THE CURRENT vitality Lahour left poses the question of its potentiality and limits. argument that the 1945-50 be miment is the movdes hich mose aimed examenanon or toat expenence.
Mark Jenkins' Labour's High Tide theme, providing us with a mass of new and carefully researched material on the period, with a useful chapter on the activities .the Labour previously unpublished minutes of the Beyanite group.
The author's stated challenge the contemporary 'mythology" which denies that the Bevanite movement was the broadest Labour current this century and attributes to it weak and purely with a negiect of trade union struggles.
Jenkins fails to point out that this "mythology' is itself the product of a rather broad current, including Ralph Miliband and David Coates, could scarcely be described as left, let alone ultra-left.
Jenkins argues deficiency, opposed aforementioned imaginery ones, was NdOIHY develop a cohèrent_ of the states of East Europe, while the organisation of Bevanism was more than adequate for its perspectives:
It had a full domestic programme and did not need one that was more radical, *the adoption would, in any case, have infringed thé sovereignty of conference', author claims.
He is hard put to relative ineffectiveness of the Labour influence ine ee canlyow in influence in early development which accounted for by the fact that Labour lefts have always felt a deal more uninhibited when in opposition.
This® flows® thẻ weakness of reformism, which is not incomprehension of the state.
Responsibility To believe that it is possible to move gradually towards socialism by parliamentary means implies that the working class must take responsibility and 'socialișt policies' within the context of capitalist HRAEC predominantiy market economy.
Labour government is forced, regretfully. discipline trade ULUNALS. trade unionists in prison for taking unofficial strike action was one of the specialties of the Tony Benn's Labour close Bevanism examines this Trotskyists Party and aim is to parliamentary who that. the real impose wage freezes •CY& Ok LIc the went along with this.
Hevanites characterisation BORSPETC really idle to talk about a which sector, he said.
the would not be explain the IoIC DUweI It was the largely ened the welfare Bevan, Harold central which economic consequences.
Michael La Lavdul raily dulC was let loose.
Jenkins implement and a pamphlets with a wide sale. thus doubt, to influence of Beyanism Putting just the 1945-51 Labour 'Today's Labour right was yesterday's lefts.' government. Sir Stafford Cripps; the '30s, was obiged to and restraints from 1947-49, and the Labour lefts In 1949, Aneurin Bevan commented that 'our people have achieved a material prosperity in excess of their ‚lan Mikardo wanted a tougher socialist wages policy — 'It is economy with an unplanned wages Mikardo argued that socialism possible unless the unions gave the TUC General Council Korean war which finally pushed the lefts off the fence. The rearmament programme threatstate and forced Wilson, and John Freeman to resign from the Atlee government. It wasn't the war itself the problem, but its Foot wrote in Tribune that US soldiers were dying to 'uphold "The return of the Tories in 1951 caused the flood-tide of Bevanism, as resentment over che policies of Atlee and the right provides much ucagut, evidence to show how the Bevanites were able to hold a massive series of metines up and down the country and to produce a regular supply of The point is well made that thè was felt not Parties but within the unions as well. borsuildolr Labour The high mark of Bevanism within the unions was when, in 1954, it took on Arthur Deakin, the general secretary the Transport and Workers Union, in support of the NASD - the dockers' blue union and its right to organise Jenkins fails to however, this qualitatively different from sending a Tribune 'brains trust' stewards meeting It was also quite atypical for the Labour lefts.
Bevan resigned Minister of Labour in . 1951 over NHS charges, after he had supported Deakin against striking dockers and caused seven of them to be jailed for conspiring to organise an illegal strike. Decline 1954 Bevanism was decline, with its main leaders splintering to the right. In 1957 Bevan came out against those calling for unilateral and in defence Britain's possession of the H-bomb. over ine whole of this period the constituency left declined as the left in the trade unions increased Jenkins states that Bevanism was broader and better than previous Labour lefts, such as the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist but doesn't seriously argue this case, still less prove it.
.The evidence furnished Miliband and. Coates tends to point in the opposite direction a secular decline of the Labour lefts as they become less effective generation by generation. This question certainly needs further discussion.
The other unsatisfactory theme of the book is the influence of the Cold War on Bevanism. Some points are tellingly made, such as the oscillation General of sections of the Labour left between Stalinism and Incredible illusions were held about President Truman, who was seen as a grasp, left social democrat.
1956 showed the shop between events in East Europe and the West. But the link is over-emphasised and is overlaid with a Stalinophobia which Stalinist tolerance for the democracy.
And Jenkins' lessons for today?
He appears to agree with Bevan that 'the task of maintaining the unity of Labour falls primarily on the left'. If the Bevanites were to have had a in elaborate LUlC would have committed forming a party within a party.
of have further refined would have .either US The Soviet invasion of Hungary in inter-relaționship Jenkins disquieting TES betrayal crimes of social Jenny organisation, they Ine sin of To their policy undermined on in struggling against capitalism, it - when in power - opposed such direct struggles, or sought to divert them into the higher purpose of voting in Bevan and Co., so that they could wage the fight where it counted - in Parliament.
contents hiraself with reiterating that the logical thrust of Bevanism was the democratic renewal of the Labour Party and the unions. Just what this democratic organisa tion amounted to can be glimpsed from an episode which took place in Lee, Bevan's wife, happened to glance at a page on his typewriter while he was preparing ar article for Tribune. She rang other kev Bevanites who hurried ronng to consult with Nye. The message on the type-script? Merely the dissolution of the Bevanite group.