Editing Workers' Dreadnought

{{Use British English|date=September 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2018}}
{{Infobox newspaper
| name = Workers' Dreadnought
| logo = Workers' Dreadnought masthead.png
| logo_size = 
| logo_alt = 
| image = 
| image_size = 
| image_alt = 
| caption = 
| motto = ''For International Socialism''
| type = Weekly newspaper
| format = [[Broadsheet]]
| owner = [[Workers' Socialist Federation]]
| founder = [[Sylvia Pankhurst]]
| publisher = Dreadnought Publications
| editor = [[Sylvia Pankhurst]]
| generalmanager = Harold Burgess
| foundation = {{start date|1914|03|08|df=y}}
| political = {{ubl|[[Left communism]]|[[Feminism]]}}
| ceased publication = {{end date|1924|06|14|df=y}}
| headquarters = 152 [[Fleet Street]], London
| publishing_country = United Kingdom
| circulation = 10,000
| circulation_date = 1917
| circulation_ref = <ref>{{cite book|last1=Davis|first1=Mary|title=Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life in Radical Politics|date=1999|publisher=Pluto Press|location=London|isbn=0745315232|page=55}}</ref>
| sister newspapers = 
}}
'''''Workers' Dreadnought''''' was a [[communist]] [[newspaper]] based in London and led by [[Sylvia Pankhurst]].

The paper was started by Pankhurst at the suggestion of [[Zelie Emerson]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://spartacus-educational.com/Jdreadnought.htm|title=Workers' Dreadnought|website=Spartacus Educational|access-date=2018-01-29}}</ref> after Pankhurst had been expelled from the [[Women's Social and Political Union]] by her mother and sister. The paper was published on behalf of the newly formed [[East London Federation of Suffragettes]].

Provisionally titled ''Workers' Mate'', the newspaper first appeared on 8 March 1914<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/1914-03-08?NewspaperTitle=Woman%2527s%2BDreadnought&IssueId=BL%2F0002235%2F19140308%2F&County=London%2C%20England |title=Date: 8 March 1914 (1) Newspaper: Woman's Dreadnought] |website=British Newspaper Archive |accessdate=29 February 2020}}</ref> (14 March according to another source<ref>{{cite web |url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/the-womans-dreadnought.-mar-14-1914/174881 |title=The Woman's Dreadnought March 14 1914 |website=LSE Digital Library |accessdate=18 March 2025}}</ref> or 21 March according to yet another<ref>{{cite web |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/Jdreadnought.htm |title=First World War > War Literature > Workers' Dreadnought |website=Spartacus Educational |accessdate=29 February 2020}}</ref>), the day of a suffragette rally at which Pankhurst was due to speak, in [[Trafalgar Square]], as '''''The Woman's Dreadnought''''', with a circulation of 30,000,{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}}, subsequently (at number 10, in  May 1914) stated as 20,000.<ref>[https://www.riversidecares.co.uk/discovering-the-unsung-heros-of-the-suffragette-movement-in-the-heart-of-the-east-end/ Discovering the unsung heros of the suffragette movement in the heart of the East End] Image of paper number 10, 23 May 1914, ''www.riversidecares.co.uk'', accessed 29 February 2020</ref>

When the editor was imprisoned, [[Norah Smyth]] alternated as acting editor with Jack O'Sullivan.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ian Bullock |title=Romancing the Revolution: The Myth of Soviet Democracy and the British Left |page=239}}</ref> For many years, Smyth had used her skills as a photographer to provide pictures for the newspaper of East End life, particularly of women and children living in poverty.<ref>{{cite book |author=Rosemary Betterton |title=An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body |page=73}}</ref>

In July 1917, the name was changed to ''Workers' Dreadnought'',<ref>M. A. S. Shipway, ''Anti-Parliamentary Communism in Britain 1917-1945'', vol.1, p.26</ref> which initially had a circulation of 10,000.  Its slogan changed to "Socialism, Internationalism, Votes for All", and then in July 1918 to "For International Socialism", reflecting increasing opposition to Parliamentarism in the party.<ref>{{cite book |author=M. A. S. Shipway |title=Anti-Parliamentary Communism in Britain 1917-1945 |volume=1 |page=31-32}}</ref>

The paper took a strong stance against the [[First World War]], calling for Britain to begin peace negotiations, and speaking positively of [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|Russia's exit from the war]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=J. H. |url=https://www.academia.edu/61743017 |title=The Fight to a Finish: War-resisters in South London and Beyond 1917-19 |date=2021 |pages=16, 46, 83, 96, 108, 109 |via=www.academia.edu}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=SYLVIA PANKHURST |url=https://menwhosaidno.org/context/women/pankhurst_s.html |access-date=2024-10-12 |website=menwhosaidno.org}}</ref> The paper's first issue for October 1917 advocated for a peace referendum among the [[British Army]], but before it could enter circulation the [[Metropolitan Police]] raided offices of ''Workers Dreadnought'' and destroyed the copies of the issue.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=18 October 1917 |title=The Women's Peace Crusade |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0002734/19171018/006/0002?browse=true |work=[[Labour Leader]] |via=[[British Newspaper Archive]]}}</ref>

On 19 June 1920,'' Workers' Dreadnought'' was adopted as the official weekly organ of the [[Communist Party (British Section of the Third International)]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Communist Party (British Section of the Third International |journal=Workers' Dreadnought |volume=VII |number=14 |date=26 June 1919}}</ref> 

