DOCSLIB.ORG

Journal of Parapolitics Lobster 96 Is Edited and Published by Lobster Individual Issues: Stephen Doml

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

THE COMMUNIST PARTY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 16 King Street. London, W.C.2. Telephone : TEMplr Bar 2151.55 Secrersq : H. Pollin Teleg<am, e: Communel Rend London London DZs-krict . Dear Betty, Will you check for me what is known about a man called Fred Ga~nseywho was a bricklayer and a member in Battersea. Could the Battersea comrades be asked why he left the Party and anything they may how about him and his personal contacts. Yours frat ernally, STALINISTS SPYING ON THE LEFT BANKS: THE MONEY FOUNTAIN JOHN NEWMAN AND JFK SCOTTGATE Journal of Parapolitics Lobster 96 is edited and published by Lobster individual issues: Stephen Doml. 62.50 (inc p&p) 135 School Street Lobster subscriptions (forfour issues): Netherthong E8.00 (inc pGp) Holmfirth West Yorkshire Please indicate from which Issue No you HD72YB wish your subscribtion to start Tel: 01484 681388 Cheques payable to S Doml October 1996 Lobster Europe f 10.00 Lobster USICanadalEurope: 612.00 Cash (dollars accepted), International money orders, cheques drawn on UK bank (foreign cheques cost too much to convert into Sterling). LOBSTER SPECIAL OFFER I PAPERBACK COPY OF 1 SMEAR! WILSON AND THE SECRET STATE Stephen DowillRobin Ramsay £5.00 inc P&P 1 CHEQUES PAYABLE TO S DORRlL Ibc ssrociarion of radical and rlleroative pubiisbcrr 87 Kirksfall Road London S WZ 4HE Independent News Collective Lobster is a member of INK, o loose ossociotio17 of inc/ependent ond olternotive puhlicotions which co-operafe on distribtttion ondpttb/icit.y matters. INK Ioztnches oflcially in November wit??a joint s~tbscl-Q)tior?ofler, o website, ond the puhlica~ionofopilot list ofnewsagents wlzo stock at least hilo INK titles ond corly lhe INK logo. Lobster 96 Page 2 In the 1950s, a network of dedicated In 1951 a young man called Ian, from acted as spies in the labour movement informers secretly kept tabs on the Left in Wavertreein Liverpool,wrote to a comrade since the pre-war days. Such activities Britain. They weren't working for the called Vic about the Labour League of can and must be rooted out in this as in Special Branch, MI5 or the CIA. Their Youth(LLY) on Merseyside: other countries . .'3 instructions came from the Central Organisation Department of the British "I am now on a personal friendly basis The Trotskyists and "Titoites" of Communist Party. with members of the LLY from at least five Merseyside weren't the only cause for different branches on Merseyside - you concern. In 1953 the Teeside district Charlie Potiins know, to the extent that I am going round secretary reported coming across an to the sec. of one of the branches next organisation called Common Cause in Tuesday for tea and we are then having (at West Hartlepool.4 He enclosed a his request) a long talk about the past and duplicated bulletin it had produced for a present policies of the CP. .' meeting on "Stalin's fascist imperialism", denouncing the Communist Party as "a "Ofthesebranches, Birkenheadand Walton treacherous conspiracy". are completely dominated by the Trotsky organisation together with unorganised Advertised speakers included Rupert Speir, Titoist elements. While Bootle, Princes Park theTory MP for Hexham, and "C.A.Smith, are run by Catholic Action and the MA, PhD, BSc (Econ.)", whom it mentioned Trotskyite groupings are confined to only had been "Dux prizewinner at the local one or two members, Wavertree LLY is run secondary school', rowed for King's by the very reactionary Labour College, Newcastle, graduated in constituency party and it isvery difficult to philosophy, become national chairman of carry on discussions.' the ILP, and was now general secretary of Common Cause, "the new non-party anti- lanestimated that Birkenhead, Walton and communist organisation.'5 Bootle had up to 28 members apiece. He described their "pseudo-Marxist education' "There is nothing very much for us to add. and activities, and named names. On . .', the Central Organisation Department Bootle: "The Trotskyite responsible for the (aka Betty Reid) replied, "C.A. Smith has a Trotskyite fraction for work in this branch long record of Trotskyist activities and is a is Bill Fletcher, who is I believe incidentally bitter anti-Soviet propagandist. .'6 a renegade from the YCL'. On 1 January 1954 the Holiday Friendship "TheTrotskyitegroupcontrols the ""Rally' Service advertised in "Tribune' offering the organ of Birkenhead LLY having at trips in Bulgaria and the Russian zone of least four out the seven members of the ~ustria.Communist Party members were editorial board - those members being . asked to lookinto this. Oneof themdutifully .(gives names). ... The editor Alan Giles is attended a meeting in Swansea, where "a however not I think a Trotskyist but is a youngwomancalled Misssmith, ageabout Titoist who gets most of his line from 25, a most unnatural manner," "come Yugoslav Fortnightly and the Anglo- hither"" eyes' answered questions and Yugoslav Friendship. 