The article analyses the influence of the leadership of the British Labour Party on the first Cold War dissident, Milovan Djilas. Up until his dissidence in 1954, the main Yugoslav official for official relations with the British Left was Djilas. He had many contacts with the members of the British Labour Party such as Morgan Phillips, Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee. While many of these contacts were professional, Djilas established a firm friendship with Bevan, under whose influence Djilas gradually abandoned communism and embraced the Labour movement. When he called for another party in Yugoslavia (one similar to the Labour Party), he was condemned by Tito’s regime.
The conclusion begins with an overview of the way the chapters in the volume have offered an exploration of three different levels of conflict – intra-organisational tensions, tensions which exist between different types of organisations, and tensions between labour organisations and spontaneous working-class protests – to collectively provide explanations to the paradoxes affecting the Labour movement. It then stresses the benefits of the volume’s integrated and multidisciplinary approach of the labour movement, underlining the fact that the contributors share a common concern for the future of the British labour movement. In the following section the conclusion ponders the future prospects for the labour movement and the Labour Party, sketching a number of possible scenarios. It stresses the fact that visions of the future differ according to political positioning. It then highlights the shared conviction of the contributors that class remains relevant as an analytical tool.
Barrow Logie [and] Ian Bullock. Democratic ideas and the British Labour movement, 1880–1914. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge1996. ix, 326 pp. £40.00; $69.95.
