Introduction: the Rise and Decline of British Bolshevism
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The Communist International Through a British Lens*
The Communist International through a British Lens* Alastair Kocho‐Williams University of the West of England, Bristol alastair.kocho‐[email protected] Cross‐Cultural Communism: Spanish, British, and Chinese Socialists inside Russia’s International Revolution AHA 123rd General Meeting, New York, 2‐5 January 2009 The Communist International (Comintern) was founded to export the Russian Revolution. Nominally independent of the Soviet state, it involved communist parties - often referred to as Sections - from around the world, but was directed from Moscow. The Comintern took an interest in Britain from its inception, invited British delegates to its founding congress in March 1919, and took an active role in the founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the summer of 1920. From the Comintern’s point of view Britain offered a good opportunity for revolution beyond Russia. As the leading imperial power following the First World War, it was a target for agitation against imperialism and colonialism, and a strong labour movement presented opportunities for mass mobilization. Willing participants in the programme of world revolution were found, and the CPGB rose out of longer-term trends in the British left, and an admiration of the Russian Revolution. Despite this, the CPGB and the prospects for revolution were an almost constant disappointment to Moscow. Britain remained stable, and mostly under Conservative governments, while the Party remained relatively small in comparison to other national parties with membership around 4,000 in 1920, rising to 12,000 in 1926, but dipping to approximately 2,500 by 1930, and despite recruitment after adoption of the popular front remaining below 20,000 by the start of the * I am grateful for the assistance of Norman Laporte, Kevin Morgan, and Stephen Hopkinson in the writing of this paper. -
Colloquium Paper January 12, 1984 STALINISM VERSUS
Colloquium Paper January 12, 1984 STALINISM VERSUS BOLSHEVISM? A Reconsideration by Robert C. Tucker Princeton University with comment by Peter Reddaway London School of Economics and Political Science Fellows Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Draft paper not for publication or quotation without written permission from the authors. STALINISM VERSUS BOLSHEVISM? A Reconsideration Although not of ten openly debated~ the issue I propose to address is probably the deepest and most divisive in Soviet studies. There is good ground for Stephen Cohen's characterization of it as a "quintessential his torical and interpretive question"! because it transcends most of the others and has to do with the whole of Russia's historical development since the Bolshevik Revolution. He formulates it as the question of the relationship "between Bolshevism and Stalinism.'' Since the very existence of something properly called Stalinism is at issue here, I prefer a somewhat different mode of formulation. There are two (and curiously, only two) basically opposed positions on the course of development that Soviet Russia took starting around 1929 when Stalin, having ousted his opponents on the Left and the Right, achieved primacy, although not yet autocratic primacy, within the Soviet regime. The first position, Which may be seen as the orthodox one, sees that course of development as the fulfillment, under new conditions, of Lenin's Bolshevism. All the main actions taken by the Soviet regime under Stalin's leadership were, in other words, the fulfillment of what had been prefigured in Leninism (as Lenin's Bolshevism came to be called after Lenin died). -
Middlesex University Research Repository an Open Access Repository Of
Middlesex University Research Repository An open access repository of Middlesex University research http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk McIlroy, John (2012) Strikes and class consciousness in the early work of Richard Hyman. Capital & Class, 36 (1) . pp. 53-75. ISSN 0309-8168 [Article] (doi:10.1177/0309816811429738) This version is available at: https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/10188/ Copyright: Middlesex University Research Repository makes the University’s research available electronically. Copyright and moral rights to this work are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners unless otherwise stated. The work is supplied on the understanding that any use for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. A copy may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial, research or study without prior permission and without charge. Works, including theses and research projects, may not be reproduced in any format or medium, or extensive quotations taken from them, or their content changed in any way, without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). They may not be sold or exploited commercially in any format or medium without the prior written permission of the copyright holder(s). Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author’s name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pag- ination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Middlesex University via the following email address: [email protected] The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. -
A Crisis of Commitment: Socialist Internationalism in British Columbia During the Great War
