Fabian International Bureau 

BPibtSII 

('-?>&


REARMAMENT 
-HOW FAR? 


JOHN FREEMAN, MP 

DENIS HEALEY 

Speeches at a 
Fabian Conference, Summer 1951 

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REARMAMENT-HOW FAR? 

JOHN FREEMAN, MP 

Member of Parliament for Watford. Parliamentary Secretary to 
the Ministry of Supply, 1947-51. 

DENIS HEALEY 

Secretary, Labour Party International Department. 

PREFACE 

THE succEss of the pamphlet on Socialist Foreign Policy issued by the 
Fabian Society earlier this year has encouraged us to publish this further 
contribution to the discussion. 

The speeches by John Freeman, M.P., and Denis Healey, given at 
Caxton Hall, Westminster, on Saturday, 14 July, 1951, represent rather 
more divergent views than those expressed by Kenneth Younger, M.P .• 
and R. H. S. Crossman, M.P., in the earlier pamphlet. In reply to John 
Freeman's criticism of the scale of rearmament, Denis Healey, while 
admitting agreement with a great deal of what is said by the authors of 
One Way Only, argues that the present arms programme is fully justified 
by the international situation. 

The Fabian Society does not accept collective responsibility for the 
views of either speaker. But it believes that this pamphlet will help towards 
a fuller consideration of these important aspects of socialist policy. 

JOHN PARKER, 

Chairman, Fabian Society. 

September, 1951. 


r< (_!2) 



NOTE.-This pamphlet, like all publications of the 
Fabian Society, represents not the collective view of 
the Society but only the view of the individuals who 
prepared it. The responsibility of the Society is 
limited to approving the publications which it issues 
as worthy of consideration within the Labour 
Movement. 

September, 1951. 


JOHN FREEMAN 


Introductory 

THE SUBJECT of this address is Arms and Foreign Policy. I gather from 
the large numbers of the pamphlet, One Way Only, which I see people 
are holding, that there is some expectation that I shall devote my remarks 
largely to its tontents. l do not propose to do that. But I should like 
to give you a little of the background thinking which has led me, at any 
rate, to subscribe broadly to the point of view expressed in it; and to put 
before you some consideration of the relation between " hot " and " cold " 
war which will, I hope, stimulate thought about a problem which has not 
yet received sufficient consideration. 

I have tried to follow, as I imagine most of you have, the two conferences 
which have preceded this one. I have read the published speeches 
of Dick Crossman and Kenneth Younger in the pamphlet Socialist 
Foreign Policy and also the typescript of Harold Wilson's recent speech to 
you. There are certain assumptions arising from them which I want to 
state this afternoon. First, however, let me emphasise that l am not going 
to offer you a complete or alternative foreign policy. I am going to take 
the problem of the role of arms in foreign policy, to strip it so far as r 
see it of its inessentials and to examine 1t m a series of what I hope are 
logical propositions which will lead us from certain premises to what I 
believe to be a correct conclusion. 

Let me now put to you the four assumptions on which 1 am going 

to base my talk. 

The first is that, broadly speakin.g, I agree with the economic criticism 

of our arms programme made by Wilson at your previous conference 

and in his resignation speech, and I state that now as an assumption 

because I do not want to have to argue it this afternoon. But you should 

know that my own arguments are based on the acceptance of these general 

propositions: that the arms programme of the Western Allies _is so large 

and is being implemented in such a way as to cause widespread inflation, 

coupled with a raw material crisis; that it is being implemented and financed 

in this country in such a way as not to give us the quickest possible return 

in finished arms for our money, to do serious damage to the economic 

strength which we have been successfully rebuilding over the last six years, 

to put us in deficit on our overseas payments, to deprive us of our ability 

to pursue enlightened economic policies towards the under-developed parts 

of the world and finally to strike a severe blow at our own Social Services 

and our general policy of redistributing income between the rich and the 

poor.

Secondly, I want to refer to the mystical phrase, Socialist Foreign 
Policy, and tell you the sort of definition I should prefer to give of it. 
It clearly does not consist merely in having relations only with other 
Socialist powers in the world. That is the method of the troglodyte, not 
of the Socialist. It is a policy designed to strengthen all those factors which 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR'? 

are calculated to lead to the success and strengthening of Socialism in this 
country and to the propagation of our ideas in the rest of the world. That 
i~ to say that it is self-interest in a sense, and I am bold enough to say that 
I think any foreign policy is bound to be a policy of self-interest. Whether 
or not it is a policy which can be seen objectively to go further than self-
interest depends on how one conceives one's own self-interest at any given 
time. Now I conceive our own self-interest at the moment as being very 
definitely not confined to our own immediate needs in this country but to 
the general strengthening of the people and peoples who are prepared to 
co-operate with us along the way which we choose to follow. It is our 
duty, therefore, to do all we possibly can to strengthen our fellow Socialist~ 
in other countries and in doing this to work with other non-Socialist countries 
as far as they will work with us. 

The two other basic assumptions which I want to take as read came 
very clearly out of the discussion between Crossman and Younger. The 
first is that neutrality as a course for us is not a possible one. It is essentially 
defeatist and static in a situation where we cannot afford to stand 
still. For the cold war is real, and we have to take sides, as Crossman 
expressed very clearly, because the issues are real to us as individuals and 
as Socialists. Political freedom and our own relatively high standard of 
living are not things that we can easily discard, nor can we stand on one 
side while they are attacked by other people. That does not necessarily 
mean that collaboration between ourselves and others who take the contrary 
view is impossible, but it means that, during the present phase of Soviet 
policy, it is likely to be limited collaboration towards limited objectives and 
it will, in present circumstances, oe related to the strategy of cold war. 

The other assumption, which comes straight out of Crossman's remarks, 
is that we can no longer command the policies of the world by virtue of 
our own physical strength. We are no longer a first-class power by pre1914 
standards. If we are going to be a first-class power-and for the 
same reasons as we reject neutralism we must seek to-we can only be so 
if we can achieve our position by our ideas and by resolution in our 
policy. We must not be afraid to show our Socialist creed to the rest of 
the world and to invite its acceptance. I think we shall get it in a marked 
degree. 

' Those are the four assumptions from which I wish to start. What are 
the problems which confront us and to which we have to find an answer 
in any intelligent discussion of arms and foreign policy? 

The first is that, if we accept the cold war as a regrettable fact, how 
can we best live with it for a long time and gradually win it? Secondly, 
how can we ensure that it does not turn into a hot war? There is a third 
problem with which I do not propose to deal at the moment, though I 
will refer to it later: Ought we to be making plans for a hot war? These 
are the three problems I want to examine. 

What is the Cold War ? 
Let us start by trying to define what a cold war is, because we have 
lived with it in varying degrees of uneasiness for the last five years and 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

we have come to accept it, very often, without much consideration of what 
it really involves. 1 think it is a struggle for influence and position which 
stops short of war itself. It arises either when for reasons of self-interest 
the powers concerned reject the use of war as an instrument of policy; or 
when they are not yet ready to use it. It may, therefore, be a substitute 
for war or it may be the precursor of war and it may continue for a very. 
long time. 

Its principal battlefield is in the mind and its principal weapons are 
fear and idealism on the one hand and the expectation of rewards and the 
specific use of threats on the other. Its objective-and 1 think this is true. 
whether as a substitute for war or its precursor-is, first, to win over to 
one's side the mass of smaller powers or the powers which are not immediately 
tied up with the great powers concerned. To put it in the more 
conventional terms of the battlefield, that is to isolate one's enemy. 
Secondly, having done that, to influence a decisive number of individuals 
from the opposite side to one's own point of view, which is, again in the 
figure of speech of the battlefield, having isolated your enemy, to destroy 
him. 

It follows from this that there is some difference of advantage enjoyed 
between the totalitarian powers and the political democracies, as there is 
in a hot war. Just as the dictator can plan a real war with considerable 
secrecy, launch it at any moment he chooses on whatever ground he 
chooses and achieve a high degree of surprise; so, in a cold war, the 
dictator, free from the need of any significant political consultation with 
his subjects, can switch his policy as capriciously and unscrupulously as he 
needs to meet the changing requirements of the moment. Just as the 
political democracy do not offer an idea. They offer a regime; and 
Jack of coherence and discipline, so, in the early stages of a cold war, they 
are far more susceptible to totalitarian weapons than the dictatorships, with 
their suppression of news and outside contacts, are to the democratic ones. 
But, as the democracies have in real war reserves of morale and inspiration 
which usually enable them in the end to outstay those who have no freedom, 
so I suspect that the same is true in cold war. We can-I do not say that 
we are yet doing so-fill men's minds and capture them with an idea, a 
challenge to their individual sense of responsibility and, if I can use the 
word in its Greek sense, which has a rather different meaning from 
colloquial English, not only their responsibility but their inherent virtue. 
Essentially powers which deny freedom of thought, of speech and association 
and the general attributes which we associate with an enlightened 
political democracy do not offer an idea. They offer a regime; and 
regimes, in the long run, are never proof against ideas. 

So I conclude from this that it is within our capacity to live with a 
cold war and to win it; because success in a cold war means above all 
organising our own lives and the lives of those for whom we are responsible 
in such a way as to give the fullest expression as a community to the best 
which is in us as individuals. But we must play our hand right if we 
are going to do this; and 1 am not sure that we have been doing so in 
the last few months. 

