Benny Rothman and the (Jewish) Myth of ‘The Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout’
I've made more than a few comments on the Socialist History Society's newsletters over the past few years, but what has never ceased to amaze me about the newsletter - as well as their academic journal 'Socialist History' - is the amount of jews who get mentioned.
The newsletter for March 2012 is no exception to the rule with a front-page article on 'The Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout', which at first seems relatively innocuous in that it tells the almost entirely fictional story of how left-wing activists 'changed the law' on property and the ability of walkers to 'ramble'. (1)
Rambling to those unfamiliar with the term is a form of cross-country hiking that is fairly unique to the British Isles and involves going off the beaten track of footpaths and bridleways in the countryside.
In this particular story – as told by Mike Squires - the 'ramblers' of a sort decided to challenge the existing law on rights of way in regard to privately-owned land that was not fenced off or under cultivation (i.e., mapped access land): they made their way up to Kinder Scout which is a hilltop in the Peak District (which was privately owned at the time). They predictably got in a fight with the gamekeepers on the land: one of whom was injured by a slightly boozed up Bolshevik.
Where this all gets more relevant and interesting for our purposes is when we realise that the man who organised the so-called 'Mass Trespass' was two principal things: a jew and a communist.
That man was Benny Rothman - a jew from Romania - who was an open member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and very active in its subversive activities in the trade unions as well as in the then newly-formed communist front called the 'British Workers' Sports Federation'.
Rothman was - in this more politically sane era - gaoled for four months for his premeditated political stunt and particularly so as he had led his red ramblers up to Kinder Scout allegedly singing - we have only Rothman’s claims they did so - the 'Internationale' and the 'Red Flag': the musical favourites of every budding communist windbag. Squires predictably tries to imply that it was a bourgeois conspiracy against Rothman, but this is just so much nonsense as all it boils down to is that Rothman broke the law and was treated - as a political subversive - very leniently by the judge.
After his release Rothman continued to be a communist and was so for the remember of his life. He is just another example of the remarkably jewish construction of the Communist Party of Great Britain and also the enduring fascinating with jews that Marxists of all stripes seem to have.
But this version of the story – as told by Squires – is (as I’ve already implied) largely a pack of old communist codswallop deriving purely from Rothman’s own retelling of the events some thirty to forty years after the fact.
This account was well summarized by David Taft in 2012 as follows:
‘The very idea of trespass, and the implied concept of ownership, goes to the heart of all class struggle, and there is still much we can learn from the 1932 action – not least because it was spectacularly effective. On the 75th anniversary Roy (Lord) Hattersley described it as ‘the most successful act of direct action in British history’. It is widely seen as having given a crucial impetus to the creation of the national parks and still acts as a rallying point for the whole right to roam movement, a point made repeatedly during the week of celebrations held around Edale and Hayfield, which were poignantly attended by the only two surviving members of the trespass.
The mass trespass was part of a long campaign to gain access to open moorland appropriated by the landed gentry during the enclosures. The main target for generations of campaigners was Kinder Scout, the dark, brooding plateau of rugged moorland lying between the industrial conurbations of Manchester and Sheffield. It was this proximity to large populations of young and politically aware factory workers that made Kinder the symbolic battleground for the struggle between the feudal landed gentry and a militant working class, a struggle that began in earnest in the late 19th century and continues to this day.
There were some minor scuffles with hired ‘gamekeepers’, but most of the hikers reached the top and briefly met with their Sheffield comrades, before heading back into Hayfield and the waiting police, who made five arrests (a sixth was arrested in a separate incident). Benny Rothman said that all five were ‘Jewish or Jewish looking people’, and he certainly believed that this was deliberately racist behaviour by police.’
‘So why was it so successful? First, it was well planned, with a careful eye on positive publicity – the protesters even had a Guardian special reporter ‘embedded’ with them on the trespass – and they were able to gain public sympathy by panicking the authorities and provoking them into a wholly disproportionate response. The prison sentences created instant martyrs to the cause and the heavy-handed, patently unjust reaction exposed the nature of the rich and powerful feudal landowners to a wide urban audience.’ (2)
The ‘Kinder Trespass’ site makes similar claims regarding the arrested young communists:
‘All six subsequently pleaded not guilty and were remanded to be tried at Derby Assizes – 60 miles from the ramblers’ homes – in July 1932. Five of the six were found guilty and were jailed for between two and six months.
