A while back a friend of mine lamented how the US Left had a much more robust tradition of radicalism when compared with her country, Britain. There’s a long history of violent/armed struggle by socialists and other leftist factions in the USA that the UK never seems to have had.
Black Panthers, Venceremos, Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, even the old school labor revolts like the Battle of Blair Mountain. To my knowledge the British Left has nothing remotely similar to these things and what I’ve heard of the CPGB hasn’t been very flattering as far as their activity and messaging goes.
Are we both just missing this history of violent/armed labor struggle in Britain or is there really a dearth of radical activity from the British Left and why is that if so?
Not trying to smear my British comrades, to be clear. Just looking for clarification. I don’t know much about the history of British Labor.
Domenico Losurdo talks about this in Class Struggle, he mentions Benjamin Disraeli policies throughout the 19th century were succesful quelling internal unrest from socialists by offering them property abroad through settlerism, or what he calls social imperialism, this is pretty much what evolved to the concept of labour aristocracy.
However its worth mentioning that there have been communist sympathizers in the UK, one that comes to mind is Kim Philby, a very prominent british spy that was a closet communist and acted as a double agent and shared info with the USSR.