Origins of the present crisis?: the emergence of 'left-wing' Scottish nationalism, 1956-81

Scothorne, R. and Gibbs, E. (2017) Origins of the present crisis?: the emergence of 'left-wing' Scottish nationalism, 1956-81. In: Smith, E. and Worley, M. (eds.) Waiting for the Revolution: The British Far Left from 1956. Manchester University Press: Manchester, pp. 163-181. ISBN 9781526113658 (doi: 10.7228/manchester/9781526113658.003.0010)

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Abstract

The current state of the radical left and, more broadly, politics in Scotland has its roots in the unique set of political, economic and intellectual conditions found in the 1960s and 1970s. Where mainstream accounts of the origins and development of Scottish nationalism - and its increasing popularity on the left - emphasise political and economic origins in these decades, this chapter emphasises the equally crucial intellectual developments of the period. Khruschev’s ‘secret speech’, ‘de-Stalinization’ and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 engendered a growing plurality of perspectives on the European left, and it was under these new conditions that the British left increasingly questioned Stalinist orthodoxies, and established critiques of labourism and the ‘British Road to Socialism’. The search for alternatives to the classical Marxist, social democratic and Soviet canons led to a new theoretical heterodoxy, bringing Gramscian and world-systems theories to the fore along with a more politically ambiguous conception of the ‘national question’. This chapter integrates an analysis of the intellectual development of left-wing Scottish nationalism with a consideration of the growth of its influence within the labour movement during the 1960s and 1970s.

Item Type:Book Sections
Status:Published
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Gibbs, Dr Ewan
Authors: Scothorne, R., and Gibbs, E.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Economic and Social History
Publisher:Manchester University Press
ISBN:9781526113658

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