[page 7]
such they were effective enough). The ruling class was prepared, if it came to it, to face a civil war to achieve its objectives. They were well aware of the very real revolutionary implications of the general strike once it was set in motion.
Although the General Council allowed the movement to drift into the Strike without any real preparations, the responce of the workers to the strike call was overwhelming. "We have from all over the country", said the General Council's communique on May 4th, "reports that have surpassed all our expectations. Not only the railwaymen and transport men, but all other trades came out in a manner we did not expect immediately. The difficulty of the General Council has been to keep men in what we might call the second line of defence rather than call them out". This was no mere diplomatic exaggeration, either
The rank and file were in no doubt about the political nature of the strike. A report from • Deptiord Labour Party recorded that:"after
the third day of the strike if spoke about the coalowners audience would listen to you polite indifference, but if you acked the Government, or mentioned the word, you the audience with you and that cheers and wild enthusiasm. issue was the T.U.C. and government-the miners and nwners were a secondarv issue"
you
the with atteven had with The
the
the
All over the country, the workers' organisations sprang into action, demonstrating tremendous powers of initiative and improvisation. In many areas, the Trades Councils were broadened to involve the Co-ops, Labour Parties, housewives' committees, and so on, thus forming Councils of Action which gave local and even regional direction to the strike. "The controlling body in each town had various names. Often the trades council formed itself into a council of action (at Ilford an 'action committee'), and a central, or joint strike committee would work in harmony (or otherwise) with it." (Wilkinson, Horrabin and Postgate: 'Workers' History of the Great Strike', 1927).
The example of one area, that covered by the Northumberland and Durham Trades and Labour Council (documented by R.Page Arnot in his history of the miners, "Years of Struggle"'), provides a magnificent example of the response of the workers. At the start of the strike, it drew up a "Plan of Campaign" which defined its objective as follows: "To defeat the Civil Commissioner appointed for this Region. The Civil Commissioner is appointed by the Government and is armed with the Emergency Powers Act in order to break the strike. Our immediate aim is to prevent him doing that in
Baldwin and Churchill, the two faces of Toryism. Bitterly hostile to the labour movement, Churchill pressed the government to provoke a head-on clash with the unions. "We are at war, we must go through with it," he shouted at his less belligerent colleagues. Baldwin, no less determined to defeat the workers, understood the advantages of combining well-organised force with a show of reasonableness and moderation. "I still think we were right in buying off the strike in 1925," he said afterwards. Baldwin bought time to swing middle-class "public opinion" initially on the miners' side, against the unions. "A general Strike with public opinion on your side would be short and sharp; without its support, long and difficult." With all the instinctive skill of an old-fashioned Tory, Baldwin completely outmanoeuvred the pusillanimous TUC leaders.
this town. But in order to do that effectively we must offer a resistence throughout the whole region over which he has been given plenary powers. That is, we must deteat the Civil Commissioner and • all his strike-breaking apparatus."
From the minutes of this body, we can also see the scope of its activity: 'Councils of Action. The first task: Tonight's meeting should set up a Council of Action and plan out all the machinery and all the tasks for the locality. The second task is to set up replicas of this Council of Action in every corresponding locality throughout the various counties, so as to make a network of Councils of Action linked up with a central directing body whose authority and scope would exactly answer to the Civil Commissioner." Later in the same minutes: "Tasks of Councils of Action: The Council of Action will have a number of tasks for which sub-committees should be set up. These will include: Communications (Dispatch Riders etc); Feeding Centres; Food and Transport; Co-operative Societies; Local Government; Sports(to serve a double purpose); Defence Corps; Picketing; Permits; Organisation of Women; Publicity (a)Local Stencils, (b) Other Publicity; Information."
The regional authority took shape, early on Tuesday, May 5th, as the Northumberland and Durhan General Council, together with a joint strike committee, which took over, and was given supreme authority subject only to the T.U.C. General Council. Their organisation was so effective that, within forty hours, the Civil Commissioner came by night to negotiate personally with the Strike Committee. Later, the Commissioner, together with the regional army commander, came to plead for "dual control" of the transport of food. This proposal was immediately rejected by the Joint Strike Committee ("we cannot agree to our men working under any form of dual control" read the minutes), which at the same time decided: "that we now use the discretionary powers vested in us by Trades Union Congress and withdraw all permits today" '. On the fourth day of the strike, the minutes recorded that: "On Friday the success of the general strike seemed completely assured. It was clear to everyone that the OMS organisation was unable to cope with the task imposed upon it. The attitude of the population was favourable to the strikers and unfavourable to the Government. There were no disturbances.
