a dogma compulsory on all sections is to place an obstacle in the way of the unity of the national front. In fact the experience of the nearly two decades since the war has abundantly shown that the conception of “non-violence” has been used, not merely in opposition to the fruitless policies of individual terrorism or sporadic outbreaks of a minority, but to shackle and hold in all effective mass activity and the development along the lines of the class struggle of the most powerful weapons against imperialism or mass resistance to imperialist violence, and thus leaving free play for the violence of imperialism, has been a dangerous and paralysing influence on the advance of the national struggle and the principal cause of the relative stagnation and failure of advance in India, despite the enormous sacrifices made, compared with other colonial countries. China and Abyssinia have shown how a people fights for its freedom against the imperialist enemy. In Egypt to-day, the higher degree of aggressive mass activity is reflected in the far greater readiness of British Imperialism to offer concessions. It is essential that the Indian national movement should free itself from the paralysing conceptions of passive “non-violence” if it is to defeat its enemy. A sharp, ideological struggle needs to be conducted on this question, but a struggle in the ideological field by way of ceaseless explaining and winning over. This issue should not be allowed to split the national front.
The Congress creed in consequence needs revision in accordance with the real conditions of the struggle. The dogma of “non-violence” should be omitted. The entire emphasis should be placed on the development of the mass struggle, on the work of organisation of the workers and peasants as the primary task in the field of organisation, on the active taking up of the immediate demands of the workers and peasants for their vital needs, and the linking of this struggle with the political anti-imperialist struggle.
Consolidation of the Left Wing
In order to realise the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front and to carry through these urgently necessary changes in the constitution, organisation, policy and work of the National Congress, it is essential that all left wing elements in the Congress should fight in unison on a common platform for these vital needs.
In the past there has been much dispersion of effort, division and mutual sniping between the left wing forces, thus playing into the hands of the domination of the right wing leadership. While it is necessary and desirable that the differences of political outlook and conception which exist between the different groupings should be thoroughly discussed and cleared in comradely discussion, this should not stand in the way of the fullest co-operation and common working on all the issues on which agreement can be reached, both within the Congress and in the immediate daily struggle.
Congress Socialists, Trade Unionists, Communists and Left Congressmen should all be able to unite on the essentials of a minimum programme of anti-imperialist struggle for complete independence of organisation of the masses and development of mass struggle, and of the fight for changes in the Congress constitution, policy, organisation and leadership to forward these aims. The Congress Socialist Party can play an especially important part in this as the grouping of all the radical elements in the existing Congress. It is of the greatest importance that every effort should be made to clarify questions of programme and tactics in the Congress Socialist Party.
It is in this way that the first stage of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front could be built up already in the common fight, stressing particularly the local, district and provincial basis.
At the same time it is essential to recognise that the task of consolidation of the left wing forces renders more necessary and responsible than ever the rôle and the activity of the Communists in this process, since they have the most responsible rôle to play in ensuring the political clearness of the fight, in pressing forward the drive to unity in action, and guiding the aims of the movement towards the goal of political and social liberation.
Through the consolidation of the left wing forces the first stage of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front can be built up already in the common fight, particular stress being laid in the early stages upon its development on a local and district basis.
The Anti-Imperialist Front in the Elections
The question of the elections is of cardinal importance for the anti-imperialist front.
On the one hand, it is essential that the clear line of the anti-imperialist front, the line of consistent struggle for complete independence, against all co-operation with imperialism and its constitution, and for the demands of the masses, should be challengingly voiced at the elections, and that the outlook of these vast sections of the national movement must not be stifled.
On the other hand, it is essential that unity of the national front should be maintained against the imperialists and their allies, and there should be no splitting of the vote for the benefit of the reactionary right wing elements outside the Congress who stand for co-operation with imperialism.
The best means to realise this requires the most earnest consideration of all supporters of the national struggle.
We would suggest that the anti-imperialist bloc, constituted on its programme of complete independence, no co-operation with imperialism, and active struggle for the demands of the masses, should seek, agreement with the existing leadership of the Congress (within which the Congress Socialists, grouping the radical elements, represent already a substantial minority of roughly one-third of the forces and a potential majority), to run its candidates directly on this programme in a certain number of seats (or to be able to include them as a group with their specific programme within the Congress panel), as recognised candidates of the united national front, co-operating with the Congress candidates in other constituencies who run on the official programme. The details of this arrangement will need careful working out; but with goodwill on both sides, such an arrangement should be possible.
Every effort requires to be made to prevent a splitting of the national front in the elections; but such unity should not be utilised to stifle the left wing forces of the anti-imperialist bloc.
The Constituent Assembly as the Central Slogan of the Struggle
In order to concentrate the struggle against the slave constitution imposed by the British Government, we cannot rest satisfied with the negative programme of rejection of the constitution and refusal of co-operation, but must counterpose our positive slogan.
Corresponding to the existing stages of the movement, the time is now undoubtedly favourable to launch as our central slogan the demand for the convening of a Constituent Assembly based upon a universal and equal franchise and direct and secret ballot. In the past there has been much discussion on the slogan of a Constituent Assembly. On the one hand, it has been presented in such a form as if the existing National Congress were to be regarded as already the Constituent Assembly of the Indian people. On the other hand, it has been presented as if it were to be regarded as an alternative to the aim of Soviets, as the political aim of the Indian Revolution. Both these outlooks are incorrect and require to be combated. But this necessary criticism of misleading conceptions has given rise to the alternative danger of the conception that the slogan of a Constituent Assembly is as such and at all times inadmissible and in inevitable opposition to the aim of Soviets. This would be a serious misunderstanding; the example of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution has shown how, in a given situation, the slogan of a Constituent Assembly can be a most powerful mobilising force which can be combined with the propaganda of Soviet Power as the ultimate aim.
Is the situation now in India such that this slogan of a Constituent Assembly would be a correct slogan of action for the coming stage? Yes. At a time when the British Government is imposing its new constitution of slavery upon the Indian nation, and preparing its mockery of elections from which the voice of nine-tenths of the people is excluded, and the remainder barred from effective representation with any power to their representatives it is essential to spread broadcast, in opposition to the line of imperialism, the demand for a Constituent Assembly freely elected upon a basis of universal suffrage. In putting this forward the Communists will in no wise weaken their propaganda for the aim of Soviet Power. The Constituent Assembly is a slogan for mobilising the masses at the present stage of the struggle.
But at the same time it is necessary to explain on every occasion on which the issue of a Constituent Assembly is raised, both within the National Congress, and in mass propaganda, that a real Constituent Assembly can only be realised as a result of a broad movement of the masses of the people in active struggle. The significance of the slogan of a Constituent Assembly is as a mobilising slogan of the mass struggle at the present stage. As such it should become the central slogan of action of the present stage of the national struggle and of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front, uniting all the partial and immediate struggles it this central political fight.
**********
The need for the speedy realisation of the broadest Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in India is the more urgent, not only for the reasons of the situation now existing within India, but in view of the whole international situation as it is developing and affecting India. The war question is now of burning urgency. The Italian war on Abyssinia, alongside the ever-extending Japanese aggression in China, is the signal of the advance of imperialism to a new world war. The sympathies of the Indian people are warmly united with the Abyssinian people in their resistance to the Italian war of aggression, and with the Chinese national struggle against Japanese, and all other imperialists. But at the same time it is necessary to sharpen the struggle against the war preparations of British Imperialism, which fall with merciless heaviness on the Indian masses. The imminence of a new world war makes more than ever necessary the unity and readiness of the national front in India.
In conclusion, it should be stated that these proposals are put forward for the consideration of all supporters of the struggle for national liberation in India as an attempt to trace the main outline of the path of advance in the present immediate situation and with the given relations of forces The realisation of this next stage of advance, the realisation of a broad based, all-embracing and powerful Anti-Imperialist People’s Front should rapidly open the way to new perspectives for the Indian national movement.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 10:17 am
Lester Hutchinson
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
Hugh Lester Hutchinson in 1947
Hugh Lester Hutchinson[1] (13 December 1904 – February 1983)[2] was a Labour politician who was elected to represent Manchester Rusholme in the 1945 General Election, winning the seat by ten votes.
He was a prominent Trade Unionist and participated in Trade Union movements in India in 1928-29. He was a journalist on the Indian Daily Mail. He was imprisoned in the Meerut Conspiracy Case along with 32 other Communist and Trade Union leaders in 1929.[3] He was jailed for 4 years.[4]
Together with two other Labour MPs, Leslie Solley and Konni Zilliacus, he voted against the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. The trio were expelled from the Labour Party on 16 May 1949, and subsequently sat as the Labour Independent Group.[5] His constituency was abolished at the 1950 election. He unsuccessfully stood for the Walthamstow West seat, but never returned to Parliament. He was a historian, writer and teacher.
References
1. http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/37238/pages/4293
2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 16 September 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
3. "S.H. Jhabwala And Ors. vs Emperor on 3 August, 1933". indiankanoon.org. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
4. "The Meerut Conspiracy Trial: Background, charges and sentences". 13 November 2007. Archived from the original on 13 November 2007. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 July 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
Hugh Lester Hutchinson in 1947
Hugh Lester Hutchinson[1] (13 December 1904 – February 1983)[2] was a Labour politician who was elected to represent Manchester Rusholme in the 1945 General Election, winning the seat by ten votes.
He was a prominent Trade Unionist and participated in Trade Union movements in India in 1928-29. He was a journalist on the Indian Daily Mail. He was imprisoned in the Meerut Conspiracy Case along with 32 other Communist and Trade Union leaders in 1929.[3] He was jailed for 4 years.[4]
Portrait of 25 of the Meerut Prisoners taken outside the jail. Back row (left to right): K. N. Sehgal, S. S. Josh, H. L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, B. F. Bradley, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, G. Adhikari. Middle Row: Radharaman Mitra, Gopen Chakravarti, Kishori Lal Ghosh, L. R. Kadam, D. R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Bannerjee, K. N. Joglekar, P. C. Joshi, Muzaffar Ahmed. Front Row: M. G. Desai, D. Goswami, R.S. Nimbkar, S.S. Mirajkar, S.A. Dange, S. V. Ghate, Gopal Basak.
The Meerut Conspiracy Case was a controversial court case initiated in British India in March 1929 and decided in 1933. Several trade unionists, including three Englishmen were arrested for organizing an Indian railway strike. The British Government convicted 27 leftist trade union leaders under a false lawsuit. The trial immediately caught attention in England, where it inspired the 1932 play Meerut by Manchester street theatre group the 'Red Megaphones', highlighting the detrimental effects of colonisation and industrialisation....
The main charges were that in 1921 S.A. Dange, Shaukat Usmani and Muzaffar Ahmed entered into a conspiracy to establish a branch of the Comintern in India and they were helped by various persons, including the accused Philip Spratt and Benjamin Francis Bradley, sent to India by the Communist International. The aim of the accused persons, according to the charges raised against them was under section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code (Act 45 of 1860)...
Though all the accused were not communists, the charges framed against them portrayed the British government's fear for growth of communist ideas in India. In the trial the accused were all labeled as Bolsheviks. During the trial of four and a half years, the defendants turned the courtroom into a public platform to espouse their cause. As a result, the trial saw strengthening of the communist movement in the country.
-- Meerut Conspiracy Case, by Wikipedia
Together with two other Labour MPs, Leslie Solley and Konni Zilliacus, he voted against the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. The trio were expelled from the Labour Party on 16 May 1949, and subsequently sat as the Labour Independent Group.[5] His constituency was abolished at the 1950 election. He unsuccessfully stood for the Walthamstow West seat, but never returned to Parliament. He was a historian, writer and teacher.
References
1. http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/37238/pages/4293
2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 16 September 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
3. "S.H. Jhabwala And Ors. vs Emperor on 3 August, 1933". indiankanoon.org. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
4. "The Meerut Conspiracy Trial: Background, charges and sentences". 13 November 2007. Archived from the original on 13 November 2007. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 July 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 10:52 am
Clemens Palme Dutt
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date of birth: 15 Apr 1893, Cambridge, England
Date of death: 01 Apr 1975, Goring on Thames
Location: Cambridge, London.
Clemens Palme Dutt was the elder brother of Rajani Palme Dutt. Both were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain. Clemens worked as a journalist, translator and editor, in particular of the works of Marx and Engels. The brothers’ Communist ideals were influenced from an early age by their father Dr Upendra Krishna Dutt’s activities as a doctor in a working-class part of Cambridge.
While at university, Clemens and Rajani were involved with the Socialist Club where both came to the attention of the British authorities and remained under constant surveillance. Both brothers were founding members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
In the 1920s, both brothers were writing for Labour Monthly and for a time Clemens took over from his brother as editor. In the 1920s, he became actively involved with the Indian independence movement. Working as a journalist in London, he wrote in particular on India and the Indian independence struggle. In July 1923, he visited Berlin from Moscow, where he became closely associated with M. N. Roy, who was heading the Indian section of Comintern. He returned to London later that year under instructions from Comintern to assist Shapurji Saklatvala. In 1925, the CPGB established its own colonial bureau, which Clemens Palme Dutt headed. The bureau attempted to form connections in India, Palestine, China, Egypt and Ireland. He became the link between the CPGB colonial bureau the Comintern’s Indian section and Indian Communists in Europe and India. In 1927, together with N. J. Upadhyaya and Ajoy Banerji, he founded the Indian Seamen's Union in London. By then he was also on the London Council of the Workers' Welfare League of India, working in close cooperation with Saklatvala. During this period Palme Dutt visited Liverpool several times to help with the organization of Indian seamen by local Communists active in the port.
