Twenty years after the demise of the Communist Party of Great Britain, eight former members, all of whom who stayed in the party until the bitter end, reflect here on some of the personal, political and cultural changes of the last twenty years. The paths of Dave Cope, Andy Croft, Alistair Findlay, Stuart Hill, Kate Hudson, Andy Pearmain, Mark Perryman and Lorna Reith have followed very different political trajectories since 1991 - taking them into the Green Party, the Labour Party, the CPB, SLP, Respect and no party at all. But most have remained politically active. Combining personal and political history, analysis and autobiography, anecdote and argument, the contributors consider the consequences of the CP's dissolution for British political and intellectual life.

Randall Swingler (1909-67) was arguably the most significant and the best-known radical English poet of his generation. A widely published poet, playwright, novelist, editor and critic, his work was set to music by almost all the major British composers of his time. This new biography draws on extensive sources, including the security services files, to present the most detailed account yet of this influential poet, lyricist and activist. A literary entrepreneur, Swingler was founder of radical paperback publishing company Fore Publications, editor of Left Review and Our Time and literary editor of the Daily Worker; later becoming a staff reporter, until the paper was banned in 1941. In the 1930s, he contributed several plays for Unity Theatre, including the Mass Declamation Spain, the Munich play Crisis and the revues Sandbag Follies and Get Cracking. In 1936, MI5 opened a 20-year-long file on him prompted by a song he co-wrote with Alan Bush for a concert organised to mark the arrival of the 1934 Hunger March into London. During the Second World War, Swingler served in North Africa and Italy and was awarded the Military Medal for his part in the battle of Lake Comacchio. His collections The Years of Anger (1946) and The God in the Cave (1950) contain arguably some of the greatest poems of the Italian campaign. After the war, Swingler was blacklisted by the BBC. Orwell attacked him in Polemic and included him in the list of names he offered the security services in 1949. Stephen Spender vilified him in The God That Failed. The book will challenge the Cold War assumptions that have excluded Swingler's life and work from standard histories of the period and should be of great interest to activists, scholars and those with an interest in the history of the literary and radical left.

2005 marks the seventieth anniversary of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia - final humiliating step in Europe's colonisation of Africa; bloody symptom of the collapse of collective security in Europe; harbinger of the world war to come. In this issue of Socialist History our contributors offer provocative reassessments of this key episode, set in its broader contemporary context by the issue's editor, Allison Drew. Exploding the myth that Italian fascism was not marked by the racism of Nazism, Willie Thompson's article describes the stark brutality displayed in Abyssinia by Italian troops and the key role which the conflict played in Mussolini's domestic and international calculations. The conflict also had a significant impact upon the international left and the challenges simultaneously posed it by the rise of fascism, the reconfigurations of democracy and imperialism and the uncertainties of Soviet foreign policy. In his article, Christian Hogsbjerg explores the major impact which the Abyssinian struggle had on the Trinidadian intellectual C.L.R. James, who was then in Britain working on his masterful study of the Haitian Revolution The Black Jacobins. Britain, and the predicaments of this socialist anti-war movement are evaluated here by Andrew Flinn and Gidon Cohen. If socialists and internationalists seemed preoccupied with the issue, the same cannot be said of the wider British public. In our final feature, David Howell shows that in the 1935 general election voters were generally far less interested in Abyssinia than either politicians or political activists. Perhaps, Howell suggests, the same cannot be said so confidently of the last general election and the impact of Iraq. The issue concludes with a discussion of the contemporary Moscow arts scene by Margarita Tupitsyn and our usual reviews section.

Presents poems by 100 poets, in honour of John Lucas' 70th birthday.

Randall Swingler (1909-67) was arguably the most significant and the best-known radical English poet of his generation. A widely published poet, playwright, novelist, editor and critic, his work was set to music by almost all the major British composers of his time. This new biography draws on extensive sources, including the security services files, to present the most detailed account yet of this influential poet, lyricist and activist. A literary entrepreneur, Swingler was founder of radical paperback publishing company Fore Publications, editor of Left Review and Our Time and literary editor of the Daily Worker; later becoming a staff reporter, until the paper was banned in 1941. In the 1930s, he contributed several plays for Unity Theatre, including the Mass Declamation Spain, the Munich play Crisis and the revues Sandbag Follies and Get Cracking. In 1936, MI5 opened a 20-year-long file on him prompted by a song he co-wrote with Alan Bush for a concert organised to mark the arrival of the 1934 Hunger March into London. During the Second World War, Swingler served in North Africa and Italy and was awarded the Military Medal for his part in the battle of Lake Comacchio. His collections The Years of Anger (1946) and The God in the Cave (1950) contain arguably some of the greatest poems of the Italian campaign. After the war, Swingler was blacklisted by the BBC. Orwell attacked him in Polemic and included him in the list of names he offered the security services in 1949. Stephen Spender vilified him in The God That Failed. The book will challenge the Cold War assumptions that have excluded Swingler's life and work from standard histories of the period and should be of great interest to activists, scholars and those with an interest in the history of the literary and radical left.

What if, during a battle with fear, we could take some tips from David? Or in wrestling with a relationship, we could learn from Ruth? Or when we’ve got questions about the future, we could sit down with Joseph? Through their successes, struggles, and failures, these men and women of faith have blazed a trail for us to follow. We can walk beside them and discover God with them­­. Their stories took place thousands of years ago, but what their lives teach us has never mattered more.
 
Much of what we learn comes from the people we live with. We see and share their worlds and, without realizing it, are shaped by them. What would it be like if we could share in the lives of the great heroes of the faith? In Lifelines, Mike Pilavachi and Andy Croft help us understand what the stories of these biblical characters have to teach us about how to live lives full of faith and integrity today.

