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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. breakingthefetters.com/2022/01/21/t...

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! Enjoy this 1930s celebration of all things Scottish from the CPGB that I found in Bob Stewart’s MI5 files. breakingthefetters.com/2023/11/30/h...

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. For Remembrance Sunday I wrote about my great grandfather Bob Stewart’s experiences as a conscientious objector in the First World War. breakingthefetters.com/2025/11/09/i...

Has anyone done this one yet?

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

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?”

Here I ramble on about Caerphilly, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Woody Guthrie and Friedrich Engels. This Land Is Your Land. breakingthefetters.com/2025/10/28/t...

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. breakingthefetters.com/2022/12/14/b...

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!

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...

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...

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. breakingthefetters.com/2022/07/28/b...

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.

More Tom Mann action in this post about our grandad Bill Stewart. breakingthefetters.com/2022/06/13/b...

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. breakingthefetters.com/2022/06/27/c...

Finally written something new. This has everything! breakingthefetters.com/2025/09/05/b...

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! breakingthefetters.com/2025/09/05/b...

NEW POST INCOMING! Been a while…

Repost with a group you’d love to hang out with.

#OtD 22 Aug 1893 Dorothy Parker, US writer and victim of Hollywood blacklisting, was born. Radicalised by the executions of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, she later founded the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and helped Spanish civil war orphans. stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9447...

Every time you submit a large application for research funding the university should send a team to spring clean your house imo.

Comrade ‘Robin’ is very much missed.

Any historians of communism or espionage out there willing to hazard a guess as to why Bob Stewart of the CPGB made several journeys to France (Boulogne & Dieppe then to in all likelihood on to Paris) during the first eight months of 1939? MI5 were very interested. As am I.

I don’t think I’d describe myself as a writer but I do have one writing tip for anyone whose topic is Britain in the 30s & 40s: The British Film Institute and Pathe newsreels on YouTube are your friends.

Go for it. I don't even care any more.

I came across a tranche of images of Ho Chi Minh in 1920s Moscow and spotted a familiar Scot

Bob Stewart, Grigory Zinoviev, Ho Chi Minh and others. Moscow 1924. If anyone can help identify the others I’d be eternally grateful. Picture courtesy of @mauricejcasey.com

“Everything You Get Must Be Fought For.” - Bob Stewart. Translation: If you don’t ask you don’t get. Took a punt on something today and 99.9% certain it won’t come off but keep everything crossed and wish me every Success(ion).

My great grandfather Bob Stewart pictured in The Daily Mirror being taken to jail for sedition in 1920. He’d said some bad things about the army and the police. Apparently now we arrest people for holding up placards opposing genocide. He got six months. They could get 14 years.

A very long shot but do any Dundee folk know anything about an E Douglas who was a communist, probably a tailor and who lived at 29 Strathmartine Road, Dundee in 1936?

"The terror brought reflected shame on the party, even at the time. Spain offered it reflected glory." Andrew Thorpe - 'The British Communist Party and Moscow 1920-43.'

Top lad.

Redrafting the 1930s chapter of the Bob Stewart book & sorting out the timeline. All these people were friends, colleagues & acquaintances and all this happened prior to his son in law being arrested and his daughter and grandson having to escape Moscow.

Happy Father’s Day. Here’s something I wrote a while back in memory of my dad. It traces the times he was mentioned In surveillance reports as MI5 kept tabs on his father Bill and his grandfather Bob Stewart’s movements. Love you dad x breakingthefetters.com/2023/01/19/c...

Bob Stewart in the Daily Worker report on the 1926 party CPGB Congress. At the time he was Acting General Secretary of the Party because everyone else was in prison…

World Goth Day selfie. An ex goth maybe but always anti-fascist. *T-shirt translation if it wasn't obvious - The Sisters of Mercy Against Nazis.

Does anyone know if there’s an archive of Workers’ Weekly - the CPGB newspaper from the 1920s? Trying to check whether an article Bob Stewart wrote about Ireland in 1925 appeared there before being printed in the US Daily Worker.

Had this t-shirt made and it’s just arrived. Might wear it to The Pogues ‘Rum, Sodomy and the Lash’ gig tonight.

Help me out comrades!