Early years Thomas Bell was born in
Parkhead on the east end of
Glasgow,
Scotland, which was at that time still a semi-rural village. His father was a
stonemason who was frequently unemployed, while his mother came from a family of
coal miners and worked at home spinning cotton and
silk. Young Tom enrolled in school in the spring of 1889 and left in the spring of 1894, at the age of 11, going to work first as a milk delivery boy and then as an employee at a soft drink bottling plant to help support his impoverished family. While an employee at the bottling shop, Bell became interested in
atheism and labour politics. He read rationalist works by
Ernst Haeckel and
Thomas Huxley as well as works on
evolution by
Charles Darwin and gradually became acquainted with
socialist ideas. Together with two companions, Bell joined the
Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1900. The young "socialist idealist and enthusiast" Bell found the rather mild and ameliorative program of the ILP insufficient and in 1902 he began to attend economics classes conducted by the
Social Democratic Federation (SDF), headed by
Henry Hyndman, which introduced Bell to the literature of
Marxism. In February 1903, Bell left the ILP and enrolled as a member of the SDF. Some of the SDF classes which Bell attended were led by
George Yates, an engineer by trade who impressed the young Bell with his skill as an orator and knowledge of economics, history, and politics. In the spring of 1903, Bell would follow Yates and the group of
revolutionary socialist impossiblists around him out of the SDF and join in the foundation of the
Socialist Labour Party, a rival organization. Bell began a seven-year apprenticeship as an
iron moulder, but left after nine months to another foundry, where he exaggerated the duration of his previous experience and gained a job on somewhat more favourable terms. After two years there, he went to another foundry that made gas engines, completing his seven-year apprenticeship and joining the
Associated Ironmoulders of Scotland in August 1904. Committed to educating himself, he attended
Andersonian College and the
Academy of Literature, and soon lectured for the
Plebs' League.
Political career Bell joined the
Independent Labour Party in 1900, then moved in 1903 to the
Marxist Social Democratic Federation. However, within months, he joined with other dissident members to form the Glasgow Socialist Society, soon renamed the
Socialist Labour Party (SLP). He became a leading figure in the party, but was expelled in 1907 for arguing that the SLP should not favour the
Industrial Workers of the World. He was able to rejoin the following year, convincing the majority of the party to form the
Advocates of Industrial Unionism. Generally continuing to work in the metal trades, Bell briefly joined the
Singer Company to organise for the
Industrial Workers of Great Britain, but was sacked following the failure of a strike in 1911. In 1916, Bell was elected to the
Clyde Workers Committee, within which he promoted the SLP's policy of
industrial unionism. In 1917, he led a successful national strike of engineers and
foundry workers. Again prominent in 1919, he was elected President of the Associated Ironmoulders, Secretary of the SLP and editor of its newspaper,
The Socialist. He sat on a unity committee, intending to negotiate for a single
communist party with leaders of the
British Socialist Party,
Workers Socialist Federation and other socialist groups, but their proposals were repudiated by the SLP. Resigning as Secretary, he helped found the
Communist Unity Group, which became an original constituent of the
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Employed by the CPGB, he was initially National Organiser. He then attended the
Third World Congress of the
Communist International, visiting
Moscow for five months, despite the British Government denying him a
visa. He was elected as the CPGB's representative to the Comintern's
Executive Committee. He returned to Soviet Russia for the
4th World Congress, remaining in the city as a CPGB representative and reporter, until the end of 1922. Bell held various posts within the party, including the editorship of
Communist Review. In 1925, he was one of twelve CPGB leaders gaoled for
seditious libel and incitement to
mutiny, spending six months inside. The next few years were spent between Britain and Russia. In 1930, Bell became the Secretary of the
Friends of the Soviet Union, and in 1937 he wrote a history of the CPGB.
Death and legacy Tom Bell died 19 April 1944 aged 61. ==Footnotes==