Harold Laski - Ideology and Political Convictions

Ideology and Political Convictions

Laski was a proponent of Marxism and believed in a planned economy based on the public ownership of the means of production. Instead of as he saw it, a coercive state, Laski believed in the evolution of co-operative states that were internationally bound and stressed social welfare. He also believed since the capitalist class would not acquiesce in its own liquidation, the cooperative commonwealth was not likely to be attained without violence. But he also had a commitment to civil liberties, free speech and association, and representative democracy. Initially he believed that the League of Nations would bring about a "international democratic system". However from the late 1920s his political beliefs became radicalized and he believed that it was necessary to go beyond capitalism to "transcend the existing system of sovereign states". Laski was dismayed by the Hitler-Stalin pact and wrote a preface to the Left Book Club collection criticising it, Betrayal of the Left. In his last years he was disillusioned by the Cold War and the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. George Orwell described him as "A socialist by allegiance, and a liberal by temperament".