Revisiting The Road to Wigan Pier

I’ve just finished reading George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier and thought I’d re share the review by Peter Taaffe the General secretary of the socialist party. It fits my understanding of the b ook and captures the mood perfectly. George Orwell was perhaps the best known of the English socialist writers of the 1930s and 1940s. He is justifiably famous for books like 'Homage to Catalonia' and 'Animal Farm', as well as '1984'. Less familiar, however - particularly to the new generation - is 'The Road to Wigan Pier'. But it deserves to be better known, not only because of his analysis and searing indictment of British capitalism in the 1930s. Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary The Road to Wigan Pier powerfully resonates with us today because of the obvious comparison with the current economic crisis of Britain and the world, and its effects on the lives and conditions of working-class people. Orwell also elucidates some significant insights on class, poverty and the socialist 'project'. There was no 'Wigan Pier' when he wrote the book because it had disappeared. It was a metaphor for the decay of British society on the backs of the collapse of capitalism. What would he have said - what images would he have conjured up - to describe the massive de-industrialisation, even greater than the 1930s, which took place under Thatcher's reign and continues apace today? One manifestation is the 'mothballing' of the Corus steelworks in Teesside. In the former 'workshop of the world', manufacturing now accounts for only 12% of gross domestic product. In simple prose - Orwell was an advocate and brilliant practitioner of 'plain English' - he paints powerful literary frescos to describe the abject conditions of the working class, particularly the industrial working class, in places like Wigan and the north-west of England. Sears the mind His description of the consequences of unemployment sears the mind, particularly against the current background of the seemingly inexorable rise of those 'on the dole' today. He writes: "A Labour Exchange officer told me to get at the real number of people living on (not drawing) the dole, you have got to multiply the official figures by something over three. This alone brings the number of unemployed to round about six millions." This was because of the number of 'dependents' of the unemployed. But there is also the 'working poor', who Orwell described - allowing for "these and their dependents, throw in as before the old age pensioners, the destitute and other nondescripts, and you get an underfed population of well over ten millions. Sir John Orr [a nutrition expert of the time] puts it at twenty millions." Some things have obviously changed since the 1930s; there are fewer families depending on one income, with more women working, etc. But the real unemployment figure in Britain is not the 'official' 2.5 million or so but is probably at least a third more than this. Taking into account the number of families affected, it is possible to arrive at a figure, not as high perhaps but relatively similar, to that of George Orwell. Poverty Moreover, poverty has mushroomed as all the recent statistics have shown. The desperation of working-class people, brutally charted by Orwell, is present today. Witness the case of a young woman from Hackney who, late last year, threw herself off a tower block, killing herself and her five-month old child, because she had no job, no home and no income. The description of the lives of sections of the working class such as the miners - now largely disappeared as a force because of de-industrialisation and the defeats of the 1980s and 1990s - is unforgettable. He confesses: "I am not a manual labourer and please God I never shall be one, but there are some kinds of manual work that I could do if I had to... but by no conceivable amount of effort or training could I become a coal-miner; the work would kill me in a few weeks." Orwell describes the three-foot wide seams in which a miner is sometimes compelled to work, the three-mile agonising walk to the coalface to start work, the amount of effort required to extract coal and earn even a meagre wage. This would convince most people never even to seek to go down a mine, let alone perform the herculean efforts of the miners and the working class generally. Colossal wealth of the possessing classes Yet the colossal wealth of the possessing classes and British society as a whole has been built on this. Orwell explains: "If I live to be sixty I shall probably have produced thirty novels, or enough to fill two medium-sized library shelves. In the same period the average miner produces 8,400 tons of coal; enough coal to pave Trafalgar Square nearly two feet deep or to supply seven large families with fuel for over a hundred years." The miners may have gone but the working class still labours - sometimes as intensively, as with their modern counterparts in China, for instance, in the new sweatshops of world capitalism. Moreover, when Orwell describes poverty, he does it in an unalloyed fashion; not for him the 'dignity of labour' but exactly the opposite, the arduous spirit-crushing lot of working-class people. Overcrowding We read about the overcrowding from a miner; when he was a child "his family had slept eleven in a room and thought nothing of it." As an adult, "he and his wife had lived in one of the old-style back-to-back houses, in which you not only had to walk a couple of hundred yards to the lavatory but often had to wait in a queue when you got there, the lavatory being shared by 36 people." These conditions may no longer be common - with the widespread introduction of inside toilets, baths, etc. but are in the living memory of many of the older generation of working-class people. Orwell is not, however, completely one-sided, concentrating just on poverty. He also describes the positive communal feelings and the attempt to overcome their circumstances. He writes of his "memory of working-class interiors [of houses]... that reminds me that our age has not been altogether a bad one to live in". But his sweeping condemnation of the consequences of British imperialism comes out clearly: "And this is where it all led - to labyrinthine slums and dark back kitchens with sickly, ageing people creeping round and round them like blackbeetles. It is a kind of duty to see and smell such places now and again, especially smell them, lest you should forget that they exist; though perhaps it is better not to stay there too long." The heart of the book The heart of the book is a forensic, detailed analysis of the class system. Unbelievably, in the 1930s, the very existence of this class system was questioned - as it has