London Socialist Historians Group summer term seminars

 

London Socialist Historians Seminars

Summer Term 2025. Exploring People’s Histories

With a late Easter we have a limited summer term programme and both seminars are on Zoom. As ever seminars are free to attend but booking at the link to the Institute of Historical Research website is essential

Monday May 19^th 5.30pm Laura Hadland, 'Beer Festival Evolution, a history: shaping the British beer landscape'

Book: Beer Festival Evolution, a history: shaping the British beer landscape | Institute of Historical Research

Monday June 2^nd 5.30pm Tony Collins, 'Rethinking the roots of British Communism'

Book: Rethinking the roots of British Communism | Institute of Historical Research

The two seminar subjects appear unlinked, but quite the reverse.

While the Communist Party founded 105 years ago in 1920 had a strong temperance element to it, a founding member was Raymond Postgate. Some decades later, in 1951 Postgate was the founding Editor of the Good Food Guide designed promote decent eating out experiences for a general audience.

Laura Hadland’s book on the history of Beer Festivals reflects a similar movement in beer. A desire to promote good beer over mass produced alternatives

contact LSHG Organiser Dr Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

LSHG seminars spring 2022

 

London Socialist Historians Group Seminars Spring 2022

Monday 31^st January 5.30pm John Newsinger The Forgotten Feminist: Ethel Mannin, Women and the Revolution - link to recording for those missed it here: 

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2022/01/23/socialist-history-seminar-31st-jan-john-newsinger-on-ethel-mannin-forgotten-feminist-revolutionary/

Monday 14^th February 5.30pm Patrick Hegarty Morrish Interwar Swedish Cycling and the socialist ethos

Free on Zoom. Register at the link below

https://www.history.ac.uk/events/inter-war-swedish-cycling-and-socialist-ethos

Monday 28^th February 5.30pm. Duncan Stone, Different Class. The untold story of English cricket

to register please go to here: 

https://www.history.ac.uk/events/different-class-untold-story-english-cricket

Monday 14^th March 5.30pm Simon Hannah, The Lessons of Lambeth: municipal socialism in the 1980s

The Spring term seminars will once again be via Zoom.

Attendance is free but registration on the IHR site is essential.

A link to register for each seminar will be posted well in advance and after registering the IHR will mail you joining details.

We hope to return to in person seminars in the Summer term from May 2022 though I doubt we will entirely forsake Zoom!

Keith Flett, Convenor

Socialist History Society seminars - Egyptian workers / GDH Cole

 Socialist History Society Meetings – on-line via Zoom

The Workers’ Movement and Revolution in Egypt since 1919

The meeting is free, but you must register in advance here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkfuipqD8rH9dQs8-MgbzQ_HADsbrSX-zf

Thursday 14th October, 6:30pm

Speaker Anne Alexander

Anne Alexander is the co-author, with Mostafa Bassiouny, of Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers and the Egyptian Revolution (Zed, 2014). She is a founder member of MENA Solidarity Network, the co-editor of Middle East Solidarity and a member of the University and College Union (UCU).

http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/?p=1227

‘G.D.H. Cole: A Libertarian Trapped in the Labour Party’

Socialist History Society Meeting – on-line via Zoom
The meeting is free, but you must register in advance here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZclcuuqrzMqH9zH6MQ4WwengfRZmH14X7lF

Thursday 11 November 2021 , 6.30pm start

A talk by David Goodway

G.D.H. Cole (1889-1959) declared forcefully at the end of his life that he was ‘neither a Communist nor a Social Democrat…but something…essentially different from both’. He had been a leading Guild Socialist at the time of World War One and that, he explained, was what he remained. Cole repeatedly described himself as ‘a libertarian’. The current volume reconstitutes Studi sul Socialismo, a collection of late articles which supposedly appeared in Italy in 1959 but never did. David Goodway has reverted to the preferred title rather than the publisher’s ‘Studies in Socialism’.

The talk will be followed by a discussion.

David Goodway is the editor of Towards a Libertarian Socialism, by G D H Cole, which is published by AK Press. The title of our talk comes from that of David’s introduction to this edition of Cole’s book.

