Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward

414 Pages·2007·10.32 MB·English

by  David Goodway

Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow
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Anarchist Seeds
beneath the Snow
Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers
from William Morris to Colin Ward

DAVID GOODWAY
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
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First published 2006 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool L69 7ZU
Copyright © 2006 David Goodway
The right of David Goodway to be identifi ed as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CIP record is available
ISBN 1-84631-025-3 cased
ISBN 1-84631-026-1 limp
ISBN-13 978-1-84631-025-6 cased
ISBN-13 978-1-84631-026-3 limp
Typseset in Fournier by
Koinonia, Manchester
Printed and bound in
the European Union by
Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations x
1 Introduction 1
2 Anarchism and libertarian socialism in Britain: William Morris
and the background, 1880–1920 15
3 Edward Carpenter 35
4 Oscar Wilde 62
5 John Cowper Powys I: His life-philosophy and individualist
anarchism 93
6 The Spanish Revolution and Civil War – and the case of George
Orwell 123
7 John Cowper Powys II: The impact of Emma Goldman and Spain 149
8 Herbert Read 175
9 War and pacifi sm 202
10 Aldous Huxley 212
11 Alex Comfort 238
12 Nuclear disarmament, the New Left – and the case of E.P. Thompson 260
13 Christopher Pallis 288
14 Colin Ward 309
15 Conclusion 326
Bibliography 339
Index 382
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For
Che Mah
without
whose love, companionship, enjoyment of life and sense of fun
it is improbable this book would ever have been written
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Acknowledgements
First I must thank the following institutions and their staff for access to various
collections: International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (Goldman Archive);
University of Leeds (Central Records); Special Collections, Brotherton Library,
University of Leeds (Mattison Collection and Read Library); University College
London (Alex Comfort Papers); William Andrews Clark Memorial Library,
University of California, Los Angeles; Museum of People’s History, Manchester
(Communist Party Archive); University of Reading (Routledge Archive); Sheffi eld
Archives (Carpenter Collection); University of Victoria, Victoria, BC (Read
Archive). I have also made great use of not only the Brotherton Library, University
of Leeds, but also the J.B. Priestley Library, University of Bradford (and its too
little utilized Commonweal Collection); the British Library; and the British Library
of Political Science, London School of Economics (much appreciated for its open
access to the shelves).
I have had the privilege of knowing reasonably well two of my principal subjects,
Alex Comfort and Chris Pallis, and a third, Colin Ward, extremely well, and I am
indebted to them for answering my questions and providing me with access to their
records. I should thank too Jane Comfort, Nicholas Comfort, Jeanne Pallis, Michael
Pallis, Ken Weller and Harriet Ward. It is appropriate to mention here also Ben
Read, Herbert Read’s youngest son and literary executor, the keeper of his father’s
fl ame and an energetic support for all who write about him.
I have also enjoyed the friendship over many years of Carole Pateman, Nicolas
Walter, Peter Marshall, Alan Carter and Vernon Richards. I also knew, but much
less well, Albert Meltzer, Norman Potter, Geoffrey Ostergaard and Ronald Sampson
(whose daughter, Elizabeth Sampson, I also need to thank). I only met Edward
Thompson on two or three occasions and so have had had to rely almost exclusively
on his marvellous writings as well as the assistance of Dorothy Thompson. Ivan
vii
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viii Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow
Avakumovic´ once bought me lunch in Vancouver; I had some correspondence
with George Woodcock and a very little with Tony Gibson; and I have met Stuart
Christie once or twice.
I am indebted for information, material, stimulation and advice to very many
others, who include Cathy Adeane, Alan Anderson, Paul Anderson, John Barnes,
Heiner Becker, Mark Beeson, Dave Berry, Janet Biehl, David Bradshaw, E.E. Bissell
(whose extraordinary Powys collection is now to be found at the Dorset County
Museum), Raymond Carr, Glen Cavaliero, Hugh Cecil, Ted Crawford, Andy Croft,
Louise de Bruin, Francis Ellingham, Martyn Everett, Sharif Gemie, Paul Gibbard,
Karen Goaman, Paul Gordon, Dorothy Greenald, Judy Greenway, Peter Powys
Grey, Steven Halliwell, Julian Harber, Cecily Hill, Peter Hirschmann, Christian
Høgsbjerg, Belinda Humfrey, James Joll, Ian Jones (for the loan of many of Edward
Carpenter’s books), W.J. (Bill) Keith, Ruth Kinna, Robin Kinross, Jeff Kwintner,
Morine Krissdóttir, Carl Levy, Paul Lewis, Charles Lock, Jo McGhee (the current
owner of Carpenter’s house at Millthorpe), Stuart Macdonald, Roger Martlew, Sue
Powell, Isobel Powys Marks, Stephen Powys Marks, Richard Maxwell, Mervyn
Miller, Michael Paraskos, S.E. Parker, Bob Potter, Jon Purkis, John Quail, Susan
