vanite' members of Labour's national executive. tuency seats and Gaitskell declared that one-sixth of the constituency delegates appeared to be Communist or Communist inspired'! Again 1950s, in the 1920s, responded with an organisational, not a On 23 Doc duak.
Parliamentary banned Bevanite group in parliament. Yet the ett continued to gain intinence. Bevantives then organised looser ormanons such as ineir brains Trust' panel. At the same time left wing newspapers such as Socialist Outlook began to gain influence.
Always, the attacks centred on 'subversive' 'undermining' tivities. Thus William Lawther of the Daily Telegraph in 1953 wrote: opinion of the Trades Unions is that the Bevanites activities are a deliberate attempt to undermine the leadership in the same way that Hitler and the Communists did. There is no difference between them'.
The real problem for the right is shown in the NEC minutes for 28 April 1953, which record that 152 CLPs had passed resolutions opposing German rearmament. The political opposition to the leadership was not confined to a parliamentary group roots in the CLPs. The right responded by using bans In the parties started.
the right October the the that, free The through movement would be ashamed' Nevertheless the bevate el as a wrole.
acthe Labour Party itself. "The opposition.
vival is to stop but had strong proscriptions.
Socialist Outlook was banned and the expulsions and disaffiliations of local The vigorously defended the right of free speech and Michael Foot, in a rather different tone to his 1982 pronouncements, explained 'We cannot allow this to go on, controversy free newspapers to be stamped out of existence. ... The great men who built this ban stuck. then the right turned its attention to the cil.
Tribune came under attack in 1954, and in 1955 an attempt was made to expel Bevan from The witch hunt did not destroy the left's influence; but what it did was to reduce the left from a mass movement to a relatively small, and atomised set of individuals and splinter groups. it had succeeded in its real aim; it broke up the possibility of forming a mass left The lessons are clear. If a mass opposition to the present rightward drift in the labour movement is to be formed, its number one condition for surthe witch hunt in industry, in the unions and the Labour tion of a number of parties who had not carried out the ban did not break up the National Left-Wing Movement. Rather it confirmed in many members eyes the need for such. a movement In 1926 came the defeat of the General Strike right-wing leaders of the TUC and their counterparts in the Labour Party which therefore led to more support for the National Left-Wing Movement.
By 1927 the movement was gaining fairly widespread national influence. When it held its second conference in September 1927-54 local Labour Parties plus quite a number of other groups were represented. There were delegates from the North London Federation of the Independent Labour Party ILP London and Southern Counties Guild of Youth, prominent miners leaders like A.J. Cook and S.O. Davies were there. The chairperson was W Crick who was also chairperson of the Manchester and Salford Trades CounThe Sunday Worker by then had become more or less the paper of the National Left-Wing Movement and it carried regular articles reporting its activity and putting forward its proThe pamphlet Towards Labour Government produced by the National Left-Wing Movement, which • was the proceedings of the conference, sold over 100,000 copies. For the first time a strong organised left existed in. side the Labour Party. It had the advantage of being organised nationally and it was made up of Marxists. and bet leere becoming more angry who were becoming more angry disgusted at the policies of the right-wing leaders.
The majority of the Communist Party Central Committee led by Arthur Horner the miners' leader, J.R. Campbell and others were strong supporters of such a policy, bridge to those workers' ward in opposition to capitalism...' A minority of the CC led by Harry Pollitt and R.P. Dutt argued against it. They insisted become like the Liberal Party of the last century and that it must be destroyed not built up.
Left-Wing Movement as an obstacle to building a revolutionary party.
The executive Communist favour of the minority. Stalin's International was by then heading for the policies of the 'Third Period' whereby the main enemy were to become the social democrats stood in the way of the overthrow of capitalism. The adoption of such a sectarian line spelt disaster for the National Left-Wing Movement.
By December writing that '... the Labour Party is a third capitalist party' and insisting 'our strength will grow in the degree that we can weaken the January 1929 R.P. theoretician of the Communist Party, poured building the National Left-Wing Movement. He wrote: "If it is argued that it is necessary for the Communist Party to organise this tendency as a bridge to itset then this becomes equivalent to arguing that it is the task of the Communist Party to organise centrism.' ty.
insisting it was moving tormouths that the Labour Party had They saw the National another committee of the found in both the who they claimed 1928 Pollitt was Marxists Labour Party' workers.
Dutt, the chief the strategy mass movement. end allies.
Socialist Action 23 September 1983
Socialist Action 23 September 1983