Sylvia Pankhurst and the struggle for the vote.
Syliva Pankhurst was the daughter of Emmeline and Dr. Richard Pankhurst, and sister of Christabel, Harty and Adela. Her father was a barrister, member of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and founder of the Manchester Liberal Association and later when on to become a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Emmeline, also a active member of the ILP, founded the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. Emmeline intended the WSPU to:
Initially, the WSPU acted on behalf of unemployed women, textile strikers in Yorkshire, of 'native races' in Natal and other causes, besides women's suffrage. It organised large demonstrations under the banner of 'Votes for Women', and between 1906 and 1907, the demonstrations became larger and more frequent, with mass arrests usually taking place. On 21st June 1908, between 250,000 to 500,000 women took part in a demonstration at Hyde Park, with the WSPU paper Votes for Women saying: '...it is no exaggeration to say that the number of people present was the largest ever gathered together on one spot at one time in the history of the world'.
The Liberal Govt. did not pay heed to any of these demonstrations, and due to the imprisonment of many of the WSPU members, more militant action started to form, such as breaking the windows of 10 Downing Street and breaking up Liberal Party meetings. Those imprisoned started to go on hunger strike, and its here that we get the infamous 'cat and mouse' methods employed by the authorities, whereby prisoners would be sent home after a deterioration in health, only then to be re-arrested when healthier again.
Christabel Pankhurst, who became dominant in the WSPU, wanted an organisation based, not on class lines, but rather one based on womanhood. She saw working class women as the 'weakest section of the sex': "Surely it is a mistake to use the weakest for the struggle! We want picked women, the very strongest and most intelligent!" The WSPU was drifting more and more to the right, with Votes for Women attacking striking male workers, saying that they had votes and could '…gain improvements in their condition without resorting to strikes.' On the death of King Edward in 1910, Christabel competed with the Conservative papers in her expression of devotion to the throne, the WSPU suspended all agitation and mourned heavily in its paper.
Desperate times call for desperate tactics, and so with the Liberal Govt. ignoring the WSPU, they started to resort to chaining themselves to railings, organising mass window-breaking, and arson directed at prominent rich people. On June 3rd 1913, Emily Wilding Davison attended the Derby and threw herself under the King horse and was killed.
The WSPU was also turning against all men, with Christabel publishing a book called The Great Scourge and How to End It. This was about VD, stating that men had to change their moral standards before women got married, and that the cure was 'Votes for women…and chastity for men'. By the time of WW1, the WSPU had become the most 'chauvinistic organisation in the country', and spent the war years organising women for the munitions industry, and their paper became known as 'Britannia', with its subtitle being: 'For King, For Country, For Freedom'. It was the WSPU which introduced sending White Feathers to civilians who did not join the armed forces, and launched an Industrial Peace campaign which denounced 'Bolsheviks' and those fermenting class struggle. They had paid members who worked in the high industry areas, such as Glasgow and the South Wales Valleys to keep an 'eye' on things. Progress reports were then sent to the Prime Minister.
Whilst the WSPU, under an increasingly autocratic Christabel, focused on more 'patriotic' duties, which as stated considerably shifted the organisation to the right, Sylvia Pankhurst remained active in the Labour Movement. She made a significant contribution to working-class struggles in the East End of London, and believed that the WSPU should focus more on a strong appeal to the masses rather than individual acts of militancy, which divorced the WSPU from any serious struggle. From this viewpoint, she was expelled from the WSPU in January 1914, after speaking at a meeting in support of Dublin workers, and also from her opposition to arson attacks.
Sylvia Pankhurst
She set up the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS), which became Workers Suffrage Federation in 1916, then in May 1918 the Workers Socialist Federation. Her paper, 'Women's Dreadnought' was formed in March 1914, defined its task as:
The 'Women's Dreadnought' changed its name to the 'Workers Dreadnought' in 1917, 'as members realised that solidarity between men and women was essential if they were going to win their fight'.
The new subtitle was 'Socialism, Internationalism, Votes for All'. Sylvia was a committed Socialist, and saw the Russian Revolution of 1917 as hope: 'Our eager hopes are for the speedy success of the Bolsheviks of Russia: may they open the door which leads to freedom for the people of all lands.'
This eventually led her to meet Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution, but also showed Sylvia to be on the left of the Bolsheviks, by opposing all participation in parliamentary elections, which led Sylvia to break with Lenin and ended up in her forming the Communist Party, British Section of the Third International, instead of handing over Workers Dreadnought and being made to conform to the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britian (CPGB) in 1920. Lenin responded to this break, in his pamphlet 'Left Wing Communism-An Infantile Disorder, which caused the split with Lenin.
Sylvia eventually dropped out of left wing politics and moved to Ethiopia. Whilst there, she opposed the Italian invasion and turned into anti-fascist and anti-colonial work. She died in Ethiopia in 1960.
Women in Britain eventually got the vote in 1918, but it was not a full enfranchisement (only women over 30 could vote, whilst for men it was 21). In 1928, women gained the vote on the same term as men. It is worth noting that in France, women did not get the vote until after WW2, and France is seen as a more liberal country. Obviously, the Liberal Government realised that after WW1 concessions had to be made for all the suffering which people had endured during the war. Also, women were now an essential part of the Labour force, being incorporated into the factory system during the war. The threat of a successful workers revolution in Russia also must have been on their minds, and the last thing the government wanted post-war was more increased militant agitation for the vote. After WW2, we gained the National Health Service; post WW1, it was an increased franchise for both men and women.
"..conduct social as well as political work; she envisaged the provision of maternity benefit, and other such amenities for the members of the new organisation, which at that time she intended should be mainly composed of working women, and politically a women's parallel to the ILP, though with primary emphasis on the vote."