Having sought to make the point, perhaps somewhat academically, that 


6 REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

ideas are the most potent armament in a cold war, I must add that we 
cannot for that reason afford to ignore guns and aeroplanes. We shall 
derive the greatest advantage if we depend principally on what we can 
teach the world. But the other side will use against us fear and blackmail 
and we must be prepared to defend ourselves against these and to offer

I 

a sufficient deterrent of force to discourage an aggressor from ill-considered 
recourse to hot war in the hope of quick and decisive victory. 

The Red Army has, since 1945, been an instrument, perhaps the 
principal instrument, of the cold war. I suggest that it has never been 
intended during these last few years to be used for hot war. It has been 
the basic instrument of cold war designed to exploit what I have already 
defined as the political weapons of fear, blackmail and threat. The Atlantic 
Pact on our side is, 1 suspect, becoming very much the same. 

Now, in saying that our ideas are strong enough and good enough 
to withstand the stresses of cold war, I do not mean that they are wholly 
good. Where we deny freedom and progress or falter in waging the really 
Socialist war against poverty, we weaken ourselves as well as our impact 
on others. Racial discrimination, for instance, or the exploitation of men 
and women for gain are as hateful here or in the United States as anywhere 
else; and f think that the United States, which, by comparison with ourselves 
and some other European powers, is politically primitive, is the 
weaker partner in the war of ideas just as it is the stronger partner in 
arms. That is why I suggest to you that we should make every possible 
effort to take the lead politically in the battle for men's minds and why 
I am not unduly perturbed if, i:1 doing so, we occasionally have sharp 
differences o[ opinion with the United States-we certainly shall with their 
right wing if' we follow the ideas that I am going to put to you. 

I have already explained, or announced, that I accept Crossman's 
argument that, during the present phase of extreme Soviet hostility to the 
West, we are inevitably forced on to the same side as the United States. 
1 do not think that it is open to us, maintaining anything like the 
objectives of policy which we have at present, either to be on the other 
side, or to stand aside. 1 want to remind you, although it should not 
be necessary to give this reminder to Fabians, that there are great progressive 
forces in the United States which have not yet achieved effective 
political expression. In cold war, you seek to conquer your allies as well 
as your enemy; and we, if we are faithful to our principles now, can do 
much to liberate our real friends in the United States. We are not aligned 
with the United States in order to make a world safe for Mr. Taft and 
General MacArthur; we are clearing a way along which we hope, and may 
reasonably expect, in the not very far distant future millions of 
American trade unionists and Liberals will be able to follow us towards 
democratic SocialiSm. 

How to avoid a Hot War 

I want now to try to answer the second question. Can we ensure that 
a cold war does not turn into a hot war? 1 do not believe for a moment 
that the Soviet Union has rejected the use of war in principle. Indeed, 


REi\RMAME'Nt--'HOW Fi\R~ 

J regret to say that I do not believe that the Western Allies, or even our 
own Government, have done that. I do believe that each side is, for the 
moment, too wary of the consequences of total war to be willing to risk it. 

Let us just examine for a moment what the most important power 
stress in the world really is. On the one hand we have the Red Army, 
presumably the most powerful single military force in the world and 
certainly, if joined with the armies of the satellites, a land force which the 
Western allies cannot hope to challenge in the near future. Our own 
Government holds it to consist of about 200 divisions plus another 50 
satellite divisions, together with a very large striking force of aircraft and 
submarines. I suspect that the effective combatant force available at short 
notice is considerably less than this: but that does not matter. Let us 
admit that it is an extraordinarily powerful force which, under present 
circumstances, we dare not take the risk of challenging. We must also 
lake account of China, which American policy has driven for the present 
into the Soviet camp. She is not to be regarded as an " obedient ally " 
and is probably not considered by the Soviet Union as an integral part of 
their war machine. Against these are arrayed the forces of the United 
States and the United Kingdom, together with such of our allies-not very 
many-who have the stomach to make any significant contribution. lt is 
a far weaker force; and, if the quick, tactical battle were all that the 
Russians had to worry about, they could go ahead. I do not believe that 
at any time since 1946 we could have stopped the Red Army from marching 
as far in any direction as its legs could carry it. I use that last phrase 
because I do not want to be side-tracked into considerations of transport, 
"hipping logistics and the rest; but, at least on the continent of Europe, I 
do not believe we could have stopped them going as far in any direction 
as they wanted. But they have not done so. Why not? If their intentions 
are aggressive, and if I am right in suggesting that it has been open to them 
at any time to do what they wanted, why haven't they done so? 

I think Stalin knew better perhaps than anyone else during the la t 
war how truly formidable is Anglo-American war potential, once it is 
mobilised. Surely the deterrent during the post-war years has been the 
Russian fear that we should jointly react to any serious threat to peace, a 
[ear which has certainly been increased by American monopoly of atomic 
bombs. You will remember bow, at intervals, during the last half dozen 
years, the Russians have, as it were, made sorties from their fortress to test 
the opposition: Greece, Persia, Trieste, Berlin are all examples of this. 
In each case they found that we were not prepared to withdraw and in 
each case, after a period of tension, they withdrew themselves. This is not 
dissimilar, as historians would agree, to the classic pattern of Imperial 
Russian foreign policy. Moreover, it is perfectly in keeping with the 
reasonable assumption that it is a primary Soviet interest at the moment 
to avoid a major war. Of course, the Russians will fight like lions if 
their frontiers are attacked. They always have done and, since 1 believe 
that a Russian citizen has more to lose today than be ever bad in the 
past, 1 should not under-estimate their unsurpassed capacity for defence. 
That apart, they have, no doubt, external objectives. 

I am sure it is true, for instance, that the traditional Russian desire 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

for access to the Western and Southern oceans is still with them. Certainly 
they have felt the need, rightly or wrongly-and at least I think we all 
understand it, even if we feel that they are wrong-for a protective belt of 
satellites along their Western frontier. The evidence of how they expect 
to achieve whatever objectives they have outside their own frontiers is, of 
course, not conclusive. But every scrap of it, such as it is, indicates that 
they are prepared to exploit oppression and hunger, wherever there is a 
reasonable chance of the Red Army being welcomed by the proletariat as 
a liberator; that they are ready to take quick advantage of, even to 
engineer, an internal coup d' etat designed to pop another satellite into the 
bag; but that they are not prepared to risk a total war. 

Now in all the Soviet sorties before Korea the situation chosen was one 
of major interest to both East and West. In every case, had the sortie 
been successful, the Soviet Union would have made a substantial gain and 
the Western powers a substantial loss. The West, therefore, acted promptly 
in its own urgent self-interest. But is is, I think, pretty clear that the 
Kremlin was very doubtful how far the British and the Americans were 
committed to standing together. Hence the repeated attempts. 

Later on, with the signing of the Atlantic Pact, their uncertainty must 
have increased, both because of their understandable anxiety that it might 
be aggressive in intention and because of their genuine doubt whether it 
really represented a final solidarity between England and America to resist 
any further Soviet attempts to expand by force. Then came Korea. 

Now there are two points of, I think, great significance about Korea 
which take their place properly at this stage in the argument and which I 
do not think have been given anything like enough emphasis hitherto. 

The first is the fact that Korea, of all places, should have been chosen 
as the locale of this most recent sortie from the fortress. The important 
thing about that surely was that nobody was much interested in Korea; it 
was not vital either to the Soviet Union or to the Western Powers. 

Some years ago I was in Japan discussing certain matters concerning 
British Far Eastern policy with General MacArthur. I want to quote one 
thing MacArthur said which I do not think has ever been quoted before. 
1t so happened that I was with him at the moment when the Americans 
were planning their original withdrawal from South Korea. I wondered 
what MacArthur himself thought about this withdrawal and I asked him. 
J will not vouch for tbe exact terminology, but the gist of his reply is 
clearly in my mind. He said: "I have not the smallest desire to remain in 
Korea. It is of no strategic interest to the United States. The only thing 
I insist on "-and this was an ironical remark in view of what has happened 
since-" is that, once I have evacuated it, Washington does not order me 
to go back." 

So I say the significant thing about the choice of Korea is that it 
was a country that no one cared about until the war came. Moreover, an 
attack by North Korean Communists on South Korea, ruled by the unspeakable 
Syngman Rhee, could easily have been represented as merely 
an. extension of the Chinese civil war. It was, in fact, what we may call 
a marginal aggression and calculated carefully as such to be the severest 
possible test of Anglo-American powers of resistance and will to resist. 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

We did resist, as I think rightly; and in doing so I believe we have made 
it plain to the Kremlin that we are irrevocably committed to resist these 
sorties. But-and this is the further point I want to emphasise-we took an 
enormous risk in doing so. 

The UN and Police Action 

Mr. Attlee, who is characteristically the clearest and most logical 
Government spokesman. on these matters, has repeatedly expressed the view 
that the United Nations' action in Korea is strictly comparable with the 
action which the Labour Party advocated under the influence of himself 
and Dalton in the thirties, and which that Government failed to take, against 
the pre-war aggressions of Japan, Hitlerite Germany and Fascist Italy. 
But I have never thought that Mr. Attlee is entirely right about this. If 
collective security had been backed by Britain in the thirties it is pretty 
safe to say that China, Russia, France, Britain and, probably, the United 
States would have stood together-an overwhelming concentration of force 
which would have made the idea of police action a practical reality. But 
the United Nations, which was intended to be an up-to-date expression of 
this idea, had to incorporate, if it was going to be successful, the power 
of veto for the great powers. It is, therefore, completely frustrated while 
two of the great powers, Russia and China, for one reason or another (this 
is an objective statement, and I don't want to argue the merits of it), are 
unable to stand together with the majority. 

