Council of Action

LP/CA

Council of Action

1920-1921

This collection consists of minutes, internal and official correspondence and administrative papers of the Council of Action, papers regarding the Special Labour Conference of Aug 1920, foreign correspondence and papers, general correspondence regarding Council of Action activities and meetings, papers regarding the arrest of Terrence MacSwinney (1879-1920, Irish playwright and politician), press cuttings and papers relating to printing and advertisements.

English

The (Labour & Russia) Council of Action, representing the Parliamentary Committee, T.U.C., the Labour Party Executive and the Parliamentary Labour Party, was formed at a joint conference of representatives of these organisations held at the House of Commons, 9 August 1920. It was empowered by a Special Labour Conference held at the Central Hall, Westminster, 13 August 1920, "to use all the resources at the disposal of Labour to prevent the British nation from being plunged into war, and by all means open to them to restore peace to the World". Its joint secretaries were F. Bramley, H. S. Lindsay and J. S. Middleton, and it is through the latter that its records come to be in the Labour Party's archives.

The movement nationally lost its impetus once the immediate threat of British involvement on the side of Poland in her conflict with the U.S.S.R. was removed and the resumption of trading with Russia seemed in prospect. Local attempts to extend the scope of the national Council to include direct action in respect of the Irish situation, workers' control or the alleviation of unemployment were firmly resisted centrally, partly by arguments based on the prevailing unemployment problem, and the movement expired during 1920. The surviving correspondence and resolutions from local Councils of Action provide some indication of the feeling of organised labour throughout the country at this period of crisis.