Events Move Swiftly: Britain May Soon Have to Choose Between Russia and U.S.

Evening Star, Issue 26135, 24 June 1947, Page 7

Events Move Swiftly: Britain May Soon Have to Choose Between Russia and U.S.

The two most effective speeches at the British Labour Party Conference at Margate were undoubtedly those of Mr Bevin and Mr Nash. Both showed themselves skilled old hands at moving a crowded hall of Labour delegates, knowing that what such a mass conference wants is not argument, but emotion, not even parliamentary debating, but straight-out oratory. Mr Nash came, on at a bad time, in the last half-hour of the morning, when the delegates were beginning to think of lunch, and of getting out into the sun. But he discerned that they had had a tiring morning of detailed discussion, and so he swung quickly into a speech, which, on paper, said little, but which left the delegates glowing with enthusiasm for the public spiritedness of Mr Nash, New Zealanders in general, and, beyond that, Labour in general. And with their own sentiments and self esteem pleased they went off to lunch thoroughly satisfied.

Much the same thing happened when Mr Ernest Bevin came to speak on foreign affairs on Thursday afternoon. He gave the delegates 80 minutes of rousing, hard-hitting, emotional oratory, and carried the day completely. Since then his critics have been busy in their various newspaper columns and journals pointing out the means by which the Foreign Secretary carried the day—his subtle nostalgic references to his old trade union days, his “ H’s ” carelessly scattered where he wished, his jests about spending an afternoon at Eton, a week-end at Harrow having an honorary degree from Magdalen College, Oxford, and “ I left school at the age of 11.”

WHERE THE CRITICS FAILED Ben Levy, the dramatist, who has been one of the Labour “ rebels ” in the House of Commons, complained in an article later, that “ if absolutism corrupts, so, too, does democratic politics.” But when all that is said and done, that seems to me to leave the facts where they were before—that Bevin, the experienced politician, routed his critics, the inexperienced politicians, because he knows the methods of the game better. After all, all the cards were not on his side. His critics had emotional weapons they could have used, too. They could have stood forward as the ex-service-men who had fought in this last war and who believed —as many of them sincerely do—that another war will come if Britain follows her present policy. They could have appealed to the youth in the movement, just as Bevin apealed to the old hands. But none of them did this, none of them really stepped down into the arena and had a go at Bevin, with one possible, and curious, exception—Tom Driberg, the former Beaverbrook columnist, who is M.P for Maldon. No, the Labour critics defeated themselves, and they defeated theirfselves because it was clear that they adopted the role, not of politicians, but of advisers. It seems to me that if you are goit:g to go into the political field you must be prepared to be a politician, and not just a back-room expert or a journalist or a broadcaster. If you disagree with a particular policy you have not only to attack it, and put forward an alternative, but you have to put forward also the alternative mq« who will carry out that policy. It isn’t enough for the critic to say: “ Bevin is wrong.” What he must say, if he is to be an effective politician, is to add: “ Bevin is wrong —but lam right. Put me into Bevin’s place, or put my friends into Bevin’s place, and all will be well.”

HEAVY-WEIGHT TRIUMPH But not one of the so-called rebels was prepared to taka that step. Not even Zilliacus, the real root-and-branch critic of the present foreign policy, who was prepared only to call for a change of Foreign Seccetary, rather than a change of foreign policy. They all urged that the course should be swung several points that way or this, but not that the pilot should be shoved overboard. And since it is issues of power, as expressed in policy, which are settled in gatherings such as the Labour Party Conference at Margate, Bevin was able to have a powerful triumph: It was made easier by the fact that even as critics the rebels pulled their punches. As one commented to me ruefully afterwards: "We have learnt that it doesn't take two to make a fight. If you decide not to fight, the other chap may still wade into you all the same.’’ And Bevin is no light-weight in wading in. But if the Margate conference reestablished Bevin’s grip over the Labour movement it did not get the discussion ’of foreign policy much further. Nor, for that matter, does it mean the destruction of his critics. They are scattered, but not slain. He had. it must be remembered, every bit as much a triumph at Bournemouth a year ago, and yet during the year the critics grew from a few isolated