{{quote box
| source = [[Claude McKay]], "A Black Man Replies" in ''Workers' Dreadnought'' (24 April 1920)
| width = 22em|I write because I feel that the ultimate result of your propaganda will be further strife and blood-spilling between whites and the many members of my race... who have been dumped down on the English docks since the ending of the European war... Bourbons of the United States will thank you, and the proletarian underworld of London will certainly gloat over the scoop of the Christian-Socialist pacifist ''[[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|Daily Herald]]''.<ref name=":RepliesWD">{{Cite journal |last=Reinders |first=Robert C. |date=April 1968 |title=Racialism on the Left E.D. Morel and the "Black Horror on the Rhine" |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0020859000000419/type/journal_article |journal=International Review of Social History |language=en |volume=13 |issue=1 |page=17 |doi=10.1017/S0020859000000419 |issn=0020-8590}}</ref>
}}During the Post-war French [[occupation of the Rhineland]], German communists attempted to retake the region. France employed the use of black colonial troops to halt them. Reporting on the events, the ''[[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|Daily Herald]]'' referred to the soldiers using terms such as "[[Black Horror on the Rhine|Black Scourge in Europe]]," and "Black Menace of 40,000 Troops".<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Nickels |first=Joel |date=2014 |title=Claude Mckay and Dissident Internationalism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/culturalcritique.87.2014.0001 |journal=Cultural Critique |volume=87 |pages=1–37 |doi=10.5749/culturalcritique.87.2014.0001 |jstor=10.5749/culturalcritique.87.2014.0001 |issn=0882-4371|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Jamaican writer [[Claude McKay]] considered the papers' focus on the Black soldiers to be illogical prejudice, and a distraction from the communists' efforts against French occupation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McKay |first=Claude |title=A Long Way From Home |date=1985 |publisher=Pluto Press |location=London |chapter=Radical London and the ''Workers Dreadnought'' in the early 1920s |orig-date=1937 |chapter-url=https://libcom.org/article/radical-london-workers-dreadnought-early-1920s-claude-mckay |via=[[libcom.org]]}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=James |first=Winston |date=2017 |title=In the Nest of Extreme Radicalism: Radical Networks and the Bolshevization of Claude McKay in London |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14775700.2017.1551604 |journal=Comparative American Studies |volume=15 |issue=3–4 |pages=174–203 |doi=10.1080/14775700.2017.1551604 |issn=1477-5700 |s2cid=165264898|url-access=subscription }}</ref> McKay wrote a letter adressed to the ''Daily Herald''<nowiki/>'s editor [[George Lansbury]] expressing these concerns. Lansbury refused to print the response, while writing back privately claiming to not be personally prejudice against black people.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Donlon |first1=Anne |date=2016 |title='A Black Man Replies': Claude McKay's Challenge to the British Left |url=http://csalateral.org/wp/issue/5-1/claude-mckay-british-left-donlon/ |journal=Lateral |volume=5 |issue=1 |doi=10.25158/L5.1.2 |access-date=June 16, 2016 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Instead, he was encouraged by a friend to send it to Sylvia Pankhurst and have it printed in ''Workers' Dreadnought'', and did so.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":RepliesWD" />

The paper warned of [[Fascism in Italy|fascism]] in [[Italy]], condemned the white labourism in South Africa's [[Rand Rebellion]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Béliard |first=Yann |date=2016 |title=A "Labour War" in South Africa: the 1922 Rand Revolution in Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Dreadnought |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0023656X.2016.1140621 |journal=Labor History |language=en |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=20–34 |doi=10.1080/0023656X.2016.1140621 |issn=0023-656X |s2cid=146939070|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[Sylvia Pankhurst]] was arrested under the [[Defence of the Realm Act]] for publishing articles "calculated and likely to cause sedition among His Majesty's forces, in the Navy, and among the civilian population". Claude McKay had his rooms searched. He is likely to have been the author of "The Yellow Peril and the Dockers" attributed to "Leon Lopez", which was one of the articles cited by the government in its case against ''Workers' Dreadnought''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cooper |first=Wayne F. |title=Claude McKay, Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance: A Biography |publisher=LSU Press |year=1996 |isbn=080712074X |pages=123}}</ref>

On 14 June 1924, ''Workers' Dreadnought'' ceased publication.<ref>{{cite book |author=M. A. S. Shipway |title=Anti-Parliamentary Communism in Britain 1917-1945 |volume=1 |page=191}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* {{Cite book |last=Béliard |first=Yann |url= |title=Workers of the Empire, Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s-1960s |date=2021 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-80085-968-5 |pages=47–80 |chapter=Sylvia Pankhurst vs the British Empire: The Workers’ Dreadnought Experience, 1917–1924 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1hqdjjb.8 |jstor=j.ctv1hqdjjb.8 |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1hqdjjb.8 |url-access=}}

==External links==
*{{Commons-inline}}
*{{Wikisource-inline}}
*[http://libcom.org/tags/workers-dreadnought Workers' Dreadnought text archive] - on libcom.org library

{{Newspapers in London}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Newspapers established in 1914]]
[[Category:Publications disestablished in 1924]]
[[Category:Political newspapers published in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Left communism]]
[[Category:Defunct newspapers published in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:1914 establishments in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:1924 disestablishments in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:London newspapers]]
[[Category:Socialist newspapers published in the United Kingdom]]


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