Labour Party history

Fabianism, Stalinism and Blair’s new Clause Four: From state bureaucracy to market bureaucracy

Submitted on 20 March, 2007 - 16:25

By Roland Tretchet

This magazine makes no apology for repeating certain basic truths.

Labour Anti-Bolshevism in 1919

Submitted on 19 December, 2006 - 22:37

Reading through some old issues of the East End News and Chronicle (I think I might have mentioned by local labour history nerd-ism before), I stumbled across this short article.

Poplar Council 2001: Last Words Before Prison

Submitted on 23 November, 2006 - 23:25

In 1921, thirty Labour Councillors in Poplar went to prison to protest at an unfair rating system that penalised poor boroughs. They eventually won their fight.

A case study in centrism

Submitted on 15 January, 2006 - 12:26

In the last issue of Solidarity, Mordecai Ryan outlined the history
of the ILP, the main British "centrist" organisation of the 1930s and 40s. Its nearest equivalent in Britain today is the SWP. As mud is a mix of earth and water so centrism is an unstable and almost always incoherent mix of bits of revolutionary Marxist political tradition and aspiration with alien, reformist, etc elements.

Britain’s biggest left party, 1893-1945, and what became of it - The history of the ILP

Submitted on 10 December, 2005 - 14:03

The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was founded by Keir Hardie and others in 1893 and “ended” some time in the 1970s, when what was left of it joined the Labour Party. For the first 25 years of its existence, it played a central role in British working class politics.

1945 Labour introduced real reforms

Submitted on 4 November, 2005 - 11:42

While the article “1945 – was it socialism” (Solidarity 3/83) did draw out many accurate criticisms of Attlee’s government, I feel that it failed to get a grip on the real outlook of the people involved.

1945: was it socialism?

Submitted on 21 October, 2005 - 18:48

By Ruben Lomas

60 years ago, the 1945 Labour government was voted into power.