Bolshevism, Syndicalism and the General Strike: the Lost
Bolshevism, Syndicalism and the General Strike: the Lost

Author: Kevin Morgan

Publisher:

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781905007271

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The third and final volume of Kevin Morgan's widely acclaimed series Bolshevism and the British Left centres around the figure of Alf Purcell (1872-1935), who between the wars was one of the leading personalities in the British and international labour movement. A long-term member of the TUC General Council, Purcell became chairman of the general strike committee in 1926 - and this could have been his hour of glory. But when it was called off ignominiously he experienced the obloquy of defeat. Purcell was most famous as one of TUC 'lefts' of the 1920s. But he was also Labour MP for both the Forest of Dean and Coventry, as well as being the founder of a working guild in the spirit of guild socialism, the controversial president of the International Federation of Trade Unions and the man who moved the formation of the British communist party. A sometime syndicalist and associate of Tom Mann, his experiences in the militant Furnishing Trades gave rise to the uncompromising trade-union internationalism which features so centrally in these chapters. But with the squeezing of his syndicalist approach, as the labour movement polarised into Labour and communist currents, Purcell died a politically broken figure. Morgan also deploys the life of Purcell as a biographical lens, a way of exploring wider controversies - among them the rival modernities of Bolshevism and Americanism; the reactions to Bolshevism of anarchists like Emma Goldman (who called Purcell 'that damn fake'); and the roots of political tourism to the USSR in the British labour delegations in which Purcell featured so prominently. The volume also includes a major challenge to existing interpretations of the general strike, which it compellingly presents, not as the last fling of the syndicalists, but as a first and disastrously ill-conceived imposition of social-democratic centralism by Ernest Bevin.

The Moderate Bolshevik
The Moderate Bolshevik

Author: Charters Wynn

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-04-11

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 900451497X

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This first English-language biography of Mikhail Tomsky illuminates how the sole worker in the top echelon of the Bolshevik Party, and the leader of the huge trade-union bureaucracy, helped shape Soviet domestic and foreign policy along generally moderate lines throughout the 1920s.

Communists and Labour Ñ The National Left-Wing Movement 1925Ð1929
Communists and Labour Ñ The National Left-Wing Movement 1925Ð1929

Author: Lawrence Parker

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13: 0244091870

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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 which Marxists worked in a largely open fashion to promote specific programmatic principles. This publication sheds new light on how the early CPGB approached its work inside the Labour Party and points to a more variegated picture of the CPGB in the mid-to-late 1920s as still capable of producing rational and principled responses to the class struggle - albeit, in the case of the NLWM, partially flawed and unsuccessful ones. The NLWM had another goal forced upon it of protecting Communists and their sympathisers from a Labour leadership intent on expelling and disaffiliating such elements in a pursuit of respectability. This monograph seeks to qualitatively measure the impact of that disaffiliation process on the CPGB, the NLWM and Labour sympathisers.

Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution
Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution

Author: Jonathan Davis

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-05-15

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1538139812

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Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution focuses on the leading individuals, ideas, political parties and main events that were central to the transformation of Russia during the revolution. The time period runs from January 1917 through to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that took Russia out of the First World War in March 1918. It covers the main events, ideas, people and parties and takes the story of the revolution from the eve of the overthrowing of Tsar Nicholas II through to the Bolshevik seizure of power, the first six months of Leninist rule and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended Russia’s involvement in the First World War. Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on the revolutions, the First World War, political parties, ideologies and individuals, and the main events that defined the course of the Russian Revolution. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Russian Revolution.

The great Labour unrest
The great Labour unrest

Author: Lewis Mates

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2016-05-01

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 1784998036

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The Great Labour Unrest examines the struggle between liberals, socialists and revolutionary syndicalists for control of Britain's best established district miners' union. Drawing widely on a vast and rich body of primary sources, this study reveals the debates that grassroots activists had during the fascinating and turbulent 'Great Labour Unrest' period. It charts the contexts in which the socialists challenged the union's Liberal leaders from the late 1890s and considers the complex strikes in 1910 against the implementation of the Liberal government's miners' eight-hour day. It analyses the emergence and development of a mass rank-and-file movement in the coalfield based around demands for a miners' minimum wage and, when this principle was won in March 1912, for an improved minimum wage. This book is of interest to academics, advanced students and lay people interested in political, social and economic history, political thought, economics, and industrial relations.

Historical Dictionary of Socialism
Historical Dictionary of Socialism

Author: Peter Lamb

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-12-17

Total Pages: 661

ISBN-13: 1442258276

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Socialism has been an influential force for social change for almost two centuries. Its philosophy and ideology have inspired millions while simultaneously arousing fear and revulsion in its enemies. Having emerged after the French Revolution in the effort to build upon and develop the egalitarian ideas of the Enlightenment, socialism has taken many forms. It has, furthermore, sometimes been manipulated and reformulated by opportunists who have built authoritarianism and totalitarian dictatorships in its name. Opponents seize on such examples to frighten away people who may otherwise have found socialism attractive. Socialism has survived such criticism and misrepresentation as its core principles have struck a chord with generations of people concerned with social justice. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Socialism contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on activists, politicians, political thinkers, political parties and organizations, and key topics, concepts, and aspects of socialist theory. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Socialism.

The Seattle General Strike
The Seattle General Strike

Author: Robert Friedheim

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2018-11-06

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0295744618

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“We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead—NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!” With these words echoing throughout the city, on February 6, 1919, 65,000 Seattle workers began one of the most important general strikes in US history. For six tense yet nonviolent days, the Central Labor Council negotiated with federal and local authorities on behalf of the shipyard workers whose grievances initiated the citywide walkout. Meanwhile, strikers organized to provide essential services such as delivering supplies to hospitals and markets, as well as feeding thousands at union-run dining facilities. Robert L. Friedheim’s classic account of the dramatic events of 1919, first published in 1964 and now enhanced with a new introduction, afterword, and photo essay by James N. Gregory, vividly details what happened and why. Overturning conventional understandings of the American Federation of Labor as a conservative labor organization devoted to pure and simple unionism, Friedheim shows the influence of socialists and the IWW in the city’s labor movement. While Seattle’s strike ended in disappointment, it led to massive strikes across the country that determined the direction of labor, capital, and government for decades. The Seattle General Strike is an exciting portrait of a Seattle long gone and of events that shaped the city’s reputation for left-leaning activism into the twenty-first century.

Fellow Travellers
Fellow Travellers

Author: Thomas Beaumont

Publisher: Studies in Labour History Lup

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1789620805

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Fellow Travellers considers the origins and development of the Communist presence among French railway workers, how Communist activists adapted to the particular environment of railway industrial relations, and examines the foundations of what was to become one of the most powerful and enduring constituencies of Communist support in modern France.

Labour, British radicalism and the First World War
Labour, British radicalism and the First World War

Author: Lucy Bland

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2018-02-26

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1526109328

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This book provides a concise set of thirteen essays looking at various aspects of the British left, movements of protest and the cumulative impact of the First World War. There are three broad areas this work intends to make a contribution to; the first is to help us further understand the role the Labour Party played in the conflict, and its evolving attitudes towards the war; the second strand concerns the notion of work, and particularly women’s work; the third strand deals with the impact of theory and practice of forces located largely outside the United Kingdom. Through these essays this book aims to provide a series of thirteen bite-size analyses of key issues affecting the British left throughout the war, and to further our understanding of it in this critical period of commemoration.