Stafford Cripps

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Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, Cripps first entered Parliament at a by-election in January 1931, and was one of a handful of Labour frontbenchers to retain his seat at the October general election that year. He became a leading spokesman for the left wing and for co-operation in a Popular Front with Communists before 1939, in which year the Labour Party expelled him. During this time he became intimately involved with Krishna Menon and the India League. During World War II (1939–1945), Cripps served from May 1940 to January 1942 as Ambassador to the USSR, with major responsibility for building rapport with Molotov and Stalin, and upon the commencement of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 he was crucial to the forging of the alliance between the USSR and the UK. Back in London in early 1942, he became a member of the War Cabinet of the wartime coalition government. In...

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