The Political Socialization of Activists in the British Communist Party

In the ten years or so since the publication of Hyman's seminal work, 1 students of politics have given increasing attention to political socialization. There has been a proliferation of works utilizing the concept. 2 The notion of socialization has perhaps been most rigorously applied in studies of the development of the political attitudes of children and adolescents, 3 but it has also been employed, if rather more loosely, in the study of adult electors. 4 There is, however, a dearth of material relating to the socialization of party activists at local level. This is not to say that the social and political background and the recruitment patterns of party activists have not been investigated, 5 but the concept of political socialization has not been explicitly or very rigorously employed. The importance of local party organizations and their memberships has not always been self-evident to students of politics and we do not propose to argue the point here. We merely assert that British parties and British politics derive much of their ‘style’ from the character of party activists. This being the case, we feel that the relative lack of information about the socialization of activists represents a considerable gap.