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Generating Socialism

Daniel Weinbren, Generating Socialism: Recollections of Life in the Labour Party, vi & 250pp., Sutton Publishing, 1997, Ł17.00 (hb); ISBN 0 7509 1193 X

Subjective accounts of any organisation's history are unfailingly illuminating and necessary. And parties of the people, such as the Labour and Communist parties, particularly lend themselves to such a form which enables the voices of its members to be heard. When those voices are represented collectively — and not just in single-authored autobiographies — then readers really can gain some sense of how being in that particular party in that particular time might have felt.

Generating Socialism is one such collective autobiography. As such it is the voices of eighty people — past and present members — mediated by Weinbren and his colleagues in the Labour Oral History Project. Contextualising recollections is a crucial part of editing oral history texts; memories do not usually stand alone. They require explanation. Dan Weinbren has done something very adept in mixing the genres of formal and subjective party histories by writing enviably succinct introductions to, and linking text in, each of the chapters in this book. His background reading goes far beyond the call of duty.

The chapters are thematic and include becoming involved in the party, youth, left culture, countering racism and fascism, cross-party links, party debates, the electoral victory of 1945 and achievements. Within the chapters, events are discussed in chronological order.

One of the great pleasures of cruising Generating Socialism is that it is so copiously illustrated, by personal snaps as well as more official photographs. The vivid impact they create suggests that perhaps this really should have been a TV documentary or CD-rom, because then the brief sound bites that we see on the pages here would have two extra elements added to them: the sound and image of the person speaking, and the contextualised or suggestive juxtaposition of cutaways showing us the demo in question, the rally that preceded the event being discussed etc.

This is my main problem of the book: many of the snips of recollection are far too short (less than three sentences) to be satisfying. And many such snippets are actually not laden with enough meaning to warrant a place. It leads me to wonder about the merits of a thematically organised collection of memories such as this over an anthology of short and unbroken autobiographies.

Generating Socialism has important lessons for those of us in the Communist Oral History Project in thinking about a book based on oral testimony. I have concentrated on form rather than content in this review because Dan Weinbren's book is the vanguard party history based on recollection. Because it is ground-breaking it provokes questions about how we can best use this form. For me, those questions include the following.

Firstly, given that such a volume aims to be — and maybe should be — popular and accessible, how far should we as editors go down the road in sacrificing our critical intelligence and avoiding offending some groups of readers/members? There is usually a gap between the highly - and specifically - educated oral historians/editors of collections of memories (we who know our Portelli and our Passerini, we who can discuss narrative tropes, Lejeune's autobiographical pact and Foucauldian absences on half a lager before breakfast squire) and the members who think they are simply there recounting a real experience. Given that, how can the editors come clean in print? Indeed, should they? Should the editors reveal in the book the eyes and ears with which they themselves received and processed the interview? This issue is important for all oral histories but particularly for socialist oral histories where the editors and story givers could be expected to share values, believe in mutual respect, and have an interest in presenting their party in a favourable light (for the benefit of future members as well as to assure themselves it is/was a good party).

Secondly, given that such a book is 'kind of by the people for the people', does that necessarily mean that the interviews in it have to not be as probing as, say, interviews by critical even hostile interviewers of more public figures? Should we ditch our Jeremy Paxman mode for the duration, if we're listening to old comrades? Should generalisations be accepted and reproduced, even if they are illuminating characteristic?

Thirdly, what weight should the contributor's own summaries of their whole life be given? Should the biographies of each story-giver be presented at the front, not the back of the book? While there are always tensions about the length of potted biographies of contributors in such books, it might be a mark of respect to make them longer than four to eight lines. And should they be put in a bigger, not a smaller, typeface than the body text of the book? As guides to the (almost) raw material in the book, I feel contributors' autobiographies matter more than the technical treatment in Generating Socialism suggests.

Fourthly, how much should the collection and editing process be explained in the book? The methodology of such a project can explain a lot about the finished product and personal modesty is not appropriate here. Science is, and it can be put into an appendix. I wanted to know much more than the one page at the start of this book.

Fifthly, how much should an editor insert testimony that is not well articulated enough to merit a place? How much does the need to include under-represented groups or topics justify the inclusion of poor quality material, and how does a socialist editor live with making value judgements which could be seen as elitist?

I esteem Generating Socialism and have learned a lot from it. It is an important landmark in labour history and in Labour Party history. It fills in many of the gaps in existing histories and will be invaluable for future historians who will never be able to meet the people born before the turn of the last century. Implicitly the book also states the importance of the Labour Oral History Project in collecting so many telling and lively memories of daily party life. It is both a book to browse in and a book to use as a research tool. I hope the author is invited to many meetings where he can articulate his reflective and critical intelligence as he speaks about the makings and content of the book.