In March 1928, Clemens Palme Dutt was asked by Reginald Bridgeman to join the Executive Committee of the British Section of the League Against Imperialism. In 1928, Palme Dutt returned to Moscow as a member of a sub-committee of the Executive Committee of the Comintern to advise on the Indian situation. In the 1930s, he worked on the editorial staff of the Daily Worker, the organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and acted as the Chairman of the Indian Section of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He also represented the Indian Seamen’s Union on the Executive of the League Against Imperialism. Palme Dutt worked as part of the Meerut Prisoners’ Defence Committee. In August 1930, he replaced Percy Glading as head of the Colonial Department of the CPGB. In 1930, together with Saklatvala, he helped to found the Workers' Section of the London Branch of the Indian National Congress. In June 1931, he was part of a sub-committee of the Colonial Bureau of the CPGB to organize Indian students in Britain.
In late 1931 he moved to Berlin and later to Moscow where he met Violet Lansbury (daughter of George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party in the early 1930s) whom he married in 1936 and with whom he had a daughter. During the Spanish Civil War, Palme Dutt worked together with Krishna Menon and the India League to collect donations for an ambulance for Spanish Republicans. By early 1939 Palme Dutt, his wife and daughter had returned to Britain permanently. He continued to work for the CPGB, addressing meetings and writing articles.
Connections:
Robert Page Arnot, Olive Budden, Ajoy Banerji, Reginald Bridgeman, Rose Cohen, Claud Cockburn, Shripat Amrit Dange, Upendra Krishna Dutt (father), Rajani Palme Dutt (brother), Pazl Elahi, Percy Glading, Don Phillip Rupasangha Gunawardena, W. M. Holmes, Douglas Hyde, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, V. K. Krishna Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sylvia Pankhurst, Picasso, M. P. Rathbones, M. N. Roy, Bill Rust, Shapurji Saklatvala, Pulin Behari Seal, Mohamed Ali Sepassi (Khushi Mohammed), Philip Spratt, Robert Stuart, John Strachey, N. J. Upadhyaya.
Communist Club, Battersea; Communist Party of Great Britain; Indian Bureau; Indian Seamen’s Union; Meerut Prisoners Defence Committee; National Union of Journalists; Workers' Welfare League for India.
Network:
Shapurji Saklatvala
Rajani Palme Dutt
Krishna Menon
Organizations:
Indian Writing
Lawrence & Wishart
League Against Imperialism
Involved in events:
Meerut Conspiracy Trials
Published works:
Biology: An Introductory Course for Casses and Study Circles (London: Labour Research Department, 1925)
Labour and the Empire (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1929)
As editor and translator:
Engels, Friedrich, Herr Eugen Duehring’s Revolution in Science-Anti-Duehring, trans. by Emile Burns and ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)
Engels, Friedrich, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy...With an appendix of other material of Marx and Engels relating to dialectical materialism, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)Engels, Friedrich, The Housing Question, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1935)
Marx, Karl, The Poverty of Philosophy, with an introduction by Frederick Engels, ed. by C. P. Dutt and V. Chattopadhyaya (London: Martin Lawrence, 1936)
Frolov, Yury Petrovitch, Pavlov and his School. The Theory of Conditioned Reflexes, trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1937)
Critique of the Gotha Programme...With Appendices by Marx, Engels and Lenin, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938)
Engels, Friedrich, Dialectics of Nature, trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940)
Marx, Karl, Selected Works of Karl Marx, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1942)
The Soviet Worker Looks at the War: Selections from the Moscow Fortnightly War and the Working Class, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Labour Monthly, 1944)
Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Weissbuch der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands ueber die muendliche Verhandlung im Verbotsprozess...in Karlsruhe ('The Karlsruhe Trial for banning the Communist Party of Germany'), trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1956)
Contributions to periodicals:
Daily Worker
Labour Monthly
Secondary works:
'Announcement of Death', The Times (14 April 1975), p. 24
Owen, Nicholas, The British Left and India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)
Archive source:
L/PJ/12/28, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
L/PJ/12/29, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
KV2/2504, National Archives, Kew
KV2/2505, National Archives, Kew
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date of birth: 15 Apr 1893, Cambridge, England
Date of death: 01 Apr 1975, Goring on Thames
Location: Cambridge, London.
Clemens Palme Dutt was the elder brother of Rajani Palme Dutt. Both were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain. Clemens worked as a journalist, translator and editor, in particular of the works of Marx and Engels. The brothers’ Communist ideals were influenced from an early age by their father Dr Upendra Krishna Dutt’s activities as a doctor in a working-class part of Cambridge.
Date of birth: 01 Jan 1857, Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1876
Upendra Krishna Dutt travelled to Britain in 1875 or 1876 on a Gilchrist Scholarship to study medicine at London University. After qualifying, he remained in Britain practising at Leicester and then buying a medical practice in Cambridge. He faced a deal of racial prejudice in securing employment as a doctor after qualifying. Dutt married the Swedish writer Anna Palme in England. She was a distant relative of Olaf Palme, later Swedish Prime Minister.
The Dutt family were close-knit despite financial insecurity. From 1891, Dutt hosted the Cambridge Majlis society meetings in his home. Two of Dutt's sons, Rajani and Clemens, became active members of the Communist Party of Great Britain....
Organizations:
Cambridge Majlis
East India Association
-- Upendra Krishna Dutt, by The Open University, Making Britain
While at university, Clemens and Rajani were involved with the Socialist Club where both came to the attention of the British authorities and remained under constant surveillance. Both brothers were founding members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
In the 1920s, both brothers were writing for Labour Monthly and for a time Clemens took over from his brother as editor. In the 1920s, he became actively involved with the Indian independence movement. Working as a journalist in London, he wrote in particular on India and the Indian independence struggle. In July 1923, he visited Berlin from Moscow, where he became closely associated with M. N. Roy, who was heading the Indian section of Comintern. He returned to London later that year under instructions from Comintern to assist Shapurji Saklatvala. In 1925, the CPGB established its own colonial bureau, which Clemens Palme Dutt headed. The bureau attempted to form connections in India, Palestine, China, Egypt and Ireland. He became the link between the CPGB colonial bureau the Comintern’s Indian section and Indian Communists in Europe and India. In 1927, together with N. J. Upadhyaya and Ajoy Banerji, he founded the Indian Seamen's Union in London. By then he was also on the London Council of the Workers' Welfare League of India, working in close cooperation with Saklatvala. During this period Palme Dutt visited Liverpool several times to help with the organization of Indian seamen by local Communists active in the port.
In March 1928, Clemens Palme Dutt was asked by Reginald Bridgeman to join the Executive Committee of the British Section of the League Against Imperialism. In 1928, Palme Dutt returned to Moscow as a member of a sub-committee of the Executive Committee of the Comintern to advise on the Indian situation. In the 1930s, he worked on the editorial staff of the Daily Worker, the organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and acted as the Chairman of the Indian Section of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He also represented the Indian Seamen’s Union on the Executive of the League Against Imperialism. Palme Dutt worked as part of the Meerut Prisoners’ Defence Committee. In August 1930, he replaced Percy Glading as head of the Colonial Department of the CPGB. In 1930, together with Saklatvala, he helped to found the Workers' Section of the London Branch of the Indian National Congress. In June 1931, he was part of a sub-committee of the Colonial Bureau of the CPGB to organize Indian students in Britain.
In late 1931 he moved to Berlin and later to Moscow where he met Violet Lansbury (daughter of George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party in the early 1930s) whom he married in 1936 and with whom he had a daughter. During the Spanish Civil War, Palme Dutt worked together with Krishna Menon and the India League to collect donations for an ambulance for Spanish Republicans. By early 1939 Palme Dutt, his wife and daughter had returned to Britain permanently. He continued to work for the CPGB, addressing meetings and writing articles.
Connections:
Robert Page Arnot, Olive Budden, Ajoy Banerji, Reginald Bridgeman, Rose Cohen, Claud Cockburn, Shripat Amrit Dange, Upendra Krishna Dutt (father), Rajani Palme Dutt (brother), Pazl Elahi, Percy Glading, Don Phillip Rupasangha Gunawardena, W. M. Holmes, Douglas Hyde, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, V. K. Krishna Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sylvia Pankhurst, Picasso, M. P. Rathbones, M. N. Roy, Bill Rust, Shapurji Saklatvala, Pulin Behari Seal, Mohamed Ali Sepassi (Khushi Mohammed), Philip Spratt, Robert Stuart, John Strachey, N. J. Upadhyaya.
Communist Club, Battersea; Communist Party of Great Britain; Indian Bureau; Indian Seamen’s Union; Meerut Prisoners Defence Committee; National Union of Journalists; Workers' Welfare League for India.
Network:
Shapurji Saklatvala
Rajani Palme Dutt
Krishna Menon
Organizations:
Indian Writing
Lawrence & Wishart
League Against Imperialism
Involved in events:
Meerut Conspiracy Trials
Published works:
Biology: An Introductory Course for Casses and Study Circles (London: Labour Research Department, 1925)
Labour and the Empire (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1929)
As editor and translator:
Engels, Friedrich, Herr Eugen Duehring’s Revolution in Science-Anti-Duehring, trans. by Emile Burns and ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)
Engels, Friedrich, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy...With an appendix of other material of Marx and Engels relating to dialectical materialism, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)Engels, Friedrich, The Housing Question, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1935)
Marx, Karl, The Poverty of Philosophy, with an introduction by Frederick Engels, ed. by C. P. Dutt and V. Chattopadhyaya (London: Martin Lawrence, 1936)
Frolov, Yury Petrovitch, Pavlov and his School. The Theory of Conditioned Reflexes, trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1937)
Critique of the Gotha Programme...With Appendices by Marx, Engels and Lenin, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938)
Engels, Friedrich, Dialectics of Nature, trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940)
Marx, Karl, Selected Works of Karl Marx, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1942)
The Soviet Worker Looks at the War: Selections from the Moscow Fortnightly War and the Working Class, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Labour Monthly, 1944)
Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Weissbuch der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands ueber die muendliche Verhandlung im Verbotsprozess...in Karlsruhe ('The Karlsruhe Trial for banning the Communist Party of Germany'), trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1956)
Contributions to periodicals:
Daily Worker
Labour Monthly
Secondary works:
'Announcement of Death', The Times (14 April 1975), p. 24
Owen, Nicholas, The British Left and India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)
Archive source:
L/PJ/12/28, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
L/PJ/12/29, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
KV2/2504, National Archives, Kew
KV2/2505, National Archives, Kew
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:05 am
Upendra Krishna Dutt
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date of birth: 01 Jan 1857, Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1876
Upendra Krishna Dutt travelled to Britain in 1875 or 1876 on a Gilchrist Scholarship to study medicine at London University. After qualifying, he remained in Britain practising at Leicester and then buying a medical practice in Cambridge. He faced a deal of racial prejudice in securing employment as a doctor after qualifying. Dutt married the Swedish writer Anna Palme in England. She was a distant relative of Olaf Palme, later Swedish Prime Minister.
The Dutt family were close-knit despite financial insecurity. From 1891, Dutt hosted the Cambridge Majlis society meetings in his home. Two of Dutt's sons, Rajani and Clemens, became active members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Their involvement in politics was influenced by their father's work as a doctor in working-class areas of Cambridge.
Connections:
Clemens Palme Dutt, Rajani Palme Dutt.
Network:
Rajani Palme Dutt
Organizations:
Cambridge Majlis
East India Association
Secondary works:
Callaghan, John, Rajani Palme Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993)
Lahiri, Shompa, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1800-1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2000)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)
Archive source:
R. P. Dutt Papers, Communist Party Archives, University of Central Lancashire
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date of birth: 01 Jan 1857, Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1876
Upendra Krishna Dutt travelled to Britain in 1875 or 1876 on a Gilchrist Scholarship to study medicine at London University. After qualifying, he remained in Britain practising at Leicester and then buying a medical practice in Cambridge. He faced a deal of racial prejudice in securing employment as a doctor after qualifying. Dutt married the Swedish writer Anna Palme in England. She was a distant relative of Olaf Palme, later Swedish Prime Minister.
