DOCSLIB.ORG

Communists Text

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Communists Text The University of Manchester Research Communists and British Society 1920-1991 Document Version Proof Link to publication record in Manchester Research Explorer Citation for published version (APA): Morgan, K., Cohen, G., & Flinn, A. (2007). Communists and British Society 1920-1991. Rivers Oram Press. 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:30. Sep. 2021 INTRODUCTION A dominant view of the communist party as an institution is that it provided a closed, well-ordered and intrusive political environment. The leading French scholars Claude Pennetier and Bernard Pudal discern in it a resemblance to Erving Goffman’s concept of a ‘total institution’. Brigitte Studer, another international authority, follows Sigmund Neumann in referring to it as ‘a party of absolute integration’; tran- scending national distinctions, at least in the Comintern period (1919–43) it is supposed to have comprised ‘a unitary system—which acted in an integrative fashion world-wide’.1 For those working within the so-called ‘totalitarian’ paradigm, the validity of such ‘total’ or ‘absolute’ concep- tions of communist politics has always been axiomatic. Cruder recitations of the party ‘line’ have typically adopted them unquestioningly. More recently, fuller documentation of the Comintern’s apparatus of controls, seemingly replicated in all but their most extreme forms by individual communist parties, has prompted renewed interest in the encompassing character of communist commitment. At the same time, traditional emphases on the instruments of authority have been supplemented and enriched by culturalist approaches and the growth of interest in commu- nist mentalities. In a British context, Raphael Samuel provided a virtuoso rendition of such themes in an acclaimed series of articles published in 1984–5. Tellingly, like the doyenne of French communist historians, Annie Kriegel, he took as his theme not the mentalities of the party’s followers, but ‘the’ mentality, singular. Brilliantly depicted as a ‘lost world’, it seemed self-contained and almost frozen in time, with evidence from decades and communities apart placed together like fossils in a cabinet.2 What many of these accounts convey is a sense both of enclosure and of what Studer calls the ‘fusion’ between the individual and the party. ‘To be a Communist was to have a complete social identity, one which tran- scended the limits of class, gender and nationality’, Samuel argued. Studer describes it not as a party but as a destiny, ‘at once a community, 2 COMMUNISTS AND BRITISH SOCIETY INTRODUCTION 3 an order, a family—a way of life’.3 It meant inhabiting ‘a little private of cultural or political capital which allowed more negotiated relationships world of our own’—Samuel’s recollection—or being ‘shut up’ in a party with the party. Specifically in the British case, Samuel acknowledged that cell; and to the strong opposition of inner citadel to the ‘outside world’ ‘party-mindedness was not easy to impose on a membership so heteroge- is added an emphasis on the total overhaul of one’s personal identity that neous in its origins, and overlapping at so many points with the labour and adhesion to the party involved. Sandro Bellassai, writing of the Italian trade union movement’, though without himself exploring the ‘real if communist party, describes this as ‘the exemplary perception and presen- limited autonomies’ which resulted from this.11 tation of one’s own life story divided into “before” and “after” entering These are critical distinctions. Perhaps they help clarify the over- the party. This “event” alone marked an existential watershed between the familiar historiographical exchanges in which conflicting generalisations kind of hazy and defective personal “prehistory” and a new season of as to autonomy or control have corresponded to, or predetermined, a focus completeness and maturity...’4 In the autobiographies of French commu- on different aspects of the communist experience. They also allow the nists the process is often described as a ‘second birth’, indispensable in possibility of genuine comparison, so that Pennetier and Pudal can stress the formation of the ‘total’ communist and even involving the ‘killing’ of the specificity of French communism in the degree to which it conformed the former self.5 In Britain, according to Samuel, ‘joining the Party was to the master narratives of the Comintern era.12 Pointedly, a major histor- experienced as a momentous event, equivalent in its intensity—to taking ical survey to which both they and Studer contribute bears the plural title, a decision for Christ’.6 A century of communisms. In the global