Police action against a minor aggression in which none of the great 
powers is vitally interested is still possible. Police action where the vital 
interest of a great power, or the great power itself, is involved may be 
counted unto righteousness in the next world; but it is liable to lead to the 
end of this one. lt is liable to lead to the total war which we are all 
seeking to avoid. That was the folly of MacArthur's threat to Chinese 
territorial security. And that is why the crisis last November and December, 
when our own Prime Minister flew to Washington and had, as we 
all know, a decisive influence on the course of events, was one of such 
momentous magnitude. I think that the fate of the world then hung in 
the balance and, although subsequently I had occasion to eparate myself 
from my colleagues, I was very proud to be a member of the British 
Government at that moment. 

I think the Russians may have realised the nature of this crisis even 
more clearly than we did. If they did, their action in co-operating in the 
limitation of the war, their non-intervention and, finally, their armistice 
initiative, are fully explained. It is exactly the conclusion to which we came 
in the earlier stage in the argument. They are prepared to risk a good deal, 
but they are not prepared to take the risk of total war. It follows, I 
think, that Mr. Attlee's expressed view of the functions of the United 
Nations, attractive though it sounds in its simplicity, is dangerously naive. 

The existence of the cold war, which we must accept as a fact, and 
the argument which Crossman and I have tried to put to you, that. we 
cannot stand aside from it, refutes this simpliste view of the Umted 
Nations-at least in any of the power stresses vitally involving the major 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

powers. The judgments which have to be made on these important issues 
will inevitably, I am afraid, be based rather on the needs of the cold war 
than on the Charter of the United Nations. I regret that and I think it is 
wrong; but l believe it to be sober fact. It gives a greatly added sense 
of urgency to our efforts to devise some kind of accommodation under 
which both Russia and China can play a full and constructive part in the 
United Nations. Only then can the law be made to apply to the bigfellows as to the little one . 

Seeking a Deterrent 

I conclude from this brief analysis that the answer to our question, 
·• How can we stop the cold war from becoming a hot one? " is that we 
must, at the ame time, maintain an effective deterrent and offer no unreasonable 
provocation. l believe there are plenty of signs that the 
Russians, looking at the same cold war from the other side, have arrived 
at very much the same conclusions. ]( so, I think that is a reasonable 
explanation of their recent action over Korea and it may also be the 
explanation of their very welcome inaction over Persia. Surely, it is 
significant that they have not, at least so far, intervened in a situation where 
one might have expected some violent action. 

If, then, we are to reduce this problem to the question of looking for 
a deterrent, what is that deterrent to be? 

First, let us admit that, whatever it is, it has been adequate so far. 
Since I am not aware of any very significant increase in the Russian rate 
of rearming, I should expect to find the deterrent somewhere on the road 
we have been travelling hitherto. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to admit 
that our power of deterrent in the past has been rather a chancy business; 
that the strength of the Red Army is alarmingly great and that the Soviet 
conquest of the atom bomb-of which I should guess (and I must emphasise 
that it is only a guess) they possess certainly not more than fifty, and 
perhaps considerably fewer-has to some extent left us in a position of 
rather unsatisfactory military weakness. I think that a degree of rearma· 
ment by the Western powers is necessary as part of our cold war strategy. 
But 1 emphasise-and this is really the crux of the argument in determining 
what our rearmament should be-that the real deterrent is not in the 
level of arms of any particular country which belongs to the Atlantic Pact, 
not even primarily the totality of military strength possessed by the whole 
group; but the very existence of the Atlantic Pact itself-and the implicit 
understanding that a similar grouping of power exists in the Middle East 
and the Far East. 

lt is the knowledge that the Western powers will regard an act of 
Soviet aggression as an act of total war which balances in cold war strategy 
the threat of the P.ed Army. If this is the case, our rearmament ought to 
be directed to the minimum necessary increase inside the margins within 
which we can continue to follow our existing policies, and it should certainly 
not seek to widen greatly the scope of our commitment. Still less should 
it aim, as I understood Denis Healey to suggest in his recent tourney in 
The New Statesman and Nation, at anything like a water-tight peripheral 


REARMAMEN'f--HOW FAR? 

ontainment of the Red Army. To try that would, in the first place, involve 
us in highly provocative actions such as the rearming of Western Germany, 
which I need not discuss because I hope there is unanimity in this audience 
about the undesirability of that; secondly, and more important, we should 
crush ourselves under the burden. 

One further point: if the deterrent has been effective hitherto, and 
J think there is every possible reason for supposing that it has, and if you 
then start dramatically to upset the balance which has been achieved in 
cold war strategy, what are you doing? You may, possibly, be making 
yourselves theoretically better fitted to fight a hot war; but, on the other 
hand, you are certainly providing every incentive to the Soviet Union, if it 
ever contemplates risking a total war, to go in quickly and get it over. 
If you have a certain equilibrium and then proceed to disturb it, the 
reaction of your enemy if he resents this change, may be to attack you 
quickly and exploit his advantage before you succeed in fundamentally 
disturbing the balance. 

The UK Arms Programme 

l cannot say, without the detailed statistical information which nobody 
outside the Government can have, what, in figures, should be the level of 
our own rearmament. But I can suggest the principle on which 1 think 
it ought to be calculated. 

We fight, remember, a cold war. It is the whole object of our policy 
to survive that and to win it without allowing it to become a hot war. 
We must then, if we are going to win it, fight it from strength; but strength 
for cold war is basically different from strength for hot war, as I have 
argued. We win the cold war, in the end, by ideas, backed by necessary 
deterrent force. We propagate those ideas by acts of political and economic 
policy, both at home and overseas; and, if we would be strong in cold 
war, we must allow ourselves room to manoeuvre in carrying out those 
policies. It is not necessary, in front of a Socialist audience, to argue this 
at length. Our policies are two-fold; in the political field, to foster the 
liberation of people and peoples, wherever our influence can be brought 
to bear. We have, so far, got a good record in this. For example, our 
achievements in India and the Gold Coast, apart from being intrinsically 
good, are essentially valuable in our cold war strategy. In the economic 
field, our great industrial strength must be used to raise standards of living, 
to fight poverty and to bring to people the necessities of decent life both 
at home and where our policy can be brought to bear overseas. A power 
station in India, a ton of tinplate in Denmark, a railway in West Africa, 
or a health centre in Hongkong are almost certainly worth far more, in 
terms of cold war strategy, than the equivalent industrial effort expressed 
in armed men. 

To calculate our own level of rearmament we must balance the needs 
of the deterrent force, the needs of our own people and the needs of those 
who depend on us and whom we seek to influence overseas. With the 
present rearmament programme the balance is, in my view, incorrectly 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

struck. We are reducing our standards of living at home; we are reducing 
our already woefully inadequate efforts overseas; and we are doing these 
things in order to achieve a level of arms expenditure which is not, I 
believe, related to the cold war deterrent that I have been talking about; 
which has never, so far as I know, been calculated on any reasonable basis 
hy reference either to our military needs or to our main objectives of 
policy; which will give the Soviet Union a motive for attacking us quickly 
if at all; and which will not even give us what might be justified-the most 
rapid possible expansion of our strength between now and mid-1952. 
Harold Wilson was right in arguing on purely industrial grounds that, 
whatever may be the effect in the distant future, in the immediate future 
the programme would have been achieved more quickly if it had been less 
ambitious and less wide-spread. I am not going to argue that point in 
any detail because I accept that analysis. 

Now this criticism is not at all the same as saying that I oppose any 
rearmament programme. Yet that is just the allegation which has been 
made against us. I have been very puzzled by some of the criticisms of 
One Way Only. The critics all assumed that the programme of £4,700 
millions is sacrosanct and that to challenge that programme is to oppose the 
defence of the country. That is plainly untrue and malicious. 

I criticise the programme because I believe it to have been nothing 
more than a guess, hastily made to square the Americans. I am not able! 
admit it-to say what the figure ought to be. Even the earlier figure-
suggested, you remember, last summer-of £3,600 millions was arrived at 
without any proper statistical background of programming and costing. 
I believed at that time, I admit more by intuition than judgment, that it 
was perhaps about right. At least the ground on which it was defended, 
" that it was the most we could do without serious interference with our 
domestic affairs," comes, it seems to me, near to the right standard of 
judgment. The reason-! put this to the critics-why I think it is unreasonable 
to ask us, because we criticised one programme, to substitute 
with confidence an exact alternative, is simply because I don't believe that 
the information exists outside the Government-if indeed it exists inside 
it-which enables one to determine precisely what the figure should be. 
First, in any case, we must agree on the principle on which it ought to be 
calculated. 

I should say very briefly at this point-it may anticipate someone else"s 
saying it for me-that, if my views are as I have just expressed them, it 
is perhaps curious that I did not resign from the Government until the 
date I did. I accept that criticism. It is perfectly true that I might well 
have resigned on this issue as long ago as last December or January. One 
is tempted to hang on on these occasions, partly out of loyalty, partly in 
the hopo of influencing one's colleagues, until the moment when the disagreement 
becomes intolerable. That moment for me was thl( Budget. I 
make this personal explanation today solely in order to impress on you 
the criticism which J am now making of Government policy-that I have 
never believed that the arms programme of £4,700 millions is one which 
ought to have been approved or which bears any particular relation to our 
needs. We have, of course, been under heavy American pressure to increase 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

our military effort and I am sure it was that, rather than any essential 
change in the situation, which led us to leap to this unreal figure. 

