Workers of the Empire, Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s-1960s

Description

In most studies of British decolonisation, the world of labour is neglected, the key roles being allocated to metropolitan statesmen and native elites. Instead this volume focuses on the role played by working people, their experiences, initiatives and organisations, in the dissolution of the British Empire, both in the metropole and in the colonies. How central was the intervention of the metropolitan Left in the liquidation of the British Empire? Were labour mobilisations in the colonies only stepping stones for bourgeois nationalists? To what extent were British labour activists willing and able to form connections with colonial workers, and vice versa? Here are some of the complex questions on which this volume sheds new light. Though convergences were fragile and temporary, this book recapture the sense of uncertainty that accompanied the final decades of the British Empire, a period when radical minorities hoped that coordinated efforts across borders might lead not only to the destruction of the British Empire but to that of capitalism and imperialism in general. Exploiting rare primary sources and adopting a resolutely transnational approach, our collection makes an original contribution to both labour history and imperial studies. Contents List of Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Foreword • Paul Pickering Introduction: Labour, Empire and Decolonisation: Historiographical Landmarks • Yann Béliard I Contesting Imperialism (1910s–1950s) 1 Annie Besant’s Fight for Home Rule in India, 1910s–1920s • Marie Terrier 2 Sylvia Pankhurst vs the British Empire: The Workers’ Dreadnought Experience, 1917–1924 • Yann Béliard 3 Alliances from Above and Below: The Failures and Successes of Communist Anti-Imperialism in India, 1920–1934 • Nicholas Owen 4 ‘The Lingua Franca of the Bangle’: Ellen Wilkinson, the Indian Nationalist Movement and British Labour, 1932 • Matt Perry 5 A Comparative and Transnational Approach to Socialist Anti-Colonialism: The Fenner Brockway–Marceau Pivert Connection, 1930s–1950s • Quentin Gasteuil II Labour, Decolonisation and Independence (1940s–1960s) 6 Decolonisation and Claim-Making in the Sudan, c.1945–1958 • Gareth Curless 7 Class, Cold War and Colonialism: The Deportation of Albert Fava from Gibraltar to Britain, 1948 • Tom Sibley 8 Decolonisation and ‘Development Untoward’: Crisis and Conflict on Kenya’s Tea Plantations, 1959–1960 • Dave Hyde 9 For Socialist Revolution or National Liberation? Anti-Colonialism and the Communist Parties of Great Britain, Australia and South Africa in the Era of Decolonisation • Evan Smith Conclusion: Eight Points on Labour and the End of the British Empire • Neville Kirk Afterword: Towards a People’s History of British Decolonisation • Yann Béliard Bibliography Index