an african communist in britain

22 SCIENCE & SOCIETY

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Science & Society, Vol. 70, No. 1, January 2006, 22–45

22

Forgotten Comrade? Desmond Buckle:An African Communist in Britain

HAKIM ADI

ABSTRACT: Recognized at the end of his life as a “lifelong fighterfor colonial freedom” and “one of the first African Marxists,” theGhanaian James Desmond Buckle’s life and work is rarely men-tioned in historical accounts of the British or international com-munist movements. The role of Buckle, a longtime member ofthe Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) is recovered bydocumenting his work as organizer, writer, and propagandist forthe CPGB on international issues. Buckle’s understanding of theBritish Party’s engagement with the complexities of communistinternationalism is of continuing interest. The details and vari-ety of his contributions to the Communist movement, both inBritain and internationally, highlight the extent to which theabsence of political activists of Buckle’s calibre from the histori-cal literature on the CPGB not only distorts our understandingof the British Party; it also impoverishes the history of Africanand other minorities in Britain.

THROUGHOUT MOST OF ITS EXISTENCE the CommunistParty of Great Britain (CPGB, 1920–1991) proudly declareditself a part of a global communist movement. British com-

munists saw themselves as a detachment of an international prole-tariat on the march across the world. The Party’s internationalismwas particularly significant because of its location at the heart of theBritish Empire, the tentacles of which stretched across the world. Sowhile it was a party that organized in Britain, it was also influentialthroughout many parts of that Empire and in this context it is not

BRITAIN: DESMOND BUCKLE 23

surprising that its membership was also international in composition.However, histories of the CPGB have largely ignored those memberswho originated from Africa and from Britain’s colonies elsewhere.This is a serious omission, one that not only misrepresents the his-tory of the CPGB but also one that distorts the history of the politicalengagement of African and other minorities in Britain. As a contri-bution to overcoming this neglect, this article seeks to recover thelife and work of one of the first African members of the CPGB, theGhanaian Desmond Buckle.

Although the history of the African Diaspora has become an in-creasingly important field of study in recent years, particularly in theUnited States, such research remains in its infancy in Britain. In theUnited States and South Africa, for example, there have been impor-tant biographical and autobiographical accounts of black commu-nists, such as William Patterson, Harry Haywood, Hosea Hudson,Moses Kotane, Jimmy La Guma and Johnny Gomas. Although thenumbers of communists of African and Caribbean origin in Britainwere much smaller than in some other countries, the near-total ab-sence of biographical studies of such activists reflects a wider neglectof the history of the African Diaspora in Britain.1 It is intended thatthis article will contribute to a process of recovery that can be con-tinued and extended by other biographical historians and writers.

By studying the life of individuals such as Buckle we are able tobetter understand the breadth of the Party’s influence and work inBritain and throughout the Empire. Recovering Buckle’s life alsohelps to highlight some of the political influences that impacted onthe lives of other Africans (and those of Caribbean origin) living inBritain, many of whom were students, in the first part of the 20thcentury. Not least, his life will suggest the factors that drew a signifi-cant number to communism from the 1930s onwards and caused suchconcern to Colonial Office officials. It is worth remembering that manyof the leading African and Caribbean political activists in Britain, bothbefore and after World War II — including George Padmore, PeterBlackman, Arnold Ward, Isaac Wallace-Johnson, and Claudia Jones —were either CPGB members or had at some point in their lives beenclosely connected with the international communist movement.

1 For an exception see Marika Sherwood’s biography of Claudia Jones (Sherwood, 1999).


The CPGB and Empire

In 1920 the Second Congress of the Communist Internationaladopted Lenin’s thesis that Communist parties must give support tonational liberation movements in the colonies and wage a struggleagainst national chauvinism within the ranks of the workers of theimperialist powers. Even if the CPGB was not always as active on thisquestion as it might have been, the Comintern’s vocal and persistentopposition to colonialism attracted African members and support-ers to the Party from the earliest days (MPR, 2001, 395). From thelate 1920s until World War II, the British Party established links withAfrican students and workers in Britain, and through them with theircompatriots in Africa. These contacts were maintained in the activi-ties of the League Against Imperialism (LAI) and its affiliate the NegroWelfare Association (NWA), but also through the work of the NationalMinority Movement and International Class War Prisoner’s Aid (Adi,1995).

It is impossible to be certain, but there are strong indicationsthat the first African member of the Party could well have been theCardiff-based leader of the Somali Youth League, Mohamed TuallahMohamed, who may have joined the CPGB in 1923 (Sherwood, n.d.,13). In 1928 the CPGB’s work among African and other “Negro”seamen and among African students was extended by the founda-tion, under the auspices of the Red International of Labor Unions(Profintern), of the International Trade Union Committee of NegroWorkers (ITUCNW). The ITUCNW published the influentialNegro Worker, with contributions from the NWA and activists in Brit-ish colonies in Africa, including Isaac Wallace-Johnson, E. F. Small,Frank Macaulay, and the future leader of independent Kenya, JomoKenyatta. Some, including Wallace-Johnson and Kenyatta2 were edu-cated in Moscow during the 1920s and 1930s at the Comintern’sUniversity of the Toilers of the East (McClennan, 1993).

In 1937, under pressure from the Comintern, the CPGB in-structed all branches to step up their anti-colonial work. The Party’s

2 Kenyatta arrived in Britain in 1929 and under CPGB auspices traveled to Moscow. Hesubsequently wrote for Labour Monthly and other CPGB publications (Murray-Brown, 1979,117–21). The Sierra Leonean activist Isaac Wallace-Johnson probably came into contactwith the British CPGB as a result of its work with seamen.


