Labour and the Left in the 1930s
Ben Pimlott

In view of the current world economic crisis, there has probably never been a better time to review Labour and the British Left's actions and reactions to the terrible recession of the 1930s. At the same time it is also very worthwhile reading Ben Pimlott's masterful analyse of that era. This book was originally published in 1977 and it is worth keeping in mind the political situation of that time. This 2008 version is a 'digitally printed version' which, if nothing else, shows how the world has changed in some twenty years, both technically speaking and also with regard to working practices.

The 1930s was a decade notable for two great problems, the threat of war and mass unemployment. The latter occurring in a rudimentary welfare state also gave rise to the infamous means test. While the official Labour party view was against the means test altogether its parliamentary leader, George Lansbury, favoured a personal test. The National Government of the day operated the household means test; which gave rise to scandalous cases where the meagre wages earned by a young daughter had to keep the entire household. A household that often contained a father that had laboured manually all his working life. If ever there was a scenario where the Left should have swept all before it this was it.

"Yet it was a decade in which the impact of the entire British Left on practical problems and immediate events was virtually nil. No major national policy or decision, from the formation of Ramsey MacDonald's first National Government in August 1931 to the declaration of war eight years later, was made, or prevented by anything any politician on the Left said, wrote or did." (p1)

So why did the Labour Party and the Left, not always the same thing, struggle to make any progress? As Pimlott points out that in 1931, even with three million people unemployed an unprecedented amount, the Labour Party was in disarray. At the parliamentary elections of Tuesday 27th October 1931 only 58 Labour members were returned ( 6 of those were unopposed) out of 515 candidates. Labour received 30.6 per cent of the cast votes. The Conservatives recorded 473 MPs with 55.2 per cent of the vote, while the all party National Government managed 554 members and 67 per cent. The Communist party had no room for congratulation their 26 candidates received 75,000 votes or 0.3 per cent of the cast votes, none of course being elected. The turnout for this election was a whopping 76.3 per cent.

The Labour Party and the Left never presented a united front despite a movement being formed with that very name. The left was always fractured; for instance the rich lawyer Sir Stafford Cripps was forever causing divisions. With others he formed The Socialist League, a group which despite its egalitarian name was an elite London based set. It once held an important meeting in a West End tearoom. Plus one of it members Sir Charles Trevelyan was Lord Lieutenant for Northumberland. A fact which caused a famous Ernest Bevin repost. When Sir Charles suggested British workers should strike, Bevin retorted 'If I bring out 600,000 Dockers will you call out the Lord Lieutenants?'

It wasn't as if The Socialist League did not have some good ideas. As part of the introduction of socialist legislation, by any future Labour government, it proposed worker control of the transport and electricity industries, but more importantly nationalization of the Bank of England and the joint stock banks. (Where have heard this before?)

Pimlott deals with the other offshoots of the 1930s left, besides the Socialist League there was The Popular Front, The Left Book Club (a promotion by the communist publisher Victor Gollancz), the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, the last a brainchild of the renown academic G.D.H. Cole. Pimlott also deals extensively, as his subject demands, with Ben Greene and The Constituency Party Movement. This movement started in 1933 as The Home Counties Labour Association it was followed closely by the Bristol and District Labour Association of Constituency Parties. The outcome of Greene's and others' efforts was that the rank and file of the Labour Party would gain representation on Labour's National Executive Committee and a voice in the formation of policy. More importantly The Labour Party started to look democratic. Writing in 1977 Pimlott notes that Ben Greene and his work with constituency parties has been removed from official Labour Party history. Checking in March 2009, I couldn't find mention of either on Labour's official website, very strange.

As Pimlott stresses Labour has never been a revolutionary party; it always co-operated with a capitalist structure, even when it came to bringing an end to mass unemployment. It was a parliamentary party whose aim was to win seats and thus represent the working class. The Labour Party was very good at promoting its beliefs unfortunately it tended to consider that such expressions constituted a major step towards the achievement of its aims. All this is not to suppose that the Labour Party, both in and outside 'The House', did not achieve some of its desires. Contact with the Conservative MP Harold MacMillan probably paved the way for the post war economic phenomenon known as Butskillism. Even more important "…in determining Chamberlain's decision to resign and in overcoming his hesitations and procrastinations, the firmness of the Labour leaders appears to have been a crucial factor". For Britain this was just as well for Churchill, Halifax and other Conservative MPs were too scared of losing their own sinecures to risk upsetting, or attempting to remove, their inept leader. Furthermore the experiences of the party in pre-war politics laid the basis for its landslide in the first post-war election, the nationalization of many national industries and more importantly the foundation of the National Health Service and the welfare state.

However, Labour and the Left activities in the 1930s is a catalogue of vacillations and failures. According to Pimlott the reason its role in pre-war politics was minor was due to an inability to try new approaches, a failure of flexibility at critical times and the political strait-jacket of its own conflicts. Whatever, the Labour Party failed to appeal to the masses, maybe because it was too young a party (it was only formed in 1900), maybe because it lacked a charismatic leader. It would be interesting to know what Ben Pimlott made of the 1990s and Tony Blair, not that one could, by any stretch of the imagination, consider that to be a triumph of the Left.

If you get a chance do read Ben Pimlott's Labour and the Left in the 1930s. It will give the reader an insight into both pre-war politics and also 1970s political thinking.

Don Vincent