The Politics of Arthur Ransome


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Posted by Duncan on August 09, 2005 at 15:49:39 from 195.93.21.2 user Duncan.

I am responding to an earlier message really - but thought I'd turn it into a new thread...

The Politics of Arthur Ransome - a fascinating subject but one which it would be terribly difficult for one writer to turn into a book because there is so much disagreement about it. I was rather surprised to find that - after a break from the board - I have not returned to a great debate about the upcoming 'Secret Life' documentary, and what the researchers may or may not have found in the Moscow archives to lead them to their apparent conclusions.

I have always felt that it was pretty clear that Ransome was some sort of socialist, although the sort of socialist he was varied from time to time. He was also, paradoxically, a cultural liberal in so far as that was his political and journalistic background. It is quite clear from his own writings that his radical liberal/nascent socialist, utopian politics was kept nicely bubbling in a radical liberal/nascent socialist Bohemian society in which he was a whole-hearted member and chronicler before travelling to Russia. Part of the appeal of Russia must have been the thoughts and words of Kropotkin and how they sparked the imagination of the child Ransome. Therefore a sort of libertarian/agrarian socialism is clearly at play over a long period of time. Many people might admire Morris' work, but few but socialists would own 'News from Nowhere' (Ransome owned it). In late Victorian/Edwardian England it was a statement indeed to buy a copy of the Clarion, more still to subscribe to it, as Ransome did. I agree with much of what Paul Foot had to say about Ransome in Russia, but I think he is wrong to say it was quite an apolitical man who set off there - it was quite an idealistic socialist who went there.

There is then a debate as to precisely his attitude to the revolution and the bolsheviks. Personally I find Ransome's own account of his political activities more-or-less the most convincing and don't believe he was ever a spy for either 'side'. Indeed one must remember that during the 'crucial' period of Ransome's dabbling in Russian politics, Britian and Russia were not sworn enemies, and Ransome quickly chose to end his dabbling once the wars of intervention really got underway, preferring to campaign for an end to intervention from a decent distance.

We know from various other accounts of Ransome's politics - even in quite late life - that he remained an anti-imperialist (see his position re: Nato and China in the '50s). I also think there are several clues to his politics of the left in his other writing, but it's never very popular for me to bring them up! I think they reside in those 'life principles' that others have discussed in previous threads, but also in semi-allegorical form in other places.

Duncan




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