A medical officer giving a lecture on plans for a post-war health service during an Army Bureau of Current Affairs course at the American University of BeirutDutch soldiers of the Princess Irene Brigade participate in an ABCA-moderated discussion in August 1943
The Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA) was an organisation within the British Army during World War II to promote discussion among soldiers about current events, citizenship, and post-war reconstruction.
Williams insisted – despite some controversy – on the right to education, in particular in current affairs, for servicemen and women, and ran the ABCA for the duration of the war. For this role, he became known as ABCA Bill.[2]
The ABCA was a programme of general education for citizenship for servicemen and women: officers attended courses on conducting discussions groups, and these were started as hourly sessions each week.[3] Such was the response that ABCA rapidly expanded resulting in photographic display; wall newspapers articles written by the men themselves; and an "Anglo American Brains Trust". The ABCA issued pamphlets in units and promoted discussions, for instance about post-war reconstruction and the Beveridge report. It met with resistance from Winston Churchill, who felt it was a poor use of military time.
The organisation is sometimes regarded as a factor in the landslide Labour Party victory in the post-war general election in 1945, a charge that was refuted by General Ronald Adam, the Adjutant General, who had overall responsibility for the Bureau. Nonetheless, ABCA organisers and teachers predominantly seem to have been left-wing, as were the soldiers who attended the classes, and classes became dominated by discussion of nationalisation and social justice. The service vote in the election that followed is said to have been the most dramatic reflection of the public mood, with as many as 80% of soldiers voting for the Labour Party according to some sources.
After the war and under the auspices of the Carnegie Trust, Williams transformed the ABCA into the Bureau of Current Affairs, moving their offices to Piccadilly in London and continued their activities in peacetime with the assistance of several ABCA contributors including the artists James Boswell.[2]
The Reconstruction era was a period in American history, which lasted from the end of the American Civil War (1861–1865) until the Compromise of 1877. Its main goals were to rebuild the nation after the war, reintegrate the former Confederate states, and address the social, political, and economic impacts of slavery.
The Radical Republicans were a faction within the Republican Party originating from the party's founding in 1854—some six years before the Civil War—until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction. They called themselves "Radicals" because of their goal of immediate, complete, and permanent eradication of slavery in the United States. They were opposed during the war by the Moderate Republicans, and by the Democratic Party. Radicals led efforts after the war to establish civil rights for former slaves and fully implement emancipation. After unsuccessful measures in 1866 resulted in violence against former slaves in the rebel states, Radicals pushed the Fourteenth Amendment for statutory protections through Congress. They opposed allowing ex-Confederate officers to retake political power in the Southern U.S., and emphasized equality, civil rights and voting rights for the "freedmen", i.e., former slaves who had been freed during or after the Civil War by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a U.S. government agency, from 1865 to 1872, after the American Civil War, to direct "provisions, clothing, and fuel...for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children".
Thomas Mann, was an English trade unionist and is widely recognised as a leading, pioneering figure for the early labour movement in Britain. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a popular public speaker in the British labour movement.
The Young Fabians is the under age 31 section of the Fabian Society, a socialist society in the United Kingdom that is affiliated with the Labour Party (UK). The Young Fabians operate as a membership-driven think tank that organises policy debates, research projects, publications, conferences, and international delegations. The organisation holds no collective position on policy.
Thomas Jones, CH was a British civil servant and educationalist, once described as "one of the six most important men in Europe", and also as "the King of Wales" and "keeper of a thousand secrets". Jones served as Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for nearly twenty years, under four different Prime Ministers.
The use of capital punishment by the United States military is a legal punishment in martial criminal justice. Despite its legality, capital punishment has not been imposed by the U.S. military in over sixty years.
The British and Irish Communist Organisation (B&ICO) was a small group based in London, Belfast, Cork, and Dublin. Its leader was Brendan Clifford. The group produced a number of pamphlets and regular publications, including The Irish Communist and Workers Weekly in Belfast. Τhe group currently expresses itself through Athol Books with its premier publication being the Irish Political Review. The group also continues to publish Church & State, Irish Foreign Affairs, Labour Affairs and Problems.
About one to two percent of United States Armed Forces members are estimated to belong to criminal gangs in the United States, a much higher proportion than in the civilian population.
ABCA may refer to:
The Torch Commando was a South African anti-apartheid organisation, born out of the work of the Springbok Legion, a South African organisation of World War II veterans, founded in 1941 during the Second World War, and the War Veterans Action Committee established with the involvement of Springbok Legionnaires to appeal to a broader base of ex-servicemen.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the ceremonial commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the country. The Ministry of Defence provides policy framework and resources to the armed forces to discharge their responsibility in the context of the defence of the country. The Indian Armed Forces and Indian Coast Guard under the Ministry of Defence are primarily responsible for ensuring the territorial integrity of India.
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission, emancipation, or self-purchase. A fugitive slave is a person who escaped enslavement by fleeing.
Sir William Emrys Williams, CBE was editor-in-chief of Penguin Books from 1936 to 1965 and an educationalist and powerhouse of popular education in the 20th century. A close collaborator with Allen Lane, Penguin's founder, for over thirty years, Williams was the cultural force behind Penguin Books' success and was the creator of the Pelican imprint.
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.
General Sir Ronald Forbes Adam, 2nd Baronet, was a senior British Army officer. He had an important influence on the conduct of the British Army during the Second World War as a result of his long tenure as Adjutant-General, responsible for the army's organisation and personnel, from June 1941 until the end of the war, and as a close confidant of Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army.
The World Veterans Federation (WVF) is the world's largest international veteran organisation. The federation consists of 172 veterans organizations from 121 countries representing some 60 million veterans worldwide.
John Lewis was a British Unitarian minister and Marxist philosopher and author of many works on philosophy, anthropology, and religion.
Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme (CRTS) was an Australian government scheme started during World War II to offer vocational or academic training to both men and women who had served in the Australian Defence Force. Its purpose was to aid in the return of ex-service personnel to civilian employment. It operated from 1942 until last acceptances were taken in 1950. It was managed by the Department of Post-War Reconstruction.
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