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Cambridge University Labour Club
The Cambridge University Labour Club (CULC), formerly known as Cambridge Universities Labour Club, is a student political society, first founded as the Cambridge University Fabian Society, intended to provide a voice for the British Labour Party at the University of Cambridge. Serving as the largest student Labour society in Britain, it has gained recognition as an active campaigning force in the labour movement. Its fellow political societies are the Cambridge University Liberal Association and the Cambridge University Conservative Association.
In recent years, the club has hosted a number of high-profile figures including former leaders Ed Miliband, Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown, as well as former Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford. Other speakers have included Angela Eagle, Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears, David Miliband, Margaret Hodge, Ed Balls, John Prescott, Tristram Hunt, Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, Iain McNicol, David Lammy, Hilary Benn, Axelle Lemaire and Ken Livingstone.
CULC has gone through several name changes. The society it began as an offshoot of was founded as the Cambridge University Fabian Society in 1900, and then changed its name in June 1915 to Cambridge University Socialist Society (which retained a separate Fabian Society within it), dedicated to "complete political and industrial democracy... [and] supersession of the capitalist system". It then changed its name to Cambridge University Labour Club in the late 1910s, before reverting to being the C.U. Socialist Society at the end of the decade.
Between 1918 and 1920 CUSS was the only society in which socialists could meet. Through study circles, investigations, speakers, and joint action with the Cambridge Labour Party, CUSS sought 'the realisation of complete political and industrial democracy' and 'the supersession of the capitalist system by a co-operative commonwealth' using common ownership if land and industry. Its key concerns were the Labour Party programme, the land question, the Russian Revolution, German socialism, syndicalism, and American socialism. It continued to debate with the local party and invited such speakers as G. D. H. Cole, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, and J. C. Squire.
Most importantly, CUSS was pacifist. Affiliated to the No-Conscription Fellowship, it vehemently opposed military training in schools. But such activity was dangerous. On 7 March 1919 a meeting was broken up and three members were forced to stand on a table and sing the national anthem before being dunked in the river by a group of veterans. Maurice Dobb, the socialist economist, would experience the same treatment, and in 1922 CULC would be forced to relocate its premises due to its landlord's fear of attacks. A proposed meeting with the local party in March 1919 had to be cancelled as a crowd of hostile demonstrators occupied the Friends' Meeting House and began to sing. The result was that the university's Liberals and Conservatives refused to co-operate with their socialist counterparts throughout the 1920s.
The national rise of the Labour Party seems to have provoked undergraduates to create their own Labour Club at the end of the 1910s. This was partly motivated by 'a considerable number of the present associates, who were not satisfied with the extremism' of CUSS and by a decline in the attendance and frequency of meetings, perhaps owing to the widespread intimidation of socialists.
On 14 April 1920 CULC was duly formed. As a direct result members of CUSS resolved to become a study circle within the Labour Club. To maintain its distinctive identity Maurice Dobb proposed that CUSS 'should hold meetings with speakers too "red" for the Labour Club, but, by some strange jugglery, under Labour Club auspices – particularly financial auspices'. It certainly retained a more radical position than most CULC members, remaining committed to 'common ownership', 'workers' control', and building a 'revolutionary working-class movement'. Of all the 'red' speakers it invited, the most prominent was Leonid Krasin of the USSR, the People's Commissar of Foreign Trade, who could not attend in 1922 owing to the Geneva Conference. Nonetheless, they were addressed by Hugh Dalton on foreign policy, Harold Laski, Dobb, and Russell.
But with no meetings held at all between November 1923 and January 1925, it seems that the reasons for the formation of CULC had resonated with University socialists. Indeed, on 8 May 1925 Dobb proposed that CUSS be organised as a society which supported the Labour Research Department, or perhaps trained teachers for the Plebs League or the Labour Colleges, or worked with local minority movements: as 'a body doing definite work', it might then retain some popularity and relevance.
