A few lines further on in the Manifesto, the following sentence occurs:
‘Labour will stand by its pledge to end the supply of arms to South Africa.’
‘Britain,’ it says, ‘of all nations, cannot stand by as an inactive observer of this
tragic situation.’ Admirable statements, and backed by previous admirable
statements: the Sunday Times of January 26, 1964, reports Mrs Barbara Castle as
saying, in regard to a possible order from South Africa for Bloodhound
bombers, ‘If an order is placed before the election we shall do all we can to
stop it.’ Mr Wilson has, in the past, referred to the arms tra?c with South
Africa as ‘this bloody tra?c in these weapons of oppression’, and called on
the people of Britain to ‘Act now to stop’ it . . . But, on November 25, 1964,
Mr Wilson announced that the Labour Government had determined to
honour the contract entered into during the rule of the Tory Government for
16 Buccaneers for South Africa.
Following the ?ve proposals that I have cited, the Manifesto says: ‘In a
further e?ort to relax tension, a Labour Government will work actively to
bring Communist China into its proper place in the United Nations; as well as
making an all-out e?ort to develop East–West trade as the soundest economic
basis for peaceful co-existence.’ Britain has achieved nothing since the advent
of the Labour Government towards the admission of China into the ?? nor
has it appreciably increased East–West trade. Traders are usually ahead of
politicians, Tory traders no less than Labour traders.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 684The Manifesto continues with an item which, in the light of the Govern-
ment’s actions, does not read well: it says, ‘Peaceful coexistence, however, can
only be achieved if a sincere readiness to negotiate is combined with a ?rm
determination to resist both threats and pressures’. It is di?cult to equate
this statement with the refusal, curt and out-of-hand, given by the Labour
Government to the proposals of the Chinese Government for summit discus-
sions of disarmament and other international matters which our Press told us
took place soon after the Labour Government’s advent.
That the Labour Government ‘will continue to insist on guarantees for the
freedom of West Berlin’ we do not yet know – the matter has not come to the
fore during Labour’s rule. Nor do we yet know how far the Labour Govern-
ment will be able to implement its admirable suggestions concerning the ??
nor how far it will be able to take us towards world government, which the
Manifesto says is the ?nal objective – as I believe it should be. So far, Britain
under the Labour Government has done nothing to strengthen the ??,
though it has been, according to The Guardian (27 January, 1965) ‘giving close
study to the question of designating speci?c military units for potential use
in United Nations peace-keeping operations’. In the light of events during
the past two or three months, I cannot, however, feel very hopeful as I read
what the Manifesto has to say on these matters, much as I agree with it
regarding them.
I propose to take up further on in my discussion of the Labour Govern-
ment’s policy the question of how far the measures which it has so far
indulged in tend to relax the tensions of the Cold War, as the Manifesto says
the Party wishes to do. But I will continue for a moment with the next item
mentioned in the Manifesto; the Party’s ‘Defence Policy Outline’ and its ‘New
Approach’ to defence.
It excoriates the ‘run down defences’ of the Tory Government whose
wastefulness and insistence upon sticking to such a?airs as Blue Streak,
Skybolt and Polaris, and whose ine?cient policy in regard to the aircraft
industry has resulted in our defences being obsolescent and meagre. It pro-
poses to institute a revision of the Nassau agreement to buy Polaris know-
how and missiles from the United States. But, in face of the storm about TSR
2 bombers and of the fact that it is continuing plans for Polaris submarines
and is discussing a nuclear umbrella for South East Asia, one wonders how far
the Government intends to go with such plans. It seems extraordinary that,
having set itself such a programme as the Manifesto suggests, it had not
examined the problems of conversion very carefully and come to some sort
of plan to avoid or minimise the hardships that would be entailed in the way
of unemployment and waste of machinery and money. But no evidence
has been given the ordinary newspaper reader that any such basic studies
were made.
the foundation 685It is possible that the Government will strengthen conventional regular
forces in order to contribute its share to ???? and keep its peace-keeping
commitments to the Commonwealth and the ?? as the Manifesto says it
stresses doing. This seems, however, unless it runs concurrently with cutting
down in other quarters, to be contrary to the controlled reduction in arms
which it also says it will strive for.
