Against the Cold War The nature and traditions of Pro-Soviet sentiment in the British Labour Party 1945-89 Darren Graham LiIleker Department of Politics The University of Sheffield Submitted for degree of PhD September 2001 IMAGING SERVICES NORTH Boston Spa, Wetherby West Yorkshire, LS23 7BQ www.bl,uk BEST COpy AVAILABLE. VARIABLE PRI NT QUALITY Acknowledgements This research would not have been possible without the scholarship offered to me by Barnsley College. I would like to acknowledge the debt of gratitude to the college and the staff on the BA Humanities degree course, David Bills, Sian Edwards, Robert Fletcher, David Kiernan, Tony Hooper, Martin McMahon, Michael McMahon, Graham Mustin and Paul Wild. All of whom were immensely supportive to me throughout my degree studies and during my time as a lecturer and postgraduate. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my supervisors Julian Birch and Michael Kenny for all their help throughout my research and writing, much of which was beyond the call of duty. There are also many others within the department who were supportive to me during my time in Sheffield, particularly Stephen George, Steve Ludlam, Pat Seyd, Martin J Smith and Paul Whiteley and the office staff Sarah Cooke, Sue Kelk, Katie Middleton and Christine Whitaker. They were all fantastic! This study also benefited from the help and encouragement of many people beyond academia, not all of whom I can mention here. The archivists at the Museum of Labour History, the Modern Records Centre and King's College London were enormously helpful. As were Ray Challinor and Archie Potts who imparted a lot of knowledge over several telephone conversations. Those who were interviewed were thanked individually. however I would like to reiterate my debt of gratitude as much of this work depends on their recollections. I would lastly like to thank all of those working within the fields of Labour and Communist history who showed interest in my work, this was a great encouragement. Finally. and on a personal note, I would like to thank my colleagues within the Political Studies Association Postgraduate Network for their support, my friends in Wakefield for keeping me grounded in the real world and Teresa, to whom I owe the greatest debt of all. D G Lilleker (September 2001) Summary of Thesis Ideas and ideological attachments are a powerful motivating force over political activity. This thesis studies how a group of British Labour parliamentarians developed an ideological link to the Soviet Union and how this attachment acted as a prism through which they viewed the world. This led to an opposition to the Cold War to develop that was sympathetic to the objectives of the Soviet Union. This led pro­ Sovietism to become an established, but minority, tradition of British socialism. This is explored through a study of the ideals and activities associated with these beliefs by focussing on individual MPs. Using MPs as case studies, and studying them within the context of a period of the Cold War, we are able to understand how their activism became reactive to international relations and how their ideas filtered into developing traditions within the party's left-wing. The thesis rejects the notion that those who engaged in pro­ Soviet activism were agents of the Soviet Union and crypto-Communists and develops a framework within which these figures can be understood as principled socialists who shared the objectives of preventing an escalation of the Cold War and establishing a socialist future. Contents Introduction 1 The party and the left 1 The left and pro-Sovietism 2 The Cold War Narrative of Pro-Soviet ism 3 Agents: a question of perspectives 5 A rejection of the zero-sum perspective 10 Redefining the roles of the pro-Soviet MPs 13 Structure of the Study 17 Chapter One: Building a pro-Soviet fifth Column: the Soviet campaign for support during the Cold War 25 Presenting the alternative: the Soviet propaganda campaign 28 The progressive ally: the Soviet front organisation network 37 Chapter Two: From Emancipatory Revolution to Grand Alliance: The traditions of pro-Sovietism 56 Brief Honeymoon, Quick Divorce: February 1917 -August 1931 60 Collapse of faith: the failure of democratic socialism and the rise of fascism 65 The socialist champion: Who won the war anyway? 73 Chapter Three: Konni Zilliacus and Labour's adversarial voices from the left 87 Konni ZiIliacus: the rebel who knew best 89 I Choose Peace: the Zilliacus perspective of international affairs 91 Independent socialist or agent of influence? 96 The myth of the crypto-communist 101 The totalitarian element 105 The pro-Soviet propagandist 110 The advocate of totalitarianism and the campaigner for democracy 115 From Gateshead to Gorton: a genuflective journey 119 Old traditions with a new imperative 125 Chapter Four: Victory for Socialism: Developing a pro-Soviet alternative to the Cold War rationale 138 Victory for Socialism as a pro-Soviet agent for change 143 The socialist defence policy: designed by Moscow? 