Socialist Society

The Socialist Society was founded in 1981 by a group of British socialists, including Raymond Williams and Ralph Miliband, who founded it as an organisation devoted to socialist education and research, linking the left of the British Labour Party with socialists outside it. The Society grew out of the "New Left Review" (NLR) and many of its active members were involved in the NLR: Robin Blackburn, Tariq Ali, Michèle Barrett, Michael Rustin and Hilary Wainwright. [http://www.lipman-miliband.org.uk/RalphMilibandfullbiog.pdf] Other active and prominent members of the Society included Richard Kuper, John Palmer, John Williams and Barney Dickson. The Society published a magazine ("Interlink", later relaunched under the name of "Catalyst") and a series of pamphlets.

One of the Society's key goals was overcoming the division on the British Left between socialists inside and outside the Labour Party. To this end, the Society was jointly responsible, with the Conference of Socialist Economists, Tony Benn and the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, for the initiation of a series of conferences held in Chesterfield, Sheffield or Manchester between 1987 and 1992 and the subsequent founding of the Socialist Movement. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the Society also had some success in spreading its ideas: these included opposition to Euroscepticism, commitment to electoral reform and openness to green ideas, all of which were fairly controversial on the left at this stage. Several prominent figures involved in the society, including Miliband and Wainwright, were signatories to Charter88. Another organisational achievement of note was the founding of the Red-Green Network.

The Society's last AGM was in 1993.

ee also

*"Socialist Register"
*"Soundings"