Account of communist political party activities within trade unions in the UK, with particular reference to the historical aspect of the national level minority movement during the period from 1924 to 1933 - covers the role of leadership and membership in the general strike, influence on government policy, political aspects, labour disputes, the struggle against capitalist ideologies, the impact of the economic recession on the movement and its collapse. References.
This is a pathbreaking book, essential reading for students of interwar political and social history. Previous histories of the period have underestimated the crucial role which Communists played in trade union organisation from top to bottom. Despite its relatively small size the Communist Party occupied a strategic place in the trade union movement: the leaders of the movement, notably Ernest Bevin, refused to acknowledge this at the time. Thanks to her extensive research and numerous interviews, and to the ’opening of the books’ of the Communist Part, Nina Fishman has been able to uncover a fascinating story, one which official Communist historians have never told, and which other historians could only recount in fragments. The main protagonists are the Communist Party General Seretary, Harry Pollitt, and the Editor of the Daily Worker, Johnny Campbell. The book brings to vivid life the work of activists on the shop floor and in the coalmines during the Depression and the Second World War. The book includes the first comprehensive analysis of Communist activity in key sectors of the British economy, notably in engineering shop stewards’ movements and among London busmen. It concludes with an authoritative review of Communists' part in the British war economy and a vigorous challenge to the conventional wisdom about the effect of Communist Party changes of line on the war on activists’ abilities to incite and lead strikes.
The current debate about industrial relations cannot be understood without a knowledge of trade-union history. Dr Pelling's book, which has for several years been a standard work on the subject, has again been revised and updated to take account of recent research and to explain the course of events up to the Thatcher years, the miner's strike and the Employment Acts. The growth of white-collar unionism and the extension of women's rights are dealt with in the concluding chapters.
This new history of British trade unionism offers the most concise and up-to-date account of 300 years of trade union development, from the earliest documented attempts at collective action by working people in the eighteenth century through to the very different world of `New Unionism' and `New Labour'.
While electorally weak, the Communist Party of Great Britain and its Welsh Committee was a constant feature of twentieth century Welsh politics, in particular through its influence in the trade union movement. Based on original archival research, the present volume offers the first in-depth study of the Communist Party’s attitude to devolution in Wales, to Welsh nationhood and Welsh identity, as well as examining the party’s relationship with the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru and the labour and nationalist movements in relation to these issues. Placing the party’s engagement of these issues within the context of the rapid changes in twentieth century Welsh society, debates on devolution and identity on the British left, the role of nationalism within the communist movement, and the interplay of international and domestic factors, the volume provides new insight into the development of ideas by the political left on devolution and identity in Wales during the twentieth century. It also offers a broad outline of the party’s policy in relation to Wales during the twentieth century, and an assessment of the role played by leading figures in the Welsh party in developing its policy on Wales and devolution.
A new single volume history of the Communist Party of Great Britain examining the party from its foundations in 1920 to its demise in the early 1990s. Drawing on original research and a reading of specialist texts, the authors analyze the rise and fall of the party and evaluate its role on the left of British politics. Whilst sympathetic to the ideals and commitment of many British communist activists, the book is sharply critical of much of the actual practice of the party.
Hugh Clegg was a founding figure of post-war British Industrial Relations, the forerunner of Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, as taught in most Business Schools today. He defined ‘industrial democracy’ as collective bargaining with trade unions, laid the foundations for the pluralist approach to Industrial Relations, was a key figure in the post-war social sciences and a major public policy player. More widely, he was an important figure in the Cold War social democratic academic left, who broke with his earlier Communism to champion free trade unions in a liberal democratic society. He also produced the major Oxford University Press trade union history. This book aims to understand the politics and industrial relations of the post-war period in Britain (in which trade unions were central) through the life of a key public intellectual. It will help readers understand the political and social science roots of contemporary Employment Relations and Human Resource Management through a deep historical study of Clegg’s life and times, in the context of his post-war social democratic generation. It illustrates how the failures of post-war industrial relations led to Thatcherism. Current Employment Relations academics and public policy can learn much from this history, making it of value to researchers, students, and academics in the fields of Human Resource Management and business and management history.
This collection of essays identifies a neglected but significant component of Britain's maritime and labour history, that of ethnic labour drawn from Britain's colonies in West Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The interdisciplinary nature of the volume raises a number of important issues: race and ethnicity, colonialism and migration, social class and the complex nature of racial hostility meted out by organized white labour.
The Communist International was formed in Moscow in 1919 as a factory of world revolution, but was dissolved in 1943 without having led a single successful working-class uprising. This book offers a reappraisal of the body.
The relationship between the British Communist Party and Soviet Communism is one of perennial fascination. In this text Thorpe makes extensive use of available sources, to offer a new view of this most controversial of topics.
