Aneurin Bevan and Paul Robeson: Socialism, Class and Identity

ANEURIN BEVANAND PAUL ROBESON:

SOCIALISM,CLASS AND IDENTITY

Daniel G. WilliamsNational Eisteddfod Lecture, Ebbw Vale 2010

Published in Wales by the Institute of Welsh Affairs.4 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9LJ

First Impression August 2010

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The AuthorDaniel G. Williams is Senior Lecturer in English andDirector of the Centre for Research into the EnglishLiterature and Language of Wales (CREW), SwanseaUniversity. He is Editor of several volumes including acollection of RaymondWilliams’s writings onWalesWhoSpeaks for Wales? Nation, Culture, Identity (University ofWales Press, 2003) and Slanderous Tongues: Essays onWelsh Poetry in English (Seren, 2010); and author ofEthnicity and Cultural Authority: From Matthew Arnold toW. E. B. Du Bois (Edinburgh University Press, 2006). Healso plays saxophone with the jazz-folk band ‘Burum’.

The Institute of Welsh Affairs exists to promote quality research and informeddebate affecting the cultural, social, political and economic well-being of Wales.IWA is an independent organisation owing no allegiance to any political oreconomic interest group. Our only interest is in seeing Wales flourish as a countryin which to work and live. We are funded by a range of organisations andindividuals. For more information about the Institute, its publications, and how tojoin, either as an individual or corporate supporter, contact:

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Daniel G. WilliamsNational Eisteddfod Lecture

Ebbw Vale 2010

CoverPaul Robeson and Aneurin Bevan photographed at the Ebbw Vale National Eisteddfod in 1958.

ANEURIN BEVANAND PAUL ROBESON:SOCIALISM,CLASS AND IDENTITY

3 Introduction

7 Bevan: Class and Socialism

12 Robeson: Identity and Socialism

15 Class and Identity

20 Conclusion

21 References

Aneurin Bevan was preoccupied with communication in August 1958. In Tribune, theweekly paper of the democratic Left, he discussed the relationship between China andthe United States in the following terms:

Communication is the very essence of civilised ways of living. It is a mostmonstrous offence against this principle that the most populous nation onearth should be cut off from communication with so many nations merelybecause the vision of the leaders of the United States falls so lamentablyshort of the material power they command.1

He had expressed similar thoughts a week earlier at the ‘Gymanfa Ganu’[Congregational Singing Festival] of the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale. ‘The wholelesson of Eisteddfodau is communication’ he stated ‘and unless the people can freelycommunicatewith each other there is no chance for civilisation’.2 Sitting in the audiencewith his wife Bessie was the African American singer and activist Paul Robeson who,following Bevan’s introduction, would rise to sing ‘John Brown’s Body’, ‘Water Boy’ and‘We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder’.3 In 1950 Robeson’s passport had been taken fromhimand he was confined to the United States as the madness of Senator Joe McCarthy’scampaign against alleged Communists dominated the political and cultural life of hiscountry. Robeson had just had his passport returnedwhen he visited EbbwVale in 1958,and Bevan proceeded to criticize the US government for denying Robeson his right totravel and expressed his hope that the ban would never be reinstated. To obstructcommunication between individuals and countries was a threat to world peace, statedBevan, and while he had heard of the United States’s ambitions to ‘encircle the moon’,‘they might start off at first by encircling China’.4

If Bevan had one eye on the world, his thoughts on communication alsoengaged with the Welsh context. In order for Bevan to introduce Paul Robeson, theGymanfa Ganu was moved from the last Sunday of the Eisteddfod to the first. TheEisteddfod had not been officially opened, and there was therefore no need to adhereto the ‘rheol Gymraeg’ (theWelsh language only rule), thatwas introduced in 1950 andwould be in operation for the rest of the week:

2 | Aneurin Bevan and Paul Robeson: Socialism, Class and Identity National Eisteddfod Lecture 2010 | 3

IntroductionContents

York. And following the return of his passport in 1958, he was introduced by AneurinBevan at the EbbwVale Eisteddfod. It is fitting that the Eisteddfod has returned to EbbwVale fifty years after Bevan’s death and it’s particularly appropriate that SwanseaUniversity and the Welsh Assembly Government have made it possible for PaulRobeson’s granddaughter Susan to be with us this week.8

Several commentators have used the relationship between Robeson andWales to support their readings ofWelsh history. For some, like Hywel Francis and DaiSmith, Robeson’s connections with theWelsh working class underline the progressivesocialist internationalism of the labour movement, and reflect the diverse and tolerantcommunities of the coalfield. Dai Smith, echoing Aneurin Bevan’s emphasis oncommunication, states:

South Wales, at its provocative best, contradicted the curtailers of humaninteraction anywhere and everywhere it could. The ideal was, perhaps, oftenmerely, though movingly, emblematic as when south Wales miners arrangeda transatlantic radio link so that Paul Robeson, deprived of his civil liberties andhis passport in the USA, could sing at their Eisteddfod; or when Nye Bevan …welcomed Robeson to the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale in 1958.9

It is revealing to compare this reading with T. J. Davies’s description of the GymanfaGanu in hisWelsh language biography of Paul Robeson. T. J. Davies draws onRobeson’s1935 comment that ‘Negroes the world over have an inferiority complex because theyimitate whatever culture they are in contact with instead of harking back to their owntradition’, to argue that the African American singer touched a:

…gwythien ddofn ynom. Ninnau fel y Negroaid wedi cefnu, i fesur, ar eindiwylliant brodorol a mabwysiadu un Seisnig; eto, ym mêr ein hesgyrn yngwybod bod ynddo rin a gwerth, a phan ddeuai Paul Robeson i’n mysg, ynlladmerydd huawdl i ddiwylliant dirmygedig, caem ynddo un a roddai lais i gria foddwyd yn ein hisymwybyddiaeth….Bid siwr, y mae elfen o dristwch yn ysefyllfa, y miloedd ym mhabell yr Eisteddfod yng Nglyn Ebwy yn eigymeradwyo am eu bod yn cael boddhadmawr yng nghanu gwr a gyflwynaiei ddiwylliant ei hun heb ymddiheuro; eto, yr un rhai, er yn gweld yr hyn awnâi Paul Robeson ac yn falch o’i genhadaeth, yn methu cymryd y camgwleidyddol i roi i’w cenedl hwy yr urddas y credent y dylai’r Negro ei gael.