David’s main works are London Chartism, 1838–1848 (1982) and Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward (2006, 2nd edition 2012). In addition, David is the editor of collections of writings by Herbert Read, Alex Comfort, John Cowper Powys and Emma Goldman, Nicolas Walter and Maurice Brinton (Chris Pallis).

He is also author of The Real History of Chartism: or eight fallacies about the Chartist movement (SHS OP, 2013) and editor of George Julian Harney, The Chartists were Right: selections from the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 1890-97 (2014).

http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/?p=1240

LSHG Seminar - Tom Mann in Australia - postponed

LSHG Seminar

Rhys Williams on Tom Mann in Australia (1902-1910)


This seminar has now been postponed to later in the year due to the Coronavirus

Race, Class, 1619 and 1620

[From LSHG Newsletter No. 69 Spring 2020]

Race,  Class,  1619 and 1620

It has been little discussed in the UK but the New York Times 1619 project about the origins of modern America has sparked a massive debate in the US.

A summary is at the link below but there is a lot more to be said. Issues of race, racism, class and patriotism, progressive or not have been at the centre of the debate with well known radical and socialist historians critical of the project.

In the UK there is an important counterpoint around 1620 and the sailing of the Mayflower where issues of race and racism are also to the fore. The link is below

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arch ive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619project/604093/ http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk /?p=707

We hope to organise a roundtable discussion on the issues and the history later in 2020.

SHS meeting - Legacy of Empire

Legacy of Empire – Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel 

Socialist History Society Public Meeting

 Speaker: Dr Gardner Thompson

Saturday 25 January, 2pm @  Red Lion Hall, Basement, Tresham House, Red Lion Square, entrance via Lamb’s Conduit Passage by Conway Hall, Holborn, WC1R 4RE

It is now more than seventy years since the creation of the state of Israel, yet its origins and the British Empire’s historic responsibility for Palestine remain little known. Confusion persists too as to the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. In Legacy of Empire, Gardner Thompson offers a clear-eyed review of political Zionism and Britain’s role in shaping the history of Palestine and Israel. Thompson explores why the British government adopted Zionism in the early twentieth century, issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and then retaining it as the cornerstone of their rule in Palestine after the First World War.

Despite evidence and warnings, over the next two decades Britain would facilitate the colonisation of Arab Palestine by Jewish immigrants, ultimately leading to a conflict which it could not contain. Britain’s response was to propose the partition of an ungovernable land: a ‘two-state solution’ which – though endorsed by the United Nations after the Second World War – has so far brought into being neither two states nor a solution.

 Gardner Thompson is a historian of British colonialism and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He earned a BA in History from Cambridge University, an MA in East African History and Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a PhD on the British Colonial Rule in Uganda from London University. Thompson taught History in Uganda, and then in London where he was Head of the History Department and the Academic Vice-Principal at Dulwich College. His other publications include Governing Uganda: British Colonial Rule and its Legacy

https://socialisthistory.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/legacy-of-empire-meeting-jan-25th/

LSHG news and update

The IWGB boycott of Senate House continues and it would be fair to say that the University is being obdurate in terms of the legitimate issue of bringing outsourced workers back in-house on decent terms and conditions.

While the dispute continues it’s our job to offer solidarity. For that reason we will not be holding socialist history seminars at the Institute of Historical Research in the autumn term - a matter of regret as the IHR is not a direct party and remains the home of research history in the UK.

Historically these are matters we often talk about in seminars and it would be hypocritical to say the least to ignore them in the here and now. I have been working with others on alternative arrangements.

If supporters have ideas for speakers (and venues) do get in touch! Contributions, reviews, comments are welcome. I did attend the seminar convenors meeting in July presided over by the Director of the IHR Professor Jo Cox. I should underline that relations between the seminar and the IHR remain cordial and we hope to return there as soon as possible.

Professor Cox underlined the difficult situation the dispute had put the IHR in and its impact on staff, use and funding. While we understand the issues as above solidarity with outsourced workers must come first.

The IWGB dispute is part of a wider crisis in Higher Education underwritten without question by the activities or lack of them of the present Government.

Finally of course we supported the Climate Strike on 20th September, XR in October and will support future such actions.

