WeeklyWorker

Lawrence Parker

Latest articles by Lawrence Parker

Unity and its discontents

Are campaigns calling for unity bound to fall on stony ground? Lawrence Parker takes issue with Mike Macnair on communist rapprochement

Scenes from history

First published a hundred years ago, History and class-consciousness has exerted considerable influence on left sects since the 1960s. Lawrence Parker investigates the philosophy and politics of György Lukács

A name that spells trouble

The YCL's very public pro-Stalin chanting at the recent TUC demo was clearly a provocation aimed directly at Robert Griffiths and his timid leadership of the CPB, writes Lawrence Parker

Forgive us our trespasses

Establishment celebrations of the Kinder Scout mass trespass of 1932 brush over its communist politics. Lawrence Parker puts the record straight

Heroes and villains

Lawrence Parker reviews 'The chronology of revolution: communism, culture, and civil society in twentieth-century Britain' by Ben Harker (University of Toronto Press, 2021, pp376, £63.99)

Loyal foot soldiers

The CPGB-ML siding with George Galloway over voting for the Brexit Party laid the ground for founding the Workers Party of Britain in December 2019. But Lawrence Parker expects the romance to prove fleeting

Cowboys and Indians

The AWL’s attempt to claim the legacy of Shapurji Saklatvala is poorly executed and theoretically incoherent, argues Lawrence Parker

Lamb dressed as mutton

Lawrence Parker reviews 'A centenary for socialism: Britain’s Communist Party 1920-2020' by the Communist Party of Britain, edited by Mary Davis

Tall tales of 1912

Stalin’s later version of the famous Prague conference of the RSDLP is a parody of his own views at the time, writes Lawrence Parker

Tinker, tailor, soldier, Marxist

Lawrence Parker takes issue with some of the interpretations of Michael Bettaney’s life and ideas that have appeared down the years

The National Left-Wing Movement: a lost legacy of the 1920s

Lawrence Parker spoke about his book ‘Communists and Labour - The National Left-Wing Movement 1925-1929’ at Communist University 2018. This is an edited version of his talk

Past misdemeanours

'A party with socialists in it: a history of the Labour left' by Simon Hannah (Pluto Press 2018, pp288, £12.99)

Party’s Sunday best

The Sunday Worker reached a circulation of 100,000. And, far from shunning argument, it encouraged different leftwing viewpoints, says Lawrence Parker

In the footsteps of Lenin

The official CPGB’s leading theoretician, Rajani Palme Dutt, followed the example of Lenin when assessing the reputation of Karl Kautsky, writes Lawrence Parker

Sectarianism and secession

Programmatically weak politics only helped reinforce the CPGB’s ultimate sectarianism after its re-entry into the Labour Party in the late 1930s, writes Lawrence Parker

Up close and personal

The CPGB’s mass entry work in the Labour Party in the late 1930s has been partially obscured by delusions associated with popular frontism, writes Lawrence Parker

What was Straight Left?

Lawrence Parker investigates the political origins of Jeremy Corbyn’s director and deputy director of strategy and communications

Berger and Stalinism

John Berger had a complex and contradictory relationship with the world communist movement of the 1950s and 1960s, writes Lawrence Parker

Reason in revolt

Lawrence Parker reviews: Paul Flewers and John McIlroy (editors) 1956: John Saville, EP Thompson and The Reasoner Merlin Press, 2016, pp450, £20.

A comedy of errors

Attempts to undertand the history of the CPGB and its leadership of the National Left Wing Movement in the 1920s are far from satisfactory, writes Lawrence Parker

No sense of tradition

Attempts to use the history of the Communist Party of Great Britain to back up Robert Griffiths’ stance on the Labour Party are farcical, writes Lawrence Parker

Rattling the Labour right

Lawrence Parker spoke at Communist University 2016 on the National Left Wing Movement - an organisation that was active in the Labour Party during the 1920s. Chris Hill of Labour Party Marxists spoke to him

Too close for comfort

The errors of the CPGB in relation to the 1924 minority Labour government were deeply rooted in the political physiognomy of the early Comintern, argues Lawrence Parker

A spy in the house of drudge

Geoff Andrews The shadow man: at the heart of the Cambridge spy circle IB Tauris, 2015, pp276, £20