The arrest and subsequent imprisonment of the trespassers unleashed a huge wave of public sympathy, and ironically united the rambler’s cause.’ (3)
This version of events is – to be frank – extremely dishonest since the ‘Mass Trespass’ was always envisioned as a pro-communist political stunt not as a ramble (4) and as Stephenson points out contributed nothing to the access movement. (5)
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Let’s begin at the beginning by debunking various myths to do with the ‘Mass Trespass’ of 1932 by noting that ramblers in the mid-to-late Victorian period were a common site and weren’t hindered from accessing Kinder Scout at all. (6)
In 1877 however one of the paths to Kinder Scout was illegally closed by the landowner although it received subsequent legal approval in 1881. (7) Then in August 1894 a concerted campaign began to formally open Kinder Scout and the surrounding moorland to ramblers led by W. H. Chadwick of Gorton. (8) Said campaigners met with the Duke of Devonshire and successfully negotiated access with him (9) and the Kinder Scout path was formally re-opened on 29th May 1897. (10)
Further working-class British ramblers from Manchester and the Midlands were accessing Kinder Scout and the Peak District largely unhindered from 1900 to 1913. (11)
There were however still closed paths to them and there was a significant and growing movement pushing for the right of public access to illegally closed ancient byways and highways with the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers – followers of popular writer and orator as well as proto-National Socialist Robert ‘Bob’ Blatchford – holding their first organized mass trespass in 1907 as an overnight walk over the moor at Snake Pass, north of Kinder Scout (12) and subsequently they put their case to the Duke of Norfolk - the landowner – in person. (13)
Then from 1926 every year till 1939 – the outbreak of Second World War – there was an access rally held in Winnats Pass near the village of Castleton held by the Manchester and Sheffield Ramblers’ Federations to promote the Access Bills in Parliament. (14) The Ramblers Federations pushed not only for ancient rights and byways but free reign to ramble at will over the uncultivated rural terrain. (15)
Further we can note that the myth of Rothman’s communist ‘Mass Trespass’ being needed is decisively dealt with by simply noting that in 1928-1929 the leading socialist rambler Bert Ward of the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers wrote in his handbook for the club that ramblers were then often traversing Kinder Scout. (16)
Indeed, just before the ‘Mass Trespass’ of 1932 Ward wrote that Kinder Scout – the supposed object of Rothman’s ‘Mass Trespass’ - was ‘overrun with ramblers of all types.’ (17)
For example, on 22nd November 1931; 600 to 1,000 ramblers from Manchester were on and around Kinder Scout looking for a missing 17-year-old boy who had gone missing rambling there. (18) One of these many ramblers was actually the young historian A. J. P. Taylor. (19)
In addition to this another route to Snake Pass had just been opened and repaired by the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers in 1927. (20) So successful was the social and legal activism from the Ramblers Associations that when in 1927 the Duke of Rutland was forced to sell his 747-acre shooting park at Longshaw to pay death duties; a committee was immediately formed to buy it and hand it over to the National Trust who own it to this day. (21) The committee included Sheffield-based industrialists and members of the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers. (22) This was achieved in 1933 after the funds had been all but raised by 1928. (23)
We can see from the foregoing discussion that the access movement had been in existence for over four decades by the time of ‘Mass Trespass’ in 1932 and had scored multiple major victories both by negotiation and organized mass trespasses.
Then all of a sudden, a communist jew from Romania named Benny Rothman – who I’ve already somewhat introduced – bursts onto the scene and created a group called ‘The British Workers’ Sports Federation’ in 1931 (24) which was an overtly communist organisation under the aegis of the British Communist Party. (25)
Indeed, despite later communist attempts to claim that Rothman was a ‘keen rambler’ (26) the truth is that Rothman and ‘The British Workers’ Sports Federation’ had no previous interest in rambling before or after the ‘Mass Trespass’ of 1932. (27)
Indeed, Rothman actually admitted this later since as Hey writes:
‘By his own admission, Benny Rothman knew nothing about the history of the access movement, and he acknowledged later that it had been a mistake to antagonize the main body of ramblers, who should have been useful allies rather than opponents. In his own words, “We were newcomers to rambling.”’ (28)
Earlier describing the same situation Stephenson writes similarly that:
‘The demonstration was organised by an ephemeral body, the British Workers’ Sports Federation (BWSF), an appendage of the Communist Party; by men not known to have evinced any previous interest in the access problem, and who did not, in fact, play any part in the subsequent campaign.’ (29)
Stephenson’s last words are telling in the fact that the ‘Mass Trespass’ was – already stated – a political stunt to generate support and publicity for the British Communist Party and nothing to do with rambling and the access movement. (30) It was organized by people with little interest in rambling – including Rothman – and evaporated just as fast.
