England: The Triumph Of Primitivism

...One who utilizes it approaches the whole piobiem of the nature of a social movement from a different perspective than is customary in socialist circles...

...WHILE UNILATERAL nuclear disarmament was the pivotal issue at the Scarborough Conference, Gaitskell's defense policy was not the fundamental cause of dispute...

...The practical consequence is that the PLP has at the outside three years to set its house in order, probably less...

...While the first has a certain tactical attractiveness, particularly in papering over the cracks, it would in the long run weaken Gaitskell's position both in the nation and in the PLP...

...FROM THE CONFERENCE at Scarborough the focus has now shifted to Westminster and the Parliamentary Labor party, the organized body of Labor Members of Parliament...

...Their people knew what it meant...

...At any rate, Greenwood declined in favor of Harold Wilson, who is not a unilateralist but has been around a long time, was a minister in the Labor Government, and presumably was thought to have more stature in the PLP than Greenwood...

...One has no more right to call the antiGaitskell coalition "radical" then he has to apply this designation to hard-shell, Bible-beating fundamentalists or others who turn to ideological primitivism for solace from the shattering dilemmas of modern life...

...The opposition is not really united by its dedication to unilateralism—its basic bond is a common quest for Gaitskell's head...

...He has the power to choose the battleground and establish the framework of dispute: he should strike to the heart of the issue, and strike fast...

...At the same time, few people are prepared to amend the Decalogue simply because they commit adultery...

...second, the events and alignments at the meeting...

...Gaitskell knows better than anyone else the ceremonial status of nationalization in socialist thought and he should have been sagacious enough to let a sleeping dogma lie...

...Those who deny that there is a meaningful connection between human character and ideological pretensions have had some problems with Castro's Cuba...

...This Luddite manifestation is both perverse and absurd...

...Although Mollet was equipped with a program designed to revitalize the SFIO's Marxist tradition and to rescue it from the "revisionist" clutches of men like Andre Philip and Daniel Mayer, his rise to power in the Party was based on ruthless, unprincipled bureaucratic manipulation...

...GaitskeIl made it clear that he would fight the decision, and his enemies have also been clearing for action...

...Unilateralism is not an answer to the question: What should a Labor Government's defense policy visualize...

...Obviously I fail to see any division of principle, any "left"—"right" split, in the current battle within the Labor Party...

...Bevan marshalled the various battalions of the alienated behind his bid for the leadership, but, once decisively defeated, he dumped his crusaders precipitously to accept a consolation prize worthy of his talents.* With Bevan as shadow Foreign Secretary pouring invective on his erstwhile followers for their naivete, the various oppositions retired to their tents to await a new, authentic leader...

...and third, because he hopes that in the event of war the USSR will spare an inoffensive Britain...

...THIS MODE OF ANALYSIS, by the way, is neither "left wing" nor "right wing" in the traditional sense...

...oddly enough, in view of the reputation of the constituency parties for extremism, it appears that Gaitskell received a majority of the votes in that (small) sector.* Two factors explain this trade union defection from the Executive: first, Frank Cousins's unconcealed hatred for Hugh Gaitskell which moved the Transport and General Workers Union into the unilateralist camp...

...Moreover, Gaitskell himself, apparently on the advice of a non-political friend, had tried to seize the initiative on the ideological level by blaming defeat on antiquated economic notions and asking that Clause 4 of the Party Constitution be amended to eliminate reference to public ownership as the ultimate Labor objective...

...This lack of emotional militance has led to the accusation of insincerity, to the charge that since Gaitskell does not display his convictions in an emotional fashion, he has none...

...Each of these is a perfectly legitimate basis for endorsing unilateralism, but not one of them has any relationship to radicalism, to socialist thought...

...In operational terms, socialism: socialists in power...

...AND AT THIS PARTICULAR moment in time a new set of leaders took over...

...But the fundamental issue reaches beyond the Party Constitution to the British Constitution and involves a key question in democratic theory: Are representatives elected by the people legitimately bound by the decisions of publicly irresponsible bodies...

