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Far-left politics in the United Kingdom have existed since at least the 1840s, with the formation of various organisations following ideologies such asMarxism,revolutionary socialism,communism,anarchism andsyndicalism.
Following the 1917Russian Revolution and developments in internationalMarxism, new organisations advocated ideologies such asMarxism–Leninism,Left Communism andTrotskyism.
Following theChinese Communist Revolution, further international developments from the 1960s led to the emergence ofMaoist and laterHoxhaist groups. Political schisms within these tendencies created a large number of new political organisations, particularly from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Ian Adams, in hisIdeology and Politics in Britain Today, defines the British far-left as primarily those political organisations which are "committed to revolutionary Marxism."[2] He names specifically "orthodox communists, those influenced by theNew Left Marxism of the 1960s,followers of Trotsky, ofMao Tse-tung, ofFidel Castro, and evenEnver Hoxha."[3] He stated that although the British far-left is "highly complex", the main division is between the orthodox communists (i.e.Marxist-Leninists, sometimes called "Stalinists") and Trotskyists.[3] John Callaghan likewise focuses hisThe Far Left in British Politics on the five largestMarxist organisations, namely the 'official'Communist Party and the four most influential Trotskyist groups.[4]However, Evan Smith inAgainst the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956,[5] uses the term 'far left' "to encompass all of the political currents to the left of the Labour Party," including "anarchist groups".
The scope of this article limits the discussion of far left politics to the period since 1801 i.e. the formation of the United Kingdom. However at least onehistorian has identified the existence of a 'far left' in England as early as the 1640s.[6]
The early 19th century saw a series of "popular disturbances",[7] concerning mostly economic grievances and with little formal ideology or organisation (Luddites;Swing Riots;[8] risings inScotland andWales), or which were related toreformist campaigns around legislation such as theCorn Laws,Reform Bills andPoor Law. There were also revolutionary conspiracies by small groups of radicals (Despard,Spa Fields,Cato Street) during and after theNapoleonic Wars.Chartism, however, was the first working class-led movement combining a national political organisation with what were arguably revolutionary aims.[9] However, even the politics of the minority of 'physical force' Chartists who plotted the abortive risings of1839, 1840,1842 and 1848[10] were largelyRadical in nature and only a small number of Chartist leaders (O'Brien,Harney,Jones) moved towardsSocialism. Far left politics such as revolutionary syndicalism were expressed in the trade union press from the early 1830s[11] but were not the official policy of any organisation.
Far-left political groups have been active in the UK since the mid-19th century, beginning with theLeague of the Just from 1840, and the MarxistCommunist League from 1847; groups with emigre origins. This emigre tradition continued throughout the century, for example German anarchistJohann Most established hisFreiheit journal in London in 1879; editors included the BelgianVictor Dave. English socialistJohn Goodwyn Barmby had founded the 'Communist Propaganda Society' as early as 1841,[12] but itsChristian/Owenite foundations saw it evolve into the 'Communist Church' by 1843; his newspaper "Communist Chronicle" was later republished by fellow Chartist,Thomas Frost, who followed it with his own, short-lived "Communist Journal".[13]
The earliest avowedly-Marxist national political party in Britain was theSocial Democratic Federation (SDF), founded byHenry Hyndman in 1881, initially as the Democratic Federation, and renamed following the affiliation of theLabour Emancipation League (LEL, formed 1880) in 1884.Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels did not participate in the new "Marxist" organisation but the SDF counted among its members Marx's daughterEleanor for a time, before she, her husbandEdward Aveling,William Morris and the LEL broke away to found the libertarianSocialist League. Both parties were notable for not being willing to collaborate with "bourgeois" parties such as theLiberals on issues of reform, but differed on the question of participation in elections, which a majority of the Socialist League opposed. The SDF stood in elections from 1885 but withno success. The Socialist League suffered splits and gradual disintegration from 1888 - including the formation of the Bloomsbury Socialist Society and Hammersmith Socialist Society - and from 1889 until its dissolution in 1892 was effectively an anarchist organisation.[14]
Around the same time,reformist andethical socialist groups emerged, such as theFabian Society (1884) andIndependent Labour Party (1893); the latter did not adhere strictly to the SDF's Marxist-derivedscientific socialism and included a significant number ofChristian socialists. An alliance between the three organisations did occur with theLabour Representation Committee in 1900, but this was not without tensions and led to fractures within the SDF.
