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THE LIMITATIONS OF WHAT COULD BE DONE IN 1945
The 1929 Labour Government also did not enact socialist measures. The 1945 Labour Government, which took office with a clear majority of 150, used its majority to enact those socialist measures which had been accepted by the working class in the l890s-19l4 in principle. It enacted them without the need for a struggle either in or outside Parliament because the bourgeoisie had long ago come to terms with the inevitability of these measures. After all they had had some fifty years to do so. These measures could have been forced through Parliament by the working class at any time during these fifty years; and it was a case of the working class's political leaders waiting until they could no longer avoid enacting them, waiting until the political forms no longer put any obstacles in their way. However, the 1945 Labour Government did no more than this. The Fabian analysis which had provided the basis for these measures was taken no further, i.e. the changes in capitalist relations of production since the l890s-l9l4 were not analysed and therefore it was impossible to work out the way forward for the working class in asserting force in these changed relations of production. To be able to replace capitalism with socialism, the working class must be able to replace the forms of the relations of production which the bourgeoisie must constantly revolutionise in order to survive. The Labour Party programme today remains the same programme of concrete demands as 19l8. This assumes that capitalism has stood still. The "left" has been unable to argue that the Labour Party's programme should be any different in concrete measures, only that it is not "truly socialist". The "left" has not analysed the reality staring it in the face to be able to do any more than take a stand in principle.
The Labour Party in power in 1945-51 and again in 1964-1970 did not betray their principles because they quite simply never set out to put them into practice. Labour MPs basked in their position as the majority party within Parliament by settling old scores, by Tory-bashing, and upholding socialist principles by singing the Red Flag in the Commons. These MPs did not understand that it was possible, indeed necessary, to do anything else for socialism. Therefore, when socialism did not emerge from Labour Governments there was (l) cynicism and (2) disillusion. The ILP spent most of the interwar period until its demise as a political force in the mid-30s trying to fight this disillusion, this loss of will, by trying to figure out how to enact a full socialist programme in one Parliamentary session, believing the "pragmatists" that if Labour ever did enact a socialist programme it would be bound to lose the next General Election. Therefore if only one could be enacted in one session, the working class would somehow defend it against the next Tory Government.
A third feeling also set in: reaction, blaming the "failure of the Labour Government" on the power of the bourgeoisie and the obstruction of the ruling class. The Fabian element in the Labour Party was responsible for many bureaucratic measures for "regulating the market" and "planning". Because the Fabians did not recognise class struggle and the use of force as a necessary element of change, these measures remained masterful bureaucratic schemes and can be said to constitute the evidence, if any indeed exists, for the development of a state machine in Britain. The total inefficacy of these schemes makes this evidence very flimsy.
The working class's reaction to Labour Governments which have stood for socialist principles and not enacted them is determined by the working class's experience of a parliamentary form which enacts only when the need for enactment has been shown by conscious debate and the use of conscious force. The Fabians' bureaucratic schemes have not been taken up and developed by the force of the working class because that class was never told it had anything to do with these "socialist schemes". The working class has not acted on those schemes as the law of the land because the working class has not been treated as a conscious force making the law of the land (as it indeed has been since 1867).