...The Labor Government of 1945 destroyed the economic foundations of the class system—or those foundations which survived the War—and the Tories reaped the political harvest...

...Institutionally speaking he is well placed to launch the counterattack...

...it was Fidelism that counted...

...And there has been no suggestion that the British electorate is in any mood to endorse unilateralism: all indices of public sentiment indicate the opposite, that nuclear disarmament is an electoral liability...

...the highly political Auer told Bernstein when the latter's penchant for clarification and intellectual honesty had brought him to the brink of expulsion...

...The internal consequences are likely to be disintegration and schism...

...True, they never really defined "socialism," but why bother...

...Morrison and Ernie Bevin detested each other, Greenwood sulked in his corner, and Cripps and Nye Bevan were always suspect, even when in good standing...

...It is easy for radicals, nostalgic for the good old days when the lines were clear and the trumpet compelling, to exaggerate the virtues of the chiliast...

...But Castro was and is important, and I have never known a man who treated a gun as a symbol—instead of an instrument—who was not fundamentally depraved...

...A year or so ago when an enthusiastic friend told me we must all rally to Fidelism and bring "real socialism" to Latin America, I suggested gently that I could not see social democrats canonizing a man in love with a tommy-gun...

...It was merely the fuse which touched off an explosion that has been building up for a decade...

...And finally, when I ask the vital question, or at least the question that must be vital to those who seek the implementation of the socialist dream in this world we never made, Who Can Beat the Tories?, there is only one possible answer...

...In essence a group within the Party is making a (perfectly legitimate) bid for power and they will be satisfied with nothing less than his elimination and the replacement of his colleagues...

...As soon as Parliament met, Anthony Greenwood was proposed to run against Gaitskell for the job of Leader...

...It is an answer to a different question—How can Labor avoid promulgating a defense policy?—and all answers to this category of question are by definition non-political in essence and conservative in practical impact...

...If one believes, as I do, that it makes a difference whether the Tories or the Laborites govern Britain, the outcome of the Labor Party's 1960 Conference at Scarborough has implications of historical tragedy...

...Gaitskell then must not be deluded into thinking that these fissures can be verbally bridged...

...Thus, despite their feuds, the old leaders had that sort of confidence in their mission which made it possible for them to work fruitfully in an atmosphere of stabilized distrust...

...in no case can a decision of a Party Conference bind the actions of parliamentary representatives...

...Those dominated by the paralysis of perfectionism may say this is an unimportant question, but they can only deny its relevance by ultimately opting either for other-worldliness and inner purity or for the dictatorship of an enlightened vanguard...

...Could one visualize Hugh Gaitskell screaming bitterly at a Party Conference, as Bevin did in 1947, that R. H. S. Grossman had stabbed him in the back...

...First I will briefly discuss the historical background of the Scarborough Conference...

...In fact if one backs a "new course," he is simultaneously backing a set of "new corsairs" and I insist that the primary concern of the analyst should be the character of the new elite rather than the specific gravity of its ideology...

...Life in the wilderness may be morally fortifying for the desert fathers of unilateralism, but the political cost of this self-imposed isolation will be permanent conservatism in the society at large...

...If Gaitskell takes the firm line that the PLP is responsible to the national electorate, certain consequences are predictable...

...IN EXAMINING WHAT exactly happened at Scarborough, it is essential to analyze the nature of the coalition that handed Gaitskell the first significant defeat any Party Leader has ever received at a Party Conference...

...In short, the Labor Members of Parliament gave Gaitskell a resounding vote of confidence...

...They were, to put it differently, political men who had grown up in the movement, suffered the "treason" of MacDonald and the electoral massacre of 1931 and come back, lived and breathed "socialism," and known together the unnerving, unexpected, and magnificent moment of triumph in 1945...

...In logical terms, an Englishman could support unilateralism for three reasons: first, because he is a pacifist opposed to all weapons...

...Besides, only trouble-makers, ILP-types out to rock the boat, raised divisive questions like that...

...Moreover, the possibility that Gaitskell might really be brought down stimulated a number of previously inert warriors to shine up their daggers and offer their services—as Generals...

