History on the Left

Information overload is a curse. The inability to match one’s interests with the overwhelming amount of material that can be accessed from a keyboard is both frustrating and adds to the backlog of material to read even on a minority interest like the left in Britain. Previously the grey literature of bibliophiles was the print medium, found in obscure, often agitational pamphlets and publications, with the internet it has exploded beyond reasonable levels.

History sources on the Left are varied and many but still small radical presses and distributors are found via their web pages and more easily accessed. Individual local initiatives still exist like the Workers Educational Associations talks and course that may provide a print record. More commonly there are the limited distribution of self-published material of little known episodes in the class war that reflect an activist’s dedication. These can refer to quite localised events.

And obviously there are the archive builders. These often find expression with a dedication to provide a legacy of previous labour as in the provision of the work online of the Communist Historian Group and its publication “Our History”. There is a selection online of the 83 studies produced over 20 years of its operation. http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/shs/index_frameset1.htm

Now superseded by the Socialist History group http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/.

The digital medium makes somethings possible that would be very difficult in the physical world such as the international co-operation and co-ordination for such political depositories as Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line that allows access to material that is scattered, rare and uncatalogued. There is no equivalent resource as it allows access and has more holdings than even a National library collection of record. https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/erol.htm

There are the products of stakhanovite activism, the perspective of those political groups and individuals, always an interesting exploration from the anarchist perspective, is the libcom library which contains nearly 20,000 articles of international history from the other side of the barricades. https://libcom.org/library . Many leftist sites are worth exploring for accounts [undoubtedly partisan] of Leftist history.

Other examples of contemporary online promotion of the local radical history revival are these two sites

1. past tense promotion of London’s radical history https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/ and
2. Bristol Radical History Group http://www.brh.org.uk/site/pamphleteerRecount episodes forgotten, uncelebrated and still worthy of acknowledgment.

Listing the obscure, out-of-print and difficult to now obtain pamphlets to add to the awareness of this history would not be much assistance, so instead more accessible material from a home Library listing of “Books on the History of the English Left” that can be found in the diminishing libraries of Britain, and from online booksellers like http://www.leftontheshelfbooks.co.uk/ , or try http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalreports/buyingbookswithoutamazon/radicalbookshopsdirectory.aspx

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GENERAL BACKGROUND

Beer, M (1940 ) A History of British Socialism. George Allen & Unwin

Blatchford ,Robert (1893/ 1977) Merrie England. The Journeyman Press

Cole, G.D.H & Postgate, Raymond (1938) The Common People 1746-1938.Methuen

Cornforth ,Maurice ed.(1978) Rebels and their Causes: essays in honour of A.L.Morton. Lawrence & Wishart

Gerhold, Gerhold (2007) The Putney Debates 1647.Self-published

Harrison, Stanley (1974) Poor Man’s Guardian: a survey of the Struggles for a Democratic Press,1786-1973. Lawrence & Wishart

Hampton, Christopher (1984)A Radical Reader: the struggle for change in England,1381-1914. Penguin

Horspool, David (2009) The English Rebel: one thousand years of troublemaking, from the to the Nineties. Penguin Books

Jones, Colin (1983) Britain and Revolutionary France: conflict, subversion and propaganda. University of Exeter

MacCoby, S (1957) The English Radical Tradition 1763-1914.New York University Press

Manning, Brian (2003) Revolution and Counter-Revolution in England, Ireland and Scotland. Bookmarks

Samuel, Raphael & Jones, Gareth Stedman (1982) Culture, Ideology and Politics. Routledge & Keegan Paul

Royle, Edward (2000) Revolutionary Britannia? Reflections on the threat of revolution in Britain, 1789-1848. Manchester University Press

Thompson E.P. (1984) The Making of the English Working Class. Penguin

Walzer, Michael (1966) The Revolution of the Saints: A study in the origins of radical politics. Weidenfield and Nicolson

