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Labour and the Vietnam war
The horrific Vietnam war, which reached its heights in the
late 1960s, aroused worldwide opposition to the intervention of US imperialism.
In Britain, the Labour government’s support for the US provoked strong
opposition to the Wilson government, both within the labour movement and
outside. In an extract from his new book, Empire Defeated, PETER TAAFFE compares
Wilson’s balancing act on Vietnam with the Blair government’s policy on Iraq.
THE 1964-70 LABOUR government, led by Harold Wilson,
performed a balancing act on the Vietnam war. Although Wilson gave general
support to the US in Vietnam, he could not commit British troops as Blair has
done in Iraq. That would have created huge opposition from within the labour
movement and possibly risked the very existence of his government.
"The Labour government continues to slavishly support US
imperialism", reported Militant (precursor of The Socialist, weekly paper of the
Socialist Party) in July 1965. At the same time, there was growing opposition to
the government’s policy: "Inside the Labour Party and trade union movement the
demand grows that the Labour leadership break from its policy of supporting the
US imperialists against the Vietnamese people. Dozens of constituencies
including Foreign Minister Stewart’s own Constituency Labour Party (CLP) have
condemned the policy of the Labour government. Instead of the ‘peace missions’
and great power conferences to decide the fate of Vietnam the labour movement
must press for the adoption of an internationalist foreign policy by the Labour
government and demand the total withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. Wilson and
the Labour government must raise now the demand for the self-determination of
the Vietnamese people". (1)
The Labour Party was of an entirely different character then
to what it is today. Tony Blair’s New Labour is an openly capitalist party,
wedded to the ‘free market economy’, to neo-liberalism, capitalist globalisation
and in open support of imperialist war. This would have been inconceivable in
the Labour Party of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1968, the Labour Party conference
was leaning decisively to the left: "Almost three million votes for alternative
socialist policy". (2) In 1972, the conference actually voted in favour of a
resolution moved by Militant supporters calling for "the public ownership of
major monopolies" and demanded that the Labour Party National Executive
Committee (NEC) "formulate a socialist plan of production based on public
ownership, with minimum compensation, of the commanding heights of the economy".
(3) The Labour Party then was what Lenin called a ‘bourgeois workers’ party’. In
essence, this meant that while the tops of the party, the Labour leaders, were
essentially pro-capitalist, nevertheless they rested on the organised working
class movement, expressed through the trade unions and the CLPs, which in
general leaned towards the left and the ideas of socialism as the goal of the
movement.
Wilson and Blair
IT IS INCONCEIVABLE today to imagine that the Blair cabinet
could be compelled to step back or be overthrown because of opposition from the
Trades Union Congress (TUC) or from the sanitised New Labour and its mostly
middle-class ranks. At its 2003 conference, Blair and Co successfully prevented
a vote on the Iraq war and the conduct of the government leading up to it.
Moreover, 63% of the delegates supported the leadership despite the obscenity of
the Iraq war and a government mired in lies and deception. Yet, previously,
massive opposition had been shown to Blair on the streets, in the
two-million-strong demonstration on 15 February in particular. It is true that
Blair came close to resignation, he subsequently revealed, over a crucial vote
on the war in the House of Commons. (If a majority of Labour MPs had voted
against, he says he would have gone.) This, however, was primarily because of
pressure exerted from outside of New Labour, which found only an insipid
expression within the ranks of Labour MPs and the depleted constituency parties
at the conference.
The combative, generally militant working class rank and
file of the Labour Party in the past is now totally absent from New Labour.
Contrast the muted opposition today on Iraq to the profound opposition to the
Wilson government’s hypocritical stance on Vietnam within the party. Wilson’s
stance amounted to ‘support but non-involvement in the fighting’. He
consistently refused to distance himself publicly from US imperialism but could
not commit troops. The Financial Times explained why the government acted in
this fashion: "The British government, whatever its innermost feelings about
American policy, has no choice but to back the US… Even more important, though,
British foreign and defence policy east of Suez, as defined by the government,
dictates the closest possible alignment with the US. An American withdrawal from
Southeast Asia would leave Britain’s position in the area hopelessly exposed.