1 discussed arrangements for holidays in Bulgaria. The report was forwarded to "Titoism" was a serious charge. Laszlo headquarters by Bill Alexander, of the Rajk, Hungarian Communist Party leader Welsh district committee, which was and Spanish Civil War veteran, had been thanked for being first to respond to the executed as a "Titoist'in 1949. The British Party's request.7Phil Piratin, former Communist Party published "Tito's Plot Communist MP for Mile End, wrote to Against Europe' (1950), by Derek Kartun, Peter Kerrigan (CP industrial organiser) and James Klugman's "From Trotsky to about a man called C.Ford who was Tito" (1951).Konni Zilliacus, MP, expelled working for the Amalgamated Engineering by Labour as a "fellow-traveller", had Union: "At a talk hegave to an organisation written for R.Palme-Dutt's Labour recently where he expressed quite Monthly, and his book Dragon's Teeth was reactionary views, he also mentioned that recommended by it in July 1949. In the he had contacts incountries likeYugoslavia December 1949 issue Ivor Montagu and Bulgaria. Hesaid that hewas arranging attacked Zilliacus for siding with the a holiday visit to Bulgaria this year. That is Yugoslavs, and during the 1952 Prague all theinformation I have. It may bethat he trials theGateshead MP was denounced as is connected with one of the-friendship an "imperialist agent", "one of the most organisations, in which case the sooner experienced agents in British intelIigenceU.2 they get to know about him the better.'8 CzechCP general secretary Rudolf Slansky On 11April 1954 theMovement for Colonial and his co-defendents were "found guilty Freedom was formed. A five-page report of spying and sabotage for the US and its for the Communist Party detailed its aims, satellites,' wrote Monty Johnstone in the officers, and sponsors, who included Tony Young Communist League's monthly, Benn, Sir Richard Acland, Walter Padley Challenge. "Many were shown to have MP, Reverend Donald Soper, Cannon Lobster 96 Page 3 Collins, DameSybil Thorndyke, and among Labour Party and fight for their policy the names involved had to be checked out. union leaders, Bob Edwards, Jack Stanley within its ranks'. On4 June 1954, Reid asked Betty Matthews and. Jim Mortimer. Femer Brockway was of London District Committee: "Will you elected chairman, and the council included In a Sunday newspaper article defending check for me what is known about a man Jennie Lee, Leslie Plummer, Tony Bern the refusal of political asylum to an called Fred Garnsey who was a bricklayer and Canon Collins. American professor, Dr. Cort, Home and a member in Battersea. Could the Secretary Herbert Morrison remarked that Battersea comrades be asked why he left Claiming the support for the colonial Labour had refused to admit Leon Trotsky the Party and anything they may know peoples was "a tribute to the stimulating in 1930, out of considerationfor its relations about him and his personal contacts." effect of the Daily Worker and the activity with theSoviet Government. Michael Foot, of the ~ornmunistParty, 'the report adds: writing in Tribune, asked: 'What in J. Evans of Battersea responded tersely: "However, this new movement has no clear heaven's name is the National Executive "Garnsey is over 70 years of age, secretary policy on the nature of the common fight trying to achieve by this rigmarole? Are of AUBTW branch. All his contacts are r with the colonial peoples, and there are they attempting toappease the NKVDand wing and Trotskyite sympathisers like ex- extremely dubious elements in the theun-American Activities Committeeby CP Alf Loughton (Trot),JE Lanejnr,Trotor leadership."9 the same single act?'. 11 Trot sympathy, J.Wix Trot. Don't even know he was ever in Party."l5 This sour note may have been induced by On May Day 1954 someone sat down to the prominence of former ILP members pen a "Report on Trots' quoting an Dennis Goodwin reported on a worker like Brockway, Bob Edwards, Walter interview with Ron Halverson, in Enfield, called Brace. Padley and Dick Beech. Jack Stanley, leader and information from "Doug M.' in south of the Constructional Engineering Union, London,, and "Mac.' in north-west London. "Dear Betty, was working with the Trotskyists on the Dealing with various AEU stewards and editorial board of "Socialist Outlook". A Labour councillors associated with Regarding Brace, according to our "Socialist Outlook" meeting at Holbom "Socialist Outlook", it also noted in comrades this man was associated for a Hall on Sunday, 19 October, 1952, at which passing:"The congress delegatefromNeath considerable period with the Anarchists the main speakers were editor John who was put up by a friend of Doug's and was a member of the Central No.1 Lawrence and Gerry Healy, was thesubject alleged that Homer was losing influence branch of the ETU.
Recommended publications
  • Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons from British Press Reform Lili Levi University of Miami School of Law, Llevi@Law.Miami.Edu

    Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons from British Press Reform Lili Levi University of Miami School of Law, [email protected]

    University of Miami Law School University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository Articles Faculty and Deans 2015 Taming the "Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons From British Press Reform Lili Levi University of Miami School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/fac_articles Part of the Communications Law Commons, and the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation Lili Levi, Taming the "Feral Beast": Cautionary Lessons From British Press Reform, 55 Santa Clara L. Rev. 323 (2015). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty and Deans at University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TAMING THE "FERAL BEAST"1 : CAUTIONARY LESSONS FROM BRITISH PRESS REFORM Lili Levi* TABLE OF CONTENTS Introdu ction ............................................................................ 324 I. British Press Reform, in Context ....................................... 328 A. Overview of the British Press Sector .................... 328 B. The British Approach to Newspaper Regulation.. 330 C. Phone-Hacking and the Leveson Inquiry Into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press ..... 331 D. Where Things Stand Now ...................................... 337 1. The Royal Charter ............................................. 339 2. IPSO and IM
  • Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Non Fiction Fiction Recently Published

    Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Non Fiction Fiction Recently Published

    Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Non Fiction Fiction Recently Published Picador Contacts Sophie Brewer, Associate Publisher: [email protected] Jon Mitchell, Rights Director: [email protected] Anna Shora, Senior Rights Manager: [email protected] Mairéad Loftus, Rights Executive: [email protected] Aisling Brennan, Rights Assistant: [email protected] Sub-Agents Brazil – Tassy Barham Baltic states – ANA Baltic Bulgaria and Serbia – ANA Sofia *China – ANA Beijing *China – Peony Literary Agency Czech & Slovak Reps – ANA Prague Greece – J.L.M. Agency Hungary & Croatia – ANA Budapest Israel – The Deborah Harris Agency *Japan – The English Agency *Japan – Tuttle-Mori *Japan – Japan Uni Korea – Eric Yang Agency Romania – Simona Kessler Russia – ANA Moscow *Taiwan – ANA Taipei *Taiwan – Peony Literary Agency Turkey – Anatolia Lit * Non-exclusive agent Highlights Lily's Promise How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live Lily Ebert and Dov Forman The incredibly moving and powerful memoir of an Auschwitz survivor who made headlines around the world in 2020. A heart-wrenching and ultimately life-affirming story that demonstrates the power of love to see us through the darkest of times. When Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert was liberated in 1945, a Jewish-American soldier gave her a banknote on which he’d written ‘Good luck and happiness’. And when her great-grandson, Dov, decided to use social media to track down the family of the GI in 2020, 96-year-old Lily found herself making headlines around the world. Lily had promised herself that if she survived Auschwitz she would tell everyone the truth about the camp.
  • Drama Co- Productions at the BBC and the Trade Relationship with America from the 1970S to the 1990S