Anna Augusta Palme Dutt; born January 5, 1868, in Kalmar, H. Sverige, Sweden; daughter of Christian Adolph Palme [Christian Adolph Palme (Kristian Adolf), born 30 April, 1811 in Applerum, Arby, Kalmar, Sverige; died 31 March, 1889 in Kalmar, Kalmar, Sverige; son of Johan Palm and Carolina von Sydow; Secretary of State in Kalmar, lawyer in Kalmar] and Augusta Johanna Amalia Hasselqvist; Sister of Sven Theodor Palme [grandfather of Prime Minister Olof Palme]; married Upendra Krishna Dutt 1890 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK; great aunt of Olof Palme
Johan Palme (1778-1845), bailiff, Södra Möre, Kalmar County [ 1 ]
o Johan Theodor Palme (1808-1870), wholesaler and shipowner in Kalmar [ 1 ]
August Palme (1856–1924), actor [ 1 ]
o Christian Adolph Palme (1811–1889), Secretary of State in Kalmar, Lawyer [ 1 ]
Henrik Palme (1841–1932), banking director [ 1 ]
Carl Palme (1879-1960) artist [ 1 ]
Lennart Palme (1881-1971), business manager [ 1 ]
Henrik Palme dy (1888–1935), director [ 2 ]
René Palme (1910–1983), Businessman, Mexico [ 2 ]
Oscar Palme, (1891–1946), major [ 1 ]
Ulf Palme (1920–1993), actor [ 1 ]
Beatrice Palme , actor in Italy
+ Laila Andersson-Palme (born 1941), married to Ulf Palme from 1984 [ 3 ]
Fredrik Adolph Palme, (1846-1912), a notary court notary [ 1 ]
Einar Palme (1901–1993), artist [ 1 ]
Sven Palme (1854-1934), Insurance Director [ 1 ]
Olof Palme (1884–1918), historian [ 1 ]
Rutger Palme (1910–1995), lawyer, chair of the municipal council [ 1 ]
Agneta Uddenberg , born Palme (1941–2011), journalist and writer [ 4 ]
Sven Ulric Palme (1912–1977), historian, professor [ 1 ]
Jacob Palme (born 1941), professor [ 1 ]
Thomas Palme (born 1944), Ambassador [ 1 ]
Christian Palme (born 1952), journalist [ 1 ]
Per Olof Palme (1914–1983), art historian, professor in Oslo [ 1 ]
Hans Palme (1918-2000), chief engineer [ 1 ]
Erik Palme (born 1938), architect [ 1 ]
+ Birgitta Palme (1940-2000), head of theater, married to Erik Palme [ 1 ]
Susanne Palme (born 1955), journalist [ 5 ]
Gunnar Palme (1886–1934) insurance director [ 1 ]
Claës Palme (1917–2006), lawyer [ 1 ]
Olof Palme (1927–1986), Prime Minister [ 1 ]
+ Lisbeth Beck-Friis (1931–2018), psychologist, married to Olof Palme [ 1 ] [ 6 ]
Joakim Palme (born 1958), political scientist and sociologist, professor [ 6 ]
Mårten Palme (born 1961), economist, professor [ 6 ]
Mattias Palme (born 1968)
Nils Palme (1895–1963), military, landlord [ 7 ]
The Dutt family were close-knit despite financial insecurity. From 1891, Dutt hosted the Cambridge Majlis society meetings in his home. Two of Dutt's sons, Rajani and Clemens, became active members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Their involvement in politics was influenced by their father's work as a doctor in working-class areas of Cambridge.
Connections:
Clemens Palme Dutt, Rajani Palme Dutt.
Network:
Rajani Palme Dutt
Organizations:
Cambridge Majlis
East India Association
Secondary works:
Callaghan, John, Rajani Palme Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993)
Lahiri, Shompa, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1800-1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2000)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)
Archive source:
R. P. Dutt Papers, Communist Party Archives, University of Central Lancashire
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:16 am
East India Association
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date began: 01 Jan 1866
The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government.
Naoroji delivered the first lecture to the Association on 2 May 1867. The Association's first President was Lord Lyveden.
In 1868, the East India Association had nearly 600 members. This had increased to 1,000 in 1878. Female members were admitted from 1912. The Association produced a journal (Journal of the East India Association) from its inception which included the papers that were delivered before their meetings. Papers and proceedings of these meetings were then produced in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, which eventually superseded the Journal of the East India Association.
These lectures were usually delivered in the Association's regular meeting place - Caxton Hall, Westminster (i.e., Westminster Town Hall). Over the course of its existence, the Association would listen to lectures from a wide range of Indian and British men and women on matters ranging from the economic development of India to literature to suffrage. In March 1940, after a lecture delivered by Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall, the former Governor of Punjab at the time of the Amritsar Massacre was shot dead by Udham Singh.
The East India Association incorporated the National Indian Association in 1949 and became the Britain, India and Pakistan Association. In 1966 it amalgamated with the former India Society, now Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society, to become the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon.
Key individuals:
Dadabhai Naoroji
Connections:
Syed Ameer Ali, Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, R. C. Dutt, G. W. Leitner, Udham Singh.
Related organization:
India Society
London Indian Society
National Indian Association
Published works:
Asiatic Review
Journal of the East India Association
Secondary works:
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Example:
'The Jubilee of the East India Association (founded 1866)', Ch. I, Asiatic Review XI.29 (January 1917), pp. 1-14; p. 3
Content:
Ten installments (until July 1918) in the Asiatic Review on the history of the East India Association, with details of all the key lectures that were given in the first fifty years of the Association.
Extract:
One of the chief objects Mr Naoroji had in view in founding the Association was the awakening of the British people to a due sense of their responsibilities as rulers of India, and his first endeavours were therefore directed to the dissipation of that 'colossal ignorance' of India which had so impressed him on his first arrival in England in 1855. Later on he saw how desirable it was that the Chiefs and Princes of India should be represented in this country, and that all possible assistance should be afforded them in laying their claims and views before Government for the protection of their interests and the redress of their grievances. So 'all persons interested in India' (whether Indians or Britons) were welcomed as Members of the East India Association.
Archive source:
Minute books, financial papers and correspondence, Mss Eur F147, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Date began: 01 Jan 1866
The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government.
In 1865, the London Indian Society was founded under the guidance of Dadabhai Naoroji. It was formed by Indian students as a forum to air political grievances. Europeans were allowed to be honorary members but could not vote or hold office. Of the founding group of students, they included W. C. Bonnerjee, Manomohun Ghose, Pherozeshah Mehta and Badruddin Tyabji.
In 1866, the London Indian Society was superseded by the East India Association, although it did continue to exist in some separate form for a few more years.
-- London Indian Society, by The Open University: Making Britain
Naoroji delivered the first lecture to the Association on 2 May 1867. The Association's first President was Lord Lyveden.
In 1868, the East India Association had nearly 600 members. This had increased to 1,000 in 1878. Female members were admitted from 1912. The Association produced a journal (Journal of the East India Association) from its inception which included the papers that were delivered before their meetings. Papers and proceedings of these meetings were then produced in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, which eventually superseded the Journal of the East India Association.
The Asiatic Quarterly Review was founded by Sir Lepel Griffin in 1885. Griffin founded the journal as an organ of the East India Association and employed Demetrius Boulger as editor. In 1891, the scope of the journal was expanded beyond just Indian matters to South East Asia and the Middle East and therefore the name was changed to the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record. The third series began in 1896 and was taken over by G. W. Leitner at the Oriental Institute at Woking. In 1913, the name was constricted back to the Asiatic Quarterly Review and the journal was edited by W. MacCarthy Mann and Gilbery Lyne. In 1914, it was published from London and renamed the Asiatic Review as it was now published more frequently during the year.
The journal combined articles from the proceedings of East India Association meetings with other articles on matters relating to Asia. It also included book reviews and comments on international affairs. The journal did not shy away from political matters, and actively encouraged debates from various standpoints. The Asiatic Review is a valuable resource for information about the activities of South Asians in Britain and a number of reviews of books relating to South Asia. In 1915, the journal began a regular section 'Where East and West Meet', written by A. A. Smith, editor of the Indian Magazine and Review, which gave a record of events in Britain relating to 'Asiatic questions'. The journal ceased publication in 1952.
-- Asiatic Review, by The Open University: Making Britain
These lectures were usually delivered in the Association's regular meeting place - Caxton Hall, Westminster (i.e., Westminster Town Hall). Over the course of its existence, the Association would listen to lectures from a wide range of Indian and British men and women on matters ranging from the economic development of India to literature to suffrage. In March 1940, after a lecture delivered by Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall, the former Governor of Punjab at the time of the Amritsar Massacre was shot dead by Udham Singh.
The East India Association incorporated the National Indian Association in 1949 and became the Britain, India and Pakistan Association. In 1966 it amalgamated with the former India Society, now Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society, to become the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon.
Key individuals:
Dadabhai Naoroji
Connections:
Syed Ameer Ali, Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, R. C. Dutt, G. W. Leitner, Udham Singh.
Related organization:
India Society
London Indian Society
National Indian Association
Published works:
Asiatic Review
Journal of the East India Association
Secondary works:
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Example:
'The Jubilee of the East India Association (founded 1866)', Ch. I, Asiatic Review XI.29 (January 1917), pp. 1-14; p. 3
Content:
Ten installments (until July 1918) in the Asiatic Review on the history of the East India Association, with details of all the key lectures that were given in the first fifty years of the Association.
Extract:
One of the chief objects Mr Naoroji had in view in founding the Association was the awakening of the British people to a due sense of their responsibilities as rulers of India, and his first endeavours were therefore directed to the dissipation of that 'colossal ignorance' of India which had so impressed him on his first arrival in England in 1855. Later on he saw how desirable it was that the Chiefs and Princes of India should be represented in this country, and that all possible assistance should be afforded them in laying their claims and views before Government for the protection of their interests and the redress of their grievances. So 'all persons interested in India' (whether Indians or Britons) were welcomed as Members of the East India Association.
Archive source:
Minute books, financial papers and correspondence, Mss Eur F147, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:26 am
Dadabhai Naoroji
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Other names: The Grand Old Man of India
Date of birth: 04 Sep 1825, Bombay, India
Date of death: 30 Jun 1917, Bombay, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1855
Dates of time spent in Britain: On and off between 1855 and 1907
Dadabhai Naoroji, of Bombay Parsee origin, was the first Indian to be elected to Parliament in Britain. Naoroji travelled to Britain in 1885 as a business partner of Cama and Company. A member of several businesses, he became Professor of Gujarati at University College, London (1856-65). He had also been founder-editor of the journal Rast Goftar in Bombay in 1851. He founded the London Zoroastrian Association in 1861.
He was also founding member of the East India Association and London Indian Society, and became vocal in promoting Indian rights in regard to the ICS and trade. Naoroji was an economist and proponent of the 'drain theory', building up a detailed economic critique of British imperialism in India. He also established links with Irish MPs and was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress in 1885 in Bombay.
In 1886, Naoroji campaigned as Liberal Party candidate for the strongly Conservative seat of Holborn. In 1888, referring to Naoroji's defeat, the Conservative Party Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, remarked that an English constituency was not ready to elect a 'Blackman', drawing greater notoriety to Naoroji. In 1892, he contested the seat of Central Finsbury, campaigning on Gladstone's platform of Liberalism, and was successfully elected with a majority of five. He lost his seat in the General Election of 1895. In 1906, Naoroji stood as a candidate at Lambeth North but was again unsuccessful. In 1907, Naoroji left England to retire at Versova in Bombay, where he died in 1917.
Connections:
Syed Ameer Ali, John Archer (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics), Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, Charles Bradlaugh, Josephine Butler, Madame Bhikaiji Cama, William Digby, Lalmohan Ghose, H. M. Hyndman, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (helped out in campaign), Frank Hugh O'Donnell, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (through NIA), Florence Nightingale, Badruddin Tyabji, Alfred Webb, William Wedderburn, Henry Sylvester Wiliams (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics).
Network:
Shyamaji Krishnavarma
Syed Ameer Ali
Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree
W. C. Bonnerjee
Madame Cama
William Digby
Lalmohan Ghose
Henry Mayers Hyndman
Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Elizabeth Adelaide Manning
Florence Nightingale
Frank Hugh O'Donnell
Shapurji Saklatvala
Badruddin Tyabji
Alfred Webb
Organizations:
East India Association
London Indian Society
National Indian Association
National Liberal Club
Zoroastrian Association
Involved in events:
General Elections, 1886, 1892, 1895, 1906
Published works:
Poverty of India (1876)
Mr D. Naoroji and Mr Schnadhorst (London: Chant & Co., 1892)
Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901)
Reviews:
The First Indian Member of the Imperial Parliament (Madras: Addison & Co., 1892)
Fair Play, India and Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji MP (Madras: Higginbotham & Co., 1893)
For press reaction to Naoroji's election as MP in 1892 see Biographical Magazine, Evening News and Post, Punch, Pall Mall Gazette, among others
Secondary works:
Burton, Antoinette, 'Tongues Untied: Lord Salisbury's "Black Man" and the Boundaries of Imperial Democracy', Society for Comparative Study of Society and History (2000), pp. 632-61
Hinnells, John R., Zoroastrians in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
Masani, R. P., Dadabhai Naoroji. The Grand Old Man of India (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1939)
Monk, C. J. , ‘“Member for India?” The Parliamentary Lives of Dadabhai Naoroji (MP: 1892-1895) and Mancherjee Bhownaggree (MP: 1895-1906)’, unpublished MPhil thesis (University of Manchester, 1985)
Mukherjee, Sumita, ‘‘Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906’ Journal of the Oxford University History Society 2 (Michaelmas 2004)
Ralph, Omar, Naoroji. The First Asian MP. A Biography of Dadabhai Naoroji: India's Patriot and Britain's MP (St John's Antigua: Hansib, 1997)
Schneer, Jonathan, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (London: Yale University Press, 1999)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Parekh, C. L. (ed.), Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings of the Honourable Dadabhai Naoroji (Bombay: Caxton, 1887)
Patwardhan, R. P. (ed.), Dadabhai Naoroji Correspondence (Bombay: n.p., 1977)
Archive source:
Dadabhai Naoroji Parliamentary Centenary Celebrations, Mss Eur F279, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Letters in William Digby Collection, Mss Eur D767, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Minute books of East India Association, Mss Eur F147/27, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Papers and correspondence, National Archives of India, New Delhi
Notes relating to possible candidature in 1903-1910, Labour History Archive, Central Lancashire
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20
Other names: The Grand Old Man of India
Date of birth: 04 Sep 1825, Bombay, India
Date of death: 30 Jun 1917, Bombay, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1855
Dates of time spent in Britain: On and off between 1855 and 1907
Dadabhai Naoroji, of Bombay Parsee origin, was the first Indian to be elected to Parliament in Britain. Naoroji travelled to Britain in 1885 as a business partner of Cama and Company. A member of several businesses, he became Professor of Gujarati at University College, London (1856-65). He had also been founder-editor of the journal Rast Goftar in Bombay in 1851. He founded the London Zoroastrian Association in 1861.
