Introduction

The purpose of Part I is to set the particular case of Mann and Ross in its relevant transnational and, to a lesser extent, comparative and global contexts. This is done in order to widen and deepen our knowledge and understanding of their transnational activities and influences. In Part I, ...

Race and Whiteness

This chapter investigates Mann’s and Ross’s attitudes towards race, class and gender. The aim is to shed new light upon the widely debated and topical issues of racism, whiteness and anti-racism. This is done by means of an investigation of the interplay between race and class, division and solidarity, inclusion and exclusion and internationalism and national ‘exceptions’ and ‘peculiarities’. The chapter contrasts the exclusionary, nationally-rooted whiteness of Ross (despite his class-based socialist internationalism) with the inclusive, class-based anti-racism of Mann. It offers the conclusion that whiteness was probably more variable, contingent and contested than suggested in most of the recent and current literature. It also demonstrates that ‘whiteness’ and ‘race’ were highly gendered categories.

Unfolding Differences, Enduring Similarities

Notwithstanding continuing similarities, Mann’s and Ross’s socialism was increasing characterised by differences. These similarities and, especially so, differences constitute the subject matter of chapter four. Mann and Ross continued to share commitments to the Social Revolution, labour movement unity and ethical and scientific socialism. Yet against these were Mann’s developing syndicalism, his downgrading of the political, especially parliamentary, means to socialism, and his synthesis of syndicalism and Bolshevism, as manifested in his membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He also had a positive impression of the Soviet Union right up to his death. In contrast, Ross increasingly attached equal importance to political and economic means, and in the 1920s worked actively in the Australian Labor Party. He opposed the application of the Soviet Bolshevik revolutionary model to Australia and fought against Australian communists. Ross’s growing attachment to Rationalism also signified that he was becoming more outspoken than Mann in his opposition to most kinds of religion. Yet, remarkably, the two men remained good friends and comrades. In conclusion, their case sheds new light upon the origins and character of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century socialism.

Issues and Debates

Part One, comprising of two chapters, sets the particular case of Mann and Ross in its relevant transnational and, to a lesser extent, comparative and global contexts. Chapter One is methodological and historiographical in character. It first traces the development of labour history. It then turns to consider the books key definitions and usages: transnationalism; globalisation; comparative history. This involves both a critical survey of the relevant literature and an explication of my approach and usage. The final section of the chapter explores the development, strengths and weaknesses and potential of transnational history

Introduction

Chapter 2 explored the transnational world in which Mann and Ross operated and their place and influence within it. Parts II and III investigate their contributions to specific aspects of this world. I begin, in the two chapters comprising Part II, by concentrating upon their most important contribution – to the nature and development of socialism, including socialist syndicalism, in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and, albeit to a lesser extent, the wider world....

World War I and its Aftermath

The final chapter considers the ways in which Mann’s and Ross’s commitments to labour-movement unity and wider working-class solidarity fared in the face of the highly divisive issues of war, militarism, imperialism, peace, patriotism, loyalism, internationalism, conscription, revolution and counter-revolution surrounding the period of World War One and its aftermath. It shows that while Mann and Ross continued to preach peace, opposition to the ‘imperialist’ war and conscription, Ross was far more active and outspoken in his anti-war activities than Mann and as a consequence suffered imprisonment and declining health. The pacifism of Ross, indeed, is to be contrasted with Mann’s commitment to taking the war to a successful conclusion against ‘Prussianism’. In 1917 both Mann and Ross welcomed the ‘emancipatory’ Russian Revolution and staunchly opposed the politics of counter-revolution and ‘loyalism’. Yet while Mann embraced communism, Ross found a home in the radicalised Australian Labor Party and rejected the Bolshevik model for democratic Australia. The case of Mann and Ross casts important new light upon the general issues of labour’s and workers’ attitudes to war and peace, revolution and reaction, patriotism and loyalism and communism and social democracy.

‘True Womanhood’

This chapter reveals the attitudes and practices of Mann and Ross towards the issues of women and gender. It argues both that they welcomed women into the labour and socialist movements and also valued women’s contributions in the domestic, reproductive and productive spheres. As such they did not articulate the patriarchal attitudes so common among their male labour-movement contemporaries. Rather they embraced the cause of ‘full’ or ‘true’ emancipation for women. Yet at the same time they did not advocate either the abolition of the nuclear family or ‘free love’. Ross, in common with most Australian labour activists, articulated a highly racialised and racist view of ‘womanhood’. During the interwar period Mann continued to advocate the full emancipation of women and opposed racism. But he was also a member of an organisation, the Communist Party of Great Britain, which, despite its professed goals to ‘transcend the division of the sexes’, was dominated by men and ‘masculinist’ attitudes and practices. For both men women’s and feminist concerns played second fiddle to those of class. This chapter makes a new contribution to the literature on gender, class and race.

Introduction

To what extent did Mann’s and Ross’s notions of working-class and labour-movement unity, socialist solidarity and internationalism include women and people of colour, or, to adopt the terminology of their times, ‘coloureds’? Did their attitudes and practices towards gender and race amount to what many recent historians have seen as the dominant patriarchal and white-racist attitudes of labour movements throughout the British, Anglophone and even global worlds of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? What were the overlaps between gender and race? How did Mann’s and Ross’s commitments to unity and solidarity fare during the period of World War I and the post-war years? This was a highly turbulent and volatile period when their opposition to the war in particular and militarism in general, combined with their warm welcome for the Bolshevik Revolution and post-war labour’s sharp move to the left, were severely tested by the dominant pro-war and anti-German sentiments of the labour movement and working-class people in Britain and Australasia, and by the increasing importance of the conservative ‘politics of loyalism’. What were the differences, as well as the commonalities and similarities, of their attitudes and actions and how do we explain them? Finally, what light do their experiences shed on more general labour and other positions towards gender, race, class, war, nation, empire, revolution and reaction? These are the key questions to be addressed in Part III. ...

Conclusion

The Conclusion summarises the successes and failures and strengths and weaknesses of Mann and Ross in terms of their stated objectives and political careers as a whole. It shows that they achieved limited successes in their overriding aims to build the labour and socialist movements and successfully challenge capitalism nationally, internationally and transationally. It then moves to an appraisal of the relationship between Mann’s and Ross’s transnational, global, international and national attachments, allegiances and identities. It concludes that while the fact and strength of their transnationalism cannot be doubted, nevertheless, these other attachments continued to exist alongside and impact upon their transnationalism in important ways. This suggests the historiographical advisability of continuing to engage ‘the transnational’, ‘the national’, ‘the international’ and ‘the global’ rather than simply concentrating upon the transnational level. The Conclusion offers a final word on the relevance of Mann and Ross to today’s left-wing radicals.

The Transnational World of Mann and Ross

Chapter Two moves from methodology and historiography to substantive matters. It seeks to re-capture the neglected radical transnational world in which Mann and Ross lived and worked and aspects of their contribution to its development. The chapter is broken down into the following sections: globalisation; proletarian ‘globetrotting’ and the spread of radicalism; individuals, circuits, encounters and networks; the trans-Tasman ‘community of labour’; the Pacific rim; radical connections between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ worlds; Mann’s and Ross’s relationships, networks and influences. The chapter maintains both that a radical transnational world existed, especially during the period of ‘free-trade globalisation’ between 1850 and 1914, and that Mann and Ross, albeit more so the former than the latter, made a major contribution to its character and development.