Wells, Roger (1986) Insurrection: the British Experience 1795-1803. Alan Sutton

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19th CENTURY LIVES OF LABOUR

Briggs, Asa (1962) Chartist Studies. MacMillan

Briggs, Asa & Saville, John (1971) Essays in labour history 1886-1923.Macmillan

Charlton, John (1999) ‘It just went like tinder’: The mass movement & New Unionism in Britain. Red Words

Cherry, Steven (1981) Our History– a pocket history of the Labour Movement. Self-published

Coleman, Stephen ed. (1996) Reform and Revolution: three early socialists on the way ahead. Thoemmes Press

Fox, Ralph (nd) The Class Struggle in Britain in the epoch of imperialism 1880-1923 (two volumes) Martin Lawrence

Hobsbawm E.J. (1965) Labouring Men: studies in the history of labour. Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Kynaston, David (1976) King Labour: The British Working Class 1850-1914. George Allen & Unwin

Lane, Tony (1974) The Union Makes Us Strong: The British working class, its politics and trade unionism. Arrow

Marcus, Steve (1985) Engels, Manchester and the working class .Norton

Morris, Williams (1979) Political Writings. Lawrence & Wishart

Morton, A.L. & Tate,George (1973 I 1956) The British Labour Movement 1770- 1920. Lawrence & Wishart

Murphy, J.T. (1934/1972) Preparing for Power: a critical study of the history of the British working class movement. Pluto Press

O’Brien, Mark (2009) Perish the Privileged orders: a socialist history of the Chartist Movement. New Clarion Press

Pelling, Henry (1977) A History of British Trade Unionism. Penguin

Rosenberg, David (2015) Rebel Footprints: a guide to uncovering London’s radical history. Pluto Press

Samuel, Raphael (1982) Village Life and Labour. Routledge

Stearns, Peter (1975) Lives of Labour: work in a maturing Industrial Society. Croom Helm

Torr, Dona (1956) Tom Mann and his Times Vol One: 1856-1890.Lawrence & Wishart

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THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY

Bealey, F & Pelling, H. (1958) Labour and Politics 1900-1906: a history of the Labour Representation Committee. MacMillan

Burgess, Keith (1980) The Challenge of Labour: shaping British society 1850-1930. Croom Helm

Cliff, Tony & Gluckstein, Donny (1988) The Labour Party – a Marxist History. Bookmarks

Clough, Robert (1992) Labour, a party fit for imperialism. Larkin Publications [RCG]

Howell, David (1980) British Social Democracy, a study in development and decay. Croom Helm

Lyman, Richard (nd) The First Labour Government 1924. Chapman & Hall

Miliband, Ralph (1979) Parliamentary Socialism: a study in the politics of Labour. Merlin Press

Ramsay, Robin (2002) The Rise of New Labour. Pocket Essentials

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EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Challinor, Raymond (1977) The Origins of British Bolshevism. Croom Helm

Duncan, Rolbert & Mcivor, Arthur (1992) Militant Workers: labour and Class Conflict 1900-1950. Essays in honour of Harry McShane (1891-1988). John Donald

Kendall, Walter (1971) The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900-21: the origins of British Communism. Weidenfeld and Nicolson

Northedge F.S. & Wells, Audrey (1982) Britain and Soviet Communism, the impact of a revolution. Macmillan

Paul, William (nd) The State: its origins and function. Socialist Labour Press

Rosenberg, Chanie (1987) Britain on the brink of revolution 1919. Bookmarks

Skelly, Jeffrey (1976) The General Strike 1926. Lawrence & Wishart

Thrope, Andrew (1989) The Failure of Political Extremism in inter-war Britain. University of Exeter

Weller, Ken (1985) ‘Don’t Be A Soldier!’ The radical anti-war movement in North London 1914-1918 . Journeyman

Werskey, Gary (1988) The Visible College: a collective biography of British scientists and socialists of the 1930s. Free Association Books

