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Central Books:
A Brief History

Dave Cope, Central Books: A Brief History, 1939 to 1999, Central Books, London, 1999, ISBN 07 147 32907, pp80. (Available at Ł5.99, post-free, from: Dave Cope, 7 Hambledon House, Cricketfield Road, London E5 8NT)

Spreading the good word by selling polemical literature has been a fascinating part of our history. In the seventeenth century, the ideas of the English Revolution were exchanged in pamphlets and, in much later years, the literature seller with a tray of material slung round his neck was a familiar feature of the propaganda scene in the early days of the socialist movement.

The Communist Party of Great Britain, which had been formed in 1920, struggled to maintain its propaganda distribution within the party organisation. But in 1939 it decided to set up Central Books as its retail and wholesale outlet. The aim was to "persuade the people of Britain, by the power of the written word, to join the cause of world revolution" (p5). Dave Cope correctly points out that the project was totally unsuccessful.

But what he has not understood is the important part that the distribution of literature played in the life of the Communist Party. In both factory and local branches, it was the literature seller who went to the bookshop to collect supplies and exchange gossip and then did the 'round' passing on valuable information, selling stamps for the party card and establishing a rapport based on shared ideals and ideas. In the early chapters, Dave Cope manages to capture the comradeship and determination within Central Books, but he fails to follow that along its trajectory into the life of the party. Histories too often reflect life at national level and rarely penetrate into the lower regions where life often looked very different. A chapter on Central Books' relationship with local bookshops and literature sellers would have been useful.

As an aspiring seller married to an addict, who once sold a hundred copies of an issue of Marxism Today, I know how much the distribution of literature contributed to the influence that the Communist Party maintained over so many years. It might be called the superglue that held the party together. After 1991 the Communist Party split and Democratic Left, which Dave which commendable honesty points out "did not see itself as a political party" (p68), became involved in developing Central Books as a viable business. The changes made both reflected and influence the political scene.

Central Books has managed to survive in the face of world-wide difficulties in both publishing and distribution. The company has consolidated and expanded mainly by handling an ever-increasing number of journals representing a broad political spectrum. It has survived and is there — if the politics of the day ever needs it. But the forum for the exchange of ideas is becoming less through the printed word and increasingly through the internet.

Dave Cope is a skilled writer who has compiled a readable history of an important aspect of political life in the twentieth century. Aged activists like myself will recognise their past as in a mirror, and will find it compulsive reading. Hopefully younger people will read it and learn from our mistakes.