The Workers' Dreadnought

Quit scabbing Fozzie; I'm on strike until Steve retracts what he said about me being a "colonialist chauvinist" (i.e. for opposing Native American nationalism—which shouldn't be a controversial position among anarchists and other socialists) who is also supposedly spreading "Russian propaganda" by opposing Ukraine's ambitions to recapture Russophilic regions like Crimea (just like I oppose the military endeavors of Russia and all other capitalist states).

Hello Adri. Maybe explain in clear terms what I have done that you think is bad?

Lessening the effectiveness of our strike by scabbing! Once we win the retraction, and maybe also an actual wage of sorts (along with arrears), then we will go back to adding stuff to the archive. Until then, show some solidarity!

Once we win the retraction . . .

As a gesture of good faith, I've restored all of my submissions back to their original revisions. I will also refrain from posting a satirical list of demands from the fictional Libcom Workers' Union (a rank-and-file union of libcom contributors), in addition to a photo of the libcom penguin sitting on top of King Charles II's throne ordering libcom's volunteer-peasants to return to work. I do this in a spirit of reconciliation and out of a desire to end this strike amicably.

I can also resist anything but temptation...

Thanks for the week-long show of solidarity at least, but it seems that Steve is ignoring the LWU's legitimate grievances—not because he's clever or has read any Pope,[1] but because the libcomonarch is a bit of an ignorant snob. If you're wondering why I hadn't finished this already, it's partly because there are around 308 issues of the Workers' Dreadnought, not including the Woman's Dreadnought, and I wasn't sure if the site could handle all of that. When I was originally working on this, there also weren't any downloadable issues from the LSE like there are now; they only had images of each issue that one had to individually download and compile into a pdf.

1. 'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, / And charitably let the dull be vain: / Your silence there is better than your spite, / For who can rail so long as they can write?

Just so everyone knows, the LWU's strike against Steve is more or less over, so an admin can remove all the above comments if they want; they don't really have much to do with the Dreadnought.

Stop editing the page westartfromhere... Nobody knows what you're talking about. I mean really, can we not get some admin attention here??

Well first you've littered this site with your strange and offensive posts (e.g. calling the people who did the redesign for this site bourgeois essentially) and are now going around editing other people's articles without conferring with them. And second your reason for editing the above intro, after I've repeatedly told you not to, makes absolutely no sense. The term "left-wing communist" is an entirely appropriate choice of words to describe Pankhurst, seeing as how she favored worker councils (similar to other left-wing/council communists of the time) and opposed the party rule of the so-called "workers' state" in Russia.

Why would I change "left-wing communist" to "newspaper of International Socialism"? You make absolutely no sense.

westartfromhere wrote: You wouldn't. Others may, however, prefer to use the journal's own self-description, rather than to its detractor's — Lenin's — description of ' "Left-wing" Communism'.

There's nothing inherently disparaging about the term "left-wing/left" communist. In fact Pankhurst approvingly used the term herself and reprinted tons of writings by various groups and people who employed the label (e.g. Herman Gorter, the Group of Revolutionary Left-Wing Communists of Russia, German left-communists, and others):

Pankhurst wrote: There are signs that it is not only in the East that the Third International is being weakened by the compromises [...] into which the Russian government has thought it necessary to enter, as well as by the [o]pportunist attitude it is adopting in many directions.

Here is the justification for the Revolutionary Left Communist organisations that met in Germany the other day, to form a new International.

Regretfully we say it, though this development was doubtless inevitable: revolutionary proletariat of the world, the day is fast dawning in which you must cease to regard the first Soviet republic as your guide and leader. (Vol. 8 No. 29)

Pankhurst wrote: In Moscow, when Lenin strongly urged us to join the United [Communist] Party, he said: 'Form a Left block within it: work for the policy in which you believe, within the Party.'

But the British Communist Party will not have it so. It declares for the extermination of Left Wing propaganda.

The Right majority in the Communist Parties of other countries has taken a similar line. The Executive of the Third International, after pleading with us to enter, now apparently encourages the excommunication of the Left Wing.

[...]

But the Communist Cause advances; do not doubt it: new tendencies are developing in the movement and must displace the old to make way for themselves. (Vol. 8 No. 28)

westartfromhere wrote: Perhaps you would like to answer why you wish to omit a reference to Herman Gorter's open letter to Lenin that predated Pankhurst's? Again, why you wish to omit mention of the seizure of state power by 'the majority ("bolshevik") faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party'?

I'm not "omitting" anything; there's just no point in mentioning Gorter's open letter when Pankhurst's open letter sufficiently illustrates the point I was making. Why on earth would I also write the more verbose "the majority ('bolshevik') faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (renamed by itself as the All-Russian Communist Party after the seizure of power)" instead of just the "Bolsheviks/Russian Communist Party"??

ZJW wrote: 'In February 1922, the Dreadnought group established the Communist Workers' Party'. (Wikipedia.)

The last scan above is from 11 March 1922. The scanned material from it gives no hint of a new party.

ZJW wrote: 'The paper went on until June 1924' (Wikipedia).

The above scans exclude this explicitly left-communist period of the paper.

The paper does extend to June 1924, but it will take a while to upload all of the approximately 308 issues. The reason the numbers jump around a bit is also because I was prioritizing certain content, such as the issues that contain Pankhurst's series of articles collectively entitled "Communism and Its Tactics." There is also reference to the Communist Workers' Party in various issues, which was the party Pankhurst set up after being expelled from the Soviet-aligned Communist Party of Great Britain in September 1921, essentially for criticizing the CPGB and refusing to hand over editorial control of the Dreadnought. Pankhurst, for example, listed the objectives and methods of the British CWP in the Vol. 8 No. 48 (11 February 1922) issue of the Dreadnought. See here:

Pankhurst wrote: Method:

1. To spread the knowledge of Communist principles amongst the people;

2. To take no part in elections to Parliament and the local governing bodies, and to carry on propaganda exposing the futility of Communist participation therein;

3. To refuse affiliation or co-operation with the Labour Party and all Reformist organisations

[...]

(It's also worth pointing out that the Fourth International referred to in the article is the KAPD one, not the Trotskyist one, which didn't even exist yet.)

Fozzie wrote: If someone wants to start adding more of the 1922 issues, then so much the better.

I can start chipping in again, and it's definitely worth creating separate articles for stuff like the British Communist Workers' Party.

Fozzie wrote: That would be great if you have the time/inclination adri - I am not precious about doing it at all :-) [edit, at least I don't think I am - it will be fun to find out...]

Yeah, right. I saw you eyeballing my Voice of Industry. You better stop taking over other people's archives, if you know what's good for you. (Kidding!—I don't actually care either; anyone can contribute to anything, though it would be nice if people coordinated with one another.)

Fozzie wrote: I am not precious about doing it at all :-) [edit, at least I don't think I am - it will be fun to find out...]

Fozzie when I fail to use the PDF tag in my Dreadnought submissions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz-8CSa9xj8

So why are the outline weights on some of the issues different? Shouldn't they all be 0 so that the issues get organized according to their title names? I submitted Vol. 8 No. 48, but it seems to appear in the middle of the issues list instead of at the end, which I'm guessing is because of the different outline weights. Should we go through and set them all to 0?

Fozzie wrote: Can’t remember why, but it must be because I had the same issue and it fixed it.

It could have possibly been because there were no leading 0's in some of the titles (e.g. "No. 1" instead of "No. 01"). I added the leading 0's, so it might be worth setting all the weights to 0 to see if that fixes it.

I'll do it later. It's definitely easier to just add leading 0's to the titles and have it automatically sort, at least for the remaining issues.