The next item is both bewildering and interesting. The Manifesto says: ‘We
are against the development of national nuclear deterrents and oppose the
current American proposal for a new mixed-manned nuclear surface ?eet
(???). We believe in the inter-dependence of the Western alliance and will
put constructive proposals for integrating all ????’s nuclear weapons under
e?ective political control so that all the partners in the Alliance have a proper
share in their deployment and control.’ A little further on, when discussing
the folly of the Conservatives in entering into the Nassau agreement and in
talking about an ‘independent British deterrent’, it says: This nuclear pretence
runs the risk of encouraging the ‘spread of nuclear weapons to countries not
possessing them, including Germany’. And yet, when the Prime Minister
announced what one must suppose are the ‘new constructive proposals’
which the Manifesto told us to expect, they turned out to be the Atlantic
Nuclear Force (???). The ??? is to be not merely, as was the ???, a mixed-
manned force of surface ships, but is to include other nuclear delivery sys-
tems, including aircraft and submarines. It therefore encourages the spread of
nuclear weapons more enthusiastically than does the ??? – which I agree was
a deplorable suggestion – and certainly encourages the spread of nuclear
weapons to Germany. The remedy is, therefore, far worse than the disaster it
professes to correct.
If you would like a glimpse of the chicanery indulged in, I advise you to
read the reports of the Parliamentary debate on defence in the week begin-
ning 14th December, and the report in The Times of 18 December entitled
‘Britain to waive control of Polaris weapons’, ‘Our bombers over Asia’ in the
Daily Worker of the same date, and ‘Britain to retain part of V-bomber force’ in
The Guardian of the previous day. Amongst other information to be gained
from these various sources are the facts that Britain proposes to give a certain
number of its ships and V-bombers by devious routes to ????, but will keep
others to be used by Britain outside the ???? area. The Government thereby
persuades the populace that it is keeping its promise to do away with its
independent deterrent and at the same time can, independently, form ‘a
nuclear umbrella’ over South East Asia. By means of the ??? we soothe
German feelings, since the Germans will participate equally with us in the
control and bene?ts of this nuclear force and will, therefore, be distracted
from pushing for an independent nuclear deterrent of their own. This scheme
of the ??? has been put to the public through the Press in such a way that the
the autobiography of bertrand russell 686layman is entirely ba?ed and cannot understand either what the ??? consists
in or how very contrary it is to professed beliefs of the Labour Party as given
in the Manifesto or as understood by the lay members of the Party. It is a
bare-faced turn-about carried o?, in so far as the Government has succeeded
in carrying it o?, by being wrapped up in a welter of words and the happy
slogans that the Prime Minister did not knuckle under to the ?? in the matter
of the ??? and Britain is once more taking the initiative in constructive
paci?c proposals.
The Manifesto concludes with eight paragraphs in which it ?rst gives itself
a reason for not carrying out its promises at once by saying that it does not
yet know what damage in?icted upon the country by the Tories it will have to
repair. It seems a little odd, perhaps, that the members of the Labour Party
who aspired to o?ce were so taken by surprise by the ?nancial state of the
country – a situation that was fairly apparent to many laymen – and had not
prepared any adequate plans to cope with it. But I do not intend to go into
economics and ?nances here. The Manifesto goes on to say that a Labour
Government will ?rst of all have to make itself more e?cient than the Gov-
ernment which it supersedes. Presumably the rash of new o?ces and holders
of o?ce in the present Government is its answer to the need of e?ciency.
Secondly, it says that the Government will seek to establish a true partnership
between the people and their Parliament; and thirdly it must foster, through-
out the nation, a new and more critical spirit. ‘The Government can give a
lead,’ it says, ‘by subjecting to continuing and probing review of its own
Departments of State, the administration of justice and the social services.’
