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Left Book Club
The Left Book Club was a publishing group that exerted a strong left-wing influence in Great Britain from 1936 to 1948. Pioneered by Victor Gollancz, it offered a monthly book choice, for sale to members only, as well as a newsletter that acquired the status of a major political magazine. It also held an annual rally. Membership peaked at 57,000, but after the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact of 1939, it disowned its large Communist element, and subsequent years of paper-rationing, during and after the war, led to further decline. It ceased publishing in 1948. The concept and series was revived in 2015, following at least one earlier effort to relaunch the series in the early 2000s. Early success and organisation The Left Book Club, founded in May 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and the 1940s in the United Kingdom. It was set up by Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz and John Strachey to revitalise and educate the British Left.... The club's aim was t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Left Book Club Logo
Left may refer to: Music * Left (Hope of the States album), ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * Left (Monkey House album), ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb (album), Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * Left-handedness Politics * Left (Austria), a movement of Marxist–Leninist, Maoist and Trotskyist organisations in Austria * Left-wing politics (also known as left or leftism), a political trend or ideology ** Centre-left politics ** Far-left politics * The Left (Germany) See also * Copyleft * Leaving (other) * Lefty (other) * Sinister (other) * Venstre (other) * Right (other) {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communist Party Of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB founded the ''Daily Worker'' (renamed the ''Morning Star'' in 1966). In 1936, members of the party were present at the Battle of Cable Street, helping organise resistance against the British Union of Fascists. In the Spanish Civil War the CPGB worked with the USSR to create the British Battalion of the International Brigades, which party activist Bill Alexander commanded. In World War II, the CPGB mirrored the Soviet position, opposing or supporting the war in line with the involvement of the USSR. By the end of World War II, CPGB membership had nearly tripled and the party reached the height of its popularity. Many key CPGB members became leaders of Britain's trade union movement, including most notably Jessie Eden, Abraham Lazarus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1936 Soviet Constitution
Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII. * January 28 – Britain's King George V state funeral takes place in London and Windsor. He is buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle * February 4 – Radium E (bismuth-210) becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically. * February 6 – The IV Olympic Winter Games open in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. * February 10– 19 – Second Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Amba Aradam – Italian forces gain a decisive tactical victory, effectively neutralizing the army of the Ethiopian Empire. * February 16 – 1936 Spanish general election: The left-wing Popular Front coalition takes a majority. * February 26 – February 26 Incident (二・二六事件, ''Niniroku Jiken''): The Im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waiting For Lefty
''Waiting for Lefty'' is a 1935 play by the American playwright Clifford Odets; it was his first play to be produced. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by a meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing uses the audience as part of the meeting. The play debuted on Sunday, January 6, 1935, at the Civic Repertory Theatre on 14th Street, as part of a benefit performance for ''New Theatre'' magazine. It premiered on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on March 26, 1935, under the auspices of the Group Theatre, a New York City theatre company founded by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, of which Odets was a member. The company was founded as a training ground for actors, and also to support new plays, especially those that expressed the social and political climate of the day. The play was requested by many theater and labor groups in numerous other cities around the United States. It premiered in London in 1936 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Testament
''Spanish Testament'' is a 1937 book by Arthur Koestler, describing his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Part II of the book was subsequently published on its own, with minor modifications, under the title ''Dialogue with Death'' (see below). Koestler made three trips to Spain during the civil war; the third time he was captured, sentenced to death and imprisoned by the Nationalist forces of General Franco. Koestler was at that time working on behalf of the Comintern and as an agent of the Loyalist Government's official news agency, using for cover accreditation to the British daily ''News Chronicle''. The book was published in London by Victor Gollancz Ltd. The 'Contents' of the book is in two parts: Part I describes the context in which he was captured, divided into IX chapters, each with its own title. Part II, titled ''Dialogue with Death,'' describes Koestler's prison experiences under sentence of death. This part was written in the late autumn of 1937 immediately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the time the three Moscow trials were given extravagant titles: # the "Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center" (or Zinoviev-Kamenev Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Sixteen', August 1936); # the "Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center" (or Pyatakov-Radek Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Seventeen', January 1937); and # the "Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites"" (or the Bukharin- Rykov Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Twenty-One', March 1938). The defendants were Old Bolshevik Party leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with conspiring with Imperialist powers to assassinate Stalin and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Wintringham