[… a deep vein within us. Like the Negroes, we have turned our backs, to adegree, on our indigenous culture and adopted an English culture; yet, in themarrow of our bones we are aware of its worth and value, and when PaulRobeson came to us, an eloquent spokesman for a derided culture, we found

Imust havemy say about the Eisteddfod this evening for I shall be inarticulateduring the rest of the week... I want to say how much we in Ebbw Valewelcome the Eisteddfod and the visit of the people of Wales, together withour friends from overseas, to Ebbw Vale. You will find the true qualities of theWelsh people here inMonmouthshire, even though youmay not always heartheir sentiments expressed in the language of heaven.5

Having struggled during his career to overcome a stammer, and to give voice to theaspirations of his people, Bevan would have noted the strange irony of the fact that, forthe remainder of the week, he would be rendered inarticulate in his own constituency.His message was clear enough for those willing to listen.6

According to theMerthyr Express, there were in fact over 9000 people packedinto the Pavilion on August 3rd 1958 to listen to Bevan and Robeson and to participatein the Gymanfa. Paul Robeson understood the nature of the event and, although hewaslinked to the Communist Party, expressed his pleasure at being able to contribute to areligious service:

You may not know it but I was brought up in traditions very similar to yours.My father was a Wesleyan minister, my brother is one, and almost everySunday I have taken part in similar hymn-singings to those you are enjoyingtonight. I bring you greetings from my own people, who will appreciate, Iknow, the kind of welcome I have received here.7

Robeson had of course already been the recipient of Welsh hospitality. In 1928 heimpulsively joined a group of marching Welsh miners singing in London’s West End.The next ten years saw him donating money to, and visiting, Talygarn Miners’ RestHome, appearing in many concerts across Wales including an appearance at theCaernarvon Pavilion the night after an explosion had claimed 266 lives at the GresfordPit near Wrecsam, and, most famously, a visit to Mountain Ash in 1938 for the ‘WelshNational Memorial Meeting to the Men of the International Brigade from Wales whogave their lives in defence of Democracy in Spain’. The 1930s also saw Robesonestablishing connections with themulti-ethnic community in Cardiff’s Butetown, whichwas also home to the political activist and Pan-Africanist native of Philadelphia, AaronMosell, an uncle by marriage to Robeson. 1939 saw Robeson playing the role of DavidGoliath, an African American seaman who settles in a mining village, in one of the fewmovies which he did not later disown, Proud Valley. Hounded during the McCarthy erafor his Communist sympathies, Robeson had his passport confiscated from 1950 to1958. The persistent invitations made throughout the 1950s for Robeson to appear atthe Miners’ Eisteddfod in Porthcawl, led to the ‘Transatlantic Exchange’ of 1957 whichallowed the Eisteddfod audience to hear Robeson’s voice via a telephonic link fromNew


For many Welsh linguistic nationalists Aneurin Bevan is associated with the rejectionof the ‘indigenous culture’ evoked by T. J. Davies in his description of the Welshaudience’s response to Robeson above. In his popular history Aros Mae, for instance,Plaid Cymru president Gwynfor Evans used the example of Bevan’s family to illustratethe Anglicisation of Monmouthshire. Before noting that Aneurin’s father, David, was amember of the Cymmrodorion, a faithful chapel goer and a Welsh language poet ofsome renown, Gwynfor Evans suggests that the ‘situation inMonmouthshire’ could beilluminated with reference to the:

…amgylchiadau cartref crwtyn bach a ddechreuodd fynd y pryd hyn i ysgolSirhywi gyda’i chwiorydd, Myfanwy a Blodwen; byddai Arianwen a Iorwerthyn ymuno ag ef yno eto.[...]Ymhen ychydig flynyddoedd byddai’r Sistemwedidifa iaith a diwylliant cenhedlaeth tadAneurin Bevan yn llwyr yn y fro honno.12

…domestic circumstances of a little boy who started going to Sirhowy schoolduring this period with his sisters, Myfanwy and Blodwen; Arianwen andIorwerth would join him there later.[...] Within a few years in that area theSystem would have completely destroyed the language and culture of thegeneration to which Aneurin Bevan’s father belonged.

In Gwynfor Evans’s nationalist history Aneurin Bevan is not the founder of theNational Health Service, nor is he the hero of Welsh socialists. Rather, he is arepresentative of how Labour proved to be an Anglicising force in Welsh culture,contributing to society’s abandonment of theWelsh language and its culture. Bevan’ssubtle attack on the Eisteddfod ‘Welsh rule’ at the Gymanfa Ganu of 1958 could beused to reinforce this interpretation. Few Welsh nationalists would disagree withAngharad Tomos that Bevan ‘more than anyone else, prevented the idea of self-government, and he legitimised opposition in Labour’s ranks to any measure ofconstitutional status for Wales’.13

This is not entirely true, for Bevan’s support was key to ensuring that theestablishment of a Secretary of State for Wales appeared as a policy in the LabourParty’smanifesto for the general elections of 1959. The Torieswon that election, but thepolicy stayed in place, leading to the establishment of Jim Griffiths in that post when


a voice for a cry that had been submerged in our subconsciousness …. Thereis certainly an element of sadness in the scene; the thousands in theEisteddfod pavilion in Ebbw Vale applauding and enjoying the singing of aman who presented his own culture without apology; yet, those samethousands, despite seeing what Paul Robeson was doing and welcoming hismessage, were unable to take the political step that would give their nationthe status that they believed should be granted to the Negro.]10

I'll return to some of the controversial assumptions informing this passage, but wish toemphasise here the fundamental difference between T. J. Davies’s reading in Welsh,and Dai Smith’s account in English. ‘Robeson’ features as a cross-roads at which thecultural narratives of y ‘Gymry Gymraeg’ (Welsh-speaking Wales) and ‘South Wales’meet; those very narratives that the critic Raymond Williams referred to as the ‘twotruths’ that continue to influence and inform our ways of describing the Welshexperience.11 Rather than considering the historical meeting between Robeson andBevan as a means of reinforcing a particular historical narrative, my intention is toexamine some of the tensions and contradictions in their political and cultural thought,before going on to discuss the possible implications of their ideas for contemporarypolitical debate. It is notmy intention to offer advice to any particular political party, butI aim rather to utilise the meeting between Robeson and Bevan as a basis for exploringsome of the intellectual strains within progressive thought inWales.

