The Seventies

In the 1970s, Morton’s publications slowed down but did continue steadily. This chapter looks at how he was increasingly distant from the growing tensions in the CPGBCommunist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) while lecturing regularly in Eastern Europe. It looks at the different ways he was now thinking about the nature of socialism and the role of the Soviet UnionSoviet Union. Nevertheless, there were some public interventions, including a defence of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariatDictatorship of the proletariat. Morton’s publications reveal a rethinking of the timescale for a socialist transformation, whether in Britain or the development within socialism in socialist countries. Through his work on William Morris, Morton suggested that the transformation from within socialism to communism would take much longer than he expected as a younger man and would be fraught with further difficulties. Other developments in Morton’s thinking include a new emphasis on ecological concerns in human progress (with a particular hostility towards the development of roads) and an increased interest in women’s history.