Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

130 LIFE AND IDEAS OF MITRINOVIC

representatives of New Britain from all over the country the struggle for the control, direction and nature of the movement would be decided.

In preparation for the national gathering the London groups held a one day conference on March 11th 1934 at the University of London Club in Gower Street at which the issue of the constitution was once again discussed. Following this meeting a final draft of the proposed constitution was sent out to the provincial groups a few days prior to the Leamington conference. It proposed a federated organisational structure for the movement with groups coordinating at district and area levels up to the regional level, with councils of delegates from each level responsible for coordinating group activities in the districts, areas and regions. The supreme coordinating body was to be a National Council made up of four representatives from each region with the exception of the London region which would have twelve coopted members and just two representatives of the ‘central group’—defined as “those who founded the movement, and those who have since joined them or shall do so.” As it was proposed that decisions within the National Council were to be arrived at by a three quarter’s majority if unaniminity proved impossible to achieve, it was obvious that the proposed constitution, if accepted at the Leamington conference, would mean the virtual emasculation of the power of the central group members.

Over 300 people attended the conference at Leamington Spa at the end of March 1934. There was, according to Charles Purdom who took the chair at most of the sessions, “every sign of the initiation of a strong movement.” In fact, the conference marked the defeat of the London group and its allies, including Purdom, who saw the conference as their opportunity to obtain approval for their proposals to put New Britain onto a proper organisational footing as a means to becoming a genuinely mass based party. The first sessions on the evening of Friday March 31st passed uneventfully enough, although there was a noticeable contrast between the first two speakers. Professor G. E. C. Catlin, the husband of Vera Brittain, addressed himself to the question of how to avoid a violent revolution whilst the second speaker proclaimed his faith in marxism and his belief that the fundamental question to be tackled was the abolition of private property. This was Jack Murphy, one time leader of the Shop Stewards Movement, who had been attracted towards New Britain by its emphasis on workers’ control and management of industry. For him the issue was clear:

The New Britain of our aim must be a Socialist Britain free from the profit motive, free from financial swindlers, indeed, a classless Britain. Our task is to ensure the movement will dare to be Socialist and build a new Socialist Britain.”