Denis Nowell Pritt, QC (22 September 1887 – 23 May 1972) was a British

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

and left-wing Labour Party politician. Born in

Harlesden Harlesden is a district in the London Borough of Brent, north-west London. Located north of the Grand Union Canal and Wormwood Scrubs, the Harrow Road flows through the centre of the area which goes eastwards to Central London and west towar ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

, he was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

and the

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. A member of the Labour Party from 1918, he was a defender of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In 1932, as part of G. D. H. Cole's New Fabian Research Bureau's expert commission of enquiry, he visited the Soviet Union, and, according to Margaret Cole, "the eminent KC swallowed it ''all''". Pritt was expelled from the Labour Party in March 1940 following his support of the Soviet invasion of Finland. Pritt was characterised by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

as "perhaps the most effective pro-Soviet publicist in this country".

Early life

Pritt was born 22 September 1887 in London, the son of a metal merchant.Colin Holmes, "Denis Nowell Pritt", in A. Thomas Lane (ed.), ''Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders: Volume 2: M-Z.'' Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995; pp. 779-780. He was educated at

, which he left after four years so as to relocate to

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

in order to learn French, with a view to joining his father's company. Following his time in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, Pritt moved again to expand his linguistic knowledge, working in a bank in

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, and improving his Spanish. Pritt also added German to his repertoire of languages in subsequent years. Pritt was admitted to the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

on 1 May 1906 and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

on 17 November 1909. He continued to study law in 1909, obtaining a law degree from the

in 1910. He began his legal practice as a specialist in workmen's compensation cases. He married in July 1914, on the eve of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. During the war, he joined the postal censorship department in the British War Office. Following the war, Pritt returned to legal practice as a successful lawyer working in the field of

commercial law Commercial law (or business law), which is also known by other names such as mercantile law or trade law depending on jurisdiction; is the body of law that applies to the rights, relations, and conduct of Legal person, persons and organizations ...

Political career

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

in his earliest years, Pritt moved steadily leftward politically, joining the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

in 1914 and the Labour Party in 1918. Following a failed

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

campaign for Parliament as a Labour candidate in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

, Pritt was elected as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Hammersmith North in

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

. Pritt was made a member of the Labour Party's executive committee in 1936, remaining in that role for over a year. In 1936, he attended the first Moscow Show Trial, known as the Trial of the Sixteen. He wrote an account of this, ''The Zinoviev Trial'', which largely supported

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and his first purge of the Communist Party. In 1940, Pritt was expelled from the Labour Party for defending the Soviet invasion of Finland.David Caute ''The Fellow Travellers: Intellectual Friends of Communism'', New Haven, NJ & London: Yale University Press, 1988, p.236 His book ''Must the War Spread?'' sympathized with the Soviets and led him to be greatly disliked by the Labour Party elite during and after the war. After 1940, he sat as an Independent Labour member, and at the 1945 general election was re-elected in Hammersmith North under that label gaining a 63% share of the vote against official Labour and Conservative candidates. In 1949 he formed the Labour Independent Group with four other

fellow traveller A fellow traveller (also fellow traveler) is a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member. In the early history of the Sov ...

s, including John Platts-Mills and Konni Zilliacus, who had also been expelled from the Labour Party for pro-Soviet sympathies. At the general election of 1950, all the members of the Labour Independent Group lost their seats. By this time, Pritt's opposition to the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

and

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

had made him an "unpopular figure" in Britain. Pritt was awarded the 1954 International Stalin Peace Prize and in 1957 became an honorary citizen of

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, which was then in

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. East Germany also awarded him the Gold ''Stern der Völkerfreundschaft'' ( Star of People's Friendship) in October 1965.

Legal career

In 1931, Pritt represented three Indian revolutionaries, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru before the Privy Council, arguing that the ordinance which had been used to establish a special tribunal to try them for the crime of murdering a policeman was ''

ultra vires ('beyond the powers') is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act that requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is ('within the powers'). Acts that are may equivalently be termed ...

