by Benn, Tony
By 9.30 pm we had expelled two more members, and acquitted Harry Smith.
Monday 16 June
Went with Tom to Chesterfield Crematorium for Frank Cousins’s funeral. Many figures from the Labour Movement were there – Arthur Scargill, Peter Heathfield, Henry Richardson from the Nottinghamshire area NUM, Michael Foot, Geoffrey Goodman and his wife, Bill Howden from the GMB, Dennis Skinner, and Malcolm Gee from the AUEW.
But the chapel wasn’t full, and the vicar, who knew nothing about Frank Cousins, gave a totally inadequate tribute, another of these sausage-machine funerals that I have attended for so many members of the Labour Movement. Caroline has always wanted a book of socialist writings from which you could quote – Keir Hardie, Tom Paine, and so on – and then you could sing socialist anthems and hymns.
Nance Cousins was absolutely magnificent.
Monday 7 July – Visit to Poland
At Warsaw I was met by two officials from the Scientific Secretariat of the Institute of International Affairs and an interpreter. They took me to a government hotel, in a batch of buildings where there are a lot of embassies.
Unpacked, and went down to dinner with members of the institute, a charming crowd. I asked what they thought the prospects of a Soviet invasion had been, and they said it was inconceivable that after the experience of Hungary and Czechoslovakia the Soviet Union would have invaded Poland – unless Poland had actually changed sides in the Cold War.
They were keen to stress that democracy was the key question everybody was discussing. They have tribunals to identify ‘failures of socialist legitimacy’ and so on. I said I thought tribunals were all right but actually democracy was a way of life; it was controversial and it took power away from people at the top, who didn’t like it.
My impression is that Poland is much more open now (but probably the economic problems are making them cautious and conservative and managerial), that Communism in Eastern Europe is moving towards social democracy and there is a sort of convergence – although at the same time, alas, social democracy is moving towards monetarism.
Wednesday 9 July
I had a message to say that Cardinal Glemp would see me this afternoon. He was due to be away on holiday but had agreed to stay in Warsaw to see me. I was told that priests in Poland were the social aristocrats, with a powerful position in the villages (whereas in Italy, for example, they are poor).
I put on a white shirt and a smart suit to see Cardinal Glemp. We arrived at the Primate’s Palace and walked through a long garden. The door was opened by an immensely tall and handsome young priest who was obviously the Primate’s chaplain. He looked at Bozena, my interpreter, held out his hand and pointed with his finger at his watch – because we were one minute and a few seconds late, and I suppose you don’t keep cardinals waiting, but he did it in a jovial sort of ‘naughty-naughty’ way.
We were shown into a room which had a throne at one end and oil paintings of all the previous primates of Poland hanging on the walls. Through another door came Cardinal Josef Glemp, a short man of about fifty-five, not a grey hair on his head, wearing a red cardinal’s cap and a black cassock with a pectoral cross over it; he was rather expressionless. He beckoned us to sit at the table, and then sat at the other end, facing the throne. He had big ears that stuck out and a rather cunning expression. I got to like him more as the discussions progressed, but to begin with I was apprehensive of him because the Primate of Poland is a powerful man, and to establish a relationship of equality for the purpose of discussion was going to be difficult.
I thanked him very much indeed for seeing me. Then I said that Basil Hume was very popular in Britain, a modest man who had great influence. I mentioned the Pope’s visit to Britain and his meeting with Archbishop Runcie at Canterbury Cathedral.
Glemp said, ‘Basil Hume is a good man. I have asked Archbishop Runcie to come to Poland, but he can’t come, so he is sending one of his senior officials or bishops.’
I told him I would be grateful if he could give me his assessment of the situation in Poland.
‘Well,’ said Glemp, with a slight glint in his eye, ‘of course, I can only comment on Church matters, but there is a very serious conflict between Christianity and Communism. The Church is concerned with morality, and a serious demoralisation has occurred in Poland. When the Communists took over private property and made it collective, it was simply a utilitarian policy, and I am afraid there is no feeling of conscience by the public about common property. The Church must be able to help the community decide what is good and what is evil.’