Bevan:Class and Socialism

essential pre-condition to comprehending his politics’.20 The challenge faced by thecultural historian is to describe the defining characteristics of that culture. Writingagainst English historians of the Labour Party, who tend to see Bevan’s ‘Welsh’background as a constraint frustrating his abilities to extend the relevance of his politicsbeyond ‘narrow’ working class interests, Smith states:

The whole direction of Bevan’s life, and especially because of the experienceshe underwent within the variegated culture of south Wales, was away fromthe bathos of nostalgia and the pathos of sentiment...If it is the values of thesouth Wales of his youth that marked Bevan then those values wereincreasingly offensive not defensive.21

And one aspect of the ‘offensive’ nature of that new culture was its desire to reject theculture of the past. While this was something to regret for Gwynfor Evans, it issomething to celebrate for Dai Smith.

Aneurin attended two chapels as a boy; he left both after too close adisquisition of Darwinain evolutionism for the taste of the ministers. He wasnever baptized. He spoke no Welsh. And in all this he was typifyingindividually the self-confident progressive world of southWales.22

‘Progressive’ may not be the most appropriate adjective for this socialprocess, but it seems that Smith’s ‘South Wales’ is defined as much by what it is notthan by what it is. I don’t have time to discuss the implications of this here, but it isinteresting to note that when it became a matter of defining Welsh culture AneurinBevan tended to turn to traditional practices. While he warned against linkingWelshness with the Welsh language, his grounds for arguing strongly for ‘the re-unification of Monmouthshire andWales’ in Ebbw Vale was that the ‘characteristics ofMonmouthshire were essentially Welsh’, her ‘legends wereWelsh’.23 A decade earlier,he made the following case in a Tribune editorial on ‘The Claim ofWales’:

People from other parts of the country are surprisedwhen they visitWales tofind how many Welsh people still speak Welsh, and how strong and evenpassionate is the love of the Welsh for their country, their culture and theirunique institutions.

In all this there is nothing to deplore. On the contrary, it is very much to thegood that distinctive cultures, values, and institutions should flourish so as tocounteract the appalling tendency of the times towards standardisation,regimentation and universal greyness [...]. In so far asWales is different fromEngland, it is the difference, and not the similarity, which requires special

Labour came back to power in 1964. Bevan’s support for the policy of a Secretary ofState surprised, and continues to surprise, many.14 Bevan had previously beenconsistent in his opposition to any political embodiment of Welsh identity. At the firstday dedicated to ‘Welsh Questions’ in Parliament in 1944 Bevan admitted that hedidn’t know the difference between ‘a Welsh sheep, Westmoreland sheep and aScottish sheep’.15 He objected to the idea of creating a Secretary of State for Wales in1946 on linguistic grounds, fearing that the incumbent would have to speak Welsh.Unconsciously evoking the language of the 1847 Blue Books, he stated that, ‘Ournationalist friends are making an enclave and the vast majority ofWelshmen would bedenied participation in the government of their own country’.16 He believed that thepeople ofMonmouthshire would be oppressed byWelsh speakers fromCardiganshire,and regretted that Welsh culture tended to be connected to the language.

Before rejecting such ideas, it is worth remembering that south Walesrepresented a cultureless space - the ground lost to Wales – by many linguisticnationalists. T. J Davies’s description of the Ebbw Vale audience having ‘abandoned’their ‘indigenous culture’ is a case in point. ‘Yma bu unwaith Gymru’ [‘Here once wasWales’] was Saunders Lewis’ dismissive verdict as he viewed industrial Merthyr in hisapocalyptic poem ‘Y Dilyw 1939’ [The Deluge 1939]. In a letter to Kate Roberts, heexpressed his exasperation at the audience of ‘anwariaid syml’ [‘simple barbarians’]who had turned out to listen to him in Blaen Dulais [Seven Sisters] and claimed thathe’d kill himself if forced to spend a day in their company.17 More recently, whenChristine James won the crown in 2005, Arch-Druid Selwyn Griffith claimed that hertime as a student in Aberystwyth hadmade Christine ‘yn Gymraes’ /Welsh. But giventhat she comes from Porth, in the Rhondda, what was she before that? And perhapsour culture minister in the assembly, Alun Ffred Jones, will excuse me for quoting hisviews on English speakingWales in 1999:

[I] genhedlaeth sydd wedi ymwrthod a’r syniad o genedl at beth allan nhwdroi? Does dim o’r nodweddion amlwg – yn gerddorol, yn grefyddol nac ynddiwylliannol – sydd gan y Gwyddel Saesneg i droi atynt am gysur.18

[What can a generation who have rejected the idea of nationhood turn to?They have none of the obvious characteristics – either musically, religiouslyor culturally – that the Anglo-Irish can turn to for comfort.]

Bevanwas speaking against such viewswhen he highlighted the essentialWelshnes ofEbbw Vale in his speech at the 1958 Gymanfa, and there is no doubt that thecontributions of Hywel Teifi Edwards from one direction, and Dai Smith from another,have been crucial in the ongoing process of describing and mapping the distinctivecultures of the south Wales valleys.19 Dai Smith’s fundamental point in his AneurinBevan and the World of South Wales is that ‘imagining Aneurin Bevan’s culture is an


Bevanwould never forget the suffering of the valleys. But theway to ensure the sufferingwould never return was for socialists to control the levers of the British economy.

If the concept of the ‘nation’ was a part of Aneurin Bevan’s political worldview, his politics was fundamentally grounded in the working class struggle againsteconomic inequality. His political vision evolved form a Marxist tradition of thought -‘Insofar as I can be said to have had a political training at all, it has been in Marxism’ -and the tendency is to view that tradition as being opposed to cultural difference dueto its emphasis on the class struggle as the only legitimate vehicle for the creation of aclassless society in which differences of status and opportunity are eradicated.27 Thisopposition to cultural difference can be traced back to the work ofMarx himself.Whilebeing critical of British imperialism,Marx believed that the barbarism of the villagers ofHindustan was reflected in the fact that they worshiped nature. For Marx, the BritishEmpire was a necessary historical force in civilising and developing a society whichwould otherwise be worshipping Hamhuan the monkey and Sabala the cow.28 Suchcultural intolerance is generally absent from Bevan’s writings, and unlike some of hisconstituency’s future representatives, he respected the concept of Wales as a culturalentity manifested in its linguistic difference, its stories and legends. He also supportedIndian independence and was a friend of the country’s first prime minister, JawaharlalNehru.29 But fundamentally, Bevan’s politics were rooted in class. For him, culturaldistinctiveness should never be a constraint on the struggle of the working class andthe poor for economic and social equality. The desire to preserve distinctive cultures -as embodied primarily in the language movement in Wales – should never hinder apeople’s ability to communicate with each other and with others.

