Bevan and Bourdet

The many appreciations which have been made of Bevan since his death tell us as much about those who make them as about the man himself. There is little doubt that accredited spokesmen of the ruling powers genuinely regret his passing. At first sight that may seem strange, since Bevan was for a long period the focal point of the Labour Lefts and we might have expected them to say good riddance to a dangerous rabble-rouser. In fact, they knew that he did not make the storm, but was the lightning conductor which directed it into the safe channels of Parliamentary discussions. There all storms can blow themselves out in safety. .

There remains the question of how Bevan could acquire this position and act in a way quite contrary to his intentions. It would take a long analysis of the British Labour Movement to answer it at all adequately. A recent article journal ‘France-Observateur’ (July 14), casts some interesting light.both on Bevan and the movement in France. Bourdet is a man of great intelligence, for long near to the seats of political decision-making but for much longer gyrating in the outer darkness of Left-wing politics, where, between confessions, he plays the role of a particularly subtle oracle.

Bevan the improviser Bourdet not only knew Bevan, he and his friends were to some extent consciously seeking to create a French ‘Bevanism’ in «he 50s which could steer a course between the Right-moving leadership of Social Democracy and the isolated Communist Party—and perhaps bring them together in a resurrected ‘Popular Front’.

From this vantage point he is able to put his finger on a number of Bevan’s weaknesses. Bevan could not work in or with a team; he was surrounded with admiring yesmen; his approach to policy questions was to improvise. We might add that he thus combined the characteristic traits of English empiricism—so corroding in its effects on leaders of great personal merit—with Celtic sound and fury—which often deceives both speaker and audience into thinking that the revolution is already afoot.

We can broadly agree with Bourdet that cut off from any close knowledge of the motives of his followers, lacking in real theoretical grounding and fundamentally impatient of theory, he was unable to give real leadership or even to know where he was headed personally. All that became pathetically clear in the later years when he became a yes-inan of the machine, playing with phrases and witticisms, a caricature of his old self combined with what he had once stood out against. We may recall that from time to time he seemed to catch a giimpse of himself in the mirror and say, regretfully, that if he were a younger man he would be stumping the country on a socialist campaign, i.e., not doing the job which he. had been tamed into doing through his own inadequacies.

Doctrine—and the New Left But back to Bourdet, who does not say all this, though the conclusion seems to follow. He draws a moral, and (Continued on next page)

AucustT 20, 1960