Albert Inkpin

Albert Inkpin (born June 16, 1884 in London , † 1944 ) was a British politician (CPGB). He officiated a. a. as General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and as First General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain .

Life and activity

After attending school, Inkpin worked as an office clerk. In 1907 he joined the National Union of Clerks , the union for his profession. As early as 1906 he had joined the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), the leading Marxist organization in Great Britain: in 1907 he was appointed one of several Associate Secretaries (Joint Assistant Secretary) of this organization. On the occasion of the founding of the British Socialist Party (BSP), a merger of the SDF with various smaller socialist organizations, in 1911 Inkpin joined the BSP with the SDF, which was then collectively incorporated into the BSP. In this, Inkpin held the position of assistant secretary for two more years before he was elected general secretary of the BSP in 1913 to succeed HW Lee . He held this post for seven years, from 1913 to 1920.

As a staunch internationalist and anti-militarist, Inkpin rejected the First World War and especially the participation of Great Britain in this war. At the party conference of the BSP in April 1916 in Salford , he prevailed with this position in the BSP, which led to the fact that the part of the party led by Henry Hyndman that advocated the war (they so-called "national chauvinists"), the party left, which now consisted exclusively of internationalists. Also in 1916 Inkpin took over the editing of the newly established weekly newspaper The Call at this time in early 1916 , which served as the official organ of the BSP from 1916 to 1918. As a war opponent, Inkpin also took part as a representative of the British Socialists in the Zimmerwald Conference of left-wing forces from all countries involved in World War I in September 1915, at which ways of ending the war were discussed.

In the spring of 1920 Inkpin visited Berlin as a representative of the BSP, where he observed the Kapp Putsch in March 1920 .

Inkpin gave the keynote address at the founding congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) on July 31 and August 1, 1920 in London. He was also installed on the occasion as the first general secretary of the CPGB and was elected to the party's central committee. He held this post for two years (from 1920 to 1922) and after a short break from 1922 to 1923 again for six years (from 1923 to 1928). In between, he acted from 1922 to 1923 as the national organizer of the CPGB. In 1928 Inkpin was provisionally replaced as Secretary General of the British Communist Party by JR Campbell before Harry Pollitt became the new permanent leader of the Communists in 1929. At the extraordinary party congress of the CPGB in November 1929, Inkpin finally lost his seat on the party's central committee.

Inkpin received numerous prison terms for his political activities: in 1920 he was sentenced to six months in prison along with Bob Stewart , the communist organization leader, on charges of having carried out propaganda in favor of the Soviet Union in Great Britain through the printing and dissemination of communist literature.

In the summer of 1921 Inkpin was a member of the Honorary Presidium of the 3rd World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, along with Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky . After returning to Great Britain, he served a six-month prison sentence from January to June 1922 for printing and distributing Communist literature. During his imprisonment, he ran for the London City Council ( London County Council ).

In 1925, Inkpin was arrested along with eleven other prominent communists on charges of violating the Mutiny Act of 1797 and sentenced to six months in prison.

Around 1930 Inkpin became chairman of the Friends of the Soviet Union , an organization closely related to the CPGB, which was committed to international understanding, in particular to maintaining relations between Great Britain and Russia. This position - or the chairmanship of the successor organization of the Russia Today Society - he retained until his death.

Due to his leading position in the British communist movement, Inkpin was classified as an important target by the National Socialist police forces at the end of the 1930s: in the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin placed him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who were to be found in the event of a successful invasion and Occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the occupation troops following special SS commandos with special priority.

Inkpin's grave is in the Golders Green Crematorium grounds in London.

family

Inkpin was married to Julia Inkpin (1887-1959). His brother Harry Inkpin was also a leading communist politician.

Fonts

• "Re-Establishing" the Second International: The Communist Party of Great Britain Replies to a Letter of Appeal Signed by Arthur Henderson (for the British Labor Party) , JH Thomas and Harry Gosling (for the Trades Union Congress), and J. Ramsay MacDonald (for the Second International), London s. a. [around 1921].
• The Glory of Stalingrad , London 1942.
• Friends of the USSR: The Story of the Russia Today Society , London s. ibid. [1942].

literature

• James Klugmann, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: Volume 1: Formation and Early Years, 1919-1924. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1968.
• Graham Stevenson, "Albert Inkpin", Compendium of Communist Biography.
• Steve Reynolds, "The Early Years of the Communist Party of Great Britain - 1922-1925," In Defense of Marxism website, www.marxist.com

Web links

• Short biography of Inkpin on Spartacus.net
• Short biography of Inkpin in the Encyclopedia of Marxism

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Inkpin on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum) .