William "Barbosa" Bland (28 April 1916 – 13 March 2001) was a British Marxist-Leninist and optician.

Early life

Bland was born in

Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. The population was 45,198 at the 2011 census. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the north bank of the River Tame, in the foothills of the Pennines, east of Manche ...

, Lancashire, and attended

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...

. His father was director of a printing works, but lost his job during the Depression, and Bland had to leave school to find work at 15. After a visit to the Soviet Union in 1937, Bland migrated to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 1938–39. He returned to England in 1950.

Political activism

Before becoming a leading figure of the UK anti-revisionist movement, Bland was a member of the

Communist Party of New Zealand The Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ) was a communist party in New Zealand which existed from 1921 to 1994. Although spurred to life by events in Soviet Russia in the aftermath of World War I, the party had roots in pre-existing revolutiona ...

and the Communist Party of Great Britain. Bland considered

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

a left-

deviationist In political ideology, a deviationist is a person who expresses a deviation: an abnormality or departure. In Stalinist ideology and practice, deviationism is an expressed belief which does not accord with official party doctrine for the time and ...

while still maintaining that Hoxha was a true Marxist-Leninist in the tradition of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

and

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

. Bland's line on Mao was problematic since Hoxha and Mao were strategic allies at that time. Bland's position was strengthened after the

Sino-Albanian split The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978. Both countries had supported each other in the Soviet–Albanian and S ...

and he formed the

Communist League of Great Britain __NOTOC__ The Communist League of Great Britain was an anti-revisionist group in the United Kingdom. It origins were in the Communist Party of Great Britain, where a faction formed around Bill Bland. Initially Maoist, it joined the majority o ...

. Bland was one of the founders of the

Albanian Society Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

, and three years after its foundation he became its secretary, a post which he held almost continuously for 30 years until the fall of the communist regime in Albania. He was editor of the journal of the society, ''Albanian Life''. He also wrote an English-Albanian dictionary which included information on Albanian life, culture, politics and history. Together with the American Communist, Jack Shulman, he participated in the Alliance Marxist-Leninist (North America) and supported International Struggle Marxist-Leninist (ISML). In 1991, he helped found the Stalin Society, however, he was later expelled by a

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

faction.

Works

Bland was the coauthor of
A Tangled Web: A History Of Anglo-American Relations with Albania (1912–1955)
'. Historian Peter R. Prifti described the book's treatment of the

Corfu Channel incident The Corfu Channel Incident consists of three separate events involving Royal Navy ships in the Channel of Corfu which took place in 1946, and it is considered an early episode of the Cold War.

as "a masterful exposition of that tragic incident, and a good indication of the level of scholarship that characterizes the contents of the book. . . this well-researched study by W. Bland and I. Price goes a long way to untangle the web, so that we may gain a clearer perspective on the subject."Prifti, Peter R. ''Unfinished Portrait of a Country''. 2005. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 126. Aside from theoretical and historical works, Bland wrote a number of plays, directed two films and produced a ballet.

References

External links

Interview with William B. Bland, July 1994Articles by Bill Bland at the Marxist Internet Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bland, Bill 1916 births 2001 deaths Communist Party of Great Britain members New Zealand communists Anti-revisionists Hoxhaists People from Ashton-under-Lyne People educated at Manchester Grammar School British communists British political party founders