The Left and the 'Unfinished Revolution': Bevanites and Soviet Russia in the 1950s

Abstract

This article looks at the Labour Left's perceptions of the Soviet Union in the 1950s and examines one of the most important sources of hope about its future evolution. It shows that for many socialists the Soviet Union was a contradictory phenomenon, at once profoundly repellent and yet capable of exercising an immense attractive force throughout the decade. For the progressive features of the system to finally dominate and overcome the many-sided backwardness of Russia, the argument was heard that the Soviet Union needed time and above all peace. This contention was taken seriously because the dynamic, modernising forces in Russian society were considered to be rooted in the socialist bases of its economy. It was an economy characterised by planning and nationalised property, and in the factional struggle which divided the Labour party in the 1950s, these were the key components of the Left's faith. By the end of the decade and the beginning of the 1960s both the old Bevanite Left and the technocratic centre-left drew inspiration from the progress of the Soviet economy.