Soviet and socialist origins of the British folk music revival

Ewan MacColl (pseudo-Scotsman Jimmy Miller from Lancashire) and Peggy Seeger (pseudo-ethnic WASP). Hard-working, knowledgeable, talented, spooks 

I'm reading an oral history of Folk Clubs, called Singing from the Floor, by JP Bean (2014) which institutions were the main manifestation of the British Folk Revival from the middle 1950s until the late 1970s. 

I knew this movement pretty well and participated somewhat, towards the end of this era; and perhaps because I came late to it, I had not previously realized the extent to which the trend was dependent upon the Communist Party (in effect the government of the USSR), and socialist Trades Unions, for planning, funding, publicity and organization.  

This top-down and social engineering aspect of the British Folk Revival is perfectly clear cut, not hidden, and was always openly acknowledged (albeit the fact that the activities of UK communism were primarily as a tool of USSR foreign policy, was never generally recognized). 

Like so much of popular music and popular culture generally, it turns-out that the public face and administrators of Folk Music (aside from the always present actually "folk" musicians, such as farm workers and miners) were the intelligence branches of the Eastern Bloc, and their sympathizers and collaborators within the UK Establishment and Labour movements. 

(All of which is ironic considering, this was supposed to be a grass-roots, bottom-up movement, emanating from "the folk" and representing the ideas and ideals of the "secret people" of Britain - the often nameless working "masses". But I suppose this always has been standard operating procedure for the left, who are always appointing themselves spokesmen on behalf of somebody else.)

In the end, the movement outgrew its roots, and the aspects of folk music that I most liked were either disconnected-from or hostile-to the original Soviet-agent "controllers" such as Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, or AL Lloyd.   

But there is no doubt in my mind that a major aspect of the Folk movement was covert-agenda-driven, was upper and middle class in origin and actuality; and that this strategy was highly successful in its (presumed) political aims of permeating many performers and audience with a particular world view and assumptions. 

And what applied to Folk Music (top-down, organized and funded for strategic political purposes by leftist sources) was analogously true (although probably with less direct Soviet influence, and a more Western Intelligence impulse) for the much larger "pop culture" of Britain. 

Thus were built-into people - at an early and formative stage of life, and especially associated with enjoyment, happy memories and day dreams during the "coming of age" years of teenage and young adulthood - ideas and ideals that have been for many decades a cultural compulsion and obsession in The West. 

And which consequently still exert a near-monopoly in large sectors of the population in the UK.

Job done!