Africa and Colonial Committees established the Colonial Informa-tion Bureau, producing the monthly Colonial Information Bulletin forthe following two years, and later the quarterly, Inside the Empire.After the War many more Africans became involved in the Party andthe international communist movement, often through the activityof organizations such as the International Union of Students, theWorld Federation of Democratic Youth and the World Federationof Trade Unions. In postwar London, the CPGB established closelinks with Kwame Nkrumah and the West African National Secretariat(WANS), as well as with the West African Students’ Union (WASU).In the late 1940s Emile Burns, a leading Party propagandist, washolding classes on Marxism for over forty West African students. In1950 alone, over 150 Nigerians joined the Party in London, and spe-cial “Robeson branches” were organized to accommodate these newmembers. In 1953, a “Nigerian branch” was formed as part of theeffort to stimulate the formation of a Communist Party in Nigeria.Subsequently a West African Party branch was also established in thecapital. The Party also had active links with Africans in Liverpool,Manchester, Cardiff and Birmingham (Adi, 1995).

It is therefore surprising that there is not more in the literatureon the history of the CPGB about the many African members whojoined the Party in the 1940s and 1950s or earlier. Buckle merits twobrief mentions in Branson’s “official” history of the CPGB (1997, 67,147), and three similarly brief mentions in Callaghan’s recent vol-ume (2003, 14, 114, 153). Only a passing reference to “West AfricanCommunists” appears in the latest one-volume history of the CPGBby Eaden and Renton (2002, 115), while the names of Ade Thomas,Idise Dafe, J. Vaughan, V. Ibeneme, Jonathan Tetteh, Uche Omo,3

Frank Oruwari, George Okeleke,4 and many others seem to be have

3 All members of the West African sub-committee (formed in 1951) and of the CPGB’s AfricaCommittee. All except Tetteh were Nigerians. Many of the Africans who joined the CPGBwere students. Ade Thomas was designated “national organizer” of WASU by the CPGBand was the leader of the Party’s Nigerian Branch. Tetteh, who originated from theGold Coast, later played a leading role in the unofficial West African Youth and StudentOrganization.

4 Frank Oruwari, formerly a student at Trinity College, Dublin, was secretary of the CPGB’sWest African branch. Oruwari, who was also a member of the Party’s International AffairsCommittee, was succeeded as branch secretary in 1960 by George Okeleke, a London-based factory worker. Oruwari criticized the Party for its “lukewarm attitude to the colo-nial question” (Oruwari, 1956, 270–1).


largely been forgotten. Similarly overlooked in this literature is theParty’s work with the anti-colonial forces in Africa during this pe-riod, especially in South Africa, and in the attempts to establish aNigerian Communist Party (Adi, 1995). Any study of the CPGB’sattempts to organize Africans would show many weaknesses, someof which the leadership was forced to acknowledge. I have outlinedelsewhere some of the problems that arose with the “Robeson,”Nigerian and West African branches of the Party in the 1950s (Adi,1995). These difficulties contributed to the view held by manyNigerian members that the Party and its leadership had no realunderstanding of Nigerian affairs. One of their main charges wasthat the CPGB was “not prepared to consider our views in prepar-ing materials for a formulation of a policy concerning our coun-try,” and that the leadership acted unilaterally (Adi, 1995, 186). Suchcriticisms were reflected in resignations and the creation of factionsand other groupings, within and without the Party, such as the WestAfrican Cultural Group and the African Workers and Students’Association.5

It might be argued that the national origin of members is of littleconsequence in the study of the history of a Communist Party, sinceit should organize all regardless of nationality. However, it is also truethat the CPGB did organize members, or allow them to be organized,on the basis of national origin. The nationality of members and theway in which they were organized therefore has great bearing on ourunderstanding of the complexities, and indeed the frequent tensions,of “Party life,” as Flinn has recently argued (2002). Rediscovering thelife and work of Desmond Buckle — one of the earliest African mem-bers of the CPGB and probably the first from Britain’s West Africancolonies, who devoted most of his adult life to the Party and the in-ternational communist movement — allows us not only to reinstatea figure long neglected in the Party’s biographical history, but alsoto better discern the political trajectory of radical African emigrantsto the United Kingdom.

5 The African Workers’ and Students’ Association (AWSA), formerly the West African Youthand Student Organization, was formed in 1951 when the CPGB failed to establish a prom-ised West African Youth and Student Association in the aftermath of the World YouthFestival. Over 70 West African students, organized by a special West African Youth Festi-val Preparatory Committee, had attended the Festival in Berlin.


James Desmond Buckle

“Lifelong fighter for colonial freedom” was just one of the ac-colades accorded to Desmond Buckle, “the African Communist” atthe time of his premature death in October 1964 at the age of 54.In an obituary one of the leaders of the CPGB, Rajani Palme Dutt,declared that:

In the fight for national liberation against imperialism Desmond Bucklefulfilled a foremost and honored role during the more than thirty years Ihave known him. . . . He was one of the first African Marxists, a member ofthe Communist Party of this country and a close friend and associate of allAfrican and West Indian freedom fighters. (Daily Worker, 1964.)

Indeed, according to Dutt, Buckle’s life “had made no small contri-bution to the victories against colonialism.” Nnamdi Azikiwe, thenPresident of Nigeria, sent a message to the funeral, referring to Buckleas someone who “passionately believed in human freedom and de-voted his life to its realization, not only in Africa but in all corners ofthe earth” (Daily Worker, 1964).

