Category: Communist Party of Great Britain
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Marxism and football at the 1966 World Cup: How North Korea captured a socialist imagination
Ever since the English football team was denounced for taking the knee by some right-wing pundits, who claimed that this was a symbolic action of the ‘Marxist’ Black Lives Matter movement, the meme of the English players as revolutionary Marxists has become widespread. Since English football has embraced Marxism, it has been memed, football is…
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Tankie: The origins of an epithet
A common term used in online left-wing discourses is ‘tankie’. It has been used to describe those who are self-identified Marxist-Leninists and those who defend ‘actually existing socialism’ in its various guises (such as the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea). As an extension of this,…
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New book chapter on anti-colonialism and communism in Britain, Australia and South Africa
In September 2017, I travelled to Hamilton, Canada to take part in a workshop held at McMaster University on the Communist International and anti-colonialism, ‘race’ and national liberation, organised by Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay. I spoke about my research on the Communist Parties in Britain, Australia and South Africa and anti-colonialism in the inter-war…
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15 June, 1974 – ‘No Platform’ and Red Lion Square
15 June, 1974 saw both an emergency conference held by the National Union of Students on the issue of ‘no platform’ and a counter-demonstration against the National Front in Red Lion Square. The two incidents were a pivotal moment for the emergent anti-fascist movement in Britain. Below is based on a passage from my forthcoming manuscript on…
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British fascists and the notion of free speech
Since the days of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, the far right have presented themselves as the defenders of free speech. Mosley argued that free speech was almost non-existent due to violent Marxists and that his paramilitary forces were the only thing defending free speech in Britain. Despite many politicians and journalists arguing that…
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Paperback edition of ‘British Communism and the Politics of Race’ is ready for pre-order!
This is just a quick announcement to let you all know that the paperback edition of my book British Communism and the Politics of Race will be out next month through Haymarket Books. You can pre-order it now here. You can read an interview I did with Selim Nadi for the Historical Materialism blog about the book…
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From Olympia to Hyde Park: British anti-fascism in the summer of 1934
On 9 September 1934, a BUF rally at Hyde Park was opposed by a massive anti-fascist counter-demonstration, coming a few months after anti-fascists attempted to disrupt a BUF rally at Olympia and after a summer of similar confrontations across a number of metropolitan areas in England. This post is based on an early chapter from my book project…
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New book: ‘Communists and Labour: The National Left-Wing Movement 1925-1929’ by Lawrence Parker (with extract)
Lawrence Parker, author of The Kick Inside: Revolutionary Opposition in the CPGB, 1945-1991, has published a new book, Communists and Labour: The National Left-Wing Movement 1925-1929. The National Left-Wing Movement (NLWM), set up by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1925–26 to pull the Labour Party rank and file towards Communist politics, was one in…
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Communist Party of Australia’s Rupert Lockwood on the Common Market (c.1961)
In the early 1960s, Britain first tried to join the Common Market. The British Labour Party, the trade unions and the Communist Party opposed this, arguing that it was creating a supranational capitalist entity that served no purpose for the British working class (or the other working classes of Western Europe). This can be seen…
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British Communism and the Politics of Race – out now!
After 10 years in the making, my book British Communism and the Politics of Race, has been published in the Historical Materialism series by Brill. Please order a copy for your institutional library. Link is here. And a library recommendation form can be found here. As with all HM books, a paperback edition will be published…
New Historical Express 