Recently released archives now show that the Cold War 'home front’ was also an integral part of Britain’s Cold War history, and domestic institutions were, in some respects, put back on to a war footing, as Communism represented a critical and ongoing threat to British values in particular and to Western democracy in general. In other words, Britain was at war, domestically and overseas, in the same way that it had been between 1939 and 1945 - militarily, economically, and spiritually.151 Cold War exigencies required efforts to monitor Communist activity and weed Communists out of public services and trades unions at home and abroad, given the perception of the menace to the interests and safety of the whole British Commonwealth.152 Assessments suggested that there could be Communist manipulation of domestic affairs, espionage, and fifth-column activity. The government had therefore to counter infiltration in the trades unions, and the influence of the Communist Party in industry, the armed forces, the police, and the civil service. Although the party itself was not banned, by the early 1950s those applying for public service appointments were vetted for their political affiliations, while Cabinet committees on home and overseas Communism were established to monitor these ongoing efforts.153
Yet, it was not until the end of 1947 that the Labour government was ready to go public with an assault upon Communism at home. After Cabinet meetings in early January 1948, Bevin launched his social democratic crusade in the House of Commons.154 His career as a trades unionist in the 1920s and 1930s had left him with a deep-seated dislike of Communists in the unions; and in 1946 he had worked with trades union leaders to ensure that senior posts within the movement were denied to Communist Party members where possible. He would have agreed with the Joint Intelligence Committee analysis of 1947 that 'the Soviet leaders were especially hostile to "reformist socialism" which they regard as a competitor for working-class support in many countries’.155
A senior ministerial committee then was convened to oversee the implementation of anti-Communist measures at home.156 While it was agreed that Britain in 1948 was not in a state of war, quite extraordinarily, the committee then debated on how to use the Labour Party as a means for countering Communist activity at home and abroad. The British Council, the Central Office of Information, and the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department were to be important players, tasked to promote a British way of life through social propaganda, and thereby encourage their audience to infer that the democratic way of life was to be preferred to the Communist way of living.157 Ministers wanted the full panoply of films, exhibitions, international conferences, and national and international youth groups to be used to promote social democracy, and this would be supported by 'white’ and 'grey’ propaganda initiatives and supported by the British film industry.158 The BBC itself was the focus of much discussion, and although Bevin sought not to undermine its famed independence, he did also note that there were already very close informal contacts between the head of the BBC Overseas Service and the Foreign Office. Trades unions were seen as being in the front line in the struggle against Communist influence. The committee also assessed ways of drawing the churches into what was seen as a common action in defence of Western civilisation.159
The nature of the Cold War and the level of fear about Communism at home as well as abroad are historically highly significant. IfBritain managed to avoid the extremes of US McCarthyism, it is nevertheless clear that the means used came close to undermining the very way of life that was being protected, although Bevin was at pains to rein in the more extravagant proposals of his advisers. Yet it has to be said that, by the mid-1950s, such activity no doubt contributed to the creation in Britain of a remarkable elite and working-class consensus about Britain’s place and role in the world. It has been argued that this consensus was largely manufactured by the government to manage public opinion.160 This may overestimate both the competence and the cohesion of the covert agencies and of government departments. The notorious cases of the upper-middle-class 'Cambridge Spies', Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and Donald Maclean, were deeply embarrassing for the government, although the Americans, too, had had their own spy scandals. There were deep disagreements between government departments, and even between ministers, on how to deal with the Cold War as a domestic as well as a foreign-policy issue. Foreign Office minister Kenneth Younger, for example, deeply disagreed with the 'virulent anti-Soviet slanging match' that typified the propaganda work under the management of his fellow Labour Party office holders Christopher Mayhew and the reactionary Hector McNeil.161 It is also hard to measure the effectiveness of propaganda.162 Yet, it remains the fact that a fairly sustained public consensus did emerge on the subject: domestic dissent about Soviet policy was muted throughout the 1950s, and, for example, there was virtually no criticism of NATO in Britain throughout the Cold War.
World History
