Reading our Sylvia Pankhurst pamphlet, I ask why she, and other well-known 20th century personalities who shared our views, didn’t join, or at least contact, the S.P.G.B. (Or even ever mention us!) Instead, they set up their own parties, which soon folded.
This topic was modified 1 month ago by Thomas_More.
Pankhurst was one of the UK representatives of “left communism” and so didn’t share the same political views as the SPGB. Why would she need to contact them or mention them?
Guy Aldred, if he counts as well-known, did in its beginning years nearly join the SPGB.
The original question was why didn’t Slyvia Pankhurst join or contact the SPGB, not whether she had any shared viewpoints. I just gave a good reasons why she wouldn’t have needed or wanted to.
Obviously she had some shared viewpoints, but the same is true of a lot of people and organisations of that time, and now.
The longstanding British Communist Party leader, Harry Pollitt, was a member of Pankhurst’s Workers’ Socialist Federation in his early political days in the Greater Manchester area.
He definitely knew of the SPGB back then as he mentions Moses Baritz approvingly in his autobiography, ‘Serving My Time’.
The SPGB weren’t so kind to Pollitt in his CPGB leadership days, nicknaming him Harry Pollute . . . which I think is pretty funny, tbh.