COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79

<p class="first" id="d340715e66">In the 1880s when Karl Marx lived in London and Frederick Engels worked in Manchester they wrote about the possibility of a socialist revolution in Great Britain. Much of their data collection and subsequent analysis...

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Main Authors: Roger Seifert, Tom Sibley
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Pluto Journals 2010-03-01
Series:World Review of Political Economy
Online Access:https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.2307/41931869
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author Roger Seifert
Tom Sibley
author_facet Roger Seifert
Tom Sibley
author_sort Roger Seifert
collection DOAJ
description <p class="first" id="d340715e66">In the 1880s when Karl Marx lived in London and Frederick Engels worked in Manchester they wrote about the possibility of a socialist revolution in Great Britain. Much of their data collection and subsequent analysis was based on the Victorian Empire, and the class structure and struggle that emerged from the workings of capitalism in an advanced industrial state. Ever since then British communists have sought to decipher their predictions and turn them into concrete revolutionary action and organization based on a largely Leninist approach to state power and revolution. This has meant a heavy dependence on the trade unions as the mass expression of working-class solidarity and struggle, and a continuous battle with the right wing social democrats who control the minds and actions of many in the mass party of the workers, the Labour Party. This article examines the period in modern history when the CPCB came closest to realizing its revolutionary potential and program through a mixture of a left push within the labor movement at both official levels and among grass roots working class activists in the unions and elsewhere. </p>
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spelling doaj.art-9a4a1285652949beba833fb02d1914c62023-05-03T13:58:32ZengPluto JournalsWorld Review of Political Economy2042-891X2042-89282010-03-011111212610.2307/41931869COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79Roger SeifertTom Sibley<p class="first" id="d340715e66">In the 1880s when Karl Marx lived in London and Frederick Engels worked in Manchester they wrote about the possibility of a socialist revolution in Great Britain. Much of their data collection and subsequent analysis was based on the Victorian Empire, and the class structure and struggle that emerged from the workings of capitalism in an advanced industrial state. Ever since then British communists have sought to decipher their predictions and turn them into concrete revolutionary action and organization based on a largely Leninist approach to state power and revolution. This has meant a heavy dependence on the trade unions as the mass expression of working-class solidarity and struggle, and a continuous battle with the right wing social democrats who control the minds and actions of many in the mass party of the workers, the Labour Party. This article examines the period in modern history when the CPCB came closest to realizing its revolutionary potential and program through a mixture of a left push within the labor movement at both official levels and among grass roots working class activists in the unions and elsewhere. </p>https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.2307/41931869
spellingShingle Roger Seifert
Tom Sibley
COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79
World Review of Political Economy
title COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79
title_full COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79
title_fullStr COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79
title_full_unstemmed COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79
title_short COMMUNISTS AND THE TRADE UNION LEFT REVISITED: THE CASE OF THE UK 1964-79
title_sort communists and the trade union left revisited the case of the uk 1964 79
url https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.2307/41931869
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