In his own words: ‘The cemetery was utterly deserted . . . I remember standing in front of the grave, fists clenched, and swearing my own private oath that I would be faithful to the workers’ cause.’
It was a lifelong cause the 16-year-old immigrant, who fled here with his father from Belgium to escape the Nazis, never deserted.
Ralph’s Marxism was uncompromising. ‘We want this party to state that it stands unequivocally behind the social ownership and control of the means of production, distribution and exchange,’ he declared to the 1955 Labour Party conference as the delegate from Hampstead. ‘We are a Socialist party engaged on a great adventure.’
Of course, he could only embark on this ‘adventure’ because of the protection, the education and, crucially, the political freedom, that this country gave him.
So how did he view this country? As an already politically aware 17-year-old, he wrote in his diary: ‘The Englishman is a rabid nationalist. They are perhaps the most nationalist people in the world . . . you sometimes want them almost to lose [the war] to show them how things are. They have the greatest contempt for the Continent. To lose their empire would be the worst possible humiliation.’
To help defeat Hitler, Ralph Miliband volunteered and served three years in the Royal Navy. When Labour, under Clement Attlee, swept to power after the war in 1945, he joyfully described the victory as ‘the country’s capture from its traditional rulers’. » | Geoffrey Levy | Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Ed Miliband Accuses Daily Mail over ‘Lie’ about Father »
