George
Strauss, the son of Arthur Strauss, was born on 18th July,
1901. Educated at Rugby School, he became
an active member of the Labour Party and
in 1925 was elected to the London
County Council (LCC). Four years later he was elected to
the House of Commons.
Strauss
was an opponent of Ramsay
MacDonald
and his National Government and like most Labour members he lost his
seat in the 1931 General Election. Strauss
returned to the LCC and served as Chairman of the Highways Committee
(1934-37). Strauss returned to Parliament when he was elected to represent
Lambeth North in October 1934.
The
success of the Left Book Club during the summer of 1936 encouraged
socialists to believe there was a market for a left-wing weekly newspaper.
Victor Gollancz, the founder of the Left
Book Club, was approached by a group of Labour MPs that included Strauss,
Stafford Cripps, Aneurin
Bevan and Ellen Wilkinson and it
was agreed to start publishing Tribune.
Strauss
and Cripps provided most of the £20,000 capital needed to start
the newspaper. The editorial board included Gollancz, Cripps, Bevan,
Strauss, Ellen Wilkinson, Harold
Laski and Noel Brailsford. William
Mellor was recruited as editor and left-wing journalists such as George
Orwell, Barbara Castle and Michael
Foot contributed articles to the journal. The declared mission
of the people who produced the Tribune
was to recreate the Labour Party as a truly
socialist organization. This soon brought them into conflict with
Clement Attlee and other leaders of the
party.
Strauss
also joined with other left-wing Labour Party
MPs that campaigned for the formation of a Popular Front with other
left-wing groups in Europe to prevent the spread of fascism.
At the 1936 Labour Party Conference, several party members, including
Strauss, Ellen Wilkinson, Stafford
Cripps, Aneurin Bevan and Charles
Trevelyan, argued that military help should be given to the Spanish
Popular Front government, fighting for survival against General
Francisco Franco and his right-wing Nationalist
Army.
Along with
Aneurin
Bevan,
Emanuel
Shinwell,
Sydney
Silverman and
Ellen
Wilkinson Strauss
toured Spain during the Spanish Civil
War. Shinwell later wrote: "The reason for the defeat of
the Spanish Government was not in the hearts and minds of the Spanish
people. They had a few brief weeks of democracy with a glimpse of
all that it might mean for the country they loved. The disaster came
because the Great Powers of the West preferred to see in Spain a dictatorial
Government of the right rather than a legally elected body chosen
by the people."
Strauss
continued to campaign for a Popular Front and in March 1939 he was
expelled from the Labour Party along with
Stafford Cripps, Aneurin
Bevan and
Charles Trevelyan. However, they readmitted
in November 1939 after agreeing "to refrain from conducting or
taking part in campaigns in opposition to the declared policy of the
Party."
In
1940 Strauss won substantial damages from Henry Newnham and the journal
Truth, after it was claimed that he was a coward for not fighting
for his country during the First World War (Strauss
was too young to fight in the war). During the Second
World War Strauss became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Stafford
Cripps, the Lord Privy Seal (February 1942 to November 1942) and
later Minister of Aircraft Production (November 1942 to May 1945).
In
the government formed by Clement Attlee
after
the war, Strauss served as Parliamentary Secretary for Transport (August
1945 to October 1947) and as Minister of Supply (October 1946 to October
1951).
Strauss
remained in the House of Commons and was
Father of the House between 1974 and 1979. In 1979 he was created
Baron Strauss and entered the House of Lords.
(1)
Emanuel
Shinwell initially argued that the British government should
give support to the Republicans in the Spanish
Civil War. He wrote about his visit to Spain in his autobiography,
Conflict Without Malice (1955)
While the war was at its height several of us were invited
to visit Spain to see how things were going with the Republican Army.
The fiery little Ellen Wilkinson met us in Paris, and was full of
excitement and assurance that the Government would win. Included in
the party were Jack Lawson, George Strauss, Aneurin Bevan, Sydney
Silverman, and Hannen Swaffer. We went by train to the border at Perpignan,
and thence by car to Barcelona where Bevan left for another part of
the front.
We travelled
to Madrid - a distance of three hundred miles over the sierras - by
night for security reasons as the road passed through hostile or doubtful
territory. It was winter-time and snowing hard. Although our car had
skid chains we had many anxious moments before we arrived in the capital
just after dawn. The capital was suffering badly from war wounds.
