ANDREW WHITEHEAD
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      • FOOC: Kashmir's New Puritans 1993
      • FOOC: The Rajah of Bihar 1993
      • FOOC: Bringing the Gospel to Mizoram 1993
      • FOOC: Netaji, India's Lost Leader 1994
      • FOOC: A Self-Respect Wedding 1994
      • FOOC: The Miseries of Manipur 1994
      • FOOC: Village Bangladesh 1994
      • FOOC: Calcutta's Communists Discover Capitalism 1995
      • FOOC: Localism in Ladakh 1995
      • FOOC: Bhutan, not quite Paradise
      • FOOC: Crime and Indian Politics 1995
      • FOOC: Sonia Gandhi 1995
      • FOOC: Sri Lanka's Missing Leaders 1995
      • FOOC: India Votes 1996
      • FOOC: Communism Revisited 1996
      • FOOC: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1996
      • FOOC: Kerala's Jewish Community 1996
      • FOOC: India's Corruption Scandals 1996
      • FOOC: The Maldives Crowded Capital 1996
      • FOOC: India's Polluted Capital 1996
      • FOOC: Jinnah, Pakistan's Quaid 1997
      • FOOC: Mauritius, an Indian Ocean melting pot
      • FOOC: The Hijras Blessing 1998
      • FOOC: Massacre at Baramulla 2003
      • FOOC: An Old Photo from Kashmir 2007
      • FOOC: Prosperity Driven from Detroit 2008
      • FOOC: An Atheist in MLK's Atlanta2013
      • FOOC: San Francisco's City Lights 2014
      • FOOC: Kashmir Revisited 2014
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      • FOOC: Toyah's Grave 2017
      • FOOC: The Tibetan Colony in Kashmir 2017
      • FOOC: Stars of Tamil Politics 2018
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The British
New Left

The British New Left
​

Picture

​I am working on an oral history of the British New Left, in its broadest definition and from 1956 - the year of the Hungary rebellion, the Suez invasion, Khrushchev's 'secret' speech denouncing Stalin and the split in the British Communist Party - to 1970, the year in which women's liberation and gay liberation movements were firmly established. It will take it new forms of protest and personal politics, the counterculture and student protest, the Committee of 100 and Vietnam Solidarity, Black Dwarf and Anarchy, Shrew and Oz.

And this page will capture snippets of my research and link to articles, interviews, all sorts of stuff, some by me and some by others.

Above is the masthead of The Reasoner, the Communist dissident journal which in many ways marked the birth of the British New Left. There were only three issues, typed onto stencils and the printed on a hand powered duplicator, but they heralded a breach with the Communist orthodoxy, a move away from the big parties of the left, an intellectual realignment.
​
Picture
Twelve years later, Black Dwarf - the brainchild of the left-wing literary agent, Clive Goodwin - first appeared as Paris was in tumult. It had perhaps the most arresting and renowned cover of any British political paper of the last century, The first issue dated June 1968 bore the slogan: 'WE SHALL FIGHT, WE WILL WIN, PARIS, LONDON, ROME, BERLIN'. 

Both The Reasoner (1956) and Black Dwarf (1968-1972) turned for their names to the past. To nineteenth century British radical journals - to George Holyoake's The Reasoner (1865-1872) and to Thomas Wooler's Black Dwarf (1817-1824).

There was something in the New Left - or parts of it - which sought to tap into a much older radical tradition.

This photograph - a bit grainy but still so emblematic - shows two of the key figures in the New Left, both historians. Edward Thompson, on the left, is talking to Raphael Samuel. It was taken outside a key New Left venue - the Partisan coffee house on Carlisle Street in Soho, which Samuel in particular had persevered to establish. Jean McCrindle - another key New Left figure - shared the photograph with me, and it is posted with permission. When was it taken? Not sure but probably 1958-60. And yes, the caff across the road really is selling Egg and Chips for 1s 4d (or 7 pence).
Picture

