History of SPGB

[Dave]

Whats the best history book to read concerning the SPGB? Not sure whether the Monument is worth a look at, there's a copy in the local library. All suggestions greatfully accepted.

[Anonymous]

Dave wrote:

Whats the best history book to read concerning the SPGB? Not sure whether the Monument is worth a look at, there's a copy in the local library. All suggestions greatfully accepted.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Politics, Economics and Britain's Oldest Socialist Party by David A. Perrin. Bridge Books, Wrexham, 2000.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2000/no-1150-june-2000/book-reviews(scroll down)

[ALB]

There's also a couple of articles here, written on the occasion of our centenary:http://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/2005-anglo-marxism-the-spgb-buick/

[jondwhite]

I quite like The Monument.

[imposs1904]

I like The Monument. I wish I still had my copy.A Party member from yesteryear – Steve Coleman – wrote his PhD on the early history of the SPGB back in the 80s. There was an epub of this doing the rounds a few months back but I don't have a download link immediately to hand.

[jondwhite]

the chapter that concerns the early spgb is reprinted at the bloghttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/impossibilism.htmlthere is also the century of political struggle by a few members who left acrimoniouslyhttp://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/pamphlet%20centenary.shtml

[imposs1904]

Damn, I actually forgot that a few years ago I transcribed Steve Coleman chapter on Impossibilism that originally appeared in Crump and Rubel's Non-Market Socialism in the 19th and 20th Century:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2009/08/impossibilism-by-stephen-coleman.htmlIt's not exactly what you're asking after but it touches upon aspects of the history of the SPGB.

[Dave]

Thanks everyone will check all the links out. Seems like the SPGB has been wrote out of most working class history. Good to see you all going strong after the last hundred or so years.

[imposs1904]

To paraphrase Trotsky, we've been consigned to the footnote of history. 

[alanjjohnstone]

"we've been consigned to the footnote of history. " And we are lucky if we even get that!

[ALB]

There's a collection of footnotes on us here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2004/no-1198-june-2004/others-have-seen-usI don't think it includes Eric Hobsbawn describing us as "wholly unimportant conventicle" (in chapter 12 of his Labouring Men.

[alanjjohnstone]

Conventicle – another new word for me that i had to look up. Certainly not in every labouring men's vocabulary so who did Hobsbawn write for?  At last we try to aim our propaganda and share our knowledge with our fellow workers in language they understand. 

[ALB]

I think CPers like him had got fed up with calling us a sect, but "conventicle" never quite caught on.

[imposs1904]

ALB wrote:

There's a collection of footnotes on us here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2004/no-1198-june-2004/others-have-seen-usI don't think it includes Eric Hobsbawn describing us as "wholly unimportant conventicle" (in chapter 12 of his Labouring Men.

 The silly sod got the date of the Party's formation wrong, which suggests that he just cribbed his lack of knowledge about the SPGB from another CP historian.

[jondwhite]

necroposting but monument is now available herehttps://libcom.org/library/monument-story-socialist-party-great-britain

[Author]

Posts