Through Bolshevik Revolution

The Viscountess Ethel Snowden (1881-1951), wife of Labour Party politician Viscount Philip Snowden, was a British socialist, human rights activist, and feminist politician. She was a leading campaigner for women’s suffrage before World War I and helped to found The Women’s Peace Crusade to oppose the war and call for a negotiated peace. At the end of the war, she was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, which leads her travels in Russia in early 1920, where she was sent to conduct an impartial inquiry into the Bolshevik Revolution. Her findings were presented in a book, “Through Bolshevik Russia.” Although she generally liked Lenin, whom she interviewed while in Russia, she was critical of Bolshevism. She had told a reporter for the “Evening Standard” upon her return that "I oppose Bolshevism because it is not Socialism, it is not democracy and it is not Christianity", and likened working conditions to slavery. Her denunciations of the Soviets made her unpopular and she was soon voted off the National Executive Committee, in 1922. However, she remained active in politics due to her husband’s service in Parliament.