British Communist Party Research Articles

Critical Reflections on Recent British Communist Party History

Critical Reflections on Recent British Communist Party History

Rethinking British Communist Party Women in the 1920s

Rethinking British Communist Party Women in the 1920s

The Historiography of the British Communist Party: Further Considerations and a Response to John McIlroy and Alan Campbell

This is the contribution The Historiography of the British Communist Party: Further Considerations and a Response to John McIlroy and Alan Campbell of MTS 31 (2004).

Liberal Anti-Fascism in the 1930s: The Case of Sir Ernest Barker

One of the few achievements the communist left in Britain can still plausibly claim is its anti-fascism in the 1930s and beyond. This has recently been most dogmatically reasserted in a series of publications by David Renton, who calls for a distinction to be made between “anti-fascists” and “non-fascists.” The former are characterized by their “correct” understanding of fascism and reliance on organized, active resistance, often in the streets; whereas the latter contributed very little to fascism's defeat. Such a loaded definition of anti-fascism ensures that only the Communist Party and their acolytes fit the bill. But within the historiography even more “neutral”—and seemingly encompassing—definitions have tended, in practice, to look largely to left-wing organizations.This article will question these perspectives and argue for the significance of a “liberal” anti-fascism, which brought together many Liberal, Conservative and Labour politicians and intellectuals in cross-party pressure groups. What characterized the anti-fascism of these men and women was not resistance to theactionsof the BUF, which most regarded as thuggish but insignificant, but resistance to theideologicalchallenge to English parliamentary democracy represented by continental “totalitarian” movements. The article will begin by considering the compromised nature of the British Communist Party's anti-fascist record and why “liberal” historians have, on the whole, tended to underestimate the extent of liberal anti-fascism. It will then suggest that a truly less exclusionary and partisan approach to anti-fascism should readily include the likes of the liberal Sir Ernest Barker and many in his political and social circle. It will also argue that, even accepting Renton's own, restrictive definition, Barker would still qualify as an anti-fascist, rather than a non-fascist, for he combined a coherent analysis of single-party, totalitarian states with a commitment to organized action through bodies such as the New Estates Community Committee and the Association for Education in Citizenship to remove the pre-conditions of antidemocratic beliefs.

Histories of the British Communist Party: A User's Guide

The British Communist Party continues to attract the attention of historians who have produced divergent assessments of its politics, organization, personnel and activities. This article critically reviews the literature: the concentration is on detailed studies which have appeared since the 1980s. It scrutinizes the apologetic literature produced by party historians prior to, and in response to, the critical studies which appeared from the late 1950s. It explores this pioneering academic work, now too frequently discounted, before addressing recent research often informed by reaction against it. The paper concludes that this revisionist approach tends to diminish the crucial Russian dimension to Communist politics and neglects the decisive, primary, strategic control Moscow exercised and the distinctiveness of the party in British politics.

A British Version of “Browderism”: British Communists and the Teheran Conference of 1943

In the wake of the Teheran Conference of 1943, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) adopted the political line that later became known as “Browderism.” The Party dissolved itself in favor of a loose Communist Political Association, declared an effective end to the class struggle and argued that the war-time alliance of Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States could continue into the postwar era. The political content of “Browderism” scarcely changed until the eruption of the Cold War later in the 1940s. The British Communist Party, no less than that of the USA, had seen Teheran as an indication that in the postwar world there need be no return to the fierce class struggle characteristic of the prewar decades. It abandoned the insurrectionary model provided by the Bolsheviks, and set out to provide mettle for the wider labor movement rather than act as a vanguard party. Though some elements on the Party’s left sternly criticized the leadership’s post-Teheran policies, their comprehensive defeat at the Party’s 18th Congress showed that the vast majority of the membership had been seduced by the allied powers’ promises.

Reviews of Books:The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-1943 Andrew Thorpe

Reviews of Books:The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-1943 Andrew Thorpe

Stalin's Sausage Machine. British Students at the International Lenin School, 1926-37

Between 1926 and 1937 at least 160 British communists attended the Communist International's International Lenin School (ILS) in Moscow. The aims of the school were to produce a new stratum of leading communist party cadres, young, proletarian, disciplined, and free of the taint of reformism. Using materials from the Comintem archives in Moscow, this article assesses the degree to which the school was successful in meeting these objectives. It shows that among the difficulties it encountered were the reluctance of the British Communist Party (CPGB) to lose the services of large numbers of its best activists and the uncertain application of the lessons inculcated by the school when students returned to Britain. In the short term, ILS alumni played a crucial role in the leadership of the CPGB at both national and district levels, and some were also drawn into work for the Comintern or Soviet state organs. However, by the late 1930s attendance at the school played a reduced role in appointments to key party positions, and as early as 1943 there was only one former student on the CPGB's executive committee. Set in a comparative context, it is argued that the school's significance in Britain was largely confined to the ‘long’ Third Period of 1927–35 and rapidly diminished thereafter.

Labour with knobs on. The recent historiography of the British Communist Party

This is the contribution Labour with knobs on? The recent historiography of the British Communist Party of MTS 27 (2002).