The Social Democratic Federation also fractured over the issue of creeping reformism and also theBoer War of 1899–1902, with Hyndman himself eventually being less than enthusiastic about opposing it. The immediate issue which caused a significant portion of the hard left to split was the debate at the5th Congress of theSecond International in Paris, over the entry of MarxistAlexandre Millerand into the "bourgeois" French government ofPierre Waldeck-Rousseau. Those who opposed it, known as "Impossibilists", referred to supporters as "Opportunists" who were betraying revolutionary aims throughclass collaboration. Two notable groups broke with the SDF over this; theDe Leonist-orientatedSocialist Labour Party (SLP, formed 1903) ofNeil Maclean (which also includedJames Connolly, later ofIrish republican fame and was most prominent in Scotland) and theSocialist Party of Great Britain (formed 1904).[citation needed]
The period leading up to the First World War saw a renewal of industrial militancy outside of the mainstream Labour Movement's traditional commitment to parliamentary politics. TheIndustrialist League andIndustrial Workers of Great Britain emerged in 1908-9 from the British Advocates of Industrial Unionism initially founded by the SLP. TheIndustrial Syndicalist Education League was formed the following year by dissident members of the SDF.[citation needed]
The SDF eventually morphed into a new Marxist party, theBritish Socialist Party, along with some members on the left of the ILP, with Hyndman leading. With the advent of theFirst World War conflict arose between "internationalist" and "national defence" factions, with Hyndman taking a nationalist stance.Vladimir Lenin, who had visited London six times from 1902 to 1911, was critical of this and supported the internationalists. Matters came to a head in 1916, when the defeated Hyndman left to found theNational Socialist Party, while his internationalist opponentsAlf watts,Zelda Kahan andTheodore Rothstein supported theZimmerwald Conference. In Scotland, the BSP'sJohn Maclean was involved in theRed Clydeside movement. From 1916 to 1920, the British Socialist Party would be the largest proto-communist party in Britain and, although affiliated to theLabour Party for the 1918 general election, was shortly afterwards the largest founding group of theCommunist Party of Great Britain.[citation needed]
TheCommunist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was officially established in 1920 as the British Section of theCommunist International (also known as the Third International) and adopted the theories ofLeninism. The largest chunk of its members came from the British Socialist Party; the internationalist faction which had ousted Hyndman in 1916. Other groups involved were theCommunist Unity Group (primarily from Glasgow), which had split from the De Leonist Socialist Labour Party, represented by the likes ofArthur MacManus,Tom Bell andWilliam Paul and also theSouth Wales Socialist Society, which mainly consisted of Welsh coal-miners.[citation needed]
Unity was not unanimous however, as some other groups were founded outside of CPGB control; theCommunist Party of South Wales and the West of England, theCommunist Labour Party (based in Scotland, featuring John Maclean) and theCommunist Party (British Section of the Third International) (associated with suffragetteSylvia Pankhurst). There was also theCommunist League ofGuy Aldred, which included not only Marxists, but also anarcho-communists. By January 1921, most of the aforementioned groups had joined the CPGB, with the exception of the Communist League, which became theAnti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (which came to oppose Leninism).[citation needed]
TheLabour Party leadership was unenthusiastic about theBolsheviks' coup, and this in turn helped to exacerbated existing tensions between Labour and the far left. Since before 1900, one of the key issues splitting the British far left had been the attitude towards a trade union-based Labour Party, and such divisions had not been diminished once such an organization had been formed. The Labour leadership's lack of enthusiasm for the Bolshevik revolution, therefore, was the last straw for manyBSPers.
