William Paul

Who was William Paul?

William Paul, often known as Willie or Bill Paul, was a British socialist politician.

Born in Glasgow, Paul became an active socialist and joined the Socialist Labour Party. In 1911, he moved to Derby, where he ran a market stall selling hosiery and drapery. Moving his stall from city to city, he was able to link SLP members across northern England and the Midlands, and surreptitiously distribute radical literature.

Paul fully endorsed the SLP's opposition to World War I, and he supported Derby anti-war activist Alice Wheeldon. In 1917, he authored The State: its Origin and Functions, in which he developed the Marxist theory of the state. He became co-editor of the SLP's newspaper, The Socialist, and stood for the party in the 1918 UK general election in Ince, taking 13% of the votes cast.

Within the SLP, he was a proponent of communist unity, and after this was rejected by the majority of the party, he became a founder member of the Communist Unity Group. This group joined the Communist Party of Great Britain at its founding conference, where Paul put the case against affiliation to the Labour Party.