Henry Hyndman

Henry Mayer's Hyndman

Henry Mayers Hyndman (born March 7, 1842 in London , † November 22, 1921 in London) was an English writer and politician . He was a co-founder of the Social Democratic Federation and later the National Socialist Party .

Life

Hyndman was born in London to a wealthy businessman. After attending school at home, he enrolled at Trinity College , Cambridge . After graduating in 1861 he studied for two years Jura and worked as a journalist . Hyndman frequented the circles of the British aristocracy and was part of the wealthy London bourgeoisie. According to his origins and the circles in which he frequented, Hyndman was an excellent cricket player and appeared in various games for Cambridge and the Marylebone Cricket Club , among others . His material security also enabled him to travel abroad on various occasions.

In January 1866 Hyndman drove from Marseille via Livorno to the then Italian capital of Florence . He toured Italy and was particularly impressed by the historic city of Rome. When the news of a war between Prussia and Austria arose in May and it soon became apparent that Italy would use this to free Venice from the rule of Austria, Hyndman started as a journalist for the conservative Pall Mall Gazette from the scene of the now known as " German. " War "to report the conflict. During this work he also met the leaders of the Italian nationalist movement, including Giuseppe Garibaldi , and was soon convinced of their concerns. Hyndman later traveled the world as a journalist. He emphasized the successes and advantages of British imperialism and criticized the demands for self-government and autonomy for Ireland ( Home Rule ).

politics

Hyndman's signature

At the beginning of Hyndman's political career, there was no party he wanted to get involved with. He was then set up in 1880 as an independent candidate in the London borough of St. Marylebone . William Ewart Gladstone referred to Hyndman as Tory , whereupon the latter found little support and finally withdrew.

Shortly after the election, Hyndman became aware of the German leader of the labor movement through a book about Ferdinand Lassalle . Hyndman began to learn more about Lassalle. Finally, he read the Communist Manifesto and, despite some doubts, was deeply impressed by Marx's analysis of capitalism . Capital made a special impression on Hyndman and other British socialists in the 1880s .

As a result, Hyndman campaigned for the establishment of the first socialist party in Great Britain. On June 7, 1881, the founding conference of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) took place. Many socialists had doubts about Hyndman as he was often an opponent of socialist ideas in the past. Nevertheless, there were prominent supporters of the SDF, such as William Morris , George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx . Friedrich Engels, on the other hand, continued to view the party and Hyndman with skepticism.

In 1881 Hyndman wrote the first English popular science summary of the first volume of Karl Marx ' Capital , which was entitled "England for All" . Marx was outraged by the corruption of his work. Hyndman's book sold well for a short time before the English edition of Capital appeared. "Socialism Made Plain" followed in 1883, which represented the basic ideas of the SDF and a little later Hyndman and others founded the newspaper Justice as the central organ of the SDF.

In the general election in 1885, Hyndman and SDF politician Henry Hyde Champion accepted £ 340 from the Tories on the condition that they would run candidates in Hampstead and Kensington . The candidacy was intended to weaken the Liberals , who at the time were representing the trade unions in many constituencies ("Lib Lab"). The plan did not work because the SDF candidates hardly received any votes. Hyndman and Champion had a reputation for being corruptible. Despite all the conflicts, Hyndman took an active part in the preparations for an independent parliamentary platform for representatives of the labor movement, the Labor Representation Committee, from which the Labor Party later emerged. The background to the call for its own workers' representation was an increasing dissatisfaction with the politics of the Liberals during the last years of the Gladstone era and afterwards. However, the SDF soon left the LRC. After disputes over the direction of the party, Hyndman converted the SDF into the British Socialist Party in 1911 , while a large part of the SDF members switched to the significantly less sectarian Independent Labor Party .