That was what Lopatka had said about policies designed for angels.
‘I am afraid there are deep-rooted evils in Polish society caused in part by partition, in part by the occupation, and the most serious evil is alcoholism. The alcohol industry produces the greatest profits, and this is one reason why it continues to exist. We need to produce less alcohol in Poland.
‘Then we come to the question of family morality. The Communist philosophy and Western values are undermining young people. Women are working as men do, but at lower wages. The divorce rate is rising and there is lower morality in Poland. Those are the Church’s concerns in the area of public affairs.’
I mentioned that, as he would be well aware, the standard of morality in the West was pretty low; there was drunkenness and drugs and pornography and vice and competitiveness.
‘That is true,’ he said, ‘but the Communist Party defends collective values, and we also have to have regard for individual rights. Actually, the Communist Party is only against drugs because it wants people to be subservient, and if people are on drugs they can’t be made subservient.’
So I told him I thought that because drugs removed people from situations of conflict, and neutralised them, some regimes actually encouraged drugs because they produced a quiescent population.
He said, ‘I think the Communist Party is afraid that drugs will mean that young people won’t listen to what the Ministers say.’
I turned the subject to liberation theology. In Latin America, for example, it appeared that there was a unity between socialists and Christians on the basis of social justice. What did he think about that?
‘Of course, we have liberation theology in Poland too but it is different. In Latin America, the basis of it is social injustice, and the Communist Party wants to take advantage of social injustice to manipulate it for its own ends. This is designed to separate the faithful from the bishops. The theology of liberation in Poland is quite different because the Church does not want the priests to be active in Solidarity.’
I asked, ‘Have you possibly been using Solidarity to undermine the faith of the people of Poland in their government, in the same way as you say the guerrilla leaders in Latin America have used liberation theology to undermine the faith of the people in their bishops?’
He misunderstood me, and said, ‘Oh no, nothing could undermine the faith of the Polish people in their bishops.’
I said, ‘No, no, have you used Solidarity to undermine the people’s faith in their government?’
He said, ‘Oh no, there is no intention of using Solidarity to undermine confidence in the Government. We have only supported it as a trade union. That is the only circumstance under which the Church would support Solidarity. We never supported it as a political party, and we have not used it to defeat the Government. But I must admit that the impact of Solidarity has brought some changes and some better prospects which the Party appreciates and which have led it to change many of its policies and personalities. The ideas of Solidarity have won support from the people, but Solidarity itself is political and anti-Communist.’
This is exactly what people have been saying to me over the last few days.
I asked him, ‘How many political prisoners are there now?’
He replied, ‘About 220, and the Church cares for them. Many of them have not been involved in anything really. They might distribute a leaflet and find themselves in prison.�
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I said, ‘Can I now turn the subject to the bomb, because there are formidable moral questions in the use of nuclear weapons, and I would like to ask you whether you think Gorbachev is sincere, what future for Europe you see, and what the Church’s role is in dealing with the threat of nuclear war.’
He answered, ‘Rearmament is a political game. It is a crime against humanity to build nuclear weapons. I think Gorbachev is perfectly sincere in wanting peace, because the Soviet Union needs to divert resources from weapons of war, which are very expensive, and use skilled labour. But what can the Church do? I know the French and the German bishops have issued a statement, and the bishops have presented papers, but I don’t think we know what to do.’
So I commented, ‘I suppose, Your Eminence, you could say publicly what you have said to me, which I think is very important, particularly in your assessment of Gorbachev.’
Then he made the most important remark of the whole interview. ‘If I did this, it would create difficulties for the Church, because Radio Free Europe and Voice of America and the BBC are violently anti-Soviet, and the Polish people listen to these broadcasts. They shape Polish opinion, and if I were to say publicly what I have said to you it would create tension in Poland. Poles would say to me, “You are pro-Communist”, and so, perhaps, would Radio Free Europe, the BBC and the Voice of America. I am accused of being pro-Communist anyway.’
