Adrian Lee is a solicitor-advocate in London, specialising in criminal defence, and was twice a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
For the past century, Labour has persisted in promoting the myth that Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour Ministry was brought down by the publication of the “Zinoviev letter” in the Daily Mail, four days before a scheduled General Election of 1924.
The letter, addressed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), was signed by Grigory Zinoviev, Chairman of the Communist International (Comintern). It instructed British Communists to get behind the Labour Party in the forthcoming election and support their efforts to normalise Britain’s diplomatic and economic relations with the USSR:
“…as the establishment of close contact between the British and Russian proletariat, the exchange of delegations and workers, etc…, will make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda of the ideas of Leninism in England and the Colonies.”.
The appearance of the letter, it is claimed, turned the public against Labour and led to the return of a Conservative government. Zinoviev denied authorship of the letter and it was later denounced as a forgery, designed to bring down Labour.
However, whilst these events did indeed take place, it was not the Zinoviev letter that ended the socialist brief reign of power. It was the Labour Cabinet that was responsible for the destruction of its own government.
On the 22 May 1923, Andrew Bonar Law announced his resignation as Prime Minister on grounds of failing health. Bonar Law, a middle-class Canadian Scot, had only entered 10 Downing Street on the 23 October 1922, following the resignation of Lloyd George as Coalition Prime Minister. Bonar Law decided to call an immediate general election.
At the subsequent poll on 15 November 1922, the Conservatives won a majority of 73. But sadly, with the onset of throat cancer, Law was forced to retire after only 209 days in office.
Bonar Law’s resignation led to Stanley Baldwin inheriting the premiership. He was highly fortunate: he had a comfortable parliamentary majority and four and half years of office before being required to go to the country. Who then would have guessed that he would choose to call an election as early as the 6 December 1923?
Unfortunately, Baldwin, like his last two predecessors, was ideologically obsessed with one political issue above all others: tariff reform. The protectionist faction had pretty much succeeded in purging the free traders from the ranks of the Conservative Party prior to 1914, but the subsequent coalition with Lloyd George’s Liberals between 1918 and 1922 had nullified their ambitions.
Another factor that encouraged Baldwin’s decision was the settlement of the British debt to the United States. Britain and France had drawn generously on American loans in the years before the USA had entered the Great War in 1917. Now, following Baldwin’s personal negotiation of a settlement in January 1923, the UK had agreed an annual re-payment of £34 million.
Baldwin believed that in order to facilitate this Britain required a drastic change in fiscal policy, and the country should be asked for a mandate to introduce protectionism.
There was a third reason for the 1923 general election: Baldwin desired “his own” mandate from the electorate, which would strengthen his hold on the Party leadership.
Baldwin’s gamble failed, and the election resulted in a hung parliament. In the new House of Commons there were now 258 Conservatives, 191 Labour, and 158 Liberals; 308 seats were required for a Party to enjoy a majority. HH Asquith, as Liberal Leader, became kingmaker, and extracted his revenge for his 1916 removal as Prime Minister by throwing his weight behind Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Party.
Asquith did not enter a coalition with Labour, but made it clear that his party would support them on an issue-by-issue basis. He secretly also believed that they would make a greater mess of things in office, leading to the Left vote returning to the Liberals at the next election.
Winston Churchill was appalled that Asquith was pledging Liberal support for a Soviet-friendly Labour Party. Having no intention of voting with the socialists, he resigned from the Liberals and eventually re-joined the Conservatives.
Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour Party government was destined to be brief lived, existing for just over nine months between 22 January and 4 November 1924.
An early indication of the importance of foreign policy to this government came when MacDonald decided to a appoint himself as his own Foreign Secretary. Labour knew that when it came to domestic policy, the party had to prove to the public that it was both competent and realistic in government.
Therefore, most of the socialist measures taken were of an incremental nature. They increased the provision of council housing, raised unemployment benefits and pensions, set a minimum wage for agricultural labourers, provided workmen’s compensation for coal miners suffering from silicosis, and allowed local authorities to raise the school leaving age to 15.
One of the main foreign policy aims was to formally recognise the USSR, which hitherto the British government had refused to do. MacDonald started by cancelling Home Office monthly intelligence reports to the Cabinet on revolutionary activity in Britain.
The new Prime Minister then used Frank Wise, a former senior civil servant, a member of the Independent Labour Party and a paid employee of Centrosoyuz, the Soviet Central Union of Cooperative Organisations, to secretly start trade negotiations with the Bolshevik regime.
Before formal discussions began on trade, the Soviets demanded “immediate and unconditional” diplomatic recognition, and this was granted by MacDonald using the codename “X” in correspondence with Wise. The Labour-supporting Daily Herald praised MacDonald as soon as this decision became public stating that it represented “a triumph for international labour.”