— Andrew Thorpe,The British Communist Party and Moscow, 1920–43.[15]
Studies of the period have revealed that in terms of participation, theCeltic fringe were over-represented, while theEnglish were under-represented in the early days of British communism.[16][17] In particular, the communists gained working-class support among theWelsh in theRhondda Valley and theScots inWest Fife (both being major mining areas at the time). Some of theIrish Catholic diaspora, especially in the big industrial cities of Britain, also played a role. As well as this "Celtic" tinge, prominent in the East End of London (Hackney, Whitechapel and Bethnal Green)[18] wereJewish diaspora who had recently fledpogroms in theRussian Empire.John Maclean; the revolutionary best regarded by Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks; played no role in the CPGB.[19] He had claimed that the party's first MP,Cecil L'Estrange Malone and leading figure, Theodore Rothstein (who also wrote for theManchester Guardian), were "police spies";[19] they in turn claimed that he was insane after his time of mistreatment in prison.[19] By 1923, Maclean had died so the issue was at an end.
The far-left were thrust into the spotlight in the lead up to the1924 general election, with the appearance of the "Zinoviev letter" in theDaily Mail. The sitting Labour government ofRamsay MacDonald had earlier in the year recognised the Soviet government as legitimate[20] and in the letter, supposedly written byGrigory Zinoviev (head of the Comintern) to Arthur MacManus, it stated improving British-Soviet relations would have the effect of "revolutionising of the international and British proletariat not less than a successful rising in any of the working districts of England." The implication from the conservative press was that MacDonald and Labour were aTrojan horse for Bolshevism. For his part Zinoviev denied authorship, but it was widely believed in Britain at the time. It would not be until the late 1960s that researchers challenged its authenticity more fully and it is today regarded as a forgery.[21] A number of activists, includingAlbert Inkpin spent time in prison under theIncitement to Mutiny Act 1797 in the mid-1920s.
In the Soviet Union,Joseph Stalin was in the ascent and developed a policy of what is known asStalinism; which the CPGB leadership upheld. Subsequently, internal divisions emerged, as the first official (endorsed byLeon Trotsky'sInternational Left Opposition) BritishTrotskyist group, theCommunist League, was founded in 1932.[22] Some communists took part in theLeague against Imperialism, which primarily attacked the Franco-British empires. In the 30s, Communists and Trotskyists also worked within theRevolutionary Policy Committee andGuild of Youth inside theIndependent Labour Party (ILP), in theLabour League of Youth, and within the Labour-affiliatedSocialist League andScottish Socialist Party.[citation needed]
In Europe, communist alternatives to liberalism were rivaled by ultra-nationalism; this included local variants such as theBritish Union of Fascists, whom the CPGB exchanged violence with (most famously at theBattle of Cable Street in 1936). The CPGB organised theBritish Battalion of theInternational Brigades, which took part in theSpanish Civil War. From 1939 to 1941, theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact was in place; in response to CPGB General SecretaryHarry Pollitt supporting the Britishdeclaration of war on Germany, he was replaced byRajani Palme Dutt. With the launching ofOperation Barbarossa, the position of the CPGB changed course swiftly; the Marxist-Leninists now backed theAllied cause in theSecond World War against theAxis powers. As part of this Pollitt returned to the leadership.[citation needed]
The situation within British Trotskyism was more complex. There were two competing groups; theRevolutionary Socialist League (official representatives of theFourth International, formed from a merger of various groups derived from the Communist League) and theWorkers' International League. Trotskyists debated about whether the Soviet Union, despite Stalin, was worth defending. The WIL was pro-war, while the RSL was more fractured; the leadership adopted Trotsky'sProletarian Military Policy, while theLeft Fraction and the Center supported "revolutionary defeatism."[23] Polemics were exchanged and the CPGB attacked Trotskyists with the pamphlet"Clear OutHitler's Agents".[24][25] The Trotskyists unified as theRevolutionary Communist Party in 1944. The Allied victory in the war left the CPGB in its strongest position, with two MPselected in 1945.[citation needed]