Disagreement with America? 

I have said that I regard the Anglo-American alliance as an essential 
of the cold war. If that is so, dare we risk disagreement with the 
Americans on an issue of this magnitude? I think we dare. Indeed, I think 
we must, if they will not see reason in matters either where our own vital 
interests are concerned or where we have a deep conviction that we are 
right and they are wrong. What is the argument against disagreeing? 
It is, after all, possible in family, political or any other kind of life to have 
close associations with someone else and, at the same time, differ sharply 
on specific matters. Why should we not disagree with America? What 
are the anctions we are afraid America may bring against us? I suppose 
that we are really afraid of American isolationism; the possibility that the 
United States would wash its hands of all responsibility for the affairs of 
Europe. 1 believe that to be an unreal fear. 1 think that isolationism 
in the United States is already dead: not because of any particular affection 
on the part of the Americans for Mr. Attlee, or even for Mr. Churchill or 

M. Schuman, but simply because the resistance of Western Europe to 
Soviet imperialism has become an absolutely vital American interest. We 
are still more important to America than any other of her allies; we are 
the only country in Europe on whose resistance to genuine aggression she 
can really count. We provide her with her only secure bases on this side 
of the Atlantic and the only fairly secure industrial potential. Moreover, 
we have the influence in much of the world-Africa and Asia, for instance-
which, through the crassness of MacArthurism, has largely eluded her. 
America needs us as much as we need her. And, provided we make it 
plain that we are fighting the cold war resolutely in the interests of our 
own standard of values and are determined to resist any Soviet 
aggression, she will not dare to leave us. We are strong enough to fight 
on our own, where at times our strategy or objectives differ from those 
of America; and we must tell her bluntly that, in the last analysis, we 
intend to do so. 

The Constructive Approach 

Earlier, I left aside one point which must be dealt with before I 
conclude. That point was the third question I asked: ought we, perhaps, 
really to be thinking about how to win a hot war instead of thinking 
about how successfully to conduct a cold one? The answer is that we 
should only be thinking about that, or any rate thinking much about it 
at this stage, if we believe such a war to be inevitable. I don't. The 
Government says it doesn't. Unfortunately, the difficulty is tha.t differen t 
methods are needed in hot and cold war. If we prepare now for a hot war. 
the effect will probably be to lose us the cold war. If we lose the cold 
war, we shall probably incur the hot war on the weakest possible ground 
Jf, on the other hand we win the cold war, the chances are that we shall 


14 

REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

avoid the hot war. If we did get it all the same, at least we should be 
in the position of fighting it with the maximum number of allies. If you 
believe that a hot war is imminent and unavoidable, then you must obviously 
advocate preparing for it with all speed and resolution. That means a 
heavier defence programme than at present-a complete switch over to a 

war economy. 
My whole argument leads me to the conclusion that the cold war is 
at this time the important one. If that is so, clearly we should not worry 
about the possibility of a hot war to the detriment of our ability to conduct 
the cold one. You have to accept the risk, which we cannot avoid in any 
case, that if total war should come, the democnicies are bound to be at a 
disadvantage in its early stages. If that is the case; and if, as I believe, 
there has inevitably to be an element of gamble, I would gamble on the side 
which seems to offer the better risk and the richer prize. We cannot, in 
my view, sustain total war in this island or in Western Europe. I sh9uld 
not be surprised, indeed, if the nations prove to have virtually ruled out 
recourse to total war, unconsciously, simply by being afraid to start it. 
Wars of the future may be what we now call cold wars, designed to 
achieve security by winning a decisive proportion of the world to your side 
through victory in the battle of ideas. That is why One Way Only 
devoted so much attention to Mutual Aid and assistance to undeveloped 
areas. We sought to impress the Labour movement with the vital importance 
of this line of policy and the need for considerable sacrifice to make 
it real. 1t is not the only thing that needs to be done. We never said it 
was. But it is most important to impress it on Socialist thought at this 
moment, because it is the great constructive act of Socialist policy in the 
world which we could initiate with good prospects of collaboration from 
America and some prospect, even, of collaboration from the Soviet Union. 
This, indeed, is perhaps the foundation of a genuinely Socialist foreign 
policy, the main objective of which must be not a sterile and negative 
hostility to everything, good or bad, which comes out of the Soviet Union, 
but a positive attack on the universal enemies of good citizenship everywhere, 
poverty and disease, ignorance and slavery. It is, incidentally, 
sound strategy in the cold war; but, far more important, by offering some 
chance of eventual co-operation between ourselves and the Soviet Union, 
it offers the best chance of relieving the tensions of that war and enabling 
us to reach the limited agreements on limited objectives, which are the best 
we can hope for in the immediate future. For we must always remember 
that, though we have as realists to look the cold war in the face and admit 
that it exists, our only worth-while objective in the longer term is to 
build on these limited agreements until we have reached a world of wider 
agreement in which the best of Socialist ideas, from whichever side of the 
Iron Curtain the::,. come, can triumph and men can enjoy the fruits of 
their labour in peace and brotherhood, free from the fear of either kind of 
war. 


DEN IS HEALEY 


JOHN FREEMAN says that the question now dividing us is whether we 
!>hould base our policy on the need to win a cold war or the need to win 
a hot war. I disagree completely. The question at issue in the British 
Labour Movement is this:-what measures are necessary to prevent the cold 
war from becoming a hot war? • 

Any realistic estimate of the measures required to prevent the cold war 
from becoming hot must spring from a sober analysis of the way in which 
the cold war has been developing over the last few years. Let u~ take l <.)4~ 
as a tarting point. 

The Cold War in 1948 

In 1948, three years ago, it was already clear that the world was divided 
into two camps, one of which was waging a cold war against the other 
We knew at that time, as One Way Only admits, that Soviet policy towards 
the non-Stalinist world was one of unremitting and indiscriminate 
hostility. So far as it recognised any distinction between non-Stalinists, it 
put Socialists, and particularly left-wing Socialists, first on the list for 
destruction. We knew that was Soviet theory. We had a barrage of 
quotations from the Stalinist bibles to prove it. And we had seen the 
theory working in practice, not only in the events since the war, but also in 
the thirty years since the Bolshevik Revolution. 

We also knew in 1948 that the Soviet Union had larger armed forces 
than all the rest of the world put together-excluding China, which, at that 
time, was still locked in civil war. In 1945 Russia had seven million men 
under arms and she never demobilised below a level of four million. 
America had demobilised from eleven million to one and a half million and 
Britain from five million to three quarters of a million. There were, in 
1948, no other armed forces of consequence anywhere in the world, except 
in China. 

So we knew that Soviet policy was relentlessly hostile to the non-

Stalinist world and that the Soviet Union had got very much larger armed 

forces than the non-Stalinist world. 

We knew a third thing, namely, that the Soviet Union was prepared to 

use the threat of force and the fear inspired by its armed forces to extend 

its power. We saw, in Czechoslovakia, that the decisive factor in preventing 

the non-Communist Czechs from offering resistance to the Communist coup 

was the fact that the Communists had behind them the whole .apparatus of 

Soviet armed power. Indeed, at the height of the crisis, the Soviet Consul 

General in Bratislava broadcast a statement that the Soviet people, 200 

million strong, stood ready to support the struggle of their Czech brothers. 

The fact that the Soviet Union was prepared to use the threat of this 

enormous preponderance of force to extend its power meant that in the 

countries immediately adjacent to its frontiers people were living in an 


16 REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

atmosphere of constant strain, almost of nightmare. If you went to any of 

these countries, to Austria, to Berlin or to Finland, you found people living 

on their nerves. It was only a question of time how soon their nerves 

would snap. 

One final point about the cold war in 1948. Even at that date we had 
seen the Soviet Union supporting armed risings against the legal governments 
of various countries-all sorts of countries and all sorts of governments; 
some governments extremely reactionary like those of Greece and 
. Jndo-China and some governments extremely Socialist like those of Burma 

and Indonesia. 

Three years ago, then, we knew that Soviet Russia was fundamentally 

hostile to the non-Stalinist world, that she had much larger armed forces 

than the non-Stalinist world, that she deliberately used the fear inspired 

by those forces to expand her empire, and that she was prepared to support, 

and probably to organise, armed risings outside her territories. 

But, granted all this, there was then no evidence that she would risk 

any actions which might involve her in a general war. Indeed, as John 

Freeman has pointed out, in 1946 she withdrew her troops from Northern 

Persia after a purely diplomatic demarche by Britain and the United 

Nations. She never used the force at her disposal to occupy Finland, 

though at that time it was clear the West would not have intervened with 

force against her. 

Now the first question we have to decide is: why is it that at that time, 

when Soviet military preponderan::e was unchallenged, the Soviet Union 

was not prepared to use its military preponderance in any way which might 

lead to war? 

I think there are a number of reasons. 1ohn Freeman believes that 

the only real reason was America's possession of the atom bomb and the 

possibility that if the Soviet Union used its forces aggressively beyond ih 

frontiers it would encounter a combination of powers vastly superior in 

economic potential. 