5
[page 8]
the Trade Unionists maintained an almost perfect discipline.... The situation as a whole was now well in hand."
This impression of the complete solidarity of the Strike, involving even the unorganised workers and achieving an almost total paralysis of industry in the main industrial areas despite the presence of troops and strike-breaking volunteers, is confirmed by Wilkinson et. al. in their "Workers' History of the Great Strike": "By the second week the strike organisation, in nearly all the towns of which we have information, was in full working order and the workers were reaching out to fresh development. They were, as numerous reports put it, 'just beginning, and the full force of their attack was only commencing to be felt. Mass pickets, defence corps, propaganda, commissariat, federation over wider areas-all these were just coming into play."
The Strike was "just beginning"! Alan Hutt recalls ("'Post War History of the British Working Class" p.151) that in Methil, at the end of the
Strike, he found the men thinking: "Well, in another day or two we'd better walk into power...!" Through realising their power in the Strike, the workers felt their power in society. Having become conscious of this power, they inevitably began to feel that no mere concession on wages, which in any case would only provide a temporary respite, could satisfy satisfy their new-found sense of power. Having taken on the ruling class in an all-out struggle, they had either to advance towards power, or retreat and face defeat. Only a complete change in society could provide success. But while the workers actually held the power in their hands in most of the key localities, at national level they were waiting on events. Because there was no political leadership capable of giving the Strike socialist aims, the initiative was bound, in the end, to pass back to the Government, which still had the state apparatus in its hands and which was able to bend the official trade union leaders to its own ends.
amunary Iracuumul, Leader of the Labor Party in 1926. His support for the General Strike was less than enthusiastic. A few hours before it began he said: "I don't like General Strikes. I haven't changed my opinion. I have said so in the House of Commons. I don't like it; honestly I don't like it; but, honestly, what can be done?".
of our class...The new phase of development which is world wide has entered on the next and probably the last stage of revolt. It is the duty of all members of the working class so to soldify their movements that, come when the time may for the final struggle, we shall be wanting neither machinery nor men to move forward to the destruction of wage slavery and the construction of the new order of society based on co-ordinated effort and work with mutual goodwill and understanding..." The lefts adopted, at least in words, a militant stance, talking in terms of the class struggle and the need to prepare for a decisive struggle. In 1925 the General Council decided to demonstrate its solidarity with the Russian revolution by forming the Anglo-
Soviet Joint T.U. Advisory Committee (on which Hicks, Purcell and
Swales became the British repres-
entatives). Hysterical denunciations
of this move from the capitalist press
gave the lefts a certain revolutionary
aura. But, as Leon Trotsky warned
at the time, the lefts hoped to use a
radical stance on an international issue as a safety vavle, exploiting it as an alternative to a genuine revolu-
tionary stand on the issues facing the
movement on its home territory.
The General Council's adherence
to the Anglo-Soviet committee was
the main justification used by the
Communist Party leadership for its
increasingly uncritical support for
the "left" leadership. Trotsky's war;
ning (of January, 1926) went entirely
unheaded: • It would be a mistake to
overestimate the influence of these
lefts upon the unions as organ-
isations of class struggle...The left
faction on the TUC General Council
is distinguished by a total ideological
formlessness and for this very reason
it is incapable of consolidating
THE "LEFTS"
AND THE
COMMUNIST PARTY
From their own point of view, the serious bourgeois commentators have come to the same conclusions as Marxists: "Having once committed their forces to a lost cause, " (i.e. preventing wage cuts) writes J.C.L. Thompson in the "Sunday Telegraph" (3rd February 1974) "the General Council could only either surrender, or change direction and convert the strike into a full-blooded insurrection which they dreaded as much as anyone else."
The role of Thomas, Bevin, Citrine—the "right" and "centre" on the General Council-was quite consistent with their ideas and actions in previous years. The adyanced workers were far from expecting them to turn the Strike into a struggle for power, giving it socialist aims. Nevertheless, however hard this may be to believe now, among the active workers there were strong illusions in the readiness and ability of the General Council to provide leadership. This was because in the period before the Strike the "left" union leaders had gained a strong, seemingly dominant, position in the
T.U.C. leadership. High expectations in these lefts was reinforced by the enthusiastic support of the Communist Party
The defeat of the Labour Government had given way to renewed industrial struggle in 1924—25. The Minority Movement (founded in 1924) became a strong influence, gaining the support of 1¼million union members. This provided the Communist Party with a strong industrial base. At the same time, reflecting the pressure from below, the official leadership came under the influence of a group of "lefts" They included Fred Bramley, T.U.C General Secretary, Lon Swales of the AEU (T.U.C. President, 1925), Alf Purcell of the furnishing trades (T.U.C. President, 1924), George Hicks of the AUBTW, and, notably, Arthur Cook, recently elected General Secretary of the Miners' Federation on a Minority Movement platform.
