Hans Neumann (a.k.a. Hans Newman) (18??–1919(?)) was a founding member of the

Socialist Party of Great Britain The Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) is a small socialist political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1904 as a split from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), it advocates using the ballot box for revolutionary purposes and ...

. Neumann had previously been very active in the

Social Democratic Federation The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, James ...

, being a public speaker for that party and secretary of its Chelsea &

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...

branch in 1897. Neumann was a well-known early

Impossibilist Impossibilism is a Marxist theory that stresses the limited value of political, economic, and social reforms under capitalism. As a doctrine, impossibilism views the pursuit of such reforms as counterproductive to the goal of achieving socialism a ...

, being a victim of the expulsions of April 1904 which led to the foundation of the

in June. A notable indoor and outdoor speaker for the SPGB (billed as Newman), he was also an enthusiastic writer for the '' Socialist Standard'', translated foreign-language articles (including the pamphlets based on Kautsky’s ''

The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) ''The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program)'' () is an 1892 book-length work by Karl Kautsky. It was first published in Stuttgart and was the official commentary of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) on their brief 1891 Erfurt Program (by ...

'') and was the author of the Party song (“The World for the Workers”). From 1904 to 1909 he was on the Executive Committee and from 1909 to 1911 was Treasurer. Herbert Morrison described his encounters with Neumann in his 1960 autobiography as follows:

Neumann often spoke at one corner of the small Kennington Triangle while I spoke at another. Often our addresses degenerated into slanging matches which did have the advantage of attracting small crowds which might otherwise have passed by. Neumann was not loath to pour contempt on the views of people like me with all the fervour at his command. The more excited he got the stronger became his German accent. His final words were always the same, the clarion call from the ''
Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'' (), originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (), is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848. The t ...
'' of 1848: “Vurkers of the Vurld, unide! You haff a vurld to vin, and only your shains to loose!”

Neumann resigned on 12 September 1911. Along with Henry Martin, he had been a member of the Provisional Committee of 1911 which opposed notional Socialist MPs ever voting for reforms (the ‘ WB of Upton Park affair’) and probably resigned on that issue. He was

interned Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...

because of his

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

origin during 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 ...

where he met Rudolf Frank, co-founder of the '' Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten'', the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n counterpart to the SPGB. He was presumably repatriated to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

at the end of the war and is reputed to have died in the

Spartacist uprising The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising () or, more rarely, Bloody Week, was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German Revolution of 1918� ...

of January 1919.

References

* Lord Morrison of Lambeth, Herbert Morrison. ''An Autobiography'', 1960. *

1904–1913 membership register *''

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Neumann, Hans 1919 deaths English people of German descent Social Democratic Federation members Socialist Party of Great Britain members Year of birth missing