    Drama Co- Productions at the BBC and the Trade Relationship with America from the 1970S to the 1990S

    ORBIT - Online Repository of Birkbeck Institutional Theses Enabling Open Access to Birkbecks Research Degree output ’Running a brothel from inside a monastery’: drama co- productions at the BBC and the trade relationship with America from the 1970s to the 1990s http://bbktheses.da.ulcc.ac.uk/56/ Version: Full Version Citation: Das Neves, Sheron Helena Martins (2013) ’Running a brothel from inside a monastery’: drama co-productions at the BBC and the trade relationship with America from the 1970s to the 1990s. MPhil thesis, Birkbeck, University of Lon- don. c 2013 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit guide Contact: email BIRKBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART AND SCREEN MEDIA MPHIL VISUAL ARTS AND MEDIA ‘RUNNING A BROTHEL FROM INSIDE A MONASTERY’: DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS AT THE BBC AND THE TRADE RELATIONSHIP WITH AMERICA FROM THE 1970s TO THE 1990s SHERON HELENA MARTINS DAS NEVES I hereby declare that this is my own original work. August 2013 ABSTRACT From the late 1970s on, as competition intensified, British broadcasters searched for new ways to cover the escalating budgets for top-end drama. A common industry practice, overseas co-productions seems the fitting answer for most broadcasters; for the BBC, however, creating programmes that appeal to both national and international markets could mean being in conflict with its public service ethos. Paradoxes will always be at the heart of an institution that, while pressured to be profitable, also carries a deep-rooted disapproval of commercialism.
  • Welsh Communist Party) Papers (GB 0210 PEARCE)

    Welsh Communist Party) Papers (GB 0210 PEARCE)

    Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru = The National Library of Wales Cymorth chwilio | Finding Aid - Bert Pearce (Welsh Communist Party) Papers (GB 0210 PEARCE) Cynhyrchir gan Access to Memory (AtoM) 2.3.0 Generated by Access to Memory (AtoM) 2.3.0 Argraffwyd: Mai 05, 2017 Printed: May 05, 2017 Wrth lunio'r disgrifiad hwn dilynwyd canllawiau ANW a seiliwyd ar ISAD(G) Ail Argraffiad; rheolau AACR2; ac LCSH This description follows NLW guidelines based on ISAD(G) Second Edition; AACR2; and LCSH. https://archifau.llyfrgell.cymru/index.php/bert-pearce-welsh-communist-party- papers-2 archives.library .wales/index.php/bert-pearce-welsh-communist-party-papers-2 Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru = The National Library of Wales Allt Penglais Aberystwyth Ceredigion United Kingdom SY23 3BU 01970 632 800 01970 615 709 [email protected] www.llgc.org.uk Bert Pearce (Welsh Communist Party) Papers Tabl cynnwys | Table of contents Gwybodaeth grynodeb | Summary information .............................................................................................. 3 Hanes gweinyddol / Braslun bywgraffyddol | Administrative history | Biographical sketch ......................... 3 Natur a chynnwys | Scope and content .......................................................................................................... 4 Trefniant | Arrangement .................................................................................................................................. 5 Nodiadau | Notes ............................................................................................................................................
  • Download Winter 2011