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COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

Adereth, Max (1994) Line of March: an historical and critical analysis of British Communism and its revolutionary strategy. Praxis Press

Attfield, John & Williams, Stephen (1984) 1939:The Communist Party and War. Proceedings of a conference held on 21April1979 organised by the Communist Party History Group. Lawrence & Wishart

Beckett,Francis (1995) Enemy Within: the rise and fall of the British Communist Party. John Murray

Beckett,Francis (2004) Stalin’s British Victims. Sutton Publishing

Bell, Tom (1937) British Communist Party, a short history. Lawrence & Wishart

Black, Robert (1970) Stalinism in Britain, a Trotskyist analysis. New Park Publication

Bronstein, Sam & Richardson, AI (nd) Two Steps Back: Communists & the wider labour movement 1934-1945. A study in the relations between vanguard and class. Socialist Platform

Clegg, Arthur (1989) Aid China 1937-1949.A memoir of a forgotten campaign. New World Presss

Cohen, Phil (1997) Children of the Revolution: communist childhood in Cold War Britain. Lawrence & Wishart

Croft, Andy (1998) A Weapon in the Struggle: the cultural history of the Communist Party in Britain. Pluto Press

Croft, Andy ed. (2012) After The Party: reflections on life since the CPGB. Lawrence & Wishart

Dewar, Hugo (1976) Communist Politics in Britain: The CPGB from its origins to the Second World War. Pluto Press

Drake, Bob (1952) The Communist Technique in Britain. Penguin Press

Green, John (2014)  Britain’s Communists: The Untold Story. Artery Publications

Gollan, John (1978) Reformism and Revolution. Communist Party

Hannington, Wal (1979 I 1936) Unemployed Struggles 1919-1936: My life and struggles amongst the Unemployed. Lawrence & Wishart

Hinton, James & Hyman, Richard (1975) Trade Unions and Revolution: the industrial politics of the early British communist Party. Pluto Press

Hyde, Douglas (1952) I Believed: the autobiography of a former British communist. The Reprint Society

Macintyre, Stuart (1980) A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-1933.  Lawrence & Wishart

Macleod, Alison (1997) The Death of Uncle Joe. Merlin Press

Mcilroy, Morgan & Campbell (2001) Party People, Communist Lives; explorations in biography. Lawrence & Wishart

Mitchell, Alex (1984) Behind the Crisis in British Stalinism. New Park Publication

Morgan, Kevin, Cohen, Gideon and Flinn, Andrew (2007) Communists and British Society 1920-1991 .River Cram Press

Murray, Andrew (1995) The CPGB , a historical analysis to 1941. Communist Liaison

Parker, Lawrence (2008) The kick inside: revolutionary opposition in the CPGB 1960-1991. Self-published. Second edition published by November Publications, 2012.

Pearce, Brian & Woodhouse, Michael (1975) Essays on the History of Communism in Britain. New Park Publications

Pelling, Henry (1958) The British Communist Party, a historical profile. Adam & Charles Black

Piratin, Phil (1980/ 1948) Our Flag Stays Red. Lawrence & Wishart

Rust, William (1949) The Story of the Daily Worker. People’s Press

Samuel, Raphel (2006) The Lost World of British Communism. Verso

Thompson, Willie (1992) The Good Old Cause: British Communism 1920-1991.Pluto Press

Trory, Erine (1974) Between the Wars: recollections of a communist organiser. Crabtree Press

Zinkin, Peter (1985) A Man To Be Watched Carefully. People’s Publication

 

HISTORY of the Communist Party of Great Britain

Published by Lawrence & Wishart

1. Formation and early years 1919-1924 (Klugmann)
2. The General strike 1925-1926                (Klugmann)
3. HISTORY of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1927-1941 (Branson)
4. HISTORY of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1941-1951 (Branson)
5. Cold Wars, Crisis and Conflict: the CPGB 1951-1968                  (Callaghan)
6. Endgames and New Times: the final years of British Communism 1964- 1991 (Andrews)

