No history of post-war British left-wing activism would be complete without mention of the iconoclastic London Solidarity group. Direct-Action and Autonomous Organizing across the United Kingdom: London Solidarity is the first book dedicated to examining this group’s surreptitious origins, influences and legacy.
Part of an international and mostly informal movement breaking away from traditional left-wing politics at the height of Cold War tensions, the London Solidarity group contributed to the re-emergence of direct-action and autonomous working-class struggle in the UK.
The group rigorously critiqued authoritarian exploitation in the East and West, championed sexual liberation, wildcat strikes, housing struggles and played a historic role in the 1963 “Spies for Peace” scandal which rocked the British government by revealing its secret preparations for elite rule after nuclear war. Direct-Action and Autonomous Organizing across the United Kingdom uses both first-hand participant accounts, personal correspondence, previously unpublished archival material and the latest historical research on left-wing radical politics to tell the story of this radical left group and its activities while locating it in various activist networks in Britain and abroad.
Introduction: Why Solidarity?
Part 1: The Social Historical Context of Solidarity
Chapter 1. Modern Capitalism & Revolution
Chapter 2. The Failure of the Marxist Imaginary
Chapter 3. Cold War Heteronomies
Chapter 4. London – fertile revolutionary ground to grow on
Chapter 5. Progenitor of ideas: Socialisme ou Barbarie
Chapter 6. Socialism Reaffirmed: Towards a new International?
Part 2: A contribution to direct-action in Britain 1961-1967
Chapter 7. Industrial Action
Chapter 8. Spies for Peace
Chapter 9. Housing Struggles
Part 3: Reinventing the Revolutionary Project 1967 - 1973
Chapter 10. As we see it
Chapter 11. As We (Don’t) see it
Chapter 12. The case for ‘Sexual Revolution’
Chapter 13. Workers' Control: The Historical and Theoretical Sources
Part 4: Solidarity & the ‘Malaise on the Left’, 1973-1978
Chapter 14. Solidarity spreads
Chapter 15. Re-emergence of the Traditional Left
Chapter 16. Revolutionary Organisation: Problems and Possibilities
Part 5: Solidarity – For Social Revolution, 1978-1992
Chapter 17. The Dissolution of Solidarity?
Conclusion: In the Wake
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