Keith Flett for the London Socialist Historians Group

Upcoming seminars and events

LSHG SEMINAR - Monday 28 October 5.00pm Professor David Edgerton, Some Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the British Nation, Room S 8.08, 8th Floor, Strand Building, Kings College

Other events

Friday 1 November - 7pm 'Louise Michel, a French anarchist in London' with Constance Bantman and Martyn Everett - Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DX - free, no booking required

Tuesday 12 November BUIRA IS Seminar on British and German Labour Unrest pre-First World
War BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group. Labour Unrest pre-First World War: Germany and the UK Compared. 3.30pm for 4.00- 6.00m (Tea/ coffee from 3.30) Room tbc,
University of Westminster Business School, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS (opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube) The event is free and no need to register in advance but for further details , please email Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk) or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk).

Thursday 14 November 2019, 6.30pm, Bookmarks Bookshop 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE, Launch of Treason: Rebel Warriors and Internationalist Traitors Edited by Steve Cushion and Christian Høgsbjerg

Friday 15 November, 6.30pm, Bookmarks Bookshop 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE, Launch of Mohandas Gandhi: Experiments in Civil Disobedience by Talat Ahmed

Letters, articles, criticisms and contributions to debate are most welcome. Deadline for the next issue of the LSHG Newsletter  is 1 December 2018. Please contact Keith Flett on address above for more information

SHS meeting - Soviet Communes

Socialist History Society Meeting

At 2pm, on Saturday 18th May 2019

Soviet Communes - The History of Communes in the Early Years of the Soviet Union

The talk will be given by Dr Andy Willimott, author, "Living the Revolution: Urban Communes and Soviet Socialism, 1917 – 1932"

Please note the Society's AGM will be held at 1pm.

Venue: Red Lion Hall, Basement, Tresham House, Red Lion Square, entrance is via Lamb’s Conduit Passage, Conway Hall, Holborn WC1R
‎4RE

Free. All welcome.

LSHG support IWGB action on outsourcing at the University of London, Senate House

The London Socialist Historians Group which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, now in its 25^th year, has reiterated its support for workers involved in a long running dispute at the University of London’s Senate House in Bloomsbury over the outsourcing of support staff (those who actually keep the place running).

After industrial action and protests by the IWGB trade union who organise many of the workers involved the University agreed to bring outsourced work back in-house. However it has delayed the timescale originally proposed for this. As a result the IWGB have called for a boycott of Senate House.

The LSHG has always supported the workers in dispute and indeed has cancelled seminars at Senate House on days when action has been taking place in solidarity.

We are supporting the boycott. We have three seminars scheduled at the Institute of Historical Research for late January and February 2019.

We are consulting with speakers about whether to take these forward in some form or postpone until a later date. The first seminar on 28^th January has been postponed.

That also means we are scheduling no more seminars at Senate House after the end of February for the time being in support of the IWGB members in dispute.

LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said we believe that it is absolutely right that a socialist history seminar should stand in solidarity with Senate House workers and we are pleased to see that a growing number of other IHR seminars are also supporting the dispute.

Details of the dispute are here:

https://iwgb.org.uk/post/5c0e1fadbc527/academics,-students-and-politi

Telling the Mayflower story

Launch of the Socialist History Society publication: "Telling the Mayflower Story, Thanksgiving or Land Grabbing, Massacres & Slavery?" by Danny Reilly and Steve Cushion.

Fri 30 November 2018

17:30

UCL Institute of the Americas

51 Gordon Square

London

WC1H 0PN

In the autumn of 1620 the ship Mayflower, with 102 passengers, landed in North America and started the colonisation of the area that became known as New England. The Mayflower had landed in a region where the Sachem of the local Wampanoag Nation was Massasoit, who subsequently helped them survive. In the autumn of 1676, following the defeat of a war of rebellion led by Massasoit’s son Metacomet (King Philip), the ship Seaflower set sail from New England with a ‘cargo’ of Indigenous American slaves bound for the English Caribbean colonies.

The creation of the New England colonies by thousands of English colonists in the seventeenth century involved the rapid decline in the indigenous population, the violent seizure of territory and slavery. However, the 400-year anniversary commemorations in the UK seem to be overlooking this. 

