Labour in power¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter argues that Labour’s landslide victory in the 1945 general election marks a qualitative break in British political history, not merely a routine change of government. The core narrative thrust is that this result reflects a profound radicalisation of the working class, far deeper than anything expressed in previous Labour administrations. The author contrasts 1945 with the 1918 election, when Lloyd George’s coalition won overwhelmingly on the promise of a “Land Fit for Heroes”. In 1945, despite Churchill’s prestige as the victorious war leader and a rushed election that disenfranchised millions of likely Labour voters, the capitalist parties suffered an “unparalleled reverse”. The Labour leaders themselves did not anticipate this result, having campaigned with timidity and dread; the scale of victory is therefore an echo of the mood developing among the masses, not a product of reformist strategy.
A key piece of evidence cited is the large vote polled against Churchill himself by an unknown independent candidate after Labour withdrew its own candidate—a symbolic measure of the real shift in consciousness. The chapter also stresses a crucial by-product of the result: the bypassing of a Popular Front stage in Britain. Before the declaration of the results, Stalinist influence had been pushing Popular Front resolutions through major trade unions. Had the Tories won a narrow majority, such a phase would have been virtually certain. But the complete eclipse of the Liberal Party, combined with Labour’s outright majority, poses class issues in a sharp, unambiguous fashion. Any party proposing a “National Government” including Churchill and Eden, or even an agreement with the Liberals, would be met with derision by the working class.
The chapter draws historical context by comparing 1945 to the Liberal victory of 1906, which marked the beginning of Britain’s “New Dealism” after the shake-up of the class structure and the onset of imperialist decline. The difference between then and now represents the tremendous change in class structure over the intervening decades and the desire for an entirely new social system. The 1945 result is fundamentally different from Labour’s minority administrations of 1924 and 1929, both in the objective situation of British capitalism and in the subjective mood of the Labour masses. For the first time, every important industrial city—including former Tory strongholds like Birmingham and Liverpool—went overwhelmingly Labour, and significant sections of the lower middle class and professional classes turned away from the capitalist parties. The polemic is directed against reformist timidity, Stalinist Popular Frontism, and any suggestion of compromise with capitalist parties.