Ernest Bevin sold out¶
Core Argument¶
In this chapter, the author delivers a searing indictment of Ernest Bevin, the British Labour Party’s Foreign Secretary, for his open alignment with imperialist policy in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The core argument is that Bevin, far from representing working-class interests, had become a shameless apologist for British imperialism, surpassing even Winston Churchill in the bluntness of his counter-revolutionary declarations. The chapter centres on a speech in which Bevin explicitly defended British military intervention in Greece, revealing that the entire Labour cabinet had supported it. The author seizes on Bevin’s admission that Britain could not “abandon its position in the Mediterranean,” interpreting this as a frank avowal of imperialist strategy: the defence of markets, raw materials, and the route to India and the Middle East.
The chapter draws on the historical precedent of the German Social Democratic leaders Noske and Scheidemann, who used state violence to crush the German revolution of 1918–19. The author argues that Bevin occupies the same political position — an open supporter of counter-revolution acting on behalf of the capitalist class. The warning is explicit: just as the German ruling class eventually discarded the social democrats and drove them into concentration camps, so too will British capital cast Bevin aside once his usefulness is exhausted.
The polemic is directed squarely at Bevin and the Labour leadership, but also at the broader reformist tradition within the labour movement. The author contrasts Bevin’s rhetoric with the supposed interests of the working class, accusing him of betraying the movement from within. The chapter also contains a sharp critique of the wartime agreements between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, which carved Europe into spheres of influence — a deal Bevin cynically endorsed. The author presents Bevin’s speech not as an aberration but as a deliberate, calculated defence of imperialist counter-revolution, one that should have provoked his expulsion from the labour movement. The tone is contemptuous, the analysis rooted in a Marxist understanding of the state, class betrayal, and the function of labour leaders as managers of capitalist crisis.