The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (16 page)

Not one word appeared in the Leningrad papers the next day. ‘We don’t believe in sensationalism,’ they explained.

Wednesday 7 September

At breakfast Nick asked two personal questions. He wanted to know our family history and how rich we were. He had hinted that he will be making a report on our visit and these may be for inclusion in it. We answered both questions fully.

Caroline goes on to discuss anti-Americanism, which we have noticed in its most virulent form. We say that the propaganda goes beyond the policy differences, embracing all aspects of American life and constituting a sort of McCarthyism. Nick is very indignant but finds it hard to justify himself.

Thursday 8 September

We visited the Russian Museum and then at 12.30 went to the Cazana Cathedral which is now run by the Academy of Sciences. It is a museum of the history of religion. Our guide Nina Nosovitch, aged about twenty-five, was an atheist theological student, writing a thesis on reform in the Russian Orthodox Church.

The exhibits were designed to show that Christianity came from earlier cults. The Lamb of God, the cattle by the manger, Peter the fisherman and other symbols linked the religion with pagan faiths. A glass case contained extracts from Christ’s teaching showing how it strengthened the slave owner by undermining the resistance of the slaves: for example:

As we left Nina shook us firmly by the hand, thanked us for being so interested, and said that the younger generation now didn’t seem to care about anti-religious propaganda. Maria said afterwards, ‘Unfortunately
there is no systematic anti-religious propaganda except at Christmas and Easter.’

Kutchinsky realised that we didn’t like the exhibition and couldn’t understand why. We joked with him about items we would put in an anti-Communist museum. He said he would complain about its lack of objectivity.

In the evening attended a farewell dinner at the Restaurant Metropole. Everyone was so warm and friendly and they drove us to the dock and put us on board the
Estonia
. The wind was blowing and the rain bucketing down and we felt that winter was closing in on Leningrad and would hold it tight until the spring came to melt the ice. We had no real chance to say goodbye – just a warm handshake on the wet cobbles at the quayside. And then warm and comfortable in our cabin in this lovely new ship we edged out into the sea, our Russian trip over.

Tuesday 20 September

Dick and Peter to dinner and we discussed the Conference. The Left is determined to crush Gaitskell and the Right is determined to crush the Left on the defence issue. We represent the centralists and hope that the crisis can be averted by the Brown-Ennals formula which would allow the Executive to accept the TGWU resolution, instead of making a fight of it.

Sunday 25 September

Gaitskell’s Battersea speech yesterday threw down the gauntlet. He is sticking firm. Cousins has similarly given a press conference.

Monday 26 September

I decide that it may be necessary to resign from the NEC at Scarborough in an attempt to make peace.

Thursday 29 September – Labour Party Conference, Scarborough

To King’s Cross to catch the special train to Scarborough.

Caroline warned me last night that it would be fatal to resign. I thought her very unsympathetic indeed and we had rather a row. It seemed to me that the earlier I could resign the better so as to carry the fight to the Conference.

Dinner with Harold Wilson, Barbara Castle and Dick. Harold is busy composing his speech for Sunday night and frankly all he’s interested in is turning the situation to his own advantage. He thinks Gaitskell can be dislodged. My opinion of him drops the more I see of him.

Phone Caroline and she’s relieved that I am not resigning. Bed 10 pm.

Friday 20 September

Up early and breakfast at no fewer than four different tables in the hotel
trying to win people round to the benefits of peace-making.

This morning’s NEC meeting was routine business in a jovial atmosphere. The Left have joined the peace-making moves with the
New Statesman
flat out for us and
Tribune
not against us. The
Spectator
and
The Times
are bitterly hostile. The real issue is that Hugh and Frank won’t have it, each being anxious to destroy the other. We must try to strengthen the middle and make its pull irresistible.

Long walk and talk with Barbara Castle. Talk to John Harris, Hugh’s adviser, who thinks a split is inevitable. Frank Barlow says to me: ‘Being who you are, there is nothing you can do about it, old boy.’ Jim Callaghan says, ‘Don’t worry, old boy. After this week we’ll pick up the pieces.’

Despite this discouraging advice I decided I would have one more go, so I caught Gaitskell as he was going up the stairs to bed and asked if he would agree to meet me the following morning. He looked very wooden and gave me the wateriest of smiles but finally agreed and told me to come to his suite at 10 o’clock.

Saturday 1 October

For the last day or two I had been talking quite openly with the press about the peace-making efforts. John Cole of the
Manchester Guardian
had been interested but sceptical. My line had been one of unlimited optimism and I had claimed repeatedly that the centre was responding well to my peace-making approaches. I told them that everyone I spoke to wanted peace-making to succeed, even though many thought it was too difficult, too late, or hopeless.

Today I had planned my interviews with Gaitskell and Cousins to see what sort of reception I would get from the two extremes. At exactly 10 o’clock I knocked at the suite of room number 1 and Hugh opened the door and beckoned me in. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with no tie and blue trousers. He looked dejected and bored and had the longest face, which regarded me with intense distrust I knew it was going to be a most unfortunate and unhappy interview – as it was.

I told him that I was very worried about the split,’ which I thought was unnecessary, and that he knew that I had worked to prevent it. I still thought there was time, with a little good will.

He replied most unsympathetically and said that under no circumstances would he be dictated to by Frank Cousins. ‘Frank Cousins is
not
the only trade union leader,’ he said. ‘You seem to forget that.’

He then went on to attack Cousins in extremely personal terms and went on to say that Mrs Cousins was ‘very left indeed’ and to hint that she was a fellow-traveller. It was clear that on this point he was quite irrational. He said that he had underrated the strength of the campaign by the nuclear
disarmers and the Communists and that it was clear that he would have to make a stand and fight on this.

He said, ‘You are a very talented young man, but you have no political judgement and you don’t realise that sometimes silence is golden.’

I left after fifty minutes, pretty despondent.

It was now pretty clear that my plan for a compromise had foundered. Over lunch the idea formed in my mind that if we couldn’t get agreement between the official side and Cousins we might actually have talks to clarify the points of disagreement and invite Conference to accept a common interpretation of what these differences were and ask them to decide.

I drafted the memorandum along these lines, discussed it with Barbara Castle and got the Party office to type me out several copies. Armed with one of these I waited in the lounge for Frank Cousins to come in. He arrived with Harry Nicholas and some others and I was summoned over imperiously.

Frank was breathing rather heavily and was obviously on the top of his high horse. He said, ‘If you think that you can save that man in this way, you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.’ It was clear he regarded me as an emissary from the Hampstead set, anxious to do anything that would save Gaitskell from defeat.

I tried again. ‘Well, will you read my memo . . .?’

‘No, I won’t,’ he said.

‘Well, how will you know what I’ve proposed if you don’t read it?’ I said bravely.

‘I don’t care. I won’t agree. I won’t read it,’ he said. Harry Nicholas blushed scarlet at the way in which he was mauling me. I didn’t give a damn, although it was a little disappointing. Frank seemed to realise that he’d gone too far; he grabbed the memo from my hand and looked at it. His eyes lit upon a sentence which said that ‘when Conference has reached its decision the whole Party should accept it’.

‘I certainly won’t agree to that after the rigging and fixing of the vote which that man is out to achieve. If I defeat him, he must accept it; but I won’t accept it whatever happens.

‘I’ve always wanted to form a trade union political party and I’ve half a mind to put up against that man in his own constituency of South East Leeds. And as for you, you’ve burned your boats now and you’ve no future with that man,’ he said menacingly, implying that I was finished unless I worked with him on his own terms.

Anyway he eased up a little bit after that and I explained that I would be putting this proposal informally before the National Executive tomorrow and that I hoped he wouldn’t turn down the idea of talks out of hand. He stuffed the memo into his pocket saying, ‘All right, all right, I won’t say no now,’ and with this half victory I got up and left him.

It was now pretty clear to me that both sides wanted a showdown and that
Cousins and Gaitskell were completely irrational about each other. Frankly, I agreed with both of them in their assessment of the other.

I ought to add a word about the atmosphere in the Royal Hotel among the Executive. For Harold, his speech on Sunday night at the Eve of Conference Rally was to be his great bid for the leadership and he had concocted a lot of phrases which were full of significance but took no stand. My contempt for him grew each time I met him and I don’t think he has one-tenth the character of Gaitskell.

Just before going to bed this evening I saw Ray Gunter, who cursed me up and down in the sweetest possible way. ‘You’re crucifying Gaitskell,’ he said. ‘As you know, I’m no Gaitskell man but there are decent ways of doing this sort of thing.’ I went to bed quite clear that I should resign tomorrow if the Executive refused my proposal for talks.

Sunday 2 October

I canvassed
the Times, Guardian, Herald and Daily Mail
correspondents this morning with my plan for talks and gave a copy of the memo to John Harris.

I also heard that Harry Nicholas would be authorised to accept the suggestion of talks if the NEC put it forward at this afternoon’s meeting. I therefore went to the meeting waiting for the moment when I should have to make this proposal, having firmly decided that I should resign if it was rejected.

As we met, the CND parade led by Homer, Mikardo, Canon Collins and others tramped by the hotel shouting ‘Ban the Bomb! Gaitskell must go!’ It almost drowned our proceedings and introduced an element of mob violence into our affairs.

When we came to the defence resolutions, including the TGWU resolution, I moved that we initiate talks. My proposal was backed by Jennie Lee, Dick Crossman and a lot of others but was bitterly opposed by Gaitskell, Gunter and Sam Watson. After the vote on it was taken I raised a point of order. I said I had tried to bring peace . . . At this, the Chairman, George Brinham, interrupted me and said it was not a point of order. I raised my voice and shouted that he should hear me out and I then said I thought this was a disastrous piece of action and I proposed to resign from the Executive forthwith. I had got too excited and as I walked across the room to the door I heard George Brinham saying, ‘Anyone can resign from the Executive, that is not a point of order.’

I went upstairs and saw George Brown. I told him what I had done and he said, ‘Don’t do anything else until you’ve spoken to me.’ I summoned a press conference for 5.45 in the billiard room and telephoned Caroline to tell her the news. At 5.45 I read my statement to a gigantic press conference and answered questions.

I gather that I had caused some consternation after I left. I got some pretty grim looks from colleagues who later emerged from the meeting but Walter
Padley (who is not a unilateralist) clutched me warmly on both shoulders and said with tears in his eyes, ‘What’s your personal position now? Are you going to stand again? That’s all that matters.’ All the secretaries from the Party were also very tearful. They are CND and were very sorry to see me go.

I rang Caroline and my dad and he was wonderfully encouraging. Caroline was sweet as could be but she thought I shouldn’t have done it.

To bed but couldn’t sleep till about 3.

Monday 3 October

Very cold reception from colleagues and hardly anybody said they thought I had done the right thing. Someone quoted George Lansbury’s advice: ‘Never resign’, and somebody else hinted that it was just a stunt to get reelected on the Executive and avoid an inevitable defeat by Mikardo. Lots of other delegates were puzzled.

For the first time in my life tonight I had a sleeping tablet and it was a relief to get a few hours of rest.

Tuesday 4 October

The results of the election for the Executive were announced this morning and I have been knocked off by Mikardo. I rang Caroline to tell her and was very dejected indeed.

Wednesday 5 October

The long-awaited defence debate was opened well by Sam Watson and sustained a high standard throughout. George Brown recanted, Noel-Baker cheered for his Nobel Prize, declared himself a multilateralist, Denis Healey said Khrushchev used to murder cats when he was a child and Michael Foot shone like a torch of radicalism. Finally Gaitskell in a magnificent defence of multilateralism that captured the Conference threw the whole lot away in his final minutes with his attack on ‘unilateralists, pacifists and fellow-travellers’ and by his declared intention to ‘fight, fight and fight again’. In the vote the platform was totally defeated but the Left was dejected and the right wing exultant at this ‘moral victory’. Bob McKenzie, Ivan Yates and the rest are plotting the new non-socialist radical party that they would like to see emerge.