Left Book Club

Left Book Club
Company type	Non-profit organisation
Industry	Publishing
Founded	1936
Founder	Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz, John Strachey
Defunct	1948
Fate	Dissolved due to wartime restrictions and declining membership; revived in 2015
Successor	Left Book Club (revived)
Headquarters	United Kingdom
Area served	United Kingdom
Key people	Victor Gollancz, Stafford Cripps, John Strachey, Harold Laski
Products	Books, political newsletters
Number of employees	Not specified
Website	leftbookclub.co.uk

The Left Book Club was a British publishing collective with a pronounced leftist orientation, operating from 1936 until 1948. It was revived in 2015 by Jan Woolf and Neil Faulkner in partnership with Pluto Press. Initially, the club provided members with a monthly book selection, accompanied by a widely circulated political newsletter and an annual gathering. Membership numbers soared to 57,000 before declining due to the 1939 Soviet-Nazi non-aggression agreement and wartime restrictions on paper, ultimately leading to its dissolution in 1948.

Early achievements and structure

Established in May 1936 by Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz, and John Strachey, the Left Book Club sought to rejuvenate and educate Britain's left-wing factions, advocating for global peace and resistance against fascism. Although it set out to attract just 2,500 members, it rapidly expanded to 40,000 within its first year and reached a peak of 57,000 by 1939. As one of the pioneering book clubs in the United Kingdom, it significantly influenced the country's book market.

According to historian Michael Newman, despite the club’s pro-Communist leanings from 1936 to 1939, its educational efforts in socialism probably bolstered the Labour Party, aiding its electoral success after World War II.

Each month, members received a book curated by Gollancz and his advisory group—including Harold Laski and John Strachey—who often engaged in one of approximately 1,500 discussion groups across the nation. The club’s publications were notable for their bright orange paperback covers (1936–1938) or red hardback editions (1938–1948), all stamped with "NOT FOR SALE TO THE PUBLIC" and priced at 2s 6d. Many works were exclusive to members and spanned genres such as history, science, journalism, and fiction, all reflecting a left-wing viewpoint.

In reaction to this influence, Christina Foyle launched the Right Book Club in 1937 to provide Conservative and classical Liberal literature as a counterbalance. Other contemporaneous politically oriented book clubs included the Liberal Book Club and the pacifist Peace Book Club.

1936–1939: Popular Front period

Prior to the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact of 1939, the Left Book Club frequently published writers connected with or sympathetic to the Communist Party of Great Britain, often presenting the Soviet Union and its policies in a favorable light.

World Revolution: 1917–1936 by C. L. R. James offered a Trotskyist critique of the club’s portrayal of Soviet affairs during this era. Meanwhile, Gollancz—himself affiliated with the Labour Party—kept an official distance from campaigns that conflicted with party positions.

As an editor committed to interventionism, Gollancz published Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, but prefaced it with an introduction disavowing its criticism of middle-class socialists’ grasp of working-class realities. He later issued a revised edition omitting the second half of the book that he found objectionable.

The Left Book Club inaugurated its annual rally in February 1937—a tradition that continued into the late 1940s. The largest gathering occurred in April 1939 at Empress Stadium, Earls Court, attracting thousands. Speakers included Liberal leader and former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Sir Stafford Cripps (recently expelled from Labour for his Popular Front advocacy), Labour dissident Ellen Wilkinson, and CPGB leader Harry Pollitt.

1940–1948: Conflict and Consequences

By the beginning of 1940, Gollancz had severed ties with the Communist Party, a development detailed in Betrayal of the Left (1941). Following this split, the club adopted a more diverse approach to author selection.

Although the Book Club enjoyed significant membership and widespread appeal, it remained a financial burden, a situation exacerbated by wartime restrictions on paper which limited publications to a single title each month. To broaden its offerings, Gollancz introduced the "Victory Books" series—concise monographs aimed at the general public—including two notable bestsellers: Guilty Men (1940) authored by "Cato" (Michael Foot, Frank Owen, Peter Howard) and Your M.P. (1944) by "Gracchus" (Tom Wintringham).

In addition to its book publications, the LBC issued a monthly newsletter that evolved from Left Book News into Left News, becoming an influential periodical featuring in-depth editorials by Gollancz on global, political, and societal issues.

