The Way to Socialism in Britain

[p003] THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM IN GREAT BRITAIN Aneurin Bevan’s new book In Place of Fear has the merit of speeding straight to the basic problem before the working class of Great Britain today. The problem is this. How can the Socialist movement transfer supreme power from the capitalists to the organised working class; replace the bureaucratic state machinery with a democratic workers’ government; concentrate ownership and control of all the productive resources in the hands of the producers to be used for the reconstruction of our country along Socialist lines ? This problem has confronted: the British working class for along while. Without referring to earlier developments, it was posed by the very formation of the Labour Party which set itself the goal of taking over from the capitalist rulers on a socialist programme. Between the two World Wars it was most notably thrust forward on the arena of mass action by the Shop Stewards’ movement up to 1919, the Triple Alliance strike of the miners, railroad and trans- port workers in 1919, and the General Strike of 1926. It was presented on the parliamentary plane by the minority Labour governments of 1924 and 1929, It has been sharply posed by the achievements and even more, by the shortcomings and defaults, of the majority Labour governments of 1945 and 1950. Today the return of Churchill’s government to West- minster, which gravely menaces the welfare of the workers and the peace of the world, makes a radical solution of this problem unpostponable. The failures of the right-wing Labour Party leaders and the insistent demands of the ranks for a definitive conquest and consolidation of workers’ 1

[p004] power is lifting Mr. Bevan to the forefront of the Labour Party: All this gives his ideas on the subject exceptional importance. ‘ Mr. Bevan materialistically explains how the problem of power irresistibly arises in the consciousness of thinking workers from the whole historical background! of their class and the harsh realities of their lives and jobs. “We were surrounded by the established facts of the Industrial Revolution. We worked in pits, steelworks, foundries, textiles, mills, factories. These were the obvious instru- ments of power and wealth . . . We were the products of an industrial civilisation and our psychology corresponded. to that fact . . . Society presented itself to us as an arena of conflicting social forces ...” (pp. 1-2). Mr. Bevan designates the three main social forces as “private property, poverty and democracy”. (p. 2). This is far from accurate, because social forces in the scientific sense are classes of people having definite relations to: existing types of property and specific functions in the — processes of production. From this standpoint the class: Structure of Britain is constituted by capitalists, wage- workers, and a varied range of groupings which are a buffer between them. Correctly considered, democracy is not. a social force, although of course it has important con- sequences and significance in society. Democracy, like its opposite dictatorship, is a political form, an institution of government arising out of and based upon the relations: and struggles of the diverse classes within a country. It is precisely the development of these class relations: which presents the problem of power to the working class. of this country in its present form. Supremacy in Great Britain still resides with private property in the shape: of “wealth, great wealth, concentrated in comparatively few hands.” As Mr. Bevan eloquently proves, this economic and political power of the capitalist rulers is pitted against “a working class forming the vast majority of the nation, living under conditions which made it deeply conscious of inequality and preventable poverty.” (p. 11). (And, it may be added, dying by millions at least once a generation in 2

[p005] wars to save the Empire of their exploiters from the assaults of capitalist rivals, or the uprisings of oppressed colonial peoples). The whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century, says Mr. Bevan, has consisted in the following: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power?” (p. 3-4). But this art has grown less and less effective as the workers have caught on to the Tory game, repudiated Liberalism, and given allegiance to the Labour Party. But right-wing leaders of the Labour Party, from Mr. MacDonald to certain contemporaries which Mr. Bevan diplomatically refrains from naming, have followed non-Socialist or semi-Socialist policies which ended up with substantially the same results. Wealth has stayed in the saddle while poverty trudges behind. The art of Socialist politics, according to Mr. Bevan, is to put Labour in power so that it can use its political functions to get rid of private property and abolish poverty. That is absolutely correct. That is the genuine Socialist method for elimina- ting the hopelessly diseased and dying capitalist system and putting Britain on new healthy economic foundations. Only the organised workers can do this job. But how can they best get on with the task ? Here we come to the hub of the matter. For upon the correct answer to this question, in principle and in practice, depends the future of the British Labour movement and a successful outcome to its strivings for a better life. What does Aneurin Bevan say on this vital matter ? ‘What is right and what is wrong with his conclusions ? How must the genuine Socialists of the Labour Left approach and answer these burning questions ? These are the points we propose to discuss in this review.