A Democratic and Socialist Foreign Policy for Britain the Colonial Question

[p023] oO A DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIALIST FOREIGN POLICY FOR BRITAIN Britain has long been noted both for its far-flung Empire and for the insular outlook of its inhabitants. These are now changing, though in opposite directions. As the British Empire contracts and is breaking up, the interest of the British workers in what happens abroad is expanding. They are giving greater attention to the positions of their repre- sentatives on major issues of foreign policy because they see more clearly how international events immediately affect their own welfare. This is apparent in the current debates over rearmament which are shaking the Labour Party from top to bottom. The international atmosphere is today overcast by the war preparations of the capitalist powers in the West and by the stormy outbursts of colonial revolt in the East. The value of the Socialist convictions of working-class leaders can be judged by their attitude towards these developments. - Anyone who claims to be working for peace and yet upholds the alliance with U.S. imperialism which is waging war against the Korean people and girding for global war is no Socialist. Anyone who claims to stand for equality and freedom of oppressed peoples and then refuses to support the just struggles of the colonial nations against their enslavers is no Socialist. What are Mr. Bevan’s views on these matters? Mr. Bevan has come forward as the chief critic of the rearmament programme among the Labour Party leaders. He resigned over this issue and owes much of his popularity to his defence of the social services threatened by the huge arms budget. He has become the hope of the anti-war 21

[p024] forces in England; throughout Western Europe socialist workers are looking toward him for. leadership in. the campaign against the .damaging consequences of. the Atlantic Alliance and the arms programme. It has required some courage and conviction to withstand the pressures and propaganda coming from Conservatives, Labour. Party right-wingers and simiiar helpers of national and ‘inter- national capitalism who insist that everyone line up 100 per cent in the anti-Soviet camp which is driving toward a Third World War. _“T believe the guidance given to the world by the United States Administration is wrong,” (p. 124) he writes. This is all to the good. But the trouble is that he does not give a correct and rounded explanation for the aggressive, warlike course of this Administration. “They have mistaken the nature of the menace, and so they not only prescribe the wrong remedy but their remedy itself feeds the danger,” (pp. 124-5) he says. OS If we may believe Mr. Bevan, the present policies of the United States flow from some error in understanding the realities of the world situation and the true needs of society. The misunderstanding on this point is rather on Mr. Bevan’s side. The American monopolists and militarists well under- stand what the real situation is from their capitalist stand- point and what they propose to do about it. A Socialist spokesman should be equally realistic. Mr. Bevan himself. provides facts enough in this book to refute his own conclusion. He quotes the American banker-commentator, Mr. J ames Warburg, who put his finger on the economic compulsions and financial pressures behind the speed and scope of rearmament. There is too much surplus capital in the American system, six to seven billion dollars of “hot money”—“money which must be got rid of in one way or another if our economy is not to go into a tail-spin. At present we are getting rid of our “hot money’ through rearmament.” (p. 145). a Of course, in a rational socialist economy this surplus would be used to lift the productive level and living 22

[p025] standards of the. country. But the United States is the last stronghold of monopoly capitalism, and these billions are private.funds which must be invested for profits. If the arms programme did not provide an artificial outlet for private capital, American economy would risk the collapse ‘which. threatened it in 1949 before the outbreak of the Korean War. These economic pressures are responsible for the large-scale arms programme and they are propelling ‘Washington toward the launching of a third World War. For, as Mr. Bevan points out, “so much wealth is tied up in the war machine, that fears of universal deflation and consequent bankruptcies and unemployment, will thrust us either into military action or the continuation of arms pro- duction on a self-defeating scale.” (p. 145). ' Another factor making for acute tension in international ‘relations, says Mr. Bevan, is the “fear of Soviet Com- munism” by the American Administration. What are the ‘reasons for this phobia? It is not only that the social- economic systems of the two powers are different; they are inherently antagonistic, and their peaceful co-existence. is ‘becoming increasingly impossible. The destruction of capitalist property by the Russian Revolution and the exten- sion of this same process into Eastern Europe and China after the Second World War has undermined the stability of world capitalism, and is one of the fundamental factors -creating constant crisis in the capitalist countries. American Big Business, its diplomats and its generals, aim to rescue ‘these areas for capitalist enterprise, they hope to restore vitality to their sick system by destroying the centre and source of anti-capitalist infection before it spreads farther. This is the class method and meaning behind the apparent ‘mad rush of America’s imperialists down the road to war. "Why, as Mr. Bevan remarks, are so many U.S. statesmen “almost as strongly opposed to British Socialism as. to ‘Russian Communism?” (p. 126). For the same basic class ‘reasons, These anti-Socialist Americans are resolved to defend private property against working-class movements in any country which aspire to end, or even curb, capitalist exploitation and oppression. That is why they back Chiang 23