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THE SIXTIES

Alleyne, Brian (2002) Radicals Against Race; Black activism and cultural politics. Berg

Callaghan, John (1987) The Far Left in British Politics. Blackwell

Caute, David (1988) Sixty-Eight, the year of the barricades. Hamish Hamilton

Chun, Lin (1993) The British New Left. Edinburgh University press

Clutterbuck, Richard (1980) Britain in Agony, the growth of political violence. Penguin

Heinemann, Benjamin J. (1972) The Politics of Powerless: a study of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. Institute of Race Relations. Oxford University Press

Shipley, Peter (1976) Revolutionaries in Modern Britain. The Bodley Head

Smith, Evan & ‎ Worley, Matthew (2017)   Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956. Manchester University Press

Tariq Ali (1972) The Coming British Revolution. Jonathan cape

Thayer, George (1965) The British Political Fringe, a profile. Anthony Blond

Tomlinson, John ( 1981) Left, Right : the march of political extremism in Britain. John Cape

Widgery, David (1976) The Left in Britain 1956-1968. Penguin

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MAOISM

Ash,William (1978) A Red Square: the autobiography of an unconventional revolutionary. Howard Baker

Beil, Robert (1985/2015) Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement Kersplebedeb Publishing Montreal.

McCreery (n.d.) The Way Forward: a Marxist-Leninist of the British state, the CPGB and revolutionaries. WPPE

Podmore, Will ( 2004) Reg Birch: engineer, trade unionist, communist. Bellman books

Sherwood, Marika (1999) Claudia Jones, a life in exile. Lawrence & Wishart

 

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TROTSKYISM

Bronstein, Sam & Richardson, Al (1986) War and the International: a history of the Trotskyist movement in Britain 1937-1949. Socialist Platform

Cliff, Tony (2000) A World To Win: life of a revolutionary. Bookmarks

Crick, Michael (1986) The March of Militant. Faber

Downing, G. (1991) WRP Explosion. The Socialist Fight Group

Essays on Revolutionary Marxism in Britain and Ireland from the 1930s to the 1960s. Revolutionary History Vol.6 No.2/3 Summer 1996

Grant, Ted (2002) History of British Trotskyism. Wellred Publications

Grant, Ted (1989) The Unbroken Thread: the development of Trotskyism over 40 years. Fortress Press

Groves, Reg (1974) The Balham Group: how British Trotskyism Began. Pluto Press

Higgins, Jim (1997) More Years for the Locust ; the origins of the SWP. IS group

Ratner, Harry (1994) Reluctant Revolutionary: memoirs of a Trotskyist 1936-1960. Socialist Platform

Taafe, Peter (1995) The Rise of Miltant : Militant’s 30 years. Militant Publications

The Fourth International, Stalinism and the origins of the International Socialists: some documents (1971) Pluto Press

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MEMOIRS

Bone, Ian (2006) Bash The Rich; true-life confessions of an anarchist in the UK. Tangent Books

Cohen, Nick (2007) What’s Left: how Liberals lost their way. Fourth Estate

Kilfoye, Peter (2000) Left behind: Lessons from Labour’s heartland. Politico

Mitchell, Alex (2012) Come the Revolution: A Memoir. UNSW Press

Saville, John (2003) Memoirs From The Left. Merlin Press

Steel, Mark (2001) Reasons To Be Cheerful: from Punk to New labour through the eyes of a dedicated Trouble Maker. Scribner

Stuart, Christie (2005) Granny Made Me An Anarchist. Scribner

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50. John MacLean

John Maclean, Scottish Marxist, one of the leaders of the ‘Red Clydeside’ era died on 30 November 1923 in Glasgow at the age of 44 .His funeral was attended by thousands of his fellow Glaswegians and at the time, was the biggest funeral ever seen in the city. Even today John Maclean is remembered by a Commemoration in November with a march and graveside oration at Eastwood Cemetery.

