George Julian Harney

Harney, George Julian 

Born Feb. 17, 1817, in Deptford; died Dec. 9, 1897, in Richmond, Surrey. Figure in the British workers’ movement, one of the leaders of left-wing Chartism (adherents of “physical force”).

Born into a seaman’s family, Harney was a printer and a journalist. He participated in the creation of the London Workers’ Association (1836) and in 1838 founded the revolutionary London Democratic Association. In 1842 he became a staff member and then the editor of the central organ of the Chartists, The Northern Star (until 1849), and of other Chartist publications. In the 1840’s he became close friends with K. Marx and F. Engels. He was one of the organizers of the international society Fraternal Democrats (1845) and a member of the Union of Communists. However, Harney, like most Chartists, failed to absorb fully the ideas of scientific communism. In 1851, as the Chartist movement was declining, Harney began to follow the petit-bourgeois democrats and temporarily strayed from the proletarian movement. During 1862-88 (with hiatuses) he lived in the U. S. He was a member of the First International.

REFERENCES

Marx, K., and F. Engels. Soch., 2nd ed., vols. 4-7, 27-30, 32-39. (See Index.)
Kunin, B. E. “G. J. Harney.” In the collection Marks i Engel’s i pervye proletarskie revoliutsionery. Moscow, 1961.