Breaking The Fetters

COMING SOON! A post on how George Fletcher planned to turn Sheffield communist through the citywide distribution of breadcakes and cream puffs. Or something. Will also include Bob Stewart and secret stashes of Moscow gold!

🎼 Libraries gave us power…🎵🎶

The Death of V.I. Lenin. Lenin speaking in Petrograd 1917 Today is the 98th anniversary of Lenin’s death. At that time, Bob Stewart was in the Soviet Union working as a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. I…

It’s the anniversary of Lenin’s death and 102 years ago my great grandfather accompanied his body back to Moscow as part of a Comintern delegation, Here’s his account of the funeral.

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Discovered this week that my great grandfather met Deng Xiaoping as well as Mao Zedong on his 1955 visit to China. I can only echo my brother’s reaction. In writing his biography you long for him to meet someone ace but it’s a parade of bastards for the most part.

Another pledge broken.

Happy St Andrew’s Day Comrades! I found the following document – a celebration of Scottish history through a communist lens, in Bob Stewart’s files at the National Archives. Been waiting for an occasion to share it an…

Happy St Andrew’s Day Comrades! Enjoy this 1930s celebration of all things Scottish from the CPGB that I found in Bob Stewart’s MI5 files.

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Redrafting a piece about my great grandfather Bob Stewart's connection to the Cambridge Five and realising that this short description of Guy Burgess is actually a description of James Bond.

It’s Not My War. Bob Stewart: Conscientious Objector. For Remembrance Sunday here’s something I wrote about Bob Stewart’s experiences as a conscientious objector during the First World War. On the day w…

It’s Not My War. For Remembrance Sunday I wrote about my great grandfather Bob Stewart’s experiences as a conscientious objector in the First World War.

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The Mamdani style text but the words are 'Kieth for Genocide'

Has anyone done this one yet?

Still writing the bloody thing but at least I’ve got the cover sorted.

Blue background, Zohran Mamdani font in yellow - Neither Washington Nor Moscow But International Socialism.

Having a closer look at Anthony Blunt’s MI5 files. Here he’s telling Peter Wright of Spycatcher fame that my great grandfather Bob Stewart knew the identities of Blunt, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess as Lizzie Philby passed their secrets on to him in the 1940s.

This Land Is Your Land: “After you’ve stopped the boats; after you’ve deported your neighbours; after you’ve waged war on woke, shrunk the state even further and redesigned the economy in the mould of Javier Milei what happens when people realise their lives are still shit?”

This Land Is Your Land. (Night Off). Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and Breakfast With Friedrich Engels. David Rawlings and Gillian Welch at Manchester 02 Apollo. Picture shamelessly nicked from The Guardian. I hadn’t realised quite ho…

Here I ramble on about Caerphilly, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Woody Guthrie and Friedrich Engels. This Land Is Your Land.

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Breaking the Fetters Chapter 16: The Caerphilly By-election. Election Poster 1921. This was the first parliamentary election ever to be contested by the British Communist Party. The decision to contest was taken by the Party Executive on July 16th 1921. The …

Wondered why I was getting so many views on my communist family history blog. Getting a lot more traffic than usual due to the Caerphilly By Election. Here’s Bob Stewart’s account of being the first communist Parliamentary candidate in 1921.
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Looking forward to reading this. Claude McKay attended the same Communist Unity Conference in 1920 that my ancestor Bob Stewart did. Found this out after one of McKay’s poems was included in the GCSE syllabus. Can anyone pick him out of this photo?

Oh man. Diane Keaton. Yes - the first two Godfather movies. But, come on, her performance as Louise Bryant in Reds is formidable and in a just world everyone would recognise this.

NEW POST! Wartime Scrapbook (Marxist-Leninist).

Bob Stewart, Yvonne Kapp AND Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton!

Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards. When we started this project on our great grandfather Bob Stewart, my brother and I both agreed that we thought there was much to admire about the man but also much to criticize. Although I’ve trie…

NEW POST! ‘Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards’ in which I write about my great grandad Bob Stewart attempting but failing to do the right thing in the wake of Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939.

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Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards. When we started this project on our great grandfather Bob Stewart, my brother and I both agreed that we thought there was much to admire about the man but also much to criticize. Although I’ve trie…

NEW POST! ‘Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards’ in which I write about my great grandad Bob Stewart attempting but failing to do the right thing in the wake of Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939.
breakingthefetters.com/2025/10/02/h...

Books: ‘The Romance of American Communism’ by Vivian Gornick. “The idea that market crashes can act as catalysts for revolutionary change has a long history on the far left, most notably in the Bolshevik theory that hyperinflation, by destroying the value of …

Recommended Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism to someone last week. Just had a look at a piece I wrote on it a while back. Still quite pleased with it. Includes a gratuitous reference to Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile.

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Ridiculously pleased with the title of my forthcoming piece about how the Communist Party of Great Britain responded to Stalin’s pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. Ashamed to say great grandad Bob Stewart did not exactly cover himself with glory here.

William Stewart and the National Unemployed March to London, 1929. The 1929 National Unemployed March from Glasgow to London arriving at Hyde Park. Frankly, the 1920s do not seem very different to our own times. Huge inequality, increasing poverty and a government…

More Tom Mann action in this post about our grandad Bill Stewart.

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Comrades: Tom Mann Tom Mann addressing the crowds at Trafalgar Square. Possibly at the Sacco and Vanzetti protest in 1927. Few members of the public might recognise the name Tom Mann these days but, even though he di…

This post on Tom Mann I did a while back is getting a lot of views this last month so thought I’d give it a boost.

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And thanks from this account to @mauricejcasey.com and @worsted.bsky.social for their help! X

Bob Stewart, Ho Chi Minh and the Tattered Red Flag of the Communards. L-R: Bob Stewart, Unknown, Nikolai Antipov, Grigory Zinoviev, Kliment Voroshilov, Ho Chi Minh, Unknown. Partially visible behind L-R: Avel Yenukidze. One of the benefits of researching a distinctiv…

Finally written something new. This has everything!

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Bob Stewart, Ho Chi Minh and the Tattered Red Flag of the Communards. L-R: Bob Stewart, Unknown, Nikolai Antipov, Grigory Zinoviev, Kliment Voroshilov, Ho Chi Minh, Unknown. Partially visible behind L-R: Avel Yenukidze. One of the benefits of researching a distinctiv…

NEW POST- Investigating the picture of my great grandfather Bob Stewart, Grigory Zinoviev and Ho Chi Minh. The Tattered Red Flag of the Communards. Hope and despair!
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