of pessimism regarding the prospects of any coming social revolution. Despite entering a period of decline, the anti-parliamentary communist movement was maintained throughout the late 1920s by the APCF, which continued to uphold the communist programme that it had developed since before the Russian Revolution had ever taken place. But before long, the APCF suffered a split. Split The fallout from the Great Depression led the APCF to proclaim that the end of capitalism was imminent, as the economic collapse had destroyed the material conditions that incentivised reformism and - by extension - parliamentarism. In the APCF's appeal To Anti-parliamentarians, they argued that concessions could only be granted to the working class during a period of upswing, but following the economic crisis it had become impossible to secure reforms, concluding that "grim necessity will compel the workers to social revolution." In 1929, Aldred correctly predicted the formation of a National Government by a coalition of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party and Stanley Baldwin's Conservative Party, to which he responded by declaring that "Anti-Parliamentarism has arrived." The free speech fight in Glasgow had also provided an impetus for the split within the APCF, as various different organizations had come together to form a Free Speech Committee, in order to engage in a direct action campaign to re-establish freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in the city. The Committee eventually evolved into a workers' council to maintain the unity that had been achieved, but it quickly declined until the council was effectively another front of the APCF. Those that had participated in the movement, including Aldred, became convinced of the necessity to unite the various disparate workers' organisations into a single movement capable of defeating capitalism. They saw the workers' councils as a means of achieving an end to sectarianism, as they could allow the participation of all factions "without impeaching the integrity of any", concluding on the necessity of abandoning anti-parliamentary agitation in favour of building a workers' council movement. Arguing that, since parliamentarism itself had collapsed with the establishment of the National Government, it was no longer necessary to propagate anti-parliamentarism, Aldred resigned from the APCF in February 1933. The remaining members of the APCF disagreed with Aldred's conclusions and maintained the organisation as it was, causing a split within the movement that divided anti-parliamentarists throughout the 1930s. In spite of the APCF's continuation, Aldred claimed that it had, in