Despite these accolades, few people have ever heard of DesmondBuckle and his life and work. Even those who worked with him knowlittle about a man, who at the time of his death lived on his own in aflat in the Victoria district of London. Piecing together the fragmentsso as to document his life is no easy task, and much remains unknown;it is imperative, however, that there be some record of the life of aman who devoted himself to the realization of human freedom andwho was one of the first African members of the CPGB.

James Desmond Buckle was born on March 29, 1910 in Accra,the capital of the British colony of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), inWest Africa. His family originated from Sierra Leone and traced theirancestry from those of enslaved origin who returned to Africa fromthe United States.6 His grandfather was Sir James Buckle, a promi-nent merchant who traded between Freetown in Sierra Leone andAccra in the Gold Coast. He married into the equally prestigiousPalmer family, which had similar Creole antecedents and traced theirorigin from those of African descent from the Caribbean. Desmond

6 I am grateful to Mate Azu, Desmond Buckle’s nephew, for information about the Bucklefamily.


Buckle’s father, Vidal James Buckle, was a prominent British-educatedlawyer and his mother, Ellen Konadu Buckle, was a member of theequally prominent Bannerman family, with similar origins to theBuckles. Her great grandfather, James Bannerman, a British mer-chant, had served as Governor of the Gold Coast in the 1850s.

Desmond Buckle, the second of five children, was therefore amember of the local elite and had an extremely privileged child-hood, even by contemporary British standards. His parents wereclosely connected with the governor, whose wife was the godmotherof Desmond’s younger sister. In 1920, when Desmond was just tenyears old, his father died at the early age of 33. Ellen Buckle wasdetermined to fulfill her late husband’s wishes and all the childrenwere sent to Britain. Desmond was sent to boarding school at TruroCollege in Cornwall. This was a common practice for many wealthyGold Coast families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Jenkins,1985). Both of Desmond’s parents had been to school in Britain. ButEllen Buckle’s determination to have her children educated in Brit-ain led to a lifelong rift between her and Desmond, who had wantedto return to the Gold Coast to complete his education, particularly afterhis younger brother Charles died of pneumonia in London. It seemsthat from this stage of his life until the early 1960s, when he was re-united with his mother and sisters in London, Desmond Buckle hadlittle contact with his family in West Africa. Although, according tofamily sources, the dispute originated in the arguments over his edu-cation, his later political affiliations widened the rift:

His family was naturally alarmed that he had joined the communist party.Taking into consideration that he had come from a family of successfulbarristers and his father having married into a family tracing its backgroundto the colonial administration, this was regarded as a near betrayal of thefamily and the values it held dear. (Azu, 2001.)7

In 1928, at the age of 18, Buckle began but failed to completemedical studies at University College London, largely because of alack of financial support both from government and family sources.In the early 1930s he became active in student and black politicalorganizations, including the League of Colored Peoples (LCP), which

7 Information supplied by the Buckle family.


had been formed in 1931 by Harold Moody, a Jamaican physician,to promote the welfare and interests of the “colored races.” In 1933he appeared in the LCP’s staging of Una Marson’s play At What a Price,at the YMCA Hostel Central Club in London. At the same time hebecame a leading member of the Gold Coast Students’ Association(GCSA), one of several West African student organizations formedin London in the mid-1920s. Through the GCSA, Buckle becameinvolved in the lively student politics of the day: opposing the impo-sition of the Sedition and other “iniquitous Bills” in the Gold Coast,welcoming the delegations of African politicians that arrived in Brit-ain to oppose such legislation, and supporting the 1937 Gold Coast“cocoa hold-up”.8 At this time the GCSA was antagonistic towardsWASU, which was seen not as a West African organization but onedominated by Nigerians. For instance, in the dispute over AggreyHouse, the student hostel that had been established by the ColonialOffice with the intention of both courting and monitoring the stu-dents, many of the Gold Coast students were more sympathetic to thehostel than to WASU. Buckle appears as one of those most eager togive his support and was part of a GCSA delegation that helped draftthe rules of Aggrey House in July 1934. Buckle was secretary of theGCSA in 1936–37, the time when it was based at Aggrey House, andpresident in 1937–38. Nevertheless he was increasingly espousingradical political positions. In October 1937, in one of the Association’sregular debates he proposed the motion that “this Association refusesto fight for the British Empire.” The next month in a similar debatehe was the main opponent of the motion “that the salvation of theGold Coast lies in close cooperation with the British Labour Party”(Gold Coast Student Association, 1934–40).

During this period, Desmond Buckle cooperated with and mayhave become a member of the NWA, an organization formed in 1931and affiliated to the ITUCNW and the Communist-led LAI.9 Activestudents like Buckle would have been familiar with the NWA and the

8 A campaign by Gold Coast farmers against a mainly British-controlled cocoa purchasingcartel and the fall in cocoa prices on the international market. The “cocoa hold-up” wasprobably the largest demonstration of rural discontent in West African colonial history.

9 Reginald Bridgeman, the secretary of the LAI, chaired the NWA. Its treasurer was CPGBmember H. P. Rathbone. Publicly it was often led by the Barbadian communist ArnoldWard, the NWA’s secretary and a member of the editorial board of Negro Worker, and itincluded among its members two other Barbadians –– Chris Jones of the ColonialSeamen’s Union, and Peter Blackman.