    Download Winter 2011

    2011Winter_Cover_finalrev_Winter05Cover 7/6/10 5:05 PM Page 1 Grove Press Grove Press Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary Celebrating 60 Years of Groundbreaking Publishing 1951–2011 n 1951 Barney Rosset took over a small reprint publisher, Grove Atlantic Monthly Press IPress. Over the next three-and-a-half decades, he and his colleagues Richard Seaver, Gilbert Sorrentino, Fred Jordan, Kent Carroll, Nat Sobel, Herman Graf, and many others created what was one of the Black Cat and Granta most important publishing enterprises of the late-twentieth century. Grove published many of the Beats, including William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg. Grove became the preeminent pub- lisher of drama in America, publishing the work of Samuel Beckett (Nobel Prize for Literature 1969), Bertold Brecht, Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter (Nobel Prize for Literature 2005), Tom Stoppard, and many more. The press introduced American readers to the work of international authors including Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, Jean Genet, Pablo Neruda, Kenzaboro Oe (Nobel Prize for Literature 1994), Octavio Paz (Nobel Prize for Literature 1990), Elfriede Jelinek (Nobel Prize for Literature 2004), and Juan Rulfo. In the late 1950s thly Pr and early 1960s, Barney Rossett challenged the U.S. obscenity laws by on es A publishing D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and then Henry A M s Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. His landmark court victories changed the t t c l l i American cultural landscape. Grove Press went on to publish literary t erotic classics like The Story of O and groundbreaking fiction like John n Rechy’s City of Night, as well as the works of the Marquis de Sade.
  • Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Non Fiction Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Fiction Recently Published

    Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Non Fiction Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Fiction Recently Published

    Untitled-1 1 Contents Highlights New Acquisitions Non Fiction Lifestyle, Health & Wellbeing Fiction Recently Published Picador Contacts Sophie Brewer, Associate Publisher: [email protected] Jon Mitchell, Rights Director: [email protected] Anna Shora, Senior Rights Manager: [email protected] Mairéad Loftus, Rights Executive: [email protected] Aisling Brennan, Rights Assistant: [email protected] Sub-Agents Brazil – Tassy Barham Baltic states – ANA Baltic Bulgaria and Serbia – ANA Sofia *China – ANA Beijing *China – Peony Literary Agency Czech & Slovak Reps – ANA Prague Greece – J.L.M. Agency Hungary & Croatia – ANA Budapest Israel – The Deborah Harris Agency *Japan – The English Agency *Japan – Tuttle-Mori *Japan – Japan Uni Korea – Eric Yang Agency Romania – Simona Kessler Russia – ANA Moscow *Taiwan – ANA Taipei *Taiwan – Peony Literary Agency Turkey – Anatolia Lit * Non-exclusive agent Highlights Lily's Promise How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live Lily Ebert and Dov Forman The incredibly moving and powerful memoir of an Auschwitz survivor who made headlines around the world in 2020. A heart-wrenching and ultimately life-affirming story that demonstrates the power of love to see us through the darkest of times. When Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert was liberated in 1945, a Jewish-American soldier gave her a banknote on which he’d written ‘Good luck and happiness’. And when her great-grandson, Dov, decided to use social media to track down the family of the GI in 2020, 96-year-old Lily found herself making headlines around the world. Lily had promised herself that if she survived Auschwitz she would tell everyone the truth about the camp.
  • Sir Simon Jenkins Journalist and Author