But that would not have been sufficient deterrent in Persia or at any 

time before 1947, because it was not until 1947 that the United States 

showed any serious interest in what was happening on the far side of the 

Pacific or the Atlantic. There must have been other reasons. What were 

they? 

The first reason, I think, was that, at that time, the Soviet Union was 

still suffering from the tremendous shock of the Second World War and it 

needed a long time to get its house in order and to restore the damage 

which had been done, materially and ideologically, to its population during 

the Second World War. 

The second reason was that Yalta and Potsdam had given Russia the 

opportunity to include the whole of Eastern Europe in her empire. But 

she needed time to swallow and digest the meal. 

Thirdly, the Soviet Union has rarely u ed armed force if other methods 

were available. At that time the Soviet Union thought it would be po sible 

to expand without the use of arms and, therefore, there was no need to 

take the risk their use involves. Western Europe seemed to be on the verge 

of economic collap e. Although Marshall A1d was begmning to get under 


weigh, it was by no means certain that it would be sufficient. When the 
Marshall Plan was launched in 1947 there were few people who thought 
that the amount of aid projected would be sufficient to produce stability in 
Europe within a four-year period. 

Fourthly, and this is only true since February, 1947, from the moment 
that the United States, through the Truman doctrine, showed an interest in 
Greece and Turkey, her sole possession of the atom bomb was a formidable 
deterrent. 

Finally, of course, there is the point which One Way Only emphasises, 
that the non-Stalinist world was vastly superior to the Soviet 
Empire in latent strength, even if that strength was not actual. 

Russia Grows More Reckless 

Such was the situation at the end of 1948, three years after the defeat 
o( Germany and hpan. Since then the whole situation has changed very 
rapidly on both sides of the Iron Curtain. On the side of peace we have 
had, through the Atlantic Pact in 1949, the first se.rious attempt to face the 
military problems involved in defence against possible aggression. But, on 
the other side, many of the earlier deterrents to Soviet aggression have been 
disappearing. 

By the end of 1948 the worst of the damage caused by war inside the 
Soviet Union had been repaired, so that her internal strains and stresses 
were no longer the same deterrent as they had been in the previous years. 

Secondly, in the last three years the Soviet Union has been consoli· 
dating and organising all the power she won in Eastern Europe since the 
Second World War. It was not until the beginning of 1948 that the Communist 
Parties achieved sole power in the Eastern European countries. 
Since then, the Communist parties themselves have been purged of national 
deviations. All patriotic Communists have been replaced by Muscovites, 
or Russians like Rokossovsky have been installed to control them. At the 
same time heavy industry in Eastern Europe has been developed and coordinated 
with Soviet production. Most important of all, the Soviet Union 
has organised satellite armies in Eastern Europe, amounting, according to 
various estimates, to something. between one million and a million-anda-
half men. 

The third big factor in reducing the deterrent is the fact that the Soviet 
Union has got the atom bomb. Now that is a very serious thing. I agree 
it is unlikely that the Soviet Union has nearly as many atom bombs as the 
United States. But, once the Soviet Union has got something like one 
hundred atom bombs and the means to deliver them-say a thousand transatlantic 
aeroplanes-from that moment the atom bomb is probably can-
celled out as a deterrent factor. The Americans are unlikely to use the 
atom bomb if Russia is able to use it against them in return. European 
enthusiasm for the atomic weapon will diminish much faster than American 
-for obvious reasons. 

The other change in the situation which reduced the deterrent on the 
Soviet Union is the fact that their hopes of capturing Western Europe without 
direct intervention are fading away. The Marshall Plan was successful 


\8 REARMAMENT--HOW FAR~ 

beyond anybody's dreams and the whole of Europe is growing stronger and 
more united with the help of America and the Atlantic Pact. 

The result of all this is that the Russians have taken more risks since 
1948 than before. In summer, 1948, they cut road and rail links between 
Berlin and the West. This definitely involved a risk of war. Many 
politicians in the West, including, I believe, some people who are now supporting 
One Way Only, were prepared to consider the use of force to 
break the Berlin blockade. The Berlin blockade was the first enterprise by 
the Soviet Union after 1945 which really involved serious risk of world war. 
That it did not end in war was due entirely to the patience of governments 
on this side of the Iron Curtain. 

The Berlin blockade was lifted in summer, 1949. A year later, in June, 
1950, we had direct military action for the first time since 1945, when the 
North Koreans invaded South Korea. This was a tremendous step forward 
in the cold war-a long step towards making the cold war hot. I am amazed 
that Freeman and the authors of One Way Only can dismiss it so 
casually. Surely the mQst striking thing about Soviet policy since the war 
is that in 1946 Russia could be forced out of Persia by a diplomatic bluff, 
whereas in 1951 it has cost two million casualities to halt Communist 
aggression in Korea. Soviet adventures have grown steadily more reckless. 
and the cost of stopping them has grown steadily higher. 

I want now to analyse very carefully the lessons which we must draw 
from the Korean war. 

The Lessons of Korea 

I agree with John Freeman that the Soviet Union chose Korea as the 
spot in which to try out her new technique o( satellite aggression because she 
thought Western intervention was less probable there than at any other spot 
around her frontiers. The American Chiefs of Staff had let it be known at 
the beginning of 1950 that they did not consider Korea to be in the sphere 
of America's strategic interest. Few people in this country realise that 
America's decision to intervene in Korea was not taken by "the warmongering 
brass-hats in the Pentagon " but by civilians like Truman and 
Acheson against the advice of the Pentagon which, like MacArthur, did 
not want to fight in Korea. They knew that it was an extremely difficult 
place to fight in, and comparatively unimportant to American strategy. 

The Soviet Union, when it launched the Korean war, undoubtedly 
thought that the West would not intervene and that, if the West did intervene, 
it could not do so successfully. It was absolutely wrong on both 
points. Incidentally, this is only one of a long series of political blunders 
which the Soviet Union has been making ever since 1917. Russia's capacity 
for blundering is one of the most dangerous factors in the cold war. 

America led the United Nations in deciding to intervene in Korea, and, 
by a unique coincidence, it so happened that Korea was the one spot on 
the earth's surface where intervention by the United Nations in 1950 had 
some chance of being successful. For Korea was the only place on the 
whole periphery of the Soviet Empire which lay close to a major American 
land base. 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

The fact that the United Nations were able to halt aggression in Korea 
was due entirely to the fact that about half of America's fighting forces 
happened to be stationed little more than I 00 miles away-in Japan. The 
Americans immediately stripped Japan of all their troops there. Indeed, 
at one time the Americans had almost all their fighting troops outside 
Europe committed in Korea. 

Aggression has been halted in Korea, but do not let anyone imagine 
it has been defeated. What is now happening in Korea? The whole of 
the United Nations, on British and American initiative, committed themselves 
last year to the unity of all Korea as the objective of their intervention. 
Yet they are now negotiating with the aggressors to stop the 
fighting roughly where it started. If the cease-fire negotiations are successful, 
aggression will have been halted in Korea, but it certainly will not have 
been defeated. 

But let us look at some of the lessons of the war in Korea. First of 
all, do not let us ignore the fact that in Korea hundreds of thousands, and 
perhaps millions of people have died during the last twelve months purely 
as a result of Soviet policy. It is easy for people to sit comfortably debating 
in England and say that there i~ no danger of war. But over a million 
people have died in the last year in Korea in a war deliberately planned by 
the Soviet rulers. We could not afford to have this sort of thing happening 
once a year, even if it did not involve the danger of general war. 

But, in fact, Korea did very nearly bring about a general war. The 
only reason it did not is that it was possible, against all expectations, to 
hold the Communists in Korea because of the geographical configuration of 
the country, the loca.l availability of American troops, and good 
American generalship. Do not forget that in Korea nine-tenths of the 
burden has been borne by the United States. There is no other part of 
the world where that distribution of the sacrifice is likely to be repeated 
if there is a new Korea. If all these three conditions had not existed, we 
would have faced the choice between two intolerable alternatives. We 
could have got out of Korea and seen a decisive defeat for the whole 
principle of collective security with incalculably disastrous results; or we 
could have struck directly at the bases of aggression and risked a general 
world war, as MacArthur wished. In fact, it was just possible to halt 
the Communist forces without bombing their bases in China and without 
resorting to unconventional weapons like the atom bomb. It might well 
not have been the case. And if Korea is repeated anywhere else in the 
world before the West is rearmed, we know for certain that it will not be 
possible to stop aggression without resorting to methods which would involve 
us in a third world war. 

Only Local Strength can Deter Aggression 

To what extent will all that has happened in Korea affect the Soviet 
Union's readiness to organise a similar aggression elsewhere? Perhaps the 
real disagreement between John Freeman and myself rests essentially on 
our different answers to this question. Freeman says that Korea is a great 
victory for the United Natwns: the Soviet Union has seen its experiment 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

in satellite aggression fail and is not likely to repeat it. He may be right. 
No one can know what lessons the Russians may draw from Korea. But 
I am not prepared to gamble my life, the lives of my children, and perhaps 
the future of civilisation, on a psychic intuition about thought processes in 
the Kremlin. For the Russians may well draw quite different lessons from 
Korea. On the one hand they can see that the conditions enabling the 
United Nations to achieve a limited success in Korea do not obtain any. 
where else in the world at present. And on the other hand they saw that 
when the fate of United Nations' intervention was in doubt, the bulk of 
Western opinion seemed to favour the total abandonment of Korea rather 
than direct action against the bases of aggression, since that might have 
involved the West in a war, to use General Bradley's phrase, ''in the wrong 
place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy." 