And here I should like to recount an experience of mine that appears to run
counter to the promise contained in the statement from the Manifesto I have
just cited. Three eminent Russians were appointed by the Russian Govern-
ment to discuss various topics of international interest with me. In November
these three Russians applied for visas to enter Britain. The Home O?ce at ?rst
refused visas for all three, but after protest, allowed visas for two of them. In
regard to the most eminent of the three, the Chief Archivist of the Supreme
Soviet, the Home O?ce remained adamant. I wrote to the Home O?ce – and
I am, of course, speaking of the Labour Home O?ce – begging them to
rescind their ban upon a visa for the Chief Archivist. After many weeks
during which I was unable to learn anything of the fate of my letter, I received
a reply from the Home Secretary saying that he did not feel able to grant my
request. I wrote again and wrote also to the Prime Minister. After some time,
I received from the Home Secretary the same reply as before, and from the
Prime Minister a noti?cation that he agreed with the Home Secretary and
would not ask him to reconsider. On no occasion from beginning to end, has
any reason been given me or to the Russians for the ban. If this experience is
typical, it hardly bears out the claim of the Manifesto that the Government
the foundation 687would, or does welcome criticism or open discussion with its electors and
members of its Party.
The Manifesto ends with a stirring pronouncement that the Labour Gov-
ernment ‘must put an end to the dreary commercialism and personal sel?sh-
ness which have dominated the years of Conservative government’ and says
that ‘the Labour Party is o?ering Britain a new way of life that will stir our
hearts’.
There is a lot of ironic fun to be got out of that Manifesto now that we have
seen its fruits.
So much for the Manifesto upon which the present Government was
elected and for how far it has carried out its promises in certain respects.
I propose now to return to one of its most important promised intentions: its
determination to relax the tensions of the Cold War. And I beg of you to
ask yourselves, as I recount what has been happening in certain areas of
international activity, whether you consider that this activity to which the
present Government has contributed and proposes to continue to contribute
is calculated to relax any tensions whatever.
You doubtless know a good deal about the war in South Vietnam, but I will
give a very brief outline of its progress and character. South Vietnam was part
of French Cochin-China, but after a long process of civil war, the French were
excluded from the whole region. A conference was summoned to meet at
Geneva in 1954. The conclusions reached were sensible, and, if they had been
carried out, no trouble would have arisen. Vietnam was to be independent
and neutral, and was to have a parliamentary government established by a
General Election. The Americans did not like this. They professed to suspect
that Vietnam would become part of the Communist bloc if left to itself
and that North Vietnam was already, and has continued to be, part of the
Communist bloc, in spite of reiterated statements by the Government of
North Vietnam that they wish to be neutral.
The Americans sent observers who decided that South Vietnam was too
disturbed for a general election. There were in South Vietnam three parties;
the peasants, who constituted the large majority; the Buddhists; and a
tiny minority of Christians, who had been supporters of the French. The
Americans decided to support this small faction. They did so at ?rst by
sending technical aid and material and ‘Advisers’. It was soon seen, however,
that the ‘Advisers’ were taking far more than a passive part in the war that
ensued between the American-supported minority and the Buddhists and
peasants. The war has continued now for many years and the American-
supported Government – or, more outspokenly, the Americans – have stead-
ily lost ground. It has been warfare of an incredibly brutal kind, brutal to a
degree seldom equalled by any civilised Power.
Eight million people have been put in barbed wire concentration camps
the autobiography of bertrand russell 688involving forced labour. The country – civilians, animals and crops, as well
as warriors and jungle – has been sprayed with jelly gasoline and poison
chemicals. Fifty thousand villages were burnt in 1962 alone. The following
account was published in the Dallas Morning News on January 1, 1963:
‘Supposedly the purpose of the forti?ed villages is to keep the Vietcong out.