LAI through their agitation around political issues of the day, suchas Aggrey House, Ethiopia and Scottsboro. The NWA, described bythe Daily Worker as “a militant organization of Negro workers,” alsoas its name suggests functioned as a welfare association. Thus, likethe LCP, it organized outings for Black children as well as campaign-ing for trade unions in the Caribbean and against the color bar inBritain. In 1933 it was instrumental in forming the Scottsboro De-fense Committee (MPR, 2001).10 For its part, the LAI helped indi-viduals and organizations in West Africa to ask parliamentaryquestions through sympathetic MPs (Rohdie, 1963). It also calledfor “complete freedom for African peoples and peoples of Africandescent” and “possession by Africans of African lands and adminis-tration,” and was perhaps the only organization in Britain to takesuch an anti-colonial stand (Adi, 1998, 60–61). In December 1938,at Buckle’s instigation, the GCSA jointly organized a meeting en-titled “Colonies and Peace” along with the NWA, the London CPGBand the London Federation of Peace Councils (Gold Coast StudentAssociation. 1934–40). It is probable that it was through the NWAthat Buckle came into contact with communism and the CPGB.

Buckle’s privileged background in the Gold Coast was not un-like that of most other African and colonial students in Britain. How-ever, while in Britain, whatever their background, they were likely tobe treated as second-class citizens, often racially abused in the streetsand openly discriminated against as a consequence of the ubiquitouscolor bar. The experience radicalized many African students andinspired them to organize themselves and to campaign against colo-nialism and racism. One of the Colonial Office’s major concerns atthe time was that African and other colonial students would comeunder what were referred to as “subversive influences,” particularlycommunists. This was seen as likely since the latter appeared as themost zealous opponents of both colonialism and the color bar. Whatwas unusual about Buckle was therefore not that he became radicalizedby his experiences in Britain, but that he remained a member of theParty for the rest of his life. It seems that having been separated fromhis family in West Africa, and remaining unmarried throughout hislife, Desmond Buckle found a new “home” and “family” within theinternational communist movement and the CPGB.

10 Cobina Kessie, another leading member of the GCSA, was vice-president of the ScottsboroDefense Committee.


In February 1939 Buckle called on other members of the GCSAto “take more interest in public meetings concerning Negro Welfare,”and asked for donations for the NWA. He further proposed that theGCSA invite a speaker from the NWA to address one of its meetings;subsequently, in April 1939, NWA secretary Arnold Ward spoke tothe GCSA. In July 1939 Buckle was one of the main organizers ofthe conference organized by the NWA, CPGB and Coloured FilmArtistes Association on “African Peoples, Democracy and WorldPeace.” This conference sought “to show how the British people can. . . safeguard their own liberties, extend the boundaries of democ-racy to embrace the peoples of the colonial empire and, by so doing,lay the foundations for true freedom and lasting peace in the world”(Gold Coast Student Association. 1934–40).11 It was in this period thatBuckle, in his own words, became “intellectually convinced of thecorrectness of the Communist Party’s aims and policies,” joining in1937 (Communist Party Archives).12

It was around this time that Buckle also came to the attention ofgovernment officials. In February 1940 he is included in ColonialOffice files among some 60 West African students who were in con-tact with the Victoria League, an organization used by the ColonialOffice to introduce colonial students to respectable families in Brit-ain who would seek to steer them away from “subversive influences.”This was seen as a key task following the report of the Colonial Stu-dents’ Committee, a body established by the Colonial Secretary in1937. Officials clearly felt that their strategy was working and theyoung communist Desmond Buckle is described in glowing terms(Colonial Office, 1940). However just a few months later the sameofficials were becoming increasingly concerned about developmentsat Aggrey House, which they reported was “becoming a center forsubversion and definitely anti-allied propaganda.” Hans Vischer, themain official at the Colonial Office responsible for “colonial students,”concluded that “there are some responsible people behind all this,whose object seems to be to embarrass the authorities.” One responseto these concerns was to close down Aggrey House, resulting in a

11 On the conference, see UK National Archives (TNA) CO 323/1679/5.12 Although, according to Party records, Desmond Buckle first joined the CPGB in 1937,

his full membership dates from 1941. I am grateful to Janette Martin at the NationalMuseum of Labour History for this information. As far as I am aware there is no informa-tion in the CPGB archives regarding any earlier African members of the Party.


protest campaign by the students, led by Buckle. The whole disputewas widely reported in the national press and received prominentcoverage in the CPGB’s daily newspaper, the Daily Worker. The Colo-nial Office maintained that two NWA members, Buckle and PeterBlackman, were at the root of the problem and recommended thatboth be monitored by the secret services.13 So as Desmond Bucklebegan his full membership in the Communist Party his activities werealready being monitored by British intelligence.

In the Party’s records Buckle’s occupation is listed as “electricalengineer.” Perhaps this was a wartime occupation, because no evi-dence has yet come to light to suggest that he was ever employed asanything but a journalist. Once in the Party his writing talents andexpertise in African affairs were soon recognized. By 1943 he was amember of the Party’s Colonial Committee. A few years later he wasresponsible for presenting the reports on Africa and the West Indiesto the conferences of Communist Parties of the British Empire, heldin London in 1947 and 1949. In his report to the 1947 conferencehe clearly linked the struggle against colonialism with the interna-tional struggle against capitalism, describing how

in the wartime mobilization of manpower and material resources of thecolonies in East and West Africa and in the Caribbean, monopoly capitalhad been given scope to consolidate its strangle-hold and to extend its sphereof influence. . . . The cooperation of the people most concerned was neversought and, even under a Labour Government, monopoly capital has beengiven a definite role in the plans of development. Inasmuch as these mo-nopolies were so powerful the struggle for real independence would be hard.It would be of no benefit for a colony to acquire nominal independencewhich left the monopolies intact. . . . Building a mass liberation movementwould ensure the curbing of the monopolies, the advance to real freedom,and the defense of the independence of the people. (Buckle, 1947.)

