John Mcilroy
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 695110 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | John Mcilroy |
| NOMBRES | John |
| APELLIDO | Mcilroy |
| FIRMA | MCILROY J |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Manchester |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 61 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 127 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 61 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1985 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2023 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
A Scholarly Life
For peace and defence of the Soviet Union’
This prosopographical investigation of the Central Committee (CC) of the British Communist Party during the Popular Front era analyses the origins, occupations, political careers and destinations of the 47 Communists who served on the CC in these years. The transition from Third Period leftism to class collaboration found minimal reflection in the characteristics of the Communist leadership, which remained in line with those of the preceding coho…
The leadership of British Communism, 1923–1928
The importance of leadership in awakening and guiding the working class was emphasised at all levels within the parties which saw themselves as indispensable to socialist revolution. It was fundamental to the philosophy of the Bolsheviks, the Comintern and the early British Communist Party (CPGB). The executive committee (EC) which directed the work of members was broadly representative of the CPGB leadership. The 39 activists who served on the E…
The ‘core’ leaders of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1923–1928
Building on a previous study of the executive committee (EC) of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the 1920s, the 19 activists who formed the ‘core’ of the party leadership – a category defined by service on four or more of the five committees elected between 1923 and 1928 – were analysed. Biographical material and statistical data were utilized to explore their origins, age, occupation, education, earlier allegiances, party experienc…
The early British Communist leaders, 1920–1923
The members of its governing Executive Committee constituted the national leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Prosopographical analysis which employs both quantitative and qualitative methods is utilized to explore the origins; age; education; occupations; experience and affiliation; party career; and destination of 47 of 48 members of the committee who held office between 1920 and 1923. The survey presents, in many cases for the …
Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern
‘Bolshevization’ and ‘Stalinization’ have been used variously by historians of American and British Communism to designate and date the processes by which the Comintern and national parties were subordinated to Soviet policy. Despite their pervasive influence on the American and British left, this literature reveals little curiosity or consensus about the politics of Bolshevism and Stalinism, their history and relationship, indeed, these labels h…
The Trojan Horse’
Entrism – the infiltration of political organisations by competitors – is typically associated with Trotskyism. Large-scale Communist entrism in the British Labour Party has been neglected by historians and reference in the literature is slight and impressionistic. Archival material permits reconstruction of a sustained attempt by the Comintern and British Communists to subvert Labour Party policy between 1933 and 1943. Documenting the developmen…
The revival and decline of rank and file movements in Britain during the 1930s
The economic and political crisis of 1931 provoked the reappearance of rank and file movements in Britain. This article examines the unofficial organisations that developed in building, engineering, passenger transport and the railways – as well as more ephemeral bodies. It critically synthesises the existing historiography and replenishes it with new material from the Russian archives. The progress of rank and filism to 1939 is surveyed and the …
British Communists and the 1932 turn to the trade unions
The Comintern’s Third Period, 1928–1934, based on Stalin’s ‘second revolution’ in Russia, capitalist crisis and the claim that social democracy and fascism were twins, generated sectarian, ultra-left politics which proved inimical to Communist activity in trade unions. This article sheds new light on that issue by exploring three connected episodes: the British party’s (CPGB) renewed turn to the unions, heralded in the January resolution of 1932;…
Testimony of a revolutionary
Organizing for partnership
The influence of the ‘organizing model’ of trade unionism developed in America by the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) on strategies to rebuild British trade unionism is often remarked. Scholars typically distinguish between adversarial organizing and collaborative partnership with employers as competing roads to union revitalization. This article demonstrates that the British Trades Union Congress (TU…
Introduction
Additional informationNotes on contributorsRichard CroucherRichard Croucher is Professor of Comparative Employment Relations and Director of Research at Middlesex University Business School, London, UK.John McIlroyJohn McIlroy is a Professor of Employment Relations at Middlesex University Business School, London, UK
The turn to transnational labor history and the study of global trade unionism
The transnational turn in the humanities and social sciences has had slender impact on the study of trade unionism in Britain. In industrial relations and labor history, the fields where most research into trade unions has been conducted, approaches have remained insular. This article reaffirms that national unions are building blocks in a global movement. Despite manifest failings, past and present, that movement remains potentially important in…
