ABSTRACT
The British Socialist Party (BSP), Marxist like German Social Democracy but much smaller and much less effective – only about 20,000 members and no parliamentary representation – also saw its unity destroyed by the dispute over wartime policy. Henry M. Hyndman, the most prominent leader of first the Social Democratic Federation/ Social Democratic Party and, after 1911, the BSP, was a 'Social Patriot' long before 1914. During the last pre-war weeks the BSP, like other British socialist and labour organizations and the continental parties of the Second International, conducted an energetic campaign against war. The decision to hold separate simultaneous divisional conferences – in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds and Bristol – was taken because the convening of a national conference in wartime conditions appeared too difficult. Socialists all over the world welcomed the Russian revolution of March 1917, the 'February Revolution' which ended tsarist rule and gave power to a liberal-democratic 'provisional government'.