‘Well, that indicates the power of the media.’
He sort of nodded rather wryly and it was amazing that the Catholic Church recognises that the media are more powerful than it is in getting the message across.
‘At least you could argue that through martial law Jaruzelski had preserved Polish independence from the Russians, because I presume that if things had gone wrong the Russians might have intervened.’
‘Ah,’ said Glemp, ‘on 13 December 1981 the Church remained absolutely quiet on the question of martial law, and if I had spoken, and had called the people out against it, the Soviet troops, who were on the border, would have come in.’
Then I asked him, ‘Can I explore with you the question of your dialogue with the Government?’
He said, ‘Communist governments treat the Church differently in each country – Hungary, Czechoslovkia and Yugoslavia. I have no illusions: Communism wants the Church to become subservient.’
I said, ‘Are you saying that there is a permanent holy war between Catholicism and Communism?’
‘Well, there is a conflict between the idea of collectivism and individualism, and we may find some form of reconciliation.’
I put it to him that, just as Marx was entirely innocent of what happened under Stalin, you could not blame Jesus for what happened at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. You could also argue that socialism was a faith but that Communist parties were institutions, like the Church, in relation to belief. ‘These are factors that you might take into account.’
He agreed with me on a number of things but not on this one. ‘Is socialism a religion? No, it isn’t because the Soviet bloc leaders do not actually believe in socialism, they just use ideology as a way to achieve personal power.’
Of course, that is an argument that Marxists have used against the Churches for years! They have said the Church leaders don’t believe in God but they use their faith and the faith of the faithful to get themselves power.
I said, ‘There have been occasions, I suppose, in the long history of the Church, over the past 2,000 years, when the Church has been concerned with power. I suppose you could compare Martin Luther with Solidarity – Martin Luther identified certain weaknesses in the Church and challenged it, and as a result, the Church modified its position.’
He thought it was an interesting argument.
I had been there for about an hour and a half, so I thought it was my duty to bring the discussion to a conclusion. I thanked him very much, and said, ‘I must tell you that the people I have met in Poland, the Ministers and the officials, seem to me to be good people. You may disagree with what they are trying to do, but they seem to me to be sincere people who are trying to do their best.’
He gave me rather a warm smile.
Thursday 10 July
At 7 in the evening there was a farewell dinner in a private room of the hotel, with the Deputy Speaker, the Director of the Polish Institute and a couple of other Poles. It was an extremely jolly evening, with some political discussion but mainly endless jokes.
They told one funny story about a German dog that came over the border to Poland one night, and said, ‘Oh, the bones in Germany are delicious. They are the best dog bones in the world!’ The dog came back the next night and said to the Polish dogs, ‘You sleep in the garden, but in Germany we have blankets – luxury!’ The dog came night after night, so eventually the Polish dogs asked him, ‘Why don’t you stay in Germany?’ ‘Ah,’ he replied, ‘you are not allowed to bark in Germany.’ They did make fun of the Germans.
Friday 11 July
Up at 5 and left for the airport.
Tuesday 30 September – Labour Party Conference, Blackpool
After lunch I went back in for Neil Kinnock’s speech, which lasted interminably, and I had my usual annual agonies on whether to join in the standing ovation at the end. But I came to the conclusion that it was part of the eve-of-Election game you had to play. The high point was when he said, ‘I would be prepared to die for my country but I don’t want my country to die for me’ – the most crude demagoguery, which will satisfy people that he is in favour of defence, but I thought it poor stuff. The standing ovation lasted for six minutes; Glenys was brought down from the balcony and he kissed her and waved, and then she went back. The whole thing was like a Nuremberg rally, phoney to a degree.
