The first Labour government

The Wild Men: The Remarkable Story of Britain’s First Labour Government

By David Torrance

Published by Bloomsbury, 2024, £20

Reviewed by Nick Chaffey

War and revolutions, mass strikes and demonstrations, economic and political crisis, four elections in six years. Sounds familiar? But this was 1924 – Labour in government for the first time faced with a deep economic and social crisis.

David Torrance’s book, The Wild Men, implies this was a government that pursued radical policies. But those policies, feared by the ruling capitalist class and hoped for by the working class, didn’t materialise. As a force for socialist change, Labour’s first government failed, opening up a stormy and revolutionary period in British history.

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The battle against the poll tax

Can’t Pay Won’t Pay – A Short History of the Anti-Poll Tax Struggle 1989-1993

By Chris Robinson

Published by Thinkwell Books, 2023, £10

Reviewed by Eric Segal

The struggle and victory against the poll tax was a significant event in British working-class history. Militant (the forerunner of the Socialist Party), which led the campaign, did what the Labour Party and trade union leadership had failed to do over nine years of vicious Tory anti-working class policies. In a clear lesson for today’s trade union leaders, co-ordinated, united and generalised class struggle defeated the poll tax and brought down the government of Margaret Thatcher.

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In the eye of the storms

Storyteller: Photography by Tim Hetherington

Imperial War Museum, London

20 April 2024 – 29 September 2024

Reviewed by Paul Heron

Just occasionally when you’re flicking through Netflix you’ll come across something that immediately pulls you in, and when you watch it, you want to tell all your mates about it. For me that programme was  Which Way Is the Front Line from Here?, a documentary by Sebastian Junger. The film is a heartfelt and insightful tribute to Tim Hetherington, the British photographer tragically killed in Misrata during the Libyan conflict in 2011.

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What is fascism?

An understanding of the class basis of fascism and the economic and political context in which it first arose is essential if the working class today is to defend itself from reaction in all its different forms, argues TOM BALDWIN.

From its earliest days the working-class movement has always had to defend itself from reaction. This has taken different forms, including state repression and attack from violent thugs. In the 1920s and 1930s the movement had to contend with a new threat – that of fascism. With capitalism in severe crisis, and following missed opportunities for revolution, fascist movements were able to take power in Italy, Germany and Spain. This had brutal, chilling consequences for the working class of those countries and internationally, helping drive humanity back into world war.

Today capitalism is again in a period of crisis and the working class is fighting its quarter. The conditions exist for a rise in reaction – a growth of authoritarianism, the far right and potentially even fascist forces. The questions of what fascism is and how to fight it remain important ones for Marxists to understand.

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