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‘I'd sooner be shot than expelled from the Party’: Dave Springhall
Douglas Frank ("Dave" or "Springie") Springhall was born in Kensal Green, West London on 28th March 1901, the son of an insurance agent. He was educated at elementary school and in 1916 enrolled in the Royal Navy for a twelve-year stint. In 1920, while still a naval rating, he became involved in the revolutionary movement, writing an article for Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Dreadnought entitled "Discontent on the Lower Deck". In November 1920 Springhall was discharged from the Navy for "associating with extremists", although he managed to avoid a court-martial (he was dismissed "services no longer required").
He was soon an active member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and became the Thames Valley Organiser of the National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement. He led delegations of the unemployed to the Richmond and neighbouring Boards of Guardians and was involved in the local trade union movement, sitting as a delegate on the Richmond Trades and Labour Council. On several occasions he was elected to the Richmond Board of Guardians as the candidate of the unemployed. He also stood for Richmond Town Council, first as a Labour candidate and then as a Communist. For a time he worked in the building industry but in 1924 he was victimised for his trade union activities.
In 1922 the CP directed Springhall into work in the Young Communist League. At the YCL's second National Congress in 1923 he was elected to its Executive Committee, which put him in charge of the Communist Children's Sections. In 1924 he visited Russia as a delegate to the Fifth Congress of the Communist International and the Fourth Congress of the Young Communist International. He returned to Russia in 1926 when he was among the British delegates to Plenum meetings of the Comintern and YCI. Later the same year he became Acting Secretary of the YCL and was twice gaoled for his activities in the General Strike and its aftermath.
During 1926-8 Springhall worked as an assistant in the central Organisation Department of the CPGB. Then in 1928 he was sent to Russia to study at the International Lenin School, the Comintern's "university" in Moscow. According to some sources, in 1929 Springhall was one of the "Young Turks" who overturned the CPGB leadership for their reluctance to follow the Comintern's ultra-left "New Line".
Springhall returned to Britain in 1931 and became the Secretary of the CP's North East District until 1932. He was then elected to the Party's Central Committee and became the full-time Secretary of the London District; he was also elected to the Political Bureau and put in charge of the CP's central Organisation Department. In 1935 he was on the British delegation to the Seventh Comintern Congress.
Springhall is said to have played a prominent role in removing Trotskyists from the Party during the 1930s. One Trotskyist, Steve Dowdall, recalled that Springhall told him "I'm surprised at you, Steve … I'd sooner be shot than expelled from the Party".
In December 1936 Springhall was one of the first British Communists sent out to organise the British Battalion of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. He served as Political Commissar of the British Battalion and then Assistant Commissar of the 15th Brigade. In February 1937 he was shot during the battle of Jarama but, miraculously, the bullet passed through his cheeks and caused only a flesh wound. It has been alleged that while in Spain he was working for Soviet Military Intelligence (the GRU).
Between April 1938 and August 1939 Springhall was the editor of the Daily Worker. He then became the CP's representative in Moscow. However, after the British Communists came out in support of the war against Germany in September 1939 Springhall was sent back, bringing instructions from Moscow to change the line to one of opposition to the war. When Harry Pollitt was removed from his post as General Secretary for resisting the change of line Springhall, along with R P Dutt and Bill Rust, took over the leadership of the Party. He assumed responsibility for secret coded radio communications with Moscow, became the Party's National Organiser and again took charge of the central Organisation Department.
In July 1943 Springhall was convicted of obtaining secret information from an Air Ministry employee named Olive Sheehan and sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. The CP disowned Springhall and expelled him; at the same time his wife was fired from her job at the Daily Worker. It later transpired that Springhall had also been receiving secret information from Captain Ormond Uren of the Special Operations Executive.
Springhall served four and a half years of his sentence and was released in 1948. After a spell working in advertising he apparently travelled to Moscow, Prague and then the Far East. In April 1950 Springhall and his wife appeared in China as press advisers to the Chinese Information Bureau of the Press Administration. On 2nd September 1953 Springhall died of throat cancer in Moscow, where he had gone to seek medical treatment. According to the press, his wife had only recently renewed his British passport.
I would like to thank Monty Johnstone, for supplying some of the documentation on which this note is based, and Simon Fowler, for turning up information about Springhall's time in Richmond. Any further information anyone can provide about Springhall, particularly his espionage activities, would be very welcome.
