Labour’s half-hearted campaign¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter dissects the Labour Party’s 1945 general election campaign as a deliberate betrayal of the socialist opportunity presented by the post-war mood. Its core argument is that Labour could have won a landslide on a fighting socialist programme, but instead the leadership waged a half-hearted, defensive campaign designed to mimic the Tories. The authors contend that Labour’s strategy was not merely timid but actively harmful, obscuring the real class issues and disorienting the workers.
The chapter makes several key claims, each supported by specific examples of Labour’s failure. First, Labour presented capitalist candidates—generals, barristers, lawyers—rather than working-class figures, with Herbert Morrison boasting of the party’s “respectable” character. Second, the leadership was hamstrung by its own record in the wartime coalition; it could not expose that monopolies had made even bigger profits during the war, because that would reveal its own complicity. The pamphlet Let Us Face the Future lied by claiming monopolies had been curbed. Third, Labour fought the election on the Japanese war instead of exposing British imperialism’s “gangster” aims in Asia. Fourth, it endorsed the new League of Nations as a path to “permanent peace” under capitalism, ignoring Lenin’s description of the old League as a “thieves kitchen.” Fifth, it accepted the Tory framework of “work, food, homes” within capitalism, offering the same sham reforms like Beveridge. Sixth, it shadow-boxed on “controls versus free enterprise” rather than accepting Churchill’s challenge of “Socialism versus the rest.” The authors argue that controls merely regulate capitalist profits, whereas the real issue is expropriation. Nationalisation of a few industries with compensation, they claim, would lower workers’ standards, citing a Post Office worker’s complaint that nationalisation under capitalism had meant worse conditions. The chapter also notes that Morrison praised Soviet production increases under state ownership but failed to explain that the overthrow of capitalism was the precondition.
The historical context is the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, with the Labour leadership emerging from the coalition government. The theoretical context is Marxist: the chapter insists on the necessity of class struggle, the exposure of imperialism, and the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism as the only path to genuine socialism. The polemic is directed squarely at the Labour leadership—Morrison, Laski, and the party machine—accusing them of cowardice, dishonesty, and complicity with the capitalist class. The authors also attack the Tories, but the main fire is reserved for Labour’s refusal to educate and mobilise the workers. The chapter ends by noting that Labour’s instructions to election workers forbade attacking Churchill, and that Harold Laski responded to Tory smears by issuing a writ for slander rather than exposing the capitalists’ historic use of violence.