Editing Beatrice Webb (section)

== ''Soviet Communism'' ==
In 1928, the Webbs moved to [[Liphook]] in Hampshire, where they lived until their deaths in the 1940s. Soon Sidney was a minister in the new Labour government. Observing the wider world, Beatrice wrote of "Russian communism and Italian Fascism" as "two sides of the worship of force and the practice of cruel intolerance" and she was disturbed that "this spirit is creeping into the USA and even ... into Great Britain."<ref>Muggeridge and Adam, ''Beatrice Webb: A Life'', 1967, p. 225.</ref>

The frustrations and disappointments of the next few years – the election of a narrow Labour majority of MPs in May 1929, the Great Depression which began later that year, the agreement of fellow Fabian [[Ramsay MacDonald]], after the October 1931 election, to form and head a [[National Government (United Kingdom)|National Government]], thereby splitting the Labour Party – partly explain why Beatrice and Sidney began to look on the USSR and its leader Stalin with different eyes. {{Original research inline|date=May 2022}}

[[File:Beatrice and Sidney Webb, 1932.jpg|thumb|Beatrice and Sidney Webb during their trip to the [[Soviet Union]] in 1932]]
In 1932, Webb was elected a [[Fellow of the British Academy]] (FBA); she was the first woman elected to the fellowship.<ref name="FBA">{{Cite journal |date=1933 |title=Current Topics |journal=The Economic Journal |volume=43 |issue=169 |pages=174–175 |jstor=2224094}}</ref> That year, Sidney and Beatrice, now in their 70s, spent two months from 21 May to late July in the [[Soviet Union]]. Their views about the Soviet economic experiment were published three years later in a massive volume, over 1,000 pages in length, entitled ''Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation?'' (1935). Most of the text was written by Sidney Webb and based on a copious study of publications and statistics provided by the Soviet embassy in London. In 1933 he made a further "fact-finding" trip to the USSR before publication, accompanied by their niece [[Barbara Drake]], a prominent trade unionist and member of the Fabian Society, and by [[John Cripps (journalist)|John Cripps]], the son of their nephew [[Stafford Cripps]]. {{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}

Historians have criticised the Webbs for her supposition that the methods they had developed in analysing and formulating social policy in Britain could be applied to the Soviet Union. Their book promoted and encouraged an uncritical view of Stalin's conduct, during agrarian centralisation in the [[First five-year plan (Soviet Union)|first five-year plan]] (1928–1933), the creation of the [[gulag]] system, and the extensive purges of the 1930s.<ref>See, e.g., [[Robert Conquest|Conquest, Robert]], ''[[The Great Terror]]'' (1968 and subsequent editions).</ref> Trotskyist historian [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]] later described their 1935 account of the USSR as "pure Soviet propaganda at its most mendacious".<ref>Al Richardson, "Introduction" to [[C. L. R. James]], ''[[World Revolution (book)|World Revolution 1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International]]''. Humanities Press, 1937 {{ISBN|0391037900}}.</ref>

According to [[Archie Brown (historian)|Archie Brown]], there also seemed to be an element of deliberate deception. In the third edition of ''Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation'' (1941), for instance, the Webbs voiced the opinion that in 1937 "strenuous efforts had been made, both in the trade union organisation and in the Communist Party, to cut out the deadwood".<ref>[[Archie Brown (historian)|Archie Brown]], ''The Rise and Fall of Communism'' (2009), p. 122.</ref> This phrase was used to reassure a wider public about the damning accusations against former leading Bolsheviks. In her diaries, Beatrice expressed her disquiet at the opening of the [[Moscow Trials]] in the summer of 1936,<ref>See diary entry – 28 August 1936, pp. 330–336 of archived typescripts.</ref> and after the conviction of [[Nikolai Bukharin]] in March 1938.<ref>Diary entry – 8 March 1938, pp. 36–37 of archived typescripts.</ref>

''Soviet Communism: A New Civilization?'' – in later editions the question mark was dropped, as was any public doubt the Webbs might have about the nature of the USSR – has since been roundly condemned. In the preface to an anthology of [[Left Book Club]] publications,<ref>[[Paul Laity|laity, Paul]], ''Left Book Club Anthology'' Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001 {{ISBN|0575072210}} (p. xvii).</ref> for instance, British historian [[A. J. P. Taylor]] is quoted as calling ''Soviet Communism: A New Civilization'' "the most preposterous book ever written about Russia". In the early 1930s [[Malcolm Muggeridge]], one of Beatrice's own family by marriage, and himself the son of a Fabian, told her in no uncertain terms of his horrified disapproval of the Soviet system. {{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}

She was among those listed in the German-compiled [[The Black Book (list)|"Black Book"]].<ref>{{cite book | first=Walter | last=Schellenberg | author-link=Walter Schellenberg | title=Invasion, 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain | publisher=Little Brown Book Group | page=259}}</ref>

[[Ivan Maisky]], the [[Soviet Union]]'s ambassador to the United Kingdom during much of [[World War II]], was friendly with Webb. In a conversation with Webb on 10 October 1939, Maisky quoted her as saying "Churchill is not a true Englishman, you know. He has Negro blood. You can tell even from his appearance."<ref>{{cite book|last=Maisky|first=Ivan|author-link=Ivan Maisky|editor-first=Gabriel|editor-last=Gorodetsky| editor-link = Gabriel Gorodetsky |title=The Maisky diaries : The Wartime Revelations of Stalin's Ambassador in London|url=https://archive.org/details/maiskydiarieswar0000mais/mode/2up?view=theater|edition=Paperback|year=2016|publisher=Yale university Press|location=New Haven and London|isbn=978-0-300-22170-1|page=234}}</ref>