perspective which its editors adopt, It is this idea of a rarefied world, defined by sharp temporal and asso- the characterisation of communism in terms of diversity held together by ciational boundaries, which suggests the analogy with the total institution. a common project seems unarguable.13 In a more limited way, it is the In Goffman’s definition, cited by Pennetier and Pudal, the total institution assumed singularity of the communist experience, in the double sense of is ‘a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated its oneness and distinctiveness, that we examine more closely here, even in individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of the case of a single national variant like the communism of the CPGB. time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life’.7 There is no doubt that the idea of a single overriding commitment had What Goffman had in mind were prisons, barracks, monasteries, labour a tremendous significance for communists themselves. The British theo- camps, to which one might certainly add the intense segregation of the retician R. Palme Dutt described it to 1930s’ student recruits as a Comintern’s International Lenin School (ILS), attended by some 160 comprehensive ‘life-outlook’: British communists between 1926 and 1937. The aim, in the words of an early CPGB syllabus, was that of a party hammered out of steel; but for Communism is a complete world conception covering every the little band of British communists, who even in their heyday were scat- aspect of life, and transforming all our thinking and activity; the tered across the outside world in proportions of a thousand to one, an comradeship of Communism draws us into a great collective absolute sense of enclosure must have been especially difficult to maintain.8 movement, in which all can find their realisation, and in which In sensitive accounts, the notion of totality is therefore always qualified. the old distinctions of politics and life, of political activity and Pennetier and Pudal thus describe western communist parties as ‘open’ private life, disappear and lose their meaning.14 total institutions, albeit with uncertain implications given the predication of Goffman’s original conception upon confinement and the condition of Dutt himself was a brilliantly gifted Oxford graduate whose intellect, the ‘inmate’. The same authors also propose a variant of Kriegel’s conscience and career prospects were all subordinated to the party, and concentric rings model of communist organisation, identifying the total who gave to it something like the ‘24 hour-a-day’ commitment it is held institution more specifically with an inner kernel of activists and func- to have demanded.15 In this sense, traditional historiographical emphases tionaries.9 Studer too distinguishes the ‘true’ communist in this way, while convey the spirit of countless party texts, exactly as Klehr’s definition of Harvey Klehr, in his study of the American communist party elite, has the ‘real’ communist mirrors the attempts at cadre formation of commu- suggested that most rank-and-file party members were not ‘real’ commu- nist parties themselves. Nevertheless, the extent to which these ambitions nists in the Leninist sense.10 Crucially, Pennetier and Pudal also introduce were realised needs to be shown even in the lives of these ‘real’ commu- the notion of ‘critical distance’ to describe the independent accumulations nists, if only to establish which the real ones were and how they acquired 4 COMMUNISTS AND BRITISH SOCIETY INTRODUCTION 5 this quality of authenticity. Where distinctions of life and politics disap- tively relaxed approach to recruitment and the oversight of members’ peared, nothing will be lost in testing the claim against the evidence now activities. This was symbolised by the party’s general secretary, the available to us. Where this was not the case, or only partly so, then the Lancashire boilermaker Harry Pollitt (1890–1960), a former shop stew- tensions between them may provide a more effective way of exploring ard and secretary in the 1920s of the trade union-orientated Minority both communist history itself and the wider issues of left-wing political Movement, whose labour-movement credentials and command of the activism which it raises. vernacular made for a distinctly expansive conception of communist Consequently we have adopted an ‘open’ research methodology politics.18 Not least because the CPGB’s institutional presence was so unconstrained by circular definitions of the real, the formative and the much weaker than its counterparts in Weimar Germany or post-war significant.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • '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.
