This British Communist Party’s last years, a period of rapid change and reassessment until its ultimate dissolution in 1991, was also invigorated by new political currents. The book covers the period of the 1960s and 1970s when the party was influenced by new social and political movements, especially feminism and Eurocommunism, while the ideas of Antonio Gramsci began to shape the cultural politics of that time. It argues that the roots of the party’s decline cannot be reduced to the fortunes of the Soviet Union, but rather reflected some of the wider social, economic and cultural changes in Britain. Even at the moment of its demise, the Communist Party had important influence on the future of the British left, through its influential magazine Marxism Today.

‘…we must be grateful to Geoff Andrews for this masterly piece of scholarly research’.

Geoffrey Goodman, Political Quarterly Volume 76 January-March 2005

‘Geoff Andrews succeeds admirably and lucidly in the difficult art of telling the story of a failure, the failure to transform what was a militant working class organisation into a rallying point for left wing critics of labourism. He steers well away from tedious attempts to explain everything in terms of the ‘long hand of Moscow’ while never sinking into  sentimental apologetics. A ‘must-read’ for all those interested in the history of the pre-New Labour Left’.

Donald Sassoon, Professor of History Queen Mary and Westfield College, London University:

‘His book should be read with attention by all those who are interested in the history of a Left in crisis’.

Professor Eric Hobsbawm