Personally I fully share General Bradley's opinion. But what is its 
implication? It is that the Western world is not now prepared to react 
directly as a whole against any local Soviet aggression by bringing the 
whole weight of its existing military strength to bear against the sources of 
Soviet power. The general deterrent on which John Freeman bases his 
case was liquidated with the dismissal of General MacArthur. 

If you base your policy on the deterrent effect of the potential strength 
of the Western world, you are committed to MacArthurism in a crisis. 
If the atom bomb and the industrial superiority of the Western world are 
to be the only factors deterring the Soviet Union from local aggression, the 
Western World must be prepared to use the atom bomb and the whole of 
its industrial strength against any local aggression by the Soviet Union or 
her satellites. Once the West has failed to do this, as it has failed in 
Korea, the general deterrent is no longer effective and it must be replaced 
by actual military forces adequate to cope with local aggression at the spot 
where it occurs. If the Western World is not prepared to risk a Third 
World War in defeating a local aggression-and it was not in Korea-it 
must be able to deter a local aggression by adequate strength on the spot. 
Unless and until we produce adequate deterrent forces at the danger spots, 
we are inviting the Russians to face us again with the dilemma we nearly 
faced in Korea last spring. 

What is the relevance of all this to the other parts of the world which 
are close to Soviet armed force? The fact is that, at every point around 
the periphery of Soviet power, Soviet armed forces vastly outnumber the 
armed forces which could be mobilised against them-particularly in Western 
Europe. And Western Europe, from the strategic point of view, is the 
most vital part of the world for Britain and the United States because, if 
the Soviet Union could get control of the industrial resources of Western 
Europe, the balance of economic power would no longer be against her 
and any deterrent that imposes would disappear. 

At the present time, Russia has something like four million men in her 
armed forces, of whom nearly three million are in the Red Army. She has 
about 34,000 tanks and 19,000 aircraft. She has about 215 divisions under 
arms-we have ten. Altogether about 100 of the Soviet divisions are in 
Eastern Europe and, backing them, there are something like one million 
trained, armed troops from th,e satellite countries-say, another sixty 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

divisions. In addition to that, the Soviet Union has immense strategical 
advantages because she has internal lines of communication on the whole 
of the Eurasian continent. Apart from the advantage the aggressor always 
possesses through choosing the time and place of aggression, Russia is 
always present at the spot where aggression might begin, whereas her only 
5erious military rivals-Britain and America-are separated in Europe from 
the potential fighting line by something like 1,000 miles and separated in 
other parts of the world by three, five or ten thousand miles. 

This means that the countries on our side of the Soviet frontier in any 
part of the world are extremely frightened. We can talk in a light-hearted 
way about the deterrent of American industrial potential and the atom 
bomb. But, if anything goes wrong, that deterrent is not much comfort 
to the French or the Italians or the people of the Middle East. They want 
to be defended. They are not interested in liberation. They have had one 
occupation already and another one, particularly by the Red Army, would 
mean the end of everything-especially if it is followed by a campaign of 

'liberation using all the modern weapons of mass destruction. The campaigns 
in Korea reinforce this feeling. The result is that the morale of the 
countries on this side of the Iron Curtain is very weak indeed. And their 
weakness of morale is a major obstacle to their political and economic and 
social recovery. 

Now there is no doubt that there is still a danger-nobody knows how 
great-that the Soviet Union will take steps involving a risk of war somewhere 
else in the world, particularly in Western Europe, as she did in Korea 
last year. It is only a few months since a leading Communist was writing 
in the Daily Worker that the Western Powers had better look out 
because there would be a new Korea in Yugoslavia some time later this 
year. That may be part of the nerve war-we do not know-but the 
Yugoslavs are certainly not taking any risks about it. They are devoting 
to defence four times more of their national income than we in Britain and 
they have more divisions under arms than the whole of the rest of Western 
Europe put together. And we may assume they know the mentality of the 
Soviet rulers as well as any people outside the Kremlin. 

The great danger at the moment, which is revealed by Korea and by 

the situation as it has developed since 1948, is that the Soviet Union may 

risk a further local aggression which would inevitably lead to a third world 

war. A country which can blunder as grossly as the Soviet Union has 

blundered repeatedly since 1917 in its estimates of revolutionary situations 

could even very easily blunder again as it blundered over Korea. 

In my opinion, the only way by which we can remove this danger 

of war is by producing sufficient strength at the danger spots to deter local 

aggression. We can only do this through a collective effort by all the 

countries in the Atlantic Pact, for United States co-operation in this policy 

is an absolute condition of its success. And we must do it as fast as 

possible. There are innumerable dangers in prolonging the tension caused 

by our inferiority longer than is absolutely necessary. Besides the danger 

of local aggression there is also the danger that the nerve of some of 

the countries on this side may crack under the knowledge that there are 

such immense forces lined up against them to be used at any moment. 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

The British Arms Programme 

What exactly does the Government's rearmament programme involve? 
As soon as the Korean war was begun the Government started to consider 
n new programme to be completed in a three year period. John Freeman 
rests his case on the Government's first estimate of the programme's cost, 
as announced in August last year. But that estimate was formed on purely 
financial considerations, without any reference to the defence departments 
and without any calculation of what forces would be needed to deter 
aggression. It was a very rough estimate of what the country could spare 
for defence without seriously inconveniencing its other activities. In fact, 
the first estimate was the real "psychic bid." 

In the six months between August and January this year, when the new 
estimate was launched, there was serious discussion of what forces would 
be required as a deterrent. This discussion took place not only in Britain 
in our own defence departments but also in the Atlantic Pact organisation. 
Thus when the new estimate was presented to Parliament at the end of 
January, 1951, together with the Defence White Paper, it had become a 
concrete figure representing what it would cost to produce a given force in 
a given time. What it meant in practice was that by 1953 we would 
have an army of 22 divisions, 10 regular and 12 Territorial. Half of the 
money would be spent on manpower and the other half on the production 
of munitions-tanks, jet engines, etc. A great deal was going to home 
defence, to Fighter and Coastal command and to A.R.P. arrangements. 
Unlike the estimate of August, 1950, the £4,700 millions estimate was directly 
related to the forces required. It included our contribution towards the fifty or 
sixty divisions which the planners considered would be necessary to deter 
Soviet aggression in Europe.

Now one or two points about this enormous programme, for, of 
course, it is enormous. It means that, in the next three years, the Western 
countries will be spending a much larger quantity of money on armaments 
than the Soviet. There are several reasons for that. 

First of all, the cost of putting a single fighting man in the front line 
is infinitely greater for an Atlantic democracy than it is for an Asiatic 
dictatorship. There are some people who seem to think that we should 
produce a fighting force at the same cost as the Soviet Union. I would 
like to see them recommend that our forces should have the same standards 
of welfare, clothing and pay as the Soviet forces. 

Secondly, we and the Americans have to envisage sending our forces 
thousands of miles from their home bases over long and difficult journeys 
by sea and air, which is very expensive. We have to envisage maintaining 
them largely with produce sent from their home bases. The Soviet forces, 
on the other hand, live almost entirely off the land. 

Thirdly, the whole strategy of the Western democracies is based on the 
idea of fighting a war with the minimum expenditure of human life on our 
side. That means that defensive elements take a much larger proportion 
of money in Western military budgets. In the last war the Russians cleared 
minefields by pushing infantry across them. We use expensive electronic 

machines instead. 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

Finally, compared with the Soviet Union, we are starting from scratch. 
The cost of mounting a new programme is always greater than that of 
maintaining an old one. The result is that, although we in the democracies 
spend more money than the Soviet Union, we will not in fact have nearly 
so many front line troops to show for it. But we shall have enough to 
offer a deterrent against local aggression. 

· Now some other points about the programme. First, when the whole 
thing is carried out it will still fall hort of an offensive force. It is not a 
programme designed for fighting the whole of the Red Army and advancing 
victoriously into the heart of the Soviet Union. It is essentially a defensive 
deterrent force. 

I was engaged recently in a newspaper correspondence with an expert 
economist not unknown to Fabian . He said that if we tried to hold the 
Soviets in any" Maginot Line" we should provoke them to attack us. Does 
anyone seriously think that the Maginot Line provoked Hitler to attack 
France? A purely defensive force has grave disadvantages, but at least it 
is not a provocation. 

The aim of this rearmament programme is not to defeat the Soviet 
Union in a world war. We would need a programme at lea~t four times 
as big to do that. The aim is to deter the Soviet Union from taking 
steps which might lead to war and to remove the nightmare of possible 
Soviet attack from Western Europe. It is not to win a hot war or to win 
a cold war. Its single purpose is to prevent the cold war from becoming 
hot. 

A lot of people think that by doing this we are inevitably starting an 
arms race. The very fact that the combined resources of the Western 
Powers are so much superior to those of the Soviet Union is, in my view, 
a guarantee that there will not be an arms race. Because if there is an 
arms race the West is certain to win it. 