The defence commitment to Malaysia would become almost if not wholly impossible
to fulfil". (4) Britain then had 54,000 troops fighting the guerrillas in Malaya
– now part of Malaysia.
Foreign policy is always a continuation of domestic policy.
The Wilson government bent the knee to capitalism at home and did the same
abroad, but great pains were taken to disguise this. Because of the character of
the Labour Party then – at bottom, the rank and file stood for socialism –
Wilson did not have the same room to manoeuvre within the party which
Blair has in what is now a capitalist party, no different in essentials than the
Democratic Party in the USA.
Wilson not able to send troops
FROM THE BEGINNING of his government, the opposition to
Wilson within the Labour Party was intense. In fact, he was caught
between the millstones of a rising tide of anger within the organised labour
movement, which was paralleled by growing discontent outside and the pressure
from ‘across the pond’ to support the US, not just verbally but physically.
Almost as soon as the government had been elected, Wilson records: "The
president [Johnson] raised the question, without excessive enthusiasm, of our
co-operation with him in South Vietnam, even if only on a limited – even a token
– basis. I made it clear that we could not enter into any such commitments. We…
would have a role to play in seeking a way to peace". (5)
Johnson did not easily accept this brush off in 1964 and,
after Wilson had proffered some ‘advice’ to him, he unleashed a tirade: "I won’t
tell you how to run Malaysia and you don’t tell us how to run Vietnam… If you
want to help us some in Vietnam send us some men and send us some folks to deal
with these guerrillas. And announce to the press that you are going to help us.
Now if you don’t feel like doing that, go on with your Malaysian problem…" (6)
Others in the government, such as George Thomson, minister
of state in the Foreign Office, were pushing for more open support for the US:
"With strong Foreign Office pressure behind him, [Thomson] tried to get me to
take a much more committed pro-American line on bombing in Vietnam. I refused".
(7)
So it is clear that Wilson, unlike Blair, was prepared at
least partially to distance himself from the US government because of the
pressure and mounting opposition within the Labour Party and amongst the wider
population to the horrors of Vietnam. Robin Cook, on the other hand, has
recently revealed in his diaries that Blair, just before the Iraq war started,
knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, he was more
prepared, as Cook explains, to stand up to British public opinion than to the
Bush government. In so doing, he enormously helped the Bush regime to launch the
war. Conversely, by hitching his wagon to that of the Texas cowboy, Blair has
massively compounded his own problems and deepened the suspicion and opposition
towards the government, not just on the war, but on practically every other
issue.
Compared to Blair, Wilson, in historical retrospect, could
appear to some almost ‘reasonable’ in the stand that he adopted towards the
Vietnam war. (It has to be remembered that the Australian and New Zealand
governments had committed small detachments of troops to fight alongside the
Americans.) But this was not how it was seen in Britain at the time. Wilson gave
public support to the US, as did his Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, and the
government in general. Stewart put it bluntly later: "What was required was not
a one-sided condemnation but an attempt to bring both sides to the conference
table". (8) Like Wilson, however, he publicly backed ‘one side’, the US.
Privately, Wilson was prepared to urge ‘caution’ on Johnson,
particularly when the bombing of the North was stepped up. But when the chips
were down he came out for the US: "I want to repeat… that our reservations about
this operation will not affect our continuing support for your policy over
Vietnam". (9)
This was not without considerable and growing opposition
from within his own party. Tony Benn reflects this in his diaries. He records
that in June 1965, when he visited the General Management Committee of his
Constituency Labour Party in Bristol, "Herbert Rogers [the secretary-agent of
Benn’s constituency, and a well-known and staunch left Labour activist] launched
into a violent attack against British policy in Vietnam. And all in all it was a
rough passage… There is an appalling gulf opening up between the government and
its active supporters". (10) At that time, Benn was on the ‘centre right’ of the
party, before moving to the left in the 1970s.