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Following the defeat of theAxis powers and the brief period of public prominence for the CPGB, the international political system realigned into the start of theCold War, which pitted theWestern Allies (including Britain), against theSoviet Union and theEastern Bloc. There was an ideological component to this struggle, as a competition between the ideas of Marxist-Leninism andcapitalism. As a consequent, in Britainanti-communist polemics became prominent in the 1950s. This did not just include the Tory right, but prominent elements of the mainstreamLabour Party, such asErnest Bevin, who viewed the United States instead as an ally. Partly in response to the anti-communist hysteria of the times, the CPGB createdBritain's Road to Socialism in 1951 (replacing the earlier programFor Soviet Britain), which stated that the party supporteddemocratic socialism, with working-class leadership through thetrade union movement.[26] Espionage and counter-espionage took place between the Cold War powers during the period. Some of the most famous Soviet agents, working for theNKVD andKGB in Britain during the time were theCambridge Five (most famouslyKim Philby) and thePortland spy ring.[citation needed]
While Trotskyist groups had existed prior to the 1950s, it was during this time that the key figures who would go on to define British Trotskyism for decades and lead it to becoming the most prominent far-left tendency with the decline of Marxist-Leninism, namelyGerry Healy,Ted Grant andTony Cliff, founded their own organisations. The Revolutionary Communist Party fractured over the topic ofentryism into the Labour Party and on how to approach the Cold War and eventually coalesced around the entryist groupThe Club, in 1950. Cliff and Grant split the same year, forming theSocialist Review Group, and the International Socialist Group (later merged into theRevolutionary Socialist League), respectively.[27][28] The Labour Party banned The Club's journalSocialist Outlook in 1954 and under Healy's leadership The Club would reemerge as an open political party, theSocialist Labour League (later the Workers Revolutionary Party) in 1959, who were associated with the Healy-ledInternational Committee of the Fourth International. They were able to poach members of the CPGB after the tendency became fractured and demoralised byNikita Khrushchev's 1956 speechOn the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences.[26]
According toGeorge Matthews, Khrushchev made a deal with the CPGB to provide a secret annual donation of more than £100,000 in used notes.[29] The year 1956 would be definitive in the history of the CPGB, however. Not only did they have to deal with the fallout of Khrushchev's aforementioned "secret speech", which attacked the legacy ofJoseph Stalin, alienating those within the party who regarded Stalin as a great socialist, but also the crushing of theHungarian Revolution of 1956 made some British communists uncomfortable, causing a membership drop.[26] One of the most significant defections in the aftermath of this was the resignation of a number ofCommunist Party Historians Group intellectuals (with the exception ofEric Hobsbawm), who defined themselves as against "thetankies." They went on to found theNew Left current;E. P. Thompson andJohn Saville founded theNew Reasoner, which eventually became theNew Left Review. They became associated with the broad pacifist group theCND. The New Left was co-founded by Gramscian-inspiredStuart Hall who played a key role in the introduction ofidentity politics currents such ascultural studies and is called the "godfather ofmulticulturalism."[citation needed]
For the more ardent Marxist-Leninists who lamented what they regarded as therevisionist slander against Stalin, theSino-Soviet split allowed them the opportunity to align with theChinese Communist Party andMao Zedong as a suitable alternative to the Khrushchevite-Moscow line. In 1963, theCommittee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity under Michael McCreery broke away from the CPGB to become the first British far-left grouping advocatingMaoism.[30] Although they, like future Maoist groups would remain very small factions on the far-left and would later fracture themselves. In the coming decades, it would be the Trotskyists who would benefit most from the decline of the CPGB.[citation needed]
