This is a book about a political party. It is not an official history: the only accounts of its early years sanctioned by the Socialist Party of Great Britain appeared in the Socialist Standard in 1931 and in anniversary editions in 1954 and 1974, and in a section of its pamphlet Questions of the Day. There are virtually no records of the Socialist Party other than those in its possession, and its feelings over granting access to them have been mixed. In 1956 a request for research facilities by a scholar was refused, partly because of the physical inconvenience and partly on the ground that the Socialist Party would wish its history to be written only under its own supervision. A few years later a member was granted access to gather material for a university thesis which, as far as I know, was not completed.
The greater part of this book was written when I was away from the Party, and I have had therefore to rely on memory as well as on notes and papers accumulated during my membership. My intention has been to present as full an account as possible of the Party’s history and, despite this unavoidable lack of complete documentation, I offer an assurance that every fact is as I have stated it.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is a unique phenomenon in British political life. It is older than any other organization claiming the title ‘socialist’ except the ILP, and its antecedents go back much further.
Its history has been a matter not so much of policies as of the kinds of men, often quite remarkable, who made it. I have tried to describe them as I knew them and was conscious of their tradition and flavour.
A portrait which avoids the warts and blemishes is, of course, no portrait at all. In the final chapter I have stated my belief in the Socialist Party’s view of society as the only tenable one. That does not alter – nor is it modified by — the fact that in its history the Party has been more admirable at some times than at others. A minority is always under pressure simply for survival and keeping alive its idea. The stresses can be severe. They are exacerbated by the intimacy among a few hundred members who mostly know one another: conflicts become personal, ways of life involve themselves in political drama.
Whatever conclusions a reader may reach from this history, one
should not be overlooked: after more than seventy years, the Socialist Party is alive and well. The idea of changing to a society based on common ownership has been sustained and, continually, reinvigorated while popular acclaim for other solutions has risen and fallen. That surely merits attention by itself. Where I have delineated the warts in the picture, it is because they have been there. At no point, however, has my wish been to denigrate. On the contrary, I feel indebtedness to the Party and people I have known in it — for all the things learned, for the satisfaction of work in unison, for camaraderie and friendship.
One special explanation which needs to be given concerns the use of the phrase ‘middle class’. In the socialists’ context it is seen as a term confusing and misleading from the fundamental separation between capitalists and workers; and I have explained the reasoning of this. Never¬theless, I have used it in several places simply because there seemed no adequate alternative phrase for a certain set of social claims and attitudes, and I must hope that will not be taken as a denial of other contentions.
A number of people have given me assistance in various ways.
I wish to thank R. W. Reynolds, for an invaluable gift of papers and Ted Wilmott, for many reminiscences and for checking the material relating to the nineteen-thirties. Several members of the Socialist Party read the manuscript; so did Charles Cain, John Pilgrim and Chris Pallis; and I am grateful to all of them for their comments and suggestions. My warm thanks must also go to Mark Paterson, who believed in the book and worked hard for its publication; and to the publishers themselves.
In addition, there is the anonymous sage who first coined a minor left-wing proverb. The Socialist Party, he said, was ‘not so much a movement as a monument’. Whoever he was, he provided the title of this book.
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