The idea of a communist revolution in GB post WWII is laughable. British governments, both Labour and Tory avoided the anti-communist hysteria prevalent in both US and Australia in the early Cold War Era. Harry Pollitt was no Vladimir Lenin.

Spycatcher hardly mentions British communists, unless you count Roger Hollis, head of MI5, whom Peter Wright accused of being a Soviet double agent. It’s interesting that even as late as the Thatcher years Hollis’ allegiances remained murky in the eyes of the British governing classes. (Of course, at some time or other, much of the British spy service was run by Soviet agents, so Roger Hollis was nothing special in this regard.)

Harry Pollitt knew nothing of this.

Eric Hobsbawm’s autobiography springs to mind

Yes, and he’s somebody you might expect to remember an incipient revolution. Not that he was that much of an activist, AFAICT, but he was 28 in 1945 and already in the CPGB for nearly a decade. He’d have to be pretty dense not to have noticed the revolutionary mood in the air! EP Thompson too — 21 in 1945, a tanker in Italy and then back at Oxford to finish his history degree (and rejoin the Party). The next year they and others (like Christopher Hill) formed the Communist Party Historians Group. It’s not like we’re lacking historically aware observers of the post-war Communist scene.

Poor old Fred was left disabled after a vicious police attack on him at a demo in 1948.

And it’s not like the history of the left in Britain has been exactly ignored — rather the opposite — so it would have been picked up from the Communist side of things too.

Eric Hobsbawm’s autobiography springs to mind, but above and beyond this, there’s a very extensive literature on the history of the CPGB. No indication I can see in any of it that they ever thought they had any chance at taking power. In contrast to McCarthyism in the US, there wasn’t even a time when the hoi polloi of academic Communism really suffered any interruptions to their careers.

It’s not the sort of thing any government or dominant social group would want widely recorded and advertised - it is tempting to draw an analogy with the relative paucity of reliable information on the actual prevelance of homosexuality or adultery at the time.

But homosexuality was illegal. Membership of the CPGB was not. Nor was voting for it. You’d need to explain why virtually nobody did, if Communism was so popular. Britain in the late 1940s was hardly such a repressive place that Communists would be afraid to show their colours.

And I don’t accept that it’s a given that dominant social groups wouldn’t want to advertise a threat from within like this, since they’ve done it before and since. Why wouldn’t they use such a threat to increase their power?

I have never read Wright’s “Spycatcher” or similar memoirs of British security or intelligence wallahs but I wonder if there might be written reference in such works to the strength of support for Communism - and counter-measures to that - in the immediate post-war period.

I haven’t either. If you turn anything up I’d be interested to see it!

Sorry about the delay in responding.

True enough, although migrants are usually not exactly representative of the general population in their former homeland, I think there were enough staunch supporters of the Communist cause amongst the early post-war migrants here to suppose that there would have been a large chunk of them back in the Old Country; this was a view that was reinforced later in conversations [not research] with people in England.

The attitudes of later British post-war migrants, the ones who came after Churchill had been prime minister again and after they had lived under the constant threat of Soviet hydrogen bomb attack, tended to be markedly different.

I’m not surprised that you hadn’t come across pro-Communist attitudes in post-war Britain. It’s the sort of thing you would find only in oral history and in private correspondence. It’s not the sort of thing any government or dominant social group would want widely recorded and advertised - it is tempting to draw an analogy with the relative paucity of reliable information on the actual prevelance of homosexuality or adultery at the time. I don’t know but suspect that even the Communist Party itself would be more likely to print strident propaganda than any dispassionate analysis of their actual support by the general public [why would they want to give the Ruling Class a swag of useful intelligence?].

I have never read Wright’s “Spycatcher” or similar memoirs of British security or intelligence wallahs but I wonder if there might be written reference in such works to the strength of support for Communism - and counter-measures to that - in the immediate post-war period.

And do not, for even a moment, imagine that, after the War, every highly-experienced British war veteran rushed off to join the British Legion and the Conservative Party [or even the Labour Party!] - or the RSL and the Liberal Party here.

I don’t think anybody is imagining that they did, but how does this equate to a potential Communist revolution? (Or whatever — it’s unclear to me what you’re actually suggesting might have happened.)

Yes, of course elections aren’t the whole story, especially where revolutionary politics is concerned. But at least it’s part of it. The Communist Party of Great Britain got 103,000 votes in the 1945 general election in Britain. Compare that with 4.3 million votes for the Communists in the 1946 general election in Italy, or 5.0 million votes in the 1945 legislative election in France (where the Communists became the largest party). So that’s 40-50 times as many votes than the Communists got in Britain (in percentage terms, the disparity is even greater). And even so, neither Italy nor France went Communist. As far as this goes, it’s negative evidence for strong communist support in post-war Britain.

