Introduction: The far left in Britain from 1956 - Evan Smith and Matthew WorleyPART I: Movements1. Engaging with Trotsky: the influence of Trotskyism in Britain - John Callaghan2. The New Left: beyond Stalinism and social democracy? - Paul Blackledge3. Narratives of radical lives: the roots of 1960s activism and the making of the British left - Celia Hughes4. Marching separately, seldom together: the political history of two principal trends in British Trotskyism, 1945-2009 - Phil Burton-Cartledge5. Opposition in slow motion: the CPGB's 'anti-revisionists' in the 1960s and 1970s 98 - Lawrence Parker6. Dissent from dissent: the 'Smith/Party' Group in the 1970s CPGB - Andrew Pearmain7. British anarchism in the era of Thatcherism - Rich CrossPART II: Issues8. Jam tomorrow? Socialist women and Women's Liberation, 1968-82: an oral history approach - Sue Bruley9. Something new under the sun: the revolutionary left and gay politics - Graham Willett10. 'Vicarious pleasure'? The British far left and the third world, 1956-79 - Ian Birchall11. Anti-racism and the socialist left, 1968-79 - Satnam Virdee12. Red Action - left-wing pariah: some observations regarding ideological apostasy and the discourse of proletarian resistance - Mark Hayes13. Anti-fascism in Britain, 1997-2012 - David RentonIndex

Against the grain is the first general history of the British far left to be published in the twenty-first century. Its contents cover a range of organisations beyond the Labour Party, bringing together leading experts on British left-wing politics to examine issues of class, race and gender from 1956 to the present day. The events of 1956 set in train a realignment of the British left and British politics more generally. The Soviet invasion of Hungary and Nikita Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’ denouncing the crimes of Stalin challenged the Communist Party’s predominant role to the left of Labour. Simultaneously, the Suez crisis and the early stirrings of the cultural shifts that came to prominence in the 1960s precipitated a change in Britain’s political and socio-cultural landscape. A New Left, a counter-culture and a peace movement emerged; identity politics began to challenge the traditional Marxist emphasis on class as the focal point of ‘struggle’. Given this, the essays collected here are designed to highlight the impact made by the far left on British politics and society. Though the predicted revolution did not come, organisations such as the International Socialists, the International Marxist Group and Militant became household names in the 1970s and 1980s. Taken as a whole, the collection demonstrates the extent to which the far left has weaved its influence into the political fabric of Britain.