Comrade Cripps: A Very British Dictator

Comisario

Comisario

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"It is fundamental to socialism that we should liquidate the British Empire as soon as we can"- Stafford Cripps​

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Stafford Cripps is remembered, on those rare occasions when he is remembered, as the stoic face of Britain's post-war austerity. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1947 to 1950, he puritanically and rigorously applied the idea of austerity to every section of British society. Thus, when Cripps is remembered, it is often without celebration.​

But, he was so much more. From his relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru and the struggle for Indian independence to his role in securing the Soviet Union's participation in the war against the Axis, Sir Stafford prove himself to be an accomplished and amiable diplomat time after time. And even if we were to disregard those achievements, he would still have his work as a radical socialist firebrand alongside Aneurin Bevan and the campaign for a British "Popular Front". ​

History has, unfortunately, dispensed with Stafford's rightful accolades and has instead relegated him to obscurity. Against Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan or Ernest Bevin, Cripps seems unimaginably dull and tedious. How could one of the most popular statesmen of his day become almost forgotten in British history? How could Churchill's almost successor seem so insignificant in our historical timeline? ​

The answers are manifold and I'm not here to give them. No- instead, I shall create a world in which such questions could never be asked. In this timeline, Cripps shall stand higher than all of his contemporaries! His name will induce praise and terror and astonishment! Nobody shall forget the name "Richard Stafford Cripps"!​

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Crippsverse...​
 
Comisario

Comisario

Chapter 1


(Taken from “Labour and the Crises of the 1920s” by Iain Powell, Edinburgh University Press 1998)

The November election defeat signalled the end of Ramsay MacDonald’s leadership of the Labour Party. In December of that year, a group of “anti-MacDonald” left-wingers rose to speak out against their leader’s “moderation and ineffective leadership”. MacDonald knew that the support he had from the Left of his party, including the ILP, was not unconditional and could not be expected to last following his electoral defeat. However, he seemed to be reassured that his critics were unable to agree on a challenger around which the malcontents of the party could coalesce [1]. At times, James Maxton of the ILP or Arthur Henderson were talked of as being MacDonald’s possible “usurpers”. Ramsay doubted that either of them would be able to garner enough support to launch a substantial challenge. This was fundamentally true of the two options MacDonald had considered as his possible challengers. However, it was not true of George Lansbury.

The MP for Bow and Bromley was a veteran left-winger, well-respected in his own party, and had the support of the trade unions under Ernest Bevin and also of the Independent Labour Party under James Maxton [2]. The leadership election of the 11th December 1924 proved to be a seemingly one-sided affair. In Lansbury, the party had a figure of principle who was viciously opposed to any compromise with the political establishment. MacDonald, on the other hand, was portrayed as a petty and malleable leader without an independent vision for his own party. There was a single ballot that decided the contest. The high turnout - 85.43% - meant that out of 151 Labour MPs, 129 of those voted. Thus, out of a possible 129, George Lansbury scored 87 votes. MacDonald, left with only 42 votes, was summarily defeated.

The event was derisively known as a “Bolshevist coup” by MacDonald’s remaining supporters in Parliament, and was recalled with pride by the left-wingers who brought it about as “Red Thursday”. As subsequent events showed, the former interpretation was fairly accurate [3]. Many of those who supported Lansbury in 1924 were to fully recant on their positions by the time of his downfall, essentially in agreement with MacDonald’s analysis of Lansbury’s challenge.


(Extracts from a speech made by Arthur Henderson to a small group of Labour Party members at Transport House, October 1934)

“It appears quite clearly to us that, despite our progress over the last five years, our Party has decided to revisit the darkest recesses of its past. The days of the Maxtonites and Lansbury have come again to haunt us, to plague our movement and perhaps even bury it. I cannot stand this regression in tactics. All it stands to prove is the position of the Conservative government… [4]

... I would not compare our present situation to that of the Party in the winter of 1924, of course. It would be wrong of me to, in any way, compare George Lansbury to the Bolshevik who faces us down now. I urge you all to vote against him, to spread truth amongst his lies, and to retake your party from his coalition of warmongers and Communist saboteurs. We must not allow another Lansbury to drive this party into the ground [5]. It is up to us, comrades, to see that we do not repeat that terrible mistake…”


(Taken from "A Decade of Strife: British Labour 1919-1929" by Michael Stern, Verso Books 2009)

Although his health was less than robust, Fred Bramley was adamant in his intention to attend the Amsterdam meeting of the International Federation of Trade Unions in October 1924. As General Secretary of the TUC, his life was invaluable to the labour movement and many in the TUC's General Council advised Bramley to stay away from the meeting for fear that it might cost him his life [6]. Walter Citrine, the Assistant General Secretary, was foremost in the protestations in the Trade Union Congress. These warnings were taken by some to mean that Citrine wanted to attend in Bramley's stead, signalling a possible leadership bid in the future. This worried the General Council, at that time dominated by "lefts" such as Alonzo Swales and George Hicks, and forced them to dismiss Citrine as a possible replacement for Bramley.