    [Show full text]
  • Claudia Jones' Communism
    Claudia's Communism We Communists adhere to the fundamental belief that complete and lasting equality of imperialist oppressed nations of peoples can be guaranteed only with the establishment of Socialism. CLAUDIA JONES, "ON THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE NEGRO PEOPLE IN THE BLACK BELT," 1946 For even with all the power your Honor holds, how can you decide to mete out justice for the only act which I proudly plead guilty, and one moreover, which by your own prior rulings constitutes no crime-that of holding Communist ideas; of being a member and officer of the Communist Party of the United States? CLAUDIA JONES, "SPEECH TO THE COURT, FEBRUARY, 1953" Claudia Jones offered a consistent and unabashed identification of herself as a communist, as Marxist-Leninist, even in situations when she was in grave danger from the state's punitive mechanisms. Her courtroom speech is ex­ plicit in making her philosophical and ideological positions clear in a public and official place; it was not a plea for leniency, but a demonstration that black women were also thinkers, held ideological positions, and could assert them. Claudia Jones joined the Communist Party USA in her youth because it provided her with the best interpretation of her experience of racism and because it explained best the larger social conditions which she had experi­ enced. The Communist Party at that time was actively engaged in the Scotts­ boro Boys case, 36 defending them from possible lynching and in the process providing examples of black men and women who were activists and com­ mitted communists.
    [Show full text]
  • Fielding Prelims.P65
    7 Instilling ‘responsibility’ in the young If only for reasons of self-preservation, Labour was obliged to draw some young people into the party so they could eventually replace its elderly stalwarts.1 Electoral logic also dictated that Labour had to ensure the support of at least a respectable proportion of what was an expand- ing number of voters. Consequently, the 1955 Wilson report on party organisation (see Chapter 2) expressed particular concern about the consequences of Labour’s inability to interest youngsters in the party.2 Many members were, however, uncertain about the purpose, manner and even merit of making a special appeal to the young. The 1960s began with commentators asserting that most young adults were materi- ally satisfied and so inclined to Conservatism, but the decade ended with the impression that many young people had become alienated from society and embraced far-left causes. This shift in perceptions did not exactly help clarify thinking. Those who have analysed Labour’s attempt to win over the young tend to blame the party’s apparent refusal to take their concerns seriously for its failure to do so.3 They consider Labour’s prescriptive notions of how the young should think and act inhibited its efforts. In particular, at the start of the decade the party’s ‘residual puritanism’ is supposed to have prevented it evoking a positive response among purportedly hedonistic proletarians.4 At the end of the 1960s, many believed the government’s political caution had estranged middle-class students.5 This chapter questions the exclusively ‘supply-side’ explan- ation of Labour’s failure evident in such accounts.
    [Show full text]
  • Theatre As a Weapon? the Emergence of Eeft Theatre on Mer- Seyside
    THEATRE AS A WEAPON? THE EMERGENCE OF EEFT THEATRE ON MER- SEYSIDE M.Jones, B.A. Most practitioners of left theatre, past and present, would accept that a socialist drama should remain flexible enough to respond freshly to each new political situation. Partly for this reason there is an inevitable difficulty in identifying continuous development in the history of left-wing theatre. So ignorant of even quite recent developments were those who set up the Merseyside Eeft Theatre Club (M.L.T.) (later Merseyside Unity Theatre) in 1937, that they only learned of the previous performance of socialist drama on Merseyside, and the prior existence of the Workers' Theatre Movement (W.T.M.) in the 1920s and '30s, when one of their members wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject many years later. 2 Merseyside Left Theatre was set up as a spontaneous response to an immediate political demand. In attempting to use theatre as a weapon in support of the Spanish Government against the attack of international fascism it had no inherited tradition to call upon and only a vague knowledge of similar work being conducted by London Unity Theatre Club or Manchester Theatre of Action.3 For those in agreement with Raphael Samuel, who seeks to portray Unity Theatre as a return to conventional theatri­ cal forms and a retreat from 'true' socialist drama as compared to the work of the W.T.M., then this new Left Theatre was 'merely' a reflection of the Popular Front in Britain.* On Merseyside, unaware of the work of the W.T.M., Left Theatre unconsciously developed a very simi­ lar attitude to performance and repertoire: the first produc­ tion was an 'unconscious' mass declamation an 202 M.