recognition and a special constitutional medium of expression. Wales isdifferent, not in the fact that she possesses coal and steel, docks andharbours, factories and an intricateweb of economic activities. These are partof the common life of the United Kingdom. She is different in that she has alanguage of her own, and an art and a culture, and an educational system andan excitement for things of the mind and spirit, which are wholly differentfromEngland and Englishways. It is in the commonality of this difference thatWales has a claim for special recognition and where she should seek newforms of national life.24

Bevan was clearly making a distinction between the political and the cultural spheres.Wales for Bevan was essentially a cultural entity. That cultural distinctiveness was notthe basis for an independent nation state, nor did it imply that the cultural nationneeded its own form of political expression. The reference above to a ‘specialConstitutionalmediumof expression’ is ambiguous, especially as he specifically arguesagainst the establishment of a Secretary of State in the same piece. For Bevan, theproblems of coal, steel and agriculture should clearly be addressed at the British level.Britain is clearly the sphere of economics and politics. Wales is the sphere of culture.

It is noticeable, however, that Bevan does not use the terms ‘province’, or‘region’ or ‘Principality’ in describing Wales. Bevan’s Wales is a ‘nation’, and it’s worthnoting that hewas not opposed on principle to nationalism and, in some contexts, couldsee the benefits of dressing the socialist struggle in national costume. In his speech tothe ‘Chinese People’s Consultative Conference’ in 1954 for example, he noted:

...the struggles which you have waged are at the same time a struggle fornational independence against imperialism. This has the effect ofsupercharging the social struggle with the emotion derived from nationalself-consciousness and the yearning for liberation. You are thereforepossessed of an emotional dynamic which is not present with us.25

Bevan was not opposed in principle to struggles for national independence. But, to thefrustration of Welsh nationalists, he did not see his native Wales in those terms. Thenationalist poet Harri Webb responded colourfully to Bevan’s speech in China on thepages of TheWelsh Republican:

Mr Bevan comes from the Tops of the Valleys. It is hard to believe that evenin China he can have forgotten the difference between the exploitation of theEnglish worker and thewholesale rape and ruin of that regionwhere the epicdesolation of Dowlais, the generation of despair that engulfed Blaina andBrynmawr, seal the utter damnation before God and man of the gentlemenof England.26


However, Robeson was certainly interested in theWelsh language. He owned aWelshlanguage grammar, and when asked to suggest an appropriate gift to mark his visit tothe 1958 Eisteddfod, he requested aWelsh hymnbook, presented to him by the leadingmodernist Welsh language poet T. H. Parry-Williams.34

The nationalist strain in Robeson’s thought is something that is often ignored inWales, and our tendency to see nationalism and socialism as opposed political forces inthe nation’s history leads to a misunderstanding of Robeson’s life and thought. ForRobeson’s concert performances, from the mid 1930s onwards, offered a creativeexpression for the fusion of ethnic particularism and socialist universalism that informedhis responses to other people and places. His interest in the Soviet Union derived from anearlier interest in minorities. He first visited the USSR as a result of his interest in Africa,and went with the intention of studying ‘the Soviet national minority policy as it operatesamong the people of Central Asia’.35 During the fifties, when hewas not entitled to travel,he referred back to his first visits to the Soviet Union in the following terms:

I saw for myself when I visited the Soviet Union how the Yakuts and theUzbeks and all the other formerly oppressed nationswere leaping ahead fromtribalism to modern industrial economy, from illiteracy to the heights ofknowledge. Their ancient cultures blossoming in new and greater splendour.Their young men and women mastering the sciences and arts.36

Robeson’s increasing adherence toMarxism from themid thirties onwards did not lead toa rejection of nationalism, but rather led to an attempted combination of the Marxistnotion that individual experiences are determined by social class, with a nationalist viewthat identity is rooted in language or race. This was reflected in his concert programmeswhere, from the early 1930s onwards Robeson expanded his repertoire beyond thespirituals to embrace the folk songs of other peoples. The programme of his 25 Marchconcert inWrexham testifies to his inclusion of the Russian ‘O Ivan , You Ivan’, the English‘O, No, John! No!’ and theWelsh ‘David of theWhite Rock’ in his repertoire, and MartinDuberman notes that Robeson included performances of Russian songs arranged byGretchaninov, the Scottish ‘Turn Yet to Me’ and the Mexican ‘Encantadora Maria’ in hisBritish concerts of that year.37 Robeson argued that he could interpret folk songs fromaround the world because of the fact that he ‘came from a working-class people’.38 Thisfusion of ‘folk’ and ‘class’ results in a view of class identity which is not the product ofhistorical forces, of social position or of active engagement in common cultural practices,but is rather a factor determined by race. Robeson argued that he failed

to see how aNegro can really feel the sentiments of an Italian or a German, ora Frenchman, for instance….I believe that one should confine oneself to the artforwhich one is qualified. One canonly be qualified by understanding, and thisis born in one, not bred.39

There is no doubt that Paul Robeson, like his friend Aneurin Bevan, was a socialist. Buthe came to his socialism from a different direction, and represents a different traditionwithin socialist thought. When he described the ‘hymn-singings’ of his youth derivingfrom ‘traditions very similar to yours’ at the Ebbw Vale ‘Gymanfa’, and proceeded tooffer greetings from ‘my people’, he was drawing attention to his background in theAfrican American Church, and to the distinctiveness of the African American people.Robeson belonged to a tradition of Black Nationalist thought with its roots in thenineteenth century. His careful biographer Martin Duberman noted that Robesonadmired ‘the ethnic insistence of the Welsh’, and perhaps it takes an American toappreciate this aspect of his relationship with Wales.30 Robeson, like many Welshnationalists, adhered at times to the romantic notion that language lay at the root ofnational cultures. According to his close friend, the journalistMarie Seton, this sense oflinguistic identity derived largely from his family background in the western areas ofNorth and South Carolina where the Gullah language is spoken – a Creole languagebased on English but containing many words borrowed from African languages. In herbiography Paul Robeson (1958), Seton refers to this linguistic background whilediscussing the relationship between Robeson andWales:

[TheWelsh] took him into their homes, fed him and wrapped him around tightandclose in the intimacyofwarmthandhumour,and in theaspirationsofapeoplein whom a national spirit had never died. TheWelsh spokeWelsh to show theywere themselves, just as Robeson’s relatives in the Carolinas spoke the Gullahdialect because they, too, wanted to be themselves. Paul felt hewas home.31

It seems that for Seton, language forms the basis of identity, and there’s evidence thatRobeson also thought of the relationship between language and identity in these terms.He was an excellent linguist and in 1951 recalled learning languages in order to sing thefolk-songs of ‘the African, the Welsh, the Scotch Hebridean, the Russian, Spanish,Chinese, the Yiddish, Hebrew and others’.32 There’s actually no evidence that he ever didlearn Welsh. ‘Dafydd y Garreg Wen’ is listed as ‘David of the White Rock’ in hisprogrammes and presumably sung in English; and the final line ‘ArHyd yNos’ is the onlyWelsh heard in his performances of theWelsh tune ‘All Through the Night’. ‘TheWelshlanguage’ stated Robeson at the Ebbw Vale Eisteddfod in 1958 ‘is a language not to betrifled with and unless I could be perfect at it I would not attempt to sing in Welsh’.33


Robeson:Identity and Socialism

Nature (‘born in one’) it seems ismore significant than nurture (‘bred’) in themaking ofa cultural sensibility, a view that Robeson reiterated unequivocally in 1934.

I would rather sing Russian folk-songs than German grand-opera – notbecause it is necessarily better music, but because it is more instinctive andless reasoned music. It is in my blood. 40

The key constituents of character and culture seem to be pre-determined ‘in my blood’.In an interview of 1958, recorded a few months before his visit to the Eisteddfod,Robeson suggested that his particular fusion of class and ethnic identity emerged as aresult of his experiences inWales:

And Iwent down into themineswith theworkers, and they explained tome, that‘Paul, youmaybe successful here in England, but your people suffer like ours.Wearepoorpeople, andyoubelong tous.Youdon’t belong to thebigwigshere in thiscountry.’ And so today I feel as much at home in theWelsh valley as I would inmy own Negro section in any city in the United States. I just did a broadcast bytransatlantic cable to the Welsh valley, a few weeks ago, and here was the firstunderstanding that the struggle of theNegro people, or of any people, cannot beby itself – that is, the human struggle. So I was attracted by and met manymembers of the Labour Party, and my politics embraced also the commonstruggle of all oppressed people, including especially the working masses –specifically the laboring people of all theworld. That definesmy philosophy. It’s ajoining one.We are aworking people, a laboring people – the Negro people. 41

This passage is striking due to the apparent tension between the declaration of ethnicparticularity – ‘theNegro people’ – and an internationalist, universalist commitment to ‘thehuman struggle’. It is not clear, however, that Robeson would see this as a tension at all.He was deeply inspired by early Bolshevik policy and by Stalin’s The National and ColonialQuestion. In spite of later attempts to curb internal, minority nationalist impulses in theSoviet Union, the earlier policies inspired by Lenin and Stalin laid the groundwork for aflourishingofnational culture thatwasnot stoppedby the repeal of cultural support. Itwas,according to Kate Baldwin, the ‘transnational formations of a Leninist tradition’ thatRobeson strove to foster in his performances of national folk songs.42

What occurs from the 1930s onwards, then, is that Robeson attempted tofuse his early commitment to African American cultural distinctiveness with hisincreasing awareness of the importance of class consciousness. This fusion of ‘race’ and‘class’ allowed the son of a slave who had become bourgeois through the success of hisconcert performances to identify with working people, due to his membership of anoppressed race. That is, even if you are middle class yourself, you can claim to beworking class because you come from ‘a working class people’.


What I wish to suggest, at the most general level, is that Aneurin Bevan and PaulRobeson belong to two different traditions within socialist thought. As I’ve noted, thereis a cultural awareness of national difference within Bevan’s thought, and the conceptof class is important for Robeson. But Bevan’s main emphasis is on fighting economicinequality by means of a class-based politics. Robesons’s primary emphasis is oncombating racism by securing rights by means of an identity-based politics. Class is ofmost importance for Bevan. Identity is of most importance for Robeson.

In thinking about these figures in these terms we may generalize by statingthat the intellectual tradition to which Robeson belongs has dominated literary andcultural analysis in the last twenty years. With the growth of post-colonial theory,feminist theory and so on, the Left’s traditional emphasis on the redistribution of powerand capital has been replaced by the growing demand for recognition ofminority rightsand respect for differences based on race, gender, sexuality and language. This shiftfrom the redistribution of capital to the respect for identities has been described byNancy Fraser as a shift ‘from redistribution to recognition’.43

This shift can be traced in the political and cultural criticism of another son ofsouth east Wales, the critic Raymond Williams. Williams’s career making volumeCulture and Society appeared, conveniently enough for this lecture’s purposes, in 1958.The study was conceived as an analysis of the changing relationship between cultureand society since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and is informed throughoutby the author’s awareness of the working class’s struggle to create a commondemocratic culture available to everyone by means of an equitable and just educationsystem. Unlike a seat in the House of Lords, one cannot inherit this ‘common culture’,for it must be created and reinforced by society itself. Williams had hoped to see thecreation of a society ‘whose values are at once commonly created and criticised, andwhere the discussions and exclusions of class may be replaced by the reality ofcommon and equal membership’.44 His emphasis was on social class within a Britishcontext, and Williams admitted in 1979 that he wasn’t particularly conscious of hisWelsh background when writing Culture and Society. Britain is his focus, and he arguedin favour of a common culture based on the co-operative social values of the workingclass, which could be contrasted with the individualistic values of the upper classes insociety. From the seventies onwards, however, Williams became increasingly aware ofthe cultural and linguistic diversity of Britain, and becamemore self-consciously aware

Class and Identity

of his Welshness.45 In a 1971 review of Ned Thomas’s The Welsh Extremist, Williamsplaced the campaigns of the Welsh Language Society within the context of BlackPower, feminism, and campaigns for civil rights in Northern Ireland.46 He argued in1983 that the challenge for the Left would be to unite the feminist, environmental,minority nationalist, and peace movements.47 The question that arises is to whatextent are thesemovements compatible with one another? To what extent is a politicsbased on working class consciousness compatible with a struggle for gay rights, or therights of minority language speakers? Are these movements compatible with oneanother, or are they incompatible movements drawing upon competing solidarities?48

The trend today is to think of ‘class’ as an ‘identity’, compatible with otheridentities based on ethnicity, gender and language. ‘Gender, class and race’ are termsthat appear in the titles of hundreds of academic books and articles. However, class isnot an identity. Rather, it is a way of describing an individual’s position within theeconomic structure of capitalism. The political logic of a movement based on class isfundamentally different to the logic of a political movement based on identity.