Wilson sought to play the role of initiator for peace, while
largely supporting the US and, on occasions, ‘dissociating’ the government from
specific actions of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. However, his
hypocritical stand prompted greater and greater opposition. In 1965, Wilson
wrote: "Received a telegram from 68 Labour MPs – not from the left only, but
right across the party – demanding that the US should stop bombing North
Vietnam". (11) Outside of parliament, the growing opposition to Wilson’s stance
on Vietnam was not always as polite or restrained.
Benn reflected on this in June 1965: "The other thing this
week that’s on my mind is the developing situation in Vietnam, where the
Americans are now deciding to invade in full strength and we are left in the
embarrassing position of appearing to support them. I believe this is an
untenable position and sooner or later we shall have to come out and say what we
really think. The argument that we are keeping quiet in order to retain
influence is of course fallacious. The real reason is quite different".
Referring to the first ‘teach-in’ on Vietnam at the London School of Economics,
Benn commented: "I’m told that whenever Harold Wilson’s name was mentioned at
LSE people booed. It may well be that when the time comes the Labour government
will have been held to fail not because it was too radical but because it was
not radical enough". (12)
Wilson mediates?
RICHARD CROSSMAN, a cabinet minister throughout the Labour
government, consistently attacked Wilson in his diaries for his posturing and
exaggeration of the fading power of British imperialism: "[Wilson’s] master card
was to propose a peace initiative in Vietnam. The conduct of the war now
horrified not only the Labour left but the informed public as well". (13) He
remarks acidly that he had "learnt a great deal about the delusions of grandeur
which are the fatal defects of George [Brown – Foreign Secretary] and Harold…
They believe that as acknowledged actors on the world political stage they can
perform these manoeuvres, moving a little bit away from LBJ, and influencing him
from a distance. They all seem unaware that they are figures of fun as long as
Britain is on the edge of economic ruin. They should accept their lot,
concentrate on home affairs and stop trying to obtain opportunities for
appearances on the world stage". (14)
Wilson, at various stages, attempted to mediate between the
US and the Russians and, occasionally, through intermediaries, with Hanoi. In
1967, he gave the impression in his later account that a solution, brokered by
himself of course, was on hand. This involved the cessation of the bombing by
the US of North Vietnam, with the reciprocal "secret assurance" from Hanoi that
it would "stop moving troops into South Vietnam. At the same time, the US would
stop reinforcing their troops". (15) But sadly for him and what he describes as
"tragically, a victory for the [US] hawks", (16) this proposed deal was
shipwrecked. In reality, the Wilson government’s influence on events was
extremely limited. Barbara Castle, also a cabinet minister throughout the
government and historically close to Wilson, comments on the absurdity of the
government’s position: "It was this old business of insisting on being the
world’s parson when we are ceasing to be the world’s policeman". (17)
This is in stark contrast to the open opposition to the US
displayed by other European governments. Wilson himself records that, in 1967,
French President General de Gaulle said: "The government of North Vietnam,
especially Ho Chi Minh himself… would not yield. The future of their country was
at stake. So long as the war continued at the present tempo they could go on
fighting indefinitely. They would negotiate only if the US agreed to stop the
bombing and leave Vietnam within a specified period… The way in which their
country was being treated made it inevitable that any negotiations must be
regarded as no better than surrender… The war would go on, even if the US put
still more troops into Vietnam. The situation, he had to say, was the greatest
absurdity of the twentieth century. He, de Gaulle, could see no answer to the
problem". (18)
Benn, on the other hand, after having met the Swedish Prime
Minister Olof Palme, stated approvingly: "We discussed Vietnam and Palme said
the Swedish government had taken a strong view against American bombing and had
won wide public support. The opposition did not agree with this view but dare
not express their criticism because the public was so strongly behind the
government’s attitude". (19) In fact, the Swedish government had opposed not
just the bombing but the war itself, and Palme had led mass demonstrations,
which were reportedly some of the biggest in the history of the state. This
stand irritated sections of the bourgeoisie and infuriated extreme right-wing
circles and was one of the factors in the murder of Palme in 1986. His assassin
has never been caught.