Maclean’s daughter, Nan Milton, provided a biography on her father and her selected works of Maclean, In the Rapids of Revolution was the first published collection of essays, articles, pamphlets and letters by the revolutionary organiser and educator of Clydeside. The indispensable Marxist Internet Archive have his articles from Justice and Forward, available online https://www.marxists.org/archive/maclean/index.htm

January 2018 saw the publication of Gerard Cairns new book on John MacLean titled: ‘The Red and the Green – a Portrait of John Maclean. The former Secretary of the John Maclean Society has a chapter in the book that highlights Maclean’s links with Irish revolutionaries on Clydeside, and the practical assistance he gave to the cause of Irish freedom. The author of “The Irish Tragedy: Scotland’s Disgrace”, is known better on the Left than in wider society. There has been a gradual increase in the literature that focuses on John Maclean and his political life but he remains still a controversial icon, partly because of his advocacy of a Scottish Workers Republic and rejection of the then newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain, an issue explored in John MacLean and the CPGB by Bob Pitt, on the Trotskyist left, who political disagreements with Maclean’s conclusions are open and reflective of the British Left’s attitude http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Pamph/Maclean.html

That Maclean is published by others who politically oppose him, like the SWP’s 1998 study by Dave Berry, reflects the problem of how to incorporate an obvious revolutionary internationalist who stands for Scottish Republicanism in an essentially unionist Left. There was renewed interest in the importance of Maclean in the context of the debate about Scottish independence that saw the image of MacLean as a meme! While others equally ideologically hostile strangely try to claim him as their own [see Terry Brotherstone’s introduction to the WRP’s  Accuser of Capitalism published in 1986.]

Then [as today] radical socialists operate on a British stage to an agenda set largely in response to the British state centred on London. The perspective offered by Maclean did not gel with that metropolitan-influenced analysis. As Graham Bain states “Historians on the whole have been unkind about John MacLean.” Drawing upon his own mythologies, MacLean argued for an anti-war class patriotism, to refuse to fight each other over the interests of Europe’s capitalist classes. The call to break up the British state through Scottish Independence was “All Hail the Scottish Workers Republic” and not the patrician bourgeois call of ‘Scotland Free’.

“Scotland must again have independence, but not to be ruled over by traitor chiefs and politicians. The communism of the clans must be re-established on a modern basis. (Bolshevism, to put it roughly, is but the modern expression of the communism of the mir.) Scotland must therefore work itself into a communism embracing the whole country as a unit. The country must have but one clan, as it were – a united people working in co-operation and co-operatively, using the wealth that is created.”

There are a minority of activists who will regard John Maclean as a legacy for today. His dedication and determination alone means he should not slumber in some ill-deserved obscurity. His expression and contemporary analysis maybe dated, his Marxist optimism and appeal to the working class endure:

MacLean turning to friends in the court shouted, "Keep it going, boys; keep it going".

Gerard Cairns (2018) ‘The Red and the Green – a Portrait of John Maclean. Connolly Books £6.99

Mail order: http://www.calton-books.co.uk/books/the-red-and-the-green-a-portrait-of-john-maclean/

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Of Interest

Accuser of Capitalism. John MacLean’s speech from the dock, May 9^th 1918. New Park Publications 1986

Bain, Graham (nd) John MacLean, His Life and Work 1919-1923. John MacLean Society

McHugh J. and Ripley, B.J.,   John Maclean, the Scottish Workers’ Republican Party and Scottish Nationalism Scottish Labour History Society Journal, No.18, 1983.

MacLean, John (1973) The War After The War Socialist Reproduction.

MacLean’s pamphlet ‘The War After the War’ has been republished by the Bristol Radical History Group.

