BEVANISM largest movement that the Labour left has produced. It response to the failures government.
If on the one side the Attlee administration had put through a series of vital and radical reforms, on the other it naa insuluted wage licezes. put unofficial strikers in jail. fought the cold • wal Greece to Malaya, poured compensation into the pockets of capitalists decaying industries had been nationalised. LaTur left from 1945 to 19h0 response was scarcely visible to naked eye. It was the Korean War, or rather its economic consequences, that catalysed a left reaction.
Mood The Labour lefts of the late '40s were amazingly starry-eyed about the USA. Tribune never was distinguish fully between socialism and the New Deal and described Truman's victory In 194> as a greal victory for American labour' and for 'the common people over the When the Korean War started, the vast majority of the Labour lined the USA Korea. Michael Foot argued that US soldiers were ' dying to uphold Labour tarly principle'. Woodrow Wyatt, then a regular contnoutor lo Tribune, suggested that NONLI Korea should have nuclear bombs dropped on it.
This mood changed when it became apparent that US policy Was not just content with role it asinking Korea was thinking about attempting the sallit mission in China.
There was also a realsation that the scale of rearmament for most of the left, ana certainly Devall favour of some rearmament - threatened the social gains made by Labour. Gaitskell Was NATO and was determined to rearm as soon as possible even if this meant less housing and weltare.
Leftism In April 1951 Gaitskell introduced a budget that doubled arms expenditure and imposed charges in the health service. The Tories were exultant and the Labour left rainer druc consultuency Labour Parties were enraged. ministers resigned: Bevan, Harold Wilson, and John Freeman.
The Bevanites, became called, produced pamphlet, called Only, which sold a staggering 100,000 weeks.
Atlee called an election in 1951 and lowered the temperature the might within the Partv. But Labour lost the election and the battle was bound to heat up.
The issue which sparked the next big explosion that Bevan and Labour MPs dared to vote against the Tory defence proposals March 1952.
ed a vicious witch-hunt and in CO Del forced to cease regular meetings.
The right-wing MPs were convinced that Bevanism meant electoral disaster Jenkins argued a case which is close to that recently raised by the right: "The electorate extremely conservativeminaea and we can nicver wil.
except with the kind represented by the order to analyse Bevanism.
current around him.
in they Way IEW this right-wing leadership.' of But the real fire-power of the right came from the trade union leaders who hated any suggestion of Deakin ot the TGWU prohibited communists from holding ottice in the union. A similar sanitation envisaged within Labour Party. Lawther of the Miners' Union gives a flavour of their politics when he acMPs cused the Bevanites their tempting and munists did'.
Roy The left was attempting to counter the drift away from policies that the Thinkers'was the Gaitskellites of at- were called, were engineering.
the The base of the Bevanites the wife Jennie Lee and a youthful Tony Benn.
was the membership in the period 1951-53. control was 1952 the left won five of the had six constituency places NEC, and all six in 1953.
operation The Bevanite revolt took the up a variety of issues. It op posed German ana proposca a more lauica manifesto for Labour. It was 'at- concerned, but divided, over the issue of nuclear weapons The Bevanites com- "Brain.
(panels of MPs available for Hesto would fown Halls) up and down th and Coull y socialist Wilson spoke to conferences of Amalgamated Engineering Union members.
on the Bevan's CLPs whose Teached aocak This shown when on the dicussed the vice rearmament tervention in the strike. In held hundreds They meet in Bevan had beer Bevan and . regulations tillic They placed the emphasis pallalculary pally and elections for the NEC Peggy Duff, who was working Tribune at the time, joked subversion. that the Brains Trust was so effective in pushing their candidates that some of us ever possibility charging a fee for this ser of The most important single continued activity of the Bevanites, and the least typical, was their in 1955 dock the the evanites had had an abysm record on trade union mathad supported 'socialist' wages policies and dockers in even a 'socialist' wage freeze.
Minister pamphlets of Labour in 1951 when seven Tribune dockers' leaders gates were put in prison under war- This until mass Then he went along with and went along ITOl the for TGWU leader Deakin. in see. ing the problem as communist Things had changed bi January 1955 , Bevan was no longer a minister. The decline the constituency parties, which with ups and downs has to this day; had There was radicalisation in the unions and Bevan had to get a base in unions he become leader of the Labour This time Deakin was denounced for slandering the calling them com munists. Meetings were held produced and sold the dock intervention prefigures the activity a new credible Labour would have to carry out.
Socialist Challenge came from its political and organisational inadequacies. After the ban on meetings l 1952, the Bevanites, or rather leaders, met in secret. The so- smal their called 'First XI' met weekly for a civilised meal at Dick Crossman's the elite discussed Ine "Second XI was made up of ministers and few other activists like Ralph Mili. band and Geoffrey Drain of NALGO.
H-Bomb The Second XI organised Brains TUSU and other events but had little communication leaders. The lack of organisatypities the parliamentary side of Bevanism and was convenient for leaders were impatient of any tion of real rank and file conThe disintegration Bevanism began in 1954. Bevan resigned fron the shadow cabinet because of Attlee's support for the cold war alliance SEATO. Wilson, Tallel than backing Bevan, replaced him, the sup Crossman. By Wige 1955 Crossman and came out in favour the nuclear weapons, which, they argued, would enable conscripton to be scrapped Bevan was ambiguous on He was against testing the H-bomb but was multilateral disarmament and for staying in NATO. 1957 the H-Bomb Campaign Committee held a meeting of 5,000 in Trafalgar Square.
Lessons A new left was emerging both inside and outside th unions that did not relate first to Parliament the entered year conference that year Bevan spoke for the NEC and lambasted unilateralists Conference, he argued, should • no send foreign secretary 'Naked into the conference chamber'. . To ban the bomb and reject alliances was 'an emotional spasm'. For once the headline of the Daily Telegraph got it right. 'Bevan into Bevin'. (Ernest Bevin was the rightwill Labour foreign secretary in the Attlee government).
The lessons of Bevanism are relevant today.
Bevanism to gain any real impact inside the Party it would have needed relate consistently to trade union strug gles and to those who were politically involved outsid the declining CLPs. It needed to organise its supporters inside both the Labour Party and the unions This would have led to political debates that would nave clarinea wilal socialists should have lave put the left MPs und greater control of the rank and file. All this would have been a dramatic break from the traditional methods social democracy. Shackle The Bevanites trod another path. Their warped came in 1964 when Wilson, Crossman, Foot Wigg, Davies, Barbara Castle neerwood rawled to the Americans O government that Vietnam and tried to shackle the unions at home.
'Bevanism' powe had all the weaknesses of without a single one of it:
THE Iraqi invasion of Iran is a
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left and South
of the 1974-79 Labour government, we have seen a resurgence of the Labour left. In
strengths weaknesses of the political approach of the new Labour left it is useful to go back and look at the fate of its political precursor - Here ANDREW JENKINS looks at the Labour left's most illustrious hero and the Bevanite stars Dick Crossman, Harold Wilson and Anthony Greenwood. Behind Crossman,