His report to the 1949 conference included a similar analysis. Onceagain he argued that the reason why so little progress was being madewith regard to development in the colonies was because

no attempt has been made to enlist the cooperation on a democratic basisof the people most concerned, or to check the activities of monopoly

13 Unfortunately, these MI5 reports have not yet been released for public scrutiny.


capitalism. On the contrary, monopoly capitalism has actually been assigneda role in these plans of development and rehabilitation.

He went on to outline the great strides forward that had occurred inthe labor movements in Africa and the Caribbean, and highlightedthe positive role of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).He concluded with an analysis that despite the new geopolitical situ-ation little had changed since the days of the ITUCNW. It is particu-larly striking that there is no immediate call for independence:

In their struggles for freedom the colonial people look to their natural al-lies, the progressive and peace-loving peoples abroad, particularly in Brit-ain. They are inspired by the example of the Soviet Union, the constantchampion of oppressed people and the bulwark of peace and friendshipamong nations, and which ended colonialism in its own territories. . . . Theyrecognize also, that nominal “independence,” which yet leaves them at themercy of great monopolies, like Liberia and the Firestone Company, wouldbring no real benefit. The immediate call therefore, in the African and WestIndian colonies, is for these rights which will enable the people to build theirmass organizations and take the path to real independence. (Buckle, 1949.)

During this time Buckle continued to work as a colonial special-ist in the CPGB. He was a member of the Party’s International Af-fairs Committee (IAC) and was secretary of the Africa Committee.This was a subcommittee of the IAC with responsibility for the CPGB’swork in regard to Britain’s African colonies, for liaising with the anti-colonial movement in Africa and for working with Africans in Brit-ain. From 1950 to 1954 he was editor of the Africa Committee’smonthly publication Africa Newsletter, which had a circulation ofsome 700 copies and was distributed in Africa and Britain. In addi-tion throughout his time as a Party member he was a regular con-tributor to publications such as World News and Views, the Daily Workerand Labour Monthly, becoming the main correspondent on Africanaffairs, writing on the struggle for self-government in his own GoldCoast, or in Kenya, on the national liberation war in Algeria, on SouthAfrica or more generally about colonialism and the impact of impe-rialism in Africa. One of his earliest articles, written during WorldWar II, is simply entitled “Colour Bar.” It detailed the widespread dis-crimination faced by all those of African descent in Britain. This ar-ticle concluded with an argument subsequently developed at some


length by former Communist George Padmore in How Russia Trans-formed Her Colonial Empire. Buckle wrote:

The people of the colonies know . . . that at Stalingrad, Uzbek and Mold-avian, Tartar and Armenian, pour out their blood to defend a city which isas much theirs in every way as it is Russian. Absence of artificial social andracial barriers is one of the sources of Soviet strength. Immense benefit wouldresult to the war effort if all individuals both civil and military, were to learnthat elementary fact. (Buckle, 1942.)

In 1953 the party appointed a Nigeria Commission to investigate theresignations and allegations against the CPGB leadership made bymany Nigerian members. Despite, or perhaps because of, Buckle’sknowledge of African affairs, he was excluded from the Commission.Although he and other members of the Africa Committee did play akey role in the discussions prior to the appointment of the Commis-sion, his exclusion from the Commission, which met on over 30 oc-casions, is not easily explicable (Adi, 1995, 186). The Commission’smembers were drawn from the very leadership that was being criti-cized — Rajani Palme Dutt, Idris Cox, Emile Burns and J. R. Campbell.The fifth member was Barbara Ruhemann of the CPGB’s AfricaCommittee, and the person most directly responsible for the Party’spolicy on Nigeria. Some of the disaffected Nigerian membersclaimed that Buckle shared their views, but there is no record ofhim speaking out to back up these allegations.14 There is also noevidence to suggest that Buckle was active in the work of the WestAfrican branch formed in the mid-1950s (Adi, 1995, 186–7). With-out clearer indications from internal party sources it is difficult todraw firm conclusions here. Certainly many newer African CPGBmembers, especially Nigerians, felt increasingly alienated from theParty. Some even argued that the national branches were attemptsto segregate them from other British members. Many were criticalof what they felt were patronizing and chauvinistic attitudes withinthe Party. One letter of resignation from a Nigerian CPGB mem-ber reported “consistently un-Communist actions and behaviors

14 The only evidence I have found is contained in an unsigned letter dated April 1, 1953,probably from Barbara Ruhemann to Palme Dutt, in which dissident Nigerian membersof the CPGB are reported to claim that Buckle “is in agreement with their point of view.”Letter in author’s possession.


[sic] of certain responsible leaders of the British Communist Party”(Dodiyi, 1953). Another claimed that the International Departmentof the CPGB “represented by Comrades Palme Dutt, Idris Cox andBarbara [Ruermann], have not been presenting the rank and file withthe true account of political situation in Nigeria” (Bamishe, 1953).

