Book Recommendation?
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Anyone recommend a book on the history of socialism in Britain from its early days up to the mid 20th century? Particularly interested in the 1890-1920 period.
“Modern Socialism” by R. C. K. Ensor (Harper, London: 1910) gives you access to some key Party platforms, speeches, documents etc. The book is now out of copyright and was digitised (photographically) by Microsoft in 2007.
The book is available on-line from the University of Pennsylvania:
You can download it in PDF format:
It includes the objects and programs of the
- Social Democratic Federation,
- Independent Labour Party,
- Fabian Society
For comparison, it includes the object and programs for continental parties: the German, Austrian and Belgian Social Democratic Parties; the French Socialist Party.
It is a pitiable spectacle indeed to compare what these self-styled “socialist” parties claimed to have stood for then and what their descendant parties claim to stand for now against the forever-current Oject and Declaration of Principles of the World Socialist Parties (SPGB, etc.) we stood for then and stand for now.
That book is in the Party Library if you want to borrow it. Just contact the Library Committee.
Incidentally, before WWI Ensor (later Sir Robert) was a leading member of the ILP (a member of its National Council) and Labour member of the London County Council. The Party debated against him in January 1908, so he was aware of us and knew our position. The report of the debate in the February 1908 Socialist Standard reads:
At Poplar on Jan. 12th Anderson debated with R. C. K. Ensor the question of “Reform v. Revolution”. Ensor boasts of being the best educated man in East London, but his arguments on behalf of reforms were of the usual kind dealt with in these columns. Will Crooks M,P. was present at the debate and assisted the proceedings by shouting ” liar ! ” during the course of Anderson’s speech.
More mentions of Ensor in the Socialist Standard at the following link:
It includes a review of the Ensor book mentioned above.
With regards to the original request for books on ‘Socialism’ in Britain from 1890-1920, a contemporary account would be Max Beer’s A History of British Socialism. Both volumes are available on the Archive.org website:
Thanks for the links. Max Beer was a good find especially page 269 in Volume II.
I saved the PDF downloads
For the period after 1920 there are these two books (which also cover the period before). Of course we are talking now not so much about the history of socialism as about the history of the main group of people in Britain who called themselves “socialists”:
Parliamentary Socialism by Ralph Miliband
The Labour Party — A Marxist History by Tony Cliff and Donny Gluckstein
Miliband, Cliff and Gluckstein, like Ensor and Beer, were aware of us but had their own, different political perspectives. Here they present a criticism of the Labour Party’s theory (“socialism” to be achieved gradually by a long series of reforms enacted by parliament) and practice (management of capitalism in the interest of the capitalist class), much of which we can go along with.
The Cliff/Gluckstein book is available online:
Thank you all for the information, links and suggestions. 👍🏻
I would read them along with the collection of the Socialist Standard Past and Present. There are many writers, historian and personalities who call themselves socialists and many of their conceptions and definition are wrong
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