The Rise of the Third Force Movement and Keep Left Group
in Post-War Britain, 1945-1947
Jim Safley

In 1945 the British Labour Party achieved its greatest electoral victory. By securing a clear majority over all opposition parties combined they could, for the first time in history, implement their socialist program without fear of defeat in the House. Let Us Face the Future, the Labour campaign manifesto, promulgated their concerns for the future of Britain. Essentially a domestic program, it focused on “the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain – free, democratic, efficient, progressive, public-spirited, its material resources organised in the service of the British people.”[1] No one could deny that, at that moment, the Labour Party was a “Socialist Party, and proud of it.”[2]

To some members of the Labour Party, the socialist emphasis in domestic policy would naturally be reflected in foreign policy. Britain’s “historic role,” according to left-wing Labour members, was to become a “Third Force” in world affairs, capable of providing equilibrium between the two world super-powers, United States and USSR.[3] They assumed that a proposal for an independent socialist bloc in Europe, separate from the US and the USSR, would eventually emerge from the British Foreign Office; but when it became increasingly evident that Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had other plans, Third Force sentiments developed into a full-scale movement.

An upshot of the Third Force movement was a new group, “Keep Left,” founded by preeminent members of the Labour Left. Dissatisfied with the Government’s handling of foreign policy, and angered by the ruling right-wing’s decision not to recruit socialists to the Foreign Office, Keep Left made it clear that not enough was being done in the effort to form a coherent Western European bloc. These feelings were exasperated even more by Foreign Secretary Bevin’s insistence that a close relationship with America was necessary for the political and economic health of Britain.[4] While members of Keep Left conceded that American financial aid was needed during the post-war reconstruction, they maintained that close political ties with the American capitalistic system would jeopardize British socialism.

The Third Force movement gained considerable support during its brief rise in popularity from 1945 to late 1947. Its “middle of the road” policy between American capitalism and Russian Communism attracted many democratic socialists – the constituency that won the election for the Labour Party in 1945. However their arguments failed win over the ruling right-wing Labour members who could have actualized their cause. Their cause was further thwarted when, on June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall delivered his famous Harvard address proposing economic assistance to Europe. Faced with the increasingly obvious impossibility of economic recovery without outside help, the Labour Left was forced to acquiesce and accept close economic relations with United States.[5]

It is of concern whether the Third Force movement played any meaningful role in British foreign policy immediately following World War II. Some historians commend Third Force “for having sought to avert the division of the world into two massive, antagonistic blocs.”[6] On the surface their fears of a bipolar world – to the west the United States and to the east USSR – seemed reasonable; indeed the ever-present fear of an atomic war threatened the already unstable world order. But most historians tend to belittle them for their unrealistic and even “dangerous response to a world situation which demanded the utmost pragmatism and flexibility from Britain’s leaders.” Others even accused them of being conscious agents of the Communists.[7] To better understand this debate we must first know who belonged to the Third Force movement, as well as understand how the idea of a Western European bloc reached maturity.

In a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden in December 1941, Russian leader Joseph Stalin suggested the idea of a British-led “Western bloc,” presuming that British military bases in Western Europe would give him the pretext for Soviet predominance in Eastern Europe – what he wanted above all. Although the proposal was tempting, Eden did not want a Western European bloc to compromise Britain’s relationship with the United States. The US had already promoted the idea of a “one world” approach to the problems of peace, and an independent Western European bloc would certainly upset that notion. Neither did Eden want a Western European bloc to develop into an anti-Soviet alliance – as it most likely would in view of the anti-Communist sentiments pervading Britain – for fear of a breakdown in talks with his allies in Moscow. In the end however, it was Prime Minister Winston Churchill who rejected the idea of a Western European bloc. Though his argument that Britain lacked the resources to build up a viable military alliance in Western Europe was sensible, many Britons, particularly democratic socialists, nevertheless continued to be intrigued by the idea.[8]

During World War II, the Third Force movement began to take shape. Undaunted by the Government’s opposition, left-wing forces in Britain continued to support the idea of an independent Western European bloc. On April 7, 1944, Aneurin Bevan, a leading member of the Labour Left, defended the need for such an alliance:

