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Len Jeffries
An active Communist all his life, Len Jeffries was originally a coal-miner and later on a clerk, amongst other things. He took an active part in Cardiff in the Seamen’s Minority Movement. Len Jeffries visited Soviet Russia, returning to Wales in 1931 to be appointed the Communist Party’s Acting District Organiser for South Wales, in the absence of the incumbent, Charles Stead, who was in Russia.
Jeffries was sentenced in 1931 to eight months imprisonment for riot, unlawful assembly and assaulting the police. This record was a major factor for his receiving a very heavy sentence two years later. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 1933. He had been arrested on January 28 1933, along with three fellow Communists. Charles Stead was sentenced to 21 months hard labour, Samuel Paddock to 15 months hard labour, and Ernest Whatley to 12 months hard labour. The men were charged on ten counts, the last of which was of unlawfully conspiring to seduce soldiers from their duty and allegiance to the King.
(See pic. left of a pamphlet about the case.)
It may be of relevance that Jeffries had connections with the Labour League of Ex-Servicemen. The three Communists had been active in discussions with soldiers and had been promoting the sael of two pamphlets under the `Soldier’s Voice’ title. These urged direct action by soldiers in response to cuts in their pay and, naturally demanded the end of capitalism and a socialist revolution in Britain.
Once free, with his wife, Dora, Jeffries was particularly involved in the 1930s in the establishment of a system for distribution and sale of the Daily Worker in South Wales.
Swansea University archives contain a photocopy of a pamphlet on the criminal proceedings, as well as a range of press cuttings and photographs relevant to Jeffries.
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