The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-43 PDF Download

Author: Andrew Thorpe
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719053122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
The relationship between the British Communist Party and Soviet Communism is one of perennial fascination. In this text Thorpe makes extensive use of available sources, to offer a new view of this most controversial of topics.

Author: Douglas Jones
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786831333
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
While electorally weak, the Communist Party of Great Britain and its Welsh Committee was a constant feature of twentieth century Welsh politics, in particular through its influence in the trade union movement. Based on original archival research, the present volume offers the first in-depth study of the Communist Party’s attitude to devolution in Wales, to Welsh nationhood and Welsh identity, as well as examining the party’s relationship with the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru and the labour and nationalist movements in relation to these issues. Placing the party’s engagement of these issues within the context of the rapid changes in twentieth century Welsh society, debates on devolution and identity on the British left, the role of nationalism within the communist movement, and the interplay of international and domestic factors, the volume provides new insight into the development of ideas by the political left on devolution and identity in Wales during the twentieth century. It also offers a broad outline of the party’s policy in relation to Wales during the twentieth century, and an assessment of the role played by leading figures in the Welsh party in developing its policy on Wales and devolution.

Author: Raphael Samuel
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784786381
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
A fascinating account of life as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain The Lost World of British Communism is a vivid account of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Raphael Samuel, one of post-war Britain’s most notable historians, draws on novels of the period and childhood recollections of London’s East End, as well as memoirs and Party archives, to evoke the world of British Communism in the 1940s. Samuel conjures up the era when the movement was at the height of its political and theoretical power, brilliantly bringing to life an age in which the Communist Party enjoyed huge prestige as a bulwark for the struggles against fascism and colonialism.

Author: Thomas Linehan
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526130440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Based on extensive use of primary evidence, this is the first study of interwar British communism to set the communist experience within the framework of the life cycle. Communism offered a complete identity that could reach into virtually all aspects of life; the Party sought influence even over members' personal conduct, moral codes, health and diet, personal hygiene, and aesthetic judgements. The British Communist Party (CPGB) sought to address the communist experience through all of the principal phases of the life cycle, and its reach therefore extended to take in children, youth, and the various aspects of the adult experience, including marital and kinship relations. The book also considers the contention that the Communist Party functioned as a ‘political religion’ for some joiners who opted to enter the congregation of the communist devoted.

Author: Kevin Morgan
Publisher: Rivers Oram Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
The revolutionary appeal of Communism in 20th-century Britain is analyzed in this examination of why Communist Party members joined, how they participated in the party's activities, and why, in many cases, they left the party. Archival resources, hundreds of interviews, and sociological analyses document the nature of left-wing activism in Britain from its earliest incarnations to the schisms of the 1980s. The role of Communism in British politics and society is illuminated by discussions of constructions of political authority; the role of gender, generation, and social class; and the significance of political space and mobility in recruitment.

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004324828
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
This book provides an analysis of the articulation and organisation of radical international solidarity by organisations that were either connected to or had been established by the Communist International (Comintern), such as the International Red Aid, the International Workers’ Relief, the League Against Imperialism, the International of Seamen and Harbour Workers and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers. The guiding light of these organisations was a radical interpretation of international solidarity, usually in combination with concepts and visions of gender, race and class as well as anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and anti-fascism. All of these new transnational networks form a controversial part of the contemporary history of international organisations. Like the Comintern these international organisations had an ambigious character that does not fit nicely into the traditional typologies of international organisations as they were neither international governmental organisations nor international non-governmental organisations. They constituted a radical continuation of the pre-First World War Left and exemplified an attempt to implement the ideas and movements of a new type of radical international solidarity not only in Europe, but on a global scale. Contributors are: Gleb J. Albert, Bernhard H. Bayerlein, Kasper Braskén, Fredrik Petersson, Holger Weiss.

