Skip to main content
Leninism lives! And so does MacDonaldism…
ANDREW MURRAY turns an eye to one hundred years ago, when, as Lenin died, the first Labour leadership entered government in Britain
The President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, W.T Cosgrave, The British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Sir James Craig at Chequers

AS LENIN left the world, Ramsay MacDonald entered Downing Street. The first workers’ state lost its leader, and Britain gained its first Labour government on the same day, a century gone Sunday last.

One could write the story of the 20th-century workers’ movement through that moment. A comrade sent me a picture of hundreds of workers standing in silent homage at the news of Lenin’s passing. In Poplar.

Ramsay MacDonald’s memorial was the ruin of the movement he had built, its dreams traded in for the friendship of Lady Londonderry and the applause of the bankers — the “greatest betrayal in the political history of the country,” in Clem Attlee’s words.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
BROAD PLURALIST APPROACH: Adopted by nearly all the left parties in Europe including France Insoumise / Pic: France Insoumise/flickr/CC
Features / 25 April 2026
25 April 2026

JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe

unequal
Books / 9 April 2026
9 April 2026

MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale

John Wheatley. Photo: wellcomeimages.org/CC
Features / 22 November 2025
22 November 2025

Building is the solution for much of our housing crisis – and will also help to address poverty, ill health, and even anti-social behaviour and alienation, writes KENNY MacASKILL

Jeremy Corbyn (second left) and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South (second right) on the picket line outside London Euston train station, August 18, 2022
Features / 20 August 2025
20 August 2025

Corbyn and Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ represents the first attempt at mass socialist organisation since the CPGB’s formation in 1921, argues DYLAN MURPHY