When Russia Changes Her line 

I believe that, as soon as the programme is carried out and maybe 
before it is completed, we can expect a dramatic change in Soviet policy. 
Military aggression is not the traditional method used by the Soviet 
government since 1917. It is only used when that government is pretty 
confident of immediate and cheap success. We need to rearm because the 
Soviet is always calculating wrongly what will be an immediate and cheap 
success. In 1940 they thought they cou ld conquer Finland in a week with 
a few brass bands. They had to reorganise their military dispositions 
completely before they could launch a ~uccessful offensive. The Soviet 
Union is always making mistakes. This time we must make sure in advance 
that she is not tempted to miscalculate. Sooner or later the Russians will 
revert to their traditional line of attack by infiltration and the exploitation 
of discontents. They will drop the policy of military terrorism and military 
aggression. We must watch the whole time, vigilantly, for any sign that 
the Soviet Union is genuinely changing its policy in this way. 

Indeed, we have just been watching for it, day in and day out for the 
last three months in Paris. But there wa no sign that the Soviet Union 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

was seriously interested in negotiating a settlement. She was only interested 
in getting us to drop our arms programme without corresponding concessions 
on her side. When we stood firm she tried for a time to get a 
propaganda conference and, when that failed, she dropped the whole 

I business. At the present time the Soviet is not prepared to make the 
sacrifices necessary to get a general settlement. When we get a settlement 
the Soviet Union will have to make concessions. We may have to make 
some, but the big concessions wiJJ have to come from her. 
When the Soviet does change its policy and drops its military threat, 
I do not think there is much chance it will join with us in building the 
sort of world society which we want. Stalinists are never prepared, even 
in principle, to operate democracy with non-Stalinists. The closest Russia 
will move towards real co-operation is co-existence. That is the furthest 
concession towards a world society which the Stalinists have ever been 
prepared to conceive in theory. They will consider co-existing with the 
non-Stalinist world so long as it is stronger than they are. Co-existence 
means that the free world will have to carry out any great co-operative 
economic or social programmes without Soviet help. The Soviet world 
would simply exist outside the free world as an unpleasant anomaly but 
not a military danger, rather like Franco Spain in Western Europe. 
It may be that, if Russia accepted co-existence over a long period, the 
Stalinist regime might change for the better. I hope so. But we do not 
know. 
But as soon as the Soviet has clearly dropped its use of military force 
then the priorities in the free world will switch away from arms to those 
constructive social and economic policies we have been trying to pursue 
ever since 1945-including the World Plan for Mutual Aid. 
But even before we change the priorities, we must continue our constructive 
policies. Giving first priority to arms does not mean excluding 
everything else. It simply means that you meet the need for arms first and 
then distribute what you have left to other things. Too many people argue 
now as if putting arms first means not having anything but arms. But even 
at the height of our new programme we shall be spending ninety per cent. 
of our income on constructive aims. In my view, Socialists should use 
the very burdens imposed on the country by the large arms programme to 
enforce a greater equality of sacrifice and more social justice--as we did 
in the last war. 

"One Way Only" 

I must now conclude with a few words on the pamphlet One Way 
Only-a title with appropriate overtones of Sidney Carton, Madame 
Blavatsky and the Pharisees. 

I agree with a great deal of what i said in the pamphlet-at least as 
enthusiastically as its sponsors. I fully agree with John Freeman that the 
real difference between the sponsors of One Way Only and the rest of 
the party boils down to a question of numbers-simply the size of the arms 
programme. It does not raise any questions whatever of Socialist principle 
and I hope that no one will pretend that it does. It is a small difference in 


REAi~MAMENT--HOW FAR? 

theory. But in practice it is a vital difference in the most literal sense-
bec~use on that difference hang matters of life and death. Now, of course, 
the tnoney cost of a three years arms programme is open to argument. 
I agree that the Government cannot know at the beginning of 1951 whether 
by the end of 1953 it will have spent exactly the amount of money it 
envisages spending at the present time. You can argue about the money 
cost. 

Indeed there is only one group of people who have any moral obligation to 
regard the £4,700 million as sacrosanct. They are the Labour M.P.s 
who voted unanimously on February 15th this year against a Conservative 
amendment which expressed doubt about the Labour Government's ability 
to carry the programme through. And, above all, the Minister who wound 
up a brilliant speech for the Government with the words:-" We shall carry 
it out. We shall fulfil our obligations to our friends and allies." 

But if you are going to argue about the cost of the arms programme 
you can do so rationally only in relation to the size and nature of the 
armed forces needed as a deterrent. My complaint about the pamphlet is 
that it does not argue the case from that point of view at all. 

If Nye Bevan is right and the language of priorities is the religion of 
Socialism, then he himself is its first great Apostate. One Way Only 
makes AO serious attempt to get the priorities right in relation to the present 
situation. It admits tha.t the first aim of our policy must be to prevent a 
world war. It admits that Soviet aggression may lead to world war. It 
admits that more rearmament is needed to deter Soviet aggression. But it 
simply refuses to discuss seriously how much rearmament is needed for this 
specific purpose. It is as reluctant to approach this central problem as a 
young man approaching an old bride-sluggish and apprehensive, but, alas. 
so little fascinated that he keeps his eyes shut. But the question of the 
amount of rearmament needed to deter aggression is, after all, the only real 
point at issue. One Way Only buries it in a blizzard of Aneurisms. 
An Aneurism, according to the dictionary, is an abnormal and pathological 
distension in an argument or artery-and is a very dangerous condition. 

One Way Only does not try to assess the nature and extent of the 
military danger although it is the nature of the military danger which must 
decide the level of our rearmament. Instead it says we should first decide 
how much to spend on welfare at home and abroad; then we should allot 
whatever is left to defence. In fact, it puts the priority of dogma above the 
dogma of priorities.

All the welf-are in the world is worthless if we have another war. False 
teeth and spectacles are small comfort to a corpse. If there is a danger 
of war, then peace must come before plenty. One Way Only will not 
face the consequence of this priority. It treats the peace budget as a fund 
to be raided whenever any other need arises. In fact it is a dream book 
for escapists. If you add it all up, it implies that you can have an 
effective deterrent force, and the World Plan for Mutual Aid, and increased 
social services, and more houses. It is not a policy for guns and magarine, 
or guns and butter, or even guns and the whole cow, but a policy for guns 
and a herd of cows. 

Its treatment of the World Plan for Mutual Aid as a cure for Corn



26 REARMAMENT--HOW FAR~ 

munism and war is disingenuous in the extreme. Of course the Soviet 
Union will try to exploit any signs of weakness in the non-communist world. 
But it is simply untrue to say that the poorest countries are always the best 
breeding grounds for Communism. Eastern Europe before the war was 
an under-developed area. The country which was least under-developed 
was Czechoslovakia-and Czechoslovakia was the only country with a 
large Communist Party. Very few wars in the last century have been 
caused by the sort of contrast of wealth and poverty between the peoples 
which the World Plan for Mutual Aid aims to reduce. There are overwhelming 
arguments for pressing on with the World Plan as fast as possible 
-though the ability of the poor countries to use aid will limit progress 
quite as much as the ability of the rich coutnries to provide aid. But One 
Way Only is quite wrong in presenting the Plan as the first line of defence 
against Communism and war. 

The Yugoslav Communists do not make that mistake. Yugoslavia is 
an under-developed area. She desperately needs capital equipment and 
consumer goods. But she has put all these things second to arms pecause 
she knows that if she is in danger of being attacked by Russia or the 
satellite countries, she can remove the danger, not by a higher standard 
of living, but by producing more troops. 

The pamphlet talks of the danger of war which will hang like a cloud 
over the October conference of the Labour Party. But it makes no attempt 
to see where the danger of war arises. Look at the various crises since 
1945 which involved war or the risk of war-at Greece, Berlin, Czechoslovakia, 
Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Yugoslavia. In some cases, you find 
poverty among the factors in the situation. In others, you find that poverty 
is absent or irrelevant. The only constant factor in every crisis is Soviet 
policy. 

One Way Only refuses all serious discussion of Soviet policy. lt 
seems to assume that the men in the Politbureau are fundamentally reason· 
able men whose attitude to the outside world has been distorted by harsh 
treatment, but who can be cured .of this by a little generosity on our part-· 
a share in the Panama Canal for example. In fact the Soviet Union has 
increased its resources and manpower by 50 per cent. between 1945 and 
1948 through the capture of Eastern Europe. But that has not made it 
less aggressive towards the outside world. lt was not half the danger to 
world peace before the war that it is now. 

Then there is a lot of nonsense talked about steel capacity. I do not 
think the Soviet Union wants a world war at this moment. But the reason 
for this has little to do with steel capacity. The Soviet Union is now 
producing 27 million tons of steel a year, which is very little compared with 
the Western World. But it is more than Hitler produced in 1939. How 
much steel was Japan producing when she attacked the United States and 
Britain in 1941-five million tons! And, in spite of that, she conquered the 
whole of South-East Asia and half the Pacific. 

The Problem of America 

The section on America is a compound of daydreams and nightmares. 


REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

It rightly emphasises the importance of the progressive forces in America, 
and particularly the Trades Unions. But it completely ignores the fact 
that it is just these progressive forces which are the real backbone of the 
present defence and foreign policy of the United States. The C.I.O. and 
the A.F. of L. solidly support the American arms programme. They have 
even this week published statements that the cease-fire negotiations in Korea 
should not lead the American people to imagine that the danger is over 
and to think that the defence programme should be reduced. If Britain 
adopted the policy of One Way Only she would completely isolate her<>
elf from her best friends in the U.S.A. 