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Cambridge University Labour Club
The Cambridge University Labour Club (CULC), formerly known as Cambridge Universities Labour Club, is a student political society, first founded as the Cambridge University Fabian Society, intended to provide a voice for the British Labour Party at the University of Cambridge. Serving as the largest student Labour society in Britain, it has gained recognition as an active campaigning force in the labour movement. Its fellow political societies are the Cambridge University Liberal Association and the Cambridge University Conservative Association.
In recent years, the club has hosted a number of high-profile figures including former leaders Ed Miliband, Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown, as well as former Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford. Other speakers have included Angela Eagle, Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears, David Miliband, Margaret Hodge, Ed Balls, John Prescott, Tristram Hunt, Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, Iain McNicol, David Lammy, Hilary Benn, Axelle Lemaire and Ken Livingstone.
CULC has gone through several name changes. The society it began as an offshoot of was founded as the Cambridge University Fabian Society in 1900, and then changed its name in June 1915 to Cambridge University Socialist Society (which retained a separate Fabian Society within it), dedicated to "complete political and industrial democracy... [and] supersession of the capitalist system". It then changed its name to Cambridge University Labour Club in the late 1910s, before reverting to being the C.U. Socialist Society at the end of the decade.
Between 1918 and 1920 CUSS was the only society in which socialists could meet. Through study circles, investigations, speakers, and joint action with the Cambridge Labour Party, CUSS sought 'the realisation of complete political and industrial democracy' and 'the supersession of the capitalist system by a co-operative commonwealth' using common ownership if land and industry. Its key concerns were the Labour Party programme, the land question, the Russian Revolution, German socialism, syndicalism, and American socialism. It continued to debate with the local party and invited such speakers as G. D. H. Cole, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, and J. C. Squire.
Most importantly, CUSS was pacifist. Affiliated to the No-Conscription Fellowship, it vehemently opposed military training in schools. But such activity was dangerous. On 7 March 1919 a meeting was broken up and three members were forced to stand on a table and sing the national anthem before being dunked in the river by a group of veterans. Maurice Dobb, the socialist economist, would experience the same treatment, and in 1922 CULC would be forced to relocate its premises due to its landlord's fear of attacks. A proposed meeting with the local party in March 1919 had to be cancelled as a crowd of hostile demonstrators occupied the Friends' Meeting House and began to sing. The result was that the university's Liberals and Conservatives refused to co-operate with their socialist counterparts throughout the 1920s.
The national rise of the Labour Party seems to have provoked undergraduates to create their own Labour Club at the end of the 1910s. This was partly motivated by 'a considerable number of the present associates, who were not satisfied with the extremism' of CUSS and by a decline in the attendance and frequency of meetings, perhaps owing to the widespread intimidation of socialists.
On 14 April 1920 CULC was duly formed. As a direct result members of CUSS resolved to become a study circle within the Labour Club. To maintain its distinctive identity Maurice Dobb proposed that CUSS 'should hold meetings with speakers too "red" for the Labour Club, but, by some strange jugglery, under Labour Club auspices – particularly financial auspices'. It certainly retained a more radical position than most CULC members, remaining committed to 'common ownership', 'workers' control', and building a 'revolutionary working-class movement'. Of all the 'red' speakers it invited, the most prominent was Leonid Krasin of the USSR, the People's Commissar of Foreign Trade, who could not attend in 1922 owing to the Geneva Conference. Nonetheless, they were addressed by Hugh Dalton on foreign policy, Harold Laski, Dobb, and Russell.
But with no meetings held at all between November 1923 and January 1925, it seems that the reasons for the formation of CULC had resonated with University socialists. Indeed, on 8 May 1925 Dobb proposed that CUSS be organised as a society which supported the Labour Research Department, or perhaps trained teachers for the Plebs League or the Labour Colleges, or worked with local minority movements: as 'a body doing definite work', it might then retain some popularity and relevance.