The minority movement, learning the lessons for today

Tonight we had our last socialist party meeting of the year and ended in traditional fashion with our annual Christmas lectures delivered in excellent terms by Jim Horton one of our ex full timers and very experienced in Marxist and trade union history. This year our discussion was on the minority movement of the 1920’s the rise and the fall of the British Communist party and the lessons for today’s especially given our own role in the National Shops Stewards Network which although is not a decisive factor in the labour movement is growing in numbers and influence all the time. The first part of the twentieth century was a stormy period in the relations between the working class and the bosses. It was when the bosses tried to make the working class pay for the failings of their own system. But it was also when the working class built new organisations - both trade union and political. Stirred into that pot was the revolution in Russia in 1917, which had a profound inspiring effect on the working class worldwide, including on Britain. Later developments in Russia, the rise of Stalinism, in turn had a baleful effect on some of those new organisations. At the end of the nineteenth century, workers were pouring into the towns and cities of Britain during a period of rapid industrialisation. Unskilled workers organised into new unions outside the old craft unions. The employers aggressively attacked the working class as they scrabbled for profits with their rivals in Germany and the USA. Trotsky, writing where is Britain Going? In 1925 described the nature of those times: "... a state of internal want of confidence and ferment among the upper classes and a profound molecular process of an essentially revolutionary character among the working class..." Taff Vale One of the most notorious of these attacks on the working class was the Taff Vale Railway case of 1901, when the railway union was sued for losses after a strike. The bosses were awarded the equivalent today of £2 million in damages - effectively ruining the union. The fact that the bosses were using their own courts to seek revenge on the trade unions for organising strikes spurred many workers to discuss the need for political representation. In the 1906 general election the Tories were defeated by the Liberals. 29 Labour Representation Committee MPs were elected, along with 14 miners' MPs. Under this pressure the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 reversed the Taff Vale decision. But the working class still had to fight tooth and nail. The period of 1911-1913 saw a whole series of battles by the miners, railway and other transport workers. It was a period which Trotsky described as having the "vague shadow of revolution" hanging over it. The First World War, when the British ruling class attempted to cow its economic rivals, at huge cost to the working class, resulted in a labour shortage. And the bosses were forced to give some concessions in sickness and unemployment benefits. This had the effect of reinforcing the conservative tendencies of some of the leaders of the trade union movement. After all - if the bosses are giving concessions, all you need to do is to appeal to them to act reasonably. But most of the working class had other ideas. There was a huge strike wave between 1917 and 1920, most notably 'Red Clydeside', when the Clydeside engineers, led by the Clyde Workers' Committee came out for a 40-hour week. This was one of the early developments of a shop stewards' movement and where the government showed their true nature by sending in tanks and troops to try to break the strike. They were terrified of the idea of a 'triple alliance', of a united struggle of transport workers, railway workers and miners. That was the background to the formation of the Communist Party in Britain in 1920, led by hardened industrial militants like Willie Gallagher of Red Clydeside and Tom Mann. As those trade union and political organisations were being forged, the post-First World War boom was coming to an end. There were two million unemployed by June 1921. The miners were locked out in March 1921, after rejecting pay cuts. When they appealed to the Triple Alliance for support, the right-wing trade union leaders refused, on a day which became known as 'Black Friday'. This showed the need for the left to organise in the trade unions, making demands such as the democratic control of trade union officials. In 1924 the first congress of the Minority Movement was held, with 271 delegates representing 200,000 workers. It was led by Communist Party members but it also involved non-members like miners' leader AJ Cook who had left the Communist Party in 1921. At least some of the CP leaders saw the necessity of not only helping to mobilise workers against the bosses' attacks but also to challenge the muddled ideas of some of the left-wingers. Stalinism Unfortunately the Minority Movement was organising at a time when Stalin's ideas were developing in Russia - the idea of 'socialism in one country', abandoning the idea of international revolution. After Red Friday in 1925, when the government announced a subsidy to the mines, the TUC should have prepared the working class for a mighty struggle. That was certainly what the capitalists were doing, by buying time to prepare. Instead the CP ended up giving uncritical support to the "lefts" and eventually the TUC itself. The Minority Movement was still growing, with a nearly 700-strong conference in 1925 and a special conference to prepare for the 1926 general strike. After the TUC surrendered and called off the general strike, the CP leaders confessed that they had not realised what sort of a role the "lefts" could play. They were disappointed that the lefts had "turned out to be windbags". In 1927 the TUC instructed trades councils to disaffiliate from the Minority Movement, which effectively died shortly afterwards. By 1931 Trotsky referred to the CP as a "negligible sect". But there are rich lessons to learn from this period. Workers are often prepared to struggle but they need worthy leadership. And you have to fight to build that leadership - not just in the tops of the trade unions but leaders in every workplace and at every level of the trade unions. • for a more detailed account and analysis of the general strike, see 1926 General Strike, Workers Taste Power, by Peter Taaffe. With thanks to Alison Hill, industrial editor of the socialist

