Ethel Snowden - Russia

Russia

At the end of the war, Snowden was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in its Women's Section. This position made her a very prominent figure within the left-wing movements and led to a great deal of foreign travel, including to Berne and Vienna (to try to re-establish the Socialist International), Palestine, Georgia and twice to the United States. Most notably, she was named to a joint TUC-Labour Party delegation to Russia in early 1920 which was sent to be an impartial inquiry into the Bolshevik Revolution. After her return she published a book, Through Bolshevik Russia, which revealed her own findings. Although she liked Lenin ("the merry-eyed fanatic of the Kremlin"), but her general reaction was profoundly critical. She upbraided a Bolshevik who told a public meeting that a British revolution would start in three months, insisting that "we want power, but we do not want a revolution", and observed that "Everyone I met in Russia outside the Communist Party goes in terror of his liberty or his life". She had told a reporter for the Evening Standard on her return that "I oppose Bolshevism because it is not Socialism, it is not democracy and it is not Christianity", and likened working conditions to slavery.

Snowden's denunciations of the Soviets made her unpopular with the left within the Labour movement and resulted in her being voted off the National Executive Committee in 1922. Her prominence led to invitations to stand for Parliament. Snowden refused to stand in Plymouth Devonport against Lady Astor on grounds that Astor's service was invaluable. She was selected at one point as Labour Party candidate for Leicester East, but gave up the candidature when a by-election was called there in Spring 1922 (the Labour candidate won).