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A Campaign For Unity: Cripp's Unity Campaign, 1935-39, Part II**

© Joseph Sramek

In addition, Cripps held a deep distrust of the League of Nations, which he called a "thieves' kitchen" [1] at the 1935 Brighton Conference. His distrust of the League stemmed from his belief that the First World War was purely a capitalist and imperialist war and that the treaty ending it - Versailles - was based solely on capitalist and imperialist motives. Since the League was created by Versailles, it should not be relied upon to create peace. [2] On the contrary, it should not be trusted as it was the "tool of satiated imperialist powers." [3] Instead he maintained:

...from the League of Nations there is no final safety now. The League... is worked by feeble and skeptical Governments like our own, or by Governments that openly deride world peace, like Italy and Germany. If our Government would not use the League of Nations to try to check Japan, [4] have we any belief at all that it would itself be checked if it embroiled itself with other nations? [5]

The idea that "co-operation with capitalist states to preserve peace is hopeless" was the basis of Cripps' opposition to the League of Nations. [6] Instead, he believed that peace could be won For Socialism and Peace, offering 75 amendments to it at the 1934 Southport Annual Labour Party Conference. [7] This militancy disgusted many in the Party, including some on the left who were at least sympathetic to some of Cripps' other ideas. Harold Laski, a professor at the London School of Economics [L.S.E.] and prominent left-winger, rhetorically asked, "Cannot something be done to shut these devils [Cripps and his followers] up?" [8]

Cripps, like Lansbury, was one who placed political principle much higher than loyalty to the Party or political expediency. Thus, it was in character that Cripps argued for what he called a "British United Front of the Working Class," [9] a political alliance that would consist of the Communists and other anti-capitalist political parties, despite the fact that the Labour Party leadership deeply distrusted the Communists, and had rejected every attempt during the Interwar Period by the Communist Party of Great Britain [C.P.G.B.] to affiliate with it. [10]

Nevertheless, Cripps pressed on, holding numerous rallies in 1936, where he advocated the creation of a United Front.

Footnotes:

[1] Michael R. Gordon, Conflict and Consensus in Labour's Foreign Policy, 1914-65, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 67.

[2] Colin Cooke, The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957), p. 169.