The role strikes have on class contiousness , lessons from 1926 ?

When the working class or part of the working class go out on strike it is not done lightly. Many reactionaries think workers love going out on strike and do it at the drop of the hat. This is not true. Many take it very seriously indeed.

The act of withdrawing your labour is a very powerful and symbolic one indeed where it hands the power back to the worker that work cannot be done if they do withdraw their labour.

It focus's the mind and concentrates their class contiousness.

At our socialist party branch meeting last night we discussed the 1926 general strike in Britain where the question of power and who holds it was posed and this frightened the establishment and the ruling class, including the trade union bureaucracy

last thing the TUC leaders wanted was a successful general strike. When it started they did everything to end it.
calling a general strike.
1926 general strike
TWO DAYS after the strike was called off, 100,000 more workers were on strike than at the beginning.

"There were no trains, no buses, no trams, no papers, no building, no power. In a strike, 100% is an unobtainable figure generally, but even this real 100% was frequently achieved". (The Common People, Postgate and Cole.)

Winston Churchill summed up the attitude of the ruling class: "It is a conflict which, if it is fought to a conclusion, can only end in the overthrow of parliamentary government or in its decisive victory, there is no middle course open".

British capitalism was weakened after the First World War. Simultaneously the British working class had been radicalised by the Russian revolution and the European-wide revolutionary movement which followed the war.

The British capitalists were forced to concede their dominance in world markets to American imperialism, the real victors of the war.

By 1925, exports from British industry had fallen to 76% of pre-war levels and imports had grown to 111%. The ruling class went on the offensive to attack working-class wages and conditions to boost profits.

The miners had elected a new union leader, Arthur Cook. He was a giant in comparison to other union leaders at the time.

He considered himself a follower of Lenin but he did not fully understand Lenin's methods, in particular the need for a revolutionary party.

In March 1925 the coal bosses cut the miners' wages and demanded they work an extra hour a day without pay. In a refrain familiar to Corus or Vauxhall workers, the capitalist press raged that this was the only way the coal industry could be saved.

Also, Baldwin, then Tory prime minister, made it clear that this was a prelude to a general offensive on all workers' wages and conditions: "All the workers of this country have to take reductions".

In response, Cook coined the slogan: "Not a penny off the pay not a second on the day".

The miners appealed to the TUC, who threatened a general strike.

The government, faced with a militant working class, was unprepared for a showdown. To give themselves some breathing space they proposed a commission under Sir Herbert Samuel to examine the coal industry.

Meanwhile, they gave the coal bosses a nine-month subsidy to forestall any moves by them against the miners. They then used these nine months to prepare for a fight to the finish with the working class.

In 1981, Thatcher also retreated in the face of miners' strikes against pit closures. She then spent the next three years building up coal stocks and preparing an inevitable struggle with the miners.

