ABSTRACT
Raymond Williams’ engagement in politics remains a lesser-known feature of his life, yet he came from a political household, his father Harry being a parish councillor and effectively running the Labour Party in Pandy (Smith 2008: 59-60). That Raymond himself was nearer the edge of the Labour Party may be appreciated from his participation in the local Left Book Club, his membership in the popular pre-war Communist Party at Cambridge and the 1980s when he joined with his friend Gwyn Alf Williams to become a member of Plaid Cymru (Williams, D. 2003). Placed in the context of these activities, the initiative of the May Day Manifesto may seem less exceptional. However, what marks out the years 1966 to 1969 was that Williams was pressed into a public role to which he rose and assumed the mantel of speaker and organizer. In what follows, the Manifesto is linked back to the New Left of the early 1960s, and out to the convulsive politics of the years, in particular the anger raised by the American presence in Vietnam. The main part of the essay is concerned with the organizing around the Manifesto leading to a National Convention of the Left, the Bulletin that accompanied activities and those who were drawn to its support. The May Day Manifesto appeared in its popular form in 1968. The year
has come down in public memory as a time of progressive revolt in forms ranging through music, demonstration, dress, violence and sex. Yet it was also the year when the state responded to a possible movement of ‘Asian’ British citizens from Kenya by introducing legislation effectively setting barriers to non-white peoples (Miles and Phizacklea 1984). These contradictory histories form a context for the Manifesto and informed correspondence in the Bulletin. The effects of the conflicts and allegiances emanating from the changes at the New Left Review in 1962 had caused considerable waves. In content, the Review embarked on an international path engaging with theoretical and political currents across the world. A group of editors and contributors centred on Perry Anderson caused rifts and dissension but carried through the necessary task of establishing a journal that turned theoretical thinking into a political activity. Facilitating the change in direction, the new editorial group gained the support of Raymond Williams. An
adult education tutor, in 1959 he had joined the board of New Left Review, a year later moving to Oxford with all its connections to the journal, and then to Cambridge in 1961, making the ancient bastion a place from which to launch a succession of theoretical and political interventions.1 In 1963, many in CND joined or rejoined the Labour Party and in Cambridge, Joy and Raymond followed this movement working to elect RMD Davies in 1964 to break the run of Conservative victories in the city. Stuart Hall left the post of editor in 1962, moving to the newly estab-
lished Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Meanwhile, John Saville was chair of the editorial committee during the transition period, passing the role over to EP Thompson before the whole committee was effectively made redundant. A different wave eventually took Raphael Samuel away from the Review and his enthusiasm in establishing the Partisan Club in 1958 was then channelled into creating the History Workshop. Meanwhile, having finished as chair of the New Left Review board, John Saville teamed up with Ralph Miliband, who had been a member of the previous New Reasoner Board, but left having opposed the merger with the Universities and Left Review. In time, the two were sought out by Martin Eve of Merlin Press and the outcome of the three mens’ collaboration was the Socialist Register. The start or development of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, History Workshop, Socialist Register and New Left Review were then part of the circumstance of the New Left in the mid-1960s. If, however, these were advances, the losses were the greater. While the membership of local History Workshop groups may have overlapped with New Left clubs, the clubs themselves disappeared and the Partisan ceased to exist. The demise of the clubs was also connected with events that went well
beyond the journal. The clubs served as a network for the newly founded peace movement which in Peggy Duff’s view used up their energies (Duff 1971). The fortunes of the campaign were determined as much by world events as those nearer home. In the Labour Party the debate on nuclear weapons was equally a barometer of contending wings as the conflict over Clause Four. Supported by the Transport and General Workers’ Union, the 1960 conference passed a unilateralist motion only for it to be reversed the following year. A year later came the stand-off over the alleged transport of Soviet missiles to Cuba. However, by then the first American nuclear weapons had been based in Britain (Campbell 1984, Chalmers 1985), and, when in 1963 a partial test ban treaty had been signed by the USSR, USA and Britain, CND was in decline (Thompson 1983). It was not that people’s commitment had lessened but rather fatigue had taken its toll. After twelve years of Conservative rule, Labour won the 1964 general
election but could only form a minority government. The situation changed in March 1966 when, following a further election, Labour had a large overall majority. By this time, the United States was hugely increasing its
presence in Vietnam and in Britain Labour gave Washington its support; Party MPs did not see international events as matters on which to oppose their own government. In Williams’ view, this was typical of an inability to recognize how international relations and domestic policies were intimately linked and in July 1966 he left the Party (Williams 1979d: 366-73). Extraparliamentary politics now focused on Vietnam. Open, spontaneous and non-hierarchical, the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) allowed people to maintain a sense of belonging in the years between the clubs at the start of the decade and the May Day Manifesto. In his own recollections, Tariq Ali cites how Raymond Williams was one of the few older radicals to cross the generations and speak on VSC platforms (Ali 2005: 298). Affirming the connections, the demonstrations and Williams’ part have been captured on film by the producer Colin Thomas (Thomas 2005). For his own part, Raymond recalls being part of a group which went to the House of Commons and a confrontation over the developments in Vietnam with the veteran Labour MP Stan Newens (Williams 1979d: 372). Following his departure from the Labour Party, Williams conceived the
idea of a Manifesto as a means of responding to the government’s policies and proposed the idea publicly at a large gathering in August 1966. The editorial group of Williams with Stuart Hall and EP Thompson was deliberately engineered to reunite people between whom there was disunity after the New Left Review changed in 1962. The group were charged with writing the Manifesto with contributors’ aid, though in the end most of the 47 plus pages were written by Williams. The launch of the 1967 New Left May Day Manifesto, to give it its full title, was suitably on 1 May at Caxton Hall, with speakers including the editors and student leaders, signifying the growing exasperation with conventional politics emanating from that quarter. A few days previous Williams had written a piece for the traditional left paper Tribune, in which he outlined themes from the Manifesto, urging readers to consider the issues raised by way of open discussion. The Tribune article captures the spirit and intent of those surrounding the publication.
