SOURCE: "Reputations: Harold Laski Today," in Political Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 3, July-September, 1996, pp. 228-38.

In the following essay, Newman offers a late twentieth-century analysis of Laski's ideas and works.

Harold Laski (1893-1950) was perhaps the best-known socialist intellectual of his era. As a prolific writer, inspiring teacher, intimate friend of leading political figures and prominent member of the Labour Party National Executive, his influence was felt in the United States, India and mainland Europe as well as in Britain. However, he was always a controversial figure; having achieved notoriety as the bête noire of the right during the 1945 general election campaign, his reputation declined, and after his death his personal integrity was impugned and his thought attacked. It is probably now accepted that much of the vilification was a product of the Cold War and based on a misrepresentation of his views. Yet despite the partial rehabilitation of...