Opposing both Stalinism and imperialism gave the New Left its moral authority

Evidence

Most of the people who had been in our circles, in the Communist Party, left it, and the Oxford branch collapsed. For a moment in Oxford, this funny grouping, the Socialist Society, became the conscience of the Left, because we had opposed Stalinism and opposed imperialism. We had the moral capital to criticize both the Hungarian invasion and the British invasion. That is the political space—of the birth of the first British New Left. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 779

Categorization

• XREF: The dual opposition to Stalinism and imperialism prefigures the later vexed relationship between the Left and Muslim-majority politics — a tension the Islamophobia field inherits. — connects to: The early New Left united postcolonial intellectuals with provincial British outsiders; Leftist intellectuals defended the USSR as an ideal worth moral compromises — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 771; One-Dimensional Man angered orthodox Marxists while galvanizing the New Left. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 53 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 779