'Has left wing tendencies but might be used with caution': J. B. Priestley and the British Secret State

Abstract

It is no secret that J. B. Priestley often attracted public controversy for his radical political views. A man of the left, he proudly described himself as being 'pink, and a pleasant healthy colour it is too'.1 Consequently, across his life he lent his name to myriad political societies and causes, and was a driving force behind the founding of organisations such as the socialist Common Wealth party during the Second World War and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the late 1950s. Equally, although emphatically never a communist, and indeed critical of many in the intelligentsia who supported Stalin, Priestley displayed a willingness to engage with the Soviet Union that often rubbed against the political grain, such as travelling as a sponsored guest to the Soviet Union in 1945, and sending An Inspector Calls to Moscow for its première when a venue could not be found in London.