Author: Robert Colls
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199680809
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
An intellectual who did not like intellectuals, a socialist who did not trust the state, a liberal who was against free markets, a Protestant who believed in religion but not in God, a fierce opponent of nationalism who defined Englishness for a generation. Aside from being one of the greatest political essayists in the English language and author of two of the most famous books in twentieth century literature, George Orwell was a man of profound contradictions. George Orwell:English Rebel takes us through the many twists and turns of Orwell's life and thought, from precocious, public school satirist at Eton and imperial policeman in Burma, through his early years as a rather dour documentary writer, and his formative experiences as a volunteer soldier in the Spanish Civil War. Robert Colls traces, in particular, Orwell's complex relationship with his country, from the alienated intellectual of the mid-1930s through a gradual reconciliation, to the exhilarating peaks of his wartime writing. He explores the mistakes and contradictions, the lucky escapes and near misses, and what they tell us about Orwell as man and author.

Author: Ben Jackson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 184779646X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
The demand for equality has been at the heart of the politics of the Left in the twentieth century, but what did theorists and politicians on the British Left mean when they said they were committed to ‘equality’? How did they argue for a more egalitarian society? Which policies did they think could best advance their egalitarian ideals? Equality and the British Left provides the first comprehensive answers to these questions. It charts debates about equality from the progressive liberalism and socialism of the early twentieth century to the arrival of the New Left and revisionist social democracy in the 1950s. Along the way, it examines and reassesses the egalitarian political thought of many significant figures in the history of the British Left, including L. T. Hobhouse, R. H. Tawney and Anthony Crosland. Newly available in paperback for the first time, this book demonstrates that the British Left has historically been distinguished from its ideological competitors on the Centre and the Right by a commitment to a demanding form of economic egalitarianism. It shows that this egalitarianism has come to be neglected or caricatured by politicians and scholars alike, and is more surprising and sophisticated than is often imagined. Equality and the British Left offers a compelling new perspective on British political thought that will appeal to scholars and students of British history and political theory, and to anyone interested in contemporary debates about progressive politics.

Author: Yann Béliard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1800859686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In most studies of British decolonisation, the world of labour is neglected, the key roles being allocated to metropolitan statesmen and native elites. Instead this volume focuses on the role played by working people, their experiences, initiatives and organisations, in the dissolution of the British Empire, both in the metropole and in the colonies. How central was the intervention of the metropolitan Left in the liquidation of the British Empire? Were labour mobilisations in the colonies only stepping stones for bourgeois nationalists? To what extent were British labour activists willing and able to form connections with colonial workers, and vice versa? Here are some of the complex questions on which this volume sheds new light. Though convergences were fragile and temporary, this book recapture the sense of uncertainty that accompanied the final decades of the British Empire, a period when radical minorities hoped that coordinated efforts across borders might lead not only to the destruction of the British Empire but to that of capitalism and imperialism in general. Exploiting rare primary sources and adopting a resolutely transnational approach, our collection makes an original contribution to both labour history and imperial studies.

Author: Tom Buchanan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191640735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
East Wind offers the first complete, archive-based account of the relationship between China and the British Left, from the rise of modern Chinese nationalism to the death of Mao Tse tung. Beginning with the "Hands Off China" movement of the mid-1920s, Tom Buchanan charts the mobilisation of British opinion in defence of China against Japanese aggression, 1931-1945, and the role of the British left in relations with the People's Republic of China after 1949. He shows how this relationship was placed under stress by the growing unpredictability of Communist China, above all by the Sino-Soviet dispute and the Cultural Revolution, which meant that by the 1960s China was actively supported only by a dwindling group of enthusiasts. The impact of the suppression of the student protests in Tiananmen Square (June 1989) is addressed as an epilogue. East Wind argues that the significance of the left's relationship with China has been unjustly overlooked. There were many occasions, such as the mid-1920s, the late 1930s and the early 1950s, when China demanded the full attention of the British left. It also argues that there is nothing new in the current fascination with China's emergence as an economic power. Throughout these decades the British left was aware of the immense, unrealised potential of the Chinese economy, and of how China's economic growth could transform the world. In addition to analysing the role of the political parties and pressure groups of the left, Buchanan sheds new light on the activities of many well-known figures in support of China, including intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell, R H Tawney and Joseph Needham. Many other interesting stories emerge, concerning less well-known figures, which show the complexity of personal links between Britain and China during the twentieth century.