Tom Wintringham: Difference between revisions

In 1923, Wintringham joined the recently formed [[Communist Party of Great Britain]]. In 1925, he was one of the twelve CPGB officials imprisoned for [[seditious libel]] and incitement to [[mutiny]]. In 1930, he helped to found the Communist newspaper, the ''[[MorningDaily StarWorker (British newspaperUK)|Daily Worker]]'', and was one of the few named writers to publish articles in it. In writing for the Communist party's theoretic journal ''Labour Monthly'', he established himself as the party's military expert. In ''LM'' articles and in booklets on the subject, Wintringham formed the arguments against Air Assault and called for [[air raid precautions]] several years before the [[bombing of Guernica]]. His arguments were the basis for the most successful of the Communist Party's wartime campaigns, that for ARP provision, and shaped government policy on the issue in the years leading up to the war.

On returning from Spain, Wintringham began to call for an armed civilian guard to repel any fascist[[Axis powers|Axis]] invasion, and as early as 1938 he had begun campaigning for what would become the Home Guard. He taught the troops tactics of [[guerrilla warfare]], including a movement known as the 'Monkey Crawl'. They were also taught how to deal with dive bombers.

At the outbreak of the [[Second World War]], Wintringham applied for an army officer's commission but was rejected. When the Communist Party promulgated its policy of staying out of the war due to the [[Molotov-RibbentropMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact]], he strongly condemned their policies. Because of the [[appeasement]] policies of prime minister [[Neville Chamberlain]], he also regardedimagined the [[Tory|Tories]] asto be Nazi sympathizers and wrote that they should be removed from office. He wrote for ''[[Picture Post]]'', the ''[[Daily Mirror]]'', and wrote columns for ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' and the ''[[New Statesman]]''.

The British Army stilldetermined didthat notWintringham darewas trust Wintringhamunreliable because of his communist past. After September 1940, the army began to take charge of the Home Guard training in Osterley and Wintringham and his comrades were gradually sidelined. Wintringham resigned in April 1941. Ironically, despite his activities in support of the Home Guard, Wintringham was never allowed to join the organisation itself because of a policy barring membership to CommunistsFascists and FascistsCommunists.

In 1942, Wintringham proceeded to found a [[Common Wealth Party]] with [[Vernon Bartlett]], Sir [[Richard Acland]] and [[J. B. Priestley]]. He received 48 percent of the vote at the [[1943 Midlothian and Peebles Northern by-election, 1943|Midlothian and Peebles Northern by-election]] in February 1943, previously a safe Tory seat.<ref>''"Two By-Election Results Narrow Victory at Midlothian''", ''[[The Times]]'', 13 February 1943 p2p. 2 column D.</ref> In the [[1945 United Kingdom general election, 1945|1945 general election]] he stood in the [[Aldershot (UK Parliament constituency)|Aldershot constituency]], the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] candidate standing down to give him a clear race against the incumbent Conservative MP.<ref>''"Election Contests in 617 Divisions...''", ''[[The Times]]'', 26 June 1945, p. 4, column A.</ref> His wife Kitty stood in the same Midlothian constituency that he had come so close to winning two years earlier, but neither was elected. After the war Wintringham and many of the founders of Common Wealth left and joined the Labour Party, suggesting the dissolving of CW.

In his later years he worked mainly in radio and film, both producing documentary and critical programmes and writing criticism. He continued to write about military history, opposing the use and development of atomic weapons and championing Mao's China and Tito's Yugoslavia over the monolithic bureaucracy of the Soviet Union. While he recognised and opposed the purges and repression that marred the achievements of the Soviet Union, he never understoodaccepted that Stalin himself was complicit or responsible for them.

His later campaigns and writing were mainly centred on the formation of a 'World Guard' a neutral volunteer force (initially) to police Palestine and the partitioned India, and to be at the disposal of the [[United Nations]], which [[Christopher Hitchens]] credits as the genesis of the UN Peacekeeping forces.

Tom Wintringham died on 16 August 1949, aged 51, after a massive [[heart attack]] while he was staying with his sister at her farm at [[Owmby, Lincolnshire|Owmby]], Lincolnshire.<ref name=dnb>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/59635 ''Wintringham, Thomas Henry (Tom) (1898–1949), socialist activist and military theorist''] by Adrian Smith in [[Dictionary of National Biography]] online (May 2006) (accessed 1 October 2007)</ref>

* ''[[iarchive:wintringham-the-coming-world-war/page/n5/mode/2up|The Coming World War]].'', Wishart 1935

* ''[https://archive.org/details/mutinywintringham Mutiny. Mutinies from Spartacus to Invergordon].'', Stanley Nott, London 1936

* ''[https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.503090 Armies of Freemen].'', Routledge 1940

* ''[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.53987 Weapons and Tactics from Troy to Stalingrad].'', Houghton Mifflin, Boston, USA 1943, republished 1973 with Col. [[John Blashford-Snell]] {{ISBN|0-14-021522-0}}

* ''[https://archive.org/details/1944-your-mp-gracchus Your M.P.]'' By 'Gracchus'. Gollancz 1944

* Johannes Steel -– ''Men Behind the War, a Who's Who of Our Time'' (1942)

–:: – 2nd Enlarged, Revised and Updated edition: by Phyll Smith (2012), {{ISBN|1845194489}}

* Stephen Cullen – ''In Search of the Real Dad’sDad's Army: The Home Guard and the Defence of the United Kingdom 1940-19441940–1944'' (2012) {{ISBN|978-1473878228}}

* Malcolm Atkin -– ''Fighting Nazi Occupation: British Resistance 1939-19451939–1945'' (2015) {{ISBN|978-1473833777}}

[[Category:Royal Flying Corps personnelsoldiers]]

[[Category:BritishEnglish male journalists]]

[[Category:BritishEnglish military historians]]