Churchill, a member of Baldwin's cabinet, organised a scab army to break the strike. Lord Londonderry, the chief spokesman for the coal bosses, summed up the attitude of the ruling class: "Whatever it may cost in blood and treasure we shall find that the trade unions will be smashed from top to bottom".

The ruling class's ruthless determination stood in stark contrast to the faint heartedness of the TUC leadership, both Right and Left. Jimmy Thomas, the rail union leader, boasted that he had "groveled" before Baldwin in an attempt to avert the strike.

Left-winger Purcell condemned as "damned Russian gold" the £1.5 million collected by the Russian workers in support of the British workers.

The strike begins
IN MAY 1926, with the subsidy ended, the mine owners launched their attack on the miners' wages and conditions. One million miners came out on strike and demanded that the TUC call a general strike.

But the TUC only called the first meeting of the general council strike committee six days before the deadline.

Jimmy Thomas spoke on 19 April 1926 about: "loose passions being let loose" and "every sane miners' leader wants, as every employer wants - peace". But the only peace the bosses wanted was a complete victory over the miners and the working class.

The ruling class mistook the cowardice of the union leaders for the workers' mood. Millions answered the strike call and hundreds of thousands of others demanded to be called out. The TUC tried to control the strike but the movement developed its own momentum.

Non-trade unionists struck. 100 trades councils became 'Councils of Action'. The employers were forced to ask them for permission to move essential goods.

The Councils of Action had the means of overthrowing the capitalist order and instituting a workers' government, just as had happened in Russia in 1917.

But this would only have been possible if a revolutionary party had come to the head of the movement. Such a party would have called for the Councils of Action to be linked up nationally.

The Councils of Action would have made a class appeal to the rank and file of the army to assist the working class. A workers' government, based on the Councils of Action, could have gone on to take state power and carry through a socialist transformation of the economy.

Stalinism
THE YOUNG Communist Party, formed a few years before, was found wanting. This wasn't just through inexperience, it was under the influence of the increasingly Stalinised Communist International.

Trotsky, who at the time was isolated in Russia by Stalin, was a lone voice in the Communist International, warning that the British ruling class was preparing for a showdown.

Under Stalin's influence the Russian leadership, instead of warning the British workers against their own leaders, created illusions particularly in the left of the TUC leadership by forming an Anglo-Soviet committee.

From the beginning of the strike, the general council conspired with Samuel. He recommended big cuts in the miners' wages and all except Cook on the general council went along with this as they called off the strike.

Workers were stunned when they heard the news, the strike had won nothing for the miners, who continued their strike for another six months before being forced back to work.

The TUC did not even get a 'no victimisation' agreement, so even more rail workers, dockers and others came out again when they heard the terms of the surrender.

Power or defeat
THIS WAS more than a strike over wages and hours, which was recognised by all but the union leaders.

Trotsky had warned that inevitably an all-out general strike poses the question of who rules. Either it leads to power or becomes a severe defeat for the working class.

Marxists do not lightly raise the demand for a general strike. In periods of heightened class struggle we have called for a one-day general strike, such as during the miners' strikes in the 1980s and the pit closure crisis in 1992.

The demand for a 24-hour general strike is a means of demonstrating its own power to the working class. It sends a shot across the bow of the ruling class, that unless they back off more serious action is likely.

The 1926 general strike affected all classes and demonstrated the potential power of the working class to run society. But its failure showed the crucial need for revolutionary leadership.

Without such leadership, even the working class's most heroic efforts to rid itself of capitalism are unlikely to succeed. Without a revolutionary party, firmly rooted in the working class and its mass organisations, the reformist trade union and labour leaders will betray the movement.

We must ensure that this does not happen again by building a mass socialist revolutionary party that can play this vital role in the future.


With extracts taken from Bill Mullins, Socialist Party Industrial Organiser excellent pamphlett on the general strike.