Description

This is the sixth and final volume of L&W's comprehensive history of the British Communist Party, covering the debates of the last years - a period of accelerated change and reassessment, and ultimately dissolution. The book begins by situating the CPGB within the major social and cultural changes of the 1960s, and documents the hopes for renewal that were symbolised by the new social movements associated with May 68, and the Prague spring. It ends with the collapse of the party and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Despite all the new thinking and idealism, the party could not hold together. The book covers the Young Communist League's engagement with popular culture in the 1960s; the influence of the new social movements, especially feminism; the party's strong presence in the trade unions; CPGB relations with the Labour Party and labour movement; the increasing influence of Gramsci within the party, especially among a new generation of intellectuals; the Communist Universities of London; the influence of Eurocommunism; and the rise and fall of Marxism Today. Geoff Andrews is Lecturer and Staff Tutor in Politics at the Open University, and a co-editor of Soundings. He has written widely on the history of the left, and on contemporary Italian politics. His publications include Citizenship (1991) and - with Nina Fishman and Kevin Morgan - Opening the Books: Essays on the Cultural and Social History of the Communist Party (1995). He is currently completing a new book, Not a Normal Country: Italy under Berlusconi.