Ernest Bevin and the Cold War 1945-1950

Abstract

The social legislation of the Labour governments after 1945-the creation of the welfare state as it is commonly thought of-has become an important mythology for the working-class political movement in Britain. The exaggerated claims made at the time by many of Labour's intellectuals that Britain by 1950 had entered upon a post-capitalist phase of dwelopmentl -have, of course, long been discarded but the general consciousness among a majority of the politically committed that the years after the end of the Second World War somehow represented a qualitative breakthrough are still widely current. It is certainly correct that the social legislation introduced after 1945 was in advance, considerably in advance in most cases, of practice in capitalist democracies elsewhere but within two decades the levels of social provision in France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries were already higher than in Britain; and what is now widely appreciated is that the Attlee governments made remarkably little change to the institutional structure of Britain. The pronounced mal-distribution of wealth and property remained and there were no attempts to modify the economic inequalities that were both built into the system and were continuously being generated by the normal processes of capitalist development. There was no wealth tax; and towards the political institutions of the country the civil service, the management structures of nationalised industries, the conservative and traditional practices of central and local government- the post-war labour administrations showed a notable caution and respect. Moreover Labour, from the mid sixties, was confronted with increasingly powerful vested interests which had built themselves up after the years of war and which offered continuous resistance to further advances. When the right-wing administration of Thatcher began the piecemeal dismantling of social welfare services from 1979 on there were notably few defences that could be mobilised.