In his presidential address, Swales told the 1925 Congress: "We are entering upon a new stage of development in the upward struggle
[page 9]
around itself organisationally the leadership of the trade union movement."
This warning proved to be deadly accurate. Although the "left" Swales was chairman of the T.U.C. "Special Industrial Committee" which responsible for strike preparations, nothing was done. Only the Miners Federation really prepared at all. Because they had no clear perspectives, when it came to the decisive test of events the lefts could provide no alternative. First they vascillated and then retreated to the position of the right. With the right, wrote Trotsky, "stands tradition, experience and routine and, most important, with them stands bourgeois society as a whole which slips them ready-made solutions" . The right and centre knew what their position was. Pugh (who succeeded Swales as T.U.C. chairman) argued that "sound tactics implied an acceptance by the miners of the (Samuel) report in substance, subject to subseqent negotiations on any point of reasonable modification." Bevin was privately drawing up plans for putting the Samuel report into operation "to the advantage of the miners" • Lacking any worked-out, consistent socialist policy, the lefts had no alternative but to accept the "solution" of the right.
Afterwards, the lefts collaborated in the justification of the General Council's policy and the suppression of discussion of its role in the Strike. Even Look, who continued to denounce the General Council's betrayal of the miners, agreed to the postponement of a special executives' conference until the miners' lock-out had ended. He also suspended the sale of his pamphlet "Nine Days" in which he had attacked the Council's conduct of the strike. Later Cook lent his enormous authority to Pugh in the chair at the Bournemouth T.U.C. when he ruled that the delegates could not discuss the Strike and the General Council's conduct of it. Having been implicated in the sell-out by the T.U.C. leadership, the lefts now had no interest in discussing the lessons of the Strike.
What was the role of the Communist Party? Immediately before the Strike it had about 4,000 members and undoubtedly embraced the most militant and politically conscious workers. Through the Minority Movement it has had a strong influence in the unions. Broader layers of sympathetic workers regarded it as the party of socialist revolution. Today, the apologetic 'theoreticians" of the Communist Party print long articles (rightly) showing the enormous influence of the Party in the key areas in 1926—but then going on to argue that it was "too small" to alter the outcome. Yet despite its relatively modest size. the Party could have
had a decisive influence on the course of events in 1926—had it been armed with the correct strategy and tactics.
In 1924 J R Campbell, one of the CP leaders wrote: "It is the duty of the Party and the Minority Movement to criticise its weakness and endeavour to change the muddled and incomplete left-wing views of the more progressive leaders into real revolutionary viewpoint" (Communist Review, October 1924). But this is precisely what they did not do. Following the formation of the Anglo-Soviet Committee, the Communist Party gave increasingly enthusiastic and uncritical support to the trade union lefts. When these same lefts supported the exclusion of CP. members form the Labour Party, they contented themselves with mild strictures for this "mistake" • Demands and activities which might embarrass the lefts were played down. The CP's main demand was for the granting of full powers to the T.U.C: General Council, with only vague references to its "obligation to use the power to fight more effectively the battles of the workers" '. By uncritically supporting the lefts, the CP covered up for them. The Party's euphoric welcome to the left leaders' rhetoric at the 1925 Trade Union Congress undoubtedly contributed to the disarming of the advanced workers. "When Swales delivered his opening speech," rhapsodised the "Workers' Weekly" (18 September, 1925), "the real temper of the Congress began to manifest itself. The more militant became the mood, the more delegates responded to his fighting challenge." If the lefts must bear a heavy responsibility of "lend-
ing colour" (as Page Arnot wrote after the Strike) to the idea that the General Council was making preparations, the CP leaders must bear an even heavier responsibility for "lending colour" to the credability of the General Council lefts in the first place.
The main responsibility for the authority of the lefts in the movement, however, rested with the Stalinist leadership of the Russian Communist Party and the Communist International (Comintern). The bureaucratic elements on whom Stalin's control was based had became more and more remote from the working class, especially internationally. This disastrous degeneration arose from the isolation of the Russian revolution and the country's barbarous cultural level which, together with the concessions made to private businesses and the rich farmers under the New Economic Policy, fostered the growth of bureaucracy. The Stalinist leadership reflected, at first unconsciously, the pressure of this ruling elite for privileges and stability. This increasingly conflicted with the internationalist perspectives of October. The bureaucratic leadership saw more security in an opportunist alliance with the official trade union lefts in Britain than in a successful revolutionary movement. Thus, instead of giving reliable guidance to the relatively weak and inexperlenced British CP, the Comintern leadership only reinforced its confusion, imposing a line that suited the foreign policy interests of the Russian bureaucracy rather that the interests of the world working class.