The Mayflower journey was part of Early English Colonialism:
• The invasions of Virginia, New England and the Caribbean were accompanied by land seizure wars against the Indigenous peoples of North America
• The economic success of New England depended on trade with the slave colonies of the Caribbean, and included the trafficking of slaves
• The colonists established a pattern of ‘extravagant’ violence in the wars they conducted against Indigenous Nations that was continued for 300 years
• The establishment of a tradition of sanitizing the story of English colonialism in the Americas that has lasted 400 years

Danny Reilly is a support tutor working in higher education and a volunteer ESOL teacher who has worked in a voluntary capacity for several refugee support groups. He has been an anti-racist activist for many years, a founder of the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and worked at the Institute of Race Relations from 1977 to 1993 as information officer.

Steve Cushion is author of "The Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class Shaped the Guerrillas’ Victory", "Killing Communists in Havana: The Start of the Cold War in Latin America" and "Up Down Turn Around: The Political Economy of Slavery and the Socialist case for Reparations". He is joint author, with Dennis Bartholomew, of "By Our Own Hands: A People’s History of the Grenadian Revolution". His current research is on German and Italian volunteers who fought in the French Resistance.

Attendance to this event is free of charge but registration is required- use link below

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-telling-the-mayflower-story-thanksgiving-or-genocide-and-slavery-registration-50731080026

London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 65 (Autumn 2018) now online

The latest issue of the LSHG Newsletter is now online, featuring Keith Flett on 1968, John Newsinger reviewing a work on evangelical Christians in Trump's America and a review of Martin Empson's popular work 'Kill All the Gentlemen'.  There is also notice of a new book edited by Michael Rosen, Workers' Tales.   Letters, articles, criticisms and contributions to debate are most welcome. The deadline for the next issue is 1 December 2018 - please contact Keith Flett on the address above.  The LSHG receive no official funding and rely entirely on supporters for money for our activities. To become a member of the LSHG (cost £10) - please again contact Keith.  A reminder of our seminar programme is below.


LSHG SEMINARS Autumn 2018 

 All seminars will take place in Room 304 (third floor) at 5.30pm in the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU and entry is free without ticket although donations are welcome.

Monday 8 October Rupa Huq MP: from lecture room to Parliament: ‘From theory to practice : the difficulties of transitioning from teaching society and politics in the lecture hall/seminar to “doing “ it in Parliament.”

Monday 22 October Marika Sherwood: The beginning of the Cold War in Ghana (Gold Coast) in 1948

Monday 5 November John Newsinger: The Other Spirit of '45: War, Empire and the Attlee Governments

Monday 19 November Daryl Leeworthy Labour Country: Social Democracy's Roots and Possibilities.

Monday 3 December Keith Flett. 50 years since the Pelican paperback of The Making of the English Working Class. Still relevant?

LSHG Workshop - Treason: Internationalist renegades and traitors

London Socialist Historians’ Group Workshop on 
Treason: Internationalist Renegades and Traitors

Saturday 19th May, 12 – 5pm

Wolfson Room, Institute of Historical Research

Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.  

Entry is free without ticket although there will be a collection to cover expenses, but please register via the eventbrite link here if possible

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/treason-tickets-44281819113

The Levellers who refused to support Cromwell’s war in Ireland, the Polish troops who rebelled against Napoleon and sided with the Haitian Revolution, the Irish-American “St Patrick’s Battalion” who rejected American imperialism to fight with the Mexicans, the British people who joined the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Confederate deserters who opposed slavery, the German anti-Nazis who deserted and joined the Red Army or fought with the French Resistance and the French anti-colonialists who sided with the independence fighters in Algeria and Vietnam. There have been some rare but truly inspiring and heroic examples of internationalism throughout modern history, when those being drafted into fighting for unjust wars rebelled to side and fight against imperialist oppression. This workshop will try to recover the lives and often hidden histories of these true ‘citizens of the world’, as well as considering moments in history where the potential for anti-imperialist internationalism did not materialise.

