Comradely 80th Birthday Greetings to KEN WELLER

Through Alan Woodward (“a born-again Solidarist” – KW) and a number of other RaHN members Ken can be counted as having had a significant influence on the Radical History Network of North-East London.

                 For  30/6/2015                    80           

To mark the occasion…

Some historic documents dating from the early days of Solidarity:

RON00785

 KW to Syndicalist Workers' Federation (SWF), mentioning early issues of the Solidarity magazine (nos. 1 to 4 were called Agitator; the group at this stage was called Socialism Reaffirmed)

RON00779 KW to SWF Oct. 1961 re industrial activity

RON00787 KW for C100 Industrial Sub-Committee [Sep.] 1961

Committee of 100 demo in Trafalgar Square

RON01492

RON01493

Letter to publishers of World Labour News naming KW as a speaker on Problems and Possibilities of Workers’ Control: at a NALGO conference, to be paired with a speaker from the Yugoslav embassy (which must have made for a lively exchange of views).

RON01494

 Historian Angus Calder, later well-known especially as author of The People’s War, writes to the SWF saying he and associates (context unspecified) would like to have KW as a speaker.

Above Images from:
http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/ron_marsden/data_rons_collection_info.html                References (RON---) as indicated.
   With thanks to Sparrows' Nest.

Previously on this blog: something about Ken’s role in the pre-history of Solidarity, as well as the interview where he talked about how his political position evolved in the late 1950s.

Publications by Ken Weller

Pick up or look up (some are on-line as images and/or text) any issue of the magazine over the more than 30 years of Solidarity’s existence and there will probably be at least one item by Ken Weller/KW (or Mark Fore/MF) – a full list would take a deal of researching and would include articles, letters and reviews on a variety of subjects. And of course he had a lot to do with the Motor Bulletins, of which at least 8 were produced, in the 1970s. There were also the pamphlets, more written wholly or partly by Ken than by any other individual Solidarist (not counting Cardan/Castoriadis), some of which are currently (June 2015) available on-line to download or for sale.

‘Mark Fore’ was the name used for some of the industrial material, a sensible precaution in view of, for example, the interest taken by the likes of the Economic League in a certain “A.E.U. shop steward from North London” (National Archives file LAB 43/368: Economic League: statement on subversive activity in the motor industry 1961). 

Date first published	Title	co-author(s)	on-line* price from	available at libcom (free)
1961	STANDARD TRIUMPH STRIKE: THE FULL FACTS	Tom Hillier, Jim Petter	£8	libcom
1962	The TRUTH ABOUT VAUXHALL		£8	libcom
1962	WHAT NEXT FOR ENGINEERS?		£7.50	libcom
1962	THE B.L.S.P. [British Light Steel Pressings] DISPUTE: THE STORY OF THE STRIKE		£10	libcom
1964	BUSMEN: WHAT NEXT?	Brian Whitby, Fred Whelton, Arthur Moyse, Bob Potter	£7	libcom
1967	What Happened at Fords	Ernie Stanton	£10	libcom
1970	G.M.W.U. Scab Union	as Mark Fore	£5	libcom
197-?	Strategy for Industrial Struggle	as Mark Fore	£12.69	libcom
1973	The Lordstown Struggle and the Real Crisis in Production		£5	libcom
	A short history of the police strikes of 1918-1919**	(Not a pamphlet)		libcom only

*These prices normally have a substantial whack added on for shipping.

Most items cost a few pennies, or pence, when first published.
**The piece on police strikes is taken from "Don't be a Soldier!" - see below.

Amazon's Ken Weller Page: Bestselling Books: Don't be a Soldier!: Radical Anti-war Movement in North London, 1914-18, WHAT NEXT FOR ENGINEERS?, THE B.L.S.P. DISPUTE: THE STORY OF THE STRIKE.             

[abebooks usually have more listed, and offered at prices starting a bit cheaper]

AND OF COURSE…

Don't be a Soldier! The Radical Anti-war Movement in North London, 1914-18, Journeyman Press/London History Workshop Centre, 1985. (Currently second-hand on-line from £11.69) 

The book that has been cited by so many historians of the First World War (and referred to in meeting after meeting of people interested in Remembering the Real WW1, e.g. in the Radical History area at the Anarchist Book Fair in October 2013), right up to the extensive review by Cyril Pearce, Writing about Britain’s 1914-18 War Resisters - Literature Review published  on-line this month: 

Possibly the first work to contradict the assertions that from 1914 to 1918 there had been a ‘national’ consensus in favour of war was Ken Weller’s ‘Don’t be a soldier!’ The Radical Anti-war Movement in North London, 1914–1918.  It is an account of the anti-war movement in the North London boroughs of Islington, Hackney, Stoke Newington and parts of Middlesex […]Weller’s work has been influential in encouraging others to look more closely at their local war resisters. 

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1779

There has been word of a new edition, and it’s about time, but apart from an ad-hoc reprint by Past Tense for some meetings last year none seems yet to have seen the light of day except on line (thanks to libcom again). Lots more of the KW oeuvre would be worth re-publishing too, both as original radical history documentation and commentary on the times, with much still relevant in the way of analysis and insights.