A Crisis of Commitment: Socialist Internationalism in British Columbia during the Great War by Dale Michael McCartney B.A., Simon Fraser University, 2004 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS In the Department of History © Dale Michael McCartney 2010 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2010 All rights reserved. However, in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada, this work may be reproduced, without authorization, under the conditions for Fair Dealing. Therefore, limited reproduction of this work for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting is likely to be in accordance with the law, particularly if cited appropriately. APPROVAL Name: Dale Michael McCartney Degree: Master of Arts Title of Thesis: A Crisis of Commitment: Socialist Internationalism in British Columbia during the Great War Examining Committee: Chair: Dr. Emily O‘Brien Assistant Professor of History _____________________________________________ Dr. Mark Leier Senior Supervisor Professor of History _____________________________________________ Dr. Karen Ferguson Supervisor Associate Professor of History _____________________________________________ Dr. Robert A.J. McDonald External Examiner Professor of History University of British Columbia Date Defended/Approved: ________4 March 2010___________________________ ii Declaration of Partial Copyright Licence The author, whose copyright is declared on the title page of this work, has granted to Simon Fraser University the right to lend this thesis, project or extended essay to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. -
'The Left's Views on Israel: from the Establishment of the Jewish State To
‘The Left’s Views on Israel: From the establishment of the Jewish state to the intifada’ Thesis submitted by June Edmunds for PhD examination at the London School of Economics and Political Science 1 UMI Number: U615796 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615796 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 F 7377 POLITI 58^S8i ABSTRACT The British left has confronted a dilemma in forming its attitude towards Israel in the postwar period. The establishment of the Jewish state seemed to force people on the left to choose between competing nationalisms - Israeli, Arab and later, Palestinian. Over time, a number of key developments sharpened the dilemma. My central focus is the evolution of thinking about Israel and the Middle East in the British Labour Party. I examine four critical periods: the creation of Israel in 1948; the Suez war in 1956; the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the 1980s, covering mainly the Israeli invasion of Lebanon but also the intifada. In each case, entrenched attitudes were called into question and longer-term shifts were triggered in the aftermath. -
ARTICLES Rebel Or Revolutionary? Jack Kavanagh and the Early Years of the Communist Movement in Vancouver, 1920-1925
ARTICLES Rebel or Revolutionary? Jack Kavanagh and the Early Years of the Communist Movement in Vancouver, 1920-1925 David Akers DURINGTHE1919VANCOUVERGENERALSTRIKE, the guardians of conventional 'law and order' in the city, the middle-class Citizens League, bemoaned the evils of "Kavanagh Bolshevism" and its "red-eyed vision of Soviet control."1 Jack Kavanagh — a member of the general strike committee, prominent "platform speaker" for the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), and the provincial chairman of the One Big Union (OBU) in British Columbia — was a prime target for the establishment backlash against labour militancy in Vancouver.2 Red Scare hysterics aside, Kavanagh did, from October 1917, openly embrace the Russian Revolution and its "proletarian dictatorship," as he labelled the Soviet 'Vancouver Citizen, 25 June 1919. "On Kavanagh's role in the 1919 Canadian labour revolt, see Paul A. Phillips, No Power Greater: A Century of Labour in British Columbia (Vancouver 1967), 66-84; Martin Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, J880-1930 (Kingston 1968), 138-98; A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899-1919 (Toronto 1977), 145-54; David J. Bercuson, Fools and Wise Men: The Rise and Fall of the One Big Union (Toronto 1978), 57-170; Gerald Friesen, '"Yours in Revolt' : The Socialist Party of Canada and the Western Canadian Labour Movement," in Labour/Le Travail, 1 (1976), 139-55; Dave Adams, "The Canadian Labour Revolt of 1919: The West Coast Story," in Socialist Worker, 161 (November, 1990). David Akers, "Rebel or Revolutionary? Jack Kavanagh and the Early Years of the Com munist Movement in Vancouver, 1920-1925, Labour/Le Travail 30 (Fall 1992), 9-44. -
Sylvia Pankhurst's Sedition of 1920
“Upheld by Force” Sylvia Pankhurst’s Sedition of 1920 Edward Crouse Undergraduate Thesis Department of History Columbia University April 4, 2018 Seminar Advisor: Elizabeth Blackmar Second Reader: Susan Pedersen With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul. Their ardor alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse. – George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1872 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 2 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ 3 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 4 The End of Edwardian England: Pankhurst’s Political Development ................................. 12 After the War: Pankhurst’s Collisions with Communism and the State .............................. 21 Appealing Sedition: Performativity of Communism and Suffrage ....................................... 33 Prison and Release: Attempted Constructions of Martyrology -
Revolutionary Syndicalist Opposition to the First World War: A
Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War Darlington, RR http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2012.731834 Title Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War Authors Darlington, RR Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/19226/ Published Date 2012 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. Re-evaluating Syndicalist Opposition to the First World War Abstract It has been argued that support for the First World War by the important French syndicalist organisation, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) has tended to obscure the fact that other national syndicalist organisations remained faithful to their professed workers’ internationalism: on this basis syndicalists beyond France, more than any other ideological persuasion within the organised trade union movement in immediate pre-war and wartime Europe, can be seen to have constituted an authentic movement of opposition to the war in their refusal to subordinate class interests to those of the state, to endorse policies of ‘defencism’ of the ‘national interest’ and to abandon the rhetoric of class conflict. This article, which attempts to contribute to a much neglected comparative historiography of the international syndicalist movement, re-evaluates the syndicalist response across a broad geographical field of canvas (embracing France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Britain and America) to reveal a rather more nuanced, ambiguous and uneven picture. -
