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Pacifism and Politics in Britain, 1931–1935

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Pugh
Michael Pugh
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
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Extract

In the 1930s the British peace movement expanded rapidly from a preserve of small elitist peace societies into a mass phenomenon. More specifically, it was in the period from the Manchurian crisis to the Italo-Ethiopian war that what has been loosely called ‘pacifism’ gained political weight. Whilst its effect on the making of foreign policy has been the subject of much historical inquiry, the manifestations of the peace debate, including the famous Peace Ballot, can best be explained in the domestic context of party and pressure-group politics. The divisive nature of war rejection as an issue then becomes clearly apparent. Indeed the argument that the peace movement was a point of consensus can only be valid at a superficial level. One can agree with Marwick that a ‘middle opinion’ preferring peace to war developed in the thirties.1 But in public discussion about collective security pacifists caused schisms which hindered the clarification of party and pressure-group policies.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 641 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

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3 Headway (March 1932), p. 51. It was even suggested (in Headway, November 1932), that the formation of a correct judgement about the dispute was more important than any action to give it effect.

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29 Ibid. p. 176. See also Fenn, pp. 193–220, for the policy approved by the Socialist League's conference in May 1934. Both the T.U.G. and the Labour party issued reports on dictatorship which tarred fascism and communism with the same brush, T.U.C. annual report, 4–8 September 1933, appendix C; Labour party annual report, 2–6 October 1933, appendix IX.

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40 Murray to Austen Chamberlain, 21 July 1934; Dugdale to Chamberlain, 9 November 1934, Austen Chamberlain papers, 40/6/45 and 47, University of Birmingham Library; L.N.U., Minutes of the 15th annual meeting, 26–29 June 1934, P. 29.

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