ernest bevin, keynes, stafford cripps

7/29/2019 Ernest Bevin, Keynes, Stafford Cripps

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John Maynard Keynes

At the height of the Great Depression, in 1933, Keynes published The

Means to Prosperity, which contained specific policy recommendations for

tackling unemployment in a global recession, chiefly counter cyclical

public spending. He worked with David Lloyd George and with Churchill.

Keynesian-like policies were adopted by Sweden and Germany.

In 1931, he received considerable support for his views on counter-

cyclical public spending in Chicago, then America's foremost centre for

economic views alternative to the mainstream. However, orthodox

economic opinion remained generally hostile regarding fiscal intervention

to mitigate the depression, until just before the outbreak of war.

On the whole, his ideas achieved widespread acceptance

Ernest Bevin

He had little formal education, briefly attending two village schools

At the age of eleven, he went to work as a labourer, then as a lorry driver

in Bristol, where he joined the Bristol Socialist Society. In 1910 he became

secretary of the Bristol branch of the Dockers' Union, and in 1914 he

became a national organiser for the union.

He had developed his oratorical skills from his time as

a Baptist laypreacher, which he had given up as a profession to become a

full-time labour activist.

In 1922 Bevin was one of the founding leaders of theTransport and

General Workers Union (TGWU), which soon became Britain's

largest trade union. Upon his election as the union's general secretary, he

became one of country's leading labour leaders, and their strongestadvocate within the Labour Party.

Politically, he was on the right-wing of the Labour Party, strongly opposed

to communism and direct action; He took part in the British General

Strike in 1926, but without enthusiasm.

He had poor relations with the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay

MacDonald, and was not surprised when MacDonald formed a National

Government with theConservatives during the economic crisis of 1931,

for which MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party. Bevin was a

pragmatic trade unionist who believed in getting material benefits for his
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members through direct negotiations, with strike action to be used as a

last resort.

During the 1930s he became increasingly involved in foreign policy. He

was a firm opponent offascism and of British appeasement of the fascist

powers.

When Winston Churchill formed an all-party coalition government to

defend the country in the crisis ofWorld War II in 1940, Bevin was

appointed to the position ofMinister for Labour and National Service,

although Bevin was not actually an MP at the time. But eventually, a

parliamentary position was found and he was elected as MP for the

London constituency of Wandsworth Central to clear up this constitutional

anomaly.

During the war Bevin was responsible for diverting nearly 48,000 military

conscripts to work in the coal industry. These workers became known as

the Bevin Boys. He also drew up the demobilisation scheme that

ultimately returned millions of military personnel and civilian war workers

back into the peacetime economy.

Bevin became Foreign Secretary at a time when Britain was almost

bankrupt as a result of the war and yet was still maintaining a huge airforce and conscript army, in an attempt to remain a global power. The

effort of paying for all this - and for the US loans - required austerity at

home in order to maximise export earnings.

Bevin was unsentimental about the British Empire in places where the

growth of nationalism had made direct rule no longer practical, and was

part of the Cabinet which approved a speedy British withdrawal

from India in 1947, and from other territories.Bevin, a determined anti-Communist, was a strong supporter of

the United States in the early years of the Cold War and a leading

advocate for British involvement in the Korean War. Two of the key

institutions of the post-war world, the North Atlantic Treaty

Organisation (NATO) and the Marshall Plan for aid to post-war Europe,

were in considerable part the result of Bevin's efforts during these years.

This policy, little different from that of the Conservatives.

Bevin in office showed the same pragmatic stubbornness that had

characterised his years as a trade union leader, and as one of the integral

organisers of the Labour Party. Like Churchill, he was an old fashioned
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English (as opposed to British) patriot, which was why the two leaders

worked well together. But he was also an internationalist, a supporter of

the American alliance and of European unity. He saw clearly that Britain's

days of imperial greatness were over, something he did not regret for, in

his view, the working class had never benefited from the Empire.

Stafford Cripps

Cripps was the nephew maternally ofBeatrice Webb. His father was

a Conservative member of the House of Commons and comes from a

privileged background he was a long time supporter of socialism and the

rights of working people. During World War II he served in a number of

positions under the Churchill led National Coalition, including Minister ofAircraft Production. After the War he was a member of the Attlee Labour

government, serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1947 to 1950 in

which post he supported nationalisation of heavy industry.

Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1942, a period that

included both the Soviets alliance with Hitler.

He was elected in a by-election for the solidly Labour seat ofBristol East.

He moved rapidly to the left, and became an outspokensocialist and a

strong proponent ofMarxist social and economic policies. He

enthusiastically advocated Marxist economic views of government control

of the means of production and distribution.

In 1932 he was one of the founders of the Socialist League, composed

largely of members of the Independent Labour Party who rejected its

decision to disaffiliate from Labour. He became the archetype of the

British upper-class doctrinaire socialist so common in the 1930s.

Cripps opposed British rearmament. In early 1939, however, Cripps was

expelled from the Labour Party for his advocacy of a Popular Front with

the Communist Party and anti-appeasement Liberals and Conservatives.

When Winston Churchill formed his wartime coalition government in

1940, he appointed Cripps ambassador to the Soviet Union, in the

(perhaps naive) view that Cripps, an avowed Marxist, was the best person

to try to negotiate with Stalin, who was at this time allied with NaziGermany through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Cripps led a mission to

Moscow in 1940 and unsuccessfully attempted to warn Stalin of the
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possibility of an attack by Hitler on the Soviet Union. When Hitler attacked

in June 1941, Cripps became a key figure in forging an alliance between

the western powers and the Soviet Union.

n 1942 Cripps returned to Britain and made a broadcast about the Soviet

war effort. The popular response was phenomenal, and Cripps rapidly

became one of the most popular politicians in the country, despite having

no party backing. He was appointed a member of the War Cabinet.

When Labour won the 1945 general election, Clement Attlee appointed

Cripps President of the Board of Trade, the second most important

economic post in the government. Although still a strong socialist, Cripps

had modified his views sufficiently to be able to work with mainstream

Labour ministers. In Britain's desperate post-war economiccircumstances, Cripps became associated with the policy of

"austerity." He enforced rationing with equal severity against all classes.

Although Cripps's severe manner and harsh policies made him unpopular,

he won respect for the sincerity of his convictions and his tireless labours

for Britain's recovery. His name once induced an

infamous Spoonerism when the BBC announcer McDonald

Hobley introduced him as 'Sir Stifford Crapps'.
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ernest bevin, keynes, stafford cripps

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