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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · 5d

Bob Stewart, Yvonne Kapp AND Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton!

Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · 5d

A post about the unlikely friendship between great grandfather Comintern agent Bob Stewart & the bisexual, bohemian writer Yvonne Kapp. She called him ‘the finest human being I have ever known’ and dedicated a volume of her biography of Eleanor Marx to him.

breakingthefetters.com/2021/07/21/c...

Comrades: Yvonne Kapp

At the end of last year I was sorting through a large box of correspondence dating from the 1930s and onwards. In amongst them was a handful of letters addressed to Bill Stewart who was my grandfat…

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · 6d

NEW POST! ‘Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards’ in which I write about my great grandad Bob Stewart attempting but failing to do the right thing in the wake of Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939.

breakingthefetters.com/2025/10/02/h...

Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards.

When we started this project on our great grandfather Bob Stewart, my brother and I both agreed that we thought there was much to admire about the man but also much to criticize. Although I’ve trie…

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · 6d

NEW POST! ‘Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards’ in which I write about my great grandad Bob Stewart attempting but failing to do the right thing in the wake of Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939.
breakingthefetters.com/2025/10/02/h...

Harry Pollitt and the Chamber of Bastards.

When we started this project on our great grandfather Bob Stewart, my brother and I both agreed that we thought there was much to admire about the man but also much to criticize. Although I’ve trie…

breakingthefetters.com

Reposted by Breaking The Fetters

Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · 15d

Recommended Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism to someone last week. Just had a look at a piece I wrote on it a while back. Still quite pleased with it. Includes a gratuitous reference to Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile.

breakingthefetters.com/2022/07/28/b...

Books: ‘The Romance of American Communism’ by Vivian Gornick.

“The idea that market crashes can act as catalysts for revolutionary change has a long history on the far left, most notably in the Bolshevik theory that hyperinflation, by destroying the value of …

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · 18d

Ridiculously pleased with the title of my forthcoming piece about how the Communist Party of Great Britain responded to Stalin’s pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. Ashamed to say great grandad Bob Stewart did not exactly cover himself with glory here.

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · 23d

More Tom Mann action in this post about our grandad Bill Stewart.

breakingthefetters.com/2022/06/13/b...

William Stewart and the National Unemployed March to London, 1929.

The 1929 National Unemployed March from Glasgow to London arriving at Hyde Park. Frankly, the 1920s do not seem very different to our own times. Huge inequality, increasing poverty and a government…

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · 23d

This post on Tom Mann I did a while back is getting a lot of views this last month so thought I’d give it a boost.

breakingthefetters.com/2022/06/27/c...

Comrades: Tom Mann

Tom Mann addressing the crowds at Trafalgar Square. Possibly at the Sacco and Vanzetti protest in 1927. Few members of the public might recognise the name Tom Mann these days but, even though he di…

breakingthefetters.com

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Sep 5

And thanks from this account to @mauricejcasey.com and @worsted.bsky.social for their help! X

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Sep 5

Finally written something new. This has everything!

breakingthefetters.com/2025/09/05/b...

Bob Stewart, Ho Chi Minh and the Tattered Red Flag of the Communards.

L-R: Bob Stewart, Unknown, Nikolai Antipov, Grigory Zinoviev, Kliment Voroshilov, Ho Chi Minh, Unknown. Partially visible behind L-R: Avel Yenukidze. One of the benefits of researching a distinctiv…

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · Sep 5

NEW POST- Investigating the picture of my great grandfather Bob Stewart, Grigory Zinoviev and Ho Chi Minh. The Tattered Red Flag of the Communards. Hope and despair!
breakingthefetters.com/2025/09/05/b...

Bob Stewart, Ho Chi Minh and the Tattered Red Flag of the Communards.

L-R: Bob Stewart, Unknown, Nikolai Antipov, Grigory Zinoviev, Kliment Voroshilov, Ho Chi Minh, Unknown. Partially visible behind L-R: Avel Yenukidze. One of the benefits of researching a distinctiv…

breakingthefetters.com

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Sep 5

NEW POST INCOMING!
Been a while…

Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · Sep 5

Will be posting a blog about the events in this painting later on this afternoon. You can just about see my great grandfather in the distance on the middle platform.

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · Aug 25

Repost with a group you’d love to hang out with.

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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · Aug 22

#OtD 22 Aug 1893 Dorothy Parker, US writer and victim of Hollywood blacklisting, was born. Radicalised by the executions of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, she later founded the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and helped Spanish civil war orphans. stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9447...

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Ruth Holliday @ruthholliday.bsky.social · Aug 21

Every time you submit a large application for research funding the university should send a team to spring clean your house imo.

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 6

Comrade ‘Robin’ is very much missed.

Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · Aug 6

I share this one quite a lot but seeing as it would have been his birthday today here’s the times my father appears in MI5 files while they were keeping his dad (Bill) and grandfather (Bob Stewart) under surveillance for communist subversion.
breakingthefetters.com/2023/01/19/c...

Comrades: Michael Robin Stewart.

Michael Robin Stewart (1933-2018). Before it got dropped from the GCSE English Literature syllabus, I used love teaching ‘Before You Were Mine’ by Carol Ann Duffy. In the poem, Duffy describes a ph…

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · Aug 4

Any historians of communism or espionage out there willing to hazard a guess as to why Bob Stewart of the CPGB made several journeys to France (Boulogne & Dieppe then to in all likelihood on to Paris) during the first eight months of 1939? MI5 were very interested. As am I.

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Alan Stewart @laikaalan.bsky.social · Aug 3

I don’t think I’d describe myself as a writer but I do have one writing tip for anyone whose topic is Britain in the 30s & 40s: The British Film Institute and Pathe newsreels on YouTube are your friends.

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Woodrow Peel 🆗🆒 @woodyluvscoffee.bsky.social · Aug 2

Go for it. I don't even care any more.

Photo of a sketch of a Neanderthal. The headline reads:
Scientists Growing Neanderthal
'Minibrains', Will Connect Them to Crab Robots

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 2

‘We will give it back when we have carried it around the world.’ Extraordinary.

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 2

Read through the letters last night. Wonderful You’re right about his handwriting. The ‘Little Harry’ in the transcript should be Little Nannie- Bob’s ten year old daughter- my dad’s Aunt Nan. There’s more about her in Moscow and back in Scotland here.

breakingthefetters.com/2025/02/04/c...

Comrades: Annie ‘Nan’ Stewart.

L-R Bob, Annie and Margaret Stewart. Photograph probably taken in Moscow around 1924. Today’s post is about Bob Stewart’s youngest child, his daughter Annie who was my dad’s aunt.…

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 1

Brilliant- you’re a star.

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 1

Tom Mann was a good guess but don’t think it’s him- he’s looking a bit greyer in this picture with Bob in Faustovo 1924. Could be the other guy either a moustache though. No idea who he is.

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 1

Voroshilov according to Maurice Casey!

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 1

This is gold. Thank you! X

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Breaking The Fetters @breakingfetters.bsky.social · Aug 1

That’s amazing - I’ve got a letter and a signed photo from Mann to my grandad I’ll take a closer look!

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