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The Christian Protest Movement, the Labour Government and Soviet Religious Repression, 1929–1931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

GILES UDY
GILES UDY*
Affiliation:
Keston Institute, PO Box 752, Oxford OX1 9QF; e-mail: giles@gilesudy.com
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Abstract

This article examines British reactions to Stalin's deportation of over one million peasants and religious believers to the Soviet gulag. It follows events in Britain as the evidence mounted and public protests grew, first over the persecution of religious believers and then over the British government's refusal to halt imports of timber cut by camp inmates. It highlights the role played by Prebendary Alfred Gough's Christian Protest Movement and the worldwide protests against Soviet persecution which Gough's campaign inspired. It reveals how Labour ministers and other leading British Socialists obstructed the protest campaign and publicly denied accounts of crimes against humanity which they either privately admitted or, because of their enthusiasm for Soviet Communism, dismissed as right-wing fabrications.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 116 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 Hansard, HL lxxix.857–60, 5 Feb. 1931.

2 Ibid. lxxix. 872, 5 Feb. 1931.

3 The Times, 14 June 1927

4 Emil Lederer, ‘Communism’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edn, London 1929, cited in Thomas, Ivor, The Socialist tragedy, London 1949, 18–19Google Scholar. The entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on ‘Socialism’ by G. D. H. Cole, the Labour political theorist, is very similar.

5 As one commentator has remarked, ‘It would be a mistake to regard the Labour Party's attitude towards the CPGB as a reliable barometer of its attitude to Russia’: Bill Jones, The Russia complex, Manchester 1977, 9.

6 Laski, Harold J., Communist Manifesto: Socialist landmark, a new appreciation written for the Labour party, London 1948, 7Google Scholar and dust jacket.

7 Bickley, Paul, Building Jerusalem: Christianity and the Labour party, London 2010, 23Google Scholar. The claim is made by many, perhaps the most notable being Tony Blair. See his preface to Dale, Graham, God's politicians: the Christian contribution to 100 years of Labour, London 2000, p. xGoogle Scholar.

8 Pelling, Henry, The origins of The Labour party, 1880–1900, Oxford 1965, 125Google Scholar. Catterall, Peter concurs: ‘The Liberal party was the traditional ally of the free churches’: ‘Morality and politics: the Free Churches and the Labour party between the wars’, HJ xxxvi (1993), 667CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Thompson, E. P., ‘Homage to Tom Maguire’, in Briggs, Asa and Saville, John (eds), Essays in Labour history, London 1960, 289Google Scholar.

10 Smith, Leonard, Religion and the rise of Labour, Keele 1993, 31Google Scholar.

11 Johnson, Graham, ‘British social democracy and religion, 1881–1911’, this Journal li (2000), 104Google Scholar.

12 Hobsbawm, E. H., Primitive rebels, Manchester 1959, 149Google Scholar.

13 Catterall, ‘Morality and politics’, 670. In apparent contradiction to this statement, Catterall includes data (Table 2, p. 677) which claims that over 40% of Labour MPs in 1929 were ‘Nonconformist’. The source for the data is given only as ‘denominational and local press of the period’ and cannot be checked. It is unclear whether these were active self-identifying Nonconformists or only nominal members, claiming faith in the manner many non-churchgoers describe themselves as ‘C of E’ or were claimed as members by over-enthusiastic chapels that they formerly attended, a tendency noted by Hobsbawm (Primitive rebels, 128) and Smith (Religion, 11). Catterall also states that the 122 ‘Nonconformist’ Labour MPs comprised 48.61% of the Labour MPs elected in 1929. Parliamentary records show 287 Labour MPs were elected in 1929 and therefore the percentage should be lower – at 42.50%: UK election statistics: 1918–2004 (Research Paper 04/61, House of Commons Library), London 2004, 10.