But barbed wire denies entrance and exit. Vietnamese farmers are forced at
gunpoint into these virtual concentration camps. Their homes, possessions
and crops are burned. In the province of Kien-Tuong, seven villagers were led
into the town square. Their stomachs were slashed, their livers extracted and
put on display. These victims were women and children. In another village,
expectant mothers were invited to the square by Government forces to
be honoured. Their stomachs were ripped open and their unborn babies
removed.’ And the anti-Communist Democratic Party of Vietnam told
the International Control Commission that: ‘Decapitation, eviscerations
and the public display of murdered women and children are common.’ It is,
as the Nation of January 19, 1963, called it, ‘a dirty, cruel war’, and one can
only agree with the leader of the Vietnamese Democratic Party when he
said in an interview on ??? (reported in the Vietnamese Democratic Bulletin
for September, 1963): ‘It is certainly an ironic way to protect the peasant
masses from Communism.’
It is generally admitted that there is no hope that the Americans can win
this war. Obviously failing in South Vietnam, they are now considering
extending the war to North Vietnam in spite of the fact that China has
declared its support of Vietnam if that should happen, and Russia may follow
suit. The Labour Party had, hitherto, been opposed to this policy which
involves risk of world war. As late as June 4, 1964, the Daily Worker said that Mr
Wilson, at the end of talks in Moscow, was opposed to carrying the war into
North Vietnam as well as to North Vietnamese in?ltration into the South. But,
since the formation of his Government, the Labour Party has agreed with
America to support that country in its war of conquest. The Guardian reports on
December 10, 1964, that Mr Wilson told President Johnson that Britain
wholly supported the legitimate role the United States is playing in South
Vietnam. The Labour Government is doing this in spite of the fact that
the vast majority of the inhabitants of South Vietnam are opposed to this
American war and want to achieve peace and neutrality – as the North
Vietnamese have repeatedly asserted that they also wish – and in spite of the
extreme unparalleled brutality of the war, and in spite of the fact – and this is
to be noted – that the Americans have no shred of right in South Vietnam and
are conducting a war of a type to which the Labour Party has always been
passionately opposed. Moreover, if the Americans extend the war to North
Vietnam, as they threaten to do, we and they will be involved in a war with
China of which the consequences are bound to be horrible – possibly all-out
the foundation 689nuclear war. For all these consequences, the Labour Government will share
the responsibility.
A similar situation is developing in the Congo. Katanga is incredibly rich
in valuable minerals, especially cobalt. Cobalt would be necessary for the
Doomsday Bomb. When the Congo became independent, the Western Powers,
especially America and Belgium, made a determined e?ort to preserve for the
West the products of Katanga. Lumumba, who was the Congo’s choice as
Prime Minister, was murdered, and Tshombe, under Western pressure, was
made Prime Minister of the whole country. The country rose against this
decision, and the Americans and Belgians sent a military expedition to
enforce their will. This expedition, the British, under the leadership of the
Labour Government, supported, and they allowed it to use Ascension Island
as a convenient spot from which to conduct the invasion. There is, in con-
sequence, a war of devastation in progress throughout the Congo. The likeli-
hood is that this will degenerate into guerilla warfare which will continue
without securing victory for the West. Perhaps an excerpt from the writing of
one of those who was a mercenary ?ghting for the West in the Congo would
bring home the sort of war we are supporting there. I quote this from News of
the World for 22 November, 1964:
‘On the way to Stanleyville one of our vehicles broke down. We took our
gear off it and retreated into the bush. Late in the afternoon we went back to
the vehicle, but found it completely wrecked...
‘The young English lieutenant was furious. “We will give the bastards a real
lesson.” He ordered us to move at once on the nearest village and take it apart.
‘It was a familiar enough command. It seemed to me we had been taking
villages apart, innocent villages of peaceful farming folk who did not want any
part of this war, all the way along the track from far down in the south.
‘We would turn up unexpectedly, open ?re without warning, race through
the place, burning every pathetic shanty and shack to the ground regardless
of who might be inside. The idea was to spread the image of our determin-
ation and ruthlessness; to terrorise the whole area; to give the rebels an
example of what they were in for...
‘It seemed almost certain that the villagers knew nothing about the activities
of the rebels. I doubted they even knew the lorry had been destroyed.
‘It was just before dusk when we came. Unsuspecting women were hustling
around, carrying water and going about the last of their day’s chores. Children
were playing in the dust, laughing and shouting to one another.
