The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990

by Benn, Tony

  This afternoon with Alexander Sirotkin to see the Moscow Metro, which is extremely impressive.

  Russians are anti-American, to us anyway. Worried about China, pro-Macmillan, anti-Stalin and said the BBC is clever propaganda but its Russian Service is run by 1917 émigrés who are ignorant, or later émigrés who are hostile.

  Tuesday 30 August

  Woken at 5.45, breakfast at 6, and porter comes to collect baggage at 6.15. Caroline’s in her nightie and I’m in underpants. No possibility of making myself understood. Porter withdraws and man in raincoat and trilby hat appears to remove baggage. He rings on the phone and has long talk in Russian to operator who understands him, but it doesn’t help. I speak to girl with help of phrasebook but page flips over and I read the phonetic translation of phrases that have no meaning like ‘I’m sorry your mother has been ill’ and ‘How many hectares of wheat are there on this collective farm?’

  To Moscow Airport and by plane to Sochi, where we had a suite and balcony overlooking the incredibly beautiful Black Sea.

  In a speedboat along the waterfront to see the enormous palatial sanatoria built by the trade unions for the workers. In the evening to the Opera with a stage the size of La Scala to hear Traviata sung by the Siberian Opera Company. It is all so fabulous and surprising.

  Supper from 11 to 2 am in our room and a long and most intimate political talk which represented a complete breakthrough in personal relations. From then on we were on first-name terms.

  Wednesday 31 August

  Bathed before breakfast

  A couple of hours of talk over supper in our room again: Kutchinsky says there are few political prisoners in Russia today and it is much easier than under Stalin.

  ‘I would open the frontiers and prove Russia is confident of its system.’

  Then he added, ‘Collectivisation was a tragic error and Stalin a disastrous leader. If Lenin had lived it would have been very different. Khrushchev is absolutely honest and straightforward and gets no special privileges.

  ‘The Labour Party needs discipline, should abolish the block vote, should know who it intends to represent, especially white-collar workers and technical people, and must be more concrete. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is a protest but not a practical idea. It is isolationist, anti-patriotic and dishonest.’

  Friday 2 September

  By boat across the lake to breakfast in a restaurant and then drove through the mountains back to Adler Airport. Kutchinsky explained how the constitution of the USSR worked and how the CP representatives really controlled every organ at every level.

  We flew to Moscow via Stalina and didn’t get to bed till 2.30 am.

  Saturday 3 September

  We try unsuccessfully to telephone the British Embassy. The operator says it has no phone. Kutchinsky says it is very stupid and compares it with the refusal to publish a street map of Moscow as a hangover from Stalin.

  To the Bolshoi Theatre to see Ivan Sussanin by Glinka – magnificent patriotic opera.

  Sunday 4 September

  To the Tretyakov Art Gallery: lots of socialist realism and rather dull.

  Boris Krylov collected us by car for dinner at his flat. Mme Krylova and Krylov’s mother-in-law live with the family – very crowded. Great family smiles and jokes and tremendous meal with enormous good will all round. They are so affectionate yet serious, good-humoured yet courtly and we felt immediately at home with them. Of course they retain the pre-revolutionary attitude to the outside world and look forward to the relaxation that they know is coming. But what a terribly tough forty years they have had.

  Off to the Bolshoi again with Nick. But only stayed for one act of The Taming of the Shrew. Long talk over coffee at the hotel.

  Monday 5 September

  At 6 o’clock to the Praha Restaurant for a private dinner with Jacob Paletskis, a full member of the Central Committee. He is a rank-and-file leader and an old-guard Bolshevist. For an hour at dinner we have the most cordial talk, exchanging pictures of his grandchildren and our children, and I thought it was all going to evaporate like that. Then, all of a sudden switching to Russian, he turned to Kutchinsky, who later translated, ‘Gospodin [Comrade] Wedgwood Benn, you have a very progressive record, except on one question, the question of Hungary.’ It was a direct head-on challenge that I could ignore or take up and I decided to take it up. For an hour and a half we had a fierce argument through Kutchinsky.

