“To Teach the Claims of Labour” — The Life of Tom Mann, Pioneer Socialist, part 2.

Submitted by Anon on 18 July, 2007 - 12:27

Cathy Nugent continues a series on the life and times of Tom Mann

When Tom Mann joined the Social Democratic Federation in May 1885 he was nearly thirty years old. That would have been an advanced age to be converted to socialism by the standards of later, more revolutionary times. But then these were not yet revolutionary times, and socialist ideas had been quite thin on the ground in Britain up to the beginning of the 1880s.

  • For part 1 click here

    Events, experiences, personalities and social changes combined to create a “modern” socialist movement in Britain.

    • At the end of the 1870s an economic depression hit British capitalism — Britain was no longer the pre-eminent trading and manufacturing world power. Mass unemployment and widespread destitution would occupy the attention of the new socialists for some years.

    • Political disappointment with the Liberal Party (over policy in Ireland for instance), led individuals within “Radicalism” — largely the left of the Liberal Party — to seek out more comprehensive ideologies and go beyond radical democratic demands. Yet the Radical Clubs would continue to exist alongside the socialist movement for many years.

    • The courageous struggle of the Paris communards in 1871 also had an impact. Refugees from the Commune converted many of the British socialist pioneers.

    • Individuals such as John Sketchley, a youth of the Chartist movement, kept in touch with the progress of European (German) socialism; under that influence he founded the Birmingham Republican Association in 1875; this was a paper organisation, but, according to E P Thompson, was the first modern socialist organisation in England.

    • In 1881 some ultra Radicals (notably Joseph Lane) founded the Labour Emancipation League. The demands of the LEL included all the traditional radical democratic demands of Chartism, but also nationalisation of key industries, and for wealth to be “held in common”. Such a programme served as a bridge to the new socialist politics. The League set up branches especially in East London.

    The Democratic Federation, later to become the Social Democratic Federation, for many years the largest and most influential socialist organisation of this period, was also set up in 1881.

    The foundation of the DF/SDF was the work of a well-to-do man called H M Hyndman, whose idiosyncratic reading of socialist theory, sectarian blinkeredness — denying the importance of trade union struggle — and authoritarian personality did much to shape (or hold back) the organisation.

    Mann’s portrait of Hyndman is quite acute, even though he wrote it in 1920s when less irritated by Hyndman, better able to see the lasting value of the SDF’s work and inclined to be charitable...

    “In the early days of open-air propaganda… his essential bourgeois appearance attracted much attention. The tall hat, the frock coast, and the long beard often drew the curious-minded who would not have spent time listening to one in workman’s attire… He never whittled down his revolutionary principles, or expressed them in sugar coated phrases. He took the greatest delight in exposing the exploitation carried on by the capitalists, and especially by those who championed Liberal and Radical principles, and were thought highly of by the workmen members of Radical clubs… At almost every meeting he addressed, Hyndman would cynically thank the audience for so ‘generously supporting my class.’ Indeed he brought in ‘my class’ to an objectionable degree… but none of us doubted his whole-souled advocacy of Socialism as he conceived it. Hyndman, like many strong personalities, had very pronounced likes and dislikes. To myself, he was ever kind and courteous. I am quite sure he did much valuable work at the particular time when that special work was needed.”

    The SDF was not a homogenous organisation. SDF members such as Tom Mann were after all leading trade unionists! But unlike the German Social Democratic Party the SDF stayed small. On the other hand many thousands of people were members at one time or another, and were educated by it in a more or less Marxist political economy and basic critique of the capitalist system.

    At first the job of socialist propaganda was that of “educated” middle class people like Hyndman. But talented working-class people like Tom Mann, John Burns, Harry Quelch, John Lincoln Mahon, Tom Maguire and others also got on board. According to William Morris they were “there by dint of their special intelligence, or of their eccentricity, not as working men simply…”

    A few months before Mann joined the SDF there had been a split on the Executive with the majority — including William Morris, Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling — leaving to form a new organisation, the Socialist League. They thought Hyndman a self-serving opportunist. Opportunist, maybe; but Hyndman was less self-serving than his confident, forceful personality led them to believe.

    The politics of the split are obscure, and as the Socialist Leaguers did not venture to take their grievances into the organisation the political import of their fight was never properly clarified. In effect they went off to do their own thing. This they (in common with many SDFers) saw as patient, principled, socialist educative work among workers. As Engels (who backed the SL) put it in a letter to Bernstein:

    “They will work on a modest scale, in proportion to their forces, and no longer act as though the English proletariat were bound to act as soon as a few intellectuals become converted to Socialism and sound the call.”

