Bevanism was a movement on the
left wing of the
Labour Party in the late 1950s led by
Aneurin Bevan which also included
Richard Crossman,
Michael Foot and
Barbara Castle.[1] Bevanism was opposed by the
Gaitskellites,[2] moderate
social democrats within the party.[2] The Gaitskellites typically won most of the battles inside Parliament, but Bevanism was stronger among local Labour activists. The Bevanites split over the issue of nuclear weapons, and the movement faded away after Bevan died in 1960.
History
Bevanism was influenced by
Marxism; Bevan's biographer and later
Leader of the Labour PartyMichael Foot said that Bevan's "belief in the
class conflict stayed unshaken", while acknowledging that Bevan was not a traditional Marxist.[3][4][page needed] Despite declaring inspiration from
Karl Marx, Bevan did not visibly support insurrectionist concepts of
proletarian revolution, arguing that revolution depended on the circumstances,[5] or the typical organisational model of many Communist parties. According to
Ed Balls, Bevan and his supporters instead preferred a strident but pluralist conception of
democratic socialism, tempered by pragmatic sensibilities and practical application.[6][7]
The Bevanite Group of MPs, of which there were about three dozen, coalesced following Bevan's resignation from the Cabinet in 1951 when the health service started charging for previously free services such as spectacles in order to help pay for Britain's involvement in the
Korean War.[8] Bevanites
Harold Wilson and
John Freeman resigned with Bevan himself. The group in Parliament drew heavily from the previous
"Keep Left" group, which had previously dissented from the pro-American foreign policy of the 1945–1951 Labour government favoured by
Clement Attlee, his Foreign Secretary
Ernest Bevin and
Hugh Gaitskell.[9] According to Crossman in December 1951 the group was not organised, and Bevan could not be persuaded to have any consistent or coherent strategy, but they did have a group who met regularly and liked each other and came to represent "real Socialism" to a large number of Party members. Picture Post called them the "Bevanly Host" in April 1952.[10]
Local organisations
Bevanites organised in
Constituency Labour Parties across Britain, and set up local discussion groups known as "Brains Trusts", also a legacy of the "Keep Left" group.
Brains Trusts organised in support of the newspaper favoured by Bevanites, Tribune magazine, allocating left-wing MPs and campaigners to form speaking panels around the country. Tribune itself provided an important print voice for Bevanite politicians and was in wide circulation.
Objectives
The main Bevanite objectives were:
State ownership of the "
commanding heights of the economy". Many nationalisations had made up the bedrock of Labour's previous manifestos, such as "Let us face the future". Bevanites' views towards nationalisation mirrored those of
Vladimir Lenin, in that state control was only seen as necessary in the context of exchange or distribution, as opposed to the total and immediate appropriation of as much
private property as possible.
General unwillingness to yield upon the perceived gains made since 1945, for example, opposition to
means testing for social security benefits, and opposition to
prescription charges as military spending increased.
A complementary ability to drop unpopular policies.
Freedom of debate, opinion and criticism within the Labour Party.
Greater
industrial democracy and
workers' control of nationalized industries, which Bevan believed were governed unconstitutionally due to their lack of public accountability.[13]: 139
Party role
Historian
Kenneth O. Morgan says. "Bevan alone kept the flag of left-wing socialism aloft throughout – which gave him a matchless authority amongst the constituency parties and in party conference."[14] At the 1952 Labour Party Conference, Bevanites were elected to six of the seven places on the
National Executive Committee by constituency representatives.[15]
Split over nuclear disarmament
Later in his political career, Bevan began advocating the maintenance of
Britain's nuclear deterrent, against those who became associated with the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), saying that without them a future British foreign secretary would be going "naked into the conference chamber."[16] This split the Bevanites; many, such as leading Bevanite[17] Michael Foot, continued to oppose Britain's nuclear weapons, with
Labour's 1983 manifesto under Foot's leadership of the party calling for
unilateral nuclear disarmament.[18]
Foote, Geoffrey. "The Bevanite Left" in Foote, ed., The Labour Party’s Political Thought. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1997, pp. 260–278.
Jenkins, Mark. Bevanism, Labour's High Tide: The Cold War and the Democratic Mass Movement (Spokesman Press, 1979).
Jobson, Richard. "'Waving the Banners of a Bygone Age', Nostalgia and Labour's Clause IV Controversy, 1959–60." Contemporary British History 27.2 (2013): 123–144.
Steck, Henry J. "Grassroots Militants & Ideology: The Bevanite Revolt." Polity 2.4 (1970): 426–442.