Steven Bamlett’s blog post on Geoff Andrews’ Radicals initially appears to be notably honest. It's uncommon for a reviewer to openly admit the tension between enjoying a book—based on shared background, memories, and politics—and recognising its shortcomings on its own terms. His statement that Andrews’ work is “as deeply flawed a book as my enjoyment of it” reflects sincere self-awareness and merits acknowledgement. However, the post also serves as a record of a political deadlock, prompting us to explore why this deadlock exists, how it developed, and what it reveals about the broader historical path of the British left.
The Eurocommunist
Formation: A Political and Historical Context
Bamlett mentions attending CPGB summer schools led by Martin
Jacques, reading miners’ notebooks in Swansea under Raphael Samuel’s
supervision, and maintaining an ‘inclination to [Eurocommunism’s] openness.”
These facts are crucial for understanding why he appreciates Andrews’ book but
also why he cannot completely abandon its framework.
Eurocommunism was not simply a benign shift towards new
cultural or political ideas within Marxism. Instead, it embodied the final
phase of the Stalinist Communist Parties’ integration into their capitalist
states. Trotsky had noted as early as 1938 that these parties depended
dualistically: on Kremlin funding and on the super-profits of their own
imperialist societies, which they channelled through trade-union and social-democratic
bureaucracies. By the 1970s, with the Soviet connection becoming more
problematic, Eurocommunist factions—such as Berlinguer’s PCI, Carrillo’s PCE,
and the Marxism Today branch of the CPGB— abandoned even the rhetoric of
revolution, openly endorsing a “parliamentary road to socialism.”
The historical record clearly shows that the PCI’s Historic
Compromise disarmed a working class moving left, setting the stage for
austerity and the party’s eventual fall. During the 1980s, the CPGB’s Euros,
such as Jacques and Hobsbawm, offered ideological support for Neil Kinnock’s
efforts to dismantle Labour’s reformist agenda. As the WSWS has noted, Marxism
Today served as the ideological precursor to New Labour.
This tradition, which Andrews has dedicated his career to
rehabilitating, is characterised by a focus on Eurocommunism. His earlier work
on the CPGB and PCI, as freerein61 notes, is mainly about restoring their
reputation: rescuing Eurocommunism from historical disgrace. Bamlett still
describes this tradition as emphasising “openness.” But openness to what? In
reality, Eurocommunism’s version of openness included support for various forms
of class collaboration: forming alliances with Christian Democrats, partnering
with Labour modernisers, exploring cultural avenues away from class struggle,
and abandoning the revolutionary principles of Marxism.
The Vagueness of
“Radicalism”
Bamlett agrees with freerein61 that Andrews’ use of
“radical” is vague and lacks a clear definition. However, he challenges the
main point: that this ambiguity is deliberate rather than the result of
scholarly error, and that it carries important political implications. Andrews
groups Chartists, Fabians, trade unionists, suffragettes, Eurocommunists, and
identity-politics activists under the label "radical," intentionally
merging the concepts of reform and revolution. He effectively blurs the clear
divide between the two, equating the 1839 Chartists' armed march on Newport
with the Fabians' advocacy of municipal gasworks. The revolutionary potential
of the working class—their ability to challenge not just specific injustices
but the entire system of wage labour—is reduced to a general “ethos” of
progressive reform.
This is not objective history; it acts as a political tactic
to erase the revolutionary legacy. Portraying all “radicals” as fundamentally
the same suggests that the working class doesn't need its own independent
party, a revolutionary platform, or a break from bourgeois politics. As a
result, groups such as the Labour Party, the trade-union bureaucracy, and NGOs
are viewed as legitimate outlets for “radicalism.” Andrews strictly aligns with
this Eurocommunist viewpoint.
Strategic Omissions:
The Politics of Erasure
Phillip Green’s Morning Star review points out Andrews’ oversights: omissions. Mary MacArthur and the 1910 women chain-makers’ strike, omitting Arnold Wesker, misidentifying Jayaben Desai, and overlooking Hall and Stead’s A People’s History of Classics. Bamlett questions whether these are small errors or part of a larger intentional plan.
They are strategic. Consider Mary MacArthur: the 1910
Cradley Heath strike was more than a typical labour conflict—it was a militant,
well-organised, class-conscious movement of women workers that demonstrated the
capacity of the most exploited to unite and fight collectively. This example
challenges Andrews’ idea that “ethos" is more important than class
struggle or the belief that individual autodidactic ambitions outweigh
collective action. As a result, it is often overlooked or dismissed. The same
reasoning underpins Andrews’ dismissive attitude towards The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists. Bamlett cites freerein61’s excellent defence of Tressell’s
novel: “Socialist consciousness is not an abstraction imported from outside the
working class… but something that emerges from the working class’s own
experience.”
Andrews cannot accept this because his framework insists
that working-class consciousness originates outside of class struggle—stemming
from liberal education, Arnold’s idea of “sweetness and light,” Methodism, and
an “ethos” that is beyond class. Consequently, Tressell is diminished: his
“proletarian authenticity" is questioned, his vision labelled
“mystical," and his book portrayed as a “minority vision." This is
not genuine literary criticism but an effort to disconnect working-class
experience from socialist consciousness—the very link that has kept Tressell’s
work alive within the working class for over a century.
Stuart Hall and
Raphael Samuel: Heroes of What?
Bamlett cites Raphael Samuel and Stuart Hall as “heroes” of
Andrews’ book, which is insightful. Both figures emerged from the turmoil of
British Stalinism’s decline in 1956. After Khrushchev’s revelations and the
suppression of the Hungarian uprising dismantled the CPGB, most who departed
either disengaged from politics altogether or integrated into the Labour Party
and trade-union structures.
The emerging “New Left”—including groups like New Reasoner,
Universities and Left Review, and the early New Left Review—did not renew
Marxism but instead challenged it. Stuart Hall’s Cultural Studies shifted
social critique from class to identity. At the same time, Raphael Samuel’s
History Workshop movement, despite its valuable recovery of “history from
below,” replaced Marxist class analysis with a romanticised “people’s history.”
Bamlett’s political journey—from CPGB summer schools to Open University
blogging—reflects this environment: a genuine commitment to working-class
culture and history, paired with a reluctance to accept the revolutionary
changes that history calls for.
The Political
Impasse: Knowing the Truth but Not Acting on It
Bamlett concludes his post with a sense of urgency: “There
is. Too much – and it will, it must start soon before it is too late, for the
planet itself could yet give up on what capital continues to subject it to.”
This reflects a genuine awareness that capitalism is an existential threat and
urgent action is needed. However, Andrews’ book fails to provide any solutions.
Bamlett himself admits, “There is no sense of what the role of the working
class might be, or if indeed it exists in any pertinent way in politics, in the
future of Modern Britain.” The book dismisses working-class radicalism as a
relic of the past—more of a nostalgic object for retired academics than a
dynamic force capable of societal change.
What Is To Be Done?
Bamlett cannot bring himself to give the answer that aligns with the Eurocommunist, New Left, and History Workshop traditions that shaped him. This answer, as highlighted by freerein61’s blog, is that the working class remains the revolutionary subject. It has not been “integrated into capitalism." Its defeats are due to betrayals by its leadership—whether Stalinist, social democratic, or trade-union—not because of any flaw within the class itself. What is required is not vague "radicalism” or an expanded “ethos,” but the development of a revolutionary party equipped with the programme of the Fourth International.
