Clerkenwell: Tracing the Footsteps of the far Leftists
Recently I moved to London, staying near Farringdon Station, by the St. John Street. This tranquil area, Clerkenwell, with streets lined up with posh high-end designer furniture shops and independent coffee shops, shows mostly the peaceful and probably expensive side to me. There’s a Michelin rated restaurant, and a couple of stylish bars and restaurant, which only get vibrant on Friday and Saturday night, crowded with London after-work (drunk) young professionals.
But this area means something to me. Only 50m just across the street where I’m staying, is Clerkenwell Green. Very small (only a few yards wide), and like millions of other open spaces dispersed among the city, it seems nothing special. On the northern side, there is a red door on a Georgian style house, and that’s where the Radical and Leftist London’s history lies.
No. 37A, Marxist Memorial Library. I have studied there for a short period of time, looking up their archives for my master’s dissertation. I used to ride a bike here every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, talk a bit with the librarians (mostly socialists and communists, more authentic than any CCP members I know, I swear), and cruise among the old books.
Once I occasionally bumped into their unlocked vault (where actually I was not supposed to enter). The massive amount of papers, newspapers, old books and maps, almost piled to the ceiling…That’s the first time I could “feel” the history — things exist, alive for a time, but now in a form that only communicate through black and white.
Since the mid-18th century, Clerkenwell has been the center hub for the leftists and radicals to gather. The Clerkenwell Green offered the open space for the rallies, and nearby venues (taverns and coffee houses) for social and political debating life.
Inhabitants came from nearby areas, mostly shopkeepers, small-scale merchants and tradesmen, or skilled artisans. Later, the local crafts and trade was supplanted by the semi-skilled and unskilled laborers, with a bustling and working-class pace, which only fueled the rise of the radicalism.
Cockney tongue people used to gather in front of the Sessions House, having protested against wars (dated from 1790, the war against France), yelled for the wages, demonstrated under the metropolitan police. A wagon or cart was drawn up to serve as a platform, in the centre of the Green; a torch would be lit up at night meetings. In the past, Clerkenwell Green was broader than today, and the meetings could attract more than 10,000 people. That’s a lot — only fireworks and football matches could match.
Eleanor Marx Aveling, Karl Marx’s daughter, spoke at a gathering of the unemployed on Clerkenwell Green in October 1887, before proceeding with them behind a red flag to Trafalgar Square.
The printing businesses for the leftists also flourished. The Marxist Memorial Library, which transformed from a charity school, once served as a printing house of the first Marxist organization in Britain, Twentieth Century Press.
In 1902, Clerkenwell Green hosted probably the most prominent figure among the 20th century Marxists — Vladimir Lenin. Young Lenin had just fled from his Siberian exile, and detoured from Munich to London, with his very first Communist publication, Iska (the Spark). Issues were printed from here, handed down to the Russians in London.
The gloomy weather didn’t seem to bother this Russian guy, but the English food always upset his stomach, as his wife kept in her diaries. He worked in a small office located beside the library site, which is now renovated as Lenin Room. He would take a walk around Clerkenwell Green, or travel to the Primrose Hill, where Marx was buried.
On 10 May 1907, a young Russia named Soso Djugashvili, better known as Stalin, alighted from a train with a group of communists at Liverpool Street Station. The 28-year-old Stalin, described by the local newspaper as “anarchist”, met Lenin in the Crown Tavern, just at the northeast corner of the Green.
The seventh annual congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held in London, when the 1905 revolution had just taken place and more uprising might be on the way. Interestingly, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin happily gathered in London, having drinks in this little bar, talking about the future that, by that point, still rendered no clue to them, and to Russia.
1920s and 1930s witnessed the heydays of the British far leftists: the General Strike in 1926; CPGB sent out their first MP, William Gallacher, in 1935; London then became the hub of revolutionaries, and working-class leftist movement. Not only protesters, but also notable intellectuals and politicians.
There was belief: belief in people’s power and empowerment. From the newspapers and conference papers, I could feel their passion and their faith, which should not be arbitrarily attributed to romantic idealism. Changes were happen, that’s what we couldn’t comprehend now.
I have studied the internationalism of CPGB. They had cried for Hands off China, blaming the imperialist British Conservatives, and lent a helping hand to the Indian workers’ movement. That’s the era that world order was challenged, and taking efforts and striving for a voice was the solution. They were trying to make impact, for a different world, not only for their own destiny.
That’s what I perceive as the leftism, or communism at that time — or at all time.
Again I took a walk around the Clerkenwell Green and the St. James Church yard, depicting the image of the old time. It’s lucky to have these heritage kept in a tangible way. Not necessarily a museum or a library, but the memory craved in the stones and pavements. (or a pint in the Crown Tavern.)
As long as we truly remember. In a time that capitalism has taken over our lives, that everyone links London to the bourgeois lifestyle and royal gossips, we could still remember the time when rebels stood out to recognize, to protest, and to fight.
Source: Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell; Islington History Center; CPGB History.