And here, courtesy of Jean McCrindle, is the distinctly modernist postcard from October 1958 on the opening of the Partisan:
Picture
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  • Home
  • Blog
  • Enthusiasms
    • London Fictions >
      • Alexander Baron
      • A walk round Baron's manor
      • John Sommerfield >
        • John Sommerfield Archive
        • John Sommerfield's Spanish notebook
        • John Sommerfield, 'More Room for Us'
      • Lynne Reid Banks
      • "Against the Tyranny of Kings and Princes": radicalism in George Gissing's 'Workers in the Dawn'
      • 'Beyond Boundary Passage'
      • 'London' by Dorf Bonarjee
    • A Mission in Kashmir >
      • Full text: A Mission in Kashmir
      • 'The People's Militia: Communists and Kashmiri nationalism in the 1940s'
      • The Rise and Fall of New Kashmir
      • The Making of the 'New Kashmir' manifesto
      • 'For the Conversion of Kashmir'
      • 'I shall paint my nails with the blood of those that covet me'
      • Freda Bedi looking 'From a Woman's Window' on Kashmir
      • Kashmir 1947: Testimonies of a Contested History
      • Kashmir @ 70
      • Kashmir 47 Images
      • Kashmir 47 on film
      • Kashmir 47 in fiction
      • Father Shanks's Kashmir 'Diary'
      • Krishna Misri: 1947, a year of change
      • Shanti Ambardar: Kashmir 1947
    • The O'Brienites >
      • Martin Boon
      • Dan Chatterton
      • George E. Harris
      • John Radford and the Kansas colony
      • Edward Truelove
      • 'New World'
    • Clerkenwell >
      • Popular Politics and Social Structure in Clerkenwell >
        • The Residents of Clerkenwell
        • The Occupational Structure of Clerkenwell
        • Clerkenwell and Reform
        • Fenians, Reformers and the Clerkenwell "Outrage"
        • Clerkenwell: Socialism Finds a Niche
        • Clerkenwell: Not Forgetting the Anarchists
      • Red London: radicals and socialists in late-Victorian Clerkenwell
      • Patriotic Club
    • NW5 and Around
  • Voices
    • Partition Voices >
      • Partition Voices: L.K. Advani
      • Partition Voices: Ram Advani
      • Partition Voices: Qazi Ghulam Ajmiri
      • Partition Voices: Angela Aranha
      • Partition Voices: Helen Baldwin
      • Partition Voices: Bali family
      • Partition Voices: Edward Behr
      • Partition Voices: Benazir Bhutto
      • Partition Voices: H.K. Burki
      • Partition Voices: Sailen Chatterjee
      • Partition Voices: Pran Chopra
      • Partition Voices: K.S. + Ayesha Duggal
      • Partition Voices: Alys Faiz
      • Partition Voices: Jugal Chandra Ghosh
      • Partition Voices: Ashoka Gupta
      • Partition Voices: I.K. Gujral
      • Partition Voices: Syed Najmuddin Hashim
      • Partition Voices: Khorshed Italia
      • Partition Voices: Pran Nath Jalali
      • Partition Voices: D.N. Kaul
      • Partition Voices: Jolly Mohan Kaul
      • Partition Voices: Basant Kaur
      • Partition Voices: Betty Keyes
      • Partition Voices: Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan
      • Partition Voices: Usha Khanna
      • Partition Voices: Frank Leeson
      • Partition Voices: Abdul Ghani Lone
      • Partition Voices: Gopal 'Patha' Mukherjee
      • Partition Voices: Kuldip Nayar
      • Partition Voices: Amrita Pritam
      • Partition Voices: Francis Rath
      • Partition Voices: Annada Sankar Ray
      • Partition Voices: Bhisham Sahni
      • Partition Voices: Sat Paul Sahni
      • Partition Voices: Sir Ian Scott
      • Partition Voices: Sir Paul Scott
      • Partition Voices: Sheila Sengupta
      • Partition Voices: Mahmooda Ahmad Ali Shah + Sajida Zameer Ahmad
      • Partition Voices: Bapsi Sidhwa & Urvashi Butalia
      • Partition Voices: Air Marshal Arjan Singh
      • Partition Voices: Bir Bahadur Singh
      • Partition Voices: Karan Singh
      • Partition Voices: Khushwant Singh
      • Partition Voices: Shingara Singh
      • Partition Voices: H.S. Surjeet
      • Partition Voices: Ben and Marguerite Suter
      • Partition Voices: Leela Thompson
      • Partition Voices: K.B. Vaid
    • Kashmir Voices >
      • Kashmir Voices: Asiya Andrabi
      • Kashmir Voices: Mirwaiz Umar Farooq
      • Kashmir Voices: George Fernandes
      • Kashmir Voices: General J.R. Mukherjee
      • Kashmir Voices: Abdullah Muntazir
      • Kashmir Voices: Ali Mohammad Sagar
      • Kashmir Voices: Syed Salahuddin
