# Bill Bland > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Bill_Bland > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Bill_Bland.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bland > Source revision: 1355427700 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) British marxist-Leninist For other people named William Bland, see [William Bland (disambiguation)](/source/William_Bland_(disambiguation)). William B. Bland Born (1916-04-28)April 28, 1916 Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire Died March 13, 2001(2001-03-13) (aged 84) Education Manchester Grammar School Political party Communist League of Great Britain **William Bland** (28 April 1916 – 13 March 2001) was a British [Marxist-Leninist](/source/Marxist-Leninist).[1] ## Early life Bland was born in [Ashton-under-Lyne](/source/Ashton-under-Lyne), Lancashire, and attended [Manchester Grammar School](/source/Manchester_Grammar_School). His father was director of a printing works, but lost his job during the Depression, and Bland had to leave school to find work at 15. After a visit to the Soviet Union in 1937, Bland migrated to [New Zealand](/source/New_Zealand) in 1938–39. He returned to England in 1950. ## Political activism Before becoming a leading figure of the UK [anti-revisionist](/source/Anti-revisionist) movement, Bland was a member of the [Communist Party of New Zealand](/source/Communist_Party_of_New_Zealand) and the [Communist Party of Great Britain](/source/Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain). Bland considered [Mao Zedong](/source/Mao_Zedong) a left-[deviationist](/source/Deviationist) while still maintaining that Hoxha was a true Marxist-Leninist in the tradition of [Karl Marx](/source/Karl_Marx), [Vladimir Lenin](/source/Vladimir_Lenin) and [Joseph Stalin](/source/Joseph_Stalin). Bland's line on Mao was problematic since Hoxha and Mao were strategic allies at that time. Bland's position was strengthened after the [Sino-Albanian split](/source/Sino-Albanian_split) and he formed the [Communist League of Great Britain](/source/Communist_League_of_Great_Britain). Bland was one of the founders of the [Albanian Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albanian_Society&action=edit&redlink=1), and three years after its foundation he became its secretary, a post which he held almost continuously for 30 years until the fall of the communist regime in Albania. He was editor of the journal of the society, *Albanian Life*. He also wrote an English-Albanian dictionary which included information on Albanian life, culture, politics and history. Together with the American Communist, [Jack Shulman](/source/Jack_Shulman), he participated in the Alliance Marxist-Leninist (North America) and supported International Struggle Marxist-Leninist (ISML). In 1991, he helped found the [Stalin Society](/source/Stalin_Society), however, he was later expelled by a [Maoist](/source/Maoist) faction.[2] ## Works Bland was the coauthor of *[A Tangled Web: A History Of Anglo-American Relations with Albania (1912–1955)](https://archive.org/details/ATangledWeb)*. Historian [Peter Prifti](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Prifti&action=edit&redlink=1) [[sq](https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Prifti)] described the book's treatment of the [Corfu Channel incident](/source/Corfu_Channel_incident) as "a masterful exposition of that tragic incident, and a good indication of the level of scholarship that characterizes the contents of the book. . . this well-researched study by W. Bland and I. Price goes a long way to untangle the web, so that we may gain a clearer perspective on the subject."[3] Aside from theoretical and historical works, Bland wrote a number of plays, directed two films and produced a ballet. ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [Obituary](http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv7n2/blandobit.htm), revolutionarydemocracy.org, accessed January 2009 1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** ["Bland, William "Bill" (1916–2001)"](https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/b/l.htm#bland-william). *Encyclopedia of Marxism*. Retrieved 1 June 2021.{{[cite web](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_web)}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_deprecated_archival_service)) 1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Prifti, Peter R. *Unfinished Portrait of a Country*. 2005. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 126. ## External links - [Interview with William B. Bland, July 1994](https://marxists.org/history/erol/uk.firstwave/bland-interview.htm) - [Articles by Bill Bland at the Marxist Internet Archive](https://www.marxists.org/archive/bland/) - [Writings of W.B. Bland](http://ml-review.ca/bland/index.html) - [Bland on the 'Cult of the Individual'](http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/StalinBB.htm) - [Bland on 'Stalinism'](https://web.archive.org/web/20060203090357/http://freespace.virgin.net/pep.talk/Bland.htm) Authority control databases International ISNI VIAF WorldCat National United States Netherlands Israel Belgium Other Yale LUX --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Bill Bland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bland) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bland?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.