1936–1939

H. Gannes and T. Repard (1936) Spain in Revolt

Stafford Cripps (1936) The Struggle for Peace
André Malraux (1936) Days of Contempt
Philip Noel-Baker (1936) The Private Manufacture of Armaments
Rudolf Olden (1936) Hitler the Pawn
Gaetano Salvemini (1936) Under the Axe of Fascism
John Strachey (1936) The Theory and Practice of Socialism
C. R. Attlee (1937) The Labour Party In Perspective
Robert A. Brady (1937) The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism
G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole (1937) The Condition of Britain
G. D. H. Cole (1937) The People's Front
Dudley Collard (1937) Soviet Justice and the Trial of Radek and Others (a defense of early Moscow Trials)
Arthur Koestler (1937) Spanish Testament
Clifford Odets (1937) Waiting for Lefty
George Orwell (1937) The Road to Wigan Pier
Pat Sloan (1937) Soviet Democracy (commendation of 1936 Soviet Constitution)
Edgar Snow (1937) Red Star Over China
Stephen Spender (1937) Forward from Liberalism
John Strachey (1937) The Coming Struggle for Power
R. H. Tawney (1937) The Acquisitive Society
Sidney & Beatrice Webb (1937) Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation
J. B. S. Haldane (1938) A. R. P. [Air Raid Precautions]
Frederick Elwyn Jones (1938) The Battle for Peace
Agnes Smedley (1938) China Fights Back: An American Woman with the Eighth Route Army
John Strachey (1938) What Are We to Do?
John Strachey (1938) Why You Should Be a Socialist
Konni Zilliacus (Vigilantes, 1938) Why the League [of Nations] Has Failed
Lord Addison (Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison, 1939) A Policy for British Agriculture
Leonard Barnes (1939) Empire or Democracy?
J. R. Campbell (communist, 1939) Soviet Policy and its Critics (supporting Popular Front, critiquing Trotsky)
G. D. H. Cole (1939) War Aims
G. E. R. Gedye (1939) Fallen Bastions: The Central European Tragedy
Jürgen Kuczynski (1939) The Condition of the Workers in Great Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union 1932–1938
Hewlett Johnson (1939) The Socialist Sixth of the World
Stephen Swingler (1939) An Outline of Political Thought Since the French Revolution
Konni Zilliacus (Vigilantes, 1939) Why We Are Losing the Peace: The National Government's Foreign Policy: Causes, Consequences and Cure
Ellen Wilkinson (1939) The Town That Was Murdered: The Life Story of Jarrow

1940–1948

Monte Hilda (1942). The Unity of Europe.
{{cite book year 1947 first Arthur last Keppel-Jones authorlink Arthur Keppel-Jones title When Smuts Goes }}

Influence

Together with the Fabian Society and Transport House, the LBC's advocacy for socialist principles played a crucial role in shaping the Labour Party's triumph in the 1945 general election.

Numerous members of the club actively supported initiatives such as guaranteed employment, publicly funded healthcare, urban development, and social justice. Eight authors associated with Gollancz joined the incoming Labour administration, including Lord Addison, Attlee, Bevan, Philip Noel-Baker, Shinwell, Strachey, as well as Cripps and Wilkinson. Additionally, six others served as Members of Parliament (Maurice Edelman, Michael Foot, Elwyn Jones, J. P. W. Mallalieu, Stephen Swingler, and Konni Zilliacus). According to Victor Gollancz's biographer, his impact on this landmark election was unparalleled. Nonetheless, Clement Attlee chose not to offer Gollancz a peerage in the House of Lords, concerned he might prove disruptive.

The Left Book Club was accused of being under Soviet financial and ideological sway, as reflected in its unwillingness to publish Trotskyist critiques of the USSR and Gollancz’s refusal even to read George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.

The club’s achievements sparked similar initiatives throughout the political landscape of the UK.

Historian A. J. P. Taylor noted that the membership predominantly consisted of educators, with Labour leadership frustrated that it drew middle-class readers toward communist literature instead of party enrollment. Taylor also described some book choices as unconventional but rejected claims that the club was subversive, portraying members as expressing their dissent through literature.

The left-leaning Nagani Book Club in British Burma (1937) was inspired by the Left Book Club model.

Relaunch

In 2015, the Left Book Club was revived as a non-profit organisation aimed at fostering left-wing discourse. Its inaugural release was Kevin Ovenden’s Syriza: Inside the Labyrinth. Initially issuing four titles annually in partnership with Pluto Press, by October 2018 it had increased output to one book per month through collaborations with various publishers. Supported by subscriptions and voluntary donations, an editorial committee curates works offering critical perspectives on leftist politics, economics, society, and culture for a wide readership. Members receive exclusive LBC editions and frequently establish reading groups to facilitate discussion.

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, endorsed this revival, emphasizing its significance in advancing political transformation and informed dialogue. He cited a personal connection through a collection of LBC books inherited from his parents and expressed his strong backing for the effort.

Bibliography

Edwards, Ruth Dudley. Victor Gollancz: a biography. Gollancz. 1987.
Laity, Paul (editor). The Left Book Club Anthology. Gollancz. 2001.
Lewis, John. The Left Book Club: an historical record. Gollancz. 1970.
Neavill, Gordon Barrick. "Victor Gollancz and the Left Book Club," Library Quarterly 41 (July 1971): 197–215.
Samuels, Stuart. "The Left Book Club," Journal of Contemporary History 1#2 (1966): 65–86.

External links