Programme:
12 - registration
12.15 Welcome / Introduction
12.20-1pm - Rebel Warriors (chair Christian Høgsbjerg]
Soldiers of Misfortune: Napoleon's Polish Deserters in the West Indies - Jonathan North [with a contribution from Christian Høgsbjerg]
 The Saint Patrick's Battalion - David Rovics [recorded]
-1pm - Break -
1.30-2.30 - Anti-Fascism (chair: Keith Flett)
 Organised Resistance to the Nazis from within the German Workers’ Movement from 1933-1945 - Merilyn Moos
Italians and Germans in the French Resistance - Steve Cushion
3pm-4pm Anti-Imperialism (chair Keith Flett)
The India and Burma Empire: Michael Carritt and Arthur Attwood - Richard Saville
Betraying the Moribund Empire: France 1946-1962 - Ian Birchall
4pm Opening the Debate - Steve Cushion (chair: Christian Høgsbjerg)

For more information please contact Keith Flett at the address above.

Edited to add: Please see this publication arising out of the workshop

History Acts on Strike - how to win?

History Acts on Strike: How to Win?

Can history help us win this dispute? Can we link our struggle over pensions to the struggles against casualisation of teaching and outsourcing of university staff? In an emergency History Acts teach-out, historians of trade unionism discuss strategies and tactics with union officials and activists.

Wednesday 7th March, 6pm to 8pm
MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH

Free entry. No need to book in advance. For information contact Steffan Blayney sblayn01@mail.bbk.ac.uk or Guy Beckett gbecke01@mail.bbk.ac.uk.

History Acts workshops are led by activists, who give a short talk or presentation about their work. Historians working on a relevant topic will then respond, before opening it up to group discussion.

Our panel

Activists

Mike Berlin is joint-President of Birkbeck UCU and a historian specialising in the social history of early modern London. UCU members are currently on strike to defend their right to a fair pension.

Catherine Oakley is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leeds and co-founder of The Academic Precariat (TAP), a new activist platform for research and teaching academics, and other categories of staff in the Higher Education sector united by the material and psychological conditions of precarity.

Historians
Dr Laura Schwartz is Associate Professor in Modern British History at the University of Warwick. Her main research interests are the history of feminism and radical movements in Britain, and she is completing her third monograph on ‘Feminism and the Servant Problem: Class Conflict and Domestic Labour in the British Women’s Suffrage Movement’.

Dr Jack Saunders is a historian of work and workplace culture in post-war Britain. Having previously worked on workplace culture and labour militancy in the British motor industry, he is now a Research Fellow on the University of Warwicks’s ‘Cultural History of the NHS project’. His current research looks at how working for the NHS has shaped the cultural values of health workers, particularly their attitudes towards work, efficiency and productivity.

Both Laura and Jack have been involved with Fighting Against Casualisation in Education (FACE), a network aiming to bring together casualised academic workers involved in struggles around the country, to organise for better labour conditions.

www.historyacts.org
Twitter: @HistoryActs

1968-2018 A Celebration of 50 years of Resistance, Campaigning and Alternatives for A Better World

1968-2018: A Celebration of 50 years of Resistance, Campaigning and Alternatives for A Better World

- despite 50 years of police opposition, spying and repression

Sat 7th / Sun 8th July 2018  

Sat 7th: Anniversary Roll Call / Commemoration / Celebration in Grosvenor Square, London W1 @ 1pm - 3pm

Sun 8th: London Gathering and Exhibition

1st to 8th July  -  week of local events and activities around the UK 

Info/poster: http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/02/13/50-years-resistance-celebration/

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Next planning meeting for the above

Sunday 11th March, 5pm @ Housmans, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DX

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

MOVEMENTS FOR A BETTER WORLD GROW - POLICE REACT WITH REPRESSIVE TACTICS

In 1968, following demonstrations against the Vietnam War in London's Grosvenor Square, the police set up a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). Since that time, 50 years ago, over 1,000 groups campaigning in the UK for a better world have been spied on, infiltrated and targeted by political policing. Their protests and demonstrations are also subjected to ongoing police opposition and control to try to limit their effectiveness.