The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-43. By Andrew Thorpe

The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-43. By Andrew Thorpe

British Communists in the Cold War, 1947-52

As a result of the onset of the Cold War the British Communist Party lost the degree of relative acceptance and tolerance which it had enjoyed since the Second World War; was forced into political isolation and regarded with grave suspicion among the general public. This article examines the nature of perceptions and thinking within the party leadership as they struggled to cope with developments (which they badly misjudged), the constantly deteriorating situation with which they were confronted, and the search for a strategy to bring the party out of its isolation and enable it to influence the direction of British politics.

BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW Get access The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920–43. By ANDREW THORPE(Manchester/New york: Manchester U.P., 2000; pp. xi+308. £47.50). DAVID HOWELL DAVID HOWELL University of York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CXVI, Issue 468, September 2001, Pages 915–917, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CXVI.468.915 Published: 01 September 2001

The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920-43

The international and national contexts for revolution - 1917-1945 Moscow and the formation of the CPGB from BSP mark II to bolshevised communist party - 1920-1923 struggling to make an impact - 1923-1925 the united front in retreat - 1926-1927 the coming of class against class - 1927-1929 the zenith of class against class - 1929-1932 towards a wider unity - 1932-1935 the popular front - 1935-1939 the CPGB in the Second World War - 1939-1945 Appendices: Representatives in Moscow - 1920-1945 CPGB membership - 1920-1946 distribution of CPGB membership between districts CI congresses and plenums and CPGB congresses - 1919-1945.

The cartography of despair: Randall Swingler's The Map

The poet, novelist, playwright, critic and editor Randall Swingler was the British Communist Party's best-known writer between the early 1930s and 1956. A founder editor of The New Reasoner , he was a crucial link between the Old Left and the first New Left. But in his last unpublished poetry he repudiated the utopianism of both the 1930s and the late 1950s. No other English poet wrote so powerfully about the intellectual and emotional crisis caused by the events of 1956 as Swingler did in his valetudinarian epic, The Map (1967), published here for the first time.

Opening the Books: the Personal Papers of Dona Torr

This paper discusses the significance of the collection of papers deposited by Dona Torr with the British Communist Party archive, and now held at the National Museum of Labour History in Manchester. Torr was a founder member of the Communist Party, and later a pioneer of 'history from below'. Although she would not have recognized the term, we can see her now as one of a generation of socialist feminists. Torr was certainly an influence on Christopher Hill and Edward and Dorothy Thompson, and through them on Sheila Rowbotham and the Ruskin generation who started History Workshop. Radicalized as much by the Great War as by the campaign for suffrage, Dona Torr became a socialist activist in her late thirties. In common with other middle-class campaigning women of her generation, Torr was able to leave the confines of the domestic sphere. Yet in her public work and in her published writing, there is little sense of personal memory or private emotion. The journey was travelled in one direction, and not returned. For these reasons, Torr's private papers give an important access to a personal story that is not well known. This paper begins with a summary of Torr's public life, before moving on to describe the papers deposited with the archive in Manchester.

International Communism and the Communist International 1919-1943

Part I The view from the centre: Zimmerwald and the origins of the Third International, David Kirby the history of the Comintern in the light of new documents, Kevin McDermott the structure of the Moscow apparatus of the Comintern and decision-making. Part II The parties and the Comintern - Europe: the Comintern International and the British Communist Party, Andrew Thorpe the Comintern and a trotskyist menace to British communism on the eve of World War II, Yevgeny Sergeev about a few things we know better concerning French communism and the Communist International, Guillaume Bourgeois the Comintern and the Italian Commuist Party in the light of some new documents, Aldo Agosti the testing-ground of world revolution - Germany in the 1920s, Aleksandr Vatlin from Lenin's comrades in arms to Dutch donkeys - the Communist party in the Netherlands and the Comintern of the 1920s, Gerrit Voerman the highpoint of Comintern influence? - the Comintern and the Civil War in Spain, Tim Rees nationalist or internationalist? The Portuguese Communist Party's autonomy and the Communist international, Carlos Cuhna the Communist Party of Greece of the Comintern - evaluations, instructions and subordination, Artiem Ulunian Tito and the twighlight of Comintern, Geoff Swain. The parties of Comintern - the Americas and Asia: the Communist International and the American Communist Party, Hugh Wilford from Caribbean backwater to revolutionary opportunity - Cuba's evolving relationship with Comintern, 1925-1934, Barry Carr the COmintern, the Chinese Communist Party and the three armed uprisings in Shanghai, 1926-1927, Steve Smith peasants and the peoples of the east - Indians and the rhetoric of Comintern, Wendy Singer the Comintern and Japanese Communist Party, Sandra Wilson.

Noreen Branson, The History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1941–1951. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1997. vii + 262 pp. $22.50 paper.

This is the fourth volume in an ongoing series. James Klugmann brought his history of the British Communist party through the general strike of 1926 in two initial volumes. Noreen Branson covered the years 1927–1941 in volume three. Now she takes the story up to the fall of Clement Attlee's Labour government in 1951. It is an important story she wishes to tell, for the Communist party was influential out of all proportion to party membership, especially during the war years, which, in retrospect, were something of a climacteric. The party's precipitous fall from grace during the early years of the Cold War marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. The period Noreen Branson treats in the present volume was a crucible.

Reflections on Recent British Communist Party History

Reflections on Recent British Communist Party History

Opening the Books: Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party

Opening the Books: Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party

Opening the Books. Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party

Opening the Books. Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party