''. The appeal was rejected, and the three men were executed by

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

within a month of their trial on 23 March 1931. Pritt successfully defended

Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...

in 1931 against a French request for his extradition from

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. In 1933, Pritt was chairman of the "International Commission of Inquiry into the Clarification of the Reichstag Fire", the so-called "London Counter-Process" to the Leipzig Reichstag Fire Process. In 1942, he initially defended Gordon Cummins but, due to a technicality, the trial was abandoned and restarted with a new jury, and Pritt was replaced by another lawyer. Cummins, then a serving member of the

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, was known in the press as the ''Blackout Ripper'' and was accused of murdering four women, mutilating their bodies and attempting to murder two others. The defence was unsuccessful, a subsequent appeal was dismissed and Cummins was hanged in June 1942. Pritt's most high-profile case, which he lost, was defending the Kapenguria Six, a group of Kenyan political figures accused in 1952 of links with the Mau Mau: Jomo Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng Oneko. In this case, Pritt worked with a team of African, Indian and Afro-Caribbean lawyers including Achhroo Ram Kapila, H. O. Davies, Dudley Thompson and Fitz Remedios Santana de Souza. Pritt played a significant role in the

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

an "Fajar trial" in May 1954. He was the lead counsel of the University Socialist Club with the assistance of

Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (born Harry Lee Kuan Yew; 16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean politician who ruled as the first Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. He is widely recognised ...

as the junior counsel and helped the club to win the case eventually. From 1965 to 1966, he was Professor of Law at the

University of Ghana The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It is the oldest public university in the country. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the British colony of the Gold Coast ...

. Pritt was said to have encouraged Billy Strachan, a fellow communist activist and one of the pioneers of black civil rights in Britain, to study law. Strachan then went onto be elected the President of Inner London Justices' Clerks' Society, and became an expert in laws regarding adoption, marriage, and drink driving.

Death and legacy

Pritt died in 1972 at his home in Pamber Heath,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. Denis Pritt Road in

Nairobi Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...

, Kenya is named after him. Pritt is one of those on Orwell's list, a list prepared by

for the

Information Research Department The Information Research Department (IRD) was a secret Cold War propaganda department of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Foreign Office, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda, provide support and i ...

in 1949, after the start of the

. The list was officially published in 2003, but had circulated before then. It listed notable writers and others whom Orwell considered to be sympathetic to the Soviet Union. In the document, Orwell noted that Pritt was "almost certainly underground Communist", but also a "Good MP (i.e. locally). Very able and courageous"."Big Brother with a High Moral Sense" by Geoffrey Wheatcroft. ''The Independent'', 28 June 1998]

Bibliography

To read online copies se
Internet Archive
*''Light on Moscow'' (1939) *''Must the War Spread?'' (1940) *''Federal Illusion'' (1940) *''Choose your Future'' (1940) *''The Fall of the French Republic'' (1940) *''USSR Our Ally'' (1941) *''India Our Ally?'' (1946) *''Revolt in Europe'' (1947) *''A New World Grows'' (1947) *''Star-Spangled Shadow'' (1947) *''The State Department and the Cold War'' (1948) *''Spies and Informers in the Witness-box'' (1958) *''Liberty in Chains'' (1962) *''The Labour Government, 1945–1951'' (1963) *''Neo-Nazis, the Danger of War'' (1966) *Autobiography **''From Right to Left'' (1965) **''Brasshats and Bureaucrats'' (1966) **''The Defence Accuses'' (1966) * ''Law, Class and Society'' (in four books) ** ''Employers, Workers and Trade Unions'' (1970) ** ''The Apparatus of Law'' (1971) ** ''Law and Politics and Law in the Colonies'' (1971) ** ''The Substance of Law'' (1972)

Footnotes

External links

*
Catalogue of the Pritt papers held at LSE Archives
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pritt, Denis 1887 births 1972 deaths Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Fabian Society People educated at Winchester College People from Harlesden Stalin Peace Prize recipients UK MPs 1935–1945 UK MPs 1945–1950 English barristers Conservative Party (UK) politicians Liberal Party (UK) politicians English King's Counsel Far-left politicians in the United Kingdom