Guy Aldred

There has been little easily available to read concentrating specifically on the long and rich history of the politics and struggles of the area. The following account charts the changing fortunes and developments of the communities, classes and individuals involved. It also offers some passing comments on the Clerkenwell of today.

Lenin's famous manual of reformism, "Left Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder(1920), which directed Communists to work within parliament and existing labour unions, was partly a response to British anti-parliamentarism.

[b]Published during World War II, it illustrates how Russian political intervention in China and Europe served Russian foreign policy interests and so worked against the possibilities of proletarian revolution.

Taken from a collection of Aldred's pamphlets Studies in Communism,(1940). Originally published in Pamphlets for the Proletarian, No. 11, (1911). Second edition published in The Spur series,No. 4,(1919).

Guy Aldred was an Anarchist-Communist, based for most of his life in Glasgow and active for many years as a pamphleteer and public speaker.