The Zoroastrian Association was founded in 1861 in Kensington, London. According to Ralph Hinnells it was the first Asian religious association founded in Britain.
Dadabhai Naoroji was the first president, having founded the association with Muncherjee Hormusji Cama. The first meeting was attended by 15 Parsees. Under the presidency of M. M. Bhownaggree, it became the Incorporated Parsee Association of Europe. Various other Parsee organizations formed in Britain as well, such as the Parsee Social Union and the World Zoroastrian Association.
The Zoroastrian Association incorporated a religious, social and welfare role, with educational outreach. It also organized social outings. It oversaw Parsee burials at Brockwood. The Zoroastrian House in Kensington provided facilities as a guesthouse.
-- Zoroastrian Association, by The Open University: Making Britain
He was also founding member of the East India Association and London Indian Society, and became vocal in promoting Indian rights in regard to the ICS and trade. Naoroji was an economist and proponent of the 'drain theory', building up a detailed economic critique of British imperialism in India. He also established links with Irish MPs and was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress in 1885 in Bombay.
In 1886, Naoroji campaigned as Liberal Party candidate for the strongly Conservative seat of Holborn. In 1888, referring to Naoroji's defeat, the Conservative Party Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, remarked that an English constituency was not ready to elect a 'Blackman', drawing greater notoriety to Naoroji. In 1892, he contested the seat of Central Finsbury, campaigning on Gladstone's platform of Liberalism, and was successfully elected with a majority of five. He lost his seat in the General Election of 1895. In 1906, Naoroji stood as a candidate at Lambeth North but was again unsuccessful. In 1907, Naoroji left England to retire at Versova in Bombay, where he died in 1917.
Connections:
Syed Ameer Ali, John Archer (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics), Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, Charles Bradlaugh, Josephine Butler, Madame Bhikaiji Cama, William Digby, Lalmohan Ghose, H. M. Hyndman, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (helped out in campaign), Frank Hugh O'Donnell, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (through NIA), Florence Nightingale, Badruddin Tyabji, Alfred Webb, William Wedderburn, Henry Sylvester Wiliams (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics).
Network:
Shyamaji Krishnavarma
Syed Ameer Ali
Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree
W. C. Bonnerjee
Madame Cama
William Digby
Lalmohan Ghose
Henry Mayers Hyndman
Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Elizabeth Adelaide Manning
Florence Nightingale
Frank Hugh O'Donnell
Shapurji Saklatvala
Badruddin Tyabji
Alfred Webb
Organizations:
East India Association
London Indian Society
National Indian Association
National Liberal Club
Zoroastrian Association
Involved in events:
General Elections, 1886, 1892, 1895, 1906
Published works:
Poverty of India (1876)
Mr D. Naoroji and Mr Schnadhorst (London: Chant & Co., 1892)
Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901)
Reviews:
The First Indian Member of the Imperial Parliament (Madras: Addison & Co., 1892)
Fair Play, India and Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji MP (Madras: Higginbotham & Co., 1893)
For press reaction to Naoroji's election as MP in 1892 see Biographical Magazine, Evening News and Post, Punch, Pall Mall Gazette, among others
Secondary works:
Burton, Antoinette, 'Tongues Untied: Lord Salisbury's "Black Man" and the Boundaries of Imperial Democracy', Society for Comparative Study of Society and History (2000), pp. 632-61
Hinnells, John R., Zoroastrians in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
Masani, R. P., Dadabhai Naoroji. The Grand Old Man of India (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1939)
Monk, C. J. , ‘“Member for India?” The Parliamentary Lives of Dadabhai Naoroji (MP: 1892-1895) and Mancherjee Bhownaggree (MP: 1895-1906)’, unpublished MPhil thesis (University of Manchester, 1985)
Mukherjee, Sumita, ‘‘Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906’ Journal of the Oxford University History Society 2 (Michaelmas 2004)
Ralph, Omar, Naoroji. The First Asian MP. A Biography of Dadabhai Naoroji: India's Patriot and Britain's MP (St John's Antigua: Hansib, 1997)
Schneer, Jonathan, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (London: Yale University Press, 1999)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Parekh, C. L. (ed.), Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings of the Honourable Dadabhai Naoroji (Bombay: Caxton, 1887)
Patwardhan, R. P. (ed.), Dadabhai Naoroji Correspondence (Bombay: n.p., 1977)
Archive source:
Dadabhai Naoroji Parliamentary Centenary Celebrations, Mss Eur F279, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Letters in William Digby Collection, Mss Eur D767, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Minute books of East India Association, Mss Eur F147/27, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Papers and correspondence, National Archives of India, New Delhi
Notes relating to possible candidature in 1903-1910, Labour History Archive, Central Lancashire
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
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Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden [Lord Lyvedon]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
The Lord Lyveden
GCB PC
Secretary at War
In office: 6 February 1852 – 21 February 1852
Monarch: Victoria
Prime Minister: Lord John Russell
Preceded by: Hon. Fox Maule
Succeeded by: William Beresford
President of the Board of Control
In office: 3 March 1855 – 21 February 1858
Monarch: Victoria
Prime Minister: The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by: Sir Charles Wood, Bt
Succeeded by: The Earl of Ellenborough
Personal details
Born: 23 February 1800
Died: 10 November 1873 (aged 73)
Nationality: British
Political party: Whig; Liberal Party
Spouse(s): Lady Emma Mary Fitzpatrick
Alma mater: Christ Church, Oxford
Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden, GCB, PC (23 February 1800 – 10 November 1873), known as Robert Vernon Smith until 1859, was a British Liberal Party politician.
Background and education
Vernon was the son of Robert Percy Smith, of 20 Savile Row, London, and of Cheam, Surrey, and the nephew of The Rev. Sydney Smith, Canon of St Paul's. His mother was Carolina Maria Vernon, daughter of Richard Vernon. Vernon was educated at Christ Church, Oxford (2nd class classics 1822).
Political career
He was elected Member of Parliament for Tralee in 1829, a seat he held until 1831, and then sat for Northampton from 1831 to 1859. When the Whigs came to power in 1830 under Lord Grey, Vernon was appointed a Lord of the Treasury (government whip), which he remained also when Lord Melbourne became Prime Minister in July 1834. The Whigs fell from office in November of that year, but returned already in April 1835, when Vernon was appointed Secretary of the Board of Control by Melbourne, which he remained until 1839. He then served as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1839 to 1841. The latter year he was also admitted to the Privy Council. He did not hold office again until February 1852, when he was made Secretary at War in the first administration of Lord John Russell. However, the government fell already the same month. When the Liberals (as the Whigs were now known) returned to office in 1855 under Lord Palmerston, Vernon was appointed President of the Board of Control, with a seat in the cabinet, a post he retained until the government fell in March 1858. The Indian Mutiny took place during his tenure. The following year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyveden, of Lyveden in the County of Northampton.,[1] and in 1879 he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB).[2]
In 1845 he was appointed one of the Lay Commissioners in Lunacy.[3]
Family
Greville Richard Vernon, son of Lord Lyveden.
Lord Lyveden married Lady Emma Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter and co-heir of the Earl of Upper Ossory, in 1823. In 1846 he assumed for his children by Royal licence the surname of Vernon in lieu of Smith and in 1859 he assumed for himself by Royal licence the same surname in lieu of Smith. Lord Lyveden died in November 1873, aged 73, and was succeeded in the barony by his son Fitzpatrick. Lord Lyveden was a member of the Reform Club, the Travellers Club, and Brooks's.
He tomb is located in the church of St Andrew in Brigstock, Northamptonshire.
Tomb of Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden in St. Andrew's church, Brigstock, Northamptonshire
Notes
1. "No. 22280". The London Gazette. 28 June 1859. p. 2514.
2. "No. 23876". The London Gazette. 16 July 1872. p. 3190.
3. Kathleen Jones (2003). Lunacy, law, and conscience, 1744-1845: the social history of the care of the insane. Routledge. p. 191. ISBN 0-415-17802-9.
Vernon's tomb in Brigstock
References
• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,[page needed]
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
External links
• Works by or about Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden at Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Vernon
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
The Lord Lyveden
GCB PC
Secretary at War
In office: 6 February 1852 – 21 February 1852
Monarch: Victoria
Prime Minister: Lord John Russell
Preceded by: Hon. Fox Maule
Succeeded by: William Beresford
President of the Board of Control
In office: 3 March 1855 – 21 February 1858
Monarch: Victoria
Prime Minister: The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by: Sir Charles Wood, Bt
Succeeded by: The Earl of Ellenborough
Personal details
Born: 23 February 1800
Died: 10 November 1873 (aged 73)
Nationality: British
Political party: Whig; Liberal Party
Spouse(s): Lady Emma Mary Fitzpatrick
Alma mater: Christ Church, Oxford
Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden, GCB, PC (23 February 1800 – 10 November 1873), known as Robert Vernon Smith until 1859, was a British Liberal Party politician.
Background and education
Vernon was the son of Robert Percy Smith, of 20 Savile Row, London, and of Cheam, Surrey, and the nephew of The Rev. Sydney Smith, Canon of St Paul's. His mother was Carolina Maria Vernon, daughter of Richard Vernon. Vernon was educated at Christ Church, Oxford (2nd class classics 1822).
Political career
He was elected Member of Parliament for Tralee in 1829, a seat he held until 1831, and then sat for Northampton from 1831 to 1859. When the Whigs came to power in 1830 under Lord Grey, Vernon was appointed a Lord of the Treasury (government whip), which he remained also when Lord Melbourne became Prime Minister in July 1834. The Whigs fell from office in November of that year, but returned already in April 1835, when Vernon was appointed Secretary of the Board of Control by Melbourne, which he remained until 1839. He then served as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1839 to 1841. The latter year he was also admitted to the Privy Council. He did not hold office again until February 1852, when he was made Secretary at War in the first administration of Lord John Russell. However, the government fell already the same month. When the Liberals (as the Whigs were now known) returned to office in 1855 under Lord Palmerston, Vernon was appointed President of the Board of Control, with a seat in the cabinet, a post he retained until the government fell in March 1858. The Indian Mutiny took place during his tenure. The following year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyveden, of Lyveden in the County of Northampton.,[1] and in 1879 he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB).[2]
In 1845 he was appointed one of the Lay Commissioners in Lunacy.[3]
Family
Greville Richard Vernon, son of Lord Lyveden.
Lord Lyveden married Lady Emma Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter and co-heir of the Earl of Upper Ossory, in 1823. In 1846 he assumed for his children by Royal licence the surname of Vernon in lieu of Smith and in 1859 he assumed for himself by Royal licence the same surname in lieu of Smith. Lord Lyveden died in November 1873, aged 73, and was succeeded in the barony by his son Fitzpatrick. Lord Lyveden was a member of the Reform Club, the Travellers Club, and Brooks's.
He tomb is located in the church of St Andrew in Brigstock, Northamptonshire.
Tomb of Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden in St. Andrew's church, Brigstock, Northamptonshire
Notes
1. "No. 22280". The London Gazette. 28 June 1859. p. 2514.
2. "No. 23876". The London Gazette. 16 July 1872. p. 3190.
3. Kathleen Jones (2003). Lunacy, law, and conscience, 1744-1845: the social history of the care of the insane. Routledge. p. 191. ISBN 0-415-17802-9.
Vernon's tomb in Brigstock
References
• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,[page needed]
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
External links
• Works by or about Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden at Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Vernon
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:55 am
Lepel Griffin
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
Sir Lepel Henry Griffin
Sir Lepel Henry Griffin, KCSI (20 July 1838 – 9 March 1908) was a British administrator and diplomat during the British Raj period in India. He was also a writer.
