It’s been a long time coming. Studies of Communist Party history in Britain have been published on a substantial scale over recent decades. Four volumes of “official history” by party members James Klugmann and Nora Branson took the story from before the foundation of the party in 1920 up to 1951.

These were informative if somewhat orthodox accounts, written by historians in a position to reveal more but who chose to present the facts and defend them against the party’s right-wing and far-left detractors.

Books by John Callaghan and Geoff Andrews were presented by their publishers as a continuation of the series. Unfortunately, however, the former tried too hard amidst a welter of useful information to portray a tired party in inexorable decline, either wrong or thwarted sooner or later at almost every turn.

The less said about Andrews’ one-sided apologia for the destructive impact of Eurocommunist revisionism, the better. He has composed a semi-fictional odyssey which ends with Odysseus slaying Penelope in a mercy killing.