    [Show full text]
  • The Vindication of Jack Jones Contents Page Introduction 2 Part One 4 Part Two 15 Part Three 22 Part Four 31 Part Five 40
    THE VINDICATION OF BRIGADISTA AND UNION MAN JACK JAMES LARKIN JONES: IN REFUTATION OF THE BRITISH INTELLIGENCE CAMPAIGN OF CHARACTER ASSASSINATION Manus O’RiORDAN 2010 The Vindication Of Jack Jones CONTENTS Page Introduction 2 Part One 4 Part Two 15 Part Three 22 Part Four 31 Part Five 40 Jack Jones died on 21 April 2009, and straightaway the smear which is detailed and refuted in the series of articles reprinted here was cast. The very next morning the smear was headlined in the Daily which if it had been implemented Telegraph. would have given working class representatives control of the None of us who knew and worked boardrooms of private industry. with Jack Jones or, like myself, just followed his lead in the Workers’ Implementation of those measures Control agitation of the 1970s, was at all of Workers’ Control was sabotaged by surprised by any of it. the Communist Party of Great Britain and its allies and stooges in the Labour In the days when the political and Party and the Trade Unions. economic interests of the British working class were really represented The failure to implement those by an actual Labour and Trade Union measures and take legislative account Movement at the height of its power of working class power, to realise and confidence, Harold Wilson for that power in the daily routines of the the Labour Party and Jack Jones machinery of the British state, was for the Unions moved to establish followed by the erosion, the rolling back the organised working class as the and the eventual destruction of that determining force in British industry.
    [Show full text]
  • 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 ............................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Left of Karl Marx : the Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones / Carole Boyce Davies
    T H E POLI T I C A L L I F E O F B L A C K C OMMUNIS T LEFT O F K A R L M A R X C L A U D I A JONES Carole Boyce Davies LEFT OF KARL MARX THE POLITICAL LIFE OF BLACK LEFT OF KARL MARX COMMUNIST CLAUDIA JONES Carole Boyce Davies Duke University Press Durham and London 2007 ∫ 2008 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Adobe Janson by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Preface xiii Chronology xxiii Introduction. Recovering the Radical Black Female Subject: Anti-Imperialism, Feminism, and Activism 1 1. Women’s Rights/Workers’ Rights/Anti-Imperialism: Challenging the Superexploitation of Black Working-Class Women 29 2. From ‘‘Half the World’’ to the Whole World: Journalism as Black Transnational Political Practice 69 3. Prison Blues: Literary Activism and a Poetry of Resistance 99 4. Deportation: The Other Politics of Diaspora, or ‘‘What is an ocean between us? We know how to build bridges.’’ 131 5. Carnival and Diaspora: Caribbean Community, Happiness, and Activism 167 6. Piece Work/Peace Work: Self-Construction versus State Repression 191 Notes 239 Bibliography 275 Index 295 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his project owes everything to the spiritual guidance of Claudia Jones Therself with signs too many to identify. At every step of the way, she made her presence felt in ways so remarkable that only conversations with friends who understand the blurring that exists between the worlds which we inhabit could appreciate.