After the event, the CP turned to
A mass picket in the East End of London stops a van and removes the driver.
[page 10]
criticise the lefts. In June, 1926, the EC of the Comintern passed a resolution saying that: "The 'left' leaders, who had a majority on the General Council, put up no resistance whatever to the deliberate traitors like Thomas, but marched all the time under right-wing orders. In fact Thomas and Co. ran the General Council throughout the course of the strike....Thus the 'left' played an even more shameful role... " Since 1926 there has been no shortage of denunciations of the 'lefts' from the leaders of the CP. But it came too late. and even then the denunciations were never accompanied by an honest and thorough discussion of the CP's mistakes during the Strike. The CP were not wrong to support the lefts when they
were actually moving left and reinforcing the militancy of the movement. But it should have been critical support, accompanied by a campaign for an independent Marxist policy. When the lefts began to vascillate and move towards capitulation, the CP should have decisively broken with them. Because they lacked clear perspectives-and because they were subjected to pressure from the Comintern leaders notto break with the lefts—the CP failed to do this. Instead, they continued to call for "All Power to the General Council". Thus, although the CP played a leading role in many of the councils of action, they failed to provide a viable political alternative at a national level.
But the strike did not come to an end
immediately. Once again, in spite of
the TUC leaders, the workers took
matters into their own hands, this
time to prevent the rout that had
been invited by the General Coun-
cil's precipitate surrender.
Despite Thomas' pathetic appeal
to Baldwin to act with generosity and
to ask the employers "to make the postion as smooth and easy as possible". , Baldwin announced that the government had "no power to compel employers to take back every man who has been on strike, nor have they entered into any obligation of any kind on this matter". This was naturally seen by the employers as an invitation to smash the power of the unions and to put an end to collective bargaining. Many men reporting for work on Thursday morning were refused work. Ohers were offered re-employment on condition that they accepted wage cuts, loss of pension rights, or agreed not to join a union. The railway bosses especially tried to exploit the situation to victimise union militants.
Had the men returning to work succumbed to the pressure of their employers, the union leadership would have been able to do little about it. 'The bosses in all trades," reported one group of strikers, "felt that now they had the trade union movement at their feet, and all they had to do was stamp on it." Thomas had not even asked Baldwin to give the assurances formulated by the TUC negotiating Committee. The General Council had told the strikers to follow the instructions of their own executives, thus abdicating any responsibility for ensuring a return to work without massive victimisation. Even Ernest Bevin, who had been one of the most forceful supporters of a negotiated settlement, was alarmed: "Something has happened, and the best way to describe today if we are not quick, is that we have committed suicide. Thousands of members will be victimised as the result of this day's work"
Without waiting for a lead from either the TUC or their own execuțives, the strikers refused to accept the humiliating and disasterous terms which the employers were trying to dictate. Their anger was reintorced by the knowledge, by now general, that the lUC had called off the strike without the miners' assent. As a result, on the Thursday, the tenth day of the Strike, there were 100,000 more workers out than on other day. In some areas, the strikers stayed out for another week to fight against victimisation and reprisals.
Alarmed at the rank and file action and desperate to regain the initiative, the executives of the transport workers and of the three
THE CONSEOUENCES
NSEQUER
DEFEAT
The Geneal Council called off the strike on 12th May on the grounds
that they had "obtained assurances that a settlement of the mining problem can be secured which justifies them bringing the general stoppage to an end." In fact, they had no such assurances. Even though Sir Herbert Samuel had given them his word-"a British gentleman who had been Governor of Palestine." as Thomas, who had been Colonial Secretary in Mac- Donald's government, put it-Baldwin's government completely repudated his conciliartory "assurances." The government simply used Samuel's proposals to provide the General Council with a pretext, for which they were frantically searching, to call of the Strike. In any case, the miner's leaders had completely rejected them because they involved wage cuts. When they announced their surrender, Baldwin refused to give the General Council any assurances whatsoever: In his broadcast to the country, the Prime Minister said that it had been ended "without conditions entered into by the government. No government confronted by such a menace could enter into a conditional negotiation, the very undertaking of which would involve treachery to the accepted basis of our democratic constitution."
Baldwin's broadcast gave
8
the General Council's self-congratulatory statements which, despite the fact they were well aware of the real situation, represented the outcome of the Strike as a great victory for the miners and the workers generally. "General Council Now Satisfied that Miners Will Now Get a Fair Deal" proclaimed the British Worker. 'Miners thank their allies" ran another headline, in spite of all the miners' leaders' denunciations of the General Council's gross betrayal of their position.