No progressive foreign policy is to be expected from America either under a Democratic or a Republican Administration…. But if America gives us headaches, Russia gives us heartaches…. The only solution likely to lay the foundations for peace and prosperity…is an organic confederation of the Western European nations.[9]

Bevan’s concerns about the political situation in the United States reflected a growing suspicion in Britain of the American government. Foremost, the Labour Left feared that economic ties with the US would adversely affect the British economy. Socialists firmly believed that the American economy would soon collapse, as it did in 1929, bringing their own economy with it. Later these anti-capitalistic feelings heightened when Truman purged the liberal New Dealers from his cabinet. It appeared more and more obvious that an integrated alliance with the US was not in the best interests of British socialism.[10]

After the great Labour victory in 1945, democratic socialists rejoiced in what was, in their opinion, an unprecedented mandate for socialist policy. Let Us Face the Future was unmistakably a broad socialist platform, though its policies concerned primarily with issues at “home.” When it was written, foreign policy was a subordinate issue in light of the domestic problems plaguing the nation. A few paragraphs were dedicated to relations outside Britain:

We cannot cut ourselves off from the rest of the world – and we ought not try… We must consolidate in peace the great war-time association of the British Commonwealth with the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R… We must join with France…and all others who have contributed to the common victory in forming an International Organisation capable of keeping the peace in years to come.[11]

The broad strokes used to paint the Labour Party’s foreign policy would be a matter of internal contention in the months following the election.

At the heart of the Third Force movement was a fear of renewed conflict, or worse. The idea that two opposing sides in the coming “cold war” could dictate world-wide authority frightened many. George Orwell, the notable author and socialist, foresaw a return to the “monstrous super-States” of post-war Europe, with an even more ominous angle: “the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands, and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.”[12] That the eve of the atomic age signified the necessity of a socialist Third Force in Europe was a matter of firm socialist conviction.[13]

As the months drew by, the Labour Left began to question whether Prime Minister Attlee was going to implement a socialist foreign policy, as they had expected he would after the election. There was no doubt that Attlee maintained the conviction that Britain should continue as a great power, as is evinced in his foreign secretary’s ongoing role in setting up a Western alliance aimed at stemming the Soviet expansion.[14] Though the British socialists were naturally opposed to capitalism, they held no fondness for communism. In light of Labour’s domestic, and entirely socialist, achievements after 1945, the Labour Left could consciously differentiate British democratic socialism and Russian totalitarian Communism; this further confirmed the belief that the British system was far superior to the Russian.[15] An alliance between the two nations, therefore, was never in the designs of the Third Force movement. Their biggest concern in foreign policy was Britain’s increasingly dependent relations with the United States.

Early in 1946 Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin seemed to agree with the Labour Left’s anxieties about an American alliance. He spoke of Britain as “the last bastion of social democracy…against the red tooth and claw of American capitalism and the Communist dictatorship of Soviet Russia.”[16] Nevertheless, Bevin was a practical man and refused to disregard the United States as an economic ally, especially during the unstable post-war reconstruction period. By this time British foreign policy was still in a preliminary stage. Waiting for further indications from the economy, and exploring several possibilities in foreign diplomacy, the Labour Government initially spent most of its energies on domestic reform. Eventually foreign policy did come to the forefront in national affairs, but not without difficulty.

It has been remarked that the Labour Government found itself facing “conflicting alternatives of either implementing its domestic programme, or following a wholly independent and socialist foreign policy”; resources were scarce and they could not afford to implement both objectives simultaneously.[17] The Labour Party made a commitment in their campaign to focus on domestic issues, and from the onset they were more than successful in initiating socialist policies within Britain. However, in doing so, they negated any chance of forming a Western bloc without the full financial support of the United States. But the Labour Left did not recognize this dilemma and continued to oppose Bevin’s foreign policy. “The Federation of Europe is priority number one in foreign affairs” remained as the Third Force mantra.[18]

During the Labour party’s 1946 Annual Conference members of the Labour Left raised several inflammatory questions aimed primarily at Bevin. J.W. Kagan, delegate from South Hendon Divisional Labour Party, asked Labour leaders whether there was a “difference between the policy of the Labour Government and of former governments,” and whether that policy was “sufficiently Socialist.” Another delegate warned that “the closer that we tie up with America, the more certainly shall we suffer in the next world slump.” Bevin’s reply to these concerns was comparatively mild, certainly because Third Force was not yet fully formed and lacked credible leadership.[19]

Within a few months, several prominent members of the Labour Left began to meet in order to advance the Third Force movement to national awareness. This group, called the “Keep Left” group, dedicated themselves to oppose objectionable policy coming out of the Foreign Office. When it became increasingly evident that Bevin had no intention to listen to them, twenty-one Members of Parliament, sponsored by the Keep Left group, sent an open letter to the prime minister. The letter demanded that the Government take “a genuine middle way between the extreme alternatives of American ‘free enterprise’ economics and Russian socio-politicial life.” It went on asserting that “by our example, we can bridge the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union by the vigorous pursuit of socialist policies at home and abroad, and that we can live on terms of amity with both.”[20]

Of those who signed the letter several were prominent MPs, including Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, and Harold Davies. With such support Third Force quickly became a significant movement in Parliament. Nevertheless, Attlee and Bevin continued to ignore the opposition. When they received no satisfactory answer from Attlee, fifty-seven Labour Left backbenchers drafted an amendment to the Debate on the King’s Address. Written by Crossman, the amendment protested an Anglo-American alliance because it encouraged the division of the world into two antagonistic blocs, left Britain dependent on a country whose leaders opposed Labour’s social democratic policies, and arranged no alternative for other nations who sought a middle course between American capitalism and Russian Communism.[21]

These points were expressed even more convincingly in a pamphlet the Keep Left group published a month before the 1947 Labour Party Annual Conference. The pamphlet, Keep Left, was a closely argued and pointed critique of Government policy. The fourth chapter, written by Crossman, clarified the Third Force position by introducing several arguments in favor of an independent Western European bloc. He maintained that democratic socialism could survive only if Britain was “free from outside influence.” The United States, being “wedded to free enterprise” and governed by “short-sighted” and “reactionary” conservatives, was a dangerous ally for a democratic socialist Britain.[22] However, he was not prepared to entirely reject relations with the US:

Whether we like it or not, we and the other nations of Western Europe are still dependent on America. The real issue is the terms on which our relations with her should be based. Shall we become the financial dependencies and strategic outposts of the New World, or regain our independence so that we can deal with the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. as equals and as friends… It depends on France and Britain, therefore, whether Europe shall be divided into two parts, one controlled by Russia and one by America, or whether, united through an Anglo-French alliance, it can form the keystone of the arch of world peace.[23]

The timing of the publication was intended to raise a stir in the ranks of the Labour Party, which was in preparation for the 1947 Labour Party Annual Conference. The Keep Left group felt confident that the justifications of the Third Force movement raised in Keep Left would rally other Labour members. Yet they doubted that the right-wing Cabinet, led by Attlee and Bevin, would look favorably upon the left-wing “rebellion.”[24]

Even so, the Conference marked the pinnacle of the Third Force movement. Unlike the ineffectual and disregarded protests in the 1946 Conference, several Third Force leaders took the initiative and challenged the Labour leadership head-on. Tom Driberg, the Member for Maldon, outwardly denounced Bevin’s foreign policy in respect to Britain’s close ties to the United States. He further submitted the ominous possibility that Britain could ultimately become “an atomic aircraft carrier and an atomic target in a Wall Street war against World Socialism.”[25] The possibility of an atomic war was a reoccurring theme in the arguments for a Third Force in Europe.[26] Bevin was furious at the Labour Left dissidents; he felt as if they had “stabbed him in his back.” To him the internal bickering was counterproductive and discredited his role as the chief representative of British foreign policy. After his venomous response to the Labour Left’s arguments, the Conference ended without settlement or compromise. Third Force advocates nevertheless continued to revel in their new popularity.

However, this high point in the Third Force movement was short-lived. On June 5, 1947, in a speech delivered at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall offered American assistance to rebuild the ailing European economies. His proposal that “the initiative…must come from Europe” excited Bevin and even aroused the interests of many members of the Labour Left.[27] Since late 1946 the British economy had been suffering a sharp fall in average productivity. It became apparent that only extensive reorganization and reform of many aspects of the economy could stabilize the deteriorating markets.[28] This was the intention of the Marshall Plan. Marshall designed his plan to be funded by the United States but formulated and implemented by Europeans. Therefore the Third Force fears of an alliance with the American capitalistic system were unfounded. Though fears of a bipolar world continued to frighten members of the Labour Party (including Attlee and Bevin), the impending collapse of Britain’s economy necessitated close ties with the United States.

The Third Force movement and the Keep Left group abruptly collapsed in the wake of popular opinion in favor of the Marshall Plan. Even Richard Crossman, one of the most resolute leaders of Keep Left, abandoned the cause:

I will be frank. My own views about America have changed a great deal in the last six months. Many members have had similar experience. I could not have believed six months ago that a plan of this sort would have been worked out in detail with as few political conditions.[29]

Later, Lord Bruce, formally Donald Bruce, Private Parliamentary Secretary to Aneurin Bevan and author of the open letter to Prime Minister Attlee, explained why he thought the Third Force movement persisted in criticizing Bevin’s foreign policy prior to the Marshall Plan:

Although we understood what was happening, I don’t think we realized the extent to which British foreign policy had to take into account the economic power of the United States as against the economic weakness of the United Kingdom… Looking back at it now, I wonder myself whether had I been in office at the time, whether I could have, even if I had wanted to, carried out the policies that we in the ‘Keep Left’ group were advocating.[30]

After a remarkable two-year rise the Third Force movement fell into obscurity. The Keep Left group lost all political momentum when its leaders abandoned the cause, and the members that did remain found themselves in an increasingly unfriendly political environment. Though Ernest Bevin was quite pleased that the left-wing rebellion was over, he was even more relieved that the Marshall Plan came at such a pivotal time in British history. On April 1, 1949, Bevin related his feelings on the Marshall Plan to the Press, “I assure you, gentlemen, it was like a lifeline to sinking men. It seemed to bring hope where there was none… I think you understand why, therefore, we responded with such alacrity, and why we grabbed the lifeline with both hands.”[31]

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[1] “Labour Manifesto 1945”. Internet: http://www.univ-pau.fr/~parsons/labmanif.html.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Jonathan Schneer, “Hopes Deferred or Shattered: The British Labour Left and the Third Force Movement, 1945-49,” The Journal of Modern History 56, no. 2 (June 1984): 198.

[4] Stefano Dejak, “Labour and Europe during the Attlee Governments: the image in the mirror of R.W.C. Mackay’s ‘Europe Group’,” in Brian Brivati and Harriet Jones, eds., Reconstruction to Integration: Britain and Europe Since 1945 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993), 48.

[5] Leon D. Epstein, “The British Labour Left and U.S. Foreign Policy,” The American Political Science Review 45, no. 4 (December 1951): 985.

[6] Schneer, 199.

[7] Ibid., 198.

[8] John W. Young, Britain and Unity, 1945-1992 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 6-7.

[9] Schneer, 201.

[10] Epstein, 984.

[11] “Labour Manifesto.”

[12] Schneer, 203.

[13] Epstein, 978.

[14] Dejak, 47-48.

[15] Epstein, 976.

[16] David Reynolds, “The European Response: Primacy of Politics,” Internet: http://www.lcsys.net/fayette/history/plan16.htm.

[17] Dejak, 48.

[18] Ibid., 52.

[19] Schneer, 204.

[20] Ibid., 205.

[21] Ibid., 206.

[22] Keep Left: By a Group of Members of Parliament, Internet: http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/powers/text/s53keep.htm.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Schneer, 207.

[25] Ibid., 208.

[26] Keep Left.

[27] Commencement Address at Harvard University by George C. Marshall [June 5, 1947], Internet: http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111marshall.html.

[28] John Killick, The United States and European Reconstruction, 1945-1960 (Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1997), 65-66.

[29] Rhiannon Vickers, Manipulating Hegemony: State Power, Lobour and the Marshall plan in Britain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 60.

[30] Dejak, 48.

[31] Killick, 75.