Milton, Nan (ed) (1978) In the Rapids of Revolution. Allison & Busby

Milton, Nan (1979) John Maclean. Pluto Press

Sherry, Dave (1998) John Maclean. Socialist Workers Party

John Maclean – “The Most dangerous man in Britain” –   http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/john-maclean-most-dangerous-man-in.html   [July 1, 2014]

Sean Ledwith, The Scottish Lenin: the life and legacy of John Maclean http://www.counterfire.org/revolutionary/17009-the-scottish-lenin-the-life-and-legacy-of-john-maclean [February 21, 2014]

John Maclean’s Pollokshaws http://www.glasgowwestend.co.uk/people/johnmaclean.php

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Legacy

49. Keke ~ fighter for freedom

Last year saw the publication of a rather expensive academic book, Youth Activism and Solidarity: the Non-Stop Picket against Apartheid.  The supporters of the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group [City Group] had maintained a Non-Stop Picket outside the South African Embassy in Trafalgar Square calling for the release of Nelson Mandela. City AA drew upon a wider geographical support that those who resided in the City, although affiliated as a local group of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, City AA, as it became known, had been founded by Norma Kitson in April 1982. The accompanying blog https://nonstopagainstapartheid.wordpress.com/  provides a commentary on the personalities and struggles around the campaign that was strongly influenced by the Revolutionary Communist Group (formed in 1974, having been part of the “Revolutionary Opposition” faction of the International Socialists (IS), (forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party).

In February 1985 City Group was de-recognised as a local branch of the national Anti-Apartheid Movement. The prolonged picket outside the South African Embassy in Trafalgar Square, a protest not supported by the AAM.

In justifying City Group’s expulsion, the AAM’s executive committee circulated a report quoting a letter from the then Chief Representative of the ANC in London, Solly Smith, which stated:

we are aware of the activities of these people and if they are not brought to a stop a lot of damage will be done in the field of solidarity work in this country. (The Anti-Apartheid Movement and City AA: a statement by the AAM executive committee, 1 December 1985).

In 1993, the ANC revealed that Solly Smith had confessed, prior to his death, that he had been a spy for South African Military Intelligence inside the London ANC.

RCG produced a pamphlet South Africa – Britain out of Apartheid; Apartheid out of Britain that gives some details of the City AA activism at the time. http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/images/pdf/rcg_south_africa_pamphlet_lq.pdf

Personally pleasingly was that sharing the book’s dedication was Zolile Hamilton Keke, the Chief Representative in the UK of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in the mid-1980s.  In London he was a hard-working representative in a very difficult and hostile terrain where the British Anti-Apartheid Movement was a sworn enemy of the PAC. Those were hard and financially precarious years in exile, but he would  travel throughout London to speak at meetings on the freedom struggle. When City Group launched its Non-Stop Picket of the South African embassy, in April 1986, Keke was there at the rally to speak on behalf of the PAC.

He was a militant of Poqo (pure/ alone) the armed wing of the PAC,  Prisoner 325/64 on Robben Island , subject to a banning order on release in 1973 when he began recruiting youths to join the PAC in exile. A defiant Keke was a defendant in the secret Bethal treason trial after the Soweto Uprising by school students in 1976. In 1981 Keke went into exile as representative for the Pan Africanist Congress. In Britain the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) in practice only support the African National Congress, freezing out the representatives of the PAC and the black consciousness movement AZAPO, In 1992 he returned to South Africa with his family and he never gave up the fight for the liberation of his homeland.

As the authors state, “Zolile Keke helped educate a generation of British solidarity activists that it was not enough  to achieve a ‘democratic South Africa’, Azania had to be fully decolonized.”

A tribute to Zolile Hamilton Keke [October 31 1945 – February 6 2013] by fellow fighter for freedom, Motsoko Pheko, who worked with him in London exile can be found at   http://www.pambazuka.org/resources/zolile-hamilton-keke-tribute.