Born to campaign: The Life Story of Rita Weiss 1921-2011
Edited and with an afterword by Claire Weiss
Manifesto, £11.95

AFTER a decade of austerity, with continuing attacks on working people, the need for inspiration seems greater than ever. And Born to campaign offers Morning Star readers precisely this.

The book tells the inspiring story of a working-class activist, told in her own words, edited with loving care by her daughter-in-law, Claire Weiss.

Rita Weiss started life as Rita Hodas, the eldest in a second-generation family of Jewish immigrant garment trade workers.

Like so many in her community, she became politicised in the 1930s, when Oswald Mosley’s fascist gangs were marauding the streets of east London.

Weiss joined the Young Communist League (YCL), enthusiastically participating in political activities including education classes, which she described as her “university.”

During the war, her husband and fellow political activist, Manny, was called up. Meanwhile Rita was evacuated with her young daughter, leading the struggle for a workplace nursery while working as a tool setter at Widney’s tank factory.

Her memoirs recount her activities at the time, as a skilled worker, local campaigner and international activist, part of the Communist Party’s campaign for a second front to support the USSR’s struggles against Hitler on the eastern front.

Subsequently Weiss returned to London, despite the blitz, staying in London until Manny rejoined her after the end of the war.

She continued to be very active politically — although she had three small children by this time — and she began to widen her horizons through international travel, starting with the World Youth Festival in Romania in 1953.

This commitment to internationalism continued throughout her life; she travelled widely, as well as having a particular commitment to solidarity with Cuba which she visited on no less than 10 occasions.

Weiss had also developed her co-operative and creative life back in Britain, in the post-war period, becoming a teacher through her involvement with co-operative movement children’s groups.

Embroidery became her passion. The book includes illustrations of her work as well as photographs of Rita herself and her family, over the years.

As her daughter-in-law, Claire, explains in the second part of the book, Rita’s life continued to be incredibly active, right through to her death in 2011.

Fundraising was her speciality, drawing on her expertise in crafts and textiles to raise money for the Daily Worker/ Morning Star (where she had worked for some time previously) and the Marx Memorial Library, as well as collecting goods and shipping them to beat the blockade of socialist Cuba.

She was convinced of the importance of culture more generally, and the contributions that cultural activities can make to the advancement of the working class.

The story of Rita Weiss’s indomitable life exemplifies the history of progressive struggles over the past 100 years or so.

Her personal memoirs are interwoven with these wider stories. This is an inspiring book, celebrating an amazing life — an excellent gift for Morning Star readers for the festive season.