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By GEORGE SINFIELD

| : Victory of Bevanites at Labor parley
emand for policy changes

MORECAMBE, England

Herbert Morrison, deputy leader of the British Labor party, has refused to be co-opted for any position in the party's leader-

ship following his sensational defeat by the
look six of the seven nationa i
A notable feature of the election w
headed the successful candidates, se
Oting for the successful candidates,

Castle 868,000 .(670,000), Tom Driger 744,000 (646,000) Jim
Griffiths 700,000 (646,000), Harold Wilson 632,000, Ian Mikardo
$30,000 (561,000), R. H. Crossman 620,000.

In addition to the defeat of Morrison and Hugh! Dalton, several
other leading personalities of the right wing failed to gain a Seat.

mong them were five former minist

ers—Hugh Gaitskell, P.

Noel-Baker, Emanuel Shinwell, A. Robens and John Strachey.
_ Eclipse of Dalton and Morrison means that the executive must
Mmediately elect a new policy committee chairman for Morrison,
and a new international committee chairman for Dalton.

This fact alone emphasizes the importance of the change.

RH

Harold Wilson, former president of the Board of Trade, and

~H. S. Crossman are the two new Bevanites on the committee.

; Morrison’s “no co-option’” poli-
‘Y appears his only way out at!
© Moment. Any attempt to get
mM a seat would almost certain-
Y be fiercely resisted by a section
the committee. However. he
pais his position as the party’s
&puty leader. °
The election was the more
‘Ignificant because it was won
im face of a concerted attempt
by the right-wing leadership,
Tepresented by Attlee, Dalton,
‘nd Deakin, to smash the grow-
ing rank-and-file revolt against
heir pro-American policies.
ae the eve of the conference
® mass circulation Sunday Pic-
att, 1 conducted a bitter personal
fo ack on Bevan, blaming him
1, the failure of the Labor gov-
fhoment’s housing program and
© deficiencies in the National
pith Service, at the'same time
sk oe the fact that Hugh Gait-
ee introduced charges into the
eth Service to help pay for
1g armaments costs.
ee Was followed by a similar
tack carried in the London
lly Mirror, also a mass circu-
ation paper. .

ri

Rank-ang-file delegates ignored
thei attacks and demonstrated
le desire for new policies by
sted the Bevanites into of-

oe the election results were

i “iced Arthur Deakin and

“r tight wing leaders sat glum

Pte Bevanites cheered and
@ their papers excitedly.

ae did Morrison, who puffed
dum,’ Bie and lowered his eyes
Bide © the tumult. Attlee, by his

.) algo ict de-
lection. looked a picture of

* * *

tions day following the elec-
Sings, booing, shouting and the
Seas of The Red Flag greeted
Ur Deakin when he threaten-
© Bevanites with total war.
: ot ostensibly speaking as
Tad Nal delegate from the,
tha ®S Union Congress, declared
BSE nn organization would be
Mt P to counter—in fact, to dis-
Bere Bevanite “caucus.”
aidan” first section of Deakin’s
ino, °°’ brought the usual greet-
from the TUC. He declared
°Pposition to the use of in-
Mal action for political pur-
Ratio and rejected the idea of a
Mal wages policy. —
Make ming up, he went on to
those an ill-concealed attack on
reg delegates who voiced dis-
Ment with policies put for-
by the official leadership.

ig

ERT Ran TA TO Ra ee a

te

\ ostentatiously and

1 committee seats allotted t

ANEURIN BEVIN

This part of. his speech was
heard in relative silence and it
was only when he openly lashed
out at the Bevanites that pan-
demonium broke loose.

Deakin asserted that rearma.-
ment was really a pretext for dif-
ferences in the party and that
the real issue was the struggle
for leadership.

Publicly proclaiming his sup-
port for (Morrison and Dalton,
Deakin brazenly called the Bev-
anites who won the election, a
dissident element.

He told the Bevanites that
standings could only be
disposed of if “they get rid of
their whips, dismiss their busi-
ness and campaign managers,
conform to the party constitution,
and cease their vicious attacks
on those with whom they dis-
agree.” 4

It was @
group of loca
gates in the s
The Red Flag.

misunder

t this point that a
1 Labor party dele-
talls began to sing
Others shouted:
“We’s abusing a fraternal dele-
gate’s privilege,” and the chair-
man had to appeal to the confer-
ence to let Deakin continue.

Rank-and-file trade unionists
and Labor party members are to
table. protest resolutions against
Deakin for this wild denunciation,
of Bevan and his followers.

The protests. will be consider-
ed at scores of report-back meet-
ings during the next few weeks.

They will be pased on the fol-
lowing grounds: :
. By attacking the leaders de-
mocratically elected by tha

WEE kin
ituency parties. ne

constit y deliberately

tion as the fra-

his posi
aes “ rom the Trades

ternal delegate f:
Union Congress.

my fei ee asd

cured 107,000 votes more than last year and Mrs.
with last year’s figures in parentheses, was: Aneurin Bevan 965,000

Bevanites at the Labor party conference here last week. Aneurin Bevan and his supporters
3 o Labor party constituency organizations.
as the considerable increase in the voting returns for the constituency section.
Barbara Castle, next on the list, 200,000 more.