Swales and Hicks were both considered in the subsequent row over the new delegate to the "Amsterdam International". However, it was obvious to all on the General Council that Albert Purcell should replace Bramley. His experience on the TUC delegation to the Soviet Union made him the premier choice to represent the British trade union movement on an international level.

Whilst Purcell was in Amsterdam, Citrine was still feeling frustration over his apparent dismissal by the General Council. However, Citrine discovered that he was not alone in his enmity for the "lefts" that were consolidating their power whilst Fred Bramley was recovering from his weakened, post-Russia state of health. Over the course of October 1925, with a General Strike looming and an uncompromising General Secretary still in power, Citrine cultivated a strong relationship with the head of the Transport and General Workers' Union- Ernest Bevin [7]. A young man, though older by some four years than Walter Citrine, Bevin was definitely at the peak of his TUC influence in the prelude to the 1926 General Strike.

Although the left-wing of the TUC would define its role in British society and politics for the next half century, the right-wing could still command a great deal of influence from the trade unions' rank-and-file in 1925 . This was what Bevin and Citrine counted on (perhaps rather naively) to allow them both to reassert their dominance in the turbulent year to come.

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[1] This is our first POD. In OTL, Lansbury turned down the ILP's nomination for him to become Leader of the Labour Party.
[2] Bevin is still a right-winger, but he distrusts MacDonald just like OTL and trusts Arthur Henderson's decision to back Lansbury. Of course, he won't always be proud of his decision.
[3] We shall what events "transpire" in the coming updates...
[4] The position to which Henderson refers is not exactly an open-minded one ITTL.
[5] What could Lansbury have done?!
[6] This is our second POD. In OTL, Bramley went ahead with his trip to Amsterdam despite his poor health. Here, he survives for a bit longer to change British politics forever.
[7] In OTL, Bevin and Citrine became close friends a bit later when it came to opposing MacDonald's government and whilst creating Britain's post-war anti-Communist foreign policy.
 
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Lord Roem

Lord Roem

Delighted to see this up and running.

It's always fun to see a thirties timeline, and also to see one focused on Cripps, who is a remarkably underused figure in AH, and also one of the most enigmatic figures of the period OTL.

I have some ideas where this may be going, but I shall hold fire for now. I look forward to reading more very soon and to give some more in-depth comments soon!
 
Comisario

Comisario

Lord Roem said:
Delighted to see this up and running.

It's always fun to see a thirties timeline, and also to see one focused on Cripps, who is a remarkably underused figure in AH, and also one of the most enigmatic figures of the period OTL.

I have some ideas where this may be going, but I shall hold fire for now. I look forward to reading more very soon and to give some more in-depth comments soon!
Click to expand...

Thanks very much! I hope you don't mind me using "Crippsverse", seeing as you did come up with it.

I've wanted to do this timeline for a while, and now I think I have a really good idea of where I could take it. I think I'll take it easy with this time and try not to "burn out" as quickly as I did with "Soviets in the Sun". Updates will come when they come and I hope people understand that for the future. :)

Please PM me if you want to suggest any ideas or want to speculate on where you think I'm taking this. I'd be more than happy to know what you think I'm planning for good Comrade Cripps.
 
Maponus

Maponus

I've often seen references to and cartoons about Cripps supposed admiration of dictatorships (especially the Punch one with him and Mosley trying to play for the Italian football team) - but I've never seen any concrete statements verifying it.
 
Comisario

Comisario

Maponus said:
I've often seen references to and cartoons about Cripps supposed admiration of dictatorships (especially the Punch one with him and Mosley trying to play for the Italian football team) - but I've never seen any concrete statements verifying it.
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I wouldn't say that he was fond of "dictatorship" as an idea, to be perfectly honest. But, the programme of the Socialist League (his left-wing group within the Labour Party) was explicitly built around the premise of a socialist government installing an emergency dictatorship and ruling by decree.

How far this programme comes into play will become apparent in time...
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Interesting... not sure how a pacifist marxist Christian is

Not sure how a pacifist marxist Christian is going to get to the top, but I'm interested in seeing how you do it...

Best,
 
Comisario

Comisario

The next update is half done, so expect that some time today!

Ultimate Paragon said:
Interesting premise.
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theman from the ministery said:
Cracking stuff.
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Ed Costello said:
Colour me interested. Looking forward to what comes!
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Unknown said:
Waiting for more.