Thomas Henry Wintringham (15 May 1898 – 16 August 1949) was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was a supporter of the Home Guard during the Second World War and was one of the founders of the Common Wealth Party. Biography Early life Tom Wintringham was born 1898 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1915 he was elected to a Brakenbury scholarship in History at Balliol, but during the First World War postponed his university career to join the Royal Flying Corps, serving as a mechanic and motorcycle despatch rider. At the end of the war he was involved in a brief barracks mutiny, one of many minor insurrections which went unnoticed in the period. He returned to Oxford, and in a long vacation made a visit of some months to Moscow, after which he returned to England and formed a group of students aiming to establish a British section of the Third Internatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Howard (journalist)
Peter Dunsmore Howard (20 December 1908 – 25 February 1965) was a British journalist, playwright, captain of the England national rugby union team and leader of Moral Re-Armament from 1961 to 1965. He also won a World Championship bobsleigh medal in 1939. Biography Born in Maidenhead, England, Howard was educated at Mill Hill School. A graduate of the University of Oxford and journalist, Howard captained the England national rugby union team while he worked with Oswald Mosley for the New Party. Howard represented Oxford University RFC in The Varsity Match in 1929 and 1930 and made his England debut against Wales in January 1930 while he was still at Oxford. He played eight times for England and in all four matches in the Five Nations Championship in both 1930 and 1931. He captained England against Ireland at Twickenham in 1931, Ireland winning 6–5.Griffiths, page 1:25 In 1939, he won the silver medal in the four-man event at the FIBT World Championships in St. Moritz. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Owen (politician)
Humphrey Frank Owen (4 November 1905 – 23 January 1979) was a British journalist, writer, and radical Liberal Member of Parliament. He was Liberal MP for Hereford between 1929 and 1931. He was an editor of the ''Evening Standard'' and the ''Daily Mail''. He was awarded the OBE in 1946. Background Frank Owen was born in Hereford on 4 November 1905, the son of an innkeeper Thomas Humphrey Owen and Cicely Hannah Green. He was educated at Monmouth School and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge with honours in history. He married Grace Stewart McGillivray of Boston, USA in 1939. She died in 1968. Journalism and books He worked as a journalist on the ''South Wales Argus'' (1928–29), the ''Daily Express'' (1931–37) and was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' (1938–41). He was strongly anti-Nazi, and during the years of appeasement he made a feature of rewriting ''Mein Kampf'' week after week to sound the alarm. In 1940, along with Michael Foot and Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 polemic against appeasement of Adolf Hitler, ''Guilty Men'', under a pseudonym. Foot served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and again from 1960 until he retired in 1992. A passionate orator, and associated with the left wing of the Labour Party for most of his career, Foot was an ardent supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and of British withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC). He was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment under Harold Wilson in 1974, and he later served as Leader of the House of Commons (1976–1979) under James Callaghan. He was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under Callaghan from 1976 to 1980. Elected as a compromise candidate, Foot served as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guilty Men
''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, it shaped popular and scholarly thinking for two decades. Contents ''Guilty Men'' was a British polemical book written under the pseudonym "Cato" published in July 1940. It attacked fifteen public figures for their failed policies towards Germany and for their failure to re-equip the British armed forces. In denouncing appeasement, it defines the policy as the "deliberate surrender of small nations in the face of Hitler's blatant bullying". The book's slogan, "Let the guilty men retire", was an attack on members of the National Government before Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940. Most were Conservatives, although some were National Liberals and one was Ramsay MacDonald, the former leader of the Labour Party. Several wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Betrayal Of The Left
''Betrayal of the Left'' (full title: ''Betrayal of the Left: an Examination & Refutation of Communist Policy from October 1939 to January 1941: with Suggestions for an Alternative and an Epilogue on Political Morality'') was a book of essays published on 3 March 1941 by the Left Book Club, edited and largely written by Victor Gollancz. The book had a preface by Harold Laski. Other contributions included two essays by George Orwell, "Fascism and Democracy" and "Patriots and Revolutionaries"http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/perryMat.html Institute of Historical Research. Matt Perry. University of Sunderland that condemned the Communist Party of Great Britain for backing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and for taking a revolutionary defeatist position in the war against Nazi Germany. ''Betrayal of the Left'' also contained an essay by John Strachey attacking totalitarianism.Michael Newman, ''John Strachey'', Manchester University Press, 1989 (p.83). It was particular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
