Kingsley Martin 'Harold Laski' - Review

Harold Laski 1892-1950

This book is a most interesting biographical memoir of Harold Laski.

The author, Kingsley Martin, knew Laski well .Familiar as the name has always been, I would have been hard put to say just where he fitted into the post-WW1 Labour Party. It turns out that he was an academic all his life (mostly at LSE), who also wrote endless articles for left-wing papers. He was a frequent speaker on left-wing platforms and his Marxism did not prevent him being a member of Labour's National Executive.

The book is particularly good on the struggle that left-wingers had to find a way to break out of the poverty and lack of political influence of the working classes and trades unionism. Laski thought (non-violent) revolution was the only way.

For our generation it is fascinating to see how impossible it was for Laski and his colleagues to foresee that the masses would be tamed by turning them into mass-media watching consumers, who, at election time, would show scant interest in the issues of internationalism, justice and liberty that so occupied Laski.

Kingsley Martin 'Harold Laski'. Victor Gollancz 1. 1953.