3rd Letter: Syndicalist Workers Federation to Silvio Corio

Discussion of adult (working-class) education: ‘Popular University’, WEA, NCLC:-

On headed paper:

                Syndicalist Workers Federation                      

BRITISH SECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKINGMEN’S ASSOCIATION                             ORGAN: “DIRECT ACTION”               

NATIONAL COMMITTEE:  25a Amberley Road., London, W.9                       

18^th October 1953

S. Corio

5, Charteris Rd., Woodford.          

Dear Comrade,

                                Thank you very much for of your letter 8^th October. We note that you are wishing to attend, and we shall send definite information as soon as the arrangements are decided.

                We have discussed the matter raised in your letter: your son Richard is welcome to attend as an observer. It is understood, of course, that the proceedings of the Congress are a matter of confidence.

                I should have written before, but you may be interested to know that your earlier letter to Ken, on the subject of a Popular University, promoted a useful discussion among the members of the National Committee and the London Group. We agreed that our movement had not the means to start such a project effectively, in competition with the National Council of Labour Colleges and the WEA, both of which themselves did not have easy going. We decided, however, that our cause would be better served if as many comrades as possible did lecture for the NCLC, [choosing], of course, the subjects which were as relevant as possible to our ideas, e.g. Workers’ Control. At least one comrade present at that meeting undertook to do this, as he had at times previously. We were all of the opinion that the NCLC was a more useful field of action than the WEA, because the former had some influence among the most strongly organised and militant workers, and he latter was handicapped by the doctrine that education was something apart from the war of the classes, and must be unbiased’. I might add a personal note that I attended a WEA class at Plaistow, near my home, and found that this ‘impartiality’ seemed to imply, in their practice, repudiation of the class struggle. The audience seemed to be less class conscious than the average attender at a Branch Meeting of the Transport & General Workers Union. Do not let my personal fad dissuade you or Richard from carrying on what you are doing, though. I expect the audiences vary in different cases, and in any case, you know best, as you are doing it.

We were interested to hear that you had heard from Alan Smith; only recently he contacted us again, after quite a long gap. Do you know if he is interested in any activity?

I must close now,

With best wishes from us all,

Yours fraternally,

[signed]  Peter Green

Reference for image of original at http://thesparrowsnest.org.uk (Ron’s Archive) :  RON00471-2 (two pages).

Silvio Corio and Son

Syndicalist (and North-East London) Connections

Recently found in Ron’s Archive at http://thesparrowsnest.org.uk:

Three letters, from/to/about respectively Silvio Corio, the Italian anarchist who was the long-term partner of Sylvia Pankhurst (see blog post here, September 2010), and one to their son Richard Pankhurst about his Conscientious Objector (CO) Tribunal, when he was appealing against conscription for National Service.

Thanks to the Sparrows Nest collective for making these generally available.

1. Letter: editor of the Syndicalist Workers Federation paper Direct Action to Richard Pankhurst.

25a Amberley Road., London, W.9

November 5^th, 1952

Richard Pankhurst.

Dear Comrade,

Very many thanks for sending us the material on your C.O. tribunal.  After discussion, we decided that publication in the form of a letter from yourself might well have the effect of prejudicing your appeal, and that it would be better to put it in the form of an article.    We hope this will be o.k.

                Hoping you will keep us informed of developments, and that your appeal will be successful.

Every good wish, Yours fraternally,

 [copy unsigned] for editorial office

 Database reference for image of original at Sparrows Nest website as above:  RON00668

 Note: 

“... the procedure of appearing before a Local or Appellate tribunal could be a harrowing business for the one objector among every six hundred recruits.” – Trevor Royle, National Service: The Best Years of Their Lives,  p.46. (Paperback 2011; first published 2002,).

According to the National Archives website most National Service records, including those for appeals tribunals, have been destroyed

2.  Letter from Silvio Corio to the Syndicalist Workers Federation (SWF) about their forthcoming Conference, 1953, with mention of Richard Pankhurst.

On headed paper: New Times and Ethiopia News (Weekly). Editor: E. Sylvia Pankhurst

Oct. 8 ‘53

Dear Com. Green,

Many thanks for notification of Conference.  If you could favour me with the date when it will effectively be held I should be grateful. I will attend – if permitted – merely as an observer. And – if you have no objection –  I will take with me Richard. He is very interested in the Labour Movement of today. Before long his book on Wm. Thompson will be published by Messrs. Watts & Co. It should have appeared already but these people are so slow. He is now teaching Economics for the W.E.A. at Woolwich, thanks to his Ph.D. degree. He wants to know, at first hand, the opinions of English workers of today. A few days ago I had a letter from Alan Smith quite favourable to your work. You know him of course.

Best wishes,
Sincerely,                           S. Corio

Database reference for image of original at Sparrows Nest website:  RON01896

Notes:
The New Times and Ethiopia News was an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist paper run by Silvio Corio and Sylvia Pankhurst, originally in response to Mussolini’s attack on Ethiopia.

A short biography of Silvio Corio can be found at www.libcom.org. Also at LibCom: “The North East London Anarchist Group: A short history ... founded in 1946”, < http://www.libcom.org/history/north-east-london-anarchist-group> by Nick Heath. Mentions Alan Smith, Peter Green and Mario Mantovani as well as Corio himself.

Next Time: the SWF replies to Corio, and a sad announcement.