...WITH A NEW LEADERSHIP, particularly one faced with the onerous task of salvaging the Party from defeat, came a revival of the so-called "left" opposition...

...The reply: Castro was "utterly unimportant...

...The decisive votes for unilateralism came from the trade union side...

...If one assumes that his political convictions have a cosmic imprimatur, their failure in practice can only be explained by betrayal, by the treason of misleaders...

...By endorsing unilateral nuclear disarmament, and forcing the Parliamentary leadership to challenge this absurd substitute for a defense policy a motley coalition has in the span of a few short days jeopardized the Party's accomplishments over a period of sixty years...

...They had tasted blood and musterecl their forces for a real kill...

...And into their shoes stepped those chosen from a new generation to whom the Labor party was an inheritance, not an achievement...

...in fact what has happened is that the destruction of traditional British values has paradoxically worked to the advantage of the ancien regime and to the disadvantage of the Jacobins...

...As the supple Conservatives moved in from one side with a program of blatant affluence, the leaders of the Party found a guerrilla force of assorted malcontents sniping on the other...

...The opposition to Gaitskell is composed of highly fissionable material and includes several Messiahs who will probably split before they accept discipline— their departure from the Party should be reluctantly expedited...

...For the benefit of those readers who may find such a stark focus disconcerting—those who may have dedicated their energies to the quest for Third or Fourth Positions—I should set forth my basic analytical assumption...

...But even in Labor's halcyon days roughly a quarter of the objective workingclass voted Liberal or Tory, and the proportion of the nation's workers and their families which is class oriented has declined steadily since the War...

...they should apply the same criteria to Marx's Witnesses that they do to Jehovah's...

...the external consequence is probably a long period of undisturbed Toryism...

...In unofficial terms, of course, he must be responsive to those who have nominated him and worked for his election, but democratic theory clearly postulates that once elected he is not the servant or the agent of his party but the representative of all those who live in his district—even those who voted against him...

...This segment is dedicated, in a somewhat ritualized fashion, to Labor, but alone it cannot win a general election...

...If the Party is to win, it must gain the support of the young and of the women, the two categories of the British population which have been most "Americanized...

...I am not for a moment suggesting that the action at the Conference was undemocratic, but I submit that it would be an act of cowardice for the PLP to accept Conference dictation...

...For this time the disparate oppositions had a common issue and the Party, after three successive defeats each worse than its predecessor, was suffering from bad morale and a natural tendency to make the Leader into a scapegoat...

...Gaitskell's "left" flank was secure: Bevan, probably the Labor Party's greatest mass orator since the defection of Ramsay Mac • An action which was predictable if one concentrated on the analysis of Bevanrather than "Bevanism": see my "Crisis in British Socialism," Antioch Review, Winter 1952-55...

...It is highly doubtful whether the millions who voted Labor in the hope of putting their people in power and ending Tory rule would appreciate this act of selfdestruction, and they were only marginally and accidentally involved in the decision at Scarborough...

...The terms of subordination are somewhat ambiguous: there is a provision in the Party Constitution of 1917 which states that for a policy to be incorporated in the Party's legislative program a two-thirds vote is necessary—and the unilateralists had only a simple majority...

...The impossibilist compulsion, which is latent in all socialist movements, has—at least temporarily—triumphed over the integrating forces of solidarity and common sense...

...After all, Bevin and Morrison were old enemies, and who is more predictable than an old enemy...

...The oldtimers who had nursed the movement from its cradle and supplied great vitality in the 1920s and 1930s began to drop in the 1940s...

...proposal to amend the Constitution was butchered in the trade unions and eventually withdrawn, but it did serious damage to the Leader's prestige: he came to Scarbororough with this defeat still fresh and with his enemies for the first time anticipating a possible victory...

...Is a representative, in other words, responsible to any but his official constituents...

...The first manifestation was "Bevanism," built in fact around the aspirations of that brilliant opportunist rather than around any ideological standard...

...Thus on constitutional grounds it is doubtful whether the Leader of the Opposition and his associates must implement the Scarborough decision...

