Communist Britain.
 

Hi there.

I was talking with my dad the other day about the after effects of WW2 Britain. We talked about what problems Britain faced after the war and the poor state that it was in. Then to my understanding he said that Britain turned Communist, however this was stopped when the NHS and other free government plans where brought in.

My question is. Is this true and how close did Britain come to turning Communist and also what would be the effects of the cold war if Britain had become a Communist state.

Ehh.

Britain became a huge welfare nanny state after the war; however, this has absolutely nothing to do with communism. G.B. became a huge socialist government that bogged down the economy to the point of mass worker strikes in the lates 70s and early 80s until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. She privatized huge sectors of the government with great success.

Thatcherism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm talking about the 50's not the 70's or 80's. Britain was poor at the time, but it was growing back to power again, but from what my dad tells me things where bad and thats why the NHS was brought in.

IIRC the Communists had their max strength in members in 1943 and in 1945 were able to gain two seats in Parliment but it countinued to decline after that.

In 1956 the party was at its strongest in the labor movement

I am not aware of any other major political highlights of the Communist Party in the UK.

Do you think the rest of Europe would of fallen apart if Britain had turned Communist? I mean the Iron curten did happen to control parts of Europe, and I think the French did experiance alot of rioting in the late 70's and 80's.

No. I dont think that even if Britain turned Communist it would suddenly make the UK buddy up with Stalinist Soviet Union or shun its friendship with the US.

Possible in the long run but not on such short notice.

French workers have a reputation to go on strike at any provocation, they are very politically active. According to my Political Science Prof the French are probably one of the most politically active countries. They have multiple political parties and election turnouts US politicians can only dream of.

I would probably rate Italy second for political activity.

Just guessing but I would rate UK and Germany tied for fourth but I speak with ignorance because Im not well versed on either countries politics for a number of years now.

Well we have the major partys such as the Labour which is sort of socialist 'for the workers' thing, then you have the Converatives which are the fat cats of the nation. Of course then you have BnP which is abit like the American KKK, only its full of Skin heads.

Would it be fair to say Britain is sort of Communist now? I have noticed that Labour have do a few things which are simmeriler to Communisium.

It was my impression that Britain was considered Socialist.

The Communists had a strong presence in the US in the past but they are not a major player anymore even though they are still around. I think the same is true in Britain.

Does American have a Communist party yet?

We do have odd Communist rallys, but they are full of old village people and kids.

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. For approximately the first half of the 20th Century it was the largest and most widely influential communist party in the country, and played a defining role in the U.S. labor movement from the 1920s through the 1940s as well as in organizing major industrial unions and pursuing intense anti-racist activity throughout that period.
(...)
The party has never regained the influence it held from before the McCarthy period, but it continues to exist as an organization under the leadership of Sam Webb, who asserts the number of registered members is over 15,000.

Source:Wikipedia