A. L. Morton and the General Strike of 1926

This article examines the shift in the thought of A. L. Morton (1903–1987)—a leading intellectual in the Communist Party of Great Britain—before, during, and after the General Strike of 1926. Morton was a teacher in Steyning, Sussex, at the time of the strike and was involved with striking railworkers. Examining Morton’s activities before and after the strike, we see clearly a shift away from student and bohemian political circles as he now sought to become an intellectual embedded in class struggle and the labour movement. His appraisal of the role of the embedded Communist intellectual was central to the rest of his life’s work. Despite the relative scarcity of biographical material from this time, we can reasonably speculate that the General Strike marks a turning point, when Morton directly experienced theory in practice for the first time, and an important influence on his rapid development as a Communist thinker thereafter.