Barry is looking forward to his first weekend out of prison. Free at last! He has nothing to lose but his GBP46 discharge grant, a bag of dirty washing, and all the promises he has made to himself when he was inside . . . If you enjoy this book, you can find out what happens to Barry next in the sequel, Bare Freedom. SERIES INFORMATION This page-turning story is part of the Diffusion books range, written especially for teenagers and adults who want to improve their reading skills. Easy-to-read, with short chapters, the books in the series enable learners to improve their reading confidence and tackle longer stories. They are also a brilliant choice for anyone learning English as an additional language. The books also include discussion and reflection questions that help readers to understand the story and to reflect on their own lives and relationships. Buying this book will support our project to help people in prison improve both their reading skills and their life chances. To find out more visit https://spckpublishing.co.uk/diffusion-books

Barry is trying to get used to life on the outside. All he wants it to make up with his sister and lead a normal life. But with no money, no job and the local drug dealer after him, will Barry be able to keep out of trouble? Bare Freedom, is the sequel to Forty-six Quid and a Bag of Dirty Washing also by Andy Croft. SERIES INFORMATION This page-turning story is part of the Diffusion books range, written especially for teenagers and adults who want to improve their reading skills. Easy-to-read, with short chapters, the books in the series enable learners to improve their reading confidence and tackle longer stories. They are also a brilliant choice for anyone learning English as an additional language. The books also include discussion and reflection questions that help readers to understand the story and to reflect on their own lives and relationships. Buying this book will support our project to help people in prison improve both their reading skills and their life chances. To find out more visit https://spckpublishing.co.uk/diffusion-books

A Creative Approach to Teaching Rhythm and Rhyme is a book about using words, sounds, echoes, patterns and rhythm in the primary classroom. It is a book about hearing the poems found in football chants, nursery rhymes, radio jingles, TV adverts, raps and tabloid headlines. Most importantly, it is a book about celebrating the music of everyday speech. This is a practical guide for primary teachers to develop pupils' speaking and listening skills - their use of anticipation and memory and their ability to enjoy language and participate in its common music. It features practical warm-up sessions, games, models, templates and examples to help pupils to become readers, writers and confident speakers through the lively practice of rhythm and rhyme.

Tod Prince has spent ten years trying to write the life of Rex Dedman, a minor 1930s poet, communist, womaniser and drinker. As the book nears completion, Tod is visited by Dedman's ghost, demanding major revisions to his life.

As the Black Death devastates England, wiping out whole villages, Adam and his older brother Will try to survive the new, terrifying world around them. They must face gangs of soldiers, religious mania, starvation and the ever-present threat of disease. Can they survive? A heart-pounding story of brotherhood, desperation and life in one of England's darkest times.

Acknowledged Legislator: Critical Essays on the Poetry of Martin Espada stands as the first-ever collection of essays on poet and activist Martin Espada. It is also, to date, the only published book-length, single-author study of Espada currently in existence. Relying on innovative, highly original contributions from thirteen Espada scholars, its principal aim is to argue for a long overdue critical awareness of and cultural appreciation for Espada and his body of writing. Acknowledged Legislator accomplishes this task in three fundamental ways: by providing readers with background information on the poet s life and work; offering an examination into the subject matter and dominant themes that are frequently contained in his writing; and finally, by advocating, in a variety of ways, for why we should be reading, discussing, and teaching the Espada canon. Divided into four distinct sections that modulate through several theoretical frames from Espada s attention to resistance poetics and concerns for historical memory to his oppositional critique of neoliberalism and support for a class consciousness grounded in labor rights Acknowledged Legislator offers a cohesive, forward-thinking interpretive statement of the poet s vision and proposes a critical (re)assessment for how we read Espada, now and in the future.

1948 is a comic verse-novel, auaciously rewriting George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four in Pushkin sonnets. Set during the 1948 Olympics, it offers a radical alternative history of the Cold War, in which Britain has a Labour-Communist coalition government, the Royal Family has fled to Rhodesia and the US threatens to impose an economic blockade on Britain. Featuring cartoons drawn especially for the book, 1948 combines hard-boiled detective novels and Pushkin sonnetry, film-noir and Ealing comedy.

This politically and socially engaged poetry is by a poet who is a true descendant of Shelley and Byron.

From Caedmon to Basil Bunting, dialect poets to coalfield poets, the North East of England has a long and distinguished poetic tradition. Today there are probably more published poets living and working in the North East than anywhere else in the UK. The region is home to a number of poets of international reputation, including Tony Harrison, Anne Stevenson, Sean O'Brien, WN Hebert and Gillian Allnutt.

Acknowledged Legislator: Critical Essays on the Poetry of Martin Espada stands as the first-ever collection of essays on poet and activist Martin Espada. It is also, to date, the only published book-length, single-author study of Espada currently in existence. Relying on innovative, highly original contributions from thirteen Espada scholars, its principal aim is to argue for a long overdue critical awareness of and cultural appreciation for Espada and his body of writing. Acknowledged Legislator accomplishes this task in three fundamental ways: by providing readers with background information on the poet's life and work; offering an examination into the subject matter and dominant themes that are frequently contained in his writing; and finally, by advocating, in a variety of ways, for why we should be reading, discussing, and teaching the Espada canon. Divided into four distinct sections that modulate through several theoretical frames-from Espada's attention to resistance poetics and concerns for historical memory to his oppositional critique of neoliberalism and support for a class consciousness grounded in labor rights-Acknowledged Legislator offers a cohesive, forward-thinking interpretive statement of the poet's vision and proposes a critical (re)assessment for how we read Espada, now and in the future.