It was during this period that the Labor Party lost the support, temporarily at least, of many of the Conservatives and Liberals who had voted for it in 1945. The reasons for the shift are difficult to ascertain. Certainly many people were affronted by nationalization, especially when it directly affected their interests (though many of them had voted for Labor expecting such changes). The continuation of high taxation, which seemed permanent after the start of rearmament in 1950, alienated others. The ineffectual way in which the Labor government seemed to be handling many of its problems, particularly the coal shortage, affected the political opinions of many. "Damn it, we live on an island made of coal," said one civil servant who had voted for Labor in 1945. "It's monstrous to have a coal crisis. What are they playing at?" In one field the Labor government won the grudging respect of the Tories: its approach to the problem presented to the West by the aggression of Soviet Russia. Mr. Attlee's dry, precise refutations of Soviet policy might be a weak substitute for Churchill's thundering oratory, but the nation found a paladin in the squat, rolling figure of Ernest Bevin. Bevin had spent much of his life fighting British communists for the control of the unions. Entering the rarefied atmosphere of international affairs at the top as Foreign Secretary, he brought to his new task the blunt tongue and quick insight he had employed so successfully in the old. Between 1945 and 1950, when the British Labor Party was at the top of its power, Russian Communism was on the march in Europe. It had no tougher opponent than this Englishman. The Russians recognized him as a prime enemy. In Moscow in 1946 and 1947 the Soviet press denounced and assailed Bevin as hotly as they did any other Western figure. Indeed, the whole Labor government was vilified almost daily. The reason for this savage onslaught on the earnest and industrious Marxists of the British government was obvious. Stalin and his lieutenants had been talking about socialism for decades. Here was a regime that might make it work without throwing hundreds of thousands into labor camps and allowing millions to starve. The anxiety of the rulers of Russia can be compared to that of the proprietors of a black market who learn that an honest shop is going into business across the street. So this sturdy proletarian, Ernest Bevin, became one of the champions of the West in the cold war and was praised by Conservatives and Liberals. The left wing of his own Labor Party provided most of the criticism. Still cherishing the illusion that the Russians could be induced to drop their hostility to the West through "frank and open exchanges," Bevin's comrades led by Aneurin Bevan attacked his policies and especially his desire to maintain the Anglo-American alliance.