Imperialism and the Labour Aristocracy in Britain

This article examines the relationship between the development of the labour aristocracy and Lenin’s theory of imperialism, and the impact of both on the political fissure in the European labour movement in the early years of the 20th century. However, given that the labour aristocracy developed much earlier in Britain, the connection between imperialism and the split in socialism is not as clear-cut as it was in other European imperialist countries. The article analyses the composition of the labour aristocracy, accounts for its development in the mid-19th century, and considers the relevance of Lenin’s theory in the British context.