    [Show full text]
  • 17-CV-01854 19840629__Doc.Pdf (7.091Mb)
    , . , . , ' H8f lll!IAMll!I 18 Mlil&I tlM'18Ultd1' S ..CCRET · UNITED .6TATE6 ' ' 60UTfIEQN COMMAND Headquarters U.S. Southern Command Chief of Staff, Major General Jon A. Norman, USAF Date: 25 JAN 2018 Authority: EO 13526 Declassify:_ Deny in Full: _ Declassify in Part: _X_ Reason: Sec. 3.3(b)(1); (b)(6) MOR: SC 16-026-MOR; (150 pages) 1983 tl16TOQICAL QEPOQT (U) CLASS IFIED BY USCI'NCSO COPY if.3 Oft 1-COP_I ES -, REV IEW ON l JULY 1990 SECRET SC 001 .NOT ·,,1astse1,1· IO IOIIIGN .........,.. ·stCRET N0F8RN TlfIS PAGE INTENTIONAllY LEFT BLANK ,;· SEBRET N9F8RN SC 002 SESRET .53 MM. ._ . s::1. El] P !Ud. 7 3 . DEPARTMENT OF' DEFENSE INYilJaTAtts SQU"fiaN ~g 1 ·no. AP0-3"'°""' =:so, SCJ3 . 29 June 1984 SUBJECT: Annual Historical Report, 1983 SEE DISTRIBUTION -~ - 1. Forwarded herewith 1s the US Southern Command Historical Report for 1983. > . ..:: 2. When separated from the classified inclosure, this letter is regarded UNCLASS IFIEO. FOR IBE COMMANDER IN CHIEF: (b)(6) 1 Incl as · OISTRISUTION: JCS, Washington, DC 20301 16 CINCAD, · l'eterson AFB, CO 80914 1 HQ USSOUTHCOM 15 CINCLANT, Norfolk, VA 23511 l SCJ1/J4 2 CINCMAC, Scott AFB, IL 62225 1 SCJ2 1 CINCPAC, Honolulu, HI 96823 1 SCJ3 10 use INC RED, MacDi11 AFB, FL 33608 1 SCJS l USCIHCCENT, Mac0i11 AFB, FL 33608 1 SCJ6 1 CINCSAC, Offutt AFB, NE 68113 1 CSA, Washington, DC 20301 3 TOTAL 67 CNO, Washington, DC 20301 3 CSAF, Washington, DC 20301 3 COR, USA FORSCOM, Ft McPherson. GA 30330 1 CDR, USAF TAC, Lang1ey AFB, VA 23365 1 President, National Defense University, ATTN:· NDU-LO, Washington, DC 20319 2 CMOT, USA War College, Carlis1e Bks, PA 17103 1 CMDT .
    [Show full text]
  • The Cultural Cold War the CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
    The Cultural Cold War The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters FRANCES STONOR SAUNDERS by Frances Stonor Saunders Originally published in the United Kingdom under the title Who Paid the Piper? by Granta Publications, 1999 Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2000 Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry. The New Press oper- ates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in in- novative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable. The New Press, 450 West 41st Street, 6th floor. New York, NY 10036 www.thenewpres.com Printed in the United States of America ‘What fate or fortune led Thee down into this place, ere thy last day? Who is it that thy steps hath piloted?’ ‘Above there in the clear world on my way,’ I answered him, ‘lost in a vale of gloom, Before my age was full, I went astray.’ Dante’s Inferno, Canto XV I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered everywhere. William Congreve, Love for Love Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................... v Introduction ....................................................................1 1 Exquisite Corpse ...........................................................5 2 Destiny’s Elect .............................................................20 3 Marxists at
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Introduction 1. Talk by Harold Silver at Open University, Milton Keynes
    Notes 1 Introduction 1. Talk by Harold Silver at Open University, Milton Keynes, November 2011. 2. Ruth Rouse, “Pioneer Days among Women Students,” Student World 27, no. 1 (1934): 54–60, at 54. 3. Brian Harrison, Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom, 1951–1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), xx. 4. Harold Silver and Pamela Silver, Students: Changing Roles, Changing Lives (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997), 10. 5. See, for example, Carol Dyhouse, Students: A Gendered History (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006); Nick Thomas, “Challenging Myths of the 1960s: The Case of Student Protest in Britain,” Twentieth Century British History 13, no. 3 (2002): 277–297. 6. Reba N. Soffer, Discipline and Power: The University, History and the Making of an English Elite 1870–1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 67–77. 7. Keith Vernon, Universities and the State in England, 1850–1939 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 3. 8. Callum G. Brown, Arthur J. McIvor and Neil Rafeek, The University Experience, 1945–1975: An Oral History of the University of Strathclyde (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004); Andrea Jacobs, Camilla Leach and Stephanie Spencer, “Learning Lives and Alumni Voices,” Oxford Review of Education 36, no. 2 (April 2010): 219–232. 9. Mike Day, National Union of Students, 1922–2012 (London: Regal Press, 2012); see also Mike Day, “‘Respected not Respectable: A New History of the NUS,” Unpublished manuscript. I am grateful to Mike Day for letting me read this in draft. 10. Catriona M. Macdonald, “‘To Form Citizens’: Scottish Students, Governance and Politics, 1884–1948,” History of Education 38, no. 3 (2009): 383–402.