People, Place and Party:: the Social Democratic Federation 1884-1911
Durham E-Theses People, place and party:: the social democratic federation 1884-1911 Young, David Murray How to cite: Young, David Murray (2003) People, place and party:: the social democratic federation 1884-1911, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3081/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk People, Place and Party: the Social Democratic Federation 1884-1911 David Murray Young A copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Durham Department of Politics August 2003 CONTENTS page Abstract ii Acknowledgements v Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1- SDF Membership in London 16 Chapter 2 -London -
Harry Pollitt, Maurice Thorez and the Writing of Exemplary Communist Lives
The University of Manchester Research Harry Pollitt, Maurice Thorez and the writing of exemplary communist lives Document Version Accepted author manuscript Link to publication record in Manchester Research Explorer Citation for published version (APA): Morgan, K., Gottlieb, J. (Ed.), & Toye, R. (Ed.) (2005). Harry Pollitt, Maurice Thorez and the writing of exemplary communist lives. In Making Reputations: power, persuasion and the individual in British politics I.B. Tauris. Published in: Making Reputations: power, persuasion and the individual in British politics Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on Manchester Research Explorer is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Proof version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Research Explorer are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Takedown policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please refer to the University of Manchester’s Takedown Procedures [http://man.ac.uk/04Y6Bo] or contact [email protected] providing relevant details, so we can investigate your claim. Download date:10. Oct. 2021 An exemplary communist life? Harry Pollitt’s Serving My Time in comparative perspective Kevin Morgan i Traditionally, biography has been one of the weakest genres of communist historiography. In a country like Britain, where the communist party (the CPGB) had a peak membership in the 1940s of perhaps 55,000 and never elected more than two MPs, its leading figures held few obvious attractions for the conventional political biographer. -
El XX Congreso Y Los Comienzos De La Desestalinización Nuestra Historia
Revista de Historia de la FIM Núm. 2, 2do semestre de 2016 El XX Congreso y los comienzos de la desestalinización Nuestra Historia Revista de Historia de la FIM Número 2 Segundo semestre de 2016 Usted es libre de: Ș Copiar, distribuir y comunicar públicamente esta obra. Bajo las siguientes condiciones: Ș No comercial: No puede utilizar los contenidos del Boletín para fines comerciales. Ș Sin obras derivadas: No puede alterar, transformar o generar una obra derivada a partir de esta obra. Con el siguiente caso particular: Ș Esta licencia no se aplica a los contenidos publicados procedentes de terceros (textos, gráficos, informaciones e imágenes que vayan firmados o sean atribuidos a otros autores). Para reproducir dichos contenidos será necesario el consentimiento de dichos terceros. Nuestra Historia: Revista de Historia de la FIM Edita: Fundación de Investigaciones Marxistas • Equipo coordinador: Manuel Bueno Lluch, Francisco Erice Sebares, José Gómez Alén y Julián Sanz Hoya • Diseño de portada: Francisco Gálvez ([email protected]) • Consejo de Redacción: Irene Abad Buil, Juan Andrade Blanco, Manuel Bueno Lluch, Claudia Cabrero Blanco, Francisco Erice Sebares, Juan Carlos García- Funes, José Gómez Alén, Fernando Hernández Sánchez, José Hinojosa Durán, David Ginard i Féron, Adrià Llacuna Hernando, Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart, Victoria Ramos Bello, Julián Sanz Hoya, Víctor Santidrián Arias, Juan Trías Vejarano, Julián Vadillo Muñoz, Santiago Vega Som- bría • Envío de colaboraciones: [email protected] • Administración: c/ Olimpo 35, 28043, Madrid. Tfno: 913004969. Correo-e: [email protected] • web: www.fim.org.es • Foto de portada: TASR/AP (Fuente: http://rus-biography.ru) • ISSN: 2529-9808. -
Prologue to a Biography
Notes Preface and Acknowledgements 1. R. Skidelsky, ‘Introduction’, John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 3: Fighting for Britain 1937–1946 (Macmillan Papermac, 2000), p. xxii. 1 The Caribbean in Turmoil: Prologue to a Biography 1. Lewis Archive, Princeton, Box 1/10; ‘Autobiographical Account’ by Sir Arthur Lewis, prepared for Nobel Prize Committee, December 1979, p. 4. 2. Lewis (1939), p. 5. In the 1920s, the white population in St Lucia and on average across the islands, was relatively low, at about 3 per cent of the population. The proportion was higher than this on islands completely dominated by sugar cultivation, such as Barbados. 3. Lewis (1939), p. 7. On the significance of colour gradations in the social and power structures of the West Indies, see ‘The Light and the Dark’, ch.4 in James (1963) and Tignor (2005) notes: ‘In place of the rigid two-tiered racial system, there had appeared a coloured middle class … usually light skinned, well educated, professional and urban … To this generation, Lewis … belonged’ (p.11). 4. Lewis (1939), p. 5. 5. Lewis (1939), p. 9. 6. The total value of exports from St Lucia fell from £421,000 (£8.10 per cap- ita) to £207,000 (£3.91) between 1920 and 1925, and to £143,000 (£2.65) by 1930 (Armitage-Smith, 1931, p. 62). 7. These data derive from Sir Sydney Armitage-Smith’s financial mission to the Leeward Islands and St Lucia in the depths of the depression in 1931 – undertaken while Lewis was serving time in the Agricultural Department office waiting to sit his scholarship exam.