Mauritius 1938
This article analyses the sociopolitical interactions that shaped an early colonial union statute that constituted a milestone because of its early passage, draconian nature and wider influence in the British Empire. We analyse the interactions between the Governor on the one hand and local and international actors on the other, to create the first trade union law in Mauritius. Colonial Office officials pressured the Governor to overcome local re…
Léon Jouhaux, Louis Saillant and the national and international in transnational trade unionism
The history of transnational trade unionism has been analysed in terms of mutual assistance, regulating global capital, augmenting the legitimacy, prestige and power of unions and their leaders, and providing avenues for states to prosecute national interests. From the 1920s to the 1980s, international organisations of trade unionists constituted a site of struggle between the antagonistic philosophies of transnationalism and trade unionism of Co…
British Labour and the challenge of Israel-Palestine
Review of: \n \nPaul Kelemen \nThe British Left and Zionism: History of a Divorce, Manchester University \nPress: Manchester, 2012; 225 pp: 978071908813
British trade unions and the academics
Unionlearn and union learning representatives were developed by the British TUC to match workers with education and training opportunities, strengthen the economy, foster market inclusion and facilitate social mobility. Their contribution to union revitalisation was emphasised. This article questions whether, with unions confronting global crisis, this is a necessary initiative. It stemmed from TUC failure to achieve policy goals, institutional n…
Waving or drowning? British labor history in troubled waters
The vigour of a field of history is usually assessed by reference to the quality of its historiography. Its health may also be judged by its presence in the curricula of educational bodies, public interest, and the prevalence and robustness of journals and societies dedicated to it. This article employs these criteria, sometimes overlooked in diagnosis of the condition of labor history, to explore its predicament in Britain. It documents the weig…
Asa Briggs and the Emergence of Labour History in Post-War Britain
Now in his 90s, Asa Briggs can look back on a life rich in labour and achievement. A practising historian for more than seven decades, he has made important contributions not only to the discipline and its popularisation but to intellectual life more generally, and the development of Britain's universities more particularly. He has not finished yet. Sixty-nine years after his first book appeared he is about to publish a third volume of memoirs.1 …
Strikes and class consciousness in the early work of Richard Hyman
This article reviews the writings of Richard Hyman analysing strikes during the militancy of the 1970s. It focuses on his central concern with the relationship between industrial action and class consciousness, a perennial issue in Marxist theory, setting this discussion in the context of Hyman's examination of contemporary trade unionism and his membership of a small revolutionary group, the International Socialists. The development of his think…
A Labour Historian of the Old School — Raymond Challinor Remembered
The Last Chance Saloon? The Independent Labour Party and Miners’ Militancy in the Second World War Revisited
The second world war witnessed widespread conflict in British industry, notably in mining. We review the role of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a small revolutionary socialist organization, focusing on its work in the trade unions. Its development is discussed in the light of recent claims that, with the Communist Party (CP) pledged to national unity after Hitler’s invasion of Russia, the ILP generated and harnessed militancy in the mines ar…
Fifty Years of Labour History The Road From Malet Street
The Society for the Study of Labour History, 1956–1985
Fifty Years On
Party People, Communist Lives
This collection of biographical essays brings to life a diverse and colourful cavalcade of British revolutionaries from the first part of the 20th century. The cast includes pioneering women Communists, doughty trade union leaders and dusty apparatchiks, together with lawyers, poets, critics and the odd sexual outlaw. The book also depicts the tragic fate of groups of British Communists who encountered Stalinism at first hand in the USSR. Much of…
New Labour, New Unions, New Left
British trade unions and the academics
Unionlearn and union learning representatives were developed by the British TUC to match workers with education and training opportunities, strengthen the economy, foster market inclusion and facilitate social mobility. Their contribution to union revitalisation was emphasised. This article questions whether, with unions confronting global crisis, this is a necessary initiative. It stemmed from TUC failure to achieve policy goals, institutional n…
Histories of the British Communist Party
The British Communist Party continues to attract the attention of historians who have produced divergent assessments of its politics, organization, personnel and activities. This article critically reviews the literature: the concentration is on detailed studies which have appeared since the 1980s. It scrutinizes the apologetic literature produced by party historians prior to, and in response to, the critical studies which appeared from the late …
Nina Ponomareva's Hats
Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern
‘Bolshevization’ and ‘Stalinization’ have been used variously by historians of American and British Communism to designate and date the processes by which the Comintern and national parties were subordinated to Soviet policy. Despite their pervasive influence on the American and British left, this literature reveals little curiosity or consensus about the politics of Bolshevism and Stalinism, their history and relationship, indeed, these labels h…
The early British Communist leaders, 1920–1923
The members of its governing Executive Committee constituted the national leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Prosopographical analysis which employs both quantitative and qualitative methods is utilized to explore the origins; age; education; occupations; experience and affiliation; party career; and destination of 47 of 48 members of the committee who held office between 1920 and 1923. The survey presents, in many cases for the …
Waving or drowning? British labor history in troubled waters
The vigour of a field of history is usually assessed by reference to the quality of its historiography. Its health may also be judged by its presence in the curricula of educational bodies, public interest, and the prevalence and robustness of journals and societies dedicated to it. This article employs these criteria, sometimes overlooked in diagnosis of the condition of labor history, to explore its predicament in Britain. It documents the weig…
The British and French Representatives to the Communist International, 1920–1939
This article employs a prosopographical approach in examining the backgrounds and careers of those cadres who represented the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Parti Communiste Français at the Comintern headquarters in Moscow. In the context of the differences between the two parties, it discusses the factors which qualified activists for appointment, how they handled their role, and whether their service in Moscow was an element in future…
Forging the Faithful
The International Lenin in School in Moscow trained British Communists for leadership positions from 1926 to 1937. This article relates the school and its programmes to their context, the development of Stalinism in Russia and the Russification of the Third International and its affiliates. It explores the organization and regime of the school, its purposes, pedagogy and curriculum. It provides for the first time a detailed listing of British stu…
For a Revolutionary Workers' Government
Adult Education and the Role of the Client—The TUC Education Scheme 1929–80
The leadership of British Communism, 1923–1928
The importance of leadership in awakening and guiding the working class was emphasised at all levels within the parties which saw themselves as indispensable to socialist revolution. It was fundamental to the philosophy of the Bolsheviks, the Comintern and the early British Communist Party (CPGB). The executive committee (EC) which directed the work of members was broadly representative of the CPGB leadership. The 39 activists who served on the E…
The ‘core’ leaders of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1923–1928
Building on a previous study of the executive committee (EC) of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the 1920s, the 19 activists who formed the ‘core’ of the party leadership – a category defined by service on four or more of the five committees elected between 1923 and 1928 – were analysed. Biographical material and statistical data were utilized to explore their origins, age, occupation, education, earlier allegiances, party experienc…
The revival and decline of rank and file movements in Britain during the 1930s
The economic and political crisis of 1931 provoked the reappearance of rank and file movements in Britain. This article examines the unofficial organisations that developed in building, engineering, passenger transport and the railways – as well as more ephemeral bodies. It critically synthesises the existing historiography and replenishes it with new material from the Russian archives. The progress of rank and filism to 1939 is surveyed and the …
British Communists and the 1932 turn to the trade unions
The Comintern’s Third Period, 1928–1934, based on Stalin’s ‘second revolution’ in Russia, capitalist crisis and the claim that social democracy and fascism were twins, generated sectarian, ultra-left politics which proved inimical to Communist activity in trade unions. This article sheds new light on that issue by exploring three connected episodes: the British party’s (CPGB) renewed turn to the unions, heralded in the January resolution of 1932;…
The Last Chance Saloon? The Independent Labour Party and Miners’ Militancy in the Second World War Revisited
The second world war witnessed widespread conflict in British industry, notably in mining. We review the role of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a small revolutionary socialist organization, focusing on its work in the trade unions. Its development is discussed in the light of recent claims that, with the Communist Party (CP) pledged to national unity after Hitler’s invasion of Russia, the ILP generated and harnessed militancy in the mines ar…
Fifty Years On
The National Unemployed Workers' Movement and the Communist Party of Great Britain Revisited
Existing literature on the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM) in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s charts high politics and local struggles. Historians have generally acknowledged Communist influence and participation in the organisation, but remain divided on the intention and ability of the Communist Party (CPGB) to control it. Judgements have typically been based on NUWM records, evidence from party publications and partisan reminiscenc…