Rands, Tom and Celia Read (for their hospitality and conversation at Stonegrave),
Virginia Rowan (Louis Adeane’s widow), Alan Smith, John Sloan, Luke Spencer,
Tom Steele, John Toft, Ruth Walter, Alice Wexler, Andy Whitehead, George
Williamson and Mary Young.
Many readers – or more probably non-readers – will be astonished to learn of
the support I have received over the years from Eric Hobsbawm and John Saville
(including unrestricted access to the latter’s personal papers and the loan of several
fi les), right down to encouragement for this book and assistance in trying to place it
for publication. My intellectual and political outlook has been shaped by the Marxism
of their remarkable generation of historians, to which of course Edward Thompson
belonged, as much as by anarchism. A younger member of this group, Raphael
Samuel, was another dear (and much missed) friend of long standing. But I have
also been greatly infl uenced by the writings, which I continue to esteem, of Murray
Bookchin, the warmth and generosity of whose friendship I have had the pleasure
of experiencing.
This work was written in the School of Continuing Education, University of
Leeds, lamentably closed on 31 July 2005 after fi fty-nine distinguished years – for
seventeen of which Edward Thompson was a member of the staff – yet another
indication of the sad, bad times in which we live. I am enormously indebted to the
tolerant but wholehearted support of three of its chairs: Miriam Zukas, Dick Taylor
who has always believed in the importance and relevance of libertarian theory, and
Malcolm Chase, a fellow historian of Chartism whose comradeship has in general
meant much to me.
Ultimately, though, I have been dependent on a small group of intimate friends
who have always been involved in whatever I have been writing. I have known for
many years Tim Hyman – we fi rst met as members of the Powys Society and our
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Acknowledgements ix
mutual admiration of the novels of John Cowper Powys continues to be a major
bond – and Richard Schofi eld (the fi nal editor of Solidarity), as also John Doheny
in Vancouver, but whose death in January 2005 was a sorry blow. Much more
recently Alastair Reid has joined this group. Having read sample chapters for another
publisher, he established contact and has commented most empathetically, yet also
critically, on each section of the book as it was completed. I only hope that the totality
will not prove a disappointment.
Various portions of this book have been previously published, as follows, and I
am exceptionally grateful to the respective editors and publishers for their encour-
agement and comments and enabling the present work to emerge. Chapter 5 is a
revised version of ‘A Cult of Sensations: John Cowper Powys’s Life-Philosophy and
Individualist Anarchism’, Powys Journal, XIV (2004). Parts of chapters 6 and 7 fi rst
appeared in ‘The Politics of John Cowper Powys’, Powys Review, no. 15 (1984–5).
Chapter 8 is a revision of ‘Introduction’, Herbert Read, A One-Man Manifesto and
Other Writings for Freedom Press (London: Freedom Press, 1994), which later appeared
as part of ‘Introduction’ and as ‘The Politics of Herbert Read’ in David Goodway
(ed.), Herbert Read Reassessed (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998). The
second half of chapter 10 was published as ‘Aldous Huxley as Anarchist’, in Ian Angus
(ed.), Anarcho-Modernism: Toward a New Critical Theory: In Honour of Jerry Zaslove
(Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2001). Chapter 11 is a revised version of ‘Introduction’,
David Goodway (ed.), Against Power and Death: The Anarchist Articles and Pamphlets
of Alex Comfort (London: Freedom Press, 1994). Parts of Chapters 10 and 11 also
appeared in ‘Aldous Huxley and Alex Comfort: A Comparison’, in H. Gustav Klaus
and Stephen Knight (eds.), ‘To Hell with Culture’: Anarchism and Twentieth-Century
English Literature (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005). Some of chapter 12
appeared as parts of ‘E.P. Thompson and the Making of The Making of the English
Working Class’, in Richard Taylor (ed.), Beyond the Walls: 50 Years of Adult and
Continuing Education at the University of Leeds, 1946–1996 (Leeds: The University
of Leeds, 1996) and of ‘Muggletonian Marxism’, Anarchist Studies, VI (1998) and as
‘E.P. Thompson and William Morris’, in Peter Faulkner and Peter Preston (eds.),
William Morris: Centenary Essays (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999). Chapter
13 is a revision of ‘Introduction’, David Goodway (ed.), For Workers’ Power: The
Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2004). Chapter 14 is an
extended version of ‘The Anarchism of Colin Ward’, in Ken Worpole (ed.), Richer
Futures: Fashioning a New Politics (London: Earthscan, 1999), which later served as
‘Introduzione’, David Goodway, Conversazioni con Colin Ward (Milan: Elèuthera,
2003) and in English as ‘Introduction’, Colin Ward and David Goodway, Talking
Anarchy (Nottingham: Five Leaves, 2003).
My fi nal debt, as attentive readers will have noticed, is to the woman to whom
Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow is dedicated.
Keighley,
August 2005
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