    The socialists were looking for a route to the masses, a way to have an impact. In their writings and speeches the socialists would describe or envision a cataclysmic social crisis where the bourgeoisie would not longer be able to rule and the workers would take over. They had little idea about how to prepare the ground for political working class struggles or to how to develop the workers’ organisation. Their role was simply to make propaganda, to prepare for “the crisis”. As William Morris explained his resolve at the time of the SDF-SL split:

    “To teach ourselves and others what the due social claims of labour are... with the view to dealing with the crisis if it should come in our day, or handing on the tradition of our hope to others if we should die before it comes…”

    But as time and thus experience accumulated, socialists within the SDF began to grasp, debate and argue for a more sophisticated socialist politics. And intellectuals began to throw themselves into the class struggle — Eleanor Marx for instance was an invaluable assistant to the dockers and other groups of workers later in the decade, as they fought for higher pay and union recognition.

    How did Mann come to join the SDF? In the first years of the 1880s he, like many, was periodically unemployed. Eventually he found steady work at the Lambeth shop of the engineering company Brotherhoods and he moved himself and his family to Battersea.

    In Battersea he came into contact with the local SDF branch, led by John Burns. Mann became very active, very quickly, and by the end of 1885 had been elected to the SDF executive.

    One of the first things Mann did was initiate a campaign for the eight hour day — a campaign which really took off in the labour movement later in the decade — and this occupied him for a number of years, despite the opposition of people like Hyndman.

    Tom Mann was a gifted organiser. The work of people like Mann enabled the socialist movement to go beyond making socialist propaganda, to develop political campaigns and to get involved in living class struggles. However it is clear, from his memoirs, biographies and the trajectory of his life, that Mann was not greatly concerned about political conflict, or clashes of ideology.

    His instinct was for unity and burying differences. When he fell out of love with the SDF he simply moved on. Of course leaving or joining a socialist organisation at that time was less of a finely tuned decision — many people held joint membership of different socialist organisations.

    When urged by John Burns to come to London for an SDF conference, Mann declines because, as he says in a letter to Burns, “I have lost hope as regards SDF though I am sanguine concerning one or two districts.” Instead of trying to change things for the better Mann preferred to “rouse the workers” as he put it, as best he could, where he could.

    In early 1887 Many was blacklisted by London’s engineering bosses — for being a socialist and a rabble rouser. He was asked by the SDF to be a political organiser in the north of England, starting in Newcastle.

    But Mann did not want to give up being an engineer or a worker. He felt it was important for him to do his job as an organiser. He wrote to John Burns at the end of the year explaining why he had taken a job in Newcastle (which he was soon to lose due to blacklisting):

    “… it’s some satisfaction to myself to turn out early and tackle the ordinary routine of workshop life… I also want to see the inside of some of these big Tyneside firms — criticism will be all the easier with more intimate knowledge.”

    The SDF had managed to establish a number of branches outside London, in Birmingham, Northampton and Glasgow. Some of these were affected by the split with the Socialist Leaguers. But Lancashire was where the SDF was strongest. Early in 1888 Mann visited Bolton where there was a strike of engineers. He stayed for a while.

    Mann’s “organising” meant ceaseless public speaking, constant socialist agitation. There was great enthusiasm for socialist speaking of all kinds — including things like economic lectures — particularly among the young. Was this due to the enthusiasm of the speakers? The credibility of the message? Or because there were few other forms of entertainment?!

    This account by local trade unionist and socialist Chas Glyde gives a little flavour of the socialist activities, their resoluteness at a time when they weren’t a big or important force, as well as the general political culture:

    “Tom drew very large crowds to the Town Hall Square. Street corner and propaganda meetings were held in the surrounding towns and villages. His fiery speeches were marvels of eloquence and power. I was always with him, pushing the literature while he did the speechifying. The authorities got alarmed with the results of his brilliant burning eloquence, and his name was taken by the police authorities with the view to prosecution for creating an obstruction on the Town Hall Square…

    “Tom stoutly stood to his guns… he never flinched, his crowds grew to enormous dimensions… He won the right of free speech hands down, the opposition of the police and Corporation collapsed, they dared not prosecute him…

    “He started an economics class… An agitation sprung up in the town for the Sunday opening of the Public Library and reading room. Tom was one of its foremost supporters… Nearly the whole of the clergy and Nonconformist parsons and the church and chapel people opposed the proposal. A public meeting was held in the Temperance hall by those who were opposed to opening. Tom and a small band of SDFers attended for the purposes of moving an amendment. The chairman was a local landowner and when Tom rose to move his amendment, he was received with howls of derision and jeers by the large crowd of members of chapels and churches, but he stood his ground, and eventually the chairman invited him onto the platform.”

    • Next issue: the eight hour day campaign.

  • This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
    By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.