  Still, the conversation ended with many expressions of friendship. Paletskis pinned a medal on my lapel from the Supreme Soviet and I thanked him for the other presents of perfume, records, books and the Sputnik music box.

  To the station to catch the Red Arrow to Leningrad. As the train pulled out, Caroline with a new bouquet waved goodbye and we settled into the comfortable sleeper to drink tea and eat biscuits while the bells of the Kremlin rang through the radio in our compartment, followed by the ‘Song of Moscow’, which traditionally followed them. As usual we had another talk with Kutchinsky.

  ‘I hope that there is no war,’ he said, ‘because the Russian people have suffered so much and have worked so hard for so long that it would be very tragic indeed if they were, at the last minute, denied the fruits of their sacrifice.’ And as he left he turned and said to me, ‘You are an idealist underestimating the forces against you and you will be due for disappointments.’

  Tuesday 6 September

  Early this morning the woman brought us caviare and tea to wake us up. Met at Leningrad Station, and to the Astoria Hotel.

  For a couple of hours we drove round Leningrad with an Intourist guide, who pointed everything out. We saw the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, the Kirov Stadium, the Aurora, and drove up and down the main streets. At lunch Kutchinsky said I should have been in the Tory Party, would have made better progress, and could have done more for my country. I said that he should have stayed an optical engineer – which was his job before he became a research worker in foreign affairs.

  Just after midnight Nick and I decided to go for a walk and Caroline went up to her room. About thirty seconds after we had left the hotel we heard an enormous explosion behind us, turned and saw a column of flame rising thirty feet into the air right outside the front door of the hotel. We rushed back and saw a truck on its side blazing. Thinking of the man in there frying, and wondering if there was more petrol still to explode, we forced our way round it and into the hotel. Our room overlooked the site and Caroline, hearing me bang on her door, thought it was someone to say that I was in the accident. We watched the truck blaze until the fire brigade put it out with foam, and the ambulance – complete with a doctor, as is usual in Russia – had arrived. It was then that we discovered that no one had been killed. The truck had been stolen by a fifteen-year-old boy and it had skidded and turned over, leaving him a couple of seconds to get out before it blew up. Flash-photographers and police gathered, then the truck was towed away.

  Not one word appeared in the Leningrad papers the next day. ‘We don’t believe in sensationalism,’ they explained.

  Wednesday 7 September

  At breakfast Nick asked two personal questions. He wanted to know our family history and how rich we were. He had hinted that he will be making a report on our visit and these may be for inclusion in it. We answered both questions fully.

  Caroline goes on to discuss anti-Americanism, which we have noticed in its most virulent form. We say that the propaganda goes beyond the policy differences, embracing all aspects of American life and constituting a sort of McCarthyism. Nick is very indignant but finds it hard to justify himself.

  Thursday 8 September

  We visited the Russian Museum and then at 12.30 went to the Cazana Cathedral which is now run by the Academy of Sciences. It is a museum of the history of religion. Our guide Nina Nosovitch, aged about twenty-five, was an atheist theological student, writing a thesis on reform in the Russian Orthodox Church.

  The exhibits were designed to show that Christianity came from earlier
cults. The Lamb of God, the cattle by the manger, Peter the fisherman and other symbols linked the religion with pagan faiths. A glass case contained extracts from Christ’s teaching showing how it strengthened the slave owner by undermining the resistance of the slaves: for example:

  ‘Turn the other cheek.’

  ‘If a man takes your coat, give him your shirt.’

  ‘Blessed are those who suffer.’

  ‘Love thine enemies.’

  As we left Nina shook us firmly by the hand, thanked us for being so interested, and said that the younger generation now didn’t seem to care about anti-religious propaganda. Maria said afterwards, ‘Unfortunately there is no systematic anti-religious propaganda except at Christmas and Easter.’

