The National Union of Ex-Servicemen (NUX) was a socialist ex-servicemen's organisation founded in London in early 1919 with close links with the Labour Party. Many of its members were formerly supporters of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's Union (SSAU). Within six months it had grown from one branch with fifty members to over one hundred branches and claimed a membership of nearly 100,000. [1] [2] Its membership was boosted by the stance of the Federation against the 1919 United Kingdom railway strike in the autumn of that year: it called on Prime Minister David Lloyd George to "hold firm against Labour tyranny", causing tension in its ranks and prompting many left-wing members to leave and join NUX, which had supported the strike. By the end of 1919 NUX had 200,000 members and 200 branches. [3]
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km2) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights.
The National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers (NFDDSS) was a British veterans organisation.
The NUX was allied to the Labour Party. It also established close links to the Independent Labour Party. It articulated the grievances of ex-servicemen and campaigned for better living conditions for former soldiers by raising issues such as unemployment, higher back pay, better pensions, inadequate housing and improved medical care for soldiers disabled by injury. It played a role as a claimants union aiming to secure justice for disabled former soldiers and adequate provision for the widows and families of soldiers who died in the First World War. It argued in favour of requisitioning empty homes for the use of unemployed ex-servicemen, [3] for land reform and a tax on profiteering landlords, and pressed for reform of military court martials. It also pushed to defend and extend the rights of former soldiers with shell shock, forcing the Labour Party to pass a motion condemning their treatment by the government as "pauper lunatics", and bringing the demand for better mental health treatment for ex-servicemen into the political mainstream. [3] It tried to organise a national rent strike. It also supported democratisation of the army. [3] But - unlike other ex-servicemen's organisations - it called upon ex-servicemen to unite to improve society as a whole rather than simply campaigning on veteran's issues. [1] The Union's view was that soldiers should not be seen as a caste separate from the rest of society: that when they served they were "workers-in-uniform", and that when they ended their duty they went back to being workers. [3]
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893, when the Liberals appeared reluctant to endorse working-class candidates, representing the interests of the majority. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.
Shell shock is a term coined in World War I to describe the type of posttraumatic stress disorder many soldiers were afflicted with during the war. It is a reaction to the intensity of the bombardment and fighting that produced a helplessness appearing variously as panic and being scared, flight, or an inability to reason, sleep, walk or talk.
The Union was based in London but had a strong regional presence especially in Birmingham, Glasgow and Lancashire. Its leaders included G. D. H. Cole, Ernest Thurtle and Clement Attlee. [3] Its first President was Duncan Carmichael who was Secretary of the London Trades Council. He was succeeded by John Beckett. Ernest Mander, a London lawyer who sold his home to help finance the NUX and later emigrated to New Zealand, became General Secretary. [4] The NUX produced a monthly publication New World. It operated on a shoestring and always struggled financially although it received some financial support from the ILP.
George Douglas Howard Cole was an English political theorist, economist, writer and historian. As a libertarian socialist he was a long-time member of the Fabian Society and an advocate for the co-operative movement.
Ernest Thurtle was a British Labour politician.
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, was a British statesman and Labour Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951.
The NUX was kept under close surveillance by the newly formed Home Office Directorate of Intelligence because of Government fears that it might be promoting subversion or revolution, although little evidence of subversive activity was found. A more militant international offshoot, the International Union of Ex-Servicemen (I.U.X) was formed in Glasgow in 1919, although it claimed only 7,000 members by November 1919. [2] The NUX also supported the Hands Off Russia campaign to oppose British support for the anti-Communist White movement in the Russian Civil War. [3]
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 in the Russian Civil War. The movement was encouraged by the fledgling Communist International and ultimately emulated in several other countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The White movement and its military arm the White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen or simply the Whites, was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the Communist Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1922/1923) and to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations insurrectionists both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II (1939–1945).
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the two Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism led by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favouring political monarchism, economic capitalism and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and anti-democratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists and non-ideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. Eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the former Allied military forces from the World War and the pro-German armies. The Red Army eventually defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak to the east in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. The war ended in 1923 in the sense that Bolshevik communist control of the newly formed Soviet Union was now assured, although armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934. There were an estimated 7,000,000–12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen.
Fifty-three NUX supporting Labour Party candidates were elected in the urban district council elections of 1920 but by the autumn of 1920 and following a ballot of its members, the NUX reconstituted itself as a loose federation of autonomous branches many of which were then absorbed into the ILP, the Labour Party or the Communist Party, and it was wound up as a national organisation. [1]
In the eighteen months since its formation, the NUX had conducted vigorous propaganda campaigns throughout Britain and held an estimated 47,000 meetings. [1] The NUX also served as an apprenticeship for future political campaigners such as John Beckett, who became a Labour MP and later a leading fascist, and the Birmingham journalists and politicians Jim Simmons and CE Leatherland.
Charles James "Jim" Simmons was a British lecturer, journalist and politician.
Charles Edward Leatherland, Baron Leatherland OBE MSM DL was a British journalist and Labour Party politician.
