In 1940 MI5 faced the spectre that the Home Guard might become the vanguard of socialist revolution. The Communist Party was giving mixed messages as to whether it should despise or infiltrate the Home Guard and the most famous Home Guard School, at Osterley Park, was organised by Marxist veterans of the Spanish Civil War.  

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The threat was an illusion but it has passed into the mythology of the Home Guard. The complicated relationship of the Home Guard to the Communist Party (CPGB)  and International Brigade Association (IBA) was discussed in Chapter 8 of To The Last Man.

 

A short essay on the topic - Revolutionary Socialism and the Home Guard - is included here as a PDF.

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