There can be little doubt that these were matters of concern forDesmond Buckle. As an African and editor of the Africa Newsletter healso had his own views on the developing independence movementin Nigeria, which were sometimes at variance with those of otherCPGB Africa specialists. In one letter to Barbara Ruhemann, for ex-ample, Buckle queried her conclusions in an article published on theeffect on the “national movement” of Nigeria’s first general electionin 1951–2. After apologizing for not raising the matter with her be-fore publication and agreeing with some parts of the article, Buckletook issue with her contention that the political campaign accom-panying the elections had extended the scope of the national move-ment and strengthened “the bonds of unity between the peoples ofNigeria as never before.” Instead he argued that

while the political campaign enabled the National Council of Nigeria andthe Cameroons (NCNC) to carry its message to the furthest corner of Nige-ria, the activities of the Action Group in the Western Region and of theNorthern People’s Congress in the Northern Region prevented, throughsowing confusion amongst the masses in those regions, the strengtheningof the bonds of unity between the peoples of Nigeria at all, let alone “as neverbefore.”

In fact the national movement was actually more united in previousyears, “during the time when the organized trade union movement wasplaying an increasingly active and influential part inside the NCNC”(Buckle, 1952). In isolation this letter cannot tell us much regardingBuckle’s relationship with Ruhemann but it does indicate that he wasa keen observer of Nigerian events and felt able to press his point ofview with the CPGB’s leading specialist on Nigerian affairs.

Like most communists, much of his political activity was beyondthe ranks of the Party, in the “heart of the peoples’ struggles.” As wellas being a prolific journalist and propagandist, he was active in anumber of different areas. He was involved in anti-racist campaignsin Britain, and in the international trade union and peace movements,


and he maintained his contacts and involvement with the Pan-African movement in Britain. It is clear that while he remained con-cerned with the struggles for independence and human dignity inAfrica, in many ways his day-to-day activities were typical of those of acommunist and internationalist, who apart from his writing had littleresponsibility in the CPGB for work connected with Africa.

For example, during the late 1930s and early 1940s he was amember of the short-lived Committee for West Indian Affairs, formedby two Labour MPs, David Adams and Ben Riley, in the aftermath ofthe wide-scale workers’ struggles in the Caribbean (Howe, 1993, 104).He was also involved with the work of the National Council for CivilLiberties (NCCL) and spoke at several of the organization’s confer-ences both on the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and on the prob-lem of racism and the color bar in Britain.15 In 1941 he was one ofthe key speakers in the “West Africa Commission” at the “Civil Liber-ties in the Colonial Empire” conference. In 1949 he was one of themain organizers of the NCCL’s defense of 14 Africans, mainly Nige-rians, who had been arrested for defending themselves against a rac-ist attack in Deptford. Buckle, described as a “colonial trade unionist”was one of the main speakers at a meeting organized by the DeptfordTrades Council, NCCL and Deptford Council of Churches followingthe incident. Buckle’s speech, in which he alluded to Shakespeare’sOthello, gives us a sense of his oratorical style. Concerning the arrestsand racism in Britain, he said:

These are men whom we welcomed into our armed forces to help us duringthe war. Are we then to say to them, “The Moor has done some service; letthe Moor retire?” . . . We are horrified at the thought of murder of the body,but we should also raise our hand in horror at the thought of murder of thespirit. To put a man where he feels he is not wanted; this is murder of thespirit! I feel that we should work for legislation on the question; that dis-crimination against anyone because of his colour, race or creed should bepunishable by law.16 (Civil Liberty, 1950.)

In 1945, as a preliminary to the Manchester Pan-African Congress,Buckle drafted the Manifesto on Africa in the Post-War World, which

15 On at least one occasion Buckle represented South Africa at an international meeting ofNCCL.

16 Racial discrimination was not made illegal in Britain until 1965.


British-based African and Pan-African organizations sent to the newlyformed United Nations and which called for “full self governmentwithin a definite time limit” for all the African colonies (Adi andSherwood, 1995, 17). Buckle himself did not attend the congress andthe CPGB was represented in Manchester by the Secretary of theLancashire and Cheshire District Party, but it seems unlikely thatBuckle would have worked on the Manifesto without authorizationfrom the Party.

After the war Desmond Buckle focused much of his activity onthe international peace and trade union movements. In 1945 he rep-resented the Transvaal Council of Non-European Trade Unions atthe WFTU’s founding conference in Paris.17 He introduced him-self to the Congress as “the representative in Europe of the Transvaalnon-European unions . . . instructed to proceed to Paris to secureindependent representation of our organization.” He concluded theintroduction to this speech by saying that

therefore my very presence here, though belated, bears testimony to thedesire of the non-European workers of South Africa to participate fully inthe establishment of the WFTU. Our hopes for better conditions of life fornon-European workers, indeed for all the 8 million non-Europeans of SouthAfrica, can only be realized if the other workers of the world, fully informedas to the situation in South Africa, insist on improvement of living condi-tions and support us in our efforts to secure it. (World News, 1945.)

Subsequently Buckle was elected to the General Council of the WFTU,and he played a leading role in the work of the Preparatory Commit-tee of the Pan-African Trade Union Congress, which the Frenchgovernment prevented from meeting in Douala in 1951.

