Marxism in Britain: Dissent, Decline and Re-emergence 1945-c.2000

Since the Second World War, Marxism in Britain has declined almost to the point of oblivion. The Communist Party of Great Britain had more than 50,000 members in the early 1940s, but less than 5,000 when it disbanded in 1991. Dissenting and Trotskyist organisations experienced a very similar decline, although there has been a late flowering of Marxism in Scotland.

Based on the Communist Party archives at Manchester, this text examines the decline over the last sixty years. Dealing with the i...