The whole point of a class based politics is to eliminate economic and socialdivides, leading eventually to the elimination of the very class that gave rise to themovement in the first place. The whole point of a politics based on identity is toencourage society to respect difference, to foster cultural distinctions and to establishrights for the minority or group in question based on its particular needs.

Today, where an emphasis on respecting cultural distinctiveness hasreplaced an emphasis on redistributing wealth, we tend to think of fairness in terms ofsocial rights: the rights of citizens to avoid discrimination based on language or race orgender. This is to some extent an American influence on our political discourse, andhas resulted in a great deal of innovative work and important social developments. Butthis emphasis on identity has resulted in the marginalisation of class as a means ofunderstanding social structures. The political logic of a movement based on ‘class’ isvery different to that of a movement based on the struggle for identity.

For example, a class based politics does not generally ask us to respect thepoor, to tolerate their cultural difference, to recognise their difference, or to celebratetheir culture. We do not tend to wish that the children of the poor remain poorthemselves.While people deserve the same respect regardless of background, I doubtwhether we believe poverty deserves the same respect as wealth in the way that thespeakers ofWelsh deserve the same respect as speakers of English, or that an AfricanAmerican deserves the same respect as an Irish-American. A politics of identity isbased on the belief that I'm not inferior or subordinate because I am aWelshman, or aJew or an African American. But inferiority and subordination are the basis of poverty,and the awareness that a whole social class is being exploited by others and thereforekept inferior and subordinated forms the basis of class politics. The poor aresubordinate within an economic structure. The goal of class politics is not to eliminatethe perception that the poor are inferior, but to eliminate poverty itself.49


In general, the purpose of a movement based on a minority identity is tomaintain and respect difference. The purpose of a movement based on the interests ofthe working class is to eradicate difference.

And this, I suggest, is what explains Aneurin Bevan’s attitudes towardsnationalism and towards Wales. The common nationalist dismissals of Bevan areoversimplified: he did not suffer from an inferiority complex regarding his Welshness,nor was he an ‘Uncle Tom’ when it came to theWelsh language and its culture. Hewasnot an uncritical admirer of Englishness or Britishness. Bevan was a politician from theMarxist tradition, his political views infused by the values of the working classcommunity in which he was bred. At the root of his politics was a desire to eliminatedifferences, to eliminate inequality, to eliminate the barriers to open communicationand to the development of a truly democratic society. His attitudes towardsnationalism and towards minority languages derived from this world view, and wereconsistent with his wider perspectives.

If his emphasis on the elimination of inequality explains Bevan’s attitudetowards nationalism, it also sheds light on the reason why many minority nationalistsadopted conservative positions and located themselves on the political Right. ForSaunders Lewis, as for W. B. Yeats before him in Ireland, the desire to protect andmaintain cultural traditions went hand in hand with a desire to maintain and protectthe social structures that sustained those cultures. From the viewpoint of SaundersLewis’s medievalism, it was desirable that hierarchical social structures should bepreserved. As Richard Wyn Jones has noted, Lewis defined nationalism in‘contradistinction to socialism, and in opposition to it’.50 According to Saunders Lewis,‘The National Party of Wales has a political philosophy which is based on thehistorical traditions of Wales and is wholly at odds with the philosophies of EnglishSocialism, and of the Socialism of Marx’.51 More recently, this is broadly the positionadopted by Simon Brooks in his engaging collection of essays Yr Hawl i Oroesi [TheRight to Survive], where the former editor of the journal Barn argues that Welshsocialist governments are inevitably weak and ineffectual in relation to the Welshlanguage.52 ‘In a healthy country’ argues Brooks ‘Conservatism would be supportiveof the language - because it is in favour of keeping things, and because it believes thatsome values (such as the language or soul of a nation) are timeless... Unlike Socialismwith its prejudice against all such abstractions’.53 From this viewpoint, the essence ofsocialism is to eliminate differences, whereas conservatism aims to ‘keep for thegenerations to come the purity that used to be’. Aneurin Bevan would have agreed.But he would have argued the opposite position, believing that the elimination ofeconomic injustices was far more important than trying to defend some unclearabstractions existing in the minds of conservative nationalists.

Does it therefore follow that cultural nationalists should abandon the Left?For Paul Robeson, as I have previously noted, there was no necessary hostility betweenminority nationalism and socialism. Robeson believed that the African American

struggle for civil rights would have a very limited impact if it did not progresssimultaneously with a struggle for economic equality. If racial discrimination has to bemaintained by law, economic discrimination needs no legal support, for it can besustained by the market. Indeed, capitalism encourages us to discriminate on the basisof wealth. I promised my daughter Lowri that I’d refer to the American cartoon TheSimpsons at some point during this lecture, and perhaps some of you have seen theepisode when the mother, Marge, goes to ‘the rich people’s mall’ where theadvertisement reads ‘our prices discriminate because we can’t’. If a campaign againstracism leads to a situation where the state can no longer discriminate on the basis ofrace, then as long as the majority of African Americans remain poor the market candiscriminate instead. It is therefore clear that there are times when it is imperative thatthe struggle for economic equality coincides with the struggle for minority rights. Theproblem in Paul Robeson’s political thought is that ethnic identity and classconsciousness become fused. These are two categories, as I've already argued, whichfollowdivergent political logics. The result of themerger between the economic categoryof class and the cultural category of identity, is that ‘class’ becomes an ‘identity’.

