British Communism and the Politics of Race

by Evan Smith

Overview

British Communism and the Politics of Race explores the role that the Communist Party of Great Britain played within the anti-racism movement in Britain from the 1940s to the 1980s. As one of the first organizations to undertake serious anti-colonial and anti-racist activism within the British labour movement, the CPGB was a pioneering force that campaigned against racial discrimination, popular imperialism and fascist violence in British society.

The book examines the balancing act that the Communist Party negotiated in its anti-racist work, between making appeals to the labour movement to get involved in the fight against racism and working with Britain's ethnic minority communities, who often felt let down by the trade unions and the Labour Party. Transitioning from a class-based outlook to an embrace of the new social movements of the 1960s–70s, the CPGB played an important role in the anti-racist struggle, but by the 1980s, it was eclipsed by more radical and diverse activist organizations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608469987
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	11/06/2018
Series:	Historical Materialism , #143
Pages:	275
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Evan Smith, Ph.D. (2007), Flinders Universityin Adelaide, South Australia, is a Visiting Adjunct Fellow at that university. He co-wrote Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control (Palgrave, 2014) and co-edited Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956 (MUP, 2014).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
 Themes
 Shifting Away from the Centrality of Class
 Thinking Intersectionally about the CPGB and the Politics of ‘Race’
 Situating the Party’s Anti-racism within the Wider Scholarship
 A Note on Methodology
 Book Structure
1 The End of Empire and the Windrush Moment, 1945–60
 The Communist Party’s Anti-colonial Traditions
 The CPGB and the Era of Decolonisation
 Left Nationalism and the Postwar CPGB
 The Response of the Communist Party to Commonwealth Migration
 The Campaign Against Polish Resettlement
 The Legacy of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ and the CPGB’s Postwar Anti-fascism
 Anti-fascist Action against the Fascist Revival of the Union Movement, 1945–51
 The Impact of Commonwealth Migrants upon the Party’s Anti-colonial/Anti-racist Outlook
 The Nationality Branches
 Conclusion
2 Anti-racism and Building the ‘Mass Party’, 1960–9
 The Communist Party, Labour and Immigration Controls
 The Principle of Immigration Controls
 The Campaign for Legislation against Racial Discrimination
 The Race Relations Acts Under Labour, 1965–8
 The CPGB’s Concept of ‘Race’ in the Post-Colonial Era
 The Movement for Colonial Freedom and Moderate Anti-racism
 The Beginnings of the ‘British Upturn’ and the Radicalism of ‘1968’
 The Trade Unions and Race
 The Rise of New Social Movements and Black Radicalism
 The Link with International Issues
 Capitulating to Racism: Labour and the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968
 Integration and ‘Good Race Relations’: The 1968 Race Relations Act
 Powellism and the Rise of the National Front
 Conclusion
3 The Crisis Emerges, 1970–5
 The 1971 Immigration Act and Opposition to the Conservative Government
 The Communist Party and the Reaction of the Trade Unions to the Immigration Act
 Facing the Limits of Industrial Militancy
 The Ugandan Asian ‘Controversy’ and the Rise of the National Front under the Conservatives
 The ‘No Platform’ Strategy
 Red Lion Square and the Death of Kevin Gately
 The Trade Union Response to Fascism and Racism in the 1970s
 Asian Workers and the Trade Unions in the Early 1970s: Mansfield Hosiery Mills and Imperial Typewriters
 Conclusion
4 The Great Moving Right Show, 1976–9
 The Building of the Broad Democratic Alliance
 The Grunwick Strike
 Intersectionality and the British Labour Movement
 Policing the Labour Movement
 The NF’s Shift to the Streets and the Rise of the Asian Youth Movements
 The Rise of the SWP and the Revival of Militant Anti-fascism
 The ‘Battle of Lewisham’
 ‘The National Front is a Nazi Front’: The Anti-Nazi League, 1977–9
 Rock Against Racism
 The ANL and the Wider British left
 Southall and the Death of Blair Peach
 ‘Feeling Rather Swamped’: Thatcher and the Exploitation of Popular Racism
 Conclusion
5 Babylon’s Burning: Into the 1980s
 Further Defeats for the CPGB
 The Police and the Black Communities
 From Southall to Brixton: The Violent Reaction to the Police Under Thatcher
 ‘Crisis in the Inner Cities’: The Communist Party’s Reaction
 The 1981 Riots as Social Protest
 Lord Scarman’s Report and the Denial of Institutional Racism
 The Broad Democratic Alliance and Municipal Anti-racism
 The ‘Limits’ of Trade Unionism in the 1980s
 The Push for Black Sections/Caucuses within the Labour Movement
 The End of the Party
 Conclusion
Conclusion
References
Index