"The challenge is going to come from Russia. The challenge is not going to come from the United States. The challenge is not going to come from West Germany nor from France. The challenge is going to come from those countries who, however wrong they may be – and I think they are wrong in many fundamental respects – nevertheless are at long last being able to reap the material fruits of economic planning and of public ownership. ... Our main case is and must remain that in a modern complex society it is impossible to get rational order by leaving things to private economic adventure. Therefore I am a Socialist. I believe in public ownership."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomHumanistsAtheistsLabour Party (UK) politiciansDemocratic socialists
Original Language: English
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Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (29 November 1959), quoted in Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan, Volume Two: 1945–1960 [1973] (1975), pp. 643–644
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan
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Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin Bevan (15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician who is best known for overseeing the creation of the National Health Service in the Labour government after World War II. Bevan, a left-winger, was intermittently in trouble with the Labour leadership; in the 1950s he astonished his supporters by opposing unilateral nuclear disarmament. He overcame a speech impediment and was regarded as one of the most eloquent public speakers of his day.
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