Friday 3 October
The finale of Conference is always a bit of an anticlimax. Eric had heard from the organist that she had been told the Conference was not singing ‘The Red Flag’, but there had been such a row about it that it was agreed that she would play it after all. As the pale pink rose is now the symbol of the Labour Party, I wrote an alternative version of ‘The Red Flag’ to take account of it:
The people’s rose in shades of pinks
Gets up my nostrils and it stinks,
But ’ere our limbs grow stiff and cold
Our old Red flag we shall unfold.
With heads uncovered swear we all
To let rose petals fade and fall.
Though moderates flinch and media sneer
We’ll keep the Red Flag flying here.
At the end, believe it or not, Neil and Glenys threw a whole mass of red roses at the delegates from the platform. It was a disgusting spectacle, and I simply couldn’t stand it, so I rushed out before the crowd left and caught the train to London.
Tuesday 4 November
Caught the train to Chesterfield, and a ticket collector came up, a man of about thirty-four, and asked if I was Tony Benn. When I said yes, he asked if I had been involved in the miners’ strike.
I said I used to go on the picket line, and he said, ‘Did you know the army was used, dressed in police uniform?’
I told him we suspected it but were never able to prove it.
He said, ‘I know, because I was in the army until last year, and during the miners’ strike I was at Catterick Camp and we were regularly put into police uniforms and sent on the picket lines. We didn’t like it particularly.’
I asked him how many men.
He replied, ‘At Nottingham, of the sixty-four policemen in our group, sixty-one were soldiers and only three were regular policemen – an inspector, a sergeant and one bobby. We didn’t wear any numbers, didn’t get paid overtime as the police did, and were told not to make any arrests because the police would do all that.’ He said the soldiers used were from the Military Police, the SAS and the Green Jackets. He himself had been a military policeman. ‘I shouldn’t really be saying all this because of the Official Secrets Act.’
Then he added, ‘Su
rely you could tell us because of the way we marched, and we had short hair. We were obviously the army. The police knew we were soldiers. Of course, you realise the army are now being used for civil defence.’
I told him he should write it all down before he forgot it.
He said, ‘There’s the Official Secrets Act, and I would deny I ever said it if you told anyone. But we must get rid of Thatcher.’
Wednesday 19 November
In the Financial Times this morning Mrs Thatcher was reported as saying that two more terms of office would exterminate socialism. I saw Clare Short, who asked if I had seen it, and I replied, ‘Yes, but I think she’ll have a job to outdo Kinnock.’
‘Don’t be so depressed,’ she said.
‘I’m not, I’m just being realistic.’
Thursday 27 November
Sat through Prime Minister’s Questions, listening to the Prime Minister trying to cope with the rising crisis in Australia; Sir Robert Armstrong has been sent there to stop the publication of Spycatcher but he will fail.
Went to the PLP meeting, and next week’s business was announced; it included Wednesday’s debate on the security services, called by the SDP. I chipped in to say I thought it was all very well making Thatcher look a fool, and having a lot of fun over Lord Rothschild and the ‘fifth man’, but the really important issue was that the security services were out of control. People thought Harold Wilson was paranoid when he claimed he was bugged, but he was bugged, and burgled; of course, Wilson himself had tapped trade unionists’ phones during the National Union of Seamen’s strike in 1966. I said we really did have to establish some principle of accountability through Parliament, a proper statute governing the security services’ conduct. It was the first time I’ve spoken at a PLP meeting for some time.
Wednesday 31 December
Looking back over 1986, I think the most important event on the world scene was probably the Reykjavik summit. Gorbachev offered total nuclear disarmament and Reagan accepted but insisted on Star Wars, which wrecked the summit but left on the table something that could officially be picked up if Star Wars were dropped – the total nuclear disarmament of Europe. This caused flutters of alarm through the European NATO members including Thatcher, Kohl and Mitterrand. What it did was to confirm the seriousness and purpose of the Russians, the Americans’ lack of seriousness and purpose and the Europeans’ utter commitment to nuclear weapons.
