During World War I, Clement Richard Attlee joined the British army. Later, he joined some socialist organizations and served in the former Labor Party cabinet. 1935 was elected as the leader of the Labor Party, opposing Chamberlain's appeasement policy towards Hitler's regime in Nazi Germany. After the outbreak of World War II, he served as minister and deputy prime minister of Churchill's wartime cabinet. 1945 In May, he led the Labour Party to withdraw from Churchill's government. In the prime minister election in July, he defeated Churchill by an absolute majority and attended the Potsdam meeting with Truman and Stalin. After the war, Attlee supported George Catlett Marshall's "European Renaissance Plan". At home, he implemented large-scale welfare undertakings, established a national medical service system and privatized some industries. His other important policy was to make Britain get rid of colonialism, complete decolonization and give independence to India and Myanmar, two former colonies. 195 1 stepped down and Churchill was re-elected as prime minister. 1954, he led a Labour delegation to visit China. He died in 1967 after accepting the earl's abdication. He is an important but forgotten figure in English history. Churchill's name often appears in the history of World War II, but Attlee is rarely mentioned. In the history of the Labor Party, he achieved some goals of the Labor Party and established a truly complete Labor Party government. Some scholars believe that Clement Attlee is the most outstanding prime minister after the war if compared with his political achievements. During the First World War, Clement Attlee served in Garipoli and Mesopotamia. After being seriously injured in the war, he was sent back to England for rest. After recovering from illness, he was sent to the western front of France on 19 18, but the war was drawing to a close, and he returned to China as a major at the end of the war. After the war, Clement Attlee returned to the London School of Economics and Political Science as a lecturer and began to devote himself to politics. He first became the mayor of Stepney, London in 19 19, and then was elected as a member of the House of Commons in Lehmhaus, Stepney in 1922, and entered the parliament from then on. After being elected as a member of parliament, he served as the private secretary of Congress of james mcdonnell during the short annual meeting of 1922.
Clement Attlee joined the government for the first time on 1924, and served as the Deputy Minister of War in MacDonald's "First Labor Government", but he soon left with the government stepping down. 1926, Clement Attlee actively supported the national strike, but in 1927, he reluctantly joined the Royal Simon Committee to conduct a feasibility study on the autonomy of British India. Joining this Committee made him too busy to take office in the "second Labour government".
It was not until 1930 that Clement Attlee joined the government again. At that time, Labour MP oswald mosley submitted an opinion on solving the unemployment problem, but the opinion was rejected, which prompted Mosley to resign as the president of Lancaster Territory. As a result, Clement Attlee took over the position. 193 1 When almost all the leaders of the Labour Party lost their seats in parliament, Clement Attlee was appointed as the director of the General Post Office. After George lansbury became the leader of the Labour Party at 193 1, Clement Attlee was appointed as the deputy leader. Like MacDonald, lansbury is also a loyal pacifist. Clement Attlee, like most Labour MPs, initially stood on the same front with the Liberal Party and opposed rearmament after World War I. This attitude of the Labour Party was later criticized by Churchill in The Storm. However, when Hitler and Nazi Germany dug in and lansbury resigned as the party leader on 1935, Clement Attlee and his Labour MPs opposed the appeasement policy.
As a result of lansbury's resignation, Clement Attlee served as interim party leader until the general election of 1935. After the general election, the Labour Party held a party leader election. Clement Attlee competed with Herbert Morrison and Arthur Greenwood. As a result, Clement Attlee was successfully elected and served as the party leader until 1955. So far, he is the longest-serving leader of the Labour Party. Clement Attlee served as the leader of the opposition until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Later, due to the unfavorable start of British troops in Norway, the Parliament proposed motion of no confidence to Chamberlain's government. Although the motion was not passed, it also prompted Chamberlain to resign in May 1940. In fact, Chamberlain originally intended to reorganize the wartime cabinet into wartime coalition cabinet to avoid its stepping down, but this triggered another crisis for the Labour Party. Regarding whether the Labour Party should join Chamberlain's wartime coalition government, party member had a heated debate at the workers' party congress, and Clement Attlee thought that even if he agreed to join Chamberlain's cabinet, his party member would not support him. As a result, the Labour Party and the Liberal Party finally joined Churchill's coalition government. During World War II, the British government had three important committees to lead war affairs. The first two were the wartime cabinet and the national defense commission, both led by Churchill, and Clement Attlee was the second in command. As for the third committee, that is, the Speaker Committee of the Privy Council, chaired by Clement Attlee, this committee is mainly responsible for civil affairs in wartime. This distribution is because Churchill is good at military affairs, while Clement Attlee is good at civil affairs. In addition, Clement Attlee will answer questions from members of parliament when Churchill is not in parliament.
