British Labour's turn to socialism in 1931

Callaghan, JT ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3183-2320 2009, 'British Labour's turn to socialism in 1931' , Journal of Political Ideologies, 14 (2) , pp. 115-132.

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Abstract

The article examines Labour’s turn to socialism in 1931. While the events of that year have been examined in meticulous detail in the existing academic literature Labour’s turn to socialism has not. I seek to explain that turn to socialism with reference to the Soviet Union and to suggest that even before the Five Year Plans a fund of goodwill and emotional investment was there to be drawn upon by the Soviet state. The crisis of 1931 allowed these dispositions to come to the fore, providing a glimpse of sentiments that the Labour leadership would normally have no interest in encouraging. Thus, the crisis provides a window on socialist convictions and draws attention to the significance of the Soviet state for non-Communist socialist activists, a significance which is apt to be lost in both contemporary memoirs of the left and academic accounts of the ‘Soviet complex’ which focus on left-wing intellectuals.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of Humanities, Languages & Social Sciences
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Political Ideologies
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN:	1356-9317
Depositing User:	Institutional Repository
Date Deposited:	11 Sep 2014 16:24
Last Modified:	16 Feb 2022 15:46
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/32329

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