The Labour Government¶
Core Argument¶
Here the author revises the party’s earlier prognosis that a Labour victory would immediately precipitate a political crisis. The correction is driven by a recognition that the long-term and short-term perspectives had been improperly “telescoped.” The class struggle, both domestically and internationally, has developed at a slower tempo than anticipated; decisive clashes have not yet occurred. Consequently, the crisis of the Labour Government will be more drawn out and delayed, not sudden and explosive. The core argument is that while the long-term perspective of collapse for reformism remains intact, the immediate period will not see a fundamental polarisation within the Labour Party or a revolutionary movement from below.
The author grounds this revised analysis in the material conditions of the British working class. The masses are critical but tolerant, extending a large credit of time to the government. They accept the Labour leaders’ argument that austerity is a wartime inheritance. Acute shortages are temporary; consumer goods are already reappearing. The economic boom masks the absence of any fundamental measures against capitalism. The Labour Government is nationalising coal and other industries not to abolish capitalism but to modernise and preserve it, with the agreement of sections of the capitalist class. Reforms such as the National Health Bill, Old Age Pensions, the Housing Plan, and the repeal of the Trade Disputes Act reconcile the masses to sacrifices by sustaining illusions in a gradual, painless transition to socialism. The policy in Greece and Indonesia caused trepidation, but the weakness of British imperialism forces concessions to colonial bourgeoisies in Egypt and India, allowing Labour leaders to present reactionary policy as genuine liberation—especially since the Tories publicly decry this “liquidation of the Empire.”
The polemic is directed against the party’s own earlier overestimation of the tempo of political development. The author argues that unless this correction is made, the party will be disoriented. The historical context is the post-war boom, contrasted with the 1929 Labour Government, which operated in a slump and was forced into counter-reforms. The present government, by contrast, rides the crest of a radicalisation unprecedented in British history, when the bourgeoisie lack confidence in their own future. The most likely course is a slow tempo, possibly a second Labour term, with mass unemployment only beginning toward the end of the current term. The author notes, however, that events abroad—civil war in France or revolution in India—could accelerate the process in Britain.