Some strike committees apparently took the General Council's bogus claims at their face value, only to be rapidly disillusioned. Others thought that the telegrammes and statements purporting to come from the TUC to have been faked by the government as a manoeuvre. Most Councils of Action, however, realised only too well what was going on. At one mass meeting, news of the TUC's surrender was greeted with "furious boos and hissings". At another, copies of the British Worker were thrown into the faces of the TUC volunteers handing them out. Hull reported: "Alarm-feardespair-a victorious army disarmed and handed over to its enemies." "It was too early to shout that we were betrayed," wrote the chairman of Lewisham Council of Action, "but privately that was the only thing of which we were certain."
[page 11]
rail unions ordered their members not to return to work until previous agreements were recognised. The General Council belatedly issued an appeal to "Stand Together" • Later
the General Council made even stronger statements, warning the employers that the trade union movement "is not beaten. It is not broken. Its strength is unimpaired and reinforced by the solidarity which the response to the General Strike revealed." While the trade union leadership was pushed into taking steps to defend the organised basis of its own position, the government itself was now alarmed at the new turn in the situation, which threatened a stormy sequel to the General Council's action. Baldwin was forced to change his tune and make a new statement denouncing any attempt to undermine working conditions or to destroy trade unionism: "I will not countenance any attack on the part of any employers to use this present occasion for trying in any way to get reductions in wages below those in force before the strike or any increase in hours.... there can be no greater disaster than that there should be anarchy in the trade union world. It would be impossible in our highly developed system of industry to carry on unless you had organisations which could speak for and bind the parties on both sides."
The determination of the strikers to resist victimisation, the last minute about turn of some of the trade union leaders, and Baldwin's appeal had their effect. By the weekend agreements were reached in all the main industries. The terms were better than those originally offered, but still involved considerable reductions in living standards and the erosion of trade union strength on the shop floor. There was still widespread victimisation, especially on the railways, but the strength of the workers, even in defeat, was still sufficient to prevent mass victimisation and the crushing of the trade union organisations.
The miners stuck it out until they were forced back, in November, by hunger and despair of success. The coalowners had refused to negotiate at all until the miners accept wage cuts. Ine government had repealed the Seven Hours Act and the coalowners imposed longer hours and lower rates on the miners who were gradually drifting back to work. The TUC even refused to impose an embargo on the big coal imports which were undermining the effects of the stoppage. When the Miners Federation was forced into submission, the miners had to accept district agreements, longer hours, and lower rates; and a large number of miners remained unemployed.
In 1927 the government enacted the Trades Disputes Act, which put a
legal stamp on the defeat suffered by the trade unions. The Act made general strikes illegal and prohibited sympathetic strikes. It provided wide protection for blacklegs and made all effective forms of picketing illegal. Civil servants were barred from joining unions affiliated to the TUC or the Labour Party. The political levy was changed from "contracting out" to "contracting in", which considerably reduced trade union contributions to the Labour Party in the following years. Undoubtedly, on paper, the most reactionary antitrade union legislation since the
Crambie the Trades Disputes A it
practice the Trades Disputes Act remained largely a dead letter. Because of the gradual improvement in the living standards of employed workers, fear of unemployment, and the collaboration between the trade union leaders and the employers, there was a marked decline in the number of strikes in the late 1920's and 1930's although there were big strikes in the textile industry and the rank and file increasingly resorted to
unofficial action to circumvent struction from above.
Having sabotaged a successful strike, having capitulated without even trying to secure a line of retreat, and having even suppressed national discussion of their policy, the General Council proceeded to rationalise defeat. By their actions after the strike, the TUC leaders again confirmed the idea that, in a period of crisis, policies polarise to two extremes: either change society on socialist lines-or accept the brutal logic of capitalism. Thus, sure enough, the TUC leaders openly turned to collaboration in a capitalist revival as the main line of their policy.
At the Labour Party Conference in October, 1926, Robert Williams, the transport workers' leader, clearly expressed the new line of the leadership: "Let us seek industrial peace through methods of conciliation. We cannot subvert or ovęrthrow we must supercede capitalism."
NORA
J H Thomas, General Secretary of the NUR [1917-1931]. Reporting on his negotiations with Baldwin to the Conference of T.U. Executives on 30th April, 1926, Thomas candidly told them: "My friends, when the verbatim reports are written, I suppose my usual critics will say that Thomas was almost grovelling, and it is true. In all my experience-and I baro conducted many negotiations-I have never begged and pleaded like I berged and pladad all day today, and I pleaded not alone bocause I bellered in the case of the mlacre, bat because I bellered in my bones that my duty to the country tarolred tt....".
