Wally Tapsell
Open-knowledge reference entry
Walter Thomas Leo Tapsell (19 August 1904 – 31 March 1938) was a British communist activist, known as a leading figure in the British Battalion during the Spanish Civil War.
Early life and activism
Born in the East End of London, Tapsell joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) at the age of sixteen, and also became prominent in the Young Communist League (YCL). He studied at the Lenin School in Moscow, taking his wife Esther, and co-ordinated the passing of documents between Moscow and the CPGB.
At the 1929 general election, Tapsell stood against future Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister Clement Attlee in Limehouse. However, he took only 245 votes, and was not elected. When the result was announced, he gave a speech complaining about the system of deposits, which, he claimed, made it difficult for representatives of the working class to stand.
By 1929, Tapsell was the secretary of the YCL, and he had been noticed by the international Comintern leadership as a promising talent, alongside William Rust, Robin Page Arnot and Robbie Robson, and the group enthusiastically embraced the new "Class Against Class" line. However, each member of the group was associated with a failed project; in Tapsell's case, it was that he had performed poorly when organising the party's support of textile workers locked out in West Yorkshire in 1930.
Tapsell was declared bankrupt in 1934, at which time he described his trades as "journalist", probably due to his role as circulation manager of the Daily Worker newspaper. In his spare time, Tapsell was also a keen jazz drummer, and was interested in sports, sitting on the National Committee of the British Workers' Sports Federation.
Spanish Civil War
Tapsell volunteered to serve in the Spanish Civil War.
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