Good start.
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Thanks everyone, I hope I can deliver. :)

TFSmith121 said:
Not sure how a pacifist marxist Christian is going to get to the top, but I'm interested in seeing how you do it...

Best,
Click to expand...

Well, Cripps' opinions changed a lot throughout his lifetime, so it all depends on which incarnation of Cripps is taking over.

You say "pacifist", but we're already past his pacifist inclinations during the First World War. His views on war do get a bit complicated as time goes on, but the Cripps we shall be seeing at the top will not be a pacifist in any sense.
 
Comisario

Comisario

Chapter 2


(Taken from "The Great British Reaction" by Mary Nixon-Smith, Cambridge University Press 1973)

The character of Prime Minister Baldwin seemed remarkably impossible to explain in the 1920s. His time as Prime Minister from 1924 to 1929 seems to follow a very erratic path in regards of policy and party discipline. The "One Nation" Tory, with his admirable ideals of a cohesive class state in Britain, was theoretically at odds with some of his greatest supporters. From Winston Churchill to William Joynson-Hicks, there was a strong tendency of government ministers for whom "class war" was a two-way struggle [1]. Dogged and dogmatic, these men appeared to wield enormous power in direct contradiction of their Prime Minister's own political viewpoints. Baldwin relied upon these men to enforce a type of conservatism totally antithetical to his own.

To those unacquainted with pre-Crippsian British politics, this may seem to be an odd situation [2]. However, there are reasons for Baldwin's behaviour during the 1920s. One reason in particular was the threat of socialism to the Conservative Party.

British socialism, in the time before Cripps' rise to power, was an incoherent force. Communists, Maxtonites, democratic socialists and even "right-wing" socialists existed in opposition to the traditional parties of Britain- Conservative and Liberal. Each group identified, to varying degrees, with the Labour Party. That is not to say, of course, that these groups were uniform in their allegiances and opinions. But, given the size and electoral power of the party, Labour influenced many other leftist groupings. The threat of socialism, physical and electoral, fluctuated throughout the decade. But, the period of 1925-1927 seemed to be the most dangerous in terms of direct action against Baldwin's government. This was the period within which men like Churchill rose to prominence by manipulating public opinion against the socialist movement and violence spilled out from the workplaces and into the homes of ordinary people [3]. It was the external threat of socialism that concerned Baldwin and Churchill alike.

The first sign of a threat to the Conservative government came in July 1925. Britain was back on the Gold Standard, the economy was in a period of deflation, and wages were being drastically cut. For British miners, whose hours were going up as their wages plummeted, this government policy was destroying their livelihoods. The Miners Federation of Great Britain could not stand by whilst their members struggled. A strike was planned, there was a successful effort to stop the transport of coal by railway, and the government lacked a sufficient lacked a sufficient plan to deal with the industrial unrest. Prime Minister Baldwin, on reflection, said, "We were not ready". Instead, to avoid an industrial disaster, Baldwin gave in to the demands of the Miners Federation on the 31st July and provided a subsidy to the mining industry worth over £23 million to last nine months. Baldwin had effectively given in to the workers [4].

George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party, had backed the miners throughout and his extremely pro-union policy was totally vindicated. Prominent Communist agitator and General Secretary of the Miners Federation, A.J. Cook, was another man emboldened by Baldwin's capitulation. In cabinet, there were murmurs of dissent from leading right-wingers. Baldwin's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, was very much opposed to the subsidy and the compromise it brought, but relented on the matter because, as he said in a speech to the Belfast Chamber of Commerce on the 2nd March 1926, it gave both the mine owners and the miners a chance to "set their houses in order". To set the government's house in order, a more robust emergency plan was drawn up. The ideas of special constables, militias of the middle-class, the use of "scab" labour, and even army action were all considered and subsequently made official parts of the government's plan against a general strike. Baldwin had voiced his concerns about some of the plan's harsher elements, but the cabinet was agreed on the course of action.

The encouragement of the militant Left, matched by the authority of the Conservative Right, seemed to be creating a "perfect storm".


(Taken from "Labour and the Crises of the 1920s" by Iain Powell, Edinburgh University Press 1998)

The nine-month armistice from July 1925 to May 1926 was probably the falsest peace ever brokered between the British workers and their employers. When it ended, there was very little shock.