Indeed the ‘Mass Trespass’ itself was an utter debacle – despite later attempts by Marxist historians to whitewash it – (31) which began with Rothman’s unsuccessful attempts to organize mass trespasses during Easter 1932 at High Peak where his supporters were unceremoniously booted off the land by local gamekeepers. (32) This then triggered his renewed attempt at a ‘Mass Trespass’ at a new target a few weeks later and that target was Kinder Scout. (33)
As an aside it is worth remembering that at this point – as already described – Kinder Scout was regularly being tramped by ramblers and there was simply no need for the ‘Mass Trespass’ in the first place and to cover this up Marxists created what is the called ‘the legend of the Mass Trespass of 1932’ which claims that ‘the early rambling clubs consisted of middle-aged, middle-class, easily cowed people who achieved nothing.’ (34)
This as we’ve seen is not only untrue but a complete inversion of reality in that many of the ramblers were white working-class Britons and had by 1932 achieved a great deal and far more than Rothman or the short-lived ‘The British Workers’ Sports Federation’ would ever achieve.
Now as previously mentioned Rothman’s ‘Mass Trespass’ was always envisioned and advertised as a political stunt which is evident when we acknowledge that his ‘Mass Trespass’ was not event a ramble and covered a mere six miles. (35)
The political nature of the ‘Mass Trespass’ is also easily demonstrated that this was the first and last attempt by most – if not all – of the participants to engage in a ‘ramble’ (36) and a correspondent for the socialist newspaper the ‘Manchester Guardian’ (now better known as ‘The Guardian’) was imbedded with the trespassers. (37)
Rothman did this to ensure that when he inevitably got stopped by gamekeepers that he would get maximum publicity for whatever happened, which proved to be an accurate prediction.
Indeed, he later claimed that 600-800 attended, the embedded ‘Manchester Guardian’ correspondent estimated it at 400-500 while others who attended thought it was lower. (38) The true number of attendees – based on the later trial – was more likely the 100-200 range rather than extremely overoptimistic and propagandistic estimates from Rothman and the ‘Manchester Guardian’s’ correspondent. (39)
The problems during the extremely limited ‘ramble’ organized by Rothman were significant since Rothman didn’t know the land he was walking through – (40) and he also spent a significant amount of the time of the ‘ramble’ giving pro-communist political speeches and not rambling. (41)
The attendees at Rothman’s ‘Mass Trespass’ were soon confronted by eight gamekeepers who blocked their way and offered little actual resistance although one gamekeeper was injured by a member of Rothman’s group. (42) The police – who were in attendance – then intervened and escorted the ‘Mass Trespass’ off the moor through the village of Hayfield where the locals flocked outside to watch the group after they’d been escorted off the moor by police in the hope of watching the police triumph over the communists (and give them a good thrashing). (43)
Marxist hagiographers of the ‘Mass Trespass’ have long spat venom at the residents of Hayfield because of their support for the police and opposition to Rothman’s communists and have tried to characterise Hayfield as a middle-class agricultural village rather than the poor industrial village that it actually was. (44)
The truth is the residents of Hayfield were the very people the communists were supposedly fighting for, but they hated the ‘rowdy’ (and as we shall see likely heavily jewish) communists from Manchester and wanted to ensure the police gave them their ‘come-uppance’. (45)
With this Rothman’s so-called ‘Mass Trespass’ came to an ignominious end since as Stephenson writes:
‘The truth is that there was never a mass trespass. No-one reached the summit of Kinder Scout, and the so-called victory meeting was held on a public path at Ashop Head.’ (46)
However, the fallout was yet to be concluded since as you may remember from David Taft’s pro-communist retelling of the ‘Mass Trespass’ narrative; six attendees (including Benny Rothman) were arrested by the police.
Taft complains – uncritically citing Rothman – that:
‘That all five were ‘Jewish or Jewish looking people’, and he certainly believed that this was deliberately racist behaviour by police.’ (47)
Rothman and Taft would you believe that the six (it was six not five) arrested were merely styled as ‘jewish’ because the local police were ‘racist’ towards jews (read: anti-Semitic) but the problem for Rothman and Taft is that we know the names of those who were arrested.