Bevan, who

(858,000), Mrs. Barbara

His statement did not repre-
sent the considered views of
‘the eight million members affili-
ated to the TUC.
x, x, *

On bitterly debated policy is-
sues, the conference unanimously
voted its ‘disgust and alarm” at
the tens of millions of pounds
compensation being given to Al-
fred Krupp, the Hitler arms mag-
nate. :

And it followed this up with
an overwhelming vote for an-
other motion calling for:

V Promotion and expansion
of East-West trade.

V Resistance to the use of
British military strength to en-
force territorial changes in EHast-
ern Europe or elsewhere. ,

yy Opposition to any condem-
nation of the risings of oppressed
peoples as Soviet-inspired plots.

The same resolution also: warn-
ed against the danger of support-
ing anti-working-class forces, as
in the case of Franco, and declar-
ed that the cause of peace could
best be served by adherence to
socialist principles and by refus-
ing to subordinate those prin-
ciples to American, Russian or
other pressure,

More than 2,250,000 votes
were cast for a reduction in
Britain’s colossal arms burden.
The votes, roughly 500,000
more than were recorded at the
Trades Union Congress last
month were given in the face of
fierce opposition from Clement
Attlee and the right-wing mem-
bers of the executive committee.
Delegates took their stand in

spite of blatant distortion of So-
viet foreign policy, and the de-
cision represents a sharp rank-
and-file challenge. It caused
acute anxiety among the party
bosses. :

Great organizations like the
Amalgamated Engineering Un-
ion, National Union of Railway-
men, Union of Shop, Distribu-
tive and Allied Workers, Elec.
trical Trades Union, Amalgam-
ated Union of Foundry Work-
ers, Constructional Engineering
Union, among others, voted for
the proposal.

The resoiution demanding a re-
duction and re-examination of

the arms program, was moved by
Workers

the Shop president,

HERBERT MORRISON

Walter Padley, MP. It was de-
feated on a card vote by only
3,644,000 to 2,288,000.

Earlier, in a‘speech that won
him an ovation from delegates,
Bevan told the conference:

“The United States of America
is a very powerful, rich country
and if great wealth and great
productive capacity got rid of
fear then America ought to be the
most self-satisfied and the most
tranquil in the world.

“But on the contrary. America
is hagridden by two fears—fear
of war and fear of unemploy-
ment.”

A ripple of applause, was
turned into a burst of cheering
when Bevan added: “And fear
‘of peace.” ‘

Wagging an admonitory finger
at the audience, he continued:
“We are told the U.S, is a living
monument to the success of com-
petitive capitalism. :

“The fact is, at the present
time, American industry is being
kept in full spate by the biggest

HAROLD WILSON

piece of public enterprise it has
ever undertaken — a big arms
program.”’

The London Daily Worker de-
scribed the Bevan sweep as ‘“‘a
voice for a change.”

“The election of six Bevanites
to the Labor party executive, to-
gether with the defeat of Herbert
Morrison, /is. rightly regarded on
all sides as a first-class political
sensation,” it said.

“Tt means that the rank-and-
file of the Labor party have re-
jected the right wing ‘mark time’
policy associated with Morrison
and are pressing for a more pro-
gressive policy.

“The vote is a genuine expres-
sion of Labor party opinion.

“Nothing can be more fantas-
tic than to attempt to depict the
constituency Labor parties as the
strongholds of politically unstable
intellectuals, while the trade un-
ion delegations represent the
solid legions of the working class.

“The overwhelming majority
of delegates to constituency La-
bor parties are from trade union
branches. :

“They represent the trade un-
ion rank and file much more
faithfully than Arthur Deakin

and Sir William Lawther. The
verdict which has been passed is
their verdict. ....

“The Bevanites achieved their
huge vote because they support
a series of propositions which
commend themselves to the rank
and file.” ~

The paper warned that ‘‘there
are grave weaknesses in the Bev-
anite political outlook.

“Bevan himself remains fun-
damentally anti-Soviet, a stand-

sion and betrayal as the politi-
cal situation develops. In this
he does not represent the mass
of his supporters,

“Despite his sharp criticism of
American policy he appears to
regard the U.S. as the Santa
Claus of the Western ‘capitalist
world.

“American investment in the
colonial countries has become
for the Bevanites, as for the
right-wing, the great world pan-
acea. Not even the most tepid
enthusiasm can be stirred up for
this policy among the local Labor
parties,

“So, while the election of the
Bevanites is a step in advance
much more remains to be done.

“The capitalist press will nat-
urally declare that the advance
of the Bevanites, by constitution-
al means, threatens the party
with a _ split.

“There is not a single rank-
and-file member of the party who
is envisaging that possibility.

“The only danger is that cer-
tain members of the trade union
bureaucracy will .seek to use
their power to prevent those
changes in policy on which the
majority of the Labor party
members are determined.”

The ‘paper concluded that
the Bevanites “will succeed to
the extent that they are pre-
pared to cooperate in building
working-class unity in the fac-
tories and localities, mobiliz-
ing all the peace-loving and
progressive sections of the

British -people, in, a united ef-
fort- to save the country by re-
placing the Tories’ with a Labor
government armed with a new
policy.”

ay ie

HUGH GAITSKELL

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 10, 1952 — PAGE 11

point which can lead to confu- ,