Introduction: Crosland’s legacy as revisionist political strategist

Crosland insisted that post-war socialism must abandon consecrated slogans favouring up-to-date sociological investigation and iconoclastic political analysis. Through his numerous organisational activities and writings, Crosland contributed to discussions about the electoral and political strategy of Labour in post-war Britain. This chapter examines his legacy as a political strategist and ‘apparatchik’ who informed Labour about the imperative of adapting its ideas and programme in the light of economic and social change; he argued ‘if socialism is to survive in the modern world, it must undergo a process of modernisation’. The strategy of renovation was paramount in the wake of Labour’s electoral annihilation in the 1950s, particularly its third consecutive defeat in 1959. Crosland’s objective was not to abandon Labour’s values to secure political power but to ensure that social democracy addressed the needs of contemporary society, proposing relevant and practical policies to attract a broad coalition of voters. This approach required reforms of the party machinery to win the battle of organisation and ideas, externally against a resurgent and populist Conservative party, and internally against the Communist-inspired Left. The British Labour party in the aftermath of the bruising Bevanite and Gaitskellite battles of the 1950s was ‘a tumultuous alliance of diverse parts’.