The decline of revolutionary pragmatism and the splintering of British communism in the 1980s

2018 ◽  
pp. 138-152
Author(s):  
Jeremy Tranmer
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
British Labour

The 1980s are often remembered as a period of divisions and splits in the Labour Party. However, it was not the only part of the British labour movement to experience this type of problem since the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was also concerned. Like the Labour Party, it was divided over how to react to the political successes of the Conservatives and the rapid decline of traditional industries. But its internal difficulties also resulted from a number of factors which were specific to the CPGB itself. This chapter contends that a greater understanding of these factors can be achieved by developing a modified version of Nina Fishman’s concept of ‘revolutionary pragmatism’ and applying it to British Communism in the 1980s. It will become apparent that during this decade the very framework within which most Communists acted was challenged and undermined but not successfully replaced.

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.

‘We never trained our children to be socialists’: the next Lansbury generation and Labour politics, 1881–1951

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Birth Control ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Abortion Law ◽  
British Labour ◽  
History Of ◽  
East End

George Lansbury, the Leader of the Labour Party from 1932-1935, and his wife Bessie had twelve children – ten surviving into adulthood - many of whom played a significant role in the history of the British Labour movement in the early and mid-twentieth century.This Lansbury generation is the focus of the essay by John Shepherd, whose monumental study of the life and political career of George Lansbury is well known and highly respected. In the early 1920s members of the Lansbury family for a time became members of the Communist Party of Great Britain - a factor that weighed against their father’s inclusion in Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour Cabinet in 1924. Others became important pioneers in various campaigns in working-class politics, including women’s enfranchisement, birth control and abortion law reform. Altogether, they created something of a memorable Lansbury Labour dynasty in the East End, as well as in national political life. Nevertheless, what emerges from John Shepherd’s detailed and meticulous work is that, although the influence of this Lansbury generation was noteworthy in Labour politics, they never reached the political heights of their popular father. Like Herbert Gladstone, in an earlier essay, they played a very important role but in the shadow of their father’s dominating presence.

‘The age of Cloe’? G. D. H. Cole and the British labour movement 1929–1933

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 933-957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Riddell
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
National Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Political Events ◽  
British Labour ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACTThe period 1929–33 was perhaps the most traumatic in the inter-war history of the British Labour movement; the ignominious collapse of the second Labour government led the Labour party to question not only the role of its former leaders but also its ideology. This article will reassess the role of the Oxford academic and socialist intellectual, G. D. H. Cole, in this period and will argue that his contribution to the reshaping of the party in the wake of the 1931 financial crisis and the formation of the national government was of much greater significance than has previously been acknowledged. In addition, it will analyse the effects that the political events of the 1920s and the failures of the Macdonald government had upon Cole's socialist ideology and will illustrate that his move away from his earlier guild socialism to a collectivist philosophy was more profound than he himself, and many commentators since, have been prepared to concede.

scholarly journals The National Unemployed Workers' Movement, 1921–36

1983 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Hayburn
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Second World War ◽  
General Council ◽  
National Minority ◽  
World War ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Second World

Between the wars, the response of the British Labour Party and Trades Union Congress to the problem of the unemployed was extremely limited. Committed to gradualist philosophies, the leaders of the labour movement were unwilling to attempt genuine socialist remedies in office, and, in opposition, to provide a militant leadership for the protest movement. The National Unemployed Workers' Movement, begun in 1921 and not finally dissolved until after the outbreak of the Second World War, was the only body which attempted to mobilise unemployed discontent. After 1926, the Labour Party Executive and the General Council of the TUC consistently refused to have any contact with this organisation on the grounds that, like the National Minority Movement and the later Rank-and-File Movement, the NUWM was merely a subsidiary of the British Communist Party. This article is an attempt to show that by a process of induction the Labour leaders branded the unemployed movement as a whole on the basis of the known Communist allegiance of a number of its leaders, and to demonstrate that they allowed themselves to become so sidetracked by the issue of whether or not the NUWM was a Communist front that their own efforts on behalf of the unemployed suffered in consequence.