The University City had been almost destroyed by shell fire during
the earlier and most bitter fighting of the war.
We walked
along the miles of trenches which surrounded the city. At the end
of the communicating trenches came the actual defence lines, dug within
a few feet of the enemy's trenches. We could hear the conversation
of the Fascist troops crouching down in their trench across the narrow
street. Desultory firing continued everywhere, with snipers on both
sides trying to pick off the enemy as he crossed exposed areas. We
had little need to obey the orders to duck when we had to traverse
the same areas. At night the Fascist artillery would open up, and
what with the physical effects of the food and the expectation of
a shell exploding in the bedroom I did not find my nights in Madrid
particularly pleasant.
It is
sad and tragic to realize that most of the splendid men and women,
fighting so obstinately in a hopeless battle, whom we met have since
been executed, killed in action - or still linger in prison and in
exile. The reason for the defeat of the Spanish Government was not
in the hearts and minds of the Spanish people. They had a few brief
weeks of democracy with a glimpse of all that it might mean for the
country they loved. The disaster came because the Great Powers of
the West preferred to see in Spain a dictatorial Government of the
right rather than a legally elected body chosen by the people. The
Spanish War encouraged the Nazis both politically and as a proof of
the efficiency of their
newly devised methods of waging war. In the blitzkrieg of Guernica
and the victory by the well-armed Fascists over the
helpless People's Army were sown the seeds for a still greater Nazi
experiment which began when German armies swooped into Poland on 1st
September, 1939.
It has
been said that the Spanish Civil War was in any event an experimental
battle between Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. My own careful observations
suggest that the Soviet Union gave no help of any real value to the
Republicans. They had observers there and were eager enough to study
the Nazi methods. But they had no intention of helping a Government
which, was controlled by Socialists and Liberals. If Hitler and Mussolini
fought in the arena of Spain as a try-out for world war Stalin remained
in the audience. The former were brutal; the latter was callous. Unfortunately
the latter charge must also be laid at the feet of the capitalist
countries as well.
(2)
George Strauss and Aneurin
Bevan issued a joint statement after they were expelled
from the Labour Party in March 1939.
The refusal
of the Executive to allow us to appear before it so that we might
defend ourselves; its failure to give us clear guidance as to the
manner in which we could advocate our views without coming into collision
with the Constitution; its
rejection of the reasonable assurances which we were prepared to give
in our last letter; the fact that it listened to letters read containing
charges against us without giving us the elementary right of being
told of them, much less the chance of defending ourselves against
them; all these events force us to the conclusion that the Executive
has allowed itself to become party to a controversy rather than to
remain the administrative head of a great organization.
(3)
Henry Newnham, Contrast in Patriotism, Truth (August, 1940)
I was reading
early this week the official list of our casualties during the Battle
of France. I noticed among the names of other members of the 'ruling
class' those of the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Aylesford,
the Earl of Coventry, Lord Frederick Cambridge - all killed in action.
I did not notice any names like Gollancz, Laski, and Strauss, from
which I
draw the conclusion that what happened in the last war is being repeated
in this. The ancient families of Britain - the hated ruling class
of the Left Wing diatribes - are sacrificing their bravest and best
to keep the Strausses safe in their homes, which in the last war they
did not don uniforms to defend.
(4)
Michael
Foot, Aneurin
Bevan (1962)
The House
of Commons was his (Aneurin Bevan) main forum; Tribune was used to
fill in any gaps or oversights. He more than any other Member was
resolved to keep the place alive. Sometimes he acted in conjunction
with a considerable number of Labour Members or, on one or two important
occasions, a majority of them. Sometimes he
found himself competing or consorting with other prominent but less
persistent critics such as Emanuel Shinwell. More often he was supported
by a few of whom Dick Stokes, Sydney Silverman, George Strauss, Tom
Driberg and Frank Bowles were the most effective. Frequently he was
alone or almost alone. His closest friend in the Commons during these
years was Frank Bowles, who had been returned for Nuneaton in 1942
and who gave him a staunch comradeship which he never forgot. What
he achieved in this period was to help cut Churchill down to size
- a fact which played its part in the post-war history of Britain.
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