Early life
Lepel Henry Griffin was born in Watford, England on 20 July 1838. His father, Henry, was a clergyman in the Church of England and his mother was Frances Sophia. His mother had been married previously and thus Griffin had ten half-siblings as well as two full sisters.[1]
Griffin was educated briefly at Harrow School, having also attended Malden's Preparatory School, Brighton. He did not go to university but was privately tutored for the competitive examination for entry to the Indian Civil Service. He sat and passed those examinations during 1859 and 1860, being ranked tenth among the 32 successful candidates.[1]
Career
He reached India in November 1860 and was posted to Lahore.[1] The mannerisms of Griffin had attracted attention in India from the time of his arrival there, and in 1875 Sir Henry Cunningham satirised him in the novel, Chronicles of Dustypore,[1] in which he was depicted as the character Desvoeux.[2][3] Katherine Prior, the author of his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, describes that, "He was a dandyish, Byronic figure, articulate, argumentative, and witty. Anglo-Indian society was at once both dazzled by and scornful of his languid foppishness and irreverent tongue".[1]
In 1880 he became Chief Secretary of the Punjab.[4] He was sent as a diplomatic representative to Kabul, at the end of the Second Afghan War.[5] He was then Governor-General's Agent in Central India and Resident in Indore; and Resident in Hyderabad.
He collaborated with the pioneer Indian photographer Lala Deen Dayal.[6]
After his return to the United Kingdom, he was Chairman of the East India Association.][7]
He was a proponent of an Anglo-American union, he addressed a meeting on 15 October 1898 in Luton, on the subject of the suggested Anglo-American union, Col. John Hay, the former United States Ambassador at London attended the meeting.[8][/b
[b]Death
Griffin died at his home – 4 Cadogan Gardens, Sloane Street, London – on 9 March 1908 after suffering from influenza. He was cremated and his ashes were interred at a private chapel owned by Colonel Dudley Sampson in Buxhalls, Haywards Heath, Sussex. His wife remarried, while the younger of his two sons, Sir Lancelot Cecil Lepel Griffin became the last political secretary of British India.[1]
Bibliography
• The Panjab Chiefs. Lahore: T. C. McCartney-Chronicle Press. 1865.
o The Panjab Chiefs. 1. Updated by Charles Francis Massy (New revised ed.). Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press. 1890.
o The Panjab Chiefs. 2. Updated by Charles Francis Massy (New revised ed.). Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press. 1890.
Revised as Chiefs and Families of note in the Punjab (1909)
• The Law of Inheritance to Chiefships. Lahore: Punjab Printing Company. 1869.
• The Rajas of the Punjab (1873)
• Famous monuments of Central India (1886)
• The Great Republic (Second ed.). London: Chapman and Hall. 1884.
• Ranjit Singh. Rulers of India series. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1892.
Notes
1. "Griffin, Sir Lepel Henry (1838–1908)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33576. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Cunningham, Henry Stewart (1875). The Chronicles of Dustypore, a Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. 1. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
3. Cunningham, Henry Stewart (1875). The Chronicles of Dustypore, a Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. 2. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
4. Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series by George Robert Aberigh-Mackay – Full Text Free Book (Part 3/3)
5. Abdur Rahman Khan – 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
6. Life Sketch (Lala Deen Dayal 1844 – 1905)
7. "The Maharaja Scindia and the East India Association". The Times (36853). London. 22 August 1902. p. 8.
8. The Anglo-American Feeling – Sir Lepel Henry Griff... The New York Times: PDF
External links
• Works by Lepel Griffin at Open Library
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
Sir Lepel Henry Griffin
Sir Lepel Henry Griffin, KCSI (20 July 1838 – 9 March 1908) was a British administrator and diplomat during the British Raj period in India. He was also a writer.
Early life
Lepel Henry Griffin was born in Watford, England on 20 July 1838. His father, Henry, was a clergyman in the Church of England and his mother was Frances Sophia. His mother had been married previously and thus Griffin had ten half-siblings as well as two full sisters.[1]
Griffin was educated briefly at Harrow School, having also attended Malden's Preparatory School, Brighton. He did not go to university but was privately tutored for the competitive examination for entry to the Indian Civil Service. He sat and passed those examinations during 1859 and 1860, being ranked tenth among the 32 successful candidates.[1]
Career
He reached India in November 1860 and was posted to Lahore.[1] The mannerisms of Griffin had attracted attention in India from the time of his arrival there, and in 1875 Sir Henry Cunningham satirised him in the novel, Chronicles of Dustypore,[1] in which he was depicted as the character Desvoeux.[2][3] Katherine Prior, the author of his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, describes that, "He was a dandyish, Byronic figure, articulate, argumentative, and witty. Anglo-Indian society was at once both dazzled by and scornful of his languid foppishness and irreverent tongue".[1]
In 1880 he became Chief Secretary of the Punjab.[4] He was sent as a diplomatic representative to Kabul, at the end of the Second Afghan War.[5] He was then Governor-General's Agent in Central India and Resident in Indore; and Resident in Hyderabad.
He collaborated with the pioneer Indian photographer Lala Deen Dayal.[6]
After his return to the United Kingdom, he was Chairman of the East India Association.][7]
He was a proponent of an Anglo-American union, he addressed a meeting on 15 October 1898 in Luton, on the subject of the suggested Anglo-American union, Col. John Hay, the former United States Ambassador at London attended the meeting.[8][/b
[b]Death
Griffin died at his home – 4 Cadogan Gardens, Sloane Street, London – on 9 March 1908 after suffering from influenza. He was cremated and his ashes were interred at a private chapel owned by Colonel Dudley Sampson in Buxhalls, Haywards Heath, Sussex. His wife remarried, while the younger of his two sons, Sir Lancelot Cecil Lepel Griffin became the last political secretary of British India.[1]
Bibliography
• The Panjab Chiefs. Lahore: T. C. McCartney-Chronicle Press. 1865.
o The Panjab Chiefs. 1. Updated by Charles Francis Massy (New revised ed.). Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press. 1890.
o The Panjab Chiefs. 2. Updated by Charles Francis Massy (New revised ed.). Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press. 1890.
Revised as Chiefs and Families of note in the Punjab (1909)
• The Law of Inheritance to Chiefships. Lahore: Punjab Printing Company. 1869.
• The Rajas of the Punjab (1873)
• Famous monuments of Central India (1886)
• The Great Republic (Second ed.). London: Chapman and Hall. 1884.
• Ranjit Singh. Rulers of India series. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1892.
Notes
1. "Griffin, Sir Lepel Henry (1838–1908)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33576. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Cunningham, Henry Stewart (1875). The Chronicles of Dustypore, a Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. 1. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
3. Cunningham, Henry Stewart (1875). The Chronicles of Dustypore, a Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. 2. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
4. Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series by George Robert Aberigh-Mackay – Full Text Free Book (Part 3/3)
5. Abdur Rahman Khan – 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
6. Life Sketch (Lala Deen Dayal 1844 – 1905)
7. "The Maharaja Scindia and the East India Association". The Times (36853). London. 22 August 1902. p. 8.
8. The Anglo-American Feeling – Sir Lepel Henry Griff... The New York Times: PDF
External links
• Works by Lepel Griffin at Open Library
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)
by admin » Sat Mar 21, 2020 6:45 am
Salme Pekkala-Dutt
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
Salme Pekkala-Dutt (née: Salme Anette Murrik) (29 August 1888 – 30 August 1964) was an Estonian-British communist politician, wife of Rajani Palme Dutt.
The Finnish-Estonian author Hella Wuolijoki was her elder sister.
Murrik was also grandaunt of Finnish Social Democratic politician Erkki Tuomioja.
Salme Murrik was born in Helme Parish, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (present-day Estonia), and spent her childhood in Valga. She was expelled from the A.S. Pushkin Gymnasium in Tartu due to her participation in the Revolution of 1905, and moved to Moscow, and to Siberia, and Finland before settling in Britain. Her first husband was notable Finnish left wing politician Eino Pekkala, brother of Mauno Pekkala.
During the early years of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Murrik, a Comintern agent, acted as Dutt's link to Moscow.[1]
Salme Murrik had been directed to Britain on Lenin's orders to participate in forming the Communist Party there. She remained an ardent admirer of Stalin even after Khruschchev's 1956 secret speech critical of Stalin's cult of personality.
Salme Dutt's treatment of the Chartist movement, When England Arose, was published in 1939. A collection of poems, entitled Lucifer and Other Poems, was published in London in 1966. Salme Dutt died in the city in 1964.
Notes
1. David Harker, Tressell
References
• Lausti.com
• (in Estonian) Valgark.ee
Bibliography
• John Callaghan “Rajani Palme Dutt, British communism, and the Communist Party of India″ - Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Volume 6, Issue 1 March 1990, pages 49 – 70
• Andrew Thorpe The British Communist Party and Moscow 1920-43, Manchester University Press, 308 s., Midsomer Norton 2000
• Erkki Tuomioja Häivähdys punaista Helsinki:Tammi, 2006 (Swedish translation: Ett stänk av rött: två systrar i revolutionens tjänst Stockholm, 2008, Estonian: Õrnroosa: Hella Wuolijoe ja Salme Dutti elu revolutsiooni teenistuses, Tallinn, 2006, the English manuscript is entitled A delicate shade of pink)
*********************************
Salme Dutt - Full time revolutionary and gray cardinal who felt like an orphan
by Heili Reinart
sobranna.postimees.ee [Translated from Estonian]
May 22, 2018
Salme Dutt
PHOTO: Geni
Hella Wuolijoki's sister, Salme Dutt, is named a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. No job is reported to have been there. Above all, Salme was an ideologue and political activist, a full-time revolutionary and a gray cardinal.
Salme Murrik in the footsteps of her sister
The roots of the fractures were in Saaremaa, where they had moved south to Viljandi County.
By the time Henn Murrik married Liisa Tõrvandi, Murriku's farm was quite prosperous. The family was unlucky when Henn died suddenly at the age of 47. The protracted quarrel over the legacy forced the family to abandon the farm.
Thus his son Ernst Murrik did not continue farming, but worked as a writer and school teacher for Taagepera. He married Kadri Kokamäe, whose father Ott owned the Lupe farm. Although the family was rich, when Kadri Ernst went to the man, he had to earn extra money for the family as a tavern. It was in this tavern that Ella Marie was born in 1886 and Salme Anette was born on August 17, 1888, followed by Albert Leonhard (Leo) in 1891, Erna Amalie (Mimmi) in 1893 and Linda Irene (Niina) in 1897. Older children spent their first summers happily at Lupe Farm. Then they moved to Valka, where the father became a lawyer.
In 1899, Salme started her schooling at Valga Girls' School. German was spoken at home. They also spoke some Estonian and Russian. Following the example of Sister Ella, Salme entered Tartu Pushkin Gymnasium in 1903. Together, they found an apartment in Postimees' journalist's house, Aadu Jaakson, on Tähtvere Street. It wasn't a healthy environment - Jaakson had tuberculosis. Ella didn't get sick, but Salme did.
Hella Murrik-Vuolijoki, AM F 255: 241 F, University of Tartu Museum.
PHOTO: muis.ee
Ella drove her younger sister to the Postimees districts, where Jaan Tõnisson, who he adored, played the lead role. The cooler and tallest verses soon departed from this and began to go more closely with the August Hanko student group, which was critical of Tõnisson, though there was more giggle and pose than conviction in its members' plowing. Salme was not particularly interested in politics at the time, he was a supporter of Lev Tolstoy's views. Stubborn, serious, and unyielding, he didn't need his court, like Sister Ella, and took his ideology too seriously.
From Tartu to Moscow
In the atmosphere of Tartu in 1905, it is difficult to imagine anyone being able to remain independent and immune to social movements. Not a single bunch of fellow students' free love, as Tõnisson called it, sympathized with the verse, and the rather unstable and hedonistic atmosphere of the intellectual circles also challenged him. Without saying anything, Salme literally kicked Pushkin's high school at the age of 17. Worse still, for a long time he did not even write at home and no one knew his whereabouts or activities. The official biography states that he was expelled from school for his revolutionary activities, but the family tradition does not believe this is the case.
The young girl had suddenly had the urge to start an independent life. Salme just drove to Moscow. He was spiritually independent and self-confident. It was a great achievement that he got into Moscow's Catherine II Gymnasium and managed to maintain himself at the country's most expensive school. With the help of Director Berezhkova, he made money by giving private lessons to less talented students from wealthy families to pay for their studies. Hella has written that Salme not only earned his $ 200 tuition fee in private lessons in Moscow, but also helped another schoolmate from Tartu to Moscow.
At the time of the December 1905 uprising, the girls were forced to sit in a room because their apartment was in Moscow, where the most fierce fighting took place. From there they were taken to a safe place by Aleksander Põrk, who became known as a student of Tartu, who was working at the Rumjantsev Museum at that time. Whether or not this experience made Salm a socialist and revolutionary is unknown. When Salme returned to Valka by the summer of 1906, he already had a number of radical and anti-religious beliefs.
Salme also brought his 12-year-old sister Mimmi to study in Moscow. The girl graduated from high school with a gold medal. His official biography mentions his entry into the Bolshevik Party at this point, but there is no obvious proof of this. It is possible that it was constructed later in the woman's biography. But he was still somewhat involved with the revolutionaries. Their apartment was searched. At that time, the girls pretended to read calmly and nothing was found. However, an underground printing press was found in the same building and friends advised Salmel to leave Moscow.