  Kutchinsky realised that we didn’t like the exhibition and couldn’t understand why. We joked with him about items we would put in an anti-Communist museum. He said he would complain about its lack of objectivity.

  In the evening attended a farewell dinner at the Restaurant Metropole. Everyone was so warm and friendly and they drove us to the dock and put us on board the Estonia. The wind was blowing and the rain bucketing down and we felt that winter was closing in on Leningrad and would hold it tight until the spring came to melt the ice. We had no real chance to say goodbye – just a warm handshake on the wet cobbles at the quayside. And then warm and comfortable in our cabin in this lovely new ship we edged out into the sea, our Russian trip over.

  Tuesday 20 September

  Dick and Peter to dinner and we discussed the Conference. The Left is determined to crush Gaitskell and the Right is determined to crush the Left on the defence issue. We represent the centralists and hope that the crisis can be averted by the Brown-Ennals formula which would allow the Executive to accept the TGWU resolution, instead of making a fight of it.

  Sunday 25 September

  Gaitskell’s Battersea speech yesterday threw down the gauntlet. He is sticking firm. Cousins has similarly given a press conference.

  Monday 26 September

  I decide that it may be necessary to resign from the NEC at Scarborough in an attempt to make peace.

  Thursday 29 September – Labour Party Conference, Scarborough

  To King’s Cross to catch the special train to Scarborough.

  Caroline warned me last night that it would be fatal to resign. I thought her very unsympathetic indeed and we had rather a row. It seemed to me that the earlier I could resign the better so as to carry the fight to the Conference.

  Dinner with Harold Wilson, Barbara Castle and Dick. Harold is busy composing his speech for Sunday night and frankly all he’s interested in is turning the situation to his own advantage. He thinks Gaitskell can be dislodged. My opinion of him drops the more I see of him.

  Phone Caroline and she’s relieved that I am not resigning. Bed 10 pm.

  Friday 20 September

  Up early and breakfast at no fewer than four different tables in the hotel trying to win people round to the benefits of peace-making.

  This morning’s NEC meeting was routine business in a jovial atmosphere. The Left have joined the peace-making moves with the New Statesman flat out for us and Tribune not against us. The Spectator and The Times are bitterly hostile. The real issue is that Hugh and Frank won’t have it, each being anxious to destroy the other. We must try to strengthen the middle and make its pull irresistible.

  Long walk and talk with Barbara Castle. Talk to John Harris, Hugh’s adviser, who thinks a split is inevitable. Frank Barlow says to me: ‘Being who you are, there is nothing you can do about it, old boy.’ Jim Callaghan says, ‘Don’t worry, old boy. After this week we’ll pick up the pieces.’

  Despite this discouraging advice I decided I would have one more go, so I caught Gaitskell as he was going up the stairs to bed and asked if he would agree to meet me the following morning. He looked very wooden and gave me the wateriest of smiles but finally agreed and told me to come to his suite at 10 o’clock.

  Saturday 1 October

  For the last day or two I had been talking quite openly with the press about the peace-making efforts. John Cole of the Manchester Guardian had been interested but sceptical. My line had been one of unlimited optimism and I had claimed repeatedly that the centre was responding well to my peace-making approaches. I told them that everyone I spoke to wanted peace-making to succeed, even though many thought it was too difficult, too late, or hopeless.

  Today I had planned my interviews with Gaitskell and Cousins to see what sort of reception I would get from the two extremes. At exactly 10 o’clock I knocked at the suite of room number 1 and Hugh opened the door and beckoned me in. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with no tie and blue trousers. He looked dejected and bored and had the longest face, which regarded me with intense distrust I knew it was going to be a most unfortunate and unhappy interview – as it was.

  I told him that I was very worried about the split,’ which I thought was unnecessary, and that he knew that I had worked to prevent it. I still thought there was time, with a little good will.

  He replied most unsympathetically and said that under no circumstances would he be dictated to by Frank Cousins. ‘Frank Cousins is not the only trade union leader,’ he said. ‘You seem to forget that.’

