H. W. (Henry William) Lee

Henry William Lee (10 July 1865–5 March 1932), usually published as H. W. Lee, was a British socialist born in London. He first worked in the printing trade, then joined the Social Democratic Federation soon after it was founded and quickly became one of its key organizers.

Lee served as assistant secretary and then general secretary of the Social Democratic Federation, later becoming secretary of the British Socialist Party. He also edited Justice, an important socialist paper of the period. During the political splits that followed World War I and the Russian Revolution, he took an anti-Bolshevik position and wrote Bolshevism: A Curse & Danger to the Workers.

Project Gutenberg’s record for that pamphlet also credits him as the author of works including The First of May: International Labour Day, A Socialist View of the Unemployed Question, Social-Democracy and the Zollverein, The Triumph of the Trust under Free Trade, The Great Strike Movement of 1911, and Why Starve? Britain’s Food in War—and in Peace. In his later years, he worked at the Trades Union Congress, and his history Social-Democracy in Britain was published after his death.