Nation, Locality and Radical Identity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Petrie
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Control ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Political Left ◽  
National Model ◽  
Selection Of

Concentrating upon the years between the 1924 and 1929 general elections, which separated the first and second minority Labour governments, this chapter traces the rise of a modernised, national vision of Labour politics in Scotland. It considers first the reworking of understandings of sovereignty within the Labour movement, as the autonomy enjoyed by provincial trades councils was circumscribed, and notions of Labour as a confederation of working-class bodies, which could in places include the Communist Party, were replaced by a more hierarchical, national model. The electoral consequences of this shift are then considered, as greater central control was exercised over the selection of parliamentary candidates and the conduct of election campaigns. This chapter presents a study of the changing horizons of the political left in inter-war Scotland, analysing the declining importance of locality in the construction of radical political identities.

The Impact of the British Labour Party on the Dissidence of Milovan Djilas 1950–1958

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-187
Author(s):  
Nikola Mijatov
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Impact

The article analyses the influence of the leadership of the British Labour Party on the first Cold War dissident, Milovan Djilas. Up until his dissidence in 1954, the main Yugoslav official for official relations with the British Left was Djilas. He had many contacts with the members of the British Labour Party such as Morgan Phillips, Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee. While many of these contacts were professional, Djilas established a firm friendship with Bevan, under whose influence Djilas gradually abandoned communism and embraced the Labour movement. When he called for another party in Yugoslavia (one similar to the Labour Party), he was condemned by Tito’s regime.

Concluding remarks

2018 ◽  
pp. 271-279
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Common Concern ◽  
The Future ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Different Levels

The conclusion begins with an overview of the way the chapters in the volume have offered an exploration of three different levels of conflict – intra-organisational tensions, tensions which exist between different types of organisations, and tensions between labour organisations and spontaneous working-class protests – to collectively provide explanations to the paradoxes affecting the Labour movement. It then stresses the benefits of the volume’s integrated and multidisciplinary approach of the labour movement, underlining the fact that the contributors share a common concern for the future of the British labour movement. In the following section the conclusion ponders the future prospects for the labour movement and the Labour Party, sketching a number of possible scenarios. It stresses the fact that visions of the future differ according to political positioning. It then highlights the shared conviction of the contributors that class remains relevant as an analytical tool.

The Pyrrhic Victories of the 1920s

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-141
Author(s):  
Einar Lie
Keyword(s):  
Strong Support ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
World War ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Government ◽  
First World

This chapter describes Norges Bank in the 1920s. Following the chaotic years during and after the First World War, politics ceded the economic realm to institutional technocrats, represented especially by the governor of Norges Bank, Nicolai Rygg. Rygg started out with strong support from the political and intellectual milieus in his programme for restoring the pre-war value of the krone. Gradually, the support eroded. The growing labour movement and Labour Party came to represent the most important threat to Norges Bank’s policies in its final stage. Labour came out as the winner of the parliamentary election in 1927 and formed a new, short-lived government in early 1928. When the government was overthrown after a few weeks in office, the parity policy could be completed and ‘normalcy’ restored. However, Rygg and Norges Bank won a costly victory. In the aftermath, the parity policy was mainly seen as erroneous and misguided. Rygg’s active role in overthrowing the Labour government in 1928 became a formative element in the labour movement’s perceptions of Norges Bank’s and its governor’s past and future role in Norwegian society.

scholarly journals National Liberation for Whom? The Postcolonial Question, the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the Party’s African and Caribbean Membership

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Smith
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Trade Relationship

AbstractThe Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) had a long tradition of anti-colonial activism since its foundation in 1920 and had been a champion of national liberation within the British Empire. However, the Party also adhered to the idea that Britain’s former colonies, once independent, would want to join a trade relationship with their former coloniser, believing that Britain required these forms of relationship to maintain supplies of food and raw materials. This position was maintained into the 1950s until challenged in 1956–1957 by the Party’s African and Caribbean membership, seizing the opportunity presented by the fallout of the political crises facing the CPGB in 1956. I argue in this article that this challenge was an important turning point for the Communist Party’s view on issues of imperialism and race, and also led to a burst of anti-colonial and anti-racist activism. But this victory by its African and Caribbean members was short-lived, as the political landscape and agenda of the CPGB shifted in the late 1960s.

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