been in the 20 years preceding the present economic crisis in Britain and today. Orwell not only describes the plight of the working class but also the deterioration of the conditions of the "sinking middle class". He mercilessly demolishes the snobbery of what is, in effect, his own class, the middle class: "In the kind of shabby-genteel family that I am talking about there is far more consciousness of poverty than in any working-class family above the level of the dole. Rent and clothes and school-bills are an unending nightmare, and every luxury, even a glass of beer, is an unwarrantable extravagance. Practically the whole family income goes in keeping up appearances." He describes himself as being born into the "lower-upper-middle class", "or rather sub-caste". Moreover, he is painstakingly honest about his prejudices in the past, his origins, etc. He writes: "When I was fourteen or fifteen I was an odious little snob." At the same time he describes the period after the First World War: "England was nearer revolution than she has been since or had been for a century earlier." This even profoundly affected the middle class. Orwell describes his (private) school class when, in answer to the question, "'Whom do you consider the ten greatest men now living?'... Of sixteen boys in the class (our average age was about seventeen) fifteen included Lenin in their list." He also describes the great effect on him of Jack London's 'The People of the Abyss' in forming his own socialist beliefs. (He drew on this in his book 'Down and Out in London and Paris', which is good but not as powerful as London's earlier great work.) Clear, simple language He argues for clear, simple language, preferring the word 'robbers' to describe the bosses; the 'robbed' are the working class. This is taken too far when he opposes the use of 'comrade' in the labour movement. This is a good term - although perhaps unfamiliar to workers first approaching socialist ideas - to describe those involved in the common struggle for socialism. He can also be a bit dismissive of socialist theory and other writers. There are other drawbacks in the book, one of the most striking being the underestimation of the state of consciousness and preparedness to take action of the working class. He criticises the "passivity" which he has witnessed in Wigan and elsewhere. But he underestimates the cumulative effect of defeats - the 1926 general strike - as well as the effects of mass unemployment, and above all the lack of an effective leadership of the working class as a whole. Similar problems are posed before the labour movement today. Yet he is uncompromising in his bitter denunciation of "parlour pinks", largely middle-class, uncommitted socialists who may be described as "champagne socialists" today: "All that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat." Such sweeping language would be completely inappropriate today. After all, vegetarianism, yoga and even the wearing of sandals are not the preserve of the middle class today! Scathing Nevertheless, the type of 'leader' or would-be leader that Orwell describes and is scathing about still infests the labour movement. So do the careerists. Orwell is passionate about socialism and its necessity, seeking to explain it in simple - sometimes simplistic - terms. In his 'Lion and the Unicorn' essay, he writes: "England is a family with the wrong members in control." In his literary criticism of radical writers, he is very sharp and not entirely inaccurate in describing both them and himself at a certain stage as a "snob and a revolutionary". He is also one-sided in what appears to be an attack on "industrialism". Even then, when his approach is questionable, he does bring out issues which are vital for the approach of human beings towards work. The devastating effects of unemployment is as keenly felt as in Orwell's day; with those affected having no "stake" in society. It is particularly criminal that a million young people in Britain and millions throughout the world face the dead end of not having a job. Advocacy of socialism But his advocacy of socialism and what needs to be done is clear: "There is no chance of righting the conditions I described in the earlier chapters of this book... unless we can bring an effective Socialist party into existence. It will have to be a party with genuinely revolutionary intentions, and it will have to be numerically strong enough to act." A similar task is posed today. Moreover, his words touch us today because there are great similarities between now and the period of his writings. He wrote: "It hardly needs pointing out that at this moment we are in a very serious mess, so serious that even the dullest-witted people find it difficult to remain unaware of it." Is this not the situation today in Britain and elsewhere? He goes on: "For enormous blocks of the working class the conditions of life are such as I have described in the opening chapters of this book, and there is no chance of those conditions showing any fundamental improvement... Even the middle classes, for the first time in their history, are feeling the pinch." Ditto again. "Everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism as a world-system is a way out" His conclusion? "And all the while everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism, as a world-system and wholeheartedly applied, is a way out... Socialism is such elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already. "The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system." Simple but nevertheless fine words. In other comments about the difficulties of advocating socialism, he takes a swipe at Stalinism without mentioning it by name, the right-wing parliamentary Labour Party of the time - similar to today - and criticism of writers who have not fully immersed themselves in the problems and struggles of working-class people. 'The Road to Wigan Pier' is a very good book, worthy of revisiting by those who have read it before but particularly for the new generation looking for a way out of the "mess" of capitalism that Orwell describes so effectively. We need the likes of George Orwell today, chroniclers of the working class, their lives, loves, problems, etc. but also passionately caught up in the battles of the labour movement and for a socialist world. They would give artistic expression in a much more complicated world and a changed working class to the titanic struggles which loom and will provide abundant material for new socialist writers, novelists and artists.

Thatchers brutal "them and us" legacy

Alistair Tice, Socialist Party regional secretary, Yorkshire Millions have been waiting for this day, 8 April 2013. Margaret Thatcher will never be forgiven for the devastation that