International political initiative first launched by British Socialists in 1919
The Hands Off Russia campaign was an international political initiative first launched by British Socialists in 1919 to organise opposition to the British intervention on the side of the White armies against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, as well as to oppose support for Poland during the Polish-Soviet war. The movement was funded partly with financial support from the Bolsheviks themselves. Their most prominent success was in stopping the sailing of the SS Jolly George with munitions bound for Poland. The movement was encouraged by the fledgling Communist International and ultimately emulated in several other countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The National Committee for the Hands off Russia Movement was elected at a conference in London in January 1919. Sylvia Pankhurst obtained funds for the movement from Moscow.[1] Socialists like William Paul, W. P. Coates (national secretary), Harry Pollitt (national organiser), David Ramsay (treasurer) and Alfred Comrie were active in the campaign.[2]
Alfred Comrie's copy of Hands Off Russia by William Paul, 1919
In May 1920 East London dockers refused to load the freighter SS Jolly George with arms headed for Poland, which was then at war with Soviet Russia in the Polish-Soviet War over their disputed border. Partly due to the agitation of Harry Pollitt, future leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain,[4] who had at this point quit his job as national organiser of the movement and returned to working in the dock yards,[1] a deputation of dockers was sent to speak with Ernest Bevin, who was then a senior official of the docker's union. Bevin pledged the full support of the union in their actions, and the owners of the ship, the Walford Line, were made to acquiesce in the unloading of the arms from the ship. The Jolly George sailed on 15 May 1920 without the offending cargo.[5]
The movement failed to prevent the sailing of a number of other ships laden with arms for Poland, including the Danish steamer Neptune on 1 May 1920, and two Belgian barges.[6] The shipment aboard the Jolly George was amongst the last of a consignment of weaponry promised to the Poles during the previous October.[5]
On 5 August 1920, as the Bolshevik armies approached Warsaw, the British Labour Party and Trades Union Congress responded to a proposed Anglo-French intervention in the war by announcing that they would mobilise their movements to oppose any intervention in the war. The subsequent Polish victory in the battle of Warsaw on 16 August rendered the issue moot by making an intervention to save Poland unnecessary.[7]
Aftermath
In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and in light of this the committee was renamed as the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee.[8]
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
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Harry Pollitt was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from July 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt spent most of his life advocating communism. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, Pollitt was an adherent particularly of Joseph Stalin even after Stalin's death and disavowal by Nikita Khrushchev. Pollitt's acts included opposition to the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and Polish–Soviet War, support for the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, both support for and opposition to the war against Nazi Germany, defence of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, and support for the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
The Workers' Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Under many different names, it gradually broadened its politics from a focus on women's suffrage to eventually become a left communist grouping.
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The Communist Party of Lithuania and Byelorussia also known as the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Lithuania and Byelorussia, was a communist party which governed the short-lived Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Byelorussia in 1919. The Central Committee of the party had the status of a regional committee within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Following the loss of Lithuania and Byelorussia to Polish forces in the Polish-Soviet war, the party organized partisan units behind the front lines. In September 1920 the party was disbanded into the Communist Party of Lithuania and the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Byelorussia.
The Ukrainian War of Independence, also referred to as the Ukrainian–Soviet War in Ukraine, lasted from March 1917 to November 1921. It saw the establishment and development of an independent Ukrainian republic, most of which was absorbed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic between 1919 and 1920. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1991.
Kazimierz Cichowski was a Polish-Soviet communist activist and politician, Bolshevik revolutionary and nobleman. Along with Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas, he played an important role in establishing the Soviet regime in Lithuania and the Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
John Ross Campbell was a British communist activist and newspaper editor. Campbell was a co-founder of the Communist Party of Great Britain and briefly served as its second leader from July 1928 to July 1929. He is best remembered as the principal in the Campbell Case. In 1924, Campbell was charged under the Incitement to Mutiny Act for an article published in the paper Workers' Weekly. Campbell called on British soldiers to "let it be known that, neither in the class war nor in a military war, will you turn your guns on your fellow workers, but instead will line up with your fellow workers in an attack upon the exploiters and capitalists." He was sentenced to six months in prison.
The Revolutions of 1917–1923 were a revolutionary wave that included political unrest and armed revolts around the world inspired by the success of the Russian Revolution and the disorder created by the aftermath of World War I. The uprisings were mainly socialist or anti-colonial in nature. Some socialist revolts failed to create lasting socialist states. The revolutions had lasting effects in shaping the future European political landscape, with for example the collapse of the German Empire and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.
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David Ramsay (1883–1948) was a British socialist activist.
An index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War period (1905–1922). It covers articles on topics, events, and persons related to the revolutionary era, from the 1905 Russian Revolution until the end of the Russian Civil War. The See also section includes other lists related to Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union, including an index of articles about the Soviet Union (1922–1991) which is the next article in this series, and Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
SS Jolly George was a cargo vessel operated by Entente Steamship Co Ltd during the period 1916-1923. She was originally launched as the Balboa in 1894, and renamed Jolly George in 1920. The ship was subsequently known as Sebat in Turkish service. The ship played a prominent role in carrying arms to Poland during the Polish-Soviet war.
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