The Bournemouth Conference – Reality and Illusion¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter dissects the Bournemouth Labour Party Conference of 1946, mounting a polemic against Comrade DO’s assessment of the event. The core argument is that the conference was a decisive victory for the right-wing leadership, not a sign of a leftward shift. The author insists that the entire press, from bourgeois to labour, unanimously reported it as a “resounding victory” for the right, and that only the Minority, blinded by preconceived notions, would deny this self-evident fact.
The key claim is that the election of a Labour government, while marking a tremendous swing to the left in the broad historical sense and the beginning of the British revolution, paradoxically produced a turn to the right within the Labour Party itself. The conference demonstrated this: the opposition was feebler and more easily handled than in previous years. Evidence cited includes the absence of serious challenge on any important issue, the lack of real left-wing resolutions, and the collapse of opposition even on foreign policy. The author contrasts the uproar over Greece at the 1945 conference with the feeble, half-hearted opposition to Bevin continuing Churchill’s policy in Greece and Indonesia. Further evidence is drawn from the industrial field: 35 million working days were lost to strikes in the first year after the last war, compared to only 2.5-3 million after this one, indicating a slower tempo of struggle.
The chapter draws on the historical context of the post-war Labour government, the break from the coalition, and the radicalisation of the British working class. It references the Tribune’s characterisation of the conference as a “victory parade” without opposition, and Pollitt’s description of a “honeymoon” period. The theoretical context is a Marxist analysis of the contradictory historical process, where a leftward shift in the masses can, for a period, produce a rightward turn in the reformist party.
The polemic is directed squarely at Comrade DO, who is accused of substituting preconceived ideas for facts, painting the Labour Party as more left and active than it really is, and lacking proportion. The author argues that DO’s claim that a clearly posed alternative programme on nationalisation would have defeated the Executive Committee is “fantastic,” and that he has forgotten his own earlier assessment that he would get no support in his branch. The chapter also criticises DO’s interpretation of the CP affiliation debate, arguing that the applause for Morrison’s statement welcoming individual communists was not proof of a left mood, but a distraction from the fact that the great majority opposed affiliation. The author concludes that the right wing did “sweep the board,” and that there is no left wing or likelihood of its emergence in the immediate future, while rejecting the strawman that this means the Labour Party is “one reactionary mass and not worth bothering with.”