In this highly-acclaimed study, the author uncovers the often-neglected history of a particularly fascinating generation of British Marxists. During this period, the self-taught worker intellectuals, of whom the most famous and colourful was T.A. Jackson, were the driving force behind British Marxism. The Labour Colleges played a major role in the development of Marxist ideas before academic Marxism established its current position in the universities.The role of these autodidacts was crucial in the fierce controversies of the inter-war labour movement, and Stuart Macintyre restores to their rightful place in British labour and intellectual history a remarkable group of working-class activists and thinkers.