A fascinating account of life as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain The Lost World of British Communism is a vivid account of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Raphael Samuel, one of post-war Britain’s most notable historians, draws on novels of the period and childhood recollections of London’s East End, as well as memoirs and Party archives, to evoke the world of British Communism in the 1940s. Samuel conjures up the era when the movement was at the height of its political and theoretical power, brilliantly bringing to life an age in which the Communist Party enjoyed huge prestige as a bulwark for the struggles against fascism and colonialism.

This book is a study of working-class politics, particularly in terms of British labour history. It explores the history of the British Left, the history of British Socialism, the history of British Communism, the ideas of Karl Marx, and the historical development of Socialism as the ideology of the working class.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos says: 'This is an admirable memoir of an intellectual activist who has lived most intensely the progressive struggles of the last sixty years of world history, because despite being born in Europe, Peter, in the best tradition of communist internationalism, participated in struggles and movements, not only in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Africa and most recently in Latin America. But this is much more than a memoir. It is so well documented that in this personal experience there are reflected some of the most decisive events of contemporary history. It is a living history book. But even more than this, this book is so clearly and vividly written that at times it reads like the script for an imaginary documentary of our times. This book should be read by all concerned with our recent history in order to get a much more complex inside view of what happened while it was happening. In particular it should be read by the youth in order to get a close-up of the difficulties and possibilities in building another possible world at a time where there existed a vibrant international communist movement. It is up to such youth to evaluate whether difficulties are now or more daunting, the possibilities less of more luminous.'

Since the Second World War, Marxism in Britain has declined almost to the point of oblivion. The Communist Party of Great Britain had more than 50,000 members in the early 1940s, but less than 5,000 when it disbanded in 1991. Dissenting and Trotskyist organisations experienced a very similar decline, although there has been a late flowering of Marxism in Scotland. Based on the Communist Party archives at Manchester, this text examines the decline over the last sixty years. Dealing with the impact of the Cold War upon British Marxism, the book looks at how international events such as the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechslovakia affected the Communist Party of Great Britain. The issues of Marxism and Britain’s withdrawal from the Empire are also addressed, as are the Marxist influence upon British industrial relations and its involvement in the feminist movement. Focusing on the current debate in British Marxist history over the influence of Moscow and Stalinism on the Communist Party, Keith Laybourn explores the ways in which this issue, which divides historians, undermined Marxism in Britain.

The first major study of Alan Bush, this book provides new perspectives on twentieth-century music and communism. British communist, composer of politicised works, and friend of Soviet musicians, Bush proved to be 'a lightning rod' in the national musical culture. His radical vision for British music prompted serious reflections on aesthetics and the rights of artists to private political opinions, as well as influencing the development of state-sponsored music making in East Germany. Rejecting previous characterisations of Bush as political and musical Other, Joanna Bullivant traces his aesthetic project from its origins in the 1920s to its collapse in the 1970s, incorporating discussion of modernism, political song, music theory, opera, and Bush's response to the Soviet music crisis of 1948. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources, including recently released documents from MI5, this book constructs new perspectives on the 'cultural Cold War' through the lens of the individual artist.

Based on extensive use of primary evidence, this is the first study of interwar British communism to set the communist experience within the framework of the life cycle. Communism offered a complete identity that could reach into virtually all aspects of life; the Party sought influence even over members' personal conduct, moral codes, health and diet, personal hygiene, and aesthetic judgements. The British Communist Party (CPGB) sought to address the communist experience through all of the principal phases of the life cycle, and its reach therefore extended to take in children, youth, and the various aspects of the adult experience, including marital and kinship relations. The book also considers the contention that the Communist Party functioned as a ‘political religion’ for some joiners who opted to enter the congregation of the communist devoted.

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.