14 Hansard, HC ccxxx.405, 17 July 1929.

15 Ibid. ccxxx.541, 26 Mar. 1930

16 ‘The Baptist sect in Russia has increased since the Revolution out of all proportions of what it was in the old days’: John Bromley mp, Hansard, HC ccxxxi. 941, 5 Nov. 1929.

17 Ibid. ccxxx.405, 17 July 1929.

18 Ibid. ccxxxvii.63, 24 Mar. 1930.

19 The Times, 30 Apr. 1930.

20 TNA, FO (Political Northern Russia), FO 371/14842, N 1526/23/38.

21 Hansard, HC ccxxxviii.177, 30 Apr. 1930. Henderson's likely intervention on the wording of the request to Ovey, the ambassador in Moscow, to report on Soviet religious persecution did indicate some private awareness of the plight of the Russian Baptists which he did not express in public: ‘Cypher telegram to Sir E. Ovey No. 56’, 18 Feb. 1930. The document is unnumbered but can be found next to FO 371/14841, N 911/23/38.

22 Dale's chapter on Lansbury implies this: God's politicians, 106–17.

23 Bickley, Building Jerusalem, 32

24 As was Ramsay MacDonald, for whom erroneous claims of conventional religious belief have been made on account of his membership (with Lansbury) of the South Place Ethical Church: Dale, God's politicians, 60.

25 George Lansbury, My life, London 1928, 6.

26 Cole, Margaret, ‘George Lansbury’, in Bellamy, Joyce and Saville, John (eds), Dictionary of Labour biography, London 1974, ii. 214–41Google Scholar at p. 215. Cole says that Lansbury joined the Theosophists at the end of his life. Lansbury indicates that he was warmly disposed to Annie Besant and Theosophy from the 1890: My life, 78.

27 Lansbury, My life, 231.

28 ‘In 1920 [there was] complete freedom of worship and freedom of opinion and expression as long as in the practice of these there was no organized attack on the Soviet Government’: ibid.

29 Report on revolutionary organisations in the United Kingdom, 24 Sept. 1920, CAB 24/11. Winston Churchill was under no illusion about the source of such wealth: ‘The Soviets have nothing to offer but gold and precious stones, acquired by naked robbery’: ‘Memorandum for the Cabinet’, War Office, 16 Nov. 1920; Churchill Papers: C. 16/53 in Glenny, M. V., ‘The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, March 1921’, Journal of Contemporary History v/2 (1970), 75Google Scholar.

30 Lansbury, My life, 251, 260.

31 Idem, ‘preface’, to Coates, W. P., More anti-Soviet lies nailed, London 1933, 7Google Scholar.

32 Hobsbawm, Primitive rebels, 149.

33 Sydney Webb, ‘The basis of Socialism (historic)’, in Fabian essays, London 1889, 36.

34 Shaw, G. B., The intelligent woman's guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism, London 1928, 424Google Scholar.

35 New Leader, 21 Feb. 1930.

36 Ibid. 29 Nov. 1929.

37 Hansard, HC cclxxvi.2111, 7 Apr. 1933.

38 Estimates: 9m. (including attributable famine) in Russia; 8m.–9.5m. in the Great War.

39 ‘Included in this category are members of the clergy’ (‘служители культа’ – ‘servants of cults’): Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, On the characteristics of kulak farms subject to the labor code, 21 May 1929.

40 The Council of People's Commissars (Совет народных коммиссаров, shortened to Совнарком)

41 Viola, Lynne, The unknown gulag: the lost world of Stalin's special settlements, Oxford 2007, 30Google Scholar.

42 Estimates range from 1.2m. to 1.8m.

43 The original instruction was to shoot 50% of the 60,000 ‘first category’ kulaks who were to be arrested, an estimate of 30,000. The diligence of the OGPU, the secret police, was such that, according to some sources, the final total was 40,000 not 30,000.

44 Werth, Nicolas, ‘Forced collectivisation and dekulakisation’, in Courtois, Stephane and others (eds), The black book of Communism, Cambridge, Ma 1999, 155Google Scholar.

