Evelyn John St Loe Strachey PC (21 October 1901 – 15 July 1963) was a British Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician and writer.

Background and education

Born in Guildford

Guildford

Guildford is the county town of Surrey. England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, the son of John Strachey, editor of The Spectator

The Spectator

The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

, he was educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

. At Oxford, he was editor, with Robert Boothby

Robert Boothby

Robert John Graham Boothby, Baron Boothby, KBE was a controversial British Conservative politician.-Early life:...

, of the Oxford Fortnightly Review. He later joined The Spectator.

Political career

Strachey joined the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 in 1923 and was editor of the Socialist Review and The Miner. He unsuccessfully contested the Aston Manor

Aston Manor

Aston Manor was a local government district in what is now northern Birmingham, from the 19th century to 1911, when it was added to Birmingham.The Aston Manor Local Board of Health was formed in 1869, from part of the ancient parish of Aston...

 Division of Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 in 1924 and was elected as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Aston

Birmingham Aston (UK Parliament constituency)

Birmingham Aston was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1885 until 1918 the constituency was known as Aston Manor, before becoming a Birmingham division from 1918 to 1974...

 from 1929-31 and was Parliamentary Private Secretary

Parliamentary Private Secretary

A Parliamentary Private Secretary is a role given to a United Kingdom Member of Parliament by a senior minister in government or shadow minister to act as their contact for the House of Commons; this role is junior to that of Parliamentary Under-Secretary, which is a ministerial post, salaried by...

 to Oswald Mosley

Oswald Mosley

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...

. He resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party

Parliamentary Labour Party

In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party is the parliamentary party of the Labour Party in Parliament: Labour MPs as a collective body....

 in 1931 for Mosley's New Party. Following the New Party's drift towards fascism he resigned to become a supporter of the Communist Party

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

, contesting the Aston constituency as an independent. He assisted the publisher Victor Gollancz

Victor Gollancz

Sir Victor Gollancz was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian.-Early life:Born in Maida Vale, London, he was the son of a wholesale jeweller and nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz; after being educated at St Paul's School, London and taking...

 in founding the Left Book Club

Left Book Club

The Left Book Club, founded in 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and 1940s in the United Kingdom set up by Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz and John Strachey to revitalise and educate the British Left. The Club's aim was to "help in the struggle For world peace and against...

 in 1936. As the author of The Coming Struggle for Power (1932), and a series of other significant works, Strachey was one of the most prolific and widely read British Marxist-Leninist theorists of the 1930s. He criticised the economics of John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

 from a Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 perspective before himself becoming a Keynesian.

He broke with the CPGB in 1940 and joined the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 in which he served as a Squadron Leader

Squadron Leader

Squadron Leader is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure. In these...

 with a temporary commission.
He was posted to the Air Ministry

Air Ministry

The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...

 as a public relations officer in the Directorate of Bombing Operations and made a reputation as an air commentator for the BBC, making official broadcasts about the men of RAF Bomber Command

RAF Bomber Command

RAF Bomber Command controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s stood at the peak of its postwar military power with the V bombers and a supplemental...

. He was adopted as Labour Candidate for Dundee in 1943 and was again elected to Parliament as Labour MP for Dundee

Dundee (UK Parliament constituency)

Dundee was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1950, when it was split into Dundee East and Dundee West....

 from 1945-50. He served as Under-Secretary of State for Air

Under-Secretary of State for Air

The Under-Secretary of State for Air was a junior ministerial post in the United Kingdom Government, supporting the Secretary of State for Air in his role of managing the Royal Air Force....

 in 1945, and is widely credited as having been responsible for ignoring Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and, by implication, Bomber Command from the Victory Honours List. This may have been retaliation for Harris' request to have Strachey removed from his wartime post within the Directorate of Bombing Operations due to Strachey's changeable political persuasions, a request that was not successful as Strachey remained in the post until the end of the war.

As Minister of Food

Minister of Food

The Minister of Food Control and the Minister of Food were British government ministerial posts separated from that of the Minister of Agriculture. A major task of the latter office was to oversee rationing in the United Kingdom arising out of World War II...

 in 1946, he was involved in the abortive Tanganyika groundnut scheme

Tanganyika groundnut scheme

The Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme was a plan to cultivate tracts of what is now Tanzania with peanuts. It was a project of the British Labour government of Clement Attlee. It was abandoned in 1951 at considerable cost to the taxpayers when it did not become profitable...

. He became a Privy Counsellor in 1946. On the division of the Dundee constituency, he was elected as Labour MP for Dundee West

Dundee West (UK Parliament constituency)

Dundee West is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post voting system....

 in 1950, holding the seat until 1963. He was Secretary of State for War

Secretary of State for War

The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, 1950-51. He supported Hugh Gaitskell

Hugh Gaitskell

Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...

 as successor to Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

 in 1955.

Personal life

His second marriage, in 1933, was to Celia Simpson. The marriage produced two recorded children: one son and one daughter.

Strachey died in Marylebone

Marylebone

Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, in July 1963 aged 61. His death caused a by-election in his Dundee West constituency, won by Labour's Peter Doig

Peter Doig (politician)

Peter Muir Doig was a British Labour Party politician.Doig was educated at Blackness School, Dundee and became a sales supervisor. He was elected a Dundee town councillor for ten years, serving as honorary town treasurer.Doig contested Aberdeen South in 1959...

.

Publications

• Revolution by Reason (1925)
• Workers' Control in the Russian Mining Industry, (1928)
• The Coming Struggle for Power (1932)
• The Menace of Fascism (1933)
• The Nature of Capitalist Crisis (1935)
• The Theory and Practice of Socialism (1936)
• What Are We to Do? (1938)
• Why You Should be a Socialist (1938)
• A Programme for Progress (1940)
• A Faith to Fight For (1941)
• Post D (1941/1942)
• Arise to Conquer (1944)
• Contemporary Capitalism (1956)
• The End of Empire (1959)
• On the Prevention of War (1962)
• The Strangled Cry (1962)

External links