wages, and better conditions for women workers, and, indeed, all workers, and
believed the result could be attained by class co-operation rather than class divi-
sion’.^12 In regard to the women’s vote, the Women’s Party promised to use it ‘to
make Britain strong for defence against the outside foe, and to strengthen
Britain from within by securing more prosperous and more harmonious national
development in its educational, industrial, political, and social aspects’.^13
Such an analysis, which downplayed the crises of capitalism, the existence of
social classes, class conflict and economic power, and which argued against
workers’ control of industry, was contrary to the dominant socialist ideas of the
time and their increasing influence; the war was hastening the collapse of the
old social order while the new Bolshevik government in Russia indicated that
the workers could seize power.^14 In Britain, the expansion of trade unionism
with the demand from its membership for at least a share in the control of
industry, widespread industrial unrest, and the prospect of mass enfranchisement
was creating a climate in which at least one key figure in the Labour Party felt
disquiet about ‘the potential for a revolutionary situation’.^15 In such an atmo-
sphere, the gulf widened between socialist feminists, such as Sylvia Pankhurst,
and feminists who were not allied to socialism, such as her mother and
Christabel, a not unexpected development since many feminists who shared the
world-wide reaction against Bolshevism were driven to the right.^16 Thus,
according to Sylvia, so-called ‘advanced women’ of the Left tended to distance
themselves from the Women’s Party, seeing it as an attack upon the entire
socialist movement and as a ‘phalanx of the Tories’.^17 Unsurprisingly, this view
is supported by the majority of present-day socialist historians, such as
Rowbotham, Garner and Pugh, who interpret Emmeline Pankhurst’s criticisms
of socialism as a move to the political right.^18 However, it was not the entire
socialist movement of which Emmeline was critical but especially socialism as
practised by men in the Labour Party, in which Emmeline had lost faith; in
particular, she believed that pacifist socialism had not served the national
interest during wartime. As she later explained at a large meeting in
Nottingham: ‘The organised Labour Party of this country ... had signally failed
to take advantage of its opportunities during the great struggle and leaders like
Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden had tried to betray their country from
the very outset.’^19 Nor did the socialism practised by male trade unionists
appeal to her, because male trade unionists did not concern themselves with the
needs of women. If ‘these autocrats of labour’ would come out on strike for
‘better conditions for mothers’, Emmeline claimed she would like them better.^20
A socialism that would not be distorted by men’s interests, promising ‘a share of
all that is best in life for everyone’ was in Emmeline’s mind, a socialism that
would bring equality to women and greater prosperity to the working classes.^21
She had never forgotten the improvements that she had been able to bring
about as a Poor Law Guardian and as a member of an education authority and
never lost her cherished dream of using public services to bring about better
conditions of living for the poor. ‘Poverty, which was removable’, she insisted,
LEADER OF THE WOMEN’S PARTY