C. A. Smith

{{Short description|English politician (1895 – 1984)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}

{{Distinguish|Clark Ashton Smith}}{{Other people5|Charles Smith (disambiguation){{!}}Charles Smith}}

Charles Andrew Smith MM (1895Class: RG14; Piece: 29617 1911 Census – 1984{{cite news |author= |title=Obituary: Dr. Charles Smith |url= |work=Daily Telegraph |location=London |date=1984-12-18 |access-date=}}) known as C. A. Smith, was an English politician who held prominent positions in several minor parties.

Born in Bishop Auckland, Smith studied at the University of Durham and the University of London,The Labour Who's Who 1927, p.201 then trained as a school teacher, and later worked as a tutor for the Workers' Educational Association. During World War I, he served in The Royal Army Medical Corps as a Stretcher Bearer and received the Military Medal. During World War II Smith taught history at Huntingdon Grammar School.{{cite journal |last=Shipley |first=Stan|date=Spring 1998 |title=Local Libraries |jstor=4289562 |journal=History Workshop Journal|issue=45 |pages=261–264}}

Smith was a Labour Party and Independent Labour Party (ILP) parliamentary candidate for Dulwich in 1924 and 1929 and in New Forest and Christchurch in 1932.

In 1933, he attended a conference of left socialists, organised by the ILP. Following its conclusion, Smith and John Paton travelled to meet Trotsky.{{cite book |last1=Upham |first1=Martin |title=The History of British Trotskyism to 1949 |date=1980 |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/upham/03upham.html |accessdate=29 September 2019 |chapter=The British Section of the Left Opposition (November 1931–December 1933)}} After this meeting, he argued broadly in favour of the Fourth International until at least 1935.{{cite book |last1=Upham |first1=Martin |title=The History of British Trotskyism to 1949 |date=1980 |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/upham/04upham.html |accessdate=29 September 2019 |chapter=The Marxist Group in the ILP (1933–1936).}}

In 1939, he succeeded James Maxton as Chairman of the ILP. World War II began the same year, and the ILP opposed it, but in 1941 Smith surprised the party by announcing that he supported the prosecution of the war. As such, he resigned both from the ILP and his role as chair. Shortly afterwards, he joined the Common Wealth Party as its Research Officer, and in 1944 he succeeded Kim Mackay as the party chairman.{{cite conference |last1=Gildart |first1=Keith |title=An Australian socialist in England: Kim Mackay, the British Left, and European federalism, 1934-60 |url=http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/asslh/gildart.html |location=University of Sydney |conference=The Past is Before Us |accessdate=29 September 2019 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061020030459/http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/asslh/gildart.html |archivedate=20 October 2006 |date=30 June – 2 July 2005}} With the onset of the Cold War, Smith became increasingly anti-communist, and increasingly a proponent of Zionism.{{cite book |last1=Meltzer |first1=Albert |authorlink1=Albert Meltzer |title=I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels: Sixty Years of Commonplace Life and Anarchist Agitation |date=1996 |publisher=AK Press |isbn=9781873176931 |url=http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/meltzer/sp001591/angels3.html |accessdate=29 September 2019 |chapter=Off to Work; The Guy They All Dread; Early Days; Ebbtide; Attempts on Dictators; Around the Left}} Unable to gain support in Common Wealth for his ideas, he left in 1948.

Smith began working with a range of anti-communists, including Jack Tanner of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Duchess of Atholl (founder of the British League for European Freedom) and Conservative Party MP Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, founding Common Cause in 1951, which aimed to combat communism in the trade unions.{{cite book |last1=Jenks |first1=John |title=British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War |date=2006 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=0-7486-2314-0 |page=108 |url={{Google Books URL|_c-qBgAAQBAJ}} |jstor=10.3366/j.ctt1r23h1 |accessdate=29 September 2019}} He soon became its general secretary, but the group dissolved itself into Industrial Research and Information Services in 1956.{{cite book |last1=Wilford |first1=Hugh |title='The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |pages=69–70 |isbn=0-7146-5435-3 |url={{Google Books URL|Tc-1AQAAQBAJ}} |doi=10.4324/9781315039398 |accessdate=29 September 2019}}