    Sir Simon Jenkins Journalist and Author

    Sir Simon Jenkins Journalist and Author Media Masters – February 11, 2016 Listen to the podcast online, visit www.mediafocus.org.uk Welcome to Media Masters, a series of one-to-one interviews with people at the top of the media game. Today, I’m joined by the editor and columnist Simon Jenkins. Simon might be the grandest of British journalism grandees. Knighted for services to the industry in 2004, he edited the London Evening Standard and the Times, covered politics for The Economist, and founded the Sunday Times book pages. Now known for his views on politics and culture as a columnist at the Guardian, he has also held public appointments at British Rail, English Heritage, and was a member of the Millennium Commission. Having recently ended his six-year term as chairman of the National Trust, he has written more than 15 books on topics as diverse as English churches, Thatcher, and of course, the media. Simon, thank you for joining me. Thank you! Did you always want to be a journalist? How did you get started? I think I wanted to be a politician – I know very few journalists who didn’t really want to be a politician somewhere deep down inside them. But I started journalism at university at Oxford, I have a totally conventional education story, doing PPE at Oxford – that’s philosophy, politics and economics – I worked on Cherwell, I left, went into academia, and was an academic for about two or three years, but I craved journalism. Went into journalism, I was quite political, I’d got involved in sort of left- wing Tory pressure groups and so on, but all the time I just thought, “Politics is boring compared to journalism,” and it was just… journalism sucked me in.
  • Breaking News

    Breaking News

    BREAKING NEWS First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE canongate.co.uk This digital edition first published in 2018 by Canongate Books Copyright © Alan Rusbridger, 2018 The moral right of the author has been asserted British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 978 1 78689 093 1 Export ISBN 978 1 78689 094 8 eISBN 978 1 78689 095 5 To Lindsay and Georgina who, between them, shared most of this journey Contents Introduction 1. Not Bowling Alone 2. More Than a Business 3. The New World 4. Editor 5. Shedding Power 6. Guardian . Unlimited 7. The Conversation 8. Global 9. Format Wars 10. Dog, Meet Dog 11. The Future Is Mutual 12. The Money Question 13. Bee Information 14. Creaking at the Seams 15. Crash 16. Phone Hacking 17. Let Us Pay? 18. Open and Shut 19. The Gatekeepers 20. Members? 21. The Trophy Newspaper 22. Do You Love Your Country? 23. Whirlwinds of Change Epilogue Timeline Bibliography Acknowledgements Also by Alan Rusbridger Notes Index Introduction By early 2017 the world had woken up to a problem that, with a mixture of impotence, incomprehension and dread, journalists had seen coming for some time. News – the thing that helped people understand their world; that oiled the wheels of society; that pollinated communities; that kept the powerful honest – news was broken. The problem had many different names and diagnoses. Some thought we were drowning in too much news; others feared we were in danger of becoming newsless.
  • H O N O R a R Ii N Del

    H O N O R a R Ii N Del

    MARXISM TODAY, AUGUST 1968 255 Have I misunderstood him? Then read on— and "integrated economies" is unrealistic and (and I summarise) without working-class participa­ impractical. tion the nationalist movement will be ineffective. And there is the crux of the matter. The most Starting at the End important thing is for the national movement to be effective. And the rest of the argument? Mere Bert Pearce's article is intended to vindicate the dissembling. policy of Welsh and Scottish Parliaments. In fact it The fact that the national idea can be used to does the opposite. If it is read carefully it damns the divide the people is no reason in itself for the Party whole concept. and working class to embrace that idea—as Bert It seems to me that Bert Pearce did not start with Pearce is well aware. the problems of Britain and work towards a solution. I challenge his statement that it is possible to He started with the solution, National Parliaments, create three viable economies in Britain (Section and attempted to prove this to be a correct policy. But on Scottish and Welsh Parliaments). Present-day because he has no solid factual basis he fails. His production methods require large-scale production. arguments are not consistent and regrettably, Britain is large enough to have a viable economy. perhaps inevitably, the article has nationalist Three separate viable economies are impossible. If undertones. And this carries its own dangers, be­ his view cannot be sustained with economic data, cause once nationalist emotions are unleashed we then his case for three Parliaments, Governments will be riding a tiger.
  • Transcript Template