‘We paused for a few minutes, and then came the order to ?re. There was
a great crackle of shots from machine guns and our deadly new Belgian
ri?es. Women screamed and fell. Little children just stood there, dazed, or
cartwheeled hideously as bullets slammed into them.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 690‘Then, as usual, we raced into the place, still ?ring as we went. Some of us
pitched cans of petrol on to the homes before putting a match to them.
Others threw phosphorus hand grenades, which turned human beings into
blazing inextinguishable torches of ?re.
‘For a while, as we raced along, there was bedlam. Shrieks, moans, shrill
cries for mercy. And, above all, the throaty, half-crazed bellowing of those
commandoes among us who quite obviously utterly loved this sort of thing.
‘Then, as we moved away beyond the village, the comparative silence,
the distant, hardly distinguishable cries of the wounded, the acrid smell of
burning ?esh.’
The account continues, but I do not think that I need pursue it to illustrate
my point. The cardinal point in the training of these mercenaries – and again
I quote – is ‘that never, in any circumstances, should prisoners be taken.
“Even if men, women and children come running to you” I was told, “even if
they fall on their knees before you, begging for mercy, don’t hesitate. Just
shoot to kill.”’
I need hardly say that this young man was sickened of being a hired
assassin and ceased to be one. But, in England, under the aegis of the Labour
Government, we are continuing to support this slaughter. On November 20,
1964, The Times announced that Mr George Thomson, our Minister of State at
the Foreign O?ce, was informed during the previous week by the Belgian
Government that they were engaged in contingency planning with the ??
Government. Britain then gave her permission to use Ascension Island. The
Times also announced that Belgian troops were ?own to Ascension Island with
British permission. The Daily Express of 30 November, 1964, reports: ‘At one
stage the Cabinet considered sending British troops. Britain was the ?rst to
suggest armed invervention to Belgium. But o?cials in Whitehall now say
that the terrain in rebel-held areas prevents large-scale troop landings.’ And
on December 15, 1964, Mr George Thomson stated: ‘We give outright
support to Tshombe.’ Yet, two days later our Minister of Defence (one of
them, anyway) ‘referred to “primitive barbarism” in the Congo and said that
we had to see that other parts of Africa and Asia were not plunged into “a
similar state of chaos.”’ Does this mean that we are to uphold similar bloody
and unjusti?ed slaughter otherwhere in Africa, carried on with the permis-
sion and help of the Labour Government? The record is one of which I as an
Englishman cannot be proud. As a member of the Party responsible, I am
sickened.
But to move on: Similar troubles are being stirred up by British initiative in
the war between Malaysia and Indonesia, a war likely to be as bloody and
atrocious as the two of which I have been speaking and to last as long, with
no victory possible. On page 65 of the report of the 62nd Annual Conference
the foundation 691of the Labour Party, July, 1963, you will ?nd that Labour supported the
Malaysia Bill for the relinquishment of British sovereignty over North Borneo,
Sarawak and Singapore. Labour felt – and I quote – ‘that the federation of
Malaysia would play an important stabilising role in S.E. Asia.’ On December
10 of this last year, The Guardian reports that Mr Wilson told President Johnson
that Britain has 8,000 troops in Borneo, 20,000 in Malaysia as a whole: and
the New Statesman of January 15, 1965, says that ‘the bulk of Britain’s ?eet,
some 700 ships including a Commando “bush?re” ship and aircraft carriers’
are now in the waters near Malaysia and Indonesia. ‘The Commonwealth
Brigade is in Malaya facing Sumatra.’
But these are not the only places where the Labour Government is support-
ing Western imperialism. In both British Guiana and Aden and the South
Arabian Protectorates it is following the policies of the Tory Government
although it has sent its Colonial Secretary travelling to the trouble spots to
study the situations once again.