A Soviet delegation arrived in Britain in April 1924 with the aim of discussing outstanding debt and political issues between the two countries. In August, an Anglo-Soviet Treaty was signed, and the British government attempted to gain Parliamentary approval for a loan of £35-50 million without the Soviets offering any security in return.
Whilst these talks were on-going, on 25th July, the Worker’s Weekly, newspaper of the CPGB, published an article entitled An Open Letter to the Fighting Forces. It addressed its audience as “Comrades”, and concluded with the following plea:
“Soldiers, sailors, airmen, flesh of our flesh and boner of our bone, the Communist Party calls upon you to begin the task of not only organising passive resistance when war is declared, or when an industrial dispute involves you, but to definitely and categorically let it be known that, neither in the class war nor a military war, will you turn your guns on your fellow workers, but instead will line up with your fellow workers in an attack upon the exploiters and capitalists, and will use your arms on the side of your own class. Form committees in every barracks, aerodrome, and ship. Let this be the nucleus of an organisation that will…make it possible for the workers, peasants, soldiers, sailors and airmen to go forward in a common attack upon the capitalists …Turn your weapons on your oppressors!”
Although the article was unsigned, the newspaper was edited by John Ross Campbell, a 29-year-old Glaswegian Communist and activist of the Clyde Worker’s Committee.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) consulted Sir Patrick Hastings, the Labour Attorney-General, and he confirmed that the article constituted a breach of the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 and advised prosecution. Campbell was arrested, charged and then sent to the Court for arraignment on 6 August.
The same evening, the Cabinet discussed the Campbell case. They discovered that they were divided on the issue of whether to go ahead with prosecution. Some ministers rounded on Hastings and passed a motion stating that “…no prosecution of a political character take place without the prior sanction of Cabinet.” The Cabinet then concocted an instruction to the D.P.P. to drop the prosecution, as Campbell was only acting temporarily as editor of Worker’s Weekly. This was a baseless lie. MacDonald then pressured the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, to conceal the discussion that had just taken place by changing Cabinet minutes.
The charge against Campbell was duly withdrawn by the prosecution at the next Court hearing on 14 August. Addressing the Court, Counsel for the Crown said that on reflection his employers had realised that the article was merely a “comment upon armed force being used by the state for the suppression of industrial disputes”. He neglected to remind the Court that it also recommended servicemen to “turn your weapons on your oppressors”.
The Prosecutor even went so far as to call Campbell “a young man of excellent character”, and he was only a temporary editor. After the discharge, the CPGB pointed out that Campbell was not a temporary editor and they denied making representations on behalf of Campbell to the prosecution. Indeed, they said that they were looking forward to contesting the charge at trial.
The Liberals in Parliament, without whom Labour could not continue to govern, now started to express concerns about the new Anglo-Soviet Treaty and the massive loan proposed. In tandem with the Conservatives, questions started to be asked in the House about the Cabinet’s conduct over the Campbell case. Had they politically interfered with a criminal prosecution during the Treaty negotiations with the Russians?
The Times started to become interested in the case and pointed out that one of the key principles of the British constitution was the separation of the Executive from the judiciary.
Matters came to a head on the 8 October, after the Conservatives tabled a motion of censure of the government. If lost, MacDonald’s ministry would fall. The Liberals thought that was going too far and amended the original motion to one calling for a public inquiry by a Royal Commission.
The Labour leadership opposed both versions of the motion. In panic, MacDonald tried to convince Hastings, his Attorney General, to take full blame for the withdrawal of the charge. Hastings rejected the suggestion. In the Commons vote, the Conservative motion fell, but the Liberal one succeeded.
Faced with a public inquiry, MacDonald chose to call a general election. The contest, on 29 October, would see the Conservatives returned with a majority of 209.
The Zinoviev letter did little more than reinforce a pro-Soviet image that Labour had created for itself whilst it was in government.
A detailed examination of the background to the release of the letter was undertaken during the Blair government by Robin Cook, then Foreign Secretary. Academics and researchers were employed to delve into previously sealed files to discover the source.
They concluded that it had most likely been forged by Russian exiles living in Germany, and the sent on to MI5. From there, it was leaked to the Daily Mail. There was no evidence of Conservative involvement discovered.
The most decisive factor in the securing of the Conservatives landslide in 1924 was the collapse of the vote of the Liberal Party. Asquith’s gamble cost him two million votes at the poll, and the vast majority transferred directly to the Conservatives. Only 40 Liberals retained their seats.
The Liberals were blamed by their property-owning voters for putting Labour in power in the first place. They would never return to voting Liberal again.
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