On the other hand, Wilson’s stand provoked a rising tide of
opposition within the Labour Party. Early in 1966 there was a storm within the
ranks of the Labour Party, which Wilson comments on: "Suddenly, the Labour Party
was deep in a new crisis over Vietnam… the Foreign Office… issued a press
statement supporting the president’s action [the resumption of air attacks]. By
an error, this was not submitted to me for approval. I would not have agreed to
a statement in those terms. The left was justifiably outraged… ninety MPs, again
going far beyond the conventional left, telegraphed Senator Fulbright supporting
his attack on the president". (20)
Wilson under pressure was compelled in June of that year to
‘dissociate’ the government from the bombing of Haiphong and Hanoi. This did
little to mollify the left. In his diaries, Benn records just how US strategists
valued British support for them. Robert McNamara, Johnson’s defence secretary,
who was not in favour of persuading the British government that it "ought to
send troops to Vietnam", is quoted as saying, "‘We need Britain internationally
and domestically because Wilson’s support for the Johnson administration is
absolutely necessary’, implying that the sending of British troops would
undermine support for the US in Britain". (21)
Fury of anti-war protesters
THIS HIGHLIGHTS THE role the Wilson government was playing,
which earned it the growing ire both within and outside the Labour Party. At the
1967 party conference in Scarborough, the platform, representing the government,
"was defeated by the conference because of discontent with the government
support for the United States". (22) The year before, 113 Labour MPs had signed
a Commons motion calling on the government to dissociate itself completely from
US policy in Vietnam. However, Wilson himself had consistently clung to support
for the US in the Commons: "I went on to repeat our general support of American
policy, emphasising the now firm American acceptance of unconditional
negotiations". (23)
Apart from a mealy-mouthed ‘dissociation’ when bombing of
the North was resumed, Wilson clung obstinately to his support for the US which,
as we have seen, was partly conditioned by the economic weakness of Britain and
the need for US financial support to prop up the value of the pound on world
markets at that stage. However, even his inner circle, such as Crossman, became
more and more disenchanted: "I suppose the personal reliance on LBJ could be
described as a peculiarly Wilsonian touch and I very much fear that he and James
Callaghan between them have committed us more deeply than any of their
predecessors to the Americans". (24) What would he have said about Blair’s
supine position before the Bush government over Iraq?
But the ‘concerns’ of Crossman and the rest of the Labour
cabinet opposed to Wilson were as nothing to the outrage felt on the streets,
particularly amongst young people in the universities and within the labour
movement generally. Wilson himself records the stormy reception he received in a
visit to Cambridge in October 1967: "My car was directed by the police into a
narrow alleyway and there stopped by a yelling mob of demonstrators. Probably
only a minority were from Cambridge. It had become a familiar routine that when
I was known to be visiting any town, particularly the seat of a university, an
influx of demonstrators was organised; we frequently saw their cars on the road.
This demonstration, ostensibly on Vietnam, was particularly unpleasant; the car
was seriously damaged by staves beating down on the bonnet, and the radio and
radio-telephone aerials were broken off. My wife was quite badly manhandled,
eggs were thrown and a policeman was seriously injured. As a member of my team
summarised it as we drove out from Cambridge on to the Royston road, ‘They won’t
be satisfied: a man must die for peace’". (25)
All government ministers received the same treatment.
Typical was the reaction of Stewart, in general the grey spot of the cabinet,
whose capacity to excite opposition was the equivalent of a dead cat.
Nevertheless, he was confronted by interruptions when he spoke in Oxford in
support of the government’s position: "As soon as I rose to speak, they sprang
up and began to chant, ‘Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh’ and gave no sign of stopping. The
chairman appealed to their leader (Mr Christopher Hitchens…) but his reply was
that if you know what someone is going to say, and know that it is wrong, you
are entitled to protect the audience from being misled". (26) This very same
Hitchens, then a member of the International Socialists (predecessors of the SWP)
now writes vituperative articles in bourgeois papers in defence of Bush’s war on
Iraq!
