New Approaches to Socialist History History and politics titles from New Clarion Press Lawrence Black et al., Consensus or Coercion? The State, the People and Social Cohesion in Post-war Britain Keith Flett and David Renton (eds), New Approaches to Socialist History Duncan Hall, ‘A Pleasant Change from Politics’ : Music and the British Labour Movement between the Wars Anne Kerr and Tom Shakespeare, Genetic Politics: From Eugenics to Genome David Renton, Classical Marxism: Socialist Theory and the Second International David Stack, The First Darwinian Left: Socialism and Darwinism 1859-1914 Leo Zeilig (ed.), Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa Forthcoming John Carter and Dave Morland, Anti-Capitalist Britain Mark O’Brien, When Adam Delved and Eve Span: A History of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 New Approaches to Socialist History edited by Keith Flett and David Renton New Clarion Press © Keith Flett, David Renton, Tobias Abse, Anne Alexander, Ian Birchall, John Charlton, Ralph Darlington, Neil Davidson, Andrew Dawson, Paul Grist, Dave Lyddon, Craig Phelan, 2003 The right of the above named to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 New Clarion Press 5 Church Row, Gretton Cheltenham GL54 5HG England New Clarion Press is a workers’ co-operative. All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN paperback 1 873797 41 9 hardback 1 873797 42 7 Cover photo: Seattle World Trade Organization mass protest, 1999. By Geoff Oliver Bugbee (www.geoffbugbee.com). Typeset in Times New Roman by Jean Wilson Typesetting, Coventry Printed in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge Contents List of Contributors vii Introduction: Socialist History beyond the Millennium 1 Keith Flett and David Renton 1 The Pre-history of Social Movements: From Newport 9 to Seattle John Charlton 2 The Strange Death of Liberal Bradford 18 Paul Grist 3 Palmiro Togliatti, Loyal Servant of Stalin 30 Tobias Abse 4 Terence Powderly, the Knights of Labor and the 49 Great Upheaval Craig Phelan 5 Socialism as Sacrifice: The Life and Politics of 64 Stafford Cripps David Renton 6 Alfred Rosmer and the Red International of 77 Labour Unions Ian Birchall 7 From National Liberation to Social Revolution: 92 Egypt 1945-53 Anne Alexander 8 Northern Manufacturers and the Coming of the 105 American Civil War Andrew Dawson vi New Approaches to Socialist History 9 Industrial and Political Strategy in the 1972 British 117 Strike Wave Dave Lyddon and Ralph Darlington 10 Class Consciousness and National Consciousness in the 133 Scottish General Strike of 1820 Neil Davidson Notes 149 Index 173 Contributors Keith Flett is convenor of the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research in London. He has published numerous articles and monographs and is an active socialist and trade unionist. He is the co-editor, with David Renton, of The Twentieth Century: A Century of Wars and Revolutions? David Renton is Senior Research Fellow in History at Sunderland Uni- versity. An active socialist and anti-war campaigner, his books include Classical Marxism: Socialist Theory and the Second International and Marx on Globalisation. There is also a webpage dedicated to his research at http://www.dkrenton.co.uk. Tobias Abse is Lecturer in Modem European History at Goldsmiths Col- lege, University of London. He is the author of Sovversivi e fascisti a Livorno: Lotta politico e sociale (1918-1922) and numerous articles on Italian history and politics. Anne Alexander works as a journalist specializing in the Middle East. She is currently a doctoral student at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. Ian Birchall, formerly Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, is an in- dependent writer specializing in the history of socialism. Recent works include The Spectre ofBabeuf and Sartre against Stalinism. He is a long- standing member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. John Charlton is a writer and political activist living in the north-east of England. He has a strong interest in popular movements and is currently working on the roots of 19 60s activism in north-east England. Ralph Darlington teaches industrial relations at Salford University and is the author of The Dynamics of Workplace Unionism and The Political Trajectory ofT. J. Murphy. He is a longstanding member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. vii viii New Approaches to Socialist History Neil Davidson is the author of The Origins of Scottish Nationhood and Discovering the Scottish Revolution, 1688-1746. He is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and an activist in the Public and Commercial Services Union. Andrew Dawson teaches American history at the University of Green- wich. He has a forthcoming book, Lives of the Philadelphia Engineers: Capital, Class, and Revolution, 1830-1890. His new project looks at Hollywood’s industrial relations. Paul Grist teaches history in Bradford, where he is an activist in the local trade union and anti-racist movements. Dave Lyddon teaches industrial relations at Keele University and is editor of Historical Studies in Industrial Relations. He is a longstanding member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. Craig Phelan is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Wales Swansea. He has written biographies of three American labour leaders: Terence Powderly, John Mitchell and William Green. At present he is writing a comparative study of labour movements in northern Europe and the USA. The London Socialist Historians Group was formed in 1993 to pro- mote discussion of new socialist approaches to history. It is concerned to develop an understanding of the past from the point of view of the work- ing class, exploring history from both ‘above’ and ‘below’. It is an open group, with members from outside of academia as well as professional historians. Introduction: Socialist History beyond the Millennium Keith Flett and David Renton It has been widely suggested that socialist history is redundant and that the influence of left-wing ideas is a matter of past interest, but the chapters in this book tell a very different story. Indeed they suggest that interest in so- cialist history is as strong as ever. The chapters included here represent papers given at a one-day conference organized by the London Socialist Historians Group in May 2000 at the Institute of Historical Research in London. Around 50 socialist historians attended, some well known and with academic positions, others outside but with an abiding passion for his- torical research written from a radical, oppositional perspective. Accounts of what takes place at meetings of socialist historians, why the meetings are held, and whether the papers meet with the approval of those attending are sparse, perversely given the subject under discussion. The most influential tradition, that of the ‘British Marxist historians’, goes back to the formation of a Communist Party Historians Group in the 1940s. 1 Eric Hobsbawm, Victor Kiernan, Dorothy Thompson and Bill Schwarz (among other writers) have provided us with a record of their meetings. 2 Yet, at least until the rise of Euro-Communism and for most practical purposes until the collapse of the Stalinist states in eastern Europe in 1989-91, the Communist Party Historians Group did not hold public meetings and events. To do so would have raised the possibility of open discussion and perhaps dissent from a party line. The History Workshop movement, whose annual conferences started at Ruskin College in 1966, had no such problems. There was no fixed party line, or if there was, rather like old-style Labour Party conferences, it was not something that was much discussed at all. For example, the col- lective decided in 1976 to title their publication a ‘journal of a socialist history’, then in 1982 to add ‘and feminist’ to the masthead, and finally to drop the label altogether. None of these decisions was determined at the annual History Workshop conferences. Ideas and historical theories were 1