Exacerbation of the disease
The girl then drove to Verhneudinski, a family of wealthy millionaires, on the shores of Lake Baikal, near Irkutsk, near the rich family. But unfortunately, he could not hold this position for long. Health deteriorated and tuberculosis brutally erupted in an unfit climate. Salme wrote to Mimmy: "I'm sick. I will never cure this disease. Who knows, maybe I only have a few years to live. Don't write it home. » Mimmi did not write, but rushed in. When his long journey to Siberia was over, Salme just got out of hospital. Mimmi went on to study at the local gymnasium and took care of Salme, who paid their living expenses by providing private lessons. In August 1908, the sisters returned to Moscow and immediately traveled to Tartu, where Dr. Luiga recommended treatment for Salme at a Finnish sanatorium.
In the autumn, his father delivered his ill daughter to Finland. Salme was taken to Nummela Sanatorium 40 km from Helsinki. When he got there, he constantly had 39 degrees fever. Salme stayed in Nummela for a year and was apparently healthy. At the spa he became friends with the Finnish-Swedish poet Edith Södergran, with whom he shared the evil of smoking.
After returning to Tartu for a while, Salme soon returned to Helsinki and lived with Hella and Sulo Wuolijoe in Albergas. Mimmi and Niina also went to Helsinki to finish their studies. Selma was planning to go to university, but it didn't work out because she couldn't afford to leave Reincke's office as an office clerk.
Marrying Eino Pekkala and entering politics
Eino Pekkalat was first mentioned by Salme in a letter to his parents in April 1913, and two weeks later he had already written about arranging a wedding and asked for a loan. When Salme and Eino got married the same year, they moved to Hämeenlinna, where Eino had a history teacher position in high school.
Eino Pekkala from Seinäjoki was an athletic man who had held the title of Finnish Sports King in the Decathlon for many years. After graduating from the University of Tampere, he had received a teaching position. Strait did not like this provincial town and returned to Helsinki. Thanks to her husband, she was now able to study at the university, where she received her law degree in 1918. Eino Pekkala was a member of the Social Democratic Party, but there is no indication that Salme was in any way involved in politics at the time.
While he was studying at Salme University, his sister enriched Hella with hanging around. On December 6, 1917, Finland declared its independence and after a month and a half, a civil war broke out between red and white. In addition, German General von der Golz's troops soon landed on Hankos. The most fierce battles were Tampere. The war ended with the victory of White-Finland on 15 May 1918.
In the autumn of 1918, Hella opened her own showroom in Helsinki. Salme began working as a lawyer whose skills were most needed and valued by the Reds after the Civil War. As the first generation of the demigods had been executed or gone to the ground, Sulo Wuolijoki, Eino Pekkala and Ivar Lassy were the central figures in the founding of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Party. From now on, Salme was also an active political figure. He had been noticed by a number of communists moving in Hella's cabin.
Otto Kuusinen.
PHOTO: wikipedia.org
One of these was Otto Ville Kuusinen, who founded the Finnish Communist Party and with whom Salme began to communicate more closely as long as he had to go to Soviet Russia. The future modernist poet Elmer Dictonius became an important link between Kuusinen and Salme. He came from a Swedish-speaking minority, was not politically active, but favored revolutionary outcasts. Between 1919 and 1922 Dictonius wrote 106 letters to Salme Pekkala, from which it can be concluded that they were lovers, at least for some time. There are also clues that Salme had also had an affair with Kuusinen. Both men were known for their love of women.
Agent Maud
In March 1920, Salme Pekkala went to London. He may have been sent there by Kuusinen, the secretary of the Comintern Executive Committee, but his interest in the country may also have been aroused by frequent contact with the British on the British side at his sister's salon in Helsinki.
Salme Pekkala arrived in England legally, meeting Estonians, Finns and Englishmen who had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks. He had letters of recommendation from Philip Snowden, George Bernhard Shaw, and Bertrand Russell, which had been provided to him by Sister Hella. He did indeed meet them. In a letter to Hella, he only mentioned his theater visits, language studies, city tours with Ants Piib, and hinted that he might not be returning. This interaction with the depot on the left was a "leisure pastime", unlike cooperation with revolutionaries.
Salme's underground agent was Maud and was led by representatives of Komintern from both Helsinki and Stockholm. He was also sent to another agent, Frederique, under the name of Erkki Valtheim. Maud and Frederique sent their first report to Stockholm in the summer and it was full of revolutionary optimism. It expressed the hope that the Labor Party might split up and partially join the Communist Party once it was created.
Rajani Palme Dutt
Rajani Palme Dutt.
PHOTO: wikipedia.org
William Gallacher introduced Salme Pekkala to Rajan Palme Dutt. Rajani was a tall, handsome and very intelligent man, polite and a little shy and without any particular personal demands. Salme had recently gone through a series of passionate but lousy relationships and the prospect of a more balanced and lasting partner might have pleased him. Their relationship became stable and stable, though not outwardly passionate.
Raji was of Indian-Swedish descent, with relatives in both countries. He was born in 1896 in Cambridge. Her doctor's father had settled in the UK and married Anna Palm, a Swedish-born man. Palms were the foundation of Swedish citizenship. Anna's brother Gunnar became CEO of Thule Insurance Company and his son later became Social Democrat Prime Minister Olof Palme. Upendra and Anna Dutt had three children, of whom Rajani was the youngest. He had studied ancient Greek and Roman literature at Oxford University and graduated with very good grades.
Dutt's radicalism came from home. The father had been an ardent Indian nationalist, and his home was also visited by Jawaharlal Nehru. Raji considered teaching in India but then gave up and went on to work as an international secretary in the Labor Research Department. The Labor Research Department had become a communist nursery after World War I, and Rajani Dutt was just one of them. He remained in the department until 1922.
Underground Years
The British Communist Party was founded in July 1920. The founding members include Theodore Rothstein, Sylvia Pankhurst, Cecil Malone, and always Rajan Dutt and Salme Pekkala. Albert Inkpin was elected Secretary-General. It has not been established whether Salme was actually present at this founding congress. However, Pekkala was so influential that he was nominated by the party as his ambassador to the next Congress of Comintern.
In November 1920 Dictonius also traveled to London. Romance with Strait did not continue. She introduced her to Lydia Stahl and Mary Moorhause, who became her heirs to the vital poet. Mary had met Mary through Rajan Dutt. Miss Moorhouse had a high class background and education. During the war at the university he was radicalized and he also became a founding member of the Communist Party.
In May 1921, Salme left England and traveled through Estonia to the Third Congress of the Comintern, held in Moscow. He couldn't legally return, but had to go under the floor. In August and October, he wrote to parents from Wiesbaden and Berlin and asked for Nora's alias.
In January 1922, Salme wrote a letter of assistance to Tyyne Haver, the sister of Sulo Wuolijoki, from Paris. He was in southern France, feeling sick again, but being chased by the Finnish and English governments. «I have no passport and no country receives me. I live here under a pseudonym. My only hope is to divorce Eino and become the legal subordinate of the country where I can work and improve my health. Can you, dear Tyyne, talk to Eino and make it clear that she has to, really have to agree. " This period of his life in conspiratorial apartments has not been found later by either Salme or Rajan. It has been speculated that by at least 1922 Salme had illegally obtained and collaborated with Dutt, who had founded the communist magazine Labor Monthly.
The following year both were in continental Europe. Rajani was sent to Stockholm and Brussels as a senior member of the British Party's Politburo, and the key to his position was the high seat in the Komintern, where he faithfully supported the Moscow route. From there he was also ordered to establish Workers Weekly, a non-partisan magazine. The written word was what Dutt gained power and was fruitful. He became an ideologue and he wrote many books. Salmet was still plagued by health and economic concerns. She received help from both Eino Pekkala and her sister Hella. Rajani met Hella Wuolijoki in Moscow in 1923 while Hella was in business there. She immediately attacked her: «What did you do to my sister? Where is he? You have to say. " Of course, Raji did not say, the communists could keep their mouths shut on security issues.
Divorces and marriages
Salme and Eino only filed for divorce papers in October 1923 and received divorce by January. In July, Eino Pekkala had been to Sweden where Salme introduced her to Mary Moorhouse, who lived and worked with Rajan and Salme in Saltsjöbaden. The verses encouraged their relationship. When the Pekkalas got divorced, Mary went to Finland and lived with Eino Pekkala. Mary and Eino got engaged in 1925 and married in 1928 when their daughter, named Salme, was born. Between the betrothal and the marriage, Mary lived mostly in Brussels and assisted Salmet and Raji Dutt. In 1927 Eino Pekkala was elected a Member of the Finnish Parliament.
The marriage of Salme and Rajani Dutt took place in Sweden in 1924 to obtain the approval of the Palmede Family Society, who themselves considered 1922 as the beginning of their marriage. After their marriage, the Dutts lived in Stockholm for about a year before settling in Brussels, where they stayed for ten years. Raj had health problems and more in Salme. Partly due to tuberculosis in his youth, he still suffered from asthma, arteriosclerosis and transient paralysis of the forearms. They often required treatment in Wiesbaden or Berlin. Money from Moscow and elsewhere did not make Dutte rich. Their lifestyle remained ascetic - tea, bread and sardines were the main food, and Salme was completely different from her older sister.
Gray cardinal
One thing the security services were interested in was Medea Art and Industry Ltd, founded by Mary Moorhouse and Salme Dutt to sell "lace, tapestries and other handicrafts" and art, with branch offices open in Tallinn and Helsinki. In Tallinn, the company recruited Salme's niece Ljalja Murrik. The company was suspected of money laundering and undermining. The doubts were not confirmed and the company's work stopped quietly.
What exactly Salme dealt with is unknown. In any case, this involved reading a lot of newspapers and taking notes. Salme never had any office in the party. However, he had some directing influence over both Party Secretary General Pollitt and her husband. That is why he has been called the gray cardinal. Rajani Dutt did not publish any important article if the woman did not approve of her views. It was believed that the wisdom of Komintern was echoed by Salme Dutt, and the woman could use that belief. In a letter to his father, Salme complained that there was so much work to do that when the day was over, his work was over.
Salme was delighted when Hella allowed her 15-year-old daughter, Vappu, to live with the Duttis in Brussels in the summer. But she was concerned about the young girl's receptiveness: "... her affection for everything veiled, unhealthy, mysterious, cubby, and sunshine in every art form, from painting to dance." He advised the wicked girl to make her love what "real life is". Sometimes Salme showed greater care and understanding of Vappu than her own mother.
Public party work in London
In 1936, the Dutts moved into their home in North London. This opened a new era in Salme's activities. He began writing and giving lectures in the party community under his own name and published a rare article on abortion in Daily Worker. At the peak of his writing was the brochure "When England Woke Up" on the centenary of the Chartist uprising. In the 1930s he was hit by a poem of poetry, the result of which was published only in 1966 under the title "Lucifer and Other Poems". During his lifetime he tried to publish them under a pseudonym, but they were not received anywhere.
While the membership of the Communist Party grew rapidly before World War II, war broke through. Dutt and Pollitt also had disagreements. However, plans to open the government's second front were jointly supported to alleviate the situation in the Soviet Union. In 1945, two communists even entered the British Parliament, but they were once again forced by the Cold War. The war had also ended Komintern's activities.
Dutt's post-war years in seclusion
In June 1946, Hella Wuolijo River was a grand celebration of its 60th birthday. Hella was then at the peak of her political power. His relatives and acquaintances had formed the Finnish government. President Paasikivi was his friend. Eino Pekkala was the Minister of Justice. Salme and Raji could not go to their birthday, because that is when Rajani Dutt first traveled to India, where he met Nehru and Gandhi. Salme did not come to India like he had never before sent Raji on official missions abroad. However, Hella herself went on a visit to London that same year as a BBC guest, and with her sister Salme had an unusually busy and busy day.
Next year at Hella in Finland, the Duttis spent summer with Pekkalate, Kuusinen, Tuomiojad and Yrjö Leino. This was Salme's last trip abroad. When Sister Niina died in Tallinn in 1948, none of the Frogs were shot to the funeral. However, Salme's belief in Moscow's ideology was not shaken by the occupation of his native country or Stalin's rule in Finland. When Stalin died, Rajani Dutt praised him as a genius who was said to have liberated humanity. After the 1956 CPSU congress in Moscow, he had to give in to Khrushchev's new direction. Rajan was respected in the party but never really became popular. With her back, she was often clattered and laughed and considered the woman's slipper. The Duttes lived a rather lonely and lonely life in which they were each other's best companions.
The main reason for the separation of the verse was largely his poor health. «Do you think I like my private life and the fact that I have to limit the amount of people I want to meet and the time they spend with me, that I also have to limit the work I want to do, to reject all invitations receptions, etc. » he wrote to Hella in 1952. Only for Hella did he talk about his headaches caused by the tumor. When Hella died in 1954, Salme wrote to Vappu that he felt like an orphan. After that, he only met with relatives Vappu and Sakari Tuomioja. The latter was a Finnish ambassador to London from 1955 to 1957.