[page 12]
185 &
1909. Socret Mist.
- although, as he trankly admitted. "whether socialism will come in our time... is a matter for conjecture." At the Bournmouth Trade Union Congress. Arthur Pugh(Iron and Steel Trades) laid stress on what he called a "scientific wages policy" • The unions he argued. were an "institution" of capitalist society. "as much part of the life of the community as the Law Courts or Parliament" . Pugh's statement clearly prefigured the tendency of the next period of the trade union leadership to become tied in with the state as an instrument of its policy against the workers.
Only a month after the enactment of the Trades Disputes Act, George Hicks, one of the former 'left leaders. took the initiative(in his presidential address to the 1927 Congress) of offering to co-operate with the employers "in a common endeavour to improve the efficiency of industry and to raise the workers' standard of life." A truly magnanimous offer under the circumstances! Later a group of twenty leading businessmen. led by Sir Alfred Mond the founder of I.C.I., wrote to the T.U.C. indicating their willingness to have joint discussions. Mond's inter stressed that "industrial reconstruction can be undertaken only i. conjunction with, and with the -operation of, those entitled to and empowered to speak for organised labour. "More to the point. it said 'hat "the prosperity of industry can. in our view, be fully attained by full and frank recognition of facts as they exist, and an equally frank determination to increase the competitive power of British industry in the worlds' markets." An old, familiar song! The workers will make sacrifices on the Altar of Profit.
The T.U.C. leaders subsequently set up a National Industrial Council together with the Employers' Organisations, which in turn established a Joint Standing Committee to operate a policy of joint wage agreements and compulsory arbitration. In return for national recognition by the big monopolies, the trade union leaders agreed to police their own ranks. It was in this way that most of the national wage bargaining agreements, many of which still formally exist today, were established.
"Given intelligent exploitation by 'wide awake capitalists' of the 'new age of electricity and chemistry", said Philip Snowden (one of MacDonald's lieutenants) with amazing optimism
in 1926, "then the capitalist system will be given a new ard more powerful lease of life." True, after 1945 under the new conditions that emerged, capitalism entered a new period of growth. But for this the workers had paid the price. Taking unemployment into account, the real wages of 1913 were not attained again until 1930. In the 1930's, real wages rose only very slowly. Unemployment fluctuated between 1½ and 3 million. And it should not be forgotten that the defeat of the British workers in this period contributed to the world-wide defeats of the working class which paved the way for the rise of fascism and the Second World War.
THE GENERAL
STRIKE TODAY
The 1926 events, in spite of the defeat for the workers, nevertheless demonstrated the immense power of the class once it moves into action. The rallying of the strike after the General Council's capitulation deterred the ruling class from attempting to smash the unions and to some extent curbed the employers' attacks on the workers. Now, two generations later, the potential of the working class is much greater.
Even the growth of the struggling British capitalism-especially the concentration of industry into the hands of a few big monopolies-has provided the basis for a thousandfold increase in the strength of the proletariat. In its size, cohesion and weight in society, the working class is
incomparably greater than in 1926. At the same time, the trade unions have been greatly strengthened. In 1926 only about 28% of the workers were organised. Now approximately half of all workers are in unions. There are 10½ million trade unionists affiliated to the TUC. Including their families, this now constitutes a big majority of society. There has been an even greater strengthening of trade union organisation at a local, factory and combine level. With at least 300,000 shop stewards in Britain, the shop stewards' organisations have an extremely powerful position in many sections of industry. White-collar and semi-professional workers, civil servants and teachers, who in 1926
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were not part of the labour movement and could be drawn on for strike-hreaking volunteers, have now been to a large extent organised and involved in struggles of their own.
The increased complexity and inter-dependence of the modern economy-highly dependent, for example, on a centralised electricity supply grid-has also increased the ability of the workers to paralyse the economy. The Northern Ireland Ulster Workers' Council strike in 1974, although organised on completely reactionary basıs, clearly demonstrated this. Faced with a strike by the power engineers and technicians, the military authorities flew in naval technicians to try to run the power stations. But the military technicians had no idea of how to run them and were completely confounded by the voluminous instruction manuals. "The army therefore concluded," writes Robert Fisk in his book on the strike, 'The Point of No Return," "that they could do nothing to maintain the power system in Northern Ireland, and by inference anywhere else in the United Kingdom, without the assistance of the technical operators, the middle management who controlled the supply and grid." At the time of the 1972 miners' strike, the Electrical Power Engineers' Association, which is affiliated to the TUC and had itself been involved in strike action against the Heath government, informed the government that they would walk out completely if soldiers were sent into the power stations, and Heath made no attempt to use them.
