Our historian Pete reflects on the passage of time and the possibility of radical progress in 2023

And so, another year comes to a close. 2022 becomes 2023.

New Year’s Eve always seems to me a good time to think about… time.

A lot of radical politics hinges on time: how we understand it, how we experience it, how we feel it. Does time ‘progress’, or does it revolve like the calendar, from December back to January?

“Revolution” – that great radical pastime – used to simply refer to the rotating movement of celestial bodies. It wasn’t until the 1688 ‘Glorious Revolution’ in England that its contemporary political meaning was really established.

But it’s fair to say that history – radical or not – does have a tendency to revolve, repeat, and turn back on itself.

Despairing about politics? Need some optimism in your life? Then this tea towel is just the thing for you!

Click to view our Raymond Williams tea towel

Take the English Civil War: launched against a Stuart king called Charles, it ended with the restoration of another Stuart king called Charles…

And Oswald Mosley’s fascists may have been smashed at Cable Street in 1936, but then came the National Front and their ilk just a few decades later.

So what about progress? Are we doomed to repeat ourselves, or do these apparent cycles stop us seeing the wood for the trees?

In 1936, Oswald Mosley's thugs were fought off by anti-fascists in East London - celebrated in this fantastic design, on sale now

Click to view our Battle of Cable Street tea towel

The great radical Raymond Williams once said:

‘To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.’

And maybe, averaged out, there is an upward line through history – something we can all be hopeful about.

After all, it’s hard not to be inspired when you think about the great successes of 20th century radicalism.

Like the international fight for women’s suffrage, spearheaded in the UK by the NUWSS and the WSPU.

Or, at the other end of the century, the anti-apartheid struggle which forced the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 – the beginning of the end for the last white supremacist regime in Africa.

On sale now: our Nelson Mandela tea towel celebrating South Africa's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully democratic election

Click to view our Nelson Mandela tea towel

Marx and Engels' theory of history was all about progress, and the inevitable defeat of capitalist exploitation.

Even in difficult times like ours, with pandemics, climate collapse, and cost of living crises, radical history can still be made. 

Nowhere was this clearer than in the anti-fascism of the 1930s and 1940s.

Think of the Warsaw Ghetto Rebels of 1943, rising up for freedom and life despite almost certain defeat. Or the heroic students of the White Rose Movement, who risked their lives to fight the tyranny of Nazism.

Run by a group of students from the University of Munich, the White Rose offers an inspiring example of resistance

Click to view our White Rose tea towel

Whatever our thoughts on time’s trajectory, there’s always something we can learn from radical history - always an example from the past to make hope possible.

And we’ve got plenty of radical anniversaries to celebrate along the way.

November 2023 marks 250 years since Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt was born – the leader of the Peterloo rally.

April marks the sixtieth anniversary of the anti-racist Bristol Bus Boycott. And June is 110 years since the death of Emily Davison, who gave her life in the campaign for women’s suffrage.

For now, Happy New Year. We’ll see you in 2023!

And remember, radical history never stops. It’s the best show in town: past, present, and future.

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