Editing Hugh Gaitskell (section)

== Academic and early political career ==
In 1927–28 Gaitskell lectured in economics for the [[Workers' Educational Association]] to miners in [[Nottinghamshire]]. His essay on Chartism was published as a WEA booklet in 1928.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> This was his first experience of interaction with the working class.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p198">Campbell 2010, p198</ref> Gaitskell eventually came to oppose both Cole's [[Guild socialism]] and [[Syndicalism]] and to feel that the General Strike had been the last failed spasm of a strategy – attempting to seize power through direct trade union action – which had already been tried in the abortive [[Black Friday (1921)|Triple Alliance Strike of 1921]]. It is unclear whether Gaitskell was ever sympathetic to [[Oswald Mosley]], then seen as a future leader of the Labour Party. Gaitskell's wife later insisted that he never had been, but Margaret Cole, Evan Durbin's wife and [[Noel Frederick Hall|Noel Hall]] believed that he was, although as an opponent of factional splits he was not tempted to join Mosley's [[New Party (UK)|New Party]] in 1931.<ref>Williams 1985, p43</ref>

Gaitskell helped to run the New [[Fabian Society|Fabian]] Research Bureau, set up by G. D. H. Cole in March 1931.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> He was selected as [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] candidate for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]] in autumn 1932.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> Gaitskell moved to [[University College London]] in the early 1930s at the invitation of Noel Hall.<ref name="Saville_1980">{{cite journal | author = [[John Saville]] | publisher = [[Socialist Register]] | journal = The Socialist Register 1980 | title = Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963): An assessment | date = 18 March 1980 | volume = 17 | issue = 17 | pages = 155–158 | url = http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5450/2349 | access-date = 8 October 2010}}</ref> In 1934 he joined the XYZ Club, a club for Labour financial experts (e.g. [[Hugh Dalton]], of whom he became a protégé, [[Douglas Jay]] and [[Evan Durbin]]) and City people such as the economist Nicholas Davenport.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> Dalton and Gaitskell were often referred to as "Big Hugh and Little Hugh" over the next fifteen years.<ref>Williams 1985, p70</ref>

In 1934 Gaitskell was in [[Vienna]] on a Rockefeller scholarship.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> He was attached to the [[University of Vienna]] for the 1933–34 academic year and witnessed first-hand the political suppression of the [[Social Democratic Party of Austria|social democratic]] workers movement by the [[Fatherland Front (Austria)|conservative]] [[Engelbert Dollfuss]]'s government in February 1934.<ref name="Saville_1980" /> This event made a lasting impression, making him profoundly hostile to conservatism but also making him reject as futile the Marxian outlook of many European social democrats. This placed him in the socialist [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionist]] camp.

At the [[1935 United Kingdom general election|1935 general election]], he stood unsuccessfully as the Labour Party candidate for [[Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)|Chatham]]. Gaitskell helped to draft "Labour's Immediate Programme" in 1937. This had a strong emphasis on planning, although not as much as his mentor Dalton would have liked, with no plans for the nationalisation of banks or the steel industry. He also drafted documents which would have been used in the election due in 1939–40.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> Dalton helped him to be selected as candidate for South Leeds in 1937, and had it not been for the war, he would very likely have become an MP by 1940.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p198" />

Gaitskell became head of the Department of Political Economy at UCL when Hall was appointed Director of the [[National Institute of Economic and Social Research]] in 1938,<ref>Brian  Brivati, "Gaitskell, Hugh Todd Naylor (1906–1963)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''</ref> jointly with [[Paul Rosenstein-Rodan]].<ref name="Dell 1997, p.567">Dell 1997, p.567</ref> He also became a University Reader.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> He opposed the [[appeasement]] of [[Nazi Germany]]<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.287" /> and supported rearmament.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p198" />