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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 26, 26 June 1950, p. 7.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
To the Editor:
There is something about your article on the British Labor Party stand toward the Schuman Plan that is not clear. You describe the specific motivations of the Labor Party statement and conclude by saying that it “has in effect announced that it is banking on tying British imperialist interests to those of Washington.”
Now this may be true in general, but it hardly seems a sufficient characterization of the Labor Party’s stand toward the Schuman Plan. For you do not say in the article that the U.S. government was taken aback by the LP statement; that the U.S. government wants Britain to enter the Schuman Plan; that, in part, and in a rather devious way, the British LP statement is also anti-U.S.
The Labor Party statement is partly motivated by an attempt to keep together the remnants of the empire and prevent its gradual dissolution by the U.S. dollar; it is partly traditional British insularity. with which the LP leaders are richly blessed; and it is partly an attempt by the so-called “left wing” to get the government to play a somewhat more independent role in world politics.
This does not mean that the statement should be applauded. But it does mean that it requires a more subtle analysis than merely saying that it shows British subservience to the U.S.
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R. Fahan |
Comrade R. Fahan must have read last week’s article by Sam Feliks very hurriedly. By no means can it be characterized as “merely saying that it [the LP statement] shows British subservience to the U.S.”
Important emphasis in the article was in fact given to the British leaders’ orientation toward the remnants of their own empire.
We think the British LP declaration warrants continued analysis and discussion in addition to this first article written immediately on the announcement of the news. Pending such, however, the article presented an analysis which, in our opinion, is substantially more “subtle” – and more correct – than the three motives given by Comrade Fahan as prompting the declaration.
The heart of this analysis, brief as it was, is:
“It [the LP statement] argued that Britain, for its own advantage, preferred close ties with its own economic bloc, what is left of its empire, to European unity; with this, it argued specifically against the very notion of organizing Western Europe as a ‘third force’ independent of both U.S. and Russia. It connterposed to a Western European bloc two others: its ‘sterling bloc’ on the economic side and the U.S. war bloc on the political side.
“The seeming contradiction with its ‘socialist’ argument is made possible by the narrow nationalistic outlook that pervades all sections of the current leadership of the Labor Party. On the one hand the base of the Labor Party is in the British working class and a policy of full employment, while at the same time it is tied to the cold-war policies of Washington and has planned its economic policy toward the Commonwealth and colonialism.”
Comrade Fahan’s view is superficial, we think, in that it does not put these crisscrossing considerations in any relation to each other, whether in the way indicated in Sam Feliks’ article or in any other. The boldface sentence above does this.
“The British LP statement is also anti-U.S.,” writes Fahan, “in a rather devious way.” In the light of our article this thought should be put more subtly:
Inside the Western war bloc led by the U.S. – with all of its crisscrossing current of inter-imperialist rivalry which we have analyzed in other connections also (German dismantling, for example) – the British bank on maintaining their influence vis-à-vis the U.S. by maintaining their special influence and ties with their sterling bloc. As against an Independent Western Europe, or any approach to it or wish for it, the British couriterpose tying up with Washington. This latter point is made explicitly in the LP statement and is not an interpretation of ours.
The LP statement therefore does not indicate any attempt to “get the government to play a somewhat more independent role in world politics,” although there is plenty of pressure and talk from the Bevan-Crossman left wing in this direction as there is from even non-socialist figures on the Continent. Its emphasis is on Britain’s independent economic role within the Western bloc, and to this it couples the most explicit rejection so far made in a LP document of an independent political role.
Fahan’s second suggested motivation is “traditional British insularity.” This is not quite the same thought as that put forward by Sam Feliks’ article, which speaks of the “narrow nationalistic outlook” of the LP leaders and “the specific type of ‘national socialism’ of the BLP,” as a motivation of the LP statement (indicating once again, incidentally, that Fahan’s last sentence does less than justice to Comrade Feliks).
The reference to “traditional British insularity” in this connection would seem to indicate – if we are not reading too much into it – that the narrow nationalistic outlook of the LP leaders is merely or mainly a hangover of provincialism and isolationism in the most backward and traditional sense. We don’t think this is the most important aspect of the LP’s nationalism. The “Specific type of ‘national socialism' ” of the BLP deserves more subtle discussion, and we are planning to give it more analysis in Labor Action. To reduce it to “insularity,” however, is not only shallow but points away from an extremely basic starting point in understanding events in Britain today.
Finally, we refer Comrade Fahan to the article by Sam Feliks in LA of two weeks ago, June 12, on the Schuman Plan and the British attitude toward it. Written before the LP statement, this article already contained a cogent analysis of factors affecting the British policy. We recommend it for rereading now. – Ed.
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