  He then went on to attack Cousins in extremely personal terms and went on to say that Mrs Cousins was ‘very left indeed’ and to hint that she was a fellow-traveller. It was clear that on this point he was quite irrational. He said that he had underrated the strength of the campaign by the nuclear disarmers and the Communists and that it was clear that he would have to make a stand and fight on this.

  He said, ‘You are a very talented young man, but you have no political judgement and you don’t realise that sometimes silence is golden.’

  I left after fifty minutes, pretty despondent.

  It was now pretty clear that my plan for a compromise had foundered. Over lunch the idea formed in my mind that if we couldn’t get agreement between the official side and Cousins we might actually have talks to clarify the points of disagreement and invite Conference to accept a common interpretation of what these differences were and ask them to decide.

  I drafted the memorandum along these lines, discussed it with Barbara Castle and got the Party office to type me out several copies. Armed with one of these I waited in the lounge for Frank Cousins to come in. He arrived with Harry Nicholas and some others and I was summoned over imperiously.

  Frank was breathing rather heavily and was obviously on the top of his high horse. He said, ‘If you think that you can save that man in this way, you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.’ It was clear he regarded me as an emissary from the Hampstead set, anxious to do anything that would save Gaitskell from defeat.

  I tried again. ‘Well, will you read my memo . . .?’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ he said.

  ‘Well, how will you know what I’ve proposed if you don’t read it?’ I said bravely.

  ‘I don’t care. I won’t agree. I won’t read it,’ he said. Harry Nicholas blushed scarlet at the way in which he was mauling me. I didn’t give a damn, although it was a little disappointing. Frank seemed to realise that he’d gone too far; he grabbed the memo from my hand and looked at it. His eyes lit upon a sentence which said that ‘when Conference has reached its decision the whole Party should accept it’.

  ‘I certainly won’t agree to that after the rigging and fixing of the vote which that man is out to achieve. If I defeat him, he must accept it; but I won’t accept it whatever happens.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to form a trade union political party and I’ve half a mind to put up against that man in his own constituency of South East Leeds. And as for you, you’ve burned your boats now and you’ve no future with that man,’ he said menacingly, implying that I was finished unless I worked with him on his own terms.

  Anyway he eased up a little bit after that and I explained that I would be putting this proposal informally before the Nationa
l Executive tomorrow and that I hoped he wouldn’t turn down the idea of talks out of hand. He stuffed the memo into his pocket saying, ‘All right, all right, I won’t say no now,’ and with this half victory I got up and left him.

  It was now pretty clear to me that both sides wanted a showdown and that Cousins and Gaitskell were completely irrational about each other. Frankly, I agreed with both of them in their assessment of the other.

  I ought to add a word about the atmosphere in the Royal Hotel among the Executive. For Harold, his speech on Sunday night at the Eve of Conference Rally was to be his great bid for the leadership and he had concocted a lot of phrases which were full of significance but took no stand. My contempt for him grew each time I met him and I don’t think he has one-tenth the character of Gaitskell.

  Just before going to bed this evening I saw Ray Gunter, who cursed me up and down in the sweetest possible way. ‘You’re crucifying Gaitskell,’ he said. ‘As you know, I’m no Gaitskell man but there are decent ways of doing this sort of thing.’ I went to bed quite clear that I should resign tomorrow if the Executive refused my proposal for talks.

  Sunday 2 October

  I canvassed the Times, Guardian, Herald and Daily Mail correspondents this morning with my plan for talks and gave a copy of the memo to John Harris.

  I also heard that Harry Nicholas would be authorised to accept the suggestion of talks if the NEC put it forward at this afternoon’s meeting. I therefore went to the meeting waiting for the moment when I should have to make this proposal, having firmly decided that I should resign if it was rejected.

  As we met, the CND parade led by Homer, Mikardo, Canon Collins and others tramped by the hotel shouting ‘Ban the Bomb! Gaitskell must go!’ It almost drowned our proceedings and introduced an element of mob violence into our affairs.