Unable to accept more wage reductions and the lengthening of work hours, the Miners Federation of Great Britain attempted to negotiate with the industrialists who were forcing these harsh measures. On the 1st May 1926, mine-owners met with leaders of the Miners Federation to come to an agreement over pay and hours. The mine-owners would not relent and the trade unionists were entrenched in their position that they could force a capitulation just as they had done in July of the last year. Neither side was willing to compromise, and with over one million miners locked out, a general strike was called by the TUC to "show solidarity with the miners, whose wages were under serious threat". The Labour Party issued a statement, authored by George Lansbury, in defence of the TUC's decision and in "wholehearted support of the General Strike" [5]. Whilst some elements of the Labour Party were genuinely frightened by the rhetoric of trade unionists such as Arthur Cook and George Hicks, the majority of the party was solidly in favour of Lansbury's position. Arthur Henderson, in a letter to Clement Attlee (later, Foreign Secretary under Stafford Cripps), wrote that "... he is much more than MacDonald ever was. He stands by his beliefs and he stands proud. In testing times such as these, when our party must choose between the solidarity of working people and the interests of the industrialist class, he has already decided our course of action" [6]. This is indicative of the feeling of Lansbury's supporters. In many ways, the fact that Lansbury was not MacDonald (who had been assassinated in numerous correspondences between party members since his ousting) was his greatest asset.

The grand optimism of Labour pre-1926, exemplified by the jubilation surrounding Lansbury's revolutionary vision for the party, was not to last, however. The exact point at which Labour's "socialist honeymoon" definitively ended has been a matter of historical debate. Scholars have argued for the first use of "scab" labour on the docks of East London, the admittance of the British Fascisti into the OMS, and even the publication of Churchill's "British Gazette", as the single greatest cause for the downwards spiral into violence and terror that overtook the General Strike of 1926. Whilst all historians acknowledge these events as critical in understanding the strike's degeneration into physical action, it seems that none of them can undoubtedly be held solely responsible. In fact, I believe that Fred Bramley's death on the 5th May was the real turning point of the General Strike [7].

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[1] Jix and Winnie will be appearing more than once.
[2] "Pre-Crippsian"? Yes- he has a period of history named after him ITTL.
[3] Britain is going to see some tough times ahead, I assure you.
[4] This is all OTL.
[5] In OTL, Labour was divided on the General Strike of 1926. MacDonald opposed it completely whilst the left-wing of Labour supported it in a cautious way.
[6] Henderson, in OTL, followed MacDonald's position to the hilt. But, now that the two cannot be reconciled and Lansbury's position seems to be working, he has committed himself fully to the "Lansbury plan".
[7] Fred Bramley's death will bring about some chaos, both in the TUC and out on the streets.
 
Maponus

Maponus

I assume the British Fascisti are being allowed in with uniform and all - since they were allowed in OTL but only in civilian clothes and had to submit to OMS control and restraint.

A violent general strike is always a sure fire way of getting things on track in these left-wing Britain TL's.....
 
Comisario

Comisario

Maponus said:
I assume the British Fascisti are being allowed in with uniform and all - since they were allowed in OTL but only in civilian clothes and had to submit to OMS control.

A violent general strike is always a sure fire way of getting things on track in these left-wing Britain TL's.....
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Exactly- and this also means that there is no split between the "loyalists" and the "Linton-Orman" factions. The government now has a unified fascist pseudo-freikorps to turn on the strikers.

This is just the beginning of the "two-way class war".
 
Maponus

Maponus

I wonder what the impact of this would be on Mosley.

Mosley at this time (if I'm not mistaken) was vocally supporting the General Strike as a ILP firebrand - I wonder if perhaps a British Fascisti blow to the head interrupting on of his speeches will butterfly his interest in Fascism. ;)

The British Fascisti are often overlooked in Alternate History due to the BUF coming along later and eating them up - but if they overcome their initial problems they might have a better shot at mainstream success than the BUF with it's confused, discordant "neither left nor right" message that was unconvincing to the left and alienating to Tories.
 
Comisario

Comisario

Maponus said:
I wonder what the impact of this would be on Mosley.

Mosley at this time (if I'm not mistaken) was vocally supporting the General Strike as a ILP firebrand - I wonder if perhaps a British Fascisti blow to the head interrupting on of his speeches will butterfly his interest in Fascism. ;)

The British Fascisti are often overlooked in Alternate History due to the BUF coming along later and eating them up - but if they overcome their initial problems they might have a better shot at mainstream success than the BUF with it's confused, discordant "neither left nor right" message that was unconvincing to the left and alienating to Tories.
Click to expand...

You've just given my a brilliant idea I can incorporate into the next update! Thanks :)

The Fascisti have a strange sort of ideology. It's probably closer to Italian Fascism than the BUF, but it was also quite popular with establishment figures who saw it as a sort of vanguard against socialism (just like Mussolini's fascists leading up to the March on Rome).

Whilst it is unlikely that Mosley would turn fascist in this timeline, I can assure you that he will be just as alienating and self-important as he always was. ;)
 
Simon

Simon

Well this should be interesting. About the only thing I really know about Cripps is his seemingly rather large blind spot the size of the Albert Hall when it came to Stalin and the Soviet Union viz. the sale of Rolls-Royce jet aero engines to them in 1946.
 
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