Buckle also represented South Africa at the Paris, Prague andRome sessions of the World Congress of Partisans for Peace in 1949.In his speeches he was an enthusiastic and militant representative ofall the exploited peoples of South Africa and especially those he re-ferred to as the “non-European workers.” He denounced Malan’s gov-ernment as openly fascist and a clear danger to world peace, and heaccused Malan of crimes against humanity. Again making the linkage

17 Buckle replaced the delegate from the Transvaal Council of Non-European Trade Unions,who was prevented from attending the conference by the actions of the South Africangovernment.


between colonial repression and the Cold War, he pointed out thestrategic importance of the African continent as a base for Anglo-American imperialism and as a source of raw materials for futureaggression against the countries of Eastern Europe and the SovietUnion. For the peoples of Africa, he concluded, world peace was anurgent necessity linked to the ending of their daily oppression andexploitation. He therefore called on the World Congress to convenea conference on world peace for colonial and subject peoples to beheld in London or Paris, the capitals of the leading imperialist pow-ers in Europe (World Congress of Partisans for Peace, 1949a, 17;1949b, 642–644).18 Buckle also represented South Africa as a mem-ber of the Permanent Committee of the World Peace Congress, andwas elected to the presidium of the Second World Peace Congress,held in Warsaw in 1950. Variously described in congress reports as atrade unionist and a journalist, it seems that he continued to repre-sent South Africa in this capacity throughout the early 1950s (WorldPeace Congress, 1950, 136).

It is this period of his life that has proved the most difficult topiece together. After the war Buckle was employed as a journalistby the Czechoslovak News Agency, as well as its Soviet equivalent,TASS, reporting mainly on sport and African affairs. He also wrotefor several European papers, including the East German publica-tions Tagliche Rundschau, Neue Berliner Illustrieterte and Zeit im Bild.He was also intimately involved in Paul Robeson’s visits to Britain,acting as the latter’s secretary during a four-month stay in Britain in1949 (Duberman, 1989, 685). It is undeniable that Buckle was a lead-ing figure in both the international trade union and the peace move-ments, and that he had established a close working relationship withorganizations in South Africa and key figures in the anti-colonialstruggle in West Africa and in the United States. It has not, however,been possible to uncover the full extent of his international activi-ties. His correspondence contains indications of just how extensiveand onerous these activities and responsibilities were. Writing to PeterBlackman in 1951, for example, Buckle reported his involvement inrecent meetings in Prague and Berlin, his work for the WFTU andthe international peace movement, his discussions with Sekou Touré

18 Buckle was urged to call for such a conference by, among others, William Patterson ofthe Civil Rights Congress (CRC) in the United States (Patterson, 1948).


and Gabriel D’Arboussier regarding a regional peace conference inAfrica, the work he was involved in for the preparatory committee ofthe All-African Trade Union Congress, the speeches he and the Dukeof Bedford gave at a peace meeting in Bradford, the work of theCouncil of African Affairs in the United States, his journalism forpublications in Berlin and Dresden, radio interviews for Berlin andCzech radio in addition to his editorial work for the Africa Newsletterin Britain. His concluding remarks give a flavor of his life at the time:

I am surprised you have not had the [Africa] Newsletter for some time. . . .Unfortunately I cannot count on those who are supposed to be helping toproduce it. I have only to be away for a few days and everything seems toflop. . . . I am caught up in more and more work. The Berlin daily, TaglicheRundschau, have asked me to send them a monthly article on Africa. . . . Ialso have to contribute some illustrated articles on African youth with abearing on the forthcoming Youth Festival to the Neue Berliner Illustrierte. Isent an article with pictures on the shantytowns of Johannesburg to theDresden picture paper Zeit im Bild just before my visit to Germany. . . . [InAugust] I have arranged with the Free German Trade Union Federation(Berlin section of which my friend Adolf Deter is secretary) to pay a returnvisit at the time of the Festival. (Buckle, 1951b.)

We also know from his correspondence that one of Buckle’s for-mal Party responsibilities for the International Affairs and AfricaCommittees involved liaison with those members of the EgyptianCommunist movement known as the “Rome Group,” who were inexile in France and elsewhere in Europe.19 This relationship wasmaintained by correspondence and visits throughout the 1950suntil the “Group” was dissolved in 1958. Buckle also mentions his workfor the Polish and Hungarian press, his work in the World PeaceCouncil and the WFTU, and some of the many political contacts hemaintained throughout the world, including Cheddi Jagan, KrishnaMenon and several sympathetic members of parliament in Britain.In addition to indicating the range of his activities, Buckle’s corre-spondence also provides an interesting insight into Buckle’s viewsabout contemporary events, especially in Africa. As we have seen, he

19 The “Rome Group” was a branch of the Democratic Movement for National Liberation,established in Paris in 1951. The correspondence between members of the Group andDesmond Buckle is to be found in the archives of the International Institute of SocialHistory (IISH), Amsterdam.


took a special journalistic interest in African affairs and his letters tohis Egyptian contacts are full of requests for further information aboutAlgerian, Sudanese and North African politics. It is evident from hispublished articles that these were issues he was particularly concernedwith during the 1950s and early 1960s (Buckle, 1958, 175–180; 1955,873–874). In one letter to an Egyptian comrade, for example, hepresents his analysis of recent political events in Sudan:

What do you think of the Sudanese declaration of independence? I can-not help seeing the hand of British imperialism behind the sudden decla-ration of El Azhari to go ahead with a declaration by the Sudan Parliamentonly 12 days after the decision to hold an internationally supervised plebi-scite. (Egyptian Communists in Exile papers, letter Buckle to Susu, Janu-ary 10, 1956.)

The letters also tell us something about his more private views on WestAfrican, and especially Ghanaian, affairs. These were opinions thatwere not expressed, or were expressed very differently, in his pub-lished writing. In most of the articles that appeared in the commu-nist press in Britain, Buckle supported the independence struggle aswaged in his home country, only warning against attempts by Britishimperialism to defeat that struggle by the accommodation of its lead-ers as well as by open repression. In general, however, Buckle saidlittle to praise Nkrumah or the Convention Peoples’ Party, which ledGhana to independence (Buckle, 1950, 128; 1951, 93). For example,in an article written to celebrate Ghana’s independence, he onlymentions Nkrumah and the CPP right at the end, when quoting theformers’ appeal for cooperation in making independence “a successand inspiration to many emergent nations . . . still struggling to befree” (Buckle, 1957).