(Written by GEOFFREY COX for the * Evening Star.)

individuals to a band who attracted international notice. They still have influential channels open to them, through which 'they can hammer at public opinion. The ‘ New Statesmen ’ and the ‘ Tribune ’ are botli on the side of the critics. So, too, is 1 Reynolds’ Newspaper,’ the co-operative Sunday _papor ? in its news columns, if not in its editorials They have the House of Commons, where they can keep up their criticisms day after day, ami not only for one week, as at Margate. So that we have by no means heard the last of them. Nor should it be forgotten that the list of runners-up for the Labour Party Executive was headed by four “ rebels ” —Crossmau, Driberg, Mikardo, and Zilliacus—in that order.

TIME FOR THE CHOICE IS NEAR If these criticisms of Bevin do die away within the next few months, it will not be because of the Margate decisions, but because of the drift of events in Europe. For events are moving on the Continent in a direction which makes the middle-of-the-road policy urged by Crossman and Driberg and their friends more and more difficult. Both on the Russian side and the American, opinion is hardening at such a pace that Britain is more and more being called on to make a straight-out choice between the two. This cleavage was, of course, already apparent in the Moscow Conference. The Russian stand at Moscow on reparations proved unacceptable to all but Communist opinion in this country, and greatly simplified Mr Beviu’s task in the Commons and at Margate on his return. Now, with the political crisis in Hungary and the Marshall plan for dollar aid to Europe, the polarisation of Europe between Russia and America is further intensified. The Marshall plan for further aid to Europe if the European countries ask for it with one voice is partly an economic device to stave off an American .slump. But it is also partly a diplomatic device to keep Western Europe—and as much of Eastern Europe as cares to join in—on the American side, and partly, surely, an attempt to restore Europe’s well-being.

RUSSIA'S BELIEF IN WAR On the other hand, the recent - events in Hungary show that the Russians still hold to their belief that American capitalism will ultimately go to war with the U.S.S.R., and that they must safeguard their frontiers even if that means further antagonising Western ideas of democracy. And in each issue, dollars and Hungarian polities, Britain is faced, as is all Europe, with the necessity of making a clear-cut choice. There is clearly little compromise possible between a Russia which regards further dollar loans as a means of placing Europe in pawn to America and an America which regards Russian action in Hungary as a direct and unscrupulous interference with the free choice of peoples about their own affairs. _ What attitude is reasonable in these circumstances? It seems to me that the choice which every thinking man and woman must make at the moment is a choice about a tenet of Marxism.

One has to make up one’s mind whether the Russian view that the Marxists are right; and that capitalism is bound in time, by its very nature, to attack Communist Russia, is in fact an accurate diagnosis, or all rot. Because that is the thesis on which the Russians are working, and that is the thesis which at present determines the course of events in the world. From the moment the Russians start to work on it, their suspicion and antagonism towards the rest of the world must be taken for granted, and nothing short of Socialism in Western Europe and America can change it.

But J would say that, the hulk of Labour Party opinion in Britain to-day resolutely refuses to accept this analysis. There still exists here a strong feeling that events are not as hideously simple as all that. There exists Very strongly the belief that a struggle between Communism and Capitalism, fought out as a war in 10 or 20 years’ time between Russia and America, can, and must, be avoided. It is this type of opinion which backs, in no very clear way, but in a very sincere way. the Crossman group of critics inside the Labour Party. And many of Bevin's supporters are his supporters for the very reason that they, too, are not convinced that he has decided that, in the long run, conflict is not inevitable. These supporters point to his recent trade treaty with Poland and his trade talks with Russia, and thav argue that Britain can yet act as a bridge between America and Russia. And it is surely preferable to act as a bridge rather than as an aircraft carrier the other favourite role in which people cast these island#—-in the days of atomic warfare.