6 - Conclusion

Summary

Socialist activity in the metropolis from the 1880s to 1912 was marked by an extraordinary degree of schism, ideological difference, and fratricidal conflict. This expressed itself in the lack of consistency in respect to concepts of difference and the practical labour organisation of Irish and Jewish communities. This state of affairs only began to change after the founding of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900. This in turn paved the way for the national electoral breakthrough of the Labour Party in the 1906 General Election, and the streamlining of and increased party discipline within mainstream socialist politics that followed. The period 1889–1912 in a London-based context was characterised by the existence of a number of small, relatively weak, competing socialist groups, with attempts to arrive at a common platform or policy largely being frustrated. These groups had shifting memberships and often chaotic organisation. This differentiates the period from both from the radical politics preceding the emergence of new unionism in the 1880s and the progress of moderate socialism and Marxism after the First World War. Chartism in the 1830s and 1840s constituted a relatively ideologically cohesive movement with an explicit platform and policy endorsed by its members, even if the Chartist movement was split on the issue of the efficacy of violence to achieve political aims. After 1918, metropolitan socialism was embodied in a Labour Party that had entered the mainstream and would soon govern nationally and a small but resilient Communist Party of Great Britain (the CPGB). The mutual antipathy that existed between these two groups should not disguise the far more effective inner-party discipline that existed within both organisations as compared with their predecessors. After 1918, it was easier for socialist parties to adopt a particular official ‘line’ on certain issues, antisemitism, Irish nationalism, and Catholicism included. This ensured that the official policy was adhered to both nationally and locally and that party members were bound by party discipline in public meetings and in print, with the ability effectively to punish members who publicly flouted official commitment to ethnic and religious tolerance.

The years 1889 to 1912 was a period of atomisation for metropolitan socialism, confused and often chaotic, with matters of policy and ideology uncertain, constantly disputed, and up for debate.