Maybe this scholar can help. http://les.man.ac.uk/chnn/CHNN14P.html COMMUNIST HISTORY NETWORK NEWSLETTER No 14, SPRING 2003 Research Notes Piero Sraffa
I am currently researching material for a biography of the radical Italian economist Piero Sraffa (1898-1983). Naturally, I am interested in his relationship with other economists around the world and with figures on the Italian left; but I would also like to gather information on his relationships with members of the British left and with those in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in particular. Any help and suggestions that other researchers could provide would be most welcome. There are several important episodes in his political life about which I currently know very little; or which I hope to understand better. They include the following:
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In 1921, whilst Sraffa was studying at the London School of Economics (LSE) he worked for the Labour Research Department (LRD). Currently, I know very little about the nature of his work for the LRD.
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Information from a fascist source, dated 1927, suggests that during the same period Sraffa might have also been in touch with people closely connected to the Soviet Union. Again, little else is known about this aspect of his life.
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In 1924, Sraffa seems to have been a member of the '1917 Club', a 'lunch club' founded by Ramsay MacDonald; although information about his involvement and the work of the Club remains sketchy.
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Archive papers at the National Museum of Labour History in Manchester confirm that in 1932 Sraffa wrote to Rajani Palme Dutt to discuss Marx's reception in Britain; but no other correspondence between the two seems to have survived.
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Returning from Calais in January 1923, Sraffa was refused permission to land in Dover and to return to France. The reasons for this remains unclear — although it could relate to his activities in London in 1921-22; his trip to Ireland in 1922; or to diplomatic pressure on the British government by Mussolini.
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It appears that during World War Two, MI5 remained rather suspicious of Sraffa, whilst the SOE (Special Operations Executive) was not. Unfortunately, I have not been able to trace documents which might support this contention.
A very specific matter on which I am seeking help it this: in March 1999, at a small conference held in Rome, I had the opportunity to listen to a participant (who was fluent in Italian, but whose mothertongue I believe was English) who suggested that Sraffa's stance in the 1930s could be better understood by studying the contemporary debates on the British left, and within the CPGB in particular, rather than those of the Italian left of the day. He made reference to contacts between Sraffa and the Birmingham-based histoiran George Thomson. I have found no trace of this relationship in the 'Sraffa Papers', and would be very keen to make contact with this person (whose name I cannot recall) once again. Nerio Naldi