Radiant Illusion? Middle-class recruits to Communism in the 1930s

by Nicholas Deakin (Editor)

Studies of why middle-class youth joined the UK communists in the 1930s

187 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2015

Reviews

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The summary of proceedings from a series of seminars held at Gresham College in 2013 and 2015, examining the lives and motivations of middle class supporters of CPGB in the 30s. As is explained, CPGB was firmly rooted in factory labour throughout the 20s, and disdainful of any smart people who wanted to join up. But then the new collaborative policy of the Popular Front opened the doors to a wider variety of recruit and also encouraged entryist expansion in to other movements and groupings. Much of this is drawn from memoirs and the recollections of the children of the converts, and there is also reference to what has been revealed through (redacted) MI5 papers released in to the public domain - and the fact that what we have seen so far contains demonstrable inaccuracies.

If you've ever seen the Alan Bennett play "A Question Of Attribution" in its BBC version, think of all those scenes where David Calder is showing slides of old black&white photos to Edward Fox. This is a book about the people in those pictures - most of whom had nothing to do with spying, of course, since the real Cambridge Spies were under strict orders to disavow CPGB and keep clean records. Guy Burgess was actually despised by his old comrades as a backslider who crawled back to bourgeois conventionality, until they heard the truth in the news.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not one for the general reader, but it is a good read for those interested in the subject. It is essentially the findings of two series of seminars at Gresham College in London in 2013 and 2014, seeking to understand why middle-class, educated Britons joined the Communist Party in the 1930s. Plenty of reasons, of course, but the underlying ones seem to be a search for community and a desire for a better world. It cleverly avoids issues of spying and Cold War patriotism and looks instead at the drivers from poverty and inequality. The strongest parts are presentations from the now old offspring of '30s Communist parents. As one says: "Corporate and personal greed is even now recreating the social and economic conditions which drove that generation of idealists into the arms of Communism."