67th anniversary of CND: needed now as much as it was in 1958
The state of the world on the 67th anniversary of CND suggests that it is needed now more than ever. At the moment the world is at a very dangerous moment and that includes countries that have nuclear weapons, either officially such as the US and Russia or unofficially such as Israel.
The spark for the organisation that led to CND was a series of nuclear tests in 1957.
In 1957 it was Britain that was testing a nuclear bomb in the South Pacific, and these were not in any way officially sanctioned.
Part of the motivation after the debacle of Suez in 1956 was to put Britain back on a military footing with the US and this indeed was what happened.
The impact on the left was significant.
It was the 1945 Labour Government that had originally sanctioned the development of British nuclear weapons in the first place and around the nuclear tests a familiar discussion between multilateral and unilateral disarmers took place.
Nye Bevan, the de facto leader of the Labour left in the 1950s, was no fan of nuclear weapons but took the position that while others had them Britain needed them too. Whether or not he would have backed a ‘first use’ policy didn’t seem clear.
Beyond that however there were large numbers who simply wanted to get rid of all nuclear weapons and being in the UK, to start with British ones.
The moves that led to CND started with letters from Bertrand Russell in the Guardian and an article by J. B. Priestley in the New Statesman. Canon Collins, based at St Pauls, was also a key figure.
The Inaugural meeting was held at the Central Hall, Westminster on 17th February 1958
In other words the ‘great and the good’ of the liberal-left became attracted to the cause. But the foot soldiers were of course the left- many constituency Labour Party members and the wider left.
Peggy Duff a Camden Labour Councillor who had worked for Tribune and went on to become the first General Secretary of CND summed up in her autobiography what the original activists were like.
‘They belonged to no political party. Many of them belonged to no church. They had no politics. Their interest in banning the bomb was mainly ethical. They thought it was wrong. Most of them were young.. they believed that the bomb immediately threatened the future of civilisation, that it had to be banned very quickly or Armageddon would come’.
Trump’s return and Israel’s genocide in Gaza will surely mean that a new generation will join those who first opposed the bomb 67 years ago.
Leave a Reply