| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 53

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Archie Potts, Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism (London: The Merlin Press 2002).

KONNI ZILLIACUS was an important international socialist of the 20th century, the Labour MP Sydney Silverman venturing to suggest, on his death in 1967, that he was "the greatest international socialist of my time." (193) Archie Potts' biography of this partially forgotten figure is a timely reminder of the international developments of the turbulent years between 1918 and the 1960s the years of the League of Nations, World War II, and the Cold War — which convulsed world politics. Bravely attempting to offer international solutions to immediate difficulties, Zilliacus earned the distinction, in 1949, of being refused a visa to both the United States and the Soviet Union, and of being expelled from the Labour Party. In many respects this was because whilst he was influenced by Marxist ideas he was committed to international peace through the collective security of the United Nations. Zilliacus was certainly an unconventional socialist and, that rare thing in British mainstream politics, an international socialist. But then he was an unusual British socialist.

Zilliacus was born in Japan in 1894, of a Swedo-Finnish father and an American mother of Scottish descent, as a result of the exile of his father who was a prominent figure in the Finnish independence movement. Konni's early years were spent living in Japan, Finland, and Sweden before his mother, who left his father in 1908, took him to live in England. On her re-marriage in 1912 he went to live in the United States where he attended Yale, finishing with a first in his class with a PhD in 1915. Having concentrated in science for his first two years, he spent his third year studying social sciences and history. Truly international in his experience, a master of eight or more languages, it is natural that he should have become involved in international affairs. By the end of World War I, however, he was once again domiciled in Britain and Europe.

Zilliacus was involved in a range of international posts for more than twenty years. He was active with the Supreme Allied Council which, in 1918, had the mission of establishing whether or not Britain and the Allies should invade Russia on the side of the White Russians. From 1919 onwards he was on the Secretariat of the League of Nations in Geneva and at the hub of international developments. Not always happy with the various actions of the League, or British statesmen, he wrote numerous books, pamphlets, and articles for The Guardian, under a variety of pseudonyms. In particular, he was alarmed at the way in which Britain, and other countries, veered away from taking collective action against Japan after she invaded Manchuria and created the puppet state of Manchuko, was alarmed at the actions of the British government over the Abysinnian crisis, and was particularly critical of the appeasement policies of Neville Chamberlain's National Government.

Zilliacus's own solution to fascism was to organise a Popular Front against the National Government to remove it from office and replace it with a People's Government which would form an alliance with France, the Soviet Union, and the USA in a Peace Bloc which would be forced to defeat fascism in the war he expected. However, this never occurred and during World War II he was employed in Britain's Censorship Division, particularly briefing Swedish journalists at the beginning of the war.

In the post-war world Zilliacus was largely concerned with British domestic politics, his opportunities within the international community being restricted in the Cold War climate. To begin with, having been returned as Labour MP for Gateshead in Labour's landslide general election victory of 1945, Zilliacus found that the new Labour government was more interested in domestic rather than foreign policy, which was left to a few Labour leaders and presided over by Ernest Bevin, the famous trade union leader who branded him a Communist. Inevitably, Zilliacus was drawn into condemning "Labour's policy as a dead end" (95) and as being too closely allied to that of the United States. He was thus involved in attacking Bevin's foreign policy in the House of Commons and in the unsuccessful amendment debate led by Richard Crossman in December 1946. It was at this stage that he visited Stalin, attempted to justify the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in early 1948, and was deeply impressed by Tito and the elections in Yugoslavia. With the estrangement of Tito from Stalin, Zilliacus was increasingly viewed with suspicion by the Soviet Union.

In Britain, however, his criticism of Ernest Bevin's foreign policy, involvement in the Nenni Telegram affair, opposition to moves to create NATO, and other similar events led to his expulsion from the Labour Party in 1949, along with several other of Morgan Philip's "Lost Sheep," losing his Gateshead seat in the 1950 general election. He was readmitted to the Labour party in February 1952, and became Labour MP for Manchester Gorton in 1955, where he continued to focus upon foreign policy, to oppose the existence of NATO, and to support the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Although he was briefly suspended as a Labour MP in 1961, he remained Labour MP for Gorton until his death in the summer of 1967, vehemently attacking the Labour government's policy of support for the United Sates' policies in Vietnam and advocating peace to the bitter end. His ashes were returned to Finland, where they rest near the remains of his father and brother in the Sandudd cemetery in Helsinki.

In relating the life of Zilliacus, Archie Potts has certainly written a readable book of a complex and, hitherto, neglected socialist political figure. It is a good book but I wonder about the balance of it and its reluctance to assess Zilliacus. Many of the 28 chapters begin with a detailed study of international or domestic politics and then Zilliacus's role and attitude is discussed. I feel certain that much of this introductory material could be reduced and that more focus could be placed on Zilliacus's views, with his ideas and career being the driving force of the biography. In addition, there is too much of a tendency to let Zilliacus speak for himself and too little desire to evaluate and assess his role and influence in politics. If he was such an important international socialist, why was he so important and what was his impact? Most certainly, the concluding chapter needs to be more than simply a relating of the valedictories offered by leading Labour figures at the memorial meeting held at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London on 27 July 1967. It does need to assess his contribution rather than repeat the homage paid to him. Nevertheless, this is a good read on one of the ubiquitous figures of British and international politics in the 20th century and, as Tony Benn writes in his Foreword, this biography "deserves a very wide readership, not least in the ranks of New Labour, which seems to lack any knowledge of, or interest in, the history of our movement or even in the history of our times." (viii)


Keith Laybourn University of Huddersfield

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