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The Tom Wintringham Thread, or 'What to do with "England's Last Revolutionary"?'

Jophiel

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I don't know how common it is to have a thread on just one person, but I find Tom Wintringham fascinating.

In the book 'Tom Wintringham: The Last English Revolutionary', written by Hugh Purcell and Phyll Smith, he's quoted as saying:

"Spain woke me up politically. I rediscovered democracy, the power that can come from people working together when a popular front is not just a manoeuvre but a reality."

'Drawing on his political and fighting experience in the Spanish Civil War, Tom Wintringham wrote the best-seller New Ways of War - 'a do-it-yourself guide to killing people' but also a highly subversive call for a socialist revolution. Wintringham called for 'a People's war' and the phrase stuck. Recalling the English Civil War, he likened the Home Guard he trained in guerrilla warfare to the New Model Army, and later he helped found the Common Wealth Party, a political party in England that was more radical in some ways than Labour. His finest hour was in 1940, when he inspired his countrymen to resist invasion. After gaining exclusive access to the Wintringham archive, now in the Liddell Hart Center for Military Archives at King's College, London, historian Hugh Purcell published a biography of this 'uniquely English revolutionary' (Sutton Publishing, 2004). Working with Phyl Smith, a librarian in Wintringham's home town of Grimsby, they have since discovered a wealth of historical firsts, including the actual leaflet Wintringham wrote that led the prosecution case in the infamous treason trial of the Communist Party leadership in 1925, as well as additional evidence that, in the summer of 1936, Wintringham was already propagating the idea of an 'international legion' to fight for Republican Spain. Churchill coined his own expletive as in 'I refuse to be Wintringhamed.' Hemingway wrote his only play, Fifth Column, based on Wintringham and his lover, a supposed 'Trotskyite spy.' Photographs show Orwell and Wintringham together in 1940 training for guerrilla warfare to resist a Nazi invasion.'

Now, in real life the guy was essentially rejected from forming any 'Anti-Fascist Battalions' and was seen as a Communist threat in the army. But in say, another timeline, perhaps he gets his moment in the spotlight if Britain doesn't go and fight the Germans? Or maybe something worse happens at home that makes him step in.

This isn't a 'what if this happened' thread, its more 'take this interesting character, and do with him what you think would be interesting' discussion thread.

Also, I think its rather funny to have a thread based on a man that no one knew what to do with in his time period also have a thread in which no one knows what to do with him either.
 
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This isn't a 'what if this happened' thread, its more 'take this interesting character, and do with him what you think would be interesting' discussion thread.
I think an interesting scenario is one where Cripps becomes Prime Minister in 42’ and Wintringham is used to help train Commandos and the like and maybe have a more active role after the Cario Soldiers Parliament.

Or Wintringham is able to create a political party to the Left of Labour that doesn’t burst into flames, but that is hard and requires butterflying his death.
 
I think an interesting scenario is one where Cripps becomes Prime Minister in 42’ and Wintringham is used to help train Commandos and the like and maybe have a more active role after the Cario Soldiers Parliament.

Or Wintringham is able to create a political party to the Left of Labour that doesn’t burst into flames, but that is hard and requires butterflying his death.

Common Wealth might have potential, the problem is that Attlee is pretty popular. Don't see how a left of labour party can really succeed if I'm being honest in the climate established after WW2. Eventually its just not going to survive. Maybe if Labour was more pluralistic we could see him basically found his own niche of Socialism within Labour?

I think my bigger idea is maybe a more authoritarian or disaster scenario for the UK, or the UK just avoids war with Germany and he basically becomes an even bigger version of what he was in Spain, an anti-fascist guerrilla leader.
 
Common Wealth might have potential, the problem is that Attlee is pretty popular.
Herbert Morrison becomes leader 1945, or Stafford Cripps makes his own party post being PM (with Blackjack and Libertarian Socialism).
Maybe if Labour was more pluralistic we could see him basically found his own niche of Socialism within Labour?
The CommonWealth party did eventually fold into Labour. Could have it earlier and that Ernst Millington carries on the name of Wintringham.
 
Herbert Morrison becomes leader 1945, or Stafford Cripps makes his own party post being PM (with Blackjack and Libertarian Socialism).

The CommonWealth party did eventually fold into Labour. Could have it earlier and that Ernst Millington carries on the name of Wintringham.

Was Stafford Cripps that much of a Libertarian Socialist?
 
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