[p026] Kai-Shek in China, Franco in Spain, the monarchy im Greece, the restoration of Nazi generals and industrialists: in Germany—and Churchill in England. Their policies and their arms are designed, not to stop “Russian aggression” as they pretend, but to strangle anti-capitalist and anti- imperialist forces wherever they arise. Their projected war against the U.S.S.R: fits into this strategic framework. Mr. Bevan does not propose either to break completely’ with the American Alliance or to scrap. the arms pro-- gramme. He makes more modest proposals. He wants to slow down the rate of rearmament and reduce its: pro-- portions to what England can bear. He seeks to restrain. the atom-maniacs across the Atlantic and through his- arguments help them see the light of reason. He expresses the hope that the U.S. is “arming for peace,”” and not piling up atom bombs for war. The government: of the American capitalists is not putting 65 billion dollars. annually——50 per cent of its budget—into arms expenditure without expecting to cash in on this investment. That would not be Big Business-like. America’s monopolists are seriously and systematically preparing their whole area of influence for all-out war at the propitious moment—and that may come in the not too distant future. Through a Third World War they hope to complete the domination of the globe they have come close to capturing through the. First and Second World Wars. A realistic socialist who has studied Lenin’s writings on imperialism and observes: the behaviour of the American imperialists should have no illusions on this score. Can this plunge toward war be reversed? Mr. Bevan would like to substitute for the arms programme a grandiose plan “for the peaceful development of backward -parts of the world.” (p. 147). How much chance is there that American statesmen can be persuaded to divert their budget from building machines for destruction to machines: for peaceful production in backward lands? First of all, any sizeable cut, or even hint, of slicing the arms programme can well precipitate a rout in the American economy itself. Washington has already shelved its own Point 4 Pro-- 24

[p027] gramme which Truman launched with such blasts of - frumpets; it is hardly likely to adopt that of the “terrible Socialist,” Aneurin Bevan. If the United States cannot guarantee aid enough to sustain England on its mediocre economic level for an extended period, or even lift up its depressed areas at home, how can it be expected to elevate the colonies? THE COLONIAL QUESTION In the colonial world nowadays the questions of war and revolution are inseparably interlocked. It would be lovely if the United States—or the United Nations—dedi- cated its forces and resources to eliminate poverty, ignorance, hunger and disease in the backward regions. But what we actually see is quite the opposite. The United: States, for example, is sending its armed forces under the banner of the United Nations to invade and destroy Korea where the people rose in revolt against the rotten regime of Syngman Rhee-and the imperialist occupation. ° Mr. Bevan himself acknowledges that the American Administration is primarily interested in military alliances with the forces of reaction. “The underfed masses yearn for material aid; we send them guns,” (p. 138-9) he writes. And the guns dispatched to Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai- Shek; Bao Dai and other puppet-dictators in the Far East are used not to protect these countries, but to help foreign invaders and domestic reactionaries put down the peoples themselves Mr. Bevan is keenly aware of the progressive significance of the revolutions in the Orient and the irrepressible uprisings of the colonial peoples. He does not attribute these movements to the machinations of Soviet demons or the artificial instigations of Communist Parties. “It is a profound mistake to look upon our relations with backward peoples as simply one aspect of the struggle with the Soviet Union. If the Soviet system did not exist, the problem would still be there.” These national revolutions have been provoked, like all such movements, out of appalling social conditions and political tyranny. They embody the aspira- 25

