JOHN STRACHEY: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY Also by Noel Thompson THE PEOPLE'S SCIENCE: The Popular Political Economy of Exploitation and Crisis, 1816-34 THE MARKET AND ITS CRITICS: Socialist Political Economy in Nineteenth-Century Britain John Strachey An Intellectual Biography NOEL THOMPSON Lecturer in Economic History University College, Swansea M © Noel Thompson 1993 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1993 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 0-333-51154-9 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copy-edited and typeset by Grahame & Grahame Editorial, Brighton Printed in Great Britain by Ipswich Book Co Ltd Ipswich, Suffolk To Catriona Contents Acknowledgements viii Preface ix 1 Political Economy and the Labour Party: the Post-war Period 1 2 Revolution by Reason and the Challenge to Fabianism, 1925 10 3 The Making of an English Marxist? 1925-29 30 4 From Labour Party to New Party, 1929-31 54 5 The Theory and Practice of Communism, 1931-36 71 6 The Costs of Keeping Faith, 1931-39 102 7 Towards a Popular Front Political Economy, 1936-39 126 8 Marxist or Social Democrat? 1940-44 148 9 The Break with the Party, 1940-42 168 10 Contemporary Capitalism, 1945-56 184 11 Revisionist or Fundamentalist? 1945-56 203 12 Modified Capitalism, Modified Marxism, Modified Imperialism, 1956-63 226 13 On the Prevention of War, 1945-63 248 Conclusion 266 Select Bibliography 269 Index 279 vii Acknowledgements During the course of researching and writing this book I have incurred considerable debts. To begin with I am indebted to those who have discussed various Strachey and Strachey-related papers with me at the History of Economic Thought Conference, Bristol, 1988; the History of Economic Society Conference, Toronto, 1988; a conference on Alternative Economic Strategies, Gregynog, 1989; and a conference on J. A. Hobson in Malvern, 1990. More specifically the work has benefited from the critical comment which different parts of it have received from Elizabeth Durbin, Michael Freeden, Karel Williams and Gavin Kitching. Amongst those who have learnt to live with the project and to extend an informed tolerance to my lengthy disquisitions upon it, Nigel Allington, Paul Davies and Andrew Murray deserve a par ticularly honourable mention. As too do John Saville and Nicholas Jacobs for their encouragement and support at a critical juncture. Gratitude is also due to the British Academy for the financial assistance it provided to support my work on Strachey's personal papers. I should also like to record my thanks to the staff of various libraries but in particular those of the London School of Economics, University College Swansea, the British Library and the British Newspaper Library at Colindale. Finally, and in particular, I would like to thank Elizabeth al Qadhi whose hospitality and kindness greatly facilitated my perusal of her father's papers. NOEL THOMPSON Llanelli viii Preface John Strachey has been recognised by many commentators as one of the most important left intellectuals in twentieth-century Britain. His Revolution by Reason (1925) was a significant contribution to the early economic literature of liberal socialism and furnished one of the few, coherent, radical economic strategies advanced by the British Labour Movement in the 1920s. His expositions of Marxism-Leninism in the 1930s are generally seen as amongst the most profoundly influential works to be published in both Britain and the United States in that period providing what Richard Crossman referred to as 'a remarkable Marxian Vulgate' for 'the militant left'.1 Finally his Contemporary Capitalism (1956) The End of Empire (1959) and On the Prevention of War (1962) represented an attempt on a grand scale to re-define the principles of British social democracy in such a way as to make them applicable to the economic and strategic problems which confronted Britain in the post-war period.2 Two fine works on John Strachey already exist, that of Hugh Thomas and the more recent study by Michael Newman.3 Thomas' biography provides an excellent account of Strachey's life. How ever, Richard Crossman in his review of the work expressed the opinion that 'it was a pity that for the sake of this curious life history the books get pushed so carelessly aside'.4 This is a little harsh but it is fair to say, as another reviewer of Thomas' work put it, that Strachey is 'an ideal subject for an essay on political ideas. But not for a biography.'5 Richard Crossman also expressed the hope that 'some later pro fessor will give a considered study of what is probably the most considerable corpus of socialist theory in the history of [the British Labour Movement]'6 and Michael Newman has certainly gone some way towards that in his study of Strachey's life and thought. But the need to meld biography and intellectual history which a 'Lives of the Left' text demands and the constraints of length undoubt edly limited the opportunities to expatiate upon many aspects of Strachey's shifting theoretical position. Courtesy of Macmillan and my editor this volume has been writ ten under no such constraints. In consequence I have been able to IX