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Red Sky at Night

Andy Croft and Adrian Mitchell (eds), Red Sky at night: an Anthology of British Socialist Poetry, Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications, 2003, ppviii & 324, Ł9.99 pb. ISBN 0-907123-49-X.

The close relationship between English poetry and socialism can be traced back at least as far as 1794, when Blake published Songs of Experience and Coleridge and Southey founded the Pantisocracy movement, looking forward to the day when:

… each heart
Self-governed, the vast family of Love
Raised from common earth by common toil
Enjoy the equal produce.

It has continued ever since. The Pre-Raphaelite William Michael Rossetti published sonnets praising the French socialists of 1848 and the Paris Commune; Rupert Brooke was an active Fabian propagandist; and Clement Attlee wrote sonnets in the trenches at Gallipoli.

This anthology, after a small selection to represent the years from 1794 to 1914, concentrates on the twentieth century. The opening section is the least satisfying. Poems are included by writers who were not socialists, such as John Clare, Dickens and Wilfred Owen, and important poets such as the christian socialist Charles Kingsley, Francis Adams and Edward Carpenter — who made Whitman a major influence on English socialist verse — are omitted. Shelley, who is included, is a borderline case. His aim was 'the levelling of inordinate wealth and agrarian distribution' rather than common ownership, but his influence on socialist poets has been such that it would be pedantic to omit him.

As well as old favourites by Sassoon and Owen, the socialist reaction to the First World War is represented by some poems which deserve to be better known, such as Ivor Gurney's 'To the Prussians of England' and W N Ewer's satires. The 1920s are dominated by the miners' struggles and the General Strike, on which the miner poets Joe Corrie and Idris Davies supply a bitter commentary. Sassoon's 'The case for the miners' reminds us that he did not reserve his indignant pity for the men in the trenches.

Socialism in the early 1930s was fashionable among the intellectuals — with results that were sometimes embarrassing, as in Rex Warner's 'Hymn'. Yet the period also produced socialist poetry that spoke with a genuine eloquence, such as Hugh MacDiarmid's 'Second hymn to Lenin'. The Spanish Civil War, which inspired an amazing outburst of poetry, is represented here by poems by Edgell Rickword, George Barker, John Cornford and Nancy Cunard. The editors must have found selection difficult, for Auden, MacNeice, Day Lewis, Spender, Herbert Read, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Kathleen Raine and several less-known poets wrote with equal power on this theme. Socialists made a notable contribution to the poetry of the Second World War, notably in the poems of Hamish Henderson and Randall Swingler, whose dedication to the defeat of fascism gave their work an extra intensity. There is a consciousness too of national identity, of the war against fascism as the climax of the British people's centuries-long struggle for justice, in Jack Lindsay's 'The voice of the wheat' and Maurice Carpenter's 'The ballad of John Nameless'.

That climax seems to have been reached in 1945, with fascism smashed, a Labour government in power in Britain and coalitions dominated by left-wing parties in most European countries. Disillusion soon set in, as Hiroshima marked the beginning of Washington's drive for world domination and the Cold War began. The left was ejected from power in Western Europe; the 'people's democracies' degenerated into stalinist dictatorships; intellectual freedom was threatened by McCarthyism in the West and Zhdanovism and in Eastern Europe; the imperialist states attempted to reconquer their former colonies; and British troops were sent to fight Washington's war in Korea. It is not surprising that the post-war verse of socialist poets such as Alex Comfort, Christopher Logue and Roger McGough is permeated with a bitter irony.

The last half-century has brought socialists little comfort. The American drive remorselessly continues, with Britain playing the inglorious role of the Italy of the new Axis. With New Labour's repudiation of socialism and the collapse of the Communist Party, British socialism is almost back to what it was a century ago, a host of tiny warring sects. And yet, as this book reminds us, there is still room for hope. Poets have written in support of many causes, the defence of which forms an integral part of socialism. James Berry, Carol Ann Duffy and Benjamin Zephaniah have spoken out against the omnipotence of money in our society. Adrian Mitchell, Bob Dixon and E P Thompson have borne witness against the USA's record of aggression and intervention, whether in Vietnam, Chile or Grenada. James Kirkup has reminded us that nuclear war still remains a threat. Edwin Morgan and Gillian Allnutt have unveiled the shame of our cities, their slums and their ugliness. Norman Nicholson, Douglas Dunn, Carol Rumens, Mogg Williams and Tony Harrison have condemned the murder of our industries. Alison Fell and Jean Binta Breeze have spoken for women; Andrew Salkey, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Chris Searle and Carol Ann Duffy for the black community; and Evangeline Paterson for the victims of anti-semitism. There are other causes not represented in this selection on which socialist poets have written, such as the environment, on which Jack Beeching has spoken eloquently. The struggle against war, against unemployment, against pollution, against sexism and against racism must ultimately merge in a single struggle for socialism.

Socialism is dead, we're told, but then they said the same thing after the defeat of the 1848 revolutions. There are some poems whose absence in this collection I regret, such as Herbert Read's 'Song for the Spanish Anarchists', A L Morton's 'So I Became …' and Edgell Rickword's 'Human Rights Year 1974' — which seem to me to contain the very essence of socialism. Even without them, this anthology offers a rich feast. Whether you want a commentary on the history of the twentieth century, a definition of what socialism really is or an assurance that it is very far from dead, buy this book.