...But publicly and collectively they had that enormous zest which arises from constant participation in a living movement, from solidarity and historical assurance...

...From this viewpoint, it is immaterial whether the unilateralists got a majority, two-thirds, or nine-tenths of the votes at Scarborough...

...Only this savage paradox can explain the bitterness of the so-called "Labor left...

...No significant segment of the Party really wants to nationalize anything in particular (water supply was, I think, the leading candidate when the matter was last debated...

...It is my view that ideological disputes, however esoteric, always in political life come down to a choice between bodies, to a decision to support either X or Y. While metaphysicians and mystics have, of course, the right to evaluate ideologies abstractly, no one in real life has ever found a theory running for office...

...Increasingly the Labor party has become an in-gathering of elderly and middle-aged workers, those whose political attitudes were frozen in the depressed interwar years...

...Traditionally autonomous de facto, the PLP has always de jure been subordinate to the Party Conference...

...Combined with these trade union forces were, of course, sincere religious pacifists, the mixed Aldermaston bag of principled and expediential unilateralists, R. H. S. Crossman, who sincerely defines truth as what he says at any particular moment, and a platoon of Lagos from the Parlimentary Labor party who suddenly discovered that their loyalty to their Leader was unjustified...

...This "Americanization" of British social values has occurred under Tory auspices in the period since 1951—a fact which has led some socialist intellectuals to attack television, kitchen appliances, and even social mobility as though they were the work of the Devil...

...A few seats lost in this manner would be a small price to pay for the restoration of unity of purpose in the PLP...

...About ten years ago, for example, when Guy Mollet, the "rank-and-file" spokesman from Arras, wrested control of the French Socialist party from "wishy-washy humanists" (to use the current phrases) of the Blum dispensation, some of us were deeply disturbed...

...In objective terms, the "proletariat" still constitutes the overwhelming majority of the British population...

...The reader may agree or disagree with this formulation as he chooses, but he should keep it in mind as the foundation of my analysis of the internal situation in the British Labor party...

...This imbroglio, after all, is not taking place in a soundproof room and the Tories would like nothing better than to spring an election on Labor at the nadir of its quarrel...

...This was Gaitskell's worst blunder to date...

...IN PRAGMATIC TERMS he has two alternative courses of action: first, to refurbish the two-thirds rule in the Party Constitution and on that basis deny the binding character of the Scarborough vote: second, to proclaim once and for all the freedom of the PLP from Conference dictation...

...I take my stand with Eduard Bernstein in asserting that the character of the movement is more important than the symmetry or perfection of its goals...

...Now it is true historically that socialist movements have carried a good deal of demagogic baggage, and I would argue that it is tactically unfortunate that no one of the Gaitskellite group is a good stem-winder, but militancy is not proof of, or substitute for, conviction...

...Gaitskell's (or was it Crosland's...

...Wilson's candidacy demonstrates that and it is probably not unfair to say that Frank Cousins would en dorse Zen if he thought it would contribute to Gaitskell's destruction...

...When such an addict of romantic violence appears in politics mouthing left wing slogans, are we to deny the insights of experience for the nostalgia of a phrase...

...Nor are the more militant (in this emotional sense) necessarily of greater virtue than the less ostentatious or extraverted members of society...

...The alternative to this is that form of enlightened brigandage known as the party state...

...Two election defeats and the death of Bevan (who could possibly have held the line at Scarborough) brought Gaitskell to the 1960 Conference in perilous straits...

...On the contrary, the latter group seems to me to be more experimental, more willing to question the received truths of Victorian socialism, more concerned with the future of democratic socialism—in a word, more radical—than the ad hoc aggregation that confronts them...

...These activists—with many Communists and pro-Communists among them—have for the past five years concentrated on "Banning the Bomb" and have succeeded in mobilizing behind this slogan a number of important unions...

...If they are prepared to stand the key test of democratic society and run for Parliament, one can predict that they will be defeated in safe Labor seats and possibly put the Tory in where the seat is marginal...

...second, because he wants to let the Americans pay the costs of defending Britain...

