Workers' Socialist Federation
노동자사회주의연맹
A British socialist organisation led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Starting in 1914 from the East London Federation expelled from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), it changed its name several times as it moved from women's suffrage to anti-parliamentary left communism. In June 1920 it became the Communist Party (British Section of the Third International), which merged into the Communist Party of Great Britain in January 1921.
In depth
The East London Federation differed from its parent organisation in being democratic and in admitting men such as George Lansbury. Sylvia wanted an explicitly socialist organisation, aligned with the Independent Labour Party and based among the working class of the East End, that would tackle wider issues than women's suffrage and rely on collective workers' action rather than attacks on property. These differences led to the federation's expulsion from the WSPU, and in early 1914 it renamed itself the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) and launched the Women's Dreadnought. When the First World War broke out it opposed the war, supporting the positions of the Zimmerwald Conference, and set up cost-price restaurants, a toy factory, a free clinic and a Montessori nursery.
In March 1916 it renamed itself the Workers' Suffrage Federation, and in July 1917 its paper became the Workers' Dreadnought. It supported the Irish Rising of 1916, and its enthusiastic support for the October Revolution moved it from universal suffrage towards anti-parliamentarism. It campaigned against Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War under the slogan "Hands off Russia", and in May 1918 it renamed itself the Workers' Socialist Federation. At its conference of June 1919 it voted to ignore all future elections and to open discussions on forming a single communist party.
When the unity negotiations stalled over parliamentary action and affiliation to the Labour Party, the federation called an emergency conference in June 1920 and formed the Communist Party (British Section of the Third International). Lenin dealt with the group in Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder and, at the Second Congress of the Comintern, persuaded Pankhurst to accept unity. With Pankhurst arrested in September, the group merged with the Communist Party of Great Britain in January 1921.