We tend to forget the importance of the experience of people participating in historical events. The mainstream political literature presents 1945 in Eastern Europe as a Russian occupation that gradually forced a rootless system on a reluctant and recalcitrant population… Continue Reading
A review of Evan Smith and Matthew Worley (eds), Against the Grain: The British far left from 1956 (Manchester University Press, 2014), £75 The need for a genuine left alternative to cuts, privatisation, racism, war and climate change is urgent.… Continue Reading
For some years prior to 1956 the British labour movement was in overall decline. The 1945 general election had been the crest of the wave for the development of the left in Britain. The British Labour government, which took office,… Continue Reading
The birth of the New Left in 1956 marked an important turning point in post-war British history.2 For the first time since the Second World War a political space opened within which socialists could hope to make headway building a… Continue Reading
‘Tell me what you think about Hungary and I will tell you who you are,’ said a Polish writer in late November 1956. So in this spirit let us make a declaration. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was an authentic… Continue Reading
July 26, 1956. A crowd, tens of thousands strong, gathered in Manshiyya Square in Alexandria, to hear a speech by Egypt’s president, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser. The atmosphere was tense—only days before Nasser had received a humiliating rebuff from the US Secretary… Continue Reading
Why commemorate 1956? The answer, in short, is that Sunday 4 November 1956 was one of the major ideological turning points for socialists in the 20th century. On that day Russian tanks moved in to crush workers’ councils in Hungary… Continue Reading