The reason why I’m curious as to your basis for this claim is that I’ve never heard it before. I’m an historian of modern Britain, though the post-WWII period is admittedly my weakest period. Still, I’d like to think that I’d remember something like this! A quick scour of my bookshelves seems to confirm that there was little danger of a Communist revolution. It barely rates a mention, except for foreign policy (Ernest Bevin was a staunch anti-communist).

(Also, I don’t think that migrants are necessarily representative of Britain as a whole — after all, they’re the ones who left the place, so by definition there was something about it they didn’t like.)

What? Electoral success was ALWAYS way down the Communist list of priorities; way below recruiting people in professorships or trade union senior positions; way below taking advantage of rationing and shortages to win adherents. Electoral campaigning to win adherents was always far more important than actually winning seats.

True, France and Italy - and Greece too - were more likely to “go Communist” than was Great Britain …. but the risk of that happening in Great Britain was real enough.

There were great divisions and dissatisfactions in Great Britain after the great victory in the Second World War. Talk with early post-war British migrants; the personal experiences and attitudes of some of them made a mockery out of the happy propaganda of a stout-hearted uncomplaining British people steadfastly rebuilding their country from the ashes of the War; some of the most virulent anti-monarchist views I ever heard came from such people. And do not, for even a moment, imagine that, after the War, every highly-experienced British war veteran rushed off to join the British Legion and the Conservative Party [or even the Labour Party!] - or the RSL and the Liberal Party here.

Attlee did a fantastic job …. and Labour reaped the benefit of that in the succeeding decades. Blair did not!

Attlee - and the security wallahs - frustrated the Communists at every turn. Had Britain turned Communist, Attlee would have been the first put up against the wall - but do you think Stuttering Albert would have been made Chairman of the Central Committee of the CPPRB and his family made Party cadres …. or would they have had what little remained of their lives spent in a somewhat different way?

Jane [48 -1]:

At least Yelstin was …. forget it …. I can’t type and roar laughing at the same time. You have a wicked sense of humour.

The first Earl Attlee (the third - his grandson - is now an elected hereditary peer for the Tories in the House of Lords) was a remarkable man and was, famously, one of Margaret Thatcher’s political icons - “he was all substance and no show.”

But….how exactly did he “save the Royal Family and prevent Britain turning Communist.?”

It’s not as if Bo-Jo’s actions as Lord Mayor of London are going to much influence on life in this country. A little more influence, maybe, than Jack’s down-under projections of his theories of Oz political behaviour onto the voters of London will have on political commentary in the UK, but not that much.

I dont recall making the claim that the Right-wing turn in British municipal electionswould i nfluence AUS political events. Perhaps Gummo would care to draw our attention to my words to that effect, or is he just running off at the mouth, as usual?

What I am claiming is that the British municipal elections, and national polls, point in the same direction as European national polls over most of the course of this decade: towards the Centre-Right, particularly on cultural politics.

And I have already gone on record as predicting that the LP will lose the next UK election. The defeat of Livingstone is significant since he is a strong candidate, obviously a capable manager and electoral contestant. Bo-Jo, by comparison, appears to be an affable light-weight. So the swing to the Right was probably based on policy rather than personality.

This is exactly as my “Decline of the Wets” theory predicts. The Cultural Left is on the nose with the general populace in most OECD countries. Most notably in Old Europe where cultural policy has been mishandled by Brussels-insulated elites.

That makes about 3/4 of the USE’s population listing to starboard.

Now it is possible that this turn of political events is just a co-incidence. But my expectation is that the trend will continue unless Centre-Left parties ditch the silly and nasty cultural philosophies that are currently hobbling their electoral prospects.

Speaking of projections, I am waiting with bated breath for Gummo to tell us all about the elections that he has successfully predicted. Waiting, still waiting…

Then where does that leave us ?? ….

Spot on …. but that doesn’t help Londoners here-and-now. Besides, a hell of a lot can happen between now and the next general election …. even the dissolution of the Labour Party.

Everyone:

The Labour Party played a vital part in the first half of the 20th Century - perhaps uncharismatic Clement Attlee even saved the Royal Family and prevented Britain turning Communist. However, Labour has long passed its use-by date; it is on the nose - and not even Brown can possibly save it. Time for a new progressive force in British politics?