...For half a century the Labor party fought the class system in the name of equality and the capitalist system in the name of (we must admit it) affluence...

...In effect, the Labor party has lost its pragmatic coherence...

...The impact of (relative) affluence has been particularly noticeable in the embourgeoisement of those who have come of age since 1945...

...Indeed, I feel that Gaitskell's defeat was a calamity not just for British socialism, but for democratic socialists everywhere...

...Donald, could be counted on to prevent any runs around left end...

...Nor does unilateralism in concrete terms provide a defense program: the inexorable consequence of all three positions in the world of 1960 is 100% reliance on the United States for the defense of Britain...

...Suddenly in the early 1950s the Labor Government was out and the old leadership was through: dead, sick, or just played out...

...These new men were, and are, tremendously able, but if they have any one characteristic in common, it is political style...

...indeed, as an analyst of political behavior I would predict that any pro-Decalogue party would be dominated by uneasy lechers...

...To demand that the PLP adopt unilateralism is therefore to urge it to commit hari-kari on Macmillan's doorstep...

...This assemblage was, of course, promptly designated the "left wing" and a great ideological battle was joined between the "Left" and the "Right...

...The damage they can do outside of the Party is nothing compared with the problems they create within it—and it is at least possible that outside some of it will hurt the Tories...

...You don't say it Ede, you do it...

...In private the leadership was something less than a band of brothers: Attlee lived in aloof taciturnity (Morrison noted wistfully in his recent autobiography that he wished he could say that he knew Attlee...

...it is too bad that he never in the course of his education examined carefully the career of Eduard Bernstein...

...This brings me back to the point from which I began...

...zation of trade union membership which has led to situations in which, as a consequence of apathy and "Telly," a few activists in a union branch determine political policy...

...If they can consolidate their hold by successfully dominating the Parliamentary Labor party, the British Labor party will be destroyed as an effective political instrument...

...In precise terms, I do not consider R. H. S. Crossman, Frank Cousins, Michael Foot, Barbara Castle, Harold Wilson, or Anthony Greenwood as morally or philosophically superior to Hugh Gaitskell, Denis Healey, Anthony Crosland, James Callaghan, George Brown, or Roy Jenkins...

...Greenwood had the virtue of being an outspoken unilateralist, but the so-called "Left" perhaps felt this was pushing principles a bit hard...

...Thus the leaders of the Party, who had the bitter historical misfortune of being the receivers in bankruptcy of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, discovered after six years of desperate struggle for survival that their substantial political and economic accomplishments had earned for them a public reputation for austerity and a private indictment for treason...

...The issue of unilateral British nuclear disarmament provided just the right vehicle for this coalition: the pseudo-Left supplied a pseudo-program...

...Those socialists still rigidly attached to Marxist rhetoric, rejoiced that the SF1O was back on its authentic course—and were later disconcerted to discover Mollet underwriting a savage Algerian policy while Philip, Mayer and other stuffy old lib-labs followed their principles and founded the Autonomous Socialist party on a program of unconditional opposition to the shambles in Algeria...

...most are men who can be convinced to rise above principle in the interests of unity and their own political futures...

...The basic problem that has confronted the Party since the War, and particularly since 1951, is the withering away of its "natural" constituency, the self-conscious British workingclass...

...As the cracked drum of unilateralism beat out the death march, the hard-shell primitives and their odd congeries of allies overpowered the humanistic empiricists who have been attempting to adapt the Party to life in the 1960's...

...As public figures they are dispassionate, unemotional, even austere...

...But the number of bolters would be small: few of Gaitskell's opponents are ideologues...

...and finally the current alarms and prospects...

...and, second, the general depoliticali * For an illuminating analysis which injects some factual material into a discussion heretofore conducted on a theological level, see Martin Harrison's recent Trade Union and the Labour Party since 1945, London, 1960...

...Indeed, it bears no relationship whatever to classical programmatic categories...

...Wilson lost by two-to-one (166 to 81), a Gaitskellite, George Brown, was elected Deputy Leader, and the Gaitskell group won ten of the twelve slots in the Parliamentary Committee (Shadow Cabinet...