Spring lectures at the Marx Memorial Library

Marx Memorial Library
Spring 2010
All lectures start at 6.30pm. Entrance £1 (50p Concessions)

Monday 29th March 2010:
Pushkin, the Russian Autocracy and Rebellion

Professor Robert Chandler, the author of a recent book on the greatest of Russian poets, looks at the politics of Pushkin. In particular, he examines the Decembrist movement which led to Russia’s first revolution and the interplay between the intelligentsia, the army and wider society in the thrall of tsardom. The poet Robert Chandler is the translator of Pushkin’s highly vaunted miniature “Dubrovsky”, and the brilliant melodrama, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”. He is also a leading figure in the SCRSS.

Monday 19th April:
Ghost Dancers – The Last Generation of Miners: Lecture and Book Launch

David Douglass launches his new book “Ghost Dancers – The Last Generation of Miners” is a definitive history of the great coal strike of 1984/5 that explodes prevailing myths around that epoch period, and corrects the inaccuracies of dozens of books previously penned by academics and journalists. Ghost Dancers is inspired by the last stand of the Native American Indians in their efforts to retain their culture and dignity, and the Durham Miners Gala as a mining equivalent of that same endeavour. This book records the last stand of the last generation of pitmen and their communities.
David Douglass is a long-standing well-known, member of the NUM in the Durham and Doncaster coalfield , a coalminer for 40-plus years and a branch official of the union for 25 years as well as a member of Yorkshire Executive during its most testing and dynamic period. He is a full member of the NUM and is still active in the internal affairs of the union, a published author and historian of the coal communities, as well as being one of its more public and well known representatives.

Marx Memorial Library
http://www.marx-memorial-library.org
37A CLERKENWELL GREEN, LONDON EC1R 0DU, UK.
TEL #44(0) 207 253 1485.
FAX #44(0) 207 251 6039

Syndicalism: lessons for today?

Public Meeting organised jointly by the London Socialist Historians Group and the Socialist History Society
Monday 17 May, 6pm
Pollard Room, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, London.

Syndicalism, one big union for all workers, was a popular trend within the labour movement until the advent of the Russian revolution. Its adherents in Britain and Ireland included Tom Mann, James Connolly, Jim Larkin, A J Cook, and Noah Ablett. The latter was one of the contributors to the ground-breaking pamphlet, The Miners’ Next Step — a reform programme for South Wales miners that argued for workers’ control. In the USA, Joe Hill and the Industrial Workers of the World organised workers irrespective of colour and their actions left their mark on US labour history. It was popular in parts of Europe, and in Spain it survived until the time of the Civil War. This seminar looks at Syndicalism’s origins and developments and asks what lessons can be learned today.

Speakers:
Dr Ralph Darlington: ‘The History of Syndicalism’
Dr. Darlington is Professor of Employment Relations at Salford Business School, part of the University of Salford. His books include, The Dynamics of Workplace Unionism, The Political Trajectory of J.T. Murphy, Glorious Summer, Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: An International Comparative Analysis , and What’s the Point of Industrial Relations?

Dr Keith Flett: ‘Syndicalism in the UK, 1910-11
Dr Flett is convener of the London Socialist Historians
Group and is President of the Haringey Trades Council. He has
written and edited a number of history books. These include, Chartism after 1848: The Working Class and the Politics of Radical Education, The Twentieth Century: A Century of Wars and Revolutions (ed. with David Renton), Approaches to Socialist History (ed. with David Renton), 1956 and All That (editor).

ENTRANCE FREE : ALL WELCOME
See: http://londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.com/ : http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk

Socialist History Society AGM

Socialist History Society AGM at 1.00 p.m., followed at 2.00 p.m. by public lecture: Willie Thompson speaks on Cold War Liberalism and Liberals.
Venue: Library, Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2. Admission £1.50 to public lecture.

Book Launch

Booklaunch for Nina Fishman’s biography of Arthur Horner
Thursday 25 March, 12.45-2pm, House of Commons
A celebration marking the publication of Nina Fishman’s major new two-volume biography of Arthur Horner will take place on 25 March in the House of Commons. If you would like to recieve an invitation to attend please contact sally@lwbooks.co.uk