Salme Dutt died on August 30, 1964. There were no relatives at the funeral. Rajani died ten years later. The Communist Party of the United Kingdom ceased its activities in 1991.
Erkki Tuomioja, Gentle Pink. Varrak 2006
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20
Salme Pekkala-Dutt (née: Salme Anette Murrik) (29 August 1888 – 30 August 1964) was an Estonian-British communist politician, wife of Rajani Palme Dutt.
The Finnish-Estonian author Hella Wuolijoki was her elder sister.
Murrik was also grandaunt of Finnish Social Democratic politician Erkki Tuomioja.
Erkki Sakari Tuomioja (born 1 July 1946) is a Finnish politician and a member of the Finnish Parliament. From 2000 to 2007 and 2011 to 2015, he served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was President of the Nordic Council in 2008.
Tuomioja is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, although his political views are thought to be more to the left than the party line. He is also a member of ATTAC. In the past, Tuomioja has dated the former Finnish president Tarja Halonen.
Tuomioja comes from a family of politicians. His father Sakari Tuomioja was a prominent liberal Finnish politician and diplomat, and the challenger of Urho Kekkonen for the conservatives and liberals in the 1956 presidential elections. His maternal grandmother was Hella Wuolijoki, the Estonian born writer and socialist activist.
Tuomioja holds the degrees of Master of Social Sciences (1971) and Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration (1974) from the Helsinki School of Economics, as well as Licentiate in Social Sciences (1980) and Doctor in Social Sciences (1996) from the University of Helsinki. In addition to Finnish, Tuomioja speaks Swedish, English, French, German and Estonian.
Tuomioja has been a member of the Finnish Parliament 1970–1979 and 1991–present. He held the position of Minister of Trade and Industry in Lipponen's 2nd government, and became the Minister of Foreign Affairs after Tarja Halonen was elected the President of Finland. Tuomioja is the longest serving Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
Tuomioja, like several other Finnish socialist politicians of today, took part in the illegal occupation of the Old Student House (Vanha ylioppilastalo) in Helsinki on 25 November 1968. He was a member of the anti-war group Committee of 100 of Finland and took part in the so-called Erik Schüller case, in which a group of students made public incitement against obligatory conscription. Despite his anti-war stance, Tuomioja did carry out his own mandatory military service and is a reservist staff sergeant.
Tuomioja is the author of several books. His A Delicate Shade of Pink about his grandmother Hella Wuolijoki and her sister Salme Murrik won the Non-Fiction Finlandia Prize in 2006. The book was originally written in English and translated to Finnish as Häivähdys punaista.
Tuomioja was behind the initiative to establish Historians without Borders in Finland as an NGO. He has acted as Chairman of the Board of HWB Finland since the founding meeting in the summer of 2015.
Tuomioja is a declared atheist.
-- Erkki Tuomioja, by Wikipedia
Salme Murrik was born in Helme Parish, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (present-day Estonia), and spent her childhood in Valga. She was expelled from the A.S. Pushkin Gymnasium in Tartu due to her participation in the Revolution of 1905, and moved to Moscow, and to Siberia, and Finland before settling in Britain. Her first husband was notable Finnish left wing politician Eino Pekkala, brother of Mauno Pekkala.
Eino Oskari Pekkala (29 November 1887 − 30 September 1956) was a Finnish lawyer and politician. He was a member of the Parliament of Finland, representing the Socialist Electoral Organisation of Workers and Smallholders 1927–1930 and the Finnish People's Democratic League 1945–1948. In the 1920−1930s, Pekkala was twice in prison for his political activities, and he was even kidnapped by the fascist Lapua Movement in 1930.The Lapua Movement (Finnish: Lapuan liike, Swedish: Lapporörelsen) was a Finnish radical nationalist and anti-communist political movement founded in and named after the town of Lapua. After radicalisation it turned towards far-right politics and was banned after a failed coup-d'état in 1932. Anti-communist activities of the movement continued in the parliamentarian Patriotic People's Movement.
-- Lapua Movement, by Wikipedia
As the political situation in Finland changed after the World War II, Pekkala was the Minister of Education 1945–1946, and the Minister of Justice 1946–1948.
In his youth, Pekkala was a talented athlete. His greatest achievements were three Finnish Championship titles in decathlon.
His brother was the Prime Minister of Finland Mauno Pekkala....
Mauno Pekkala (27 January 1890, in Sysmä – 30 June 1952) was a Finnish politician and Prime Minister from 1946 to 1948.
Pekkala was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland and member of several wartime cabinets as Minister of Finance from December 1939 to February 1942. Pekkala left the party after the Continuation War.
After the war, Pekkala joined the Finnish People's Democratic League (SKDL), an alliance of communists, socialists and social democrats. He served as the Minister of Defence between April 1945 and March 1946.
He was candidate in the 1950 presidential election. Pekkala also belonged to the Socialist Unity Party which worked inside the SKDL.
Mauno Pekkala was the brother of Eino Pekkala.
-- Mauno Pekkala, by Wikipedia
In 1919, Pekkala was one of the key figures of the left-wing opposition of the Social Democratic Party which soon became the Socialist Workers' Party of Finland. In May 1920, Pekkala was arrested, and given a 1,5-year sentence for his activism in the Komintern-related party. Since 1926, Pekkala and Asser Salo had a law firm in Helsinki. In the late 1920s, Pekkala was active in the Left Group of Finnish Workers which criticized the underground Communist Party of Finland. In the 1927 parliamentary election, Pekkala was elected to the parliament as a member of the Socialist Electoral Organisation of Workers and Smallholders (STPV).[2][3]
In 5 July 1930, the fascist Lapua Movement kidnapped Pekkala and Jalmari Rötkö from the meeting of the Constitutional Law Committee and took them to their headquarters in the Ostrobothnia province. On the following day, Pekkala and Rötkö were handed over to the authorities, after the Minister of Interior E. V. Kuokkanen gave an order to arrest all 23 STPV parliamentarians. As the anti-Communist laws were passed, Pekkala was given a 3-year sentence in November 1930 for an intent to commit a treason.[2][4] In July 1933, Pekkala took part on a hunger strike in the Tammisaari forced labour camp. The strike ended as five political prisoners died of forced feeding.[5]
After his release, Pekkala worked as a lawyer in Helsinki. During the World War II, he assisted arrested Communists and activists of the anti-war resistance. His clients included Pellervo Takatalo, Aimo Rikka and Martta Koskinen who were all given the capital punishment. Pekkala managed to change Takatalo's and Rikka's sentences for life in prison, but Koskinen was executed in September 1943.[6][7]
As the war was over, the Communist organizations were legalized, and Pekkala was re-elected to the Parliament in the 1945 parliamentary election representing the Finnish People's Democratic League. In 1945–1946 he served as the Minister of Education, and 1946–1948 as the Minister of Justice. In 1946–1947, Pekkala was a member of the special court of the War-responsibility trials set by the Allies. Pekkala left the politics in 1948, and ran a law firm in Helsinki until his death in September 1956.[2]
-- Eino Pekkala, by Wikipedia
During the early years of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Murrik, a Comintern agent, acted as Dutt's link to Moscow.[1]
The Communist International (Comintern), known also as the Third International (1919–1943), was an international organization that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". The Comintern had been preceded by the 1916 dissolution of the Second International. Its members included the Soviet Union, Tuvan People's Republic, and the Mongolian People's Republic.
The Comintern held seven World Congresses in Moscow between 1919 and 1935. During that period, it also conducted thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. Stalin, head of the Soviet Union, dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to avoid antagonizing his allies in the latter years of World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom.
-- Communist International, by Wikipedia
Salme Murrik had been directed to Britain on Lenin's orders to participate in forming the Communist Party there. She remained an ardent admirer of Stalin even after Khruschchev's 1956 secret speech critical of Stalin's cult of personality.
Salme Dutt's treatment of the Chartist movement, When England Arose, was published in 1939. A collection of poems, entitled Lucifer and Other Poems, was published in London in 1966. Salme Dutt died in the city in 1964.
Notes
1. David Harker, Tressell
References
• Lausti.com
• (in Estonian) Valgark.ee
Bibliography
• John Callaghan “Rajani Palme Dutt, British communism, and the Communist Party of India″ - Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Volume 6, Issue 1 March 1990, pages 49 – 70
• Andrew Thorpe The British Communist Party and Moscow 1920-43, Manchester University Press, 308 s., Midsomer Norton 2000
• Erkki Tuomioja Häivähdys punaista Helsinki:Tammi, 2006 (Swedish translation: Ett stänk av rött: två systrar i revolutionens tjänst Stockholm, 2008, Estonian: Õrnroosa: Hella Wuolijoe ja Salme Dutti elu revolutsiooni teenistuses, Tallinn, 2006, the English manuscript is entitled A delicate shade of pink)
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Salme Dutt - Full time revolutionary and gray cardinal who felt like an orphan
by Heili Reinart
sobranna.postimees.ee [Translated from Estonian]
May 22, 2018
Salme Dutt
PHOTO: Geni
Hella Wuolijoki's sister, Salme Dutt, is named a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. No job is reported to have been there. Above all, Salme was an ideologue and political activist, a full-time revolutionary and a gray cardinal.
Salme Murrik in the footsteps of her sister
The roots of the fractures were in Saaremaa, where they had moved south to Viljandi County.
By the time Henn Murrik married Liisa Tõrvandi, Murriku's farm was quite prosperous. The family was unlucky when Henn died suddenly at the age of 47. The protracted quarrel over the legacy forced the family to abandon the farm.
Thus his son Ernst Murrik did not continue farming, but worked as a writer and school teacher for Taagepera. He married Kadri Kokamäe, whose father Ott owned the Lupe farm. Although the family was rich, when Kadri Ernst went to the man, he had to earn extra money for the family as a tavern. It was in this tavern that Ella Marie was born in 1886 and Salme Anette was born on August 17, 1888, followed by Albert Leonhard (Leo) in 1891, Erna Amalie (Mimmi) in 1893 and Linda Irene (Niina) in 1897. Older children spent their first summers happily at Lupe Farm. Then they moved to Valka, where the father became a lawyer.
In 1899, Salme started her schooling at Valga Girls' School. German was spoken at home. They also spoke some Estonian and Russian. Following the example of Sister Ella, Salme entered Tartu Pushkin Gymnasium in 1903. Together, they found an apartment in Postimees' journalist's house, Aadu Jaakson, on Tähtvere Street. It wasn't a healthy environment - Jaakson had tuberculosis. Ella didn't get sick, but Salme did.
Hella Murrik-Vuolijoki, AM F 255: 241 F, University of Tartu Museum.
PHOTO: muis.ee
Ella drove her younger sister to the Postimees districts, where Jaan Tõnisson, who he adored, played the lead role. The cooler and tallest verses soon departed from this and began to go more closely with the August Hanko student group, which was critical of Tõnisson, though there was more giggle and pose than conviction in its members' plowing. Salme was not particularly interested in politics at the time, he was a supporter of Lev Tolstoy's views. Stubborn, serious, and unyielding, he didn't need his court, like Sister Ella, and took his ideology too seriously.
From Tartu to Moscow
In the atmosphere of Tartu in 1905, it is difficult to imagine anyone being able to remain independent and immune to social movements. Not a single bunch of fellow students' free love, as Tõnisson called it, sympathized with the verse, and the rather unstable and hedonistic atmosphere of the intellectual circles also challenged him. Without saying anything, Salme literally kicked Pushkin's high school at the age of 17. Worse still, for a long time he did not even write at home and no one knew his whereabouts or activities. The official biography states that he was expelled from school for his revolutionary activities, but the family tradition does not believe this is the case.
The young girl had suddenly had the urge to start an independent life. Salme just drove to Moscow. He was spiritually independent and self-confident. It was a great achievement that he got into Moscow's Catherine II Gymnasium and managed to maintain himself at the country's most expensive school. With the help of Director Berezhkova, he made money by giving private lessons to less talented students from wealthy families to pay for their studies. Hella has written that Salme not only earned his $ 200 tuition fee in private lessons in Moscow, but also helped another schoolmate from Tartu to Moscow.
At the time of the December 1905 uprising, the girls were forced to sit in a room because their apartment was in Moscow, where the most fierce fighting took place. From there they were taken to a safe place by Aleksander Põrk, who became known as a student of Tartu, who was working at the Rumjantsev Museum at that time. Whether or not this experience made Salm a socialist and revolutionary is unknown. When Salme returned to Valka by the summer of 1906, he already had a number of radical and anti-religious beliefs.
Salme also brought his 12-year-old sister Mimmi to study in Moscow. The girl graduated from high school with a gold medal. His official biography mentions his entry into the Bolshevik Party at this point, but there is no obvious proof of this. It is possible that it was constructed later in the woman's biography. But he was still somewhat involved with the revolutionaries. Their apartment was searched. At that time, the girls pretended to read calmly and nothing was found. However, an underground printing press was found in the same building and friends advised Salmel to leave Moscow.