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A new generation of political activists emerged growing partly from the groundwork prepared by the earlier revisionism of the firstNew Left thinkers and were energised as part of a generalopposition to the Vietnam War, with theVietnam Solidarity Campaign being the most active (founded by what became the TrotskyistInternational Marxist Group). This was transformative for the British far-left.[26] Anti-war activism also had the effect of radicalisingstudent politics and leading to the re-politicisation of theNational Union of Students; around the same time, theprotests of 1968 were rocking the Western world.Tony Cliff's Trotskyist-orientatedInternational Socialists (later known as the Socialist Workers Party) were able to recruit many students,[26] while Healy's group opposed the protests and lost out.[26]
In Continental Europe during the early 1970s, there were instances of the new radicalism turning into Marxist-Leninist paramilitary campaigns (such as theRed Brigades in Italy and theBaader-Meinhof Group in Germany). With the exception of the anarcho-communistAngry Brigade, the far-left in Britain did not widely engage in such activities. However, there were some, mainly ideological, connections to early phases ofThe Troubles andcivil rights movement inNorthern Ireland.[31] For instanceC. Desmond Greaves'Connolly Association (part of the CPGB) had an ideological influence on the Marxist-Leninist turn ofSinn Féin and theIrish Republican Army (which, following the split in the republican movement, became theOfficials faction).[32][31] Indeed, the perpetrator of the1972 Aldershot bombing had spent time in the British Maoist CDRCU group.[33] The non-communistProvisionals, who spearheaded the republican campaign, garnered "critical support" from some British Trotskyist groups, most prominently the IMG[34] early on, under the rationale ofanti-imperialism and much later in the 1980s had the Trotskyist-orientatedPeople's Democracy merge intoProvisional Sinn Féin.[35][verification needed][clarification needed]
For the CPGB, the significance of 1968 was different; in some ways a re-run of 1956, as Soviet tanksrolled into Czechoslovakia under theBrezhnev Doctrine in opposition to thePrague Spring. This time, the more liberal-reformist internal opposition, now known asEurocommunists, remained within the CPGB and by the mid-1970s had further changed the party into a direction favoured by the earlier New Left.[36] The Gramscian-Eurocommunists favoured the "cultural" politics ofnew social movements, such asfeminism,[37]environmentalism,anti-racism campaigns, student politics andgay rights (from 1975, backing theNUS) over militant working-class politics. Prominent figures in the Eurocommunist-push wereDave Cook,Sue Slipman and those associated withMartin Jacques'sMarxism Today (the monthly theoretical journal of CPGB). More anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist groups broke away such asReg Birch'sCommunist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist) (initially pro-China Maoists, but laterHoxhaist after theSino-Albanian split) in 1968 andSid French'sNew Communist Party of Britain in 1977.
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The 1970s also heralded the growth of theBritish far-right in the form of theNational Front and the more establishment-basedConservative Monday Club. Building on from their new base in student politics, Trotskyist groups attempted to disrupt far-right groups organising (sometimes physically), which they deemed to be "racist or fascist." The IMG pioneered theNo Platform policy,[38][39] while Cliff'sSWP created groups such as theAnti-Nazi League in 1975 and theRock Against Racism festival in 1976 (attracting popular groups such asThe Clash).[40] Although SWP-controlled, these latter groups attracted a broader array of people to their protests against the far-right than just far-left activists. Indeed, involvement inrace-related politics became more thematic during this period, including the campaign againstapartheid inSouth Africa, supportingBlack power movements, anAnti-Zionist approach to thePalestine-Israel conflict and further support for Irish republicanism. This led to some unorthodox alliances, such as David Yaffe's TrotskyistRCG supporting the Soviet Union'sComecon as a force of anti-imperialism (Frank Furedi'sRCP; later creators ofLiving Marxism; split in 1978 over this).