The marked difference in the attitude of the students, many of whom scabbed in 1926 but who were publicly thanked by the miners' leaders for their help in the 1972 strıke, is symptomatic ot a wider shift in the attitude of the middle class. Their unquestioning loyalty can no longer be taken for granted by the ruling class. Because 'of Britain's disastrous decline in the world, they can have little confidence in the future under capitalism and many sections are now sympathetic to the working class, as Heath found out to his cost between 1970 and 19/4.
For much of the post-war period, the boom in western capitalism disguised and cushioned the decline and decay of British capitalism. The last period, however, with a slowing down of world trade and, last year a world-wide slump in production and trade, has laid bare the rottenness of the system in Britain. With a drastically reduced share of world trade and a shrinking manufacturing sector at home, British capitalism's position is being rapidly undermined even further by the continuous devaluation of the 'floating' pound and soaring inflation. Notwithstan-
Edward Heath: forced to reverse all hi policies and retreat from deliberate confrontation with the trade unions.
ding the recent upswing in profits there has been a disastrous longterm decline of big business profits. The conclusion drawn by the representati es of capitalism is that there must be a massive cut in the living standards of the workers, and also some of the middle layers, to pay for reinvestment and to restore the profitability of big business. To do this, however, they have to find some way of overcoming the accumulated power of the workers' organisations now considerably augmented by the gains of the boom period.
Demoralised by its economic failures and exasperated. by the tenacious opposition of the workers' organisations, the ruling class is split and uncertain of its policies. This was shown by the Tory government of 1970 to 1974, which was forced to abandon or reverse all its major initial policies. Heath deliberately set out to take on the trade unions, but only succeeded in arousing and uniting the working class in an unprecedented manner. Tory policies resulted in the highest number of strike-days lost since 1926. They brought about the first big official national stoppage in a number of industries since the 1920s, besides giving rise to a number o: unofficial political strikes against anti-trade union policies. Local authority workers, post office workers, railwaymen, electrical power workers, the miners and others were moved into action. New sections, such as the previously weak and highly exploited hospital workers, were involved in strike action for the first time. Civil servants, teachers and professional workers were also pushed into action and brought into the labour movement.
Heath's attempt to fetter the trade unions with the Industrial Relations Act also came to grief. The arrest of five London dock stewards under the
Act immediately aroused other sections against the government. The
TUC General Council called a 24
hour general strike only when the
government was already on the
retreat. But if the government had
not quickly released the five
stewards, the strike of the dockers
would undoubtedly have spread to
other industries. In 1972, the TUC
was reluctant to organise support for
the miners. But the flying pickets,
which cut off coal supplies from the
power stations, the almost complete
refusal by other workers to cross the miners' pickets, and active support
for pickets under attack from the
police, as at Saltley, ensured the
complete success of the strike. In
1974, even without the flying
pickets, the recognition of picket lines (in some cases simple notices)
by other trade unionists, was enough
for the miners to succeed again.
Heath was obliged to retreat and call
a general election to get the
government out of a mess. The
contrast between the wavering and
bungling moves of the Heath
government and the ruthless and
determined tactics of Baldwin's
government in 1926 is another
indication of the changed relation-
ship of forces which exists now.
Since the return of the Labour government, the industrial struggle has subsided and the chances of a general strike are, for the time being, remote. A profound aversion to any return to a Tory government and traditional loyalty to the Labour leaders has dampened working class opposition to the crisis policies being continued under Labour. The complete lack of any alternative from the 'left' labour leaders has enabled the government to obtain the "reluctant acquiescence" of the movement for its pay policies and the cuts. Nevertheless, the possibility of a general strike will undoubtedly be brought to the fore again by events. The replacement of the Labour government by a Tory government or, more probably, a 'National' coalition government—in reality a Conservative government disguised by the inclusion of Labour renegades, Liberals, Nationalists, etc., would very quickly lead to big industrial battles. The tempo of events will depend on the economy. The precarious position of British capitalism, which has entered a period of short upswings and slumps, creates a potentially explosive situation in which small strikes or sudden polital changes can rapidly flare up into much bigger battles.
A general strike in the future, because of the changed balance of forces outlined here--and also the changed relationship of forces internationally-would take place under completely different conditions from 1926. In the last decade. the May events in France in 1968, the series of
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general strikes in Italy after 1969, an the 48-hour strike in Argentina in February 1975, revealed the crushing preponderance of the workers and their enormous power when they move into action.
