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5 unusual facts about Communist Party of Great Britain


Basil Barton

Windsor was a former Communist who had been MP for Bethnal Green North East in the 1920s, and he defeated Barton with an 8% swing.

Glenrothes by-election, 2008

Willie Hamilton had previously represented the area, which has elected Labour MPs since Hamilton won West Fife from the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1950.

Paul Hogarth

He attended the Manchester School of Art from 1934 to 1936, where he became involved in the Artists' International Association and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Sloley

Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, both women were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and visited Spain during the Civil War.

Wogan Philipps, 2nd Baron Milford

Wogan Philipps, 2nd Baron Milford (25 February 1902 – 30 November 1993) was the only member of the Communist Party of Great Britain ever to sit in the House of Lords.


A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century

These included the nonexistence of a British Communist party in 1912 (it was founded in only 1920), the nonexistence of a British Communist author named Israel Cohen, and the failure of a book entitled A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century to appear either in the Library of Congress or in the British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books.

Charles Black Milne

This was normally Labour country, he did well to win it in narrowly in the National Government landslide of 1931, but lost it to Willie Gallacher of the Communist Party in 1935.

Hugh Scanlon

He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1937 following the events of the Spanish Civil War and made use of its networks and organising skills to rise through the union, becoming a district official in 1947.

National Party of Scotland

The celebrated poet, Hugh MacDiarmid was a member, but was expelled on account of his Communist beliefs (ironically he would later be expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain for his Scottish Nationalist beliefs).

POUM

Likewise, the film Land and Freedom, directed by Ken Loach, tells of a group of POUM soldiers fighting in the war from the perspective of a British member of the British Communist Party.

Ruth Levitas

Ruth Levitas is the daughter of trade unionist and Spanish Civil War International Brigade fighter Maurice Levitas, niece of Communist Stepney councillor and Battle of Cable Street veteran Max Levitas and sister of theatre historian Ben Levitas.

United Kingdom general election, 1935

The Independent Labour Party stood separately from Labour for the first time since 1895, while the Scottish National Party contested their first election, and the Communist Party gained their first parliamentary seat in almost ten years, West Fife.


see also