Category: Eric Hobsbawm
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The CPGB response to the New Statesman letter and the Historians’ Group: From the newly released MI5 files on Hobsbawm
The National Archives have just released a series of MI5 files, including a number of files on British Marxist historians Erich Hobsbawm and Christopher Hill. 8 files on Hobsbawm have been released, with two digitised. The first of these digitised files is particularly interesting because it covers the period 0f 1956, when the Historians’ Group…
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Tony Benn interviewed by Eric Hobsbawm (1980)
The death of Tony Benn this week is the second major loss for the Labourite left after the unexpected passing of RMT leader Bob Crow. As usual, the internet is already filling with obituaries, tributes to and commentaries on Benn, so I’m not sure what I can really add. So I thought readers of the…
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Did 1989 matter? British Marxists and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc
November 9 is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (amongst other incidents in modern German history). This is traditionally viewed as a major turning point for the international communist movement, although I would argue that it didn’t ‘shock’ the movement like the events of 1956. I thought I would post a link…
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“I like your old stuff better than your new stuff”: Marxism Today’s ‘New Times’ is 25 years old
25 years ago this month, the Communist Party of Great Britain’s journal Marxism Today published its ‘new times’ issue. Under the editorship of Martin Jacques, and with significant input from Stuart Hall, the concept of Britain (and the rest of the Western world) entering ‘new times’ had been developing in the journal for most of the…
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Thoughts on updating Widgery’s ‘The Left in Britain’
The nuts and bolts of the edited collection on the British far left, edited by Matt Worley and I, are being fitted at the moment and is coming together nicely. But with the editing process nearly done, I’ve been thinking about the myriad of primary sources out there that are available on the leftist groups…
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Review of ‘Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson’
My review of Revolutionary Communist at Work: A Political Biography of Bert Ramelson by Roger Seifert and Tom Sibley has just been posted online at the IHR’s Reviews in History site here. Ramelson was the Communist Party of Great Britain’s Industrial Organiser in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the trade union movement underwent a massive…
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Discussing the CPGB 1957 Congress at Socialist Unity
I just thought I’d do a quick plug to say that Andy Newman at Socialist Unity has posted a discussion of my blogpost on the CPGB’s 1957 ‘Special’ Congress and its relevance to the current crisis in the SWP. On the outcome of the 1957 Congress and the exodus that followed, Andy has written: A…
New Historical Express 