E P Thompson’s notes on Alasdair Macintyre’s car
The philosopher Alasdair Macintyre died a few days ago aged 96.
His life represented a considerable political journey from the Communist Party in the early 1950s, to the Healyite Socialist Labour League after 1956 and then the International Socialists in the 1960s. From the late 1960s he left the left and embraced Catholicism, while still retaining something of a framework of Marxist ideas.
He had an engagement with the first New Left in the late 1950s and 1960s. His Notes from the Moral Wilderness remains an importance piece, published in a journal edited by the socialist historians E P Thompson and John Saville. He also wrote a chapter, Breaking the Chains of Reason, in a volume that Thompson edited, Out of Apathy (1960). Thompson’s own writing in the book aimed to set an agenda for the new left- and the New Left Review, first published in 1960. It also suggested some of the ideas and theoretical thinking behind his landmark book The Making of the English Working Class (1963).
I extract below a few lines from the Guardian’s obituary of Macintyre. It’s an interesting anecdote, although its unclear what its source is. Thompson’s papers are locked up at the Bodleian Library until some time in the 2030s.
We do know however that Thompson was an enthusiastic note and letter writer (often of a robust nature- a new biography of Christopher Hill reports him complaining that Thompson sent him the rudest note he had ever received).
Thompson continued to hold Macintyre’s views in high regard quoting directly from him in his Open Letter to Leszek Kolakowski (1973)
Even before the Hungarian uprising of 1956, he had left the Communist party, subsequently joining the Socialist Labour League, a Trotskyist group led by the notorious Gerry Healy. He was in frequent debate with the Marxist historian EP Thompson, who used to stick notes on the windscreen of MacIntyre’s car urging him to publish his thoughts on socialist consciousness.
Guardian Obit
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/25/alasdair-macintyre-obituary?CMP=share_btn_url
Notes from the Moral Wilderness, Reasoner, Spring 1959
Notes from the Moral Wilderness—II – Amiel Melburne Trust Archive
Alex Callinicos
I love your blog, kmflett, & I have dipped into it repeatedly over the years. Thank you for writing it. I was struck by the anecdote in the obituary of MacIntyre. I wonder what on Thompson’s notes might have said?
You mention, in passing, Christopher Hill’s complaint that Thompson wrote him the rudest letter he ever recieved. Would you be able to quote that section of the biography? What was the exchange that gave rise to the rude letter from Thompson, & what did Thompson say about Hill?
Thank you, again,
Gabriel WARD
I’ll have a look when time allows but from memory Thompson’s letter was about Hill’s failure to remove himself from the Communist Party after 1956 & associate with the first new left (which Hill eventually did or he would never have been appointed Master of Balloil