Exacerbation of the disease
The girl then drove to Verhneudinski, a family of wealthy millionaires, on the shores of Lake Baikal, near Irkutsk, near the rich family. But unfortunately, he could not hold this position for long. Health deteriorated and tuberculosis brutally erupted in an unfit climate. Salme wrote to Mimmy: "I'm sick. I will never cure this disease. Who knows, maybe I only have a few years to live. Don't write it home. » Mimmi did not write, but rushed in. When his long journey to Siberia was over, Salme just got out of hospital. Mimmi went on to study at the local gymnasium and took care of Salme, who paid their living expenses by providing private lessons. In August 1908, the sisters returned to Moscow and immediately traveled to Tartu, where Dr. Luiga recommended treatment for Salme at a Finnish sanatorium.
In the autumn, his father delivered his ill daughter to Finland. Salme was taken to Nummela Sanatorium 40 km from Helsinki. When he got there, he constantly had 39 degrees fever. Salme stayed in Nummela for a year and was apparently healthy. At the spa he became friends with the Finnish-Swedish poet Edith Södergran, with whom he shared the evil of smoking.
After returning to Tartu for a while, Salme soon returned to Helsinki and lived with Hella and Sulo Wuolijoe in Albergas. Mimmi and Niina also went to Helsinki to finish their studies. Selma was planning to go to university, but it didn't work out because she couldn't afford to leave Reincke's office as an office clerk.
Marrying Eino Pekkala and entering politics
Eino Pekkalat was first mentioned by Salme in a letter to his parents in April 1913, and two weeks later he had already written about arranging a wedding and asked for a loan. When Salme and Eino got married the same year, they moved to Hämeenlinna, where Eino had a history teacher position in high school.
Eino Pekkala from Seinäjoki was an athletic man who had held the title of Finnish Sports King in the Decathlon for many years. After graduating from the University of Tampere, he had received a teaching position. Strait did not like this provincial town and returned to Helsinki. Thanks to her husband, she was now able to study at the university, where she received her law degree in 1918. Eino Pekkala was a member of the Social Democratic Party, but there is no indication that Salme was in any way involved in politics at the time.
While he was studying at Salme University, his sister enriched Hella with hanging around. On December 6, 1917, Finland declared its independence and after a month and a half, a civil war broke out between red and white. In addition, German General von der Golz's troops soon landed on Hankos. The most fierce battles were Tampere. The war ended with the victory of White-Finland on 15 May 1918.
In the autumn of 1918, Hella opened her own showroom in Helsinki. Salme began working as a lawyer whose skills were most needed and valued by the Reds after the Civil War. As the first generation of the demigods had been executed or gone to the ground, Sulo Wuolijoki, Eino Pekkala and Ivar Lassy were the central figures in the founding of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Party. From now on, Salme was also an active political figure. He had been noticed by a number of communists moving in Hella's cabin.
Otto Kuusinen.
PHOTO: wikipedia.org
One of these was Otto Ville Kuusinen, who founded the Finnish Communist Party and with whom Salme began to communicate more closely as long as he had to go to Soviet Russia. The future modernist poet Elmer Dictonius became an important link between Kuusinen and Salme. He came from a Swedish-speaking minority, was not politically active, but favored revolutionary outcasts. Between 1919 and 1922 Dictonius wrote 106 letters to Salme Pekkala, from which it can be concluded that they were lovers, at least for some time. There are also clues that Salme had also had an affair with Kuusinen. Both men were known for their love of women.
Agent Maud
In March 1920, Salme Pekkala went to London. He may have been sent there by Kuusinen, the secretary of the Comintern Executive Committee, but his interest in the country may also have been aroused by frequent contact with the British on the British side at his sister's salon in Helsinki.
Salme Pekkala arrived in England legally, meeting Estonians, Finns and Englishmen who had nothing to do with the Bolsheviks. He had letters of recommendation from Philip Snowden, George Bernhard Shaw, and Bertrand Russell, which had been provided to him by Sister Hella. He did indeed meet them. In a letter to Hella, he only mentioned his theater visits, language studies, city tours with Ants Piib, and hinted that he might not be returning. This interaction with the depot on the left was a "leisure pastime", unlike cooperation with revolutionaries.
Salme's underground agent was Maud and was led by representatives of Komintern from both Helsinki and Stockholm. He was also sent to another agent, Frederique, under the name of Erkki Valtheim. Maud and Frederique sent their first report to Stockholm in the summer and it was full of revolutionary optimism. It expressed the hope that the Labor Party might split up and partially join the Communist Party once it was created.
Rajani Palme Dutt
Rajani Palme Dutt.
PHOTO: wikipedia.org
William Gallacher introduced Salme Pekkala to Rajan Palme Dutt. Rajani was a tall, handsome and very intelligent man, polite and a little shy and without any particular personal demands. Salme had recently gone through a series of passionate but lousy relationships and the prospect of a more balanced and lasting partner might have pleased him. Their relationship became stable and stable, though not outwardly passionate.
Raji was of Indian-Swedish descent, with relatives in both countries. He was born in 1896 in Cambridge. Her doctor's father had settled in the UK and married Anna Palm, a Swedish-born man. Palms were the foundation of Swedish citizenship. Anna's brother Gunnar became CEO of Thule Insurance Company and his son later became Social Democrat Prime Minister Olof Palme. Upendra and Anna Dutt had three children, of whom Rajani was the youngest. He had studied ancient Greek and Roman literature at Oxford University and graduated with very good grades.
Dutt's radicalism came from home. The father had been an ardent Indian nationalist, and his home was also visited by Jawaharlal Nehru. Raji considered teaching in India but then gave up and went on to work as an international secretary in the Labor Research Department. The Labor Research Department had become a communist nursery after World War I, and Rajani Dutt was just one of them. He remained in the department until 1922.
Underground Years
The British Communist Party was founded in July 1920. The founding members include Theodore Rothstein, Sylvia Pankhurst, Cecil Malone, and always Rajan Dutt and Salme Pekkala. Albert Inkpin was elected Secretary-General. It has not been established whether Salme was actually present at this founding congress. However, Pekkala was so influential that he was nominated by the party as his ambassador to the next Congress of Comintern.
In November 1920 Dictonius also traveled to London. Romance with Strait did not continue. She introduced her to Lydia Stahl and Mary Moorhause, who became her heirs to the vital poet. Mary had met Mary through Rajan Dutt. Miss Moorhouse had a high class background and education. During the war at the university he was radicalized and he also became a founding member of the Communist Party.
In May 1921, Salme left England and traveled through Estonia to the Third Congress of the Comintern, held in Moscow. He couldn't legally return, but had to go under the floor. In August and October, he wrote to parents from Wiesbaden and Berlin and asked for Nora's alias.
In January 1922, Salme wrote a letter of assistance to Tyyne Haver, the sister of Sulo Wuolijoki, from Paris. He was in southern France, feeling sick again, but being chased by the Finnish and English governments. «I have no passport and no country receives me. I live here under a pseudonym. My only hope is to divorce Eino and become the legal subordinate of the country where I can work and improve my health. Can you, dear Tyyne, talk to Eino and make it clear that she has to, really have to agree. " This period of his life in conspiratorial apartments has not been found later by either Salme or Rajan. It has been speculated that by at least 1922 Salme had illegally obtained and collaborated with Dutt, who had founded the communist magazine Labor Monthly.
The following year both were in continental Europe. Rajani was sent to Stockholm and Brussels as a senior member of the British Party's Politburo, and the key to his position was the high seat in the Komintern, where he faithfully supported the Moscow route. From there he was also ordered to establish Workers Weekly, a non-partisan magazine. The written word was what Dutt gained power and was fruitful. He became an ideologue and he wrote many books. Salmet was still plagued by health and economic concerns. She received help from both Eino Pekkala and her sister Hella. Rajani met Hella Wuolijoki in Moscow in 1923 while Hella was in business there. She immediately attacked her: «What did you do to my sister? Where is he? You have to say. " Of course, Raji did not say, the communists could keep their mouths shut on security issues.
Divorces and marriages
Salme and Eino only filed for divorce papers in October 1923 and received divorce by January. In July, Eino Pekkala had been to Sweden where Salme introduced her to Mary Moorhouse, who lived and worked with Rajan and Salme in Saltsjöbaden. The verses encouraged their relationship. When the Pekkalas got divorced, Mary went to Finland and lived with Eino Pekkala. Mary and Eino got engaged in 1925 and married in 1928 when their daughter, named Salme, was born. Between the betrothal and the marriage, Mary lived mostly in Brussels and assisted Salmet and Raji Dutt. In 1927 Eino Pekkala was elected a Member of the Finnish Parliament.
The marriage of Salme and Rajani Dutt took place in Sweden in 1924 to obtain the approval of the Palmede Family Society, who themselves considered 1922 as the beginning of their marriage. After their marriage, the Dutts lived in Stockholm for about a year before settling in Brussels, where they stayed for ten years. Raj had health problems and more in Salme. Partly due to tuberculosis in his youth, he still suffered from asthma, arteriosclerosis and transient paralysis of the forearms. They often required treatment in Wiesbaden or Berlin. Money from Moscow and elsewhere did not make Dutte rich. Their lifestyle remained ascetic - tea, bread and sardines were the main food, and Salme was completely different from her older sister.
Gray cardinal
One thing the security services were interested in was Medea Art and Industry Ltd, founded by Mary Moorhouse and Salme Dutt to sell "lace, tapestries and other handicrafts" and art, with branch offices open in Tallinn and Helsinki. In Tallinn, the company recruited Salme's niece Ljalja Murrik. The company was suspected of money laundering and undermining. The doubts were not confirmed and the company's work stopped quietly.
What exactly Salme dealt with is unknown. In any case, this involved reading a lot of newspapers and taking notes. Salme never had any office in the party. However, he had some directing influence over both Party Secretary General Pollitt and her husband. That is why he has been called the gray cardinal. Rajani Dutt did not publish any important article if the woman did not approve of her views. It was believed that the wisdom of Komintern was echoed by Salme Dutt, and the woman could use that belief. In a letter to his father, Salme complained that there was so much work to do that when the day was over, his work was over.
Salme was delighted when Hella allowed her 15-year-old daughter, Vappu, to live with the Duttis in Brussels in the summer. But she was concerned about the young girl's receptiveness: "... her affection for everything veiled, unhealthy, mysterious, cubby, and sunshine in every art form, from painting to dance." He advised the wicked girl to make her love what "real life is". Sometimes Salme showed greater care and understanding of Vappu than her own mother.
Public party work in London
In 1936, the Dutts moved into their home in North London. This opened a new era in Salme's activities. He began writing and giving lectures in the party community under his own name and published a rare article on abortion in Daily Worker. At the peak of his writing was the brochure "When England Woke Up" on the centenary of the Chartist uprising. In the 1930s he was hit by a poem of poetry, the result of which was published only in 1966 under the title "Lucifer and Other Poems". During his lifetime he tried to publish them under a pseudonym, but they were not received anywhere.
While the membership of the Communist Party grew rapidly before World War II, war broke through. Dutt and Pollitt also had disagreements. However, plans to open the government's second front were jointly supported to alleviate the situation in the Soviet Union. In 1945, two communists even entered the British Parliament, but they were once again forced by the Cold War. The war had also ended Komintern's activities.
Dutt's post-war years in seclusion
In June 1946, Hella Wuolijo River was a grand celebration of its 60th birthday. Hella was then at the peak of her political power. His relatives and acquaintances had formed the Finnish government. President Paasikivi was his friend. Eino Pekkala was the Minister of Justice. Salme and Raji could not go to their birthday, because that is when Rajani Dutt first traveled to India, where he met Nehru and Gandhi. Salme did not come to India like he had never before sent Raji on official missions abroad. However, Hella herself went on a visit to London that same year as a BBC guest, and with her sister Salme had an unusually busy and busy day.
Next year at Hella in Finland, the Duttis spent summer with Pekkalate, Kuusinen, Tuomiojad and Yrjö Leino. This was Salme's last trip abroad. When Sister Niina died in Tallinn in 1948, none of the Frogs were shot to the funeral. However, Salme's belief in Moscow's ideology was not shaken by the occupation of his native country or Stalin's rule in Finland. When Stalin died, Rajani Dutt praised him as a genius who was said to have liberated humanity. After the 1956 CPSU congress in Moscow, he had to give in to Khrushchev's new direction. Rajan was respected in the party but never really became popular. With her back, she was often clattered and laughed and considered the woman's slipper. The Duttes lived a rather lonely and lonely life in which they were each other's best companions.
The main reason for the separation of the verse was largely his poor health. «Do you think I like my private life and the fact that I have to limit the amount of people I want to meet and the time they spend with me, that I also have to limit the work I want to do, to reject all invitations receptions, etc. » he wrote to Hella in 1952. Only for Hella did he talk about his headaches caused by the tumor. When Hella died in 1954, Salme wrote to Vappu that he felt like an orphan. After that, he only met with relatives Vappu and Sakari Tuomioja. The latter was a Finnish ambassador to London from 1955 to 1957.
Salme Dutt died on August 30, 1964. There were no relatives at the funeral. Rajani died ten years later. The Communist Party of the United Kingdom ceased its activities in 1991.
Erkki Tuomioja, Gentle Pink. Varrak 2006
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