There were huge anti-war protests throughout the world. In
Britain on 17 March 1968, tens of thousands marched to the US embassy in
Grosvenor Square to protest against US crimes against the Vietnamese. Police,
including mounted police galloping at full speed into demonstrators outside the
US embassy (where US Marines had been secretly installed to prevent it from
being overrun), clashed violently with demonstrators at the end of the march. In
October of the same year, 100,000 marched in London against the war. So alarmed
was the British ruling class, so virulent was it in denouncing the movement,
that in the week leading up to this demonstration – led by The Times newspaper –
they warned of a semi-insurrectionary outcome. They effectively believed their
own propaganda!
Effects of 1968 in Britain
THE EVENTS OF 1968 had profound effects on all sections of
society, even on the Labour cabinet, as the diaries of its members record. The
most interesting is Crossman, who comments on the May-June 1968 events in
France. Unusually for most observers, both then and now (particularly the
leaders of the French ‘Communist’ Party at the time), he did recognise a
revolution when he saw one. He comments: "Isn’t it true that we’re now in a
revolution which may actually succeed? I’d always thought it would have been
very exciting to have lived through 1848 and now I find we’re living through the
most momentous year that I can remember since the war… East and West of the Iron
Curtain, establishments are being challenged by new forces from below which have
little care for the concept of parliamentary democracy as we know it. They’re in
revolt against a parliamentary democracy which was an ideal in 1848 but is now
part of an established oligarchy, part of the Establishment in the West just as
Communism is part of the Establishment in the East. These uprisings this year
are in both cases anti-Establishment. Strangely, when I think about this some of
my depression goes away".
Crossman comforts himself that it is not just him and his
Labour ‘colleagues’ who are under attack: "It’s a great relief to feel that what
we’re suffering here is part of a world phenomenon and that we’re not the only
government that’s totally incompetent, unable to cope. I like to feel that in
America LBJ is failing as abjectly as Harold is here". (27)
The movements on the streets, in the universities and
workplaces of Britain, as in the US, were the most important factors in shaping
the attitude of the Labour government and its increasing need to dissociate from
the horrific war in Vietnam. Intense debate took place, not just on Vietnam but
on the issues that related to this struggle, such as the role of students and
their relationship to the struggles of the working class. The Wilson
government’s ignominious kow-towing to the US administration on Vietnam brought
them into collision with the ranks of the labour movement and alienated a whole
generation of young people who went onto the streets – some even filling out
sectarian, ultra-left organisations – to protest against the war. It was,
therefore, a shameful chapter in the history of the Labour Party. Mind you,
Blair, Straw, Hoon and Co have plumbed new depths, have gone much further than
Wilson ever did, in acting as Bush’s poodle over Iraq.
References
1. Militant, Issue 8, July-August 1965
2. Militant, Issue 43, November 1968
3. Militant, Issue 125, 3 October 1972
4. Financial Times, 22 March 1965
5. Harold Wilson, The Labour Government 1964-70 (1971), p79
6. Wilson, p116
7. Wilson, p120
8. Michael Stewart, Life and Labour: An Autobiography
(1980), p152
9. Pentagon Papers: History of US Decision-Making in Vietnam
1945-68, vol 4 (Gravel Edition, 1971), p102
10. Tony Benn, Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963-67
(1988), p271
11. Wilson, p244
12. Benn, p273
13. Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, vol
I (1975), p237
14. Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, vol II
(1976), p564
15. Wilson, p456
16. Wilson, p458
17. Barbara Castle, The Castle Diaries 1964-76 (1990), p269
18. Wilson, pp518-9
19. Benn, p404, p416
20. Wilson, p266
21. Benn, p444
22. Benn, p511
23. Wilson, p321
24. Crossman, vol II, p181
25. Wilson, p567
26. Stewart, p155
27. Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, vol III
(1977), pp76-77
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