The Establishment of Intellectual Orthodoxy and the Stalinization of British Communism 1928-1933
In January 1930 W. N. Ewer, the foreign editor of the Daily Herald, explained the thinking behind his recent defection from the British Communist Party (CPGB). The method of the Communist International (Comintern) and the CPGB, he argued, had little in common with the method of Karl Marx. Contemporary Communists appealed to authority immune to refutation, not to critical analysis of observable phenomena. In contrast, conscientious followers of Ma…
Public Procurement and Supply Management Strategies
This article develops several frameworks for the analysis of supply strategies employed for public sector contracts on the basis of a review of the literature on public procurement and supply management. Three approaches to public procurement are identified. Current UK government policy and European Union Directives emphasise the commercial and regulatory strands. However, there is a need to recognise the importance of the socio-economic strand o…
Still setting the pace? Labour history, industrial relations and the history of post-war trade unionism
Unions and Universities
Storm and Stress
The Trojan Horse’
Entrism – the infiltration of political organisations by competitors – is typically associated with Trotskyism. Large-scale Communist entrism in the British Labour Party has been neglected by historians and reference in the literature is slight and impressionistic. Archival material permits reconstruction of a sustained attempt by the Comintern and British Communists to subvert Labour Party policy between 1933 and 1943. Documenting the developmen…
Adult Education and the Role of the Client—The TUC Education Scheme 1929–80
Trade union studies in British universities
(1986). Trade union studies in British universities: Changing patterns, changing problems. International Journal of Lifelong Education: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 207-240
Continuing education and the universities in Britain
Unions and Universities
Storm and Stress
Continuing education
Recent years have seen a widespread interest in continuing education in higher education and strong support for its extension in universities. There has been a good deal of discussion of certain areas of continuing education, such as the development of part-time degrees and the provision of courses to increase access into higher education. The fortunes of the other components of this four-fold category, liberal adult and professional and vocation…
The funding of adult and continuing education in Britain
University Adult Education in Crisis
Border Country
Trade Unions in Britain Today
Border Country
(1991). Border Country: Raymond Williams in Adult Education Part II. Studies in the Education of Adults: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 1-23
Tales from Smoke-Filled Rooms
Trade Unions in Britain Today
Still setting the pace? Labour history, industrial relations and the history of post-war trade unionism
Reds at Work
New Labour, New Unions, New Left
Socialists and the Unions
Gregor Gall's response to my article in Capital & Class, 71, is well argued and constructive. Rather than engaging with each of his points, I will briefly comment on a number of important issues on which our views differ. These include ‘the downturn’, the possibilities for trade union resurgence posed by New Labour's employment legislation and the very real threat social partnership offers to any socialist trade unionism
For a Revolutionary Workers' Government
Public Procurement and Supply Management Strategies
This article develops several frameworks for the analysis of supply strategies employed for public sector contracts on the basis of a review of the literature on public procurement and supply management. Three approaches to public procurement are identified. Current UK government policy and European Union Directives emphasise the commercial and regulatory strands. However, there is a need to recognise the importance of the socio-economic strand o…
Nina Ponomareva's Hats
Forging the Faithful
The International Lenin in School in Moscow trained British Communists for leadership positions from 1926 to 1937. This article relates the school and its programmes to their context, the development of Stalinism in Russia and the Russification of the Third International and its affiliates. It explores the organization and regime of the school, its purposes, pedagogy and curriculum. It provides for the first time a detailed listing of British stu…
Is CPGB History Important? A Reply to Harriet Jones
Histories of the British Communist Party
The British Communist Party continues to attract the attention of historians who have produced divergent assessments of its politics, organization, personnel and activities. This article critically reviews the literature: the concentration is on detailed studies which have appeared since the 1980s. It scrutinizes the apologetic literature produced by party historians prior to, and in response to, the critical studies which appeared from the late …
Party People, Communist Lives
This collection of biographical essays brings to life a diverse and colourful cavalcade of British revolutionaries from the first part of the 20th century. The cast includes pioneering women Communists, doughty trade union leaders and dusty apparatchiks, together with lawyers, poets, critics and the odd sexual outlaw. The book also depicts the tragic fate of groups of British Communists who encountered Stalinism at first hand in the USSR. Much of…
Critical Reflections on Recent British Communist Party History
Political science (47 obras) · Sociology (42 obras) · Law (33 obras) · History (29 obras) · Economics (27 obras) · Law (27 obras) · History (25 obras) · Politics (25 obras) · Labor Movements and Unions (22 obras) · Communism (20 obras)