Tom Wintringham: Difference between revisions

At the end of the war he was involved in a brief barracks mutiny, one of many minor insurrections which went unnoticed in the period. He returned to Oxford, and in a long vacation made a visit of some months to Moscow, after which he returned to England and formed a group of students aiming to establish a British section of the [[Third International:]], a Communist Partyparty. As the party was formed, Wintringham graduated from Oxford and moved to London, ostensibly to study for [[Bar (law)|the bar]] at the Temple, but in fact to work full-time in politics.

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 ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|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 [[Airair Raid Precautions|ARPraid precautions]] several years before the [[Bombingbombing of Guernica|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.

Although at the centre of the CPGB organisation, he was often at odds with Party policy, believing in a communism of alliance and co-operation, rather than the dominant [[Comintern]] ideology of ''"class against class''". Wintringham's ideas became party dogma when the Comintern announced the '[[Popular Front]]', a form of communism Wintringham was prepared to fight for.

In 1934, he became the founder, editor and major contributor of ''[[Left Review]]'', the first British literary journal with a stated Marxist intent. Although published by Wintringham and funded by the CPGB, it embraced writers of all shades of socialism, regardless of their party affiliations. The journal established a pattern for what was to become ''cultural studies''.

At the start of the [[Spanish Civil War]], Wintringham went to Barcelona as a journalist for the ''[[Daily Worker]]'',<ref>Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.)''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 2: My Country Right or Left'' (London, Penguin)</ref> but he joined and eventually commanded the [[British Battalion]]<ref name=EngCap/> of the [[International Brigades]]. Some socialist commentators have credited him with the whole idea of "international" brigades. He also had an affair with a US journalist, '''[[Kitty Bowler]],''' whom he later married.

In February 1937 he was wounded in the [[Jarama|Battle of Jarama]].<ref name=EngCap/> While injured in Spain he became friends with [[Ernest Hemingway]], who based one of his characters upon him. He spent some months as a machine gun instructor. When he returned to the battalion the next summer he contracted [[typhoid]], was again wounded at [[Battle of Quinto|Quinto]] in August 1937 and was repatriated in October. His later book ''English Captain'' is based on these experiences.

In 1938, the Communist Party condemned hisKitty wifeBowler as a [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] spy but he refused to leave her: he quit the party instead. He came to mistrust the party's subservience to [[Joseph Stalin]]'s Russia and [[Comintern]]. Back in England, Tom Hopkinson recruited him to work for the magazine ''[[Picture Post]]''.

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

In May 1940, after the escape from [[BattleDunkirk of DunkirkEvacuation|Dunkirk]], Wintringham began to write in support of the [[Local Defence Volunteers]], the forerunner of the Home Guard. On 10 July, he opened the private Home Guard training school at [[Osterley Park]], London.<ref>[http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/tom_wintringham.htm ''Tom Wintringham'' (History Learning Site)] accessed 29 January 2008</ref>

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 [[Midlothian and PeeblesshirePeebles Northern by-election, 1943|Midlothian and PeeblesshirePeebles 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 p2 column D.</ref> In the [[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 Mid-LothianMidlothian 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.