They were: (48)
John Anderson
Jud Clynes
Tony Gillett
Harry Mendel
David Nassbaum
Benny Rothman
Now clearly based on surname alone we know that Harry Mendel, David Nassbaum and Benny Rothman were jewish. This is supported by the fact that the judge in their case noted as much as an aside. (49)
Based on the fact that half of those arrested at the ‘Mass Trespass’ of 1932 were jewish we may reasonably suppose that half of the 100-200 attendees were jewish or at least a quarter of said attendees (to be generous) unless we are to suppose that the police just happened to arrest ‘jewish looking’ attendees which we have no basis for suggesting whatsoever other than Rothman’s later attempt to claim the police were ‘racist’ (and thus ‘anti-Semitic’) against jews during the ‘Mass Trespass’.
This can also be said to further illustrate the significantly jewish nature of communism in Great Britain and the world in the 1920s and 1930s and be further evidence for the ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ thesis.
Of the others we know only that Tony Gillett was a university student from a wealthy Manchester banking family who subsequently refused to apologise for his part in then ‘Mass Trespass’ and resultant public disorder. (50)
Further we know that it was John Anderson who injured the gamekeeper since he was sentenced to six months in prison, Rothman to four months and others received lesser sentences. (51)
The wisdom of Rothman’s inclusion of the ‘Manchester Guardian’s’ correspondent in his ‘Mass Trespass’ now showed itself as that newspaper then proceeded to lead a successful campaign to promote attacks on the sentences as ‘unduly harsh’. (52)
Then just like the ‘Mass Trespass’ was over having achieved absolutely nothing. (53)
To give the last word it is apt to quote Philip Daley (later a leading figure of the Ramblers’ Association) regarding the alleged ‘importance’ of Rothman’s ‘Mass Trespass’ of 1932:
‘Such access as we have gained howes nothing whatsoever to the mass trespass organised by the British Workers’ Federation, and I can say quite categorically and without fear of contradiction, that the “mass trespass” was a positive hinderance and deterrent to the discussion and negotiation to secure the freedom of the hills.’ (54)
References
(1) Mike Squires, 2012, 'The Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout', Socialist History Society Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 1 (New Series), pp. 1-3
(2) https://web.archive.org/web/20171206151708/http://www.redpepper.org.uk/occupy-kinder-scout-remembering-the-mass-trespass/
(3) http://kindertrespass.org.uk/kinder-mass-trespass-history/#description-of-trespass
(4) David Hey, 2011, ‘Kinder Scout and the Legend of the Mass Trespass’, Agricultural History Review, Vol. 59, No. 2, p. 209
(5) Tom Stephenson, 1989, ‘Forbidden Land: The Struggle for Access to Mountain and Moorland’, 1st Edition, Manchester University Press: Manchester, p. 153
(6) Hey, Op. Cit., pp. 200-201
(7) Ibid., p. 201
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid., p. 202
(11) Ibid., pp. 202-204
(12) Ibid., p. 205
(13) Ibid.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Ibid., p. 206
(17) Ibid.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Ibid., p. 207
(20) Ibid.
(21) Ibid.
(22) Ibid.
(23) Ibid.
(24) https://web.archive.org/web/20041020002459/http://www.wcml.org.uk/people/benny_r_intro.htm
(25) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 209
(26) https://web.archive.org/web/20041020002459/http://www.wcml.org.uk/people/benny_r_intro.htm
(27) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 209
(28) Ibid.
(29) Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 154
(30) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 209
(31) For example: Squires, Op. Cit., pp. 1-3
(32) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 208
(33) Ibid., pp. 208-209
(34) Ibid., p. 208
(35) Ibid., p. 209
(36) Ibid., p. 213
(37) https://web.archive.org/web/20171206151708/http://www.redpepper.org.uk/occupy-kinder-scout-remembering-the-mass-trespass/
(38) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 210
(39) Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 155
(40) Ibid., p. 157
(41) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 210
(42) Ibid., p. 211
(43) Ibid.
(44) Ibid., pp. 211-212
(45) Ibid.
(46) Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 153
(47) https://web.archive.org/web/20171206151708/http://www.redpepper.org.uk/occupy-kinder-scout-remembering-the-mass-trespass/
(48) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 212; Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 159
(49) Hey, Op. Cit., p. 212
(50) Ibid.
(51) Ibid.
(52) Ibid.
(53) Ibid., pp. 212-213
(54) Stephenson, Op. Cit., p. 163