    Transcript Template

    Iain Martin Journalist and commentator Media Masters – September 28, 2017 Listen to the podcast online, visit www.mediamasters.fm Welcome to Media Masters, a series of one to one interviews with people at the top of the media game. Today I’m joined by Iain Martin, columnist for the Times and editor and founder of Reaction, the website focused on political, economic and cultural analysis. Previously editor of The Scotsman, he has also been deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal Europe. In addition to his journalism career, Iain is also an award winning author. His first book on IBS’s role in the 2008 financial crash was shortlisted for The Financial Times Business Book of the Year and won Debut Book of the Year at the 2014 Political Book Awards. Iain, thanK you for joining me. Pleasure. So Iain, we were chit-chatting before the tape started and we were going through your career, and you said it started off in kind of reverse formation, in that you had a bit of early success. Shall we go through your career? Yes, I’ve been through the ups and downs. Start at the beginning! I was quite young editor actually, or very young, I was editor of The Scotsman at 30, which is probably too young to be an editor but was terrific fun. And it was just at the point when it was pre- the advertising crash, and the Internet was then just this thing that we thought would never really catch on. I still thinK it won’t.
  • Editorial Comments

    Editorial Comments

    MARXISM TODAY. FEBRUARY, 1978 Editorial Comments CONTROVERSY ON COMMUNIST The arrival of D. F. Springhalt from Moscow HISTORY with the Comintern's anti-war line, argued A debate on an important and contro­ Rothstein, only reinforced a widespread versial period of Communist history has feeling of revulsion in the Party against its enlivened recent issues of the Bulletin of the initial support for the war, and was "not the Society for the Study of Labour History.1 In decisive event" in bringing about the change its Spring 1977 number, Andrew Rothstein to an anti-war line. He also sought to demon­ strongly contested the approval expressed strate that the latter led to a growth in Com­ by Monty Johnstone of Harry Pollitt's "criti­ munist membership and influence in this cal support" for the war against Nazi Ger­ period. many, which was the Communist Party's When Germany attacked the Soviet Union official policy in the first weeks of the war in and September 1939. In a review of John Mahon's Harry Pollitt. A Biography in the previous "the whole character of the war changed on issue, Monty Johnstone had expressed the June 22, 1941", view that in the debates in the Party leader­ ship that month Pollitt had shown "a far he concluded: greater capacity for realistic political analy­ sis" than R. Palme Dutt, who championed "it was not surprising that the Communist Party the Communist International's line that the began to gain membership and influence far more war in that period was equally imperialist and swiftly.
  • Marxism Today, September, 1977 257

    Marxism Today, September, 1977 257

    MARXISM TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1977 257 Editorial Comments TWENTY YEARS OF "MARXISM TODAY" WITH this September Marxism Today we THE SPREAD OF MARXISM complete 20 years of publication, 240 issues. Whilst reformism remains a dominating The decision to publish a new theoretical influence in the British working class move­ journal arose from the great debates of 1956- ment, there has been an important advance 57, and, in particular from the 25th Congress of Marxism in fields of study and research of the CPGB, held in April of that latter year. during the last 20 years and, particularly, The need was deeply felt for a journal that during the past decade. would examine the broad strategic problems It is reflected in many aspects of the life of facing the British working class, that would the Communist Party—in the work of the record and discuss the developments of the Specialist Groups in the widening pro- international working class, the national revo­ pramme of publication by Lawrence & lutionary and progressive movements, in­ Wishart, in the growth over nine years of the cluding the achievements, problems and Communist University of London (CUL) from weaknesses of the socialist sector of the a couple of hundreds to this year's 1,500. We world, one that would, as best it could, treat, hope that Marxism Today has been a con­ from a Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, all the tributory factor. main areas of human knowledge, all the Pioneers of Marxism in Britain in fields like disciplmes. history, philosophy, aesthetics or natural An especially strong demand was that the science had, in the early thirties to contend new journal should be devoted to theory and with complete ignorance and rejection of discussion.