This targeting has included groups campaigning for equality, justice, the environment and international solidarity, for rights for women, LGBTQ, workers and for animals, for community empowerment, and those campaigning against war, racism, sexism, corporate power, legal repression and police oppression and brutality. Such groups have represented many millions of people throughout the UK who want to make the world a better, fairer and more sustainable place for everyone.

Yet almost any group of any kind that stood up to make a positive difference has been or could have potentially been a target for secret political policing. We now know this because of campaigners' recent efforts to expose and challenge the SDS and other similar secret units, and their shocking and unacceptable tactics. Individuals within those campaign groups have been spied on, subjected to intrusions in their personal lives, been victims of miscarriages of justice, and many deceived into intimate and abusive relationships with secret police, ie people that who were not who they said they were. In July 2015 we succeeded in forcing Theresa May (now Prime Minister) to set up the current Undercover Policing Public Inquiry, which was tasked with getting to the truth by July 2018, and insisting on action to prevent police wrong-doing in future. Now, 3 years on, the public inquiry has achieved very little due to police obstruction.

When the SDS was formed they stated that they would 'shut down' the movements they were spying on. But despite disgusting police tactics, movements for positive change are still here and growing, and have had many successes on the way.

CELEBRATE 50 YEARS OF CAMPAIGNS AND STRUGGLES, RESILIENCE AND SUCCESSES

This planned two-day event in London, backed up by a call for a week of actions all around the UK, is in support of those campaigning for full exposure and effective action at the Undercover Policing Inquiry, and against police attempts to delay and undermine it. We aim to encourage more groups to find out about the Inquiry and how they can get involved and support each other, and to unite the many different groups and organisations who have been victims of our police state because of their efforts to improve society. 

 Backed by the Campaign to Oppose Police Surveillance [C.O.P.S.] - www.campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com

Full info: http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/02/13/50-years-resistance-celebration/

GROUP DISCOUNT OFFER For LSHG and friends : Philosophy Football's 1917 Centenary Night Out

From Mark at Philosophy Football...

Our 1917 centenary show at Rich Mix ‘Art out of Revolution’ is on Saturday 21st October, we've put a lot of thought into it and come up with something truly special. And there's a special tickets deal too, 5 for the price of 4, or 10 for price of 7 for LSHG, friends and SWP comrades to take up.  Hope so!  

The evening is presented by self-styled ‘sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction’ aka Philosophy Football. In association with the trade union RMT supported by Brigadista Ale and RnR magazine

We open and close with Liz Wheatley’s 'Funk the Revolution’ vinyl only DJ set.  Liz is plays jazz funk, soul and rare grooves with a weekly show on Urban Jazz radio. And then we premier a film version Tim Sanders’ graphic novel of the Russian Revolution 1917: Russia’s Red Year  with voiceover by Michael Rosen

We’ve commissioned music on the theme of ‘revolution’  by Calum Baird a singer-songwriter based in Edinburgh, Calum’s 2017 shows have included the Rivas-Vaciamadrid festival commemorating the 80^th anniversary of the Battle of Jarama and Berlin’s Festival Musik und Politik. And poetry too from Barbican Young Poet Eleanor Penny. 

On ’the revolution is dead, long live the Revolution!’  we have Richard Seymour author of Corbyn : The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics. And on the art of revolution  Owen Hatherley  author of Landscapes of Communism : A History Through Buildings with Eldina Begic who founded the fashion label Comradettes and is currently completing a PhD at the University of the Arts London on ‘ How To Wear Utopia : A Dress Manual for the Socialist Future’, Pete Ayrton the editor of Revolution! Writing from Russia 1917 and Hugh Tisdale, a graphic artist and co-founder of Philosophy Football

Opening the second half Des Kapital :  Neve Mind the Cossacks featuring the music of Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Robbie Williams and more to explain 1917 (yes really, with audience singalongs!) and was one of the comedy hits at this year's Edinburgh and Brighton festivals fringes. Rosy Carrick has recently completed editing a brand new publication of Mayakovsky’s epic poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin will be performing an entirely original interpretation of the poem accompanied by film and music. And to headline, the Trans-Siberian March Band, Balkan brass party-starters who provide a flamboyantly colourful mix of  high octane live performances and musical miscellany combining up tempo Russian drinking songs, Klezmer, Turkish  and Gypsy tunes with a hint of Latin and hiphop for good tuneful measure. For one night only, a special Shostakovich inspired TSMB set! 