    [Show full text]
  • Vol. 3 No. 4, August–September 1958
    Vol. 3 AUGUST"SEPTEMBER 1958 No.4 SOCIALISTS AND TRADE UNIONS Three Conferences 97 'Export of Revolution' 104 Freedom 011 the Individual 119 Labour's 1951 Defeat '25 . Science and Socialism 128 SUMMER BOOKS_____ -. reviewed by HENRY COLLINS, JOHN DANIELS, TOM KEMP, STANLEY EVANS, DOUGLAS GOLDRING, BRIAN PEARCE and others TWO SHILLINGS 266 Lavender Hill, London S.W. II Editors: John Daniels, Robert Shaw Business Manager: Edward R. Knight Contents EDITORIAL Three Conferences 97 SOt:IALISTS AND THE TRADE UNIONS Brian Behan 98 . 'EXPORT OF REVOLUTION', 19l7-1924 Brian Pearce lO4 FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL Peter Fryer 119 COMMUNICATIONS Stalinism and the Defeat of the 1945-51 Labour Governments Peter Cadogan 125 Science and Socialism G. N. Anderson 128 SUMMER BOOKS The New Ghana, by J. G. Amamoo Ekiomenesekenigha 109 The First International, ed. and trans. by Hans Gerth Henry Collins 110 Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915-1918, ed. by Z. A. B. Zeman B.P. 110 Stalin's C(}rresp~ndence with Churchill, At-tlee, Roosevelt and Truman, 1941-45 Brian Pearce 111 The Economics of Communist Eastern Europe, by Nicolas Spulber Tom Kemp III The Epic Strain in the English Novel, by E. M. W. Tillyard S.F.H. 113 A Victorian Eminence, by Giles St Aubyn K. R. Andrews 114 The Sweet and Twenties, by Beverley Nichols Douglas Goldring 114 Soviet Education for Science and Technoiogy, by A. G. Korol John Daniels ll5 Seven Years Solitary, by Edith Bone J.C.D. 115 The Kingdom of Free Men, by G. Kitson Clark Stanley Evans 116 On Religion, by K.
    [Show full text]
  • The Story of the Historic Scottish Hunger March Harry Mcshane
    page 30 • variant • volume 2 number 15 • Summer 2002 The March The story of the historic Scottish hunger march Harry McShane Introduction On Friday, 9th June 1938, along the main roads Originally published in 1933 by the National leading to Edinburgh, columns of men were Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM) this story marching; men with bands, banners, slogans, eve- relates events seventy years ago. Massive numbers of ryone equipped with knapsack and blanket, their people were out of work in those days, with the field cookers on ahead: an army in miniature, an attendant poverty and misery. unemployed army, the Hunger Marchers. Readers of Three Days That Shook Edinburgh will In the ranks were men of all political opin- themselves feel angry that so little has been done by ions—Labour men, Communists, ILP; there were the labour movement to organise and fight back Trade Unionists and non-Unionists; there were against the ravages of unemployment in the present even sections of women marchers—all marching situation. The daily growing number of unemployed four abreast, shoulder to shoulder, keeping step, are not involved in organising contemporary protest surging along rhythmically. marches to any great degree, and compared to the Here was the United Front of the workers, one of the first fronts of the drive for Unity now being efforts, the imagination and the organisation of the The Hunger March of June 1933, was a coping made in all parts of Britain. NUWM in the thirties they are puny affairs. stone to a whole series of mass activities which In a situation where more than ten people are had swept Scotland.
    [Show full text]