45 H. N. Brailsford, ‘Beating the Russian bear: a Tory trap for Labour’, New Leader, 7 Feb. 1930.

46 FO 371/15591, N 4364/1/38. British imports of Russian timber in 1930 were £9.3m, which would be equivalent to approximately £310m. today.

47 Viola, Lynne, ‘The other archipelago: kulak deportations to the north in 1930’, Slavic Review lx (2001), 730–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Memorandum by Lord Charnwood, Mar. 1931, citing ‘The Godless’ newspaper of 24 Nov. 1929, Cosmo Gordon Lang papers, LPL, vol. lxxiv, p. 189.

49 Report of ‘Father Simeon’ to CPM council meeting, 17 Nov. 1932, Canon J. A. Douglas papers, ibid. vol. xlii, p. 233.

50 Brompton parish magazine 564 (Jan. 1930), LMA, Brompton Parish Church Archive, P84/TRI2/200.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid. 567 (Apr. 1930).

54 Review of four years work (Christian Protest Movement), London 1934, Lang papers, vol. lxxv, p. 89.

55 Gough wrote in Sept. 1930, when his health had begun to fail under the strain of the work, that he did not take one day off in the first seven months of the campaign: Brompton parish magazine 572 (Sept. 1930).

56 CAB 23/63, 10(30), 12 Feb. 1930.

57 Hansard, HC ccxxxv, 13 Feb. 1930; Hansard, HL lxxvi.588, 13 Feb. 1930.

58 ‘At the office I exercise my veto for the fourth time on a proposed appointment for Ovey's staff’: manuscript diary, Hugh Dalton correspondence and papers,1887–1962, London School of Economics, entry for 4 Dec. 1929. The same day, for similar reasons, Dalton also blocked the appointment, as ambassador to neighbouring Riga, of Sir Robert Hodgson. Hodgson was a highly experienced diplomat, having served in Russia from 1906 to 1927, as charge d'affaires from 1924.

59 Reader Bullard diary (manuscript in possession of the Bullard family), entry for 12 July 1933.

60 Ibid. entry for 18 Jan. 1932.

61 ‘I often heard him accused of prejudice in favour of the Soviet Government’: Gareth Jones, Western Daily Mail, 6 Apr. 1933.

62 FO 371/14840, N 631/23/38; 371/14841, N 1004/23/38.

63 FO 371/14842, N 1396/23/38.

64 FO 371/14841, N 1256/23/38.

65 Telegram (no. 56), Henderson to Ovey, 18 Feb. 1930, FO 371/14841, N (number unclear on original, between 912 and 1006)/23/38.

66 FO 371/14842, N 1390/23/38.

67 ‘I had recourse to asking [Litvinov] to confirm certain views I had already formed … which may perhaps tend to disprove the case of “cruel persecution”’: FO 371/14840, N 631/23/38, 1 Feb. 1930.

68 FO 371/14842, N 1396/23/38.

69 Memorandum on conversation with Bishop Embling, 17 July 1930, Lang papers, vol. lxxiv, p. 135.

70 Dalton diary, entry for 3 Mar. 1930.

71 Ibid. entry for 20 Mar. 1930.

72 Ibid. entry for 24 Mar. 1930.

73 CAB 23/63, 13(30), 5 Mar. 1930.

74 FO 371/1443, N 2273/23/38.

75 Lang papers, vol. lxiii, p. 95.

76 Ibid. vol. lxxiv, p. 27.

77 Ibid. vol. lxxiv, pp. 170–212 (marked ‘Date 1930, author?’ The typescript can be identified by ink corrections made in the same hand as that on letters to Lang signed ‘Charnwood’).