Initially, the WSPU acted on behalf of unemployed women, textile strikers in Yorkshire, of 'native races' in Natal and other causes, besides women's suffrage. It organised large demonstrations under the banner of 'Votes for Women', and between 1906 and 1907, the demonstrations became larger and more frequent, with mass arrests usually taking place. On 21st June 1908, between 250,000 to 500,000 women took part in a demonstration at Hyde Park, with the WSPU paper Votes for Women saying: '...it is no exaggeration to say that the number of people present was the largest ever gathered together on one spot at one time in the history of the world'.
The Liberal Govt. did not pay heed to any of these demonstrations, and due to the imprisonment of many of the WSPU members, more militant action started to form, such as breaking the windows of 10 Downing Street and breaking up Liberal Party meetings. Those imprisoned started to go on hunger strike, and its here that we get the infamous 'cat and mouse' methods employed by the authorities, whereby prisoners would be sent home after a deterioration in health, only then to be re-arrested when healthier again.
Christabel Pankhurst, who became dominant in the WSPU, wanted an organisation based, not on class lines, but rather one based on womanhood. She saw working class women as the 'weakest section of the sex': "Surely it is a mistake to use the weakest for the struggle! We want picked women, the very strongest and most intelligent!" The WSPU was drifting more and more to the right, with Votes for Women attacking striking male workers, saying that they had votes and could '…gain improvements in their condition without resorting to strikes.' On the death of King Edward in 1910, Christabel competed with the Conservative papers in her expression of devotion to the throne, the WSPU suspended all agitation and mourned heavily in its paper.
Desperate times call for desperate tactics, and so with the Liberal Govt. ignoring the WSPU, they started to resort to chaining themselves to railings, organising mass window-breaking, and arson directed at prominent rich people. On June 3rd 1913, Emily Wilding Davison attended the Derby and threw herself under the King horse and was killed.
The WSPU was also turning against all men, with Christabel publishing a book called The Great Scourge and How to End It. This was about VD, stating that men had to change their moral standards before women got married, and that the cure was 'Votes for women…and chastity for men'. By the time of WW1, the WSPU had become the most 'chauvinistic organisation in the country', and spent the war years organising women for the munitions industry, and their paper became known as 'Britannia', with its subtitle being: 'For King, For Country, For Freedom'. It was the WSPU which introduced sending White Feathers to civilians who did not join the armed forces, and launched an Industrial Peace campaign which denounced 'Bolsheviks' and those fermenting class struggle. They had paid members who worked in the high industry areas, such as Glasgow and the South Wales Valleys to keep an 'eye' on things. Progress reports were then sent to the Prime Minister.
Whilst the WSPU, under an increasingly autocratic Christabel, focused on more 'patriotic' duties, which as stated considerably shifted the organisation to the right, Sylvia Pankhurst remained active in the Labour Movement. She made a significant contribution to working-class struggles in the East End of London, and believed that the WSPU should focus more on a strong appeal to the masses rather than individual acts of militancy, which divorced the WSPU from any serious struggle. From this viewpoint, she was expelled from the WSPU in January 1914, after speaking at a meeting in support of Dublin workers, and also from her opposition to arson attacks.
Sylvia Pankhurst
She set up the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS), which became Workers Suffrage Federation in 1916, then in May 1918 the Workers Socialist Federation. Her paper, 'Women's Dreadnought' was formed in March 1914, defined its task as:
"The Women's Dreadnought is published by the East London Federation of Suffragettes, an organisation mainly composed of working women, and the chief duty of The Dreadnought will be to deal with the franchise question from the working women's point of view, and to report activities of the Votes for Women movement in East London. Nevertheless, the paper will not fail to review the whole field of the women's emancipation movement."
The 'Women's Dreadnought' changed its name to the 'Workers Dreadnought' in 1917, 'as members realised that solidarity between men and women was essential if they were going to win their fight'.
The new subtitle was 'Socialism, Internationalism, Votes for All'. Sylvia was a committed Socialist, and saw the Russian Revolution of 1917 as hope: 'Our eager hopes are for the speedy success of the Bolsheviks of Russia: may they open the door which leads to freedom for the people of all lands.'
This eventually led her to meet Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution, but also showed Sylvia to be on the left of the Bolsheviks, by opposing all participation in parliamentary elections, which led Sylvia to break with Lenin and ended up in her forming the Communist Party, British Section of the Third International, instead of handing over Workers Dreadnought and being made to conform to the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britian (CPGB) in 1920. Lenin responded to this break, in his pamphlet 'Left Wing Communism-An Infantile Disorder, which caused the split with Lenin.
Sylvia eventually dropped out of left wing politics and moved to Ethiopia. Whilst there, she opposed the Italian invasion and turned into anti-fascist and anti-colonial work. She died in Ethiopia in 1960.
Women in Britain eventually got the vote in 1918, but it was not a full enfranchisement (only women over 30 could vote, whilst for men it was 21). In 1928, women gained the vote on the same term as men. It is worth noting that in France, women did not get the vote until after WW2, and France is seen as a more liberal country. Obviously, the Liberal Government realised that after WW1 concessions had to be made for all the suffering which people had endured during the war. Also, women were now an essential part of the Labour force, being incorporated into the factory system during the war. The threat of a successful workers revolution in Russia also must have been on their minds, and the last thing the government wanted post-war was more increased militant agitation for the vote. After WW2, we gained the National Health Service; post WW1, it was an increased franchise for both men and women.
posted by Kevin Sparrow at 3:37 pm
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