British Henry Wallace
- Thread starter lerk
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- 1940s united kingdom
You've pretty much described Stafford Cripps. He was a key figure in Labour from the 1930s onwards, he flirted with some very radical ideas before the war, such as allowing the government to assume emergency powers on a temporary basis to bring about socialism through means like nationalisation without compensation, as well as being a leading proponent of creating a 'Popular Front' of socialist, liberal, and communists to defeat the national government at the next election. When Labour joined the national government during WW2, he was made Ambassador to the USSR, in part because he was very pro-Soviet, and he somehow ended up taking a lot of the credit for bringing Russia into the war, which meant he became extremely popular and was mooted as a potential alternative to Churchill at one stage of the war. He went onto become Chancellor the Exchequer after the war ended.
There are obstacles to him becoming PM, though, given that he would probably need the endorsement of generally moderate MPs to get him there, and that he can't just succeed to the position as Wallace might have to become POTUS. But it's still doable. I believe that someone started a 'Comrade Cripps' TL on him a while back, I don't know if it was finished.
There are obstacles to him becoming PM, though, given that he would probably need the endorsement of generally moderate MPs to get him there, and that he can't just succeed to the position as Wallace might have to become POTUS. But it's still doable. I believe that someone started a 'Comrade Cripps' TL on him a while back, I don't know if it was finished.
I was about to suggest the very same thing and the person who wrote that TL was me, as it happens.
I’m currently involved in another project at the moment, but a redux of ‘Comrade Cripps’ (with better everything, essentially) is more than likely in the next few years.
Him becoming PM is eminently plausible, as even Tories lined up to trumpet his achievements during the war when Churchill looked shaky in his role as PM. Eden and Beaverbrook were both self-described Crippsites, for example, and you can find mentions of Crippsite sympathies amongst senior military leaders of the war. There are plenty of moments in the war where Churchill could have been deposed and Cripps was one of the most popular politicians of the war, so it’s really a matter of finding a specific weak point for the PM and exploiting that into a massive loss of confidence in Parliament.
Md139115
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Since you’re new here...
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/agent-lavender-the-flight-of-harold-wilson.261475/
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/agent-lavender-the-flight-of-harold-wilson.261475/
The Bevanites generally took up anti-Atlanticist positions, although they improved their views of the United States after Suez, where their goals coincided
As for being openly pro-Soviet, not really. Stafford Cripps was a pretty idiotic dupe for Stalin but I don't think even he went that far, although he did have involvement in giving away RAF designs to the Russians seemingly for nothing in return.
As for being openly pro-Soviet, not really. Stafford Cripps was a pretty idiotic dupe for Stalin but I don't think even he went that far, although he did have involvement in giving away RAF designs to the Russians seemingly for nothing in return.
Well, Wallace was hardly a puppet or anything. And he repented later, when he found out that there was a much darker side to the USSR than the Potemkin village showpieces he'd seen
Wallace was really sui generis. He can't be compared with the few fellow travelers in the left wing of the Labour Party (John Platts-Mills, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Platts-Mills Denis Pritt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Pritt etc. ) for three reasons:
(1) His pro-Soviet phase was only one stage of his career, lasting from 1941 to 1950 (when he broke with the Progressive Party over the Korean War). In 1933, he had opposed recognition of the USSR, and a few years later does not seem to have been very sympathetic to the Spanish Republic. ("During the Spanish civil War, as I came to know well while trying to help Loyalist Ambassador de los Rios, Wallace was the least responsive of the cabinet members who were approached to exercise influence on specific problems in behalf of the Loyalist government, such as arranging the servicing of that government's funds in New York City and the campaign to have the arms embargo lifted." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1948/08/henry-wallace-a-divided-mind/306029/) From 1939 to June 22, 1941, of course, both FDR and Wallace were denounced as "warmongers" by the Communists. And in 1941-45 there was nothing unusual about Wallace's friendly attitude toward the USSR. What was unusual about Wallace was remaining basically friendly to the USSR years after other liberals had turned anti-Communist. I am convinced that this was largely caused by his bitterness about being dumped from the Democratic ticket in 1944, and later being fired by Truman for a Madison Square Garden speech which was not as one-sidedly pro-Soviet as it has been portrayed. https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...lace-as-fdrs-vp-in-1944.437982/#post-16593148 This led him to believe that he was the country's only hope against "warmongers" to the extent that by 1948 he was dependent for his support on Communists and fellow travelers, and on the left wing unions that were soon to be expelled from the CIO.
(2) Unlike many of his colleagues in the Progressive Party, Wallace was not particularly radical in domestic affairs. During the 1930's he tried to steer a middle course in the Department of Agriculture between old-fashioned types who thought all the Department should try to do was to raise farm prices and young radicals (many of them Communists) who wanted to help the sharecroppers, etc. Eventually under pressure he fired the radicals. Even in 1948, he advocated not socialism but "progressive capitalism" (basically Keynesianism). Some Communists may have winced at that, but still felt that Wallace had to be supported as long as he was for "peace." But in any event Wallace on economic issues was always to the right of not just the far left of the Labour Party, but of the Labour Party as a whole.
(3) None of the few pro-Soviet Labour MP's ever had a chance of coming to power, or even leading the left wing of the Labour Party. There was never going to be a Prime Minister Platts-Mills or Pritt or Zilliacus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konni_Zilliacus These people were all expelled from the Labour Party (Pritt even before the Cold War) (Zilliacus presents some faint parallels to Wallace in that he was later disillusioned with Stalin--though in Zilliacus' case this was the result of siding with Tito.)
(1) His pro-Soviet phase was only one stage of his career, lasting from 1941 to 1950 (when he broke with the Progressive Party over the Korean War). In 1933, he had opposed recognition of the USSR, and a few years later does not seem to have been very sympathetic to the Spanish Republic. ("During the Spanish civil War, as I came to know well while trying to help Loyalist Ambassador de los Rios, Wallace was the least responsive of the cabinet members who were approached to exercise influence on specific problems in behalf of the Loyalist government, such as arranging the servicing of that government's funds in New York City and the campaign to have the arms embargo lifted." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1948/08/henry-wallace-a-divided-mind/306029/) From 1939 to June 22, 1941, of course, both FDR and Wallace were denounced as "warmongers" by the Communists. And in 1941-45 there was nothing unusual about Wallace's friendly attitude toward the USSR. What was unusual about Wallace was remaining basically friendly to the USSR years after other liberals had turned anti-Communist. I am convinced that this was largely caused by his bitterness about being dumped from the Democratic ticket in 1944, and later being fired by Truman for a Madison Square Garden speech which was not as one-sidedly pro-Soviet as it has been portrayed. https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...lace-as-fdrs-vp-in-1944.437982/#post-16593148 This led him to believe that he was the country's only hope against "warmongers" to the extent that by 1948 he was dependent for his support on Communists and fellow travelers, and on the left wing unions that were soon to be expelled from the CIO.
(2) Unlike many of his colleagues in the Progressive Party, Wallace was not particularly radical in domestic affairs. During the 1930's he tried to steer a middle course in the Department of Agriculture between old-fashioned types who thought all the Department should try to do was to raise farm prices and young radicals (many of them Communists) who wanted to help the sharecroppers, etc. Eventually under pressure he fired the radicals. Even in 1948, he advocated not socialism but "progressive capitalism" (basically Keynesianism). Some Communists may have winced at that, but still felt that Wallace had to be supported as long as he was for "peace." But in any event Wallace on economic issues was always to the right of not just the far left of the Labour Party, but of the Labour Party as a whole.
(3) None of the few pro-Soviet Labour MP's ever had a chance of coming to power, or even leading the left wing of the Labour Party. There was never going to be a Prime Minister Platts-Mills or Pritt or Zilliacus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konni_Zilliacus These people were all expelled from the Labour Party (Pritt even before the Cold War) (Zilliacus presents some faint parallels to Wallace in that he was later disillusioned with Stalin--though in Zilliacus' case this was the result of siding with Tito.)
+1 to what David said on this.
Wallace was not usually pro-Soviet. The way he is viewed in history has more to do with the slurs deployed against him by his political opponents, which in my view are quite unjustified.
During WW2 he was pro-Soviet along with most everyone else in the US. The Soviets were making it so fewer American boys would have to die to put down the dog of German militarism, and even the most pessimistic Russophobe could get behind that. And Wallace, while optimistic about the Soviets, was far from the only politician on the left or right who hoped that the Soviet revolution would mellow out into a more liberal democracy after the war (heck, without Stalin, that might have happened - there are indications that the other potential leaders who might have been in Stalin's place had the great tyrant been dead were likely to have accepted some compromise of their revolution if it meant obtaining US aid for dealing with the enormous human costs of the war).
And after WW2, while not going hard-line as some in US politics did, neither did he go easy on them, there's really no evidence that he was inclined to sell out North America to Stalin as people sometimes seem to think.
As to the British Labour Party producing someone as pro-Stalin as Wallace. Well. Is Stalin helping them kill Nazis? If so that's easy. Otherwise, you must understand, the Labour Party is deeply and implacably an enemy of Lenin and his pupil, being committed to following a methodology that is antithetical to Leninist revolutionary socialism. There's a reason why the Labour Party was home to most of Britain's most strident anti-Soviets and why the Leninists hated the British Labour Party right back. I have difficulty seeing any Labour leader, even Stafford Cripps, being "pro Soviet" unless the Soviets somehow radically change so that they were genuinely more democratic and humane or the Soviets are an ally against some far worse evil.
fasquardon