In spite of the role of the 'leaders' of the trade unions, who were pushed into calling, or forced to go along with, general-strike action, these strikes all shook the capitalist system to its foundations. In France, in 1968, the ruling class was forced to retreat before the power of the mobilised workers, and grant considerable economic concessions in order to bring the strike to an end. Because the strike did not lead to the workers taking over power and reorganising the economy on socialist lines, many of the gains were later taken back by counter-nieasures and inflation. During the strike, which drew in thousands of unorganised workers and sections of the middle class, the workers, who had taken over the factories and the streets and paralysed the economy, instinctively realised that they could only succeed by taking political power into their own hands. The ruling class themselves recognised the real situation: De Gaulle flew to consult with the French NATO commander in Germany and was forced to admit, "the game is up." But the leaders of the 'Communist' Party and the mass trade union federations did everything in their power to divert the workers from a struggle for power attempting to limit the strike to a struggle for economic concessions and reforms. In this way, De Gaulle, having been forced to retreat initially, was able to regain the initiative, consolidate the regime and prepare the way for another period of capitalist rule through right wing presidents and governments.
In Italy, a whole series of general strikes forced big business onto the defensive. Yet again, because the trade union leaders used them to "let off steam" and avoided the question of power, the titanic movement was dissipated, leading to a succession of reactionary governments and opening the way to the growth of fascist organisations. In Argentina, the 48-hour general strike called by the leaders of the 3.5 million-strong CGT in July, 1975, forced President Isabel Peron to grant 150% wage increases even before the end of the strike. However, although the strike gained concessions and temporarily checked the reaction, the failure of the labour leaders to lead a struggle for power paved the way for a disastrous defeat. Only months after this enormous strike, in March 1976, General Videla was able to stage a successful coup d'etat and launch an economic attack and political repression against the labour move-
BLIT STR
not dl1976, in forced the Banda Cour tag the comes power of the big batteflone
Britain, and the favourable balance of forces, it would undoubtedly require a series of defeats before the workers' strength was broken and the labour movement faced destruction. Even the dissipation of the tremendous strike movement in Italy, while it has opened the way to set-backs for the workers and the growth of fascist organisations, has not decisively undermined the workers' movement and new waves of struggle are inevitable.
In Britain, because of the objective balance of forces, the perspectives for socialism are overwhelmingly favourable-provided that the ideas of Marxism are made the ideas of the whole labour movement. The inevitability with which every general strike challenges the rule of the capitalist class and poses the need for the workers themselves to take power makes clear the inseparable connection between industrial and political struggle. This is even shown at the moment by the joint talks between the TUC and Labour government-though the TUC leaders, in supporting a policy of wage cuts and public spending cuts to restore profitability, have drawr conclusions diametrically opposed t the interests of the workers. To continue to serve the interests of the
capitalist decline and crisis, the trade unions must be transformed into organs for the socialist transformation of soc
the immediate demands of the workers are becom
incapable of being satisfied within the framework of a diseased economy and therefore even immed. iate, limited demands must generalised and linked to a socialist programme. The lessons of the 1926 General Strike, together with recent
momen, Bon the ma mons
international experiences under new
movement, both the trade unions and the Labour Party, must be prepared for the socialist transformation of society, the need for which any future general strike will again pose clearly and sharply.
mahese developments have impor-
tant lessons for Britain. 'Commemorating' the General Strike recently, all the serious journals of big business have been forced to conclude that a general strike is not entirely a thing of the past, buried in history and never to be repeated. But they view the prospect of a new general strike with fear and horror, themselves far from confident that it would have the same favourable outcome for them as in 1926. Because of the power of the workers and the experiences of the active layers under the Heath government,
National 'National' government, could well
new Tory government or a
lead rapidly to a general strike which would gain immediate concessions and bring down the government. As in 1974, this might well lead to a Labour government, but, under those conditions, a Labour government pushed far to the left by the tremendous pressure of a working class that had just gone through a general strike. Nevertheless, even a successful general strike could not be a lasting success unless the necessary political conclusions were drawn from it. Unless a Labour government elected under such circumstances implemented a programme for the socialist transformation of society, the labour movement could again suffer disastrous defeats in the following period. The degeneration of British capitalism, the determination of the bosses to find a way out at the expense of the workers, and the inevitable trade union resistance to attacks, would pose the question of either the inauguration of a socialist society or the defeat and destruction of the labour movement.
As the example of Argentina has graphically demonstrated, bloody reaction can follow even a successful general strike unless it is carried through to its logical conclusion of workers' power and the reorganisation of production under workers' democracy. Because of the enormous power of the organised workers in
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