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"A Very Present Menace"? Attlee, Communism and the Cold War!
Author(s) -
Deery Phillip
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8497.00005
Subject(s) - communism , political science , scrutiny , cold war , economic history , government (linguistics) , communist state , law , conviction , political economy , sociology , history , politics , linguistics , philosophy
With the end of the Cold War and the further opening of archives, the role of Western communist parties and their relationship with the former Soviet Union has been the subject of fresh scrutiny. This article examines the conviction of the British Labour Government and its security services that the Communist Party of Great Britain represented, at least in the early Cold War period, a "very present menace". The article discusses the policies of the Soviet Union in Europe and the Communist Party in Britain and explores how these shaped the perspectives of the Attlee Government, especially during the London dock strike of 1949. When placed against this background, Attlee’s anti‐communism can no longer be accepted, as most commentators do, as simply a product of Cold War paranoia.