    • Communist Voices >
      • Communist Voices: Manmohan Adhikari
      • Communist Voices: Jyoti Basu
      • Communist Voices: Brian Bunting
      • Communist Voices: Guillermo Cabrera Infante
      • Communist Voices: Benoy Choudhury
      • Communist Voices: Anima Dasgupta
      • Communist Voices: Sailen Dasgupta
      • Communist Voices: Denis Goldberg
      • Communist Voices: Grootvlie miners
      • Communist Voices: Indrajit Gupta
      • Communist Voices: Chris Hani
      • Communist Voices: Lionel Martin
      • Communist Voices: Vishwanath Mathur
      • Communist Voices: Geeta Mukherjee
      • Communist Voices: E.M.S. Namboodiripad
      • Communist Voices: John Rettie
    • Political Voices >
      • Political Voices: Sally Alexander
      • Political Voices: Lou Appleton
      • Political Voices: Murray Bookchin
      • Political Voices: Fenner Brockway
      • Political Voices: Tony Cliff
      • Political Voices: Nellie Dick
      • Political Voices: Leah Feldman
      • Political Voices: Jeffrey Hamm
      • Political Voices: Denis Healey
      • Political Voices: Eric Hobsbawm
      • Political Voices: Ian Mikardo
      • Political Voices: Mick Mindel
      • Political Voices: Adrian Mitchell
      • Political Voices: Phil Piratin
      • Political Voices: Betty Reid
      • Political Voices: Fermin Rocker
      • Political Voices: Ralph Russell
      • Political Voices: John Saville
      • Political Voices: Alfred Sherman
      • Political Voices: Screaming Lord Sutch
      • Political Voices: Dorothy Thompson
      • Political Voices: E.P. Thompson
      • Political Voices: Tom Wilson
      • Political Voices: Harry Young
      • The Land Song
      • Harry Pollitt on disc
    • The British New Left >
      • New Left: T.J. Clark
      • New Left: Chuck Taylor
      • New Left: Headopoly
    • South Asia
    • Burma
  • Collecting
    • Political Pamphlets
    • Political Journals
    • Political Badges
    • Political Tokens
    • Political Ephemera
  • Radio Gems
    • 'What's Left of Communism?'
    • 'India: a people partitioned'
    • India's Minorities
    • Documentaries and Features
    • From Our Own Correspondent >
      • FOOC: Working at Westminster 1990
      • FOOC: Ulster's Talking Shop 1991
      • FOOC: House Rules at Westminster 1992
      • FOOC: India's Red Fort State
      • FOOC: Keeping Kosher in Cuba
      • FOOC: Italy's Gourmand Communists 1992
      • FOOC: Scoundrel Politicians - 1993
      • FOOC: Kashmir's New Puritans 1993
      • FOOC: The Rajah of Bihar 1993
      • FOOC: Bringing the Gospel to Mizoram 1993
      • FOOC: Netaji, India's Lost Leader 1994
      • FOOC: A Self-Respect Wedding 1994
      • FOOC: The Miseries of Manipur 1994
      • FOOC: Village Bangladesh 1994
      • FOOC: Calcutta's Communists Discover Capitalism 1995
      • FOOC: Localism in Ladakh 1995
      • FOOC: Bhutan, not quite Paradise
      • FOOC: Crime and Indian Politics 1995
      • FOOC: Sonia Gandhi 1995
      • FOOC: Sri Lanka's Missing Leaders 1995
      • FOOC: India Votes 1996
      • FOOC: Communism Revisited 1996
      • FOOC: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1996
      • FOOC: Kerala's Jewish Community 1996
      • FOOC: India's Corruption Scandals 1996
      • FOOC: The Maldives Crowded Capital 1996
      • FOOC: India's Polluted Capital 1996
      • FOOC: Jinnah, Pakistan's Quaid 1997
      • FOOC: Mauritius, an Indian Ocean melting pot
      • FOOC: The Hijras Blessing 1998
      • FOOC: Massacre at Baramulla 2003
      • FOOC: An Old Photo from Kashmir 2007
      • FOOC: Prosperity Driven from Detroit 2008
      • FOOC: An Atheist in MLK's Atlanta2013
      • FOOC: San Francisco's City Lights 2014
      • FOOC: Kashmir Revisited 2014
      • FOOC: By Ferry in Burma 2014
      • FOOC: Toyah's Grave 2017
      • FOOC: The Tibetan Colony in Kashmir 2017
      • FOOC: Stars of Tamil Politics 2018
      • FOOC: Koreans in Chennai 2018
      • FOOC: Epitaph to Empire 2019
      • FOOC: Armenians in India 2019
      • FOOC: Lahore's Bradlaugh Hall 2020
    • What's your favourite political song?
    • London Snapshots
  • Writing
    • Bibliography
    • Tramping Artisans
    • Working Class Housing in Jericho, Oxford
    • New Statesman
    • The Freethinker
    • Outlook
    • Asian Age
    • Indian Express
    • miscellaneous writing
  • Gallery
  • Contact