We can turn to the novels of the Rhondda Communist, Lewis Jones, CwmardyandWe Live, to see the dangerous implications of this merger of ‘class’ and ‘identity’.Jones’s novels document themaking of theWelshworking class, and tend to be treatedas semi realistic reflections ofWelsh industrial history and a celebration of the workingclass struggle. But under the surface of these novels’ fairly conventional realism, lies adark and troubling political subconscious. In Cwmardy andWeLive, theworkers have nochoice but to stay true to the aspirations of their class, and those who deviate from theUnion line are likely to be punished.Will Smallbear is forced to join the Federation, andthe response to his question ‘do the federashon mean that workman have got to fightagainst workman?’ is ‘Yes, when a few stubborn workmen go against what is good forthe majority’.54 There is no room for individualism in this world, and in fact no room foranyone who fails to espouse the Federation’s ideals. The shopkeeper ‘Evans Cardi’ is amiddle class character whose son, Ron, turns his back on his family, renounces hisChristian faith, and joins the Communist Party. In a stomach churning scene EvansCardi responds by taking a razor to his wife’s neck before proceeding to hang himself.55

If poverty is largely responsible for his suicide, there is also the suggestionthat the petit-bourgeoisie’s time is running out. And indeed there is little future for anycharacter who leaves the confines of the working class community. Towards thebeginning of Cwmardy, Jane, the sister of the main character Len, embarks on arelationship with Evan, the son of the mine’s overman. She becomes pregnant, butthere’s no future for this product of two classes for mother and child die duringchildbirth. This incident sparks Len’s sense of injustice and fires his desire to become aCommunist leader who ultimately loses his life fighting Franco’s fascist soldiers inSpain. Jane’s death is made particularly harrowing by the closeness of her relationshipwith Len, which borders on incest. Len snuggles up to his sister’s body in early scenes,


and following her death he suffers a surrealist nightmare in which ‘Len’s heart thrilled.He laughed happily and pressed the face of his sister to his lips. The short stiff hair onit hurt him. He looked again and found he had been kissing Evan the Overman’s son’.56

In a discussion of nationalism in literature the critic Marc Shell draws attention to theubiquity of incest as a theme. The fear of contamination and of mixing blood lineswhich can be seen to lie within the nationalist unconsciousness manifests itself innarratives of incest within novels which purport to depict the ‘national family’.57

Keeping things in the family is a sure way of keeping the blood line pure. Itseems to me that Shell’s analysis can be adapted for narratives of class. Lewis Jones’sCwmardy is not haunted by a fear of national contamination, but of the contaminationand weakening of a class. The concept of class has become an identity, functioningsimilarly to national identity; it must be protected and kept pure. Class consciousnessis transformed into class identity. In Cwmardy and We Live, Lewis Jones seemsunconsciously to have exposed the factorswithinCommunist ideologywhich led to theatrocities of Stalin and Pol Pot. The ideal of a classless world can be transformed easilyinto an ideal of a world that requires the destruction of other classes. The goal ceasesto be the assimilation of all into a classless utopia, but the elimination of those of otherclasses. At its worst, the fusion of class and identity leads to a situation where there’sno real difference between ethnic cleansing and class cleansing. I would not wish toargue that Communism inevitably leads to such atrocities, anymore than Iwould arguethat nationalism inevitably leads to ethnic cleansing. But the historical record suggeststhat Robeson’s desired fusion of class and identity is problematic.

So where does that leave us? The tendency in mainstream contemporary politicaldiscourse is to think of class and identity as categories that belong to the past. We’vemoved beyond the divisive politics of class and the exclusionary politics of identity inthe slick, civicWales of today. But the Brazilian thinker Roberto Unger suggests that thecontemporary Left should ‘not only respond to the universal aspiration of the ordinaryworking man and woman for more opportunity by which to raise him and herself up’,but should also ‘turn democratic polities, market economies and free civil societies intomachines for developing distinct and novel forms of life’.58 That is, the generalaspirations for social equality, and for a distinctive identity, should underpin anyprogressive movement on the Left today. In this respect Bevan and Robeson continueto speak to our moment. I would like to suggest in closing that Aneurin Bevan and PaulRobeson both took right steps, but in the wrong directions.59

Bevanwas right to separate his national identity from the politics of class. Buthe was wrong to then devalue the struggles for the continued existence of Welshdistinctiveness as manifested in the spheres of language and culture. Robeson wasright to place his people’s culture and their civil rights at the heart of his socialist vision,but was wrong to fuse ‘class’ with ‘identity’. Class and identity do not follow the samepolitical logic and it is therefore crucial, at a conceptual level, that they be kept apart.The challenge for the Left in Wales is therefore to fight two specific battlessimultaneously: Bevan’s battle for economic justice, and Robeson’s struggle for therights of minorities.


Conclusion References

1 Tribune, 15 August. Quoted in Michael Foot,Aneurin Bevan 1945-1960 (London: Davis-Poyntner, 1973) 608.

2 Western Mail, 4 August 1958, 6.3 Merthyr Express, Saturday, August 9, 1958, 6.4 Western Mail, 4 August 1958, 6.5 Merthyr Express, Saturday, August 9, 1958, 6.6 For a fascinating analysis of stuttering see

Marc Shell, Stutter (Cambridge MA; HarvardUniversity Press, 2005).

7 Merthyr Express, Saturday, August 9, 1958, 6.8 See the chapters by Gwenno Ffrancon and

myself in Daniel G. Williams ed. Canu Caeth:Y Cymry a’r Affro-Americaniaid (Llandysul:Gomer, 2010). Also my forthcomingTransatlantic Exchange: African Americans and theWelsh (University of Wales Press).

9 Dai Smith, Aneurin Bevan and theWorld of SouthWales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1993)10. See also Dai Smith, ‘In Place of Wales: ACoda’ inWales: A Question for History(Penybont: Seren, 1999) 191 – 205.

10 T.J. Davies, Paul Robeson (Abertawe:Christopher Davies, 1981) 194 – 95.My translation.

11 RaymondWilliams, ‘Community’ inWho Speaksfor Wales: Nation, Culture, Identity, ed. DanielWilliams (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,2003) 27 – 33.

12 Gwynfor Evans, Aros Mae (Abertawe: GwasgJohn Penry, 1971) 296. My translation.

13 Angharad Tomos, Hiraeth am Yfory: DavidThomas a Mudiad Llafur Gogledd Cymru(Llandysul: Gomer, 2002) 240.

14 The most convincing accounts of Bevan’sattitudes are to be found in Gwyn Jenkins,‘Keeping up with the Macs; The DevolutionDebate of 1957-9’, Planet: TheWelshInternationalist 82 (August / Septemebr 1990)

84 – 89, and the same author’s Prif WeinidogAnswyddogol Cymru: Cofiant Huw T. Edwards(Talybont: Y Lolfa, 2007) chapters 7 and 8.