The pamphlet says that the real deterrent to Soviet attack IS the 
American guarantee through the Atlantic Pact. But it imagines that the 
American guarantee is effective even without adequate arms. Surely no one 
still believes that after the German attack on Poland in 1939. If you have 
a powerful armed aggressor he will not be deterred because his prospective 
victim has a guarantee from a country far away which is not in a position 
to give immediate and effective help. While Poland was being partitioned 
between Germany and Russia all we could do was to sit tight in the West 
until Germany attacked us. Political guarantees, without arms, are worse 
than useless. That is why the Atlantic Pact is a new sort of pact. It is not 
only a political guarantee, but also a framework within which countries 
can co-operate to build up their strength in peace-time to deter aggression. 

How will America react if we default on the Atlantic Pact? The 
pamphlet stresses the dangers of MacArthurism. Yet it suddenly denies 
the relevance of MacArthurism when it discusses what would happen if 
we adopted Bevanism. It says that America, whatever happens, will not 
go isolationist. But that is not the point. If ever we provoke America 
into parting company with Britain, she can choose between a wide range 
of alternatives. Besides Asialationism and a "go it alone" policy, a disgruntled 
and Right Wing American Government might stake its future on 
Germany and Japan rather than its traditional allies. The approach to 
Franco Spain is perhaps the first fruit of Bevanism in this direction. 

We are going to need American help everywhere if we are going to 
carry through the constructive policies we want in the free world. There 
can be no World Plan for Mutual Aid without backing from the United 
States. If we default on our obligations under the Atlantic Pact we shall 
destroy any chance of help from the United States for constructive policies. 

So long a~ we have to act together with the United States or any 
other country we must be prepared to compromise Compromise is often 
disagreeable for both sides. While One Way Only is attacking the 
British Government for subservience to the U.S.A., the American Government 
has almost been brought down by accusations that it is the tool of 
British diplomacy. It is very difficult to agree on the correct balance 
between the concessions we and the Americans should make to each other. 
But on every really vital issue, such as MacArthurism in Korea, Britain's 
policy was both tough and effective, and I am certain that in any other 
issue of equal importance it will be equally tough and effective. 

The whole of One Way Only is vitiated by a schizophrenic conflict 
between wish and reality. Every now and then the feet of the authors 


28 REARMAMENT--HOW FAR? 

touch bottom and then a billow of emotional prejudice sweeps over them 
and they are floating happily upside down again. 

There are two ways of gambling on these issues of peace and war. 
Both ways are criminally irresponsible. Peace is the one issue that you 
cannot afford to gamble with. The whole of our future, and the lives of 
our children, depend on doing what is necessary after a sober analysis of 
the facts. 

One Way Only gambles on a few frivolous generalisations about 
Soviet strength and Soviet policy to justify giving rearmament the lowest 
priority. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, is showing a dangerous 
tendency to a different sort of gamble. Many of its supporters want tc 
use blustering threats of force as the solution to every problem-even when 
this would involve the risk of war without support from our allies. In the 
United States MacArthurism has turned out weaker than many feared. But 
Persia and Egypt have shown that it is very strong in the Conservative 
Party. If they are prepared now to rattle an empty scabbard, what will 
they do when the sabre is there? 

The real danger in One Way Only is that, by dividing the Labour 
Party, it might hand the country over to those who prefer the second form 
of gambling. That is why it is the duty of everyone in this Party, and 
in the Government, to see that its fallacies are ruthlessly exposed and 
rejected. 


Recent Fabian Publications 


TRACTS. 

AUTUMN 
LECTURE SERIES. 

282. 
Democratic Values 
283. 
Socialism and the Study of 
Man. 
284. 
Does Socialism need 
R eligion? 
285. 
Lessons of Science 
286. 
Socialist Values in a 
Changing Ci vilisation ... 
287. 
Socialist Foreign Policy 
R ESEARCH P AMPHLETS. 

142. 
British Railways-The 
Human Problem 
143. Post-War Italy 
144. Towards Equality?
145. The Anatomy of Private 
Industry 
146. Trusteeship in Practice ... 
F ABIAN SPECIALS. 

7. 
The British Working Class 
Movement 
8. 
British Labour Movement 
-R etrospect and Prospect. 
COLONIAL CONTROVERSY SERIES. 

7. The Way Forward 
British Central Africa? 

R EVISED EDITIONS. 

Scottish Local Government 
Workers' Control? 

Rt. Hon. Aneurin Bevan, 
M.P. 6d. 
Austen Albu, M.P. 1I-
Rev. St. John Groser. I I-
Dr. J. Bronowski. 6d. 
R. H. S. Crossman, M.P. 6d. 

R. H. S. Crossman, M.P., and 
Hon. Kenneth Younger,M.P. 11F. 
V. Pickstock. 21A 
report by Four Observers-
Ray Jenkins, M.P., Austen 
Albu, M.P., Margaret Digby, 
Anne Whyte. 216 

Euan Cooper-Willis. 1I-
Austen Albu, M.P., and 
Norman Hewett. 21


M. Mortimer. 
Report to Fabian Colonial 
Bureau. 21


G. D. H. Cole. 9d. 
G. D. H. Cole. 9d. 
Rt. Hon. James Griffiths, M.P., 
Arthur Creech Jones and 
Rita Hinden. 113 

A Report to the Fabian 
Colonial Bureau. t I


W. H. Marwick. 1-/· 
Eirene White, M.P. 11

Tile lflllifln Society11 DARTM OU TH STR EE T LONDON SW/ 
WHAT THE SOCIETY DOES 
fOR nearly seventy years the Society has enrolled democratic Socialists 
who are prepared to discuss Socialist principles and their adaptation to the 
needs of a changing world. 
Through meetings, study circles, conferences; pamphlels, books and 
unpublished reports; the Society throws out ideas about Socialism and its 
practical application. In this way the Fabians continue their historical 
function of preparing the way for Labour programmes. 
They believe that-both locally and nationally-there is need, side by 
side with the political, industrial and trading wings of the Labour move-
ment, for a body which is free from the conduct of every-day affairs, and can 
therefore think ahead and discus• Socialist principles and plans-whether 
for a local area or the nation or the world as a whole. The purpose is to 
set people thinking and to work out means of doing things in readiness for 
the time when the main body of the Movement decides that they need to 
be done. 
BUT the Society by no means consists of " intellectuals" or sufTers from 
a swollen-headed feeling that " intellectuals " are the right people to tell the 
rest of us what to do. What it has-and wants more of-is a good mixture 
of 1he men and women who are doing the work of Socialism in Local Parties, 
Trade Unions 011d Co-operatives. 
The Society is affiliated to the labour Party and has been since 
it helped to found the Party fifty years ago. But it puts down no policy 
resolutions at Party conferences, and drafts no electoral programmes, thus 
avoiding the risk of becoming a faction and losing the trust of the main body 
of Labour opinion. Equally, the Society demands no orthodoxy of its 
members beyond a belief in democratic Socialism. The Society thus becomes 
a forum for the discussion of the ideas of its members. 
Particularly does the Socie1y believe that, wi1h a Labour Government. 
!here is need for a body which-lrusted bul independent-can provide 
conslruclive crilicism and be one step ahead in though! aboca fonger-te_rm 
policies and prospects. 
SEND FOR PART/CtJlARS OF MEMBERSHIP 
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Tile lflllifln Society11 DARTM OU TH STR EE T LONDON SW/ 
WHAT THE SOCIETY DOES 
fOR nearly seventy years the Society has enrolled democratic Socialists 
who are prepared to discuss Socialist principles and their adaptation to the 
needs of a changing world. 
Through meetings, study circles, conferences; pamphlels, books and 
unpublished reports; the Society throws out ideas about Socialism and its 
practical application. In this way the Fabians continue their historical 
function of preparing the way for Labour programmes. 
They believe that-both locally and nationally-there is need, side by 
side with the political, industrial and trading wings of the Labour move-
ment, for a body which is free from the conduct of every-day affairs, and can 
therefore think ahead and discus• Socialist principles and plans-whether 
for a local area or the nation or the world as a whole. The purpose is to 
set people thinking and to work out means of doing things in readiness for 
the time when the main body of the Movement decides that they need to 
be done. 
BUT the Society by no means consists of " intellectuals" or sufTers from 
a swollen-headed feeling that " intellectuals " are the right people to tell the 
rest of us what to do. What it has-and wants more of-is a good mixture 
of 1he men and women who are doing the work of Socialism in Local Parties, 
Trade Unions 011d Co-operatives. 
The Society is affiliated to the labour Party and has been since 
it helped to found the Party fifty years ago. But it puts down no policy 
resolutions at Party conferences, and drafts no electoral programmes, thus 
avoiding the risk of becoming a faction and losing the trust of the main body 
of Labour opinion. Equally, the Society demands no orthodoxy of its 
members beyond a belief in democratic Socialism. The Society thus becomes 
a forum for the discussion of the ideas of its members. 
Particularly does the Socie1y believe that, wi1h a Labour Government. 
!here is need for a body which-lrusted bul independent-can provide 
conslruclive crilicism and be one step ahead in though! aboca fonger-te_rm 
policies and prospects. 
SEND FOR PART/CtJlARS OF MEMBERSHIP 
DEVONPORT PRESS LTD., (T. U.) DEVONPORT ROAD, W.l2