All these are shameful attempts to support the tottering supremacy of
Britain and America against the wishes of the populations concerned, and
against the vast movement for independence which is agitating formerly
subject peoples. It is a terrible fact that the Labour Government is supporting
these hopeless and cruel attempts at subjugation. It is an almost worse fact
that it is running the risk for us of these wars escalating to large nuclear
wars. Its reception of China’s overtures towards peace and disarmament is a
dreary pointer to its attitude. Soon after the Labour Government took o?ce,
Premier Chou En-lai wrote to our Prime Minister proposing that the gov-
ernments of the world should undertake not to use nuclear weapons, and
suggesting a summit conference. Mr Wilson replied: ‘I do not believe the
procedure you have suggested is the best way to make progress in present
circumstances.’ He criticised China on two grounds: for carrying out a
nuclear test in the atmosphere and for her approach being ‘not realistic’.
This attitude on the part of the Prime Minister hardly seems a means of
relaxing tensions or of resolving di?erences between East and West or of
halting the spread of nuclear weapons – all of which the electoral Manifesto
said the Labour Government would try to do. Again it is following the
dangerous policies of the past. In the past few years the West has rebu?ed
several overtures made by China towards nuclear disarmament and
denuclearised zones. If China is not included in disarmament discussions
there is little hope for peace in the world. The Labour Government might
have taken – might still take – a new and more realistic attitude, taking
the promises of the East, as well as the West, at face value, at least as a basis
for discussion, until they have been proved to be hollow. But our new Minis-
ter for Disarmament seems to be interested chie?y in how to keep up
our armed forces more cheaply than hitherto. (See his speech at Salisbury
the autobiography of bertrand russell 6922 February, 1965, and the extracts from it which the Labour Party appears to
think important.)
In none of the actions of the Labour Government has there been evidence
of the promised e?ort to relax the tensions of the Cold War.
What the Labour Government has accomplished in the way of carrying out
the promises made in its electoral Manifesto is to appoint a Minister for
Disarmament in the Foreign O?ce. Possibly, also, it has made the Govern-
ment more e?cient by the vast proliferation of new o?ces, ministries and
committees which it has instituted.
It has done nothing apparent to implement Labour’s promises in the
very important ?elds of disarmament negotiations, the establishment of
nuclear-free zones, the reduction of man-power and arms, the private sale of
arms, a drastic re-examination and modi?cation of our defence policy, a
re-negotiation of the Nassau agreement, the admission of China into the ??,
or the revivi?cation of the morale and the increase of the powers of the ??.
Nor does it show any signs of the self-criticism or of the welcome to criticism
by their fellow Labour Party members which it advocated.
Moreover, it has directly contravened its de?nite statements in regard to
arms for South Africa and to opposition to the spread of nuclear arms. And,
perhaps worst of all, it has increased by many times and in many ways the
Cold War tensions between East and West.
What are we to think of this betrayal? Is it the result of a kind of blackmail
owing to the parlous state of the economy and ?nances of the country?
But, surely, those who were about to take o?ce must have examined the
economic and ?nancial condition of the country and the extent of its
dependence upon the United States, and made plans to carry out their prom-
ises with the results of their examination in mind. Had they not the courage
to attack their problems boldly – or, indeed, with the probable end-results of
their actions in mind, realistically?
What hope is there for Parliamentary democracy when the leaders of a
Party, upon achieving o?ce, act in direct contradiction to their electoral
promises? Those Labour Party members who do not like treachery have
hitherto kept quiet in the interests of unity. But what is the use of unity in
evil? The cardinal virtues in gangs of criminals are unity and loyalty. Before
we are committed irrevocably – and we are rapidly being so committed – to
policies leading to disaster for ourselves and for all the inhabitants of the
world, we should make known in unmistakable terms our abhorrence of
present policies. To wait much longer will be to wait too long. If the Labour
Party is to regain any part of its former championship of vitally necessary
reforms, those who voted for it on the basis of its electoral Manifesto will
have to insist that the leading members of this present Government must lose
hope of ever holding o?ce again. Whatever they may have done or not done
the foundation 693in regard to their pre-election promises, they have got us into, and propose to
keep us in, at least two of the most cruel and useless wars that there have ever
been – wars of extermination. Against this policy we must protest in every