Controversy

Portrait of Hyndman from Sydney Prior Hall, ca.1914

Hyndman's leadership qualities have often been questioned. He was considered to be very authoritarian and intervened in internal party debates imperiously. In 1884 a narrow majority in the SDF expressed their distrust of him. When Hyndman refused to step down, many members resigned, including William Morris and Eleanor Marx. Hyndman developed nationalist and chauvinist attitudes very early on, which often contradicted socialist ideas. He campaigned for the British Empire and, at least since the first Moroccan crisis, had taken a strongly anti-German stance. Because of his often ill-considered remarks and his sectarian behavior, Eduard Bernstein , for example , who lived in Great Britain for a long time, called him a "donkey": "The Fabians have a good side, they don't stick to the phrase, they get to the bottom of things. As a result, they come much closer to Marxism in practice than almost all local 'Marxists' from the donkey Hyndman to the philosopher Bax and the poet Edward Aveling . ”
Hyndman also used strongly anti-Semitic tones in his contributions, especially at the beginning of the 20th century of yourself. However, Edmund Silberner emphasized in his book “Socialists on the Jewish Question” that Hyndman cannot be described as a full anti-Semite. In accordance with Hyndman's attitudes towards the Empire and the German Empire, he supported British war policy in 1914, comparable to the truce policy of German social democracy . As in other European countries, the war question split the British labor movement and Hyndman founded the National Socialist Party , which, despite the name, had no content- related overlap with the German NSDAP .

Works (selection)

• The text-book of democracy. England for all. Dedicated to the democratic and working mens clubs of Great Britain and Ireland . EW Allen, London 1881
• The coming revolution in England . W. Reeves, London 1882
• The historical basis of socialism in England . Paul, Trench, London 1883
• The bankruptcy of India. An inquiry into the administration of India under the crown. Including a chapter on the silver question . Sunshine, Lowrey & Co., London 1886
• Socialism and slavery . Sec. ed. W. Reeves, London 1889
• Eight hours' Movement, Verbatim report of a debate between HM Hyndman and C. Bradlaugh . Freethought Publ. Co., London 1890
• Eleanor Marx . In: Justice, London April 9, 1898
• The Record of an adventurous life . Macmillian and Co, London 1911
• Further reminiscences . Macmillian and Co, London 1912
• The future of democracy . Allen & Unwin, London 1915
• Clemenceau, the man and his time . Grant Richards, London 1919

literature

• Rosalind Travers Hyndman: The last Years of HM Hyndman . Grant Richards, London 1923
• Frederick James Gould: Hyndman. Prophet of socialism (1842-1921). Allen and Unwin, London 1928
• Chushichi Tsuzuki, HM Hyndman and British Socialism . Edited by Henry Pelling. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1961.
• Siegfried Bünger: Friedrich Engels and the British Socialist Movement 1881-1895 . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1962 (series of publications by the Institute for General History at the Humboldt University Berlin. Ed. By Gerhard Schilfert. Volume 6)
• Bernard Newton: Henry George and Henry M. Hyndman. The erosion of the radical-socialist coalition, 1884-89 . In: The American journal of economics and sociology Wiley, Hoboken NJ: Wiley, ISSN  0002-9246 Vol. 36.1977, 3, pp. 311-322

Web links

• Texts by Henry M. Hyndman in the Marxists Internet Archive

Footnotes

1. ^ Cricket Archives . Retrieved February 1, 2011.
2. ↑ Tsuzuki 1961, p. 1 f.
3. ↑ Tsuzuki 1961, p. 9 f.
4. ↑ s. Chris Wrigley, The European Context: Aspects of British Labor and Continental Socialism Before 1920, p. 78. In: Matthew Worley, The Foundations of the British Labor Party. Identities, Cultures and Perspectives 1900-39, Farnham 2009, pp. 77-93.
5. ↑ quoted from: Francis Carsten, Eduard Bernstein 1850-1932. A political biography , Munich 1993, p. 62
6. ↑ Edmund Silberner, Socialists on the Jewish Question, Berlin 1962, p. 258