Konni Zilliacus

Konni Zilliacus (13 September 1894 – 6 July 1967) was a left-wing Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. Of Finnish and American parentage, he spoke nine languages fluently; international issues were to absorb much of his energy, both as an official of the League of Nations between the wars, and as a Labour member of the House of Commons in the post-War period. Zilliacus's extensive contacts with figures in Eastern Europe during the Cold War era, together with his frequent support for positions promoted by the Soviet Union, periodically brought him into conflict with the Labour Party leadership and in 1949 led to his expulsion from the party. In 1950 he lost his seat in parliament, was re-admitted by Labour in 1952, and returned to the Commons in 1955. He was widely regarded as, at least, a fellow traveller. He was, however, a self-proclaimed anti-Communist who never belonged to the Communist Party, and who occasionally adopted positions opposed to Moscow's line, for example during Stalin's conflict with Tito.

Zilliacus was born in Kobe, Japan, the son of exiled Finnish-nationalist Konrad Viktor (Konni) Zilliacus (1855–1924) and American-born Lilian McLaurin Grafe (1873–1938). He travelled the world with his parents until 1909, when they settled in England. Zilliacus then attended Bedales School in Hampshire, where he became friends with Josiah Clement Wedgwood's sons. He went on to Yale University in the USA, graduating first in his class in 1915.

During World War I, he applied to the British Royal Flying Corps but was denied for physical reasons. Instead, he found work as an orderly for a French medical unit near the front lines. Soon invalided out of the medical corps with diphtheria, Zilliacus returned to Britain and joined the Union of Democratic Control and worked for the Liberal Party MPs Noel Buxton and Norman Angell. He travelled with Wedgwood to Russia, where he developed a sympathy for the October Revolution, and leaked details of Britain's counter-revolutionary activities to the press. In 1919, newly married to Eugenia Nowicka and with his daughter Stella Zilliacus just born, he joined the British Labour Party.

Being multilingual, he found work as the British envoy to the League of Nations alongside Philip Noel-Baker. In 1931 during the Manchurian Crisis he wrote speeches for the League's committee for Cooperation with China along with Alfred Sze, Koo, and Quo Tai-Chi. He was Geneva's official interpreter for visiting Russians. Writing as "C. Howard-Ellis", he wrote the text book for the League: Origins, Structure, and Working of the League of Nations.

Zilliacus maintained secret correspondence with C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, which in 1935 helped generate popular support within Britain for sanctions against Italy should it attempt to conquer Ethiopia, an invasion which was in fact launched later that year. He wrote many articles and letters on international affairs on a pro bono basis, usually under pen names such as Vigilantes.

Zilliacus was a firm believer in the power of multinational organizations to prevent war, but he could not lead British foreign policy to work through the League. He worked diligently for the League of Nations until the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, when he resigned from the Secretariat of the League of Nations.

In World War II, Zilliacus worked for the Ministry of Information and joined the 1941 Committee. He was elected as MP for Gateshead in 1945 and became known as a left-wing critic of government foreign policy.

International policy

Zilliacus was frequently accused of being a communist because he was sympathetic to Soviet policies and frequently contributed articles to liberal British publications, but he was not affiliated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1949, he voted against joining NATO and remained an open critic of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and his anti-Soviet policies. In 1949, he was expelled from the party, along with Leslie Solley. To compensate, he helped found the Labour Independent Group, although he would later leave the group when it supported Joseph Stalin over Josip Broz Tito. He sought re-election in the 1950 general election, but he lost his seat to Labour Party candidate Arthur Moody. Zilliacus was also sympathetic to Communist Yugoslavia. During the show-trial of Rudolf Slánský in Czechoslovakia in 1952, Slánský claimed he had given information to Zilliacus while "planning the restoration of capitalism in Czechoslovakia"; Zilliacus dismissed the accusation as "quite fantastic".

Return to parliament

In 1952, he was readmitted to the Labour Party, and he took Manchester Gorton district in the 1955 general election. He held the seat until his death, on 6 July 1967. He became a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and in 1961 was suspended from the party for several months for writing an article for a Czech magazine. Zilliacus was a prominent pacifist, pushing for less spending on arms and nuclear testing during the 1950s and opposing the Vietnam War during the 1960s. He died of leukaemia, aged 72. According to one historian, Zilliacus died "an unrepentant admirer of both Harold Wilson and N. S. Khrushchev".

Zilliacus wrote under several pseudonyms, as given here.

• Williams, Roth (1923). The League of Nations Today. London: George Allen & Unwin. 
• Williams, Roth (1924). The Technique of the League of Nations. League of Nations Union. 
• Williams, Roth (1925). The League, the Protocol, And The Empire. London: George Allen & Unwin. 
• C. Howard-Ellis (1928). The Origin Structure & Working of the League of Nations. London: George Allen & Unwin. 
• Vigilantes (1933). The Dying Peace. London: New Statesman. 
• Vigilantes (1935). Inquest on Peace: An Analysis of the National Government's Foreign Policy. Gollancz. 
• Vigilantes (1935). Abyssinia: The Essential Facts In The Dispute and An Answer To the Question -"Ought We To Support Sanctions?". London: New Statesman and Nation. 
• Covenanter (1936). Labour and war resistance. Fabian Research Series. London: Gollancz. 
• Vigilantes (1938). Why the League Has Failed. Left Book Club. London: Victor Gollancz. 
• Diplomaticus (1938). The Czechs and their Minorities. London: T. Butterworth. 
• Vigilantes (1939). Between Two Wars? The Lessons of the Last World War in Relation to The Preparations for The Next. London: Penguin. 
• Vigilantes (1939). Why We Are Losing the Peace: The National Governments Foreign Policy its Causes Consequences and Cure. London: Victor Gollancz\. 
• K. Zilliacus ("Vigilantes") (1944). The Mirror of the Past - Lest it Reflect the Future. Left Book Club. Victor Gollancz. 
• Diplomaticus (K. Zilliacus) (1945). Can the Tories Win the Peace? And How They Lost the Last One. London: Victor Gollancz. 
• Zulliacus, Konni (1946). Britain, U.S.S.R. and World Peace. London: British-Soviet Society. 
• K. Zilliacus (1947). Mirror of the present : the way the world is going. London: Meridian Books. 
• Zilliacus, K. (1949). I Choose Peace. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 
• K. Zilliacus (1949). Dragon's teeth : the background, contents and consequences of the North Atlantic Pact. London. 
• Zilliacus, Konni (1949). Why I was expelled. London: Collets. 
• K. Zilliacus (1952). Tito of Yugoslavia. London: Mchael Joseph. 
• Zilliacus, Konni (1955). Four Power Talks: For Peace or War?. London: Union of Democratic Control. 
• K.Zillliacus (1957). A New Birth of Freedom? World Communism after Stalin. London: Secker & Warburg. 
• Konni Zilliacus (1960). aNATOmy of a Sacred Cow. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. 
• Zilliacus, Konni (1963). Our Lives and Cuba: What Britain must do to Survive. London: Gladiator. 
• K. Ziliacus (1966). Labour's crisis : its nature, cause and cure.