Bevanism was a movement on the

left wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

of the Labour Party in the late 1950s led by

Aneurin Bevan Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Health ...

which also included

Richard Crossman Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician. A university classics lecturer by profession, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1945 and became a significant figure among the ...

, Michael Foot and Barbara Castle. Bevanism was opposed by the

Gaitskellite Gaitskellism was the ideology of a faction in the British Labour Party in the 1950s and early 1960s which opposed many of the economic policies of the trade unions, especially nationalisation and control of the economy. Theoretically, it repudia ...

s, moderate social democrats within the party. The Gaitskellites typically won most of the battles inside Parliament, but Bevanism was stronger among local Labour activists. The Bevanites split over the issue of nuclear weapons, and the movement faded away after Bevan died in 1960.

History

Bevanism was influenced by

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

: Bevan's biographer and later Leader of the Labour Party Michael Foot said that Bevan's "belief in the

class conflict Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The forms ...

stayed unshaken", while acknowledging that Bevan was not a traditional Marxist. Despite declaring inspiration from

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, Bevan did not visibly support insurrectionist concepts of proletarian revolution, arguing that revolution depended on the circumstances, or the typical organisational model of many Communist parties. According to Ed Balls, Bevan and his supporters instead preferred a strident but pluralist conception of

democratic socialism Democratic socialism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self- ...

, tempered by pragmatic sensibilities and practical application. The Bevanite Group of MPs, of which there were about three dozen, coalesced following Bevan's resignation from the Cabinet in 1951 when the health service started charging for previously free services such as spectacles in order to help pay for Britain's involvement in the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. Bevanites

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

and John Freeman resigned with Bevan himself. The group in Parliament drew heavily from the previous "Keep Left" group, which had previously dissented from the pro-American foreign policy of the 1945–1951 Labour government favoured by

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

, his Foreign Secretary

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–19 ...

and

Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, h ...

. According to Crossman in December 1951 the group was not organised, and Bevan could not be persuaded to have any consistent or coherent strategy, but they did have a group who met regularly and liked each other and came to represent "real Socialism" to a large number of Party members. '' Picture Post'' called them the "Bevanly Host" in April 1952.

Local organisations

Bevanites organised in

Constituency Labour Parties __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliam ...

across Britain, and set up local discussion groups known as "Brains Trusts", also a legacy of the "Keep Left" group. Brains Trusts organised in support of the newspaper favoured by Bevanites, ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

'' magazine, allocating left-wing MPs and campaigners to form speaking panels around the country. ''Tribune'' itself provided an important print voice for Bevanite politicians and was in wide circulation.

Objectives

The main Bevanite objectives were: *

State ownership State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownershi ...

of the " commanding heights of the economy". Many nationalisations had made up the bedrock of Labour's previous manifestos, such as "Let us face the future". Bevanites' views towards nationalisation mirrored those of

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

, in that state control was only seen as necessary in the context of exchange or distribution, as opposed to the total and immediate appropriation of as much

private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...

as possible. * A comprehensive and completely free '

cradle to grave ''Cradle to Grave'' is a British sitcom set around the life of Danny Baker. It began airing on 3 September 2015. The sitcom stars Laurie Kynaston as Danny Baker, Peter Kay, and actress Lucy Speed as Danny Baker's parents. Plot It is 1973 and ...

' system of welfare, health provision and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

. *

Housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it ...

for all. *

Full employment Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or unemployment#Cyclical unemployment, deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely Structu ...

. *The nationalisation of the steel industry, contrary to the views of many colleagues. * Contempt for

dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...

as a modus operandi; an open-minded approach to

. * Respect for the arts. * General unwillingness to yield upon the perceived gains made since 1945, for example, opposition to

means testing A means test is a determination of whether an individual or family is eligible for government assistance or welfare, based upon whether the individual or family possesses the means to do without that help. Canada In Canada, means tests are use ...

for social security benefits, and opposition to prescription charges as military spending increased. * A complementary ability to drop unpopular policies. * Freedom of debate, opinion and criticism within the Labour Party. * Scepticism towards most

American foreign policy The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...

, especially the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and

West German rearmament West German rearmament (german: Wiederbewaffnung) began in the decades after the World War II. Fears of another rise of German militarism caused the new military to operate within an alliance framework, under NATO command. The events led to the e ...

. *

Anti-fascism Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

, anti-

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

sentiment, and support for

decolonisation Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...

internationally. * Greater industrial democracy and workers' control of nationalized industries, which Bevan believed were governed unconstitutionally due to their lack of public accountability.

Party role

Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says. "Bevan alone kept the flag of left-wing socialism aloft throughout – which gave him a matchless authority amongst the constituency parties and in party conference." At the 1952 Labour Party Conference, Bevanites were elected to six of the seven places on the National Executive Committee by constituency representatives.

Split over nuclear disarmament

Later in his political career, Bevan began advocating the maintenance of Britain's nuclear deterrent, against those who became associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), saying that without them a future British foreign secretary would be going "naked into the conference chamber". This split the Bevanites: many, such as leading Bevanite Michael Foot, continued to oppose Britain's nuclear weapons, with Labour's 1983 manifesto under Foot's leadership of the party calling for

unilateral nuclear disarmament __NOTOC__ Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, ''un ...

References

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