The effectiveness of the unilateralist campaign for nuclear disarmament in this country had become doubtful long before the sixth annual Aldermaston march during the Easter. It had become institutionalised and was beginning to be regarded as a harmless, even if rather bizarre, part of the Easter ritual. Now doubt has been cast on its character. The publication of the twelve-page “Spies For Peace” pamphlet and its circulation in thousands during the march have exposed it to the charge of providing a “convenient centre for indiscriminate and often subversive activities.” The campaign is in no way responsible for it but the stigma would stick. It would be remarkable indeed if the campaign regains its respectability.
The ineffectiveness which the critics have called the irrelevance of the campaign was obvious during the Cuban crisis last October when for the first time the threat of a nuclear war moved from the realm of the metaphysical to that of reality. It failed to make any impression on public opinion. The CND contented itself with a couple of meetings. The breakaway, more militant Committee of One Hundred which was then still headed by Lord Russell tried to hold a demonstration in Trafalgar Square in defiance of the police ban. The demonstrators were handled rather roughly by the police and moved on to the American Embassy to stay there till dusk. Lord Russell himself ignored the committee as he bombarded Mr Khrushchev and President Kennedy with telegrams.
Not Impartial
During this critical period it became established that the leaders of the CND as well as of the Committee of 100 were far from impartial in their approach. They placed the blame for the crisis wholly and squarely on the American administration. They dismissed as unreliable President Kennedy’s statement that the Soviet Union was establishing missile bases in Cuba. They said the evidence in the form of photographs of launching pads and missiles under cover was far from conclusive. They were confused but unrepentant when Mr Khrushchev admitted the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba and agreed to withdraw them.
The ineffectiveness of the unilateralists which was so clearly demonstrated last October in fact dates back from October, 1961 when the late Mr Hugh Gaitskell and his supporters at the Labour party conference at Blackpool secured by an overwhelming majority a reversal of the previous year’s resolution on defence policy. It might be recalled that at the Scarborough conference in 1960 the Labour party had endorsed the policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament of Britain by a narrow majority. This was the first major political event which unilateralists could legitimately claim to have influenced though the extent to which this development was the result of the party’s third consecutive defeat in the general election in 1959 and consequent confusion and demoralisation remains a moot point. The triumph of Mr Gaitskell at Blackpool dashed their hopes of using the Labour party to advance their cause. The unilateralists never forgave Mr Gaitskell for his firm stand.
The present opposition of the Labour party to the policy of an independent nuclear deterrent gives little cause for satisfaction to the unilateralists. The Labour party is opposed to the maintenance of the British deterrent because of the conviction that it weakens the NATO alliance by promoting the ambition of becoming nuclear powers among other European members and disables Britain from making an effective contribution to the conventional forces of the alliance. The Labour party, unlike the Conservative party, is prepared to make the country’s defence wholly dependent on the alliance and the American nuclear shield. The new leader, Mr Harold Wilson, has made it clear that the Labour party in power would not seek the withdrawal of the American nuclear bases in Britain.
Key Question
In fact, it is only in recent months that the Labour party leadership has felt bold enough to take an unequivocal stand on the key question of getting out of the nuclear arms race. The development of American strategic thinking with vastly increased emphasis on the role of non-nuclear conventional forces and opposition to a proliferation of nuclear weapons has alone made it possible for the Labour party to expound its defence policy in unmistakable terms without inviting the charge of unilateralism.
The effectiveness or ineffectiveness of it apart, the Aldermaston march has once again focussed public attention on the schism within the unilateralist movement between the moderates and the extremists. The schism has existed for years and was dramatically revealed in the autumn of 1961 when Lord Russell and Michael Scott (the London host of Mr Phizo) formed the Committee of 100 to organise acts of civil disobedience in opposition to the majority view among the CND leaders that there was no place for civil disobedience in a functioning democracy. The split antedated the formation of this committee. The Direct Action Committee, formed in 1956, had continued to function as a separate entity even after the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was formally launched in February, 1958. The Direct Action Committee was absorbed in the Committee of 100 soon after the latter was formed.
To confuse the status of the campaign further, Communists, anarchists and Trotskyites have infiltrated into it. The small but aggressively vocal group of extremists was responsible for the invasion, unauthorised by the CND leaders, of one of the underground secret “regional seats of Government” during the Aldermaston march and clashes with the police in London. The tone of the “Spies For Peace” spoke for itself. It revealed far more hostility to national institutions than concern for peace. It emphasised the non-elected character of the emergency staff. It poured ridicule on “our rulers”. It described the church as a Government department. It insinuated that the military would take over in the event of war. So sympathetic a journalist as Mr James Cameron, himself a supporter of the Campaign, has cried out, “God save us from our friends.”
It is difficult to say whether it was inevitable that the campaign which was basically intended to be an expression of the anxieties of millions of decent people should have become, in the words of Mr Cameron, “a vehicle for too many secondary and dubious intentions.” He has blamed the debacle on “Anarchical show-offs who have not learnt the basic fact of protest, which is that civil disobedience is valid only in a state where democracy is dead.” The fact, however, remains that “civil disobedience has grown in the shadow of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and spying and sabotage are now growing in the shadow of civil disobedience” to quote The Daily Telegraph.
This observation should be pondered over by Lohia Socialists in India who have already moved from protest marches to New Delhi to obstructionist tactics in the State legislatures. As The Times has put it, “One of the classic routes to anti-democratic anarchy and the rule of violence is that which brings authority and forces of law into disrepute.” The point is worth making that the CND was also inspired by Gandhiji’s example. The first two protests in 1952 were in fact organised by a small group called Operation Gandhi. The whole programme of the Committee of 100 – sit-downs, appeals to workers to lay down tools, attempts to obstruct construction and working of airfields and so on – and the Aldermaston march itself bear the impress of the Gandhian non-co-operation movement. Disregard for the difference in two situations has placed the genuine British pacifists in the present awkward position.
Pressure
In the last six years the CND tried hard to be simultaneously an expression of conscience -to put it at its ideological best – and an instrument of political pressure. Its capacity as an instrument of political pressure was almost exhausted once, as noted earlier, the Labour party recovered its balance after wobbling in a period of demoralisation. With the death of Mr Hugh Gaitskell its supporters in the party lost even the impetus of personal hate. Having hailed the election of Mr Wilson as their victory they cannot easily raise the banner of revolt against him. Their anti-Americanism has similarly become irrelevant with Washington having been converted to the cause of Britain abandoning the nuclear role. The “Spies For Peace” have now choked the CND as an expression of conscience.
Most observers think that the boys and girls, mostly teenagers, have marched for the last time. The president of the campaign, Canon Collins (of St. Paul’s Cathedral), is non-committal. Whether the Easter march continues or not, the peace movement is in disarray.
The Times of India, 20 April 1963