145 The last lost sheep 149 Zilliacus' successor 155 The Victory for Socialism vision 164 Chapter Five: Beneath Detente 172 No enemies to the left 175 Trading with the enemy 186 The Rebel of Zion 190 Red Renee 197 Detente from below 206 Chapter Six: Raising the Stakes; The Second Cold War 216 Front organisation activity in the Labour party 220 Peace and internationalism: the alternative perspective 223 The Trade Unions and pro-Sovietism 226 James Lamond and the Soviet movement for world peace 233 William Wilson: the confidential contact 240 The Wild Man of Leith: a further variable 249 Friendship: for the Common Weal or anti-democratic traitors? 253 Never Again: the end of parliamentary pro-Sovietism 255 Chapter Seven: The perspectives of pro-Sovietism 265 The Soviet Union as a socialist example 267 The Soviet Union as a positive alternative 270 The Soviet Union as a governmental alternative 272 The Soviet Union as the proponent of peace 275 The Soviet Union in humanist perspective 277 Conclusion: the Soviet Union as a focus for alternative activism 278 Conclusion 281 Why the Soviet model? 281 Why Labour? 284 The future ideal: a movement's objectives 286 Footprints in the Snow 287 Change Agents and Conduits of Understanding 289 Appendix I: Biographical Detail 293 Appendix 11: Note on Interviews 298 Bibliography 299 1 Introduction Pro-Sovietism and the British Labour Party The Party and the Left The British Parliamentary Labour party (PLP) is traditionally described as a coalition of left-wing traditions and ideologies. Wright described this coalition as fragile because the leadership was often tom between the policy outcomes imposed by the realities of governance and those prescribed by ideology. 1 The debate between approaches frequently divided the party. The leadership adopted a largely pragmatic and consensual approach to government, while the left argued that ideology should guide the party. The intra-party debate thus centred upon what was possible; the leadership maintained the stance that radical socialist policies were untenable for Britain and unpopular with the electorate. The left, in contrast, argued that socialist principles alone should determine policy and that, if the leadership showed determination in the pursuit of socialist goals, the electorate would respond favourably. Thorpe argued that similar divisions existed within the traditional constituency of the party, the working class. 2 Britain has traditionally lacked a revolutionary socialist tradition and, therefore, any socialist political grouping intent on securing electoral success has had to adopt a centre-Ieft3 or social democratic4 position. The democratic socialist left largely rejected this as a legitimate constraint. The internal divisions in the British Labour party are amplified by the fact that the party was founded upon an alliance of autonomous organisations. This factor led Shaw to conclude that Labour was "neither socialist nor... a party". ~ He described the party as a confederation of societies that had amalgamated only because they represented, to differing extents, working class interests. This has led political analysts to define Labour's ideology not as socialism but 'labourism'; a coalition of group interests some of which can be described as ideological but, in general, are nothing more than political objectives derived from the interests of a single class.6 We can therefore view Labour party policy as having emerged out of a loose collection of ideological traditions, restricted by a traditional non-radical tendency within the electorate and the party's structure and also by the existence of a largely right-wing parliamentary opposition. From this analysis we can recognise that socialist achievements, such as the nationalisation programme and foundation of the Welfare state, could only have been achieved in a consensual political atmosphere. 7 2 There is no easy way to characterise those parliamentarians who became known as the left-wing of the PLP. The left-wing traditions, which filtered into the ethos of the Labour party, included the influence of Marxism and Trotskyism, libertarianism, intellectual humanism, Christianity and internationalism. It would be misleading to discuss the existence of a left-wing ideology, or indeed one definite labourist ideology. Across the party there existed divisions over the objectives that should be pursued, which were often dependent upon the individual's socialist ideals. Furthermore, each of the ideological concepts held had blurred boundaries and lacked definite objectives relevant to everyday politicking. Thus the left of the Labour party can be defined as a loose collective united only around broad objectives, that lacked a definitive ideological core.s Historically high politics within the party has been viewed as a battle between left and centre-right factions, for example the Bevinite-Bevanite divide within the 1945-50 government, or the Healey-Benn split of 1981.