A 1917 centenary night out like no other, we hope you’ll agree and want to bring a party to. The 5 for price of 4, 10 for the price of 7 tickets can be booked here  https://www.philosophyfootball.com/1917-event.html

SHS meeting - Thomas Spence and the Land Question

Thomas Spence and the Land Question

Speaker Professor Malcolm Chase

2pm, Saturday 29th July 2017

Venue: Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU

Malcolm is Professor of Social History at the University of Leeds. He has written extensively on Thomas Spence, including a recent article ‘The real rights of man: Thomas Spence,Paine and Chartism’ and his first book The People’s Farm: English Radical Agrarianism, 1775-1840 (1988), of which a new edition was recently published. His other books include The Chartists: perspectives and legacies (2015) and Chartism: A New History (2007).

 He is Vice-President of the Society for the Study of Labour History and a member of the SHS.

Admission free, retiring collection, all welcome

http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/category/meetings/future-shs-meetings/

The Battle of Lewisham 1977 - Forty years on

 Darcus Howe at the Battle of Lewisham, August 1977

 The Battle of Lewisham - Reunion - How we stopped the Nazi NF

Fb event:  https://en-gb.facebook.com/events/133868593825540/

• Saturday 12 August at 13:00–16:30 UTC+01

• Clifton Rise, London, SE14 6, United Kingdom

Forty years ago this August, thousands of anti fascists and locals from South East London stopped the fascists of the National Front from marching.  The National Front hoped that by demonstrating in Lewisham – an area with a high proportion of Afro Caribbeans – they would further intimidate minorities. The fascists, however, were to receive a rude awakening. The victory was critical in beating back the rise in racism and fascism. Saturday 13th August, 1977 helped set back the fascists for a generation.
The far right had become, pre Lewisham, mainstream in the media, in political life and often, in popular culture. In 1977, the National Front received over 100,000 votes in London elections.
The historic day in Lewisham, itself, saw trades unionists, socialists, Labour Party members, and crucially, many people from Lewisham itself, come together to say enough is enough.
Up to 10,000 people joined in to oppose the NF. All the fascists possible routes were continually blocked, NF banners were burned, and Bob Marley was played. The counter demo became a great example of black and white unity.
Nazi organizations such as the NF, believed that they could build a mass movement based upon racial prejudices and racist violence. They were wrong, and they were defeated.
Ted Parker who took part in the battle, mentions, “Thereafter the NF never again posed a serious political threat. Lewisham led directly to the formation of the Anti Nazi League (ANL) which, together with Rock Against Racism (RAR), and nowadays Love Music Hate Racism mobilised hundreds of thousands in collective expressions of solidarity between those of differing cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Organised racism was marginalised for the next quarter of a century”


Come and march and meet with some of the key individuals, who alongside many others, helped beat back the rise in racism and the fascists who fed off such poison.
People who played a critical role at Lewisham and some who helped form the Anti Nazi League (ANL), will recall the day the Nazis were stopped from marching and why it matters today. We'll assemble at Clifton Rise, a key location on the day.
The united front of socialists, trades unionists, Labour members... anyone against the Nazis, that was the ANL, was inspired from Lewisham. Alongside Rock Against Racism, the ANL was crucial in undercutting the then growing NF.
The ANL combined physically confronting the Nazis wherever they raised their ugly heads with powerful propaganda exposing the little Hitlers. It was a mass movement, that faced with the challenges posed by Le Pen, Golden Dawn and Jobbik, still reasonates. Please share this event, invite your friends, let's celebrate the victory and ensure today's fascists are defeated.

Hosted by Unite Against Fascism
http://uaf.org.uk/2017/07/the-battle-of-lewisham-1977-40-years-on-2/

See also the commemorations being organised by Goldsmiths College - here: 
 http://sites.gold.ac.uk/battle-of-lewisham/2017/01/04/remembering-the-battle-of-lewisham-40-years-on/