Published: 16 September 2010
by PETER GRUNER

HE was the man whose political passion inspired the Miliband brothers Ed and David - currently competing for leadership of the Labour party.

Their late, much loved father, former refugee Ralph Miliband, is the subject of a highly praised biography by Highgate professor emeritus Mike Newman.

With all the interest in the Milibands, the book, first published in 2002, is due to be reprinted by Merlin Press. It is very much a reference point for writers and journalists trying to understand the two brothers and their political background.

Professor Newman’s book, Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left, has a forward by the doyen of left-wing Labour and former MP Tony Benn.

Ralph Miliband, who lived in Hampstead, died in 1994 aged 70 and was arguably one of Britain’s most influential left-wing intellectuals.

His biographer, father of three Professor Newman, 64, has just retired from the London Met University in Holloway, where he taught politics and international relations for nearly 40 years.

The Miliband story is a typical one of poor struggling foreign immigrants managing to succeed against all odds.

Ralph Miliband was born in Brussels in 1924 to Polish Jewish parents. He and his father fled the Nazis to come to Britain in 1940. Father and son walked from Brussels to Ostend, where they caught the last boat to Dover before Belgium was overrun by the Germans.

His mother and sister remained in Belgium, sheltered by a farmer and his family.

Arriving penniless in London, aged 16, Ralph made a pilgrimage to Marx’s grave at Highgate Cemetery. He later wrote that standing in front of the grave, fist clenched, he swore a private oath that he would be faithful to the workers’ cause.

In 1941 Ralph began a degree at the London School of Economics, where just nine years later he would be appointed assistant lecturer in political science. He joined the Labour party, and met and married Marion Kozak in 1961. Marion was 11 years his junior and a student of international history at the LSE. Her story was one of tragedy and resilience.

Polish born, her Jewish family owned a large factory employing 100 people which was taken over by the Nazis. Their family home was then incorporated into the ghetto, where entire streets became a virtual prison.

Marion managed to escape with her mother and sister in 1942 but her father Dawid stayed with his parents, who were too old to move. It is believed the elderly couple were probably shot, while Dawid died in Auschwitz.

Marion finally made her way to England . “Having had virtually no schooling until the age of 12, and arriving in Britain in deeply traumatic circumstances and without speaking English,” Professor Newman writes, “she (Marion) had nevertheless managed to get to university at the normal entrance age.”

David Miliband was born in 1965 and second son Ed arrived four years later.

Now aged 75, Marion lives and is close to her sons and their families but famously refuses to comment or take sides in the leadership battle.

The Miliband house in Primrose Hill, visited by Professor Newman, who met Ralph before he died during research for the book, was a place where socialists from across the world would gather for animated late night discussions over dinner.

Ralph, who believed in democratic socialism,  was never dogmatic, according to Professor Newman. “Ralph definitely had a sense of humour, had strong views and he really enjoyed a political argument. He obviously encouraged the boys to debate.”

What Ralph would have made of New Labour and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which all happened after his death, is anyone’s guess. But he left the Labour party after the Americans invaded Vietnam in the 1960s.

Professor Newman said: “The then Labour Government under Prime Minister Harold Wilson may not have sent troops to Vietnam, but it was effectively supporting the American led war by refusing to denounce it.   Ralph described it as ‘the most shameful chapter in the history’ of the Labour party.”

Ralph was also critical of the former Soviet Union much earlier than many of his contemporaries. 

Ralph never rejoined the Labour party but became friends with Tony Benn and by the mid-1980s indulged a few more hopes that it might change. Ralph formed the Independent Left Corresponding Society who would meet every Sunday evening at Benn’s home in Holland Park. 

Professor Newman has also written seven other single authored books, mainly about politics, including two biographies on Labour thinkers Harold Lasky and John Strachey.

• Ralph Miliband And the Politics of the New Left. By Michael Newman. Merlin Press