Collective Security or Colonial Revolution? The 1938 Conference on Peace and Empire, Anticolonialism, and the Popular Front

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Williams
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Service Bureau ◽  
History Of ◽  
Socialist Movement

Abstract The 1938 Conference on Peace and Empire was emblematic of the deep divisions within the British socialist movement over the inseparable issues of fascism, war, capitalism, and colonialism. One grouping, around the Communist Party, the Labour Left, and the India League, espoused a reformist anticolonialism tied to a Popular Front of socialists and liberals and the collective security of the democratic powers against the menace of fascism. Another grouping, around the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the International African Service Bureau (IASB), believed distinctions between ‘democratic’ and fascist colonialism to be flawed and instead advocated anticolonial revolution while rejecting what they saw as pleas to support colonialist policies under the guise of antifascism. This article advances three overlapping arguments. First, that the Popular Front strategy led Communists to promote antifascist alliances that necessarily diminished their anticolonialist activism. Secondly, that the IASB-ILP coalition was the most consistently militant anticolonialist force in Britain during the second half of the 1930s. Thirdly, that we need to more thoroughly integrate both the history of anticolonialism and the ideas and activism of people of colour into our understandings of inter-war British socialism.

Unions and the Popular Front: The West Coast Waterfront in the 1930s

1986 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 59-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Nelson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Human Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Recent discussions of the history of American communism have generated a good deal of controversy. A youthful generation of “new social historians” has combined with veterans of the Communist party to produce a portrait of the Communist experience in the United States which posits a tension between the Byzantine pursuit of the “correct line” at the top and the impulses and needs of members at the base trying to cope with a complex reality. In the words of one of its most skillful practitioners, “the new Communist history begins with the assumption that … everyone brought to the movement expectations, traditions, patterns of behavior and thought that had little to do with the decisions made in the Kremlin or on the 9th floor of the Communist Party headquarters in New York.” The “new” historians have focused mainly on the lives of individuals, the relationship between communism and ethnic and racial subcultures, and the effort to build the party's influence within particular unions and working-class constituencies. Overall, the portrait has been critical but sympathetic and has served to highlight the party's “human face” and the integrity of its members.

The Comintern

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Vatlin ◽  
Stephen A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Policy Conflict ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
The Third ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The essay falls into two sections. The first examines the history of the Third International (Comintern) from its creation in 1919 to its dissolution in 1943, looking at the imposition of the Twenty-One Conditions on parties wishing to join the new International in 1920, the move from a perspective of splitting the labour movement to one of a united front in the early 1920s, the shift to the sectarian ‘third period’ strategy in 1928, and the gradual emergence of the popular front strategy in the mid-1930s. It examines the institutions of the Comintern and the Stalinization of national communist parties. The second section looks at some issues in the historiography of the Comintern, including the extent to which it was a tool of Soviet foreign policy, conflict over policy within the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI), and the relationship of ECCI to ‘national sections’, with a particular focus on the Vietnamese Communist Party. Finally, it discusses problems of cultural and linguistic communication within the Comintern.

Unions and the Popular Front: The West Coast Waterfront in the 1930s

1986 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Bruce Nelson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Human Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Recent discussions of the history of American communism have generated a good deal of controversy. A youthful generation of “new social historians” has combined with veterans of the Communist party to produce a portrait of the Communist experience in the United States which posits a tension between the Byzantine pursuit of the “correct line” at the top and the impulses and needs of members at the base trying to cope with a complex reality. In the words of one of its most skillful practitioners, “the new Communist history begins with the assumption that … everyone brought to the movement expectations, traditions, patterns of behavior and thought that had little to do with the decisions made in the Kremlin or on the 9th floor of the Communist Party headquarters in New York.” The “new” historians have focused mainly on the lives of individuals, the relationship between communism and ethnic and racial subcultures, and the effort to build the party's influence within particular unions and working-class constituencies. Overall, the portrait has been critical but sympathetic and has served to highlight the party's “human face” and the integrity of its members.

1936

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rees
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
International Policies ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
History Of

The year 1936 was a momentous one in the history of communism. This was a time of acute uncertainty and fear, during which the Soviet Union and international communist movement faced unprecedented challenges. This article examines the attempts to build a socialist state in Russia, and to follow new international policies of collective security and the building of popular front alliances. Particular attention is given to the principal developments of the year—the internal crisis in the Soviet Union, the Chinese and Spanish civil wars, the Popular Front in France, the origins of the Great Terror—but also to the more everyday experiences of communists around the world.

The Early History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920–9

1958 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 41-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Pelling
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Early History ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
British Labour ◽  
History Of

THE Communist Party of Great Britain, like the Communist Parties of most other European countries, was founded shortly after the Russian Bolshevik revolution. It was unique among the Communist Parties of the major countries in being the result of an amalgamation of small revolutionary groups rather than a product of the schism of a large existing organization. The British Labour Party did not split as a result of the Russian revolution: the Communist Party grew up out of elements which for the most part had had a separate existence on the Labour Party's left wing.

Vanguard of the Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This book is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

ENGLISH LABOUR AND TRADE UNIONISM OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY IN THE COVERAGE OF THE BRITISH HISTORIAN G. D. H. COLE

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 22-33
Author(s):  
T.N. GELLA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
First World

The main purpose of the article is to analyze the views of a famous British historian G.D.G. Cole on the history of the British workers' and UK socialist movement in the early twentieth century. The arti-cle focuses on the historian's assessment and the reasons for the workers' strike movement intensi-fication on the eve of the First World War, the specifics of such trends as labourism, trade unionism and syndicalism.

A Short History of the Labour Party

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair J. Reid ◽  
Henry Pelling
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
Short History ◽  
History Of
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