Talk:History of British socialism

previous debate archived at Talk:History_of_British_Socialism/archive. Morwen 18:17, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Contents

1 Suggestions for improving the article 2 Neutrality 3 bourgeois revolutions 4 Article division

Suggestions for improving the article

• Something about the British far-left, very few people wouldn't consider them socialist, and many, many people would find the idea that New Labour are even remotely socialist would be laughable. There are lots of good articles here abot the various far left parties but there isn't an overview. Theres no reason not to include them, Wiki is not paper.
  • The Communist Party of Great Britain did have some importance, including parlimentary representation.
  • The Scottish Socialist Party have seats in the Scottish Parliment and the RMT have affiliated to them in some regions.
  • You might not consider Trotskyism to be significant but that would be very POV
  • The Socialist Party of Great Britain is a very old political party, almost as old as the Labour Party, and that fact alone is significant
• The SNP and Playd Cymru consider themselves Socialist don't they?
• The SDLP are members of the Socialist International along with the Labour Party
• Sinn Féin consider themselves socialist
• Some mention of Anarchism

Saul Taylor 04:06, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've begun working on the article. I've started by trying to address the pre-1910 period. This section, I think, still needs much more on trade unions, including the founding of the TUC, more on the Chartists, the 1832 Reform Act and the national strike of 1820.

For the post-1910 period, I think Saul Taylor's points are good, and I also hope to cover Red Clydeside, the Suffragette movement, the CPGB split with Moscow, attitudes to WWI and WWII, the later trade union movement, Militant, the 1984 Miners Strike (honestly, an article on socialism in Britain which doesn't even mention it!), the SDP, the Poll Tax, the 2003 Iraq War and the "anti-globalisation" movement. Warofdreams 17:47, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've now covered every subject in the article, with the exceptions of the 1832 Reform Act and the Irish topics (many of which have little bearing on British socialism). Warofdreams 22:00, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Neutrality

Is anybody still disputing the neutrality of this article, or should the header be removed G-Man 19:53, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

bourgeois revolutions

I changed the link to just revolution as there is no padge for bourgeois revolution, the revolution padge is a mess and doesn't even mention the Marxist concept of Bour'revo's but, at mo, nothing better to link to. Some one should have a go sort out revo page. --JK the unwise 12:02, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article division

I have divided the article into centuries; I think the 20th century should be further divided into pre-WWII and post-WWII (in the main outline and not as sub-divisions).

Maybe someone could write an introduction for each century (19+20), summarising the important points, these are:

• The 19th century
  • Peterloo massacre.
  • Legalization of unions.
  • Chartist's movement.
  • International Workingmen's Association (This also should be added to the article [1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/steklov/history-first-international/index.htm)).
  • The rise of the trade unions.
• The 20th century
  • Political representation.
  • The general strike.
  • The Attlee government and the welfare state.
  • The rise of reformism (right-wing labour leaders).

I also added a section about the Chartist movement; an article with the title "History of British socialism" without a section about the Chartists is not worth its name.

Doesn't Unitarianism belong in the section Ethical socialism? I don't really know much about the movement, only that Elizabeth Gaskell was married to a Unitarian minister.

Also in the section Trade unions it's not clear that before 1824 combinations (unions) were illegal, there is also no mention of the (Peterloo) massacre in Manchaster.

The section Lib-Labs and the ILP, I believe, does not belong in this article; it's about the origin of the political representation of labour and not British socialism per se. The Liberals were never socialists, why talk about them? Instead of talking about the liberals the article needs a section about the growth of the trade unions in the 1880's and 1890's espicially in the ranks of the unskilled workers (dockers, women, etc.).

The Origins section, also, needs a lot of work. The Reformation did not occure later in Britain than mainland Europe, and even if that's true I don't see the point of this remark in this article. Socialism is not a religion, but it might express itself through religion. This section should cover the following points:

• The Levellers
• The Diggers.
• The Quakers.
• John Bellers.
• Social and economic change.

The part about the English revolution and how Marxists view it has no place in this article; it should be moved to an article that discusses the revolution and not socialism. There is a difference between class struggle and socialism, a history of socialism should not be about class struggle, otherwise we'll have to start with the Romans; the revolution was the culmination of the struggle between two classes, nobles and bourgeois. (For source material, about the points above, see: Cromwell and Communism [2] (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1895/cromwell/index.htm) by Eduard Bernstein)