Resolution Adopted at the 1946 Conference of the RCP¶
Core Argument¶
The 1946 resolution of the Revolutionary Communist Party diagnoses the British Empire’s terminal crisis in the aftermath of the Second World War. Its core argument is that the war, far from restoring British imperial power, has accelerated its irreversible decline. The British bourgeoisie, having defeated Nazi Germany—a Frankenstein it helped create—now confronts a far greater menace: the Soviet Union. The resolution reframes the war’s outcome not as a victory but as a strategic catastrophe. Britain went to war to prevent German domination of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, a stepping stone to the Empire. Yet the result is a Soviet Union that dominates half of Europe and, more critically, poses a direct threat to British interests in the Middle East and Asia. This new power is stronger than Tsarism and more dangerous than either the Kaiser’s Germany or Hitler’s Reich, because its revolutionary traditions and state-owned economy give it a social appeal to the Asiatic peoples Britain oppresses.
The resolution identifies several interlocking pressures forcing imperial retreat. Britain must now compromise with sections of the colonial bourgeoisie—hence the treaties being negotiated in Egypt and India. But the masses in the colonies have developed a national consciousness far more profound than after the First World War, making concessions unavoidable. At home, the British working class has lost all enthusiasm for imperial glory and could not be relied upon for a protracted colonial war. Meanwhile, American imperialism pressures Britain to break up its empire to gain freer trade and render Britain dependent on Wall Street. Britain’s economy is too weak for the old methods of economic control, and its military forces insufficient for colonial repression. The formal framework of the Empire may be preserved, but in reality its liquidation is underway.
The resolution notes that even the Tories accept the Labour government’s policy, recognising the changed world relations. The bourgeoisie hopes by concessions to disguise and delay the process of disintegration, but the sun is setting on the British Empire. It can look forward only to further disturbances and decline, and insofar as it continues to exist, it will do so largely by the gracious consent of Wall Street. The polemical thrust is against any illusion that the Empire can be salvaged or that Labour’s reforms represent a genuine break from imperial policy. The resolution insists that the decline is structural and irreversible, driven by the objective balance of class forces on a world scale.