From the elections of July 1924 to the British Union of Fascists' soft coup in 1931, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald led Great Britain into an era of reconstruction, the strengthening of workers' and civil rights, and scientific-technological progress, linked to the West's rising industrial wealth and vanguardism of the Roaring Twenties. Like many in the post-war democratic socialist wing of the Labour party, Ramsay had carefully observed the success of the Soviet New Economic Plan, a dual system in which the free market coexisted with state control over vital heavy industries and in which both the welfare state and labour rights were very strong. However, unlike the Soviets who abolished private property, Labour believed that a transition from private enterprise to worker-owned enterprise could be fostered peacefully.
For nine years, Ramsay MacDonald's government developed a modern, industrialised welfare state within Great Britain, which would rely on free trade with the world's independent nations and not on imperial hegemony over their resources. Trade with the United States of America proved vital, as this nation followed a model of foreign policy similar to what MacDonald sought in Britain, and its market was well oriented towards it. Throughout the battered Europe, British industrial products became renowned as some of the finest and of the highest quality; so did British weapons. MacDonald's cabinet, especifically Sir Arthur Harris, convinced him that a second great war was likely within ten years, leading to the complete recreation of the British Navy and the British Air Force. Having been depleted of capable officers and working equipment by the Grand Exile towards Canada, the British government planned to field a relatively small fleet and air force, but one possessing cutting-edge technology and trained in the latest tactics and strategies of war.
Ramsay called his style of governance "British Socialism", and it became increasingly estranged with Soviet-style authoritarian bolshevism throughout the course of the interwar period, but especially following the wars of aggression which Trotsky carried out in the mid-1930s. His successor, Clement Atlee, would further pull Britain west by allying with Germany and America during World War II, becoming one of the great powers involved in creating the United Nations.
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