In his private letters however, Buckle took a much more openlycritical position and is scathing about Nkrumah and the ConventionPeoples’ Party, before and after Ghana’s formal independence in1957. In one letter he wrote that

knowing Nkrumah very well I have always considered him to be not an in-telligent politician but one given to boastfulness, vanity and bombast. . . .Ghana is just one more example of what happens when demagogues with-out ideology exploit the nationalist sentiments of a politically immaturepeople. . . . You can therefore see what a gift Nkrumah is making to those


circles which still want to retain colonialism. (Egyptian Communists inExile papers, letter Buckle to Joyce Blau, September 16, 1957.)

In another letter dating from 1957, Buckle referred to the rivalrybetween British and U. S. imperialism in Ghana and Ghana’s linkswith Israel. At the time, the two countries had recently established ajoint shipping line and the Israeli army Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan,who was to play a key role in re-organizing Ghana’s armed forces,had just visited the country. Buckle believed that the United Statesmight be behind such moves, which among other things led to acooling of relations between Egypt’s leader Nasser and Nkrumah.Buckle speculated that

the British raised Nkrumah to his present position because they realized thatit was either him or someone else much less pliable. Now they are playing acat and mouse game with him over the question of industrialization whichinvolves the Volta River Project as the most essential feature. . . . The Ameri-cans have their own reasons for holding back, among which is the fact thatthey are not altogether sure that Nkrumah is not a British stooge. And theyhave no intention of strengthening British imperialism. (Egyptian Commu-nists in Exile papers, letter Buckle to Joyce Blau, November 2, 1957.)

Buckle’s private disquiet about developments in Ghana was at oddswith the uncritical support given to Nkrumah and his government bythe CPGB in the early 1960s, but unfortunately we do not know whetherBuckle raised this with the Party, or indeed what his attitude was to theopposition to such support openly expressed by some of the Party’sinternal critics such as Michael McCreery (McCreery, 1964).

Unfortunately, we also have no information on Buckle’s views onthe consequences of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Partyof the Soviet Union, or on the CPGB’s adoption of the British Road toSocialism. We know from his letters that he was happy to send copiesof the reports of the Twentieth Congress to Egyptian comrades with-out further comment (Egyptian Communists in Exile papers, letterBuckle to Soussou, July 19, 1956). In the absence of evidence to thecontrary, and since he remained within the CPGB, we can only con-clude that he remained a loyal Party member until his death. As wehave seen, Buckle was a committed internationalist and he was a regu-lar speaker at meetings and conferences throughout Europe. He wasone of the founders of the British Hungarian Friendship Society, a


member of the British Soviet and Czechoslovakian Societies, theBritish Yugoslav Society and the British Chinese Friendship League(Communist Party Archive). While he played a significant role on theinternational stage, both as an activist and as a journalist, and was amember of some of the highest bodies of the international peace andtrade union movements, he did not appear to occupy a similarlyprominent position within the CPGB itself; however, without furtherevidence firm conclusions can not be drawn from this apparent para-dox. In one of his letters he wrote of the Soviet intervention in Hun-gary that the “current tragic events in Hungary have affected myfinancial as well as other interests” and in another he had some criti-cisms to make of articles on “Middle Eastern questions” in the Sovietpress, but there is nothing to suggest that he was dissatisfied with hisrole within the CPGB, nor with developments within the internationalcommunist movement (Egyptian Communists in Exile papers, letterBuckle to Soussou, May 22, 1956).

While there is still much that is unknown about Desmond’sBuckle’s life, it is clear that he was an important and influential figurewithin the CPGB and its international work. His time in the CPGB showsthat the Party was indeed international in its composition and includedmembers from Britain’s colonies alongside those from the British Isles.It shows that even those from privileged backgrounds in the colonieswere often radicalized by their experiences in Britain and felt com-pelled to take up revolutionary politics. Most importantly, it shows thatsome individuals from the national minority communities in Britainplayed a full role in the political life of the country, and internation-ally, through their membership in the Communist Party.

Researching Buckle’s life demonstrates the importance of fur-ther research on the diversity of the CPGB’s membership, the diffi-culties faced by the CPGB in its “colonial” work, and the differencesthat often arose between the views of the CPGB leadership and theviews of its African and other “colonial” members. We can see someof the problems historians face when trying to piece together the lifeof a communist like Desmond Buckle. His published articles remain,and some of his views and activities can be gauged from the reports,letters and other sources, but much of his life remains difficult toreconstruct. Hopefully, further discoveries in archives in Britain, butalso in Africa, the United States and throughout Europe may well turn


up new information about this redoubtable “African communist”: adescription clung to by some of his Party contemporaries, who stillappeared to see Buckle — who lived all but the first ten years of hislife in Britain — as something of an outsider. Yet the contours of this“significant” life are now more clearly discernable — something whichalso reaffirms the importance of a historiography of the British Com-munist Party that acknowledges the wider reflective value of individualpolitical biography.

James Desmond Buckle died of stomach cancer at St. George’sHospital in London on Sunday, October 25, 1964. His ashes wereinterred at Highgate Cemetery.

School of ArtsMiddlesex UniversityLondon N17 8HRUnited [email protected]

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