78 CAB 23/63, 11(30), 19 Feb. 1930.

79 Memorandum on conversation with Sir Robert Vansittart, 11 Feb. 1930, Lang papers, vol. lxiii, p. 124.

80 FO 371/14840, N 608/23/38.

81 Letter from Chaplain-General A. C. S. Jarvis, 25 Feb. 1930, Lang papers, vol. lxxiii, p. 176.

82 Ramsay MacDonald to Lang, 7 Mar. 1930, ibid. vol. lxxiii, pp. 225–31.

83 Time Magazine, 10 Mar. 1931.

84 The Times, 17 Mar. 1931.

85 Morning Post, 10 Feb. 1930.

86 FO 371/14842, N 1950/23/38.

87 This gives a hitherto unremarked context for Stalin's comments on the destruction of church bells in his ‘Dizzy With Success’ speech published on 2 Mar. 1930, halfway between the announcement of the prayer day and the day itself.

88 Manchester Guardian, 16 Mar. 1930.

89 FO 371/14843, N 4358/23/38.

90 Ibid.

91 Morning Post, 26 June 1930.

92 Memorandum by Rt Hon. J. R. Clynes, Home Secretary, 11 July 1930, CAB 23/64 (C. P.237(30)).

93 British documents on foreign affairs: reports and papers from the Foreign Office confidential print, II: From the First to the Second World War: series A: The Soviet Union, May 1930–Dec.1931, ed. Dominic Lieven, Frederick, md 1983, 120 (N 5830/1459/38).

94 Ibid. 122 (N 5831/1459/38).

95 Hansard, HL lxxix.287, 20 Nov. 1930.

96 The Times, 2 Jan. 1931.

97 Ibid. 3 Jan. 1931.

98 Ibid. 6 Jan. 1931.

99 FO 371/15589, N 1144/1/38.

100 Statement of Pastor Aatami Kuortti, ibid. 1.

101 FO 371/15588, N 604/1/38.

102 Ibid.

103 Hansard, HL lxxix. 876, 5 Feb. 1931.

104 CAB 23/66 13(31), 11 Feb. 1931.

105 FO 371/15587, N 105/1/38.

106 Labour Party Sweated Goods Committee (Rt Hon Philip Snowden, Lord Arnold, V. Crittall, Rt Hon Arthur Henderson, Thomas Johnson mp, George A. McEwan, Tom Shaw mp, Frank Varley mp, Rt Hon. Sydney Webb mp, Rt Hon John Wheatley mp, Arthur Greenwood mp), Sweated imports and international labour standards, London 1926, 5, 8.

107 Hansard, HL lxxix.868, 5 Feb. 1931.

108 Forced Labour Convention, International Labour Office, Geneva 1930, article 1.

109 Hansard, HC ccxlvii.588, 26 Jan. 1931.

110 Unidentified newspaper cutting (May 1931?), Holy Trinity Brompton Archive, LMA, P84/TRI2/200.

111 FO 371/15589, N 1291/1/38.

112 Ibid.

113 Manchester Guardian, 7 Mar. 1931.

114 FO 371/15589, N 1635/1/38.

115 Forced Labour in Russia? Facts and documents (British Russian Gazette and Trade Outlook Ltd), London, Mar. 1931.

116 FO 371/15590, N 2582/1/38.

117 FO 371/15589, N 2085/1/38.

118 FO 371/15590, N 2106/1/38.

119 Ibid.

120 Hansard, HC ccl.424, 25 Mar. 1931.

121 Ibid. cols 437, 432.

122 Ibid. col. 449.

123 Ibid. col 484.

124 Sir Pim, Alan and Bateson, Edward, Report on the Russian timber camps, London 1931Google Scholar.

125 FO 371/15590, N 3394/1/38.

126 Hansard, HC ccliii.25–6, 2 June 1931.

127 New Statesman, 13 June 1931.

128 Hansard, HL lxxxi.348–9, 24 June 1931.

129 BBC Broadcast, 19 Oct. 1931: The Listener, 21 Oct. 1931.

130 Hansard, HL lxxix. 857–60, 5 Feb. 1931.

131 FO 371/15591, N 7904/1/38.