Clement Attlee fully supported Churchill's leadership in wartime. When France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940, although the cabinet was divided on whether to continue the main battle or to negotiate peace, in the end, because Clement Attlee supported Churchill, Britain was able to continue fighting. In addition, in the whole five years, only the two of them have been serving in the wartime cabinet. Clement Attlee initially served as the minister in charge of seal affairs from 1940 to 1942, and served as the deputy prime minister from 1942 to 1945. In addition, he served as Minister of Dominion Affairs from 1942 to 1945 and as Speaker of the Privy Council from 1943 to 1945. Clement Attlee appeared on the cover of Time magazine for the second time, published in1February 6, 950. Because World War II has brought profound and extensive changes to British society, it is urgent for the government to carry out social reform. Among them, the Beveridge report published by 1942 clearly pointed out that the post-war government should aim at full employment as a stepping stone to a welfare state. Although all the major political parties in Britain agree with this policy, ordinary people think that it seems most appropriate to entrust such an important job to the Labour Party. The result of this mentality was fully demonstrated in the 1945 general election held after the European War. Under the leadership of Clement Attlee, the Labour Party won a disastrous election and unexpectedly defeated Churchill, who was seeking re-election, and became the British Prime Minister. In domestic affairs, Clement Attlee's government has a clear goal. His first health minister, aneurin bevan, established the national health service system in Britain under the pressure of public opinion. This controversial system has now been widely accepted by the society.
Clement Attlee's government has also made great efforts to nationalize major domestic industries and public utilities, especially coal and steel industries. In addition, he also established a state-owned British railway and national park system.
However, despite the above measures, the British economy is still dragged down by war debts. In addition, Britain's economy is in transition to peacetime, and maintaining strategic military deployment has caused an imbalance in trade balance and a shortage of dollars. However, these problems were alleviated by John Maynard Keynes's successful loan to the United States and Stafford Cripps's reluctant devaluation of the pound in 1949. From the later stage, although the post-war rationing system and coal mine shortage occurred from time to time, the post-war British economy actually recovered faster than expected. As for the government of Clement Attlee, despite the corruption scandal, Clement Attlee still received great support.
As for the royal relationship, the relationship between Clement Attlee's government and the royal family is tense. Queen Bao Si-Lyon wrote a letter on May 7th, 1947, in which she said that she had no interest in the socialist government at all. The British voters were "poor, and most of them were uneducated and confused", so she voted for Clement Attlee instead of the war hero Churchill. The writer Lord Wyatt also pointed out that the Queen is "the rightmost member of the British royal family".
In foreign affairs, Clement Attlee's government faced four major problems, namely, post-war European reconstruction, the beginning of the Cold War, the establishment of the United Nations and the decolonization of the British Empire. Clement Attlee paid special attention to the first two. In addition to ernest bevin's assistance, Clement Attlee attended the Potsdam Conference in 1945 and met with Truman and Stalin, leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union.
Under the leadership of Clement Attlee, the British government immediately took different measures to improve relations with Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1946, Clement Attlee invited a group of Soviet scientists and engineers to Britain. These experts have indicated to the British side that they want to visit the aircraft engine factory of rolls royce Company and visit the Hawaiian Goose Aircraft Engine (Nene) designed by Frank Whittle. Stalin once said privately that no "idiot is willing to sell his secrets", and the Royal Air Force also expressed strong opposition. However, under the planning of Sir Stafford Cripps, the far-left chairman of the Trade Commission, the Soviet scientific team finally got all the information they needed. Clement Attlee himself agreed to donate 40 Hawaiian Goose aircraft engines to the Soviet Union. As a result, the Soviets soon secretly improved the kerimov VK- 1 with the Hawaiian Goose engine and used it in the MIG-15 fighter (the Soviet side did not pay the copyright fee). The Soviet Union later sent this aircraft to North Korea, forcing the US military to stop sending B-29 bombers to the region, which also greatly threatened the air superiority of the United Nations over South Korea. Clement Attlee's cabinet also helped the United States to promote the Marshall Plan, which also played a great role in restoring the European economy. As for when Stalin later occupied the whole of Eastern Europe and secretly subverted the Balkan governments, Clement Attlee and Nestor Bevan realized that the Soviet Union could not be trusted. Because Clement Attlee no longer trusted the Soviet Union, NATO was founded. In addition, Clement Attlee successfully developed Britain's first nuclear weapon, but it was not until 1952 that Britain successfully tested a nuclear weapon for the first time, when Clement Attlee had stepped down.
Clement Attlee attended the Potsdam Conference with US President Truman and Soviet leader Stalin. On the issue of Palestinian trust territory, Clement Attlee contributed to the withdrawal of British troops from Palestinian areas, and handed over the Palestinian issue to the United Nations for settlement according to the will of the public, which finally contributed to the founding of Israel.
In colonial affairs, Clement Attlee's government faced the massive disintegration of the British Empire for the first time. India's success in fighting for independence also prompted the establishment of Pakistan and East Pakistan, namely Bangladesh. As for Myanmar and Ceylon, they are also independent during their term of office. Some of these countries have gained dominion status and will gradually develop into the present Commonwealth in the future.
The Labour Party won again in the 1950 general election, and Clement Attlee was re-elected. However, after this majority election, the majority advantage of the Labour Party in the House of Representatives has been greatly reduced. At that time, the Conservative Party had gradually gained an advantage, while the Liberal Party was in decline. Later, the Labour Party became nervous and even split because it funded Britain to participate in the Korean War. As a result, the Labour Party finally lost in the general election of 195 1, and the Conservative Party Churchill regained the position of Prime Minister.