The decline of the CPGB and internal divisions between Eurocommunists and traditionalists were exemplified in the party's publications, with the Eurocommunists exercising control over the party's monthly theoretical journalMarxism Today and the traditional Marxist-Leninists having editorial control over the CPGB's daily newspaperMorning Star. Such divisions made it difficult for the party to deal with the ascent ofMargaret Thatcher and her economic policies ofneoliberalism; privatising major parts of the British industrial sector and moving towards aservice economy. For instance, during theminers' strike of 1984–85, the divide between the factions meant that no effective program at the national level could be developed to aid theNational Union of Mineworkers. The traditionalist faction formed the 'Communist Campaign Group' in 1985 and a newCommunist Party of Britain (underMike Hicks) in 1988, which it viewed as a "re-establishment" of the party.[41]
Other major far left UK organisations also fragmented during the 1980s. TheWorkers Revolutionary Party suffered a series of splits into smaller factions from 1985, none of which retained its former prominence[42][4] while theInternational Marxist Group also split from 1985 following its entrance (as the 'Socialist League') into the Labour Party.[43] However, theSocialist Workers Party "largely failed to attract significant numbers of activists, despite the implosion of its IMG, WRP and CPGB rivals."[44]
More successful for a time were the gains from Trotskyist entrism ofTed Grant andPeter Taaffe'sMilitant tendency.[45] Working within the Labour Party, they were able to getTerry Fields,Dave Nellist andPat Wall elected as MPs,[46] as well as havingmajor influence overLiverpool City Council, untilNeil Kinnock moved to expel the organisation.[45]
The dissolution of theSoviet Union; the world's first communist state; in 1991, following theRevolutions of 1989 and the policy ofPerestroika underMikhail Gorbachev, leading to the end of the Cold War, had a massive knock on effect on the world communist movement. In Britain, the Eurocommunist leadership of the Communist Party underNina Temple officially dissolved the organisation in November 1991,[47] abandoning all pretense of adherence to Marxist-Leninist politics. The CPGB was replaced by the "post-communist" think-tank, theDemocratic Left[47] which espoused adherence to feminism,green politics anddemocratic socialism. The remainingStraight Left faction underAndrew Murray continued on as the Communist Liaison Group instead, until eventually merging with theCommunist Party of Britain in the mid-1990s. As well as this, some of the Scottish CPGB members founded theGlasgow-basedCommunist Party of Scotland in 1991 associated withMick McGahey andGordon McLennan, advocatingScottish independence from Britain.[48] The name 'Communist Party of Great Britain' was taken up after 1991 by theCPGB-PCC, initially anantirevisionist group, formed around the publication ofThe Leninist[49] (and laterWeekly Worker), and from 2004 by theCPGB-ML,[50] originally a Maoistgroup.
Starting in the mid-1990s, there has been a series of far left joint initiatives to build "alternative electoral vehicles"[51] in the "political space outside of Labour"[52] following Labour's continuing realignment to the political centre and crackdown on entryism. The latter had resulted inMilitant'sopen turn and split in 1991[53] and the proscription ofSocialist Organiser in 1990.
The first of these attempts at regroupment was theSocialist Labour Party (1996), led byArthur Scargill, a left-wing (rather than far-left) party which was nevertheless the site of competing struggles for far left influence,[54] and subsequent splits.[52] This was followed by a succession of left-wing campaigns, coalitions and parties, and some also labelled as far-left, includingRespect (2004) and theTrade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (2010). None of these achieved an electoral breakthrough, and with theascendancy of Jeremy Corbyn to leadership of the Labour Party in 2015, the majority of groups to the left of the Labour Party (both left-wing and far-left) paused their activity. Some smaller groups such asWorkers Power andAlliance for Workers' Liberty then dissolved[55] or deregistered[56] in order to enter or publicly support Labour.
Following the election ofKeir Starmer as Labour leader in 2020, the party proscribed left-wing organisations includingSocialist Appeal (in 2021[57]) and Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL) (in 2022[58]); the former, and Workers Power, subsequently relaunched independently.[59][60] Other groups, including the AWL,[61] continue to engage with Labour.
