Metadata: Ralph Miliband Archive
Collection
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- The University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries
- Holding institution (official language):
- The University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries
- Postal address:
- The Brotherton Library, Woodhouse Ln, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9JT
- Phone number:
- 0113 343 5518
- Reference number:
- MS 1712
- Title:
- Ralph Miliband Archive
- Title (official language):
- Ralph Miliband Archive
- Creator/accumulator:
- Ralph Miliband
- Date(s):
- 1940/2002
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 10 cubic metres (30 boxes)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The archive consists of the following: Original manuscript and typescript papers by Miliband (1940-1994), correspondence (1942-1994), documents held by Miliband (1940-1994), published articles by Miliband (1953-1994), news cuttings on various subjects collected by Miliband (1967-1980s), correspondence of Marion Kozak after Miliband’s death (1994-2000), and documents relating to Miliband collected by Marion Kozak after his death (1948-1997).
The series are as follows:
1. Early years [EY] - material from the 1940s and 1950s relating to Miliband’s school and university years (5 files)
2. Harold J. Laski [LA] - papers, correspondence and other material relating to Miliband’s lecturer and friend, 1940s-1993 (4 files)
3. Navy [NA] - Navy and post-war correspondence, 1942-1950 (5 files)
4. Diaries [DI] - pocket diaries of Miliband, 1944-1994 (7 files)
5. Books [BO] - material relating to books written by Miliband, including original drafts and notes in manuscript and typescript, correspondence, reviews, contracts, and news cuttings, 1960-1994 (41 files)
6. Socialist Register [SR], 1964-1995 (45 files)
7. Published papers [PP] - some of Miliband’s articles, essays, chapters in books, reviews, talks, and conference papers, together with related research material in manuscript and typescript, 1953-1994 (27 files)
8. Correspondence [CO], 1942-1994 (50 files)
9. Publishing correspondence [PC], 1966-1996 (15 files)
10. Council of Academic Freedom and Democracy [AF], 1970-1986 (10 files)
11. Marxism [MA] - material relating to Marxism (incl. Marx House lectures), Centre for Marxist Education, Little Red School, Red Green Study Group and the Institute of Radical Studies, 1965-1993 (18 files)
12. Academic Teaching [AT], 1957-1994 (37 files)
13. Tony Benn [TB], 1985-1992 (2 files)
14. Marcel Liebman [ML], 1961-1987 (4 files)
15. The Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize [ID], 1964-1993 (5 files)
16. Socialist Society [SS], 1981-1988 (11 files)
17. Labour Party [LP], 1963-1985 (10 files)
18. Lipman Trust [LT], 1981-1993 (28 files)
19. Conference material [CM], 1968-1997 (8 files)
20. Politics and the United States [US], 1980s (3 files)
21. News cuttings [NC], 1950s-1980s, 5 boxes
22. Ralph Miliband [RM] - material about Ralph Miliband, and Marion Kozak’s correspondence about him after his death, 1948-2000 (15 files)
The listing of the collection is generally at file level: in all series each file is numbered, and the contents of each file are described (thus e.g. EY/1, SR/5, CO/3 each refer to individual files). However, there is box-level listing only (although this is very detailed in many cases) for series 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22.
- Archival history:
- The papers were the gift of Professor Miliband's widow, Marion Kozak, on 11 April 2003.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Ralph Miliband, a notable political theorist, Marxist and socialist, was born in Brussels of Polish Jewish parents in 1924. By the time he was 15, he was a member of the radical-socialist Jewish youth organisation Hashomer Hatzair and had already read the Communist Manifesto. Yet in retrospect he thought he had not been particularly politically conscious in his youth. In May 1940, when he was 16, Miliband fled Brussels with his father to England, as Hitler’s army was invading Belgium. In England he changed his name from Adolphe to Ralph. He continued his education in London and was admitted to the London School of Economics in 1941. Between June 1943 and January 1946 Miliband did war service in the Royal Navy. In 1947 he graduated with first-class honours from the Department of Government at the LSE. In 1949 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Political Science at the LSE. He obtained a doctorate for a thesis entitled "Popular thought in the French Revolution, 1789-1794” from the University of London in 1956. Miliband subsequently became a Senior Lecturer at the LSE and continued teaching there until 1972. During his teaching career he mainly taught modern political thought, social and political theory and a graduate course in political sociology. In 1972 he was appointed Professor of Politics and Head of the Department of Politics at the University of Leeds, a position which he kept until 1978, although for the academic session 1977-1978 he worked as a Visiting Professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. After leaving the University of Leeds, he lectured at Brandeis University during autumn semesters and continued to do research in London for the rest of the year. He also gave several guest lectures at universities in Europe and North America. During his own studies at the LSE, Miliband had been immensely influenced by Harold Laski, whom he regarded as "a great teacher of politics”. As a teacher Miliband expected serious work and debate from his students, was known to be "an absolutely brilliant orator” and his lectures were always exceptionally popular.
After 1956, following the publication of The Reasoner within the British Communist Party by Edward Thompson and John Saville, Miliband became directly involved in the British New Left movement. In Thompson and Saville he found true political allies with whom to advance the socialist project. In 1964 Miliband and Saville founded the Socialist Register, an annual collection of important scholarly articles in socialism (an offshoot of the New Left Review). He continued editing the Register with Saville, and for the final ten years with Leo Panitch, for 30 years until his death in 1994. The criterion for articles included in the Register, as he sets out in a letter to John Saville (SR/7), was "interest, excellence of argument, and the degree to which an essay pushes things forward”. His first book Parliamentary Socialism (1961), a strong critique of the Labour Party with a historical account since 1900, proved enormously influential. His other major works include The State in Capitalist Society (1969), Marxism and Politics (1977), Capitalist Democracy in Britain (1982), Class Power and State Power (1983), Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (1989) and Socialism for a Sceptical Age (1994). Miliband’s contributions to Marxist scholarship can be summed up as one of the tributes at his death described him as "the leading Marxist political scientist in the English-speaking world”. He incorporated other approaches to his Marxist theorisation to make it accessible to non-Marxist intellectual community. In 1961 Miliband married Marion Kozak and they had two sons, David and Edward.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Ralph Miliband
- System of arrangement:
- The original document files (some of which include markings on them about their contents) and the order of the papers within files have been retained. However, since there appeared to be no cohesive order to the files within the boxes, they have been subsequently rearranged by Library staff. The order is thematic and chronological, making up 22 series that reflect either the form of the record (e.g. correspondence) or the activities to which they relate (e.g. Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize).
- Access, restrictions:
- Some parts of this collection may be restricted due to copyright or data protection laws.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries
- Author of the description:
- Holly Addie, University of Leeds Cultural Collections & Galleries, 2025