15 R.Merfyn Jones and Ioan Rhys Jones, ‘Labour andtheNation’ in D. Tanner, C.Williams aD. Hopkineds, The Labour Party inWales (Cardiff: UniversityofWales Press, 2000) 258. Robert Griffiths, ‘TheOther Aneurin Bevan’ in Janet Davies ed.,CompassPoints: The First 100 Issues of Planet (Cardiff:University ofWales Press, 1993) 127 – 132.

16 R. Merfyn Jones and Ioan Rhys Jones, 258.17 Saunders Lewis, Cerddi, ed. R. Geraint Gruffydd

(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992), p. 10.Translated by Gwyn Thomas in Jones andThomas, eds. Presenting Saunders Lewis (Cardiff:University of Wales Press, 1973) 177. SaundersLewis a Kate Roberts, Annwyl Kate, AnnwylSaunders, ed. Dafydd Ifans (Aberystwyth:National Library of Wales, 1992)16.

18 Alun Ffred Jones, Y CyfryngauWedi’r Cynulliad(Talybont: Lolfa, 1999) 16. My translation.

19 See the series of volumes edited by Hywel TeifiEdwards, Cyfres y Cymoedd (Gomer).

20 Dai Smith, Aneurin Bevan and theWorld of SouthWales, 258.

21 Ibid. 18922 Ibid. 19723 Merthyr Express, Saturday, August 9, 1958, 6.24 Aneurin Bevan, ‘The Claim ofWales: A

Statement’. First published in Tribune. Re-printedinWales: The National Magazine, Vol VII: No. 25(Spring, 1947) 151 – 153.

25 Quoted by Harri Webb in ‘Against Imperialism’,No Half Way House, ed. Meic Stephens(Talybont: Y Lolfa, 1997) 98.

26 Ibid. 98. Thanks to Nicholas Jones for thisreference. See his article ‘Supercharging theStruggle: Models of Nationalist Victory in thePoetry of Harri Webb’,WelshWriting in English:

A Yearbook of Critical Essays. Ed. Tony Brown.Vol. 9 (2004) 102 – 122.

27 Quoted by Dai Smith,Wales! Wales? (London:George Allen and Unwin, 1984) 132.

28 Karl Marx, ‘The British Rule in India’, in Marxand Engels , Basic Writings on Politics andPhilosophy, ed. Lewis Feuer (Garden City, NY:Anchor Books, 1959) 480.

29 Michael Foot,Aneurin Bevan 1945 – 1960, 394 - 6.30 Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson: A Biography

(1988. New York: New Press, 1989) 228.31 Marie Seton, Paul Robeson (London : Dobson,

1958) 121.32 Robeson, ‘The People of America are the Power’

(1951), Paul Robeson Speaks, ed., Philip S. Foner(London: Quartet Books, 1978) 271.

33 ‘Robeson and Bevan Get BigWelcome’,Western Mail, 4th August 1958.

34 Charles L. Blockson, ‘Paul Robeson: A Bibliophilein Spite of Himself’, in J. C. Stewart ed., PaulRobeson: Artist and Citizen (New Brunswick:Rutgers University Press, 1998) 235 – 250.

35 Paul Robeson, Here I Stand (1958. Boston,Beacon Press, 1988) 36.

36 Paul Robeson, ‘How I Discovered Africa’ (1953),Paul Robeson Speaks, 352. Also Here I Stand, 36.

37 Programme for concert held at the MajesticCinema, Wrexham, Sunday March 25, 1934.Copy in the Paul Robeson Collection at theMiners Library, University of Wales Swansea.

38 Robeson, Here I Stand, 54.39 Robeson, ‘Robeson Spurns Music He Doesn’t

Understand’ (1933), Paul Robeson Speaks, 85.40 Robeson, ‘I Want to be African’ (1934), Paul

Robeson Speaks, 90.41 Robeson, ‘Pacifica Radio Interview’ (1958), Paul

Robeson Speaks, 453. It seems that Robeson isfollowing the common, if unfortunate, practiceof referring to Britain as England.

42 Kate Baldwin, Beyond the Color Line and the IronCurtain (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)211.

43 Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking Recognition’, New Left

Review II, 3 (May / June 2000) 107 – 120.44 RaymondWilliams, ‘Culture and Revolution: a

response’ in Terry Eagleton a BrianWicker (eds)From Culture to Revolution (London: Sheed andWard, 1968) 308.

45 See Daniel Williams, ‘Cymdeithas a Chenedlyng Ngwaith RaymondWilliams’, Taliesin 97(Gwanwyn 1997) 55 – 76.

46 RaymondWilliams,Who Speaks for Wales, 4.47 RaymondWilliams, Towards 2000 (London:

Chatto andWindus, 1983).48 I’m returning here to a question that I discussed

with Ned Thomas a Dai Smith in ‘The Exchange:RaymondWilliams’, Planet: TheWelshInternationalist (Summer 2009) 45 – 66.

49 My thinking here is influenced byWalter BennMichaels, ‘Plots Against America: Neoliberalismand Antiracism’, American Literary History 18.2(2006) 288 – 302.

50 RichardWyn Jones, Rhoi Cymru’n Gyntaf:Syniadaeth Plaid Cymru (Caerdydd: GwasgPrifysgol Cymru, 2007) 87.

51 Quoted in T. Robin Chapman, Un Bywyd o BlithNifer: Cofiant Saunders Lewis (Llandysul: Gomer,2006) 275.

52 Simon Brooks, Yr Hawl i Oroesi: YsgrifauGwleidyddol a Diwylliannol (Llanrwst: GwasgCarreg Gwalch, 2009) 117.

53 Ibid. 118.54 Lewis Jones, Cwmardy (1937) andWe Live

(1939) reprinted as one volume in The Libraryof Wales, Cwmardy andWe Live (Aberteifi:Parthian, 2005) 297.

55 Lewis Jones,We Live, 617 – 620.56 Jones, Cwmardy, 82.57 Marc Shell, Children of the Earth: Literature,

Politics and Nationhood (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1993) 4.

58 Roberto Mangabeira Unger, The Left Alternative(London: Verso, 2005) 51.

59 For ‘right steps in the wrong direction’ see SlavojŽižek’s discussion of Heidegger in In Defense ofLost Causes (London: Verso, 2008) 95 – 153.

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Aneurin Bevan and Paul Robeson: Socialism, Class and Identity