[p028] tions of downtrodden masses for a better mode of life made possible by modern civilisation. The Asians, Africans and’ Latin-Americans rebel because “they see wealth taken from their countries to.add to. the wealth of people already enjoy- ing standards of living spectacularly higher than their own.” (p. 137). — These revolutions are logical sequels and inevitable extensions of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which in turn was a product of the Industrial Revolution in the West. “The philosophy applied to Russia after the 1914-18 ‘war was a product of the Industrial Revolution. It was. born in London, Berlin, Paris and New York; not in Rostov, Kiev and Leningrad.” (p. 133). Mr. Bevan emphasises that these historically necessary national revolutions cannot be. either crushed ‘or starved into submission. They must be accommodated “within a general pattern of world co- operation.” . Why, then, do we see more conflict than co-operation between Great Britain and these colonial fighters for freedom? Mr. Bevan explains this as an inescapable ‘consequence of military alliances with American imperi- alists. “Once these pacts are made, military needs require order and stability in the countries forming them. The social and political ambitions of the masses in these circum- ‘stances, are seen as opposed to our military necessities, and before we know where we are (!) our armed forces are enlisted on the side of the oppressors in these countries.” {p. 138). This, comments Mr. Bevan, is “an ugly and lamentable situation.” But by now “we know (or ought to know) where we are,” so far as Korea is concerned, The British soldiers there are in the wrong place and on the wrong side; they ought to be taken out forthwith. And the government itself should get out of entangling alliances ‘with imperialism that hurls our country against the pro- gressive forces in the colonies. ~In Malaya the British government is waging an imperialist ‘war on its own account; it does not have any excuse that it acts in fulfilment of a pact with other powers or the 26

[p029] United Nations. Here, at least, Britain could immediately co-operate with the independence movement by withdraw- ing Templer’s troops from Malaya. - Mr. Bevan, however, favours gradual grants of freedom: to the British colonies. “Stability can be maintained when political liberty is enlarged and economic conditions can be improved at a pace which is acceptable to the masses. This is the case in many of the British colonies.” (p. 22). But who is to decide the pace of progress and the date of emancipation? The master or the slave? Liberal reformers of the capitalist regime likewise advise the workers not to be hasty in their demands but to await gradual improvement and eventual liberation from above. Then the dates of payment are invariably postponed. The insurgent colonial peoples do not want this kind of treat- ment. They want independence now, and they have full right to it. - Mr. Bevan is reluctant to let go of the Crown Colonies, although he is somewhat more generous with those con- trolled by other powers. For example, he says that the United States must hand over Formosa to the Chinese People’s Republic, but that Britain was right to hang on to Hong Kong and reinforce its garrison there. This will not do. British imperialism’s record in the colonies is just as bad as those of the French, the Dutch and the Americans. Mr. Bevan points with pride to the freedom given India. But Britain got out of India, as it did out of Iran, because, like the Dutch in Indonesia, it lacked the forces to hold the old positions any longer. Almost every year at Annual Conference, Labour Party leaders accept resolutions in support of freedom and self- determination for colonial peoples. Between times, so far as possible, British Governors and troops remain in the colonies, and the colonies in the Empire. What a difference it would make if an incoming Labour government would voluntarily withdraw its armed forces and appointed officials from all the colonies so that they could proceed at once to organise their own independent governments. This would 27

[p030] not only save the British people countless lives and pounds. It would be the basis for establishing entirely different types of relations with the inhabitants of Asia, Africa, and other areas, and the beginning of a new era of fraternal political and economic collaboration with them. Soviet Union and the policies of its present rulers, which are well worth noticing. It is, first of all, refreshing in the Prevailing atmosphere of frenzied anti-Sovietism in the West to hear some sense about the Russian Revolution and its achievements. “When the Soviet worker of today compares his lot with that of his parents, he is aware of enlargement, and not of constriction. He is now literate. They could neither read nor write. Many occupations are open to him where they were confined to the narrow frontiers of the village, and the repetitious cycle of a primi- tive agriculture. For him the barriers are down. He can become a mechanic, a teacher, a doctor, an artist, a professor, or a foreman or manager in a large industrial undertaking. It is completely unhistorical to expect him to take any other view than that Soviet society has lifted him to higher levels of opportunity and culture... His support of the Soviet regime . . . rests on his own knowledge that all around him the framework of a modern industrial community is being built, that he is helping to build it, and that in the meantime his life is substantially, if slowly, improving.” (p. 139). Mr. Bevan does not, like the leaders of the British Com- munist Party, completely close his eyes—or try to shut the eyes of others—to the repulsive features of the Soviet sys- tem under Stalin. “The existence of huge forced labour camps, the ruthless punishment meted out to political offenders, the disappearance without trace of people who offend against the ruling clique, the appalling doctrine of “associative crime’; all these are deeply offensive,” (p. 139) he writes. 28

[p031] This Police State of Stalin is not simply a product of ‘Russia’s economic and cultural backwardness and its en- forced. isolation after the Revolution. Mr. Bevan points out that Western “democratic” capitalism itself cannot. ‘avoid a certain responsibility for the Police State there. “Russia was surrounded by a wall of hostility, trade was hampered and sometimes cut off entirely. It should not be forgotten that the Conservatives won the 1924 General Election by attacking the proposal of the then Labour Government to advance a loan to Russia—a loan which would have been spent in Britain and would have provided work for the unemployed of Britain as well as capital equipment for Russia.” (p. 41). ~ He warns that today’s imperialists are trying to repeat this starvation policy towards the new China. “You cannot starve a national revolution into submission. You can starve it into a repressive dictatorship; you can starve it to the point where the hellish logic of the Police State takes charge.” (p. 42). Consequently the Russian Revolu- tion of the days of Lenin and Trotsky became perverted into the totalitarian dictatorship of the present Soviet tulers. “The principle of authority has replaced the authority of principle, which inspired the Revolution in the first instance.” (p. 142). But Mr. Bevan believes that the Stalinist regime is not so stable and enduring as it seems to superficial observers. The very industrialisation of the country will tend to bring the workers and peasants into collision with the Police State. “Industrialisation is lifting increasing numbers of Russians to technical and economic importance in the Soviet economy. Their economic en- franchisement is proceeding. Political enfranchisement must follow. Economic importance combined with political nullity cannot last. They never have yet, and there is no reason to suppose the Soviet system will be any different. The desperate attempts made by the Soviet rulers to insulate themselves from the rest of the world is proof of this.” (p. 140). He foresees the development of an in- evitable clash between the Soviet workers and technicians and the Stalinist bureaucrats. The expansion of the Kremlin’s powers into Eastern 29

[p032] Europe is in his opinion a source of weakness, rather thar of permanent strength, for the Soviet government. “The: complicated industrial system of the satellite states and the commerce attending upon it impose local responsibilities which have to be undertaken by individuals who stand or fall by the decisions they take. The independence of mind resulting from that situation provokes countless points of resistance, and each point is a focus of dissatisfaction.” (p. 141). The repeated purges of the highest Communist Party officials in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bul- garia, gives evidence of these strains and stresses. But the most dramatic demonstration to date of the underlying conflict between the nationalist-minded Stalinist rulers and the expanding international revolution has been Jugoslavia’s break with Moscow. “The passionate desire: for national freedom, which is the centuries old tradition of the peoples of Jugoslavia, merged during the war with the revolutionary aims of the Jugoslav Communists. There was therefore a clear understanding between the two, for the urban workers, Socialism, for the peasants, land, and for both national independence.” (p. 16). But the Soviet leaders after the war tried to deprive J ugoslavia of inde- pendence and delay its march toward socialism by main- taining Jugoslavia in an economically backward condition. The Jugoslav leaders resisted this subject status and be- came the first Communist country to rebel successfully against the bondage of the Kremlin. Mr. Bevan predicts that “China will be next.” (p. 16).