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

Britain's government is led by the Labour Party - which is a member of the Socialist International (2nd International) - but it's centre-left. The country is not socialist, though it has had a long history of socialist mechanisms in action.

Don't say that too loudly over here.

Hmm..let me weigh in with my opinion.

Britain can be considered 'socialist' most during the government of that idiot Clement Atlee. I still don't know why Britain voted him in considering Churchill was the one who led them to victory during the war (which was still going on!!). I might have missed something there.

The only real achievement that I know of his government was setting up the NHS. Among his blunders: the Nationalisation of Britain's Railways, which stifled development by the individual compainies, cost the country millions to construct unnessecary new 'Standard' classes...and didn't improve service by much anyways.

Also, he could even be considered a traitor for giving the Soviet Union the Nene turbojet engine...which as most of you probably know, was copied by the USSR and used to power the Mig-15 which caused so much trouble in Korea. Small wonder they kicked him out in the next election.

ON a side note, It might be found interesting that Britain nearly went fascist at one stage during the 30's. You Britons might know of Baron Oswald Earnald Mosely (have I spelt that right?); he was a popular fascist leader and came pretty close to getting big posts in the Parliament. Fortunately there was a fall out of some sort, I think coming from his demands to make peace with Hitler or something similar.

Big anti-thatcher movement again?

Certain people in the UK don't like her. On the other hand other people do like her and its worth remembering that she wasn't voted out by the public, she was pushed out by the bureaucrats.

I don't have an opinion either way, I wasn't old enough to care when she was in office. :)

And no, it Britain would never become a communist state. The army planned to stage a coup, and ultimately forced him to resign in the 70's when the security services thought that the PM might be a soviet spy. This was based pretty much entirely that he was to lenient with the trade unions that had communist members and were starting to make trouble.

So, no. Never going to happen.

To say she wasn't voted out is correct, but to act as if she would not have been is wrong. She wasn't pushed out by 'the bureaucrats', she was challenged by the people in the Tory party who could see that she was going to lose them the next election, and was driving the party (and the country) into the ground.

And yes, WiseBobo, though not really 'again' - she's been hated by many since she took power, particularly in the North of England.

There are many rumours of a Wilson coup, my favourite being the one whose leaders visited Mountbatten (look him up) at his home in the middle of the night to ask him if he would be the leader of an interim state immediately after the coup - he is said to have told them on no uncertain terms to 'go away' (with more colourful language).