Attlee, Bevin and Britain's Cold War

Britain’s first majority Labour government was elected in July 1945 at a pivotal moment in international affairs. The Second World War was almost over, with Nazi Germany defeated and the fall of imperial Japan imminent. As tensions emerged in the alliance between the USA and the Soviet Union, this was a critical time for Britain as the third strongest of the allied powers. This article discusses the role of the Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, and his Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, in the events which led to Britain’s involvement in the opening stages of the Cold War. It also examines some of the controversies surrounding British foreign policy in this period. How justified is the argument, advanced by some historians, that the Labour government failed to develop a distinctively ‘socialist’ approach to foreign affairs? At the time many on the British left hoped that the new government would promote international co-operation, independently both of the USA and the USSR. Did Attlee and Bevin contribute to the growth of international tensions by unnecessarily antagonising the latter, which had been the West’s indispensable partner in the struggle against Nazism? Can the government be convicted of pursuing an illusory ‘great power’ status, of unwisely tying Britain to the American alliance and missing the opportunity to help build up a viable community of western European states? Or can its decisions be defended as realistic responses to Britain’s narrowing room for manoeuvre at a time of unparalleled difficulty?