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The Failure of a Dream

The Independent Labour Party from Disaffiliation to World War II

Gidon Cohen author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:30th Mar '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Failure of a Dream cover

The Independent Labour Party began the 1930s as a significant force in dispute with the Labour Party proper. In 1932, as these conflicts led to a split, the party had more MPs in Scotland than the larger organisation and a membership five times that of the British Communist Party. In the first major study of the Independent Labour Party after disaffiliation from the mainstream in 1932, Gidon Cohen draws on archival material from Moscow and newly released police and secret service papers as well as other major British archives. In doing so he explores the culture and politics of an organisation which he argues, contrary to received scholarship, remained an important component of the British left throughout the 1930s. CONTENTS: 1. Introduction 2. The Split 3. Membership and Organisation 4. Electoral Arenas 5. Divided We Fall: Internal Politics 6. Intellectuals, Ideas and Policy 7. Infiltration: Communism and the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement 8. The Mainstream: Labour and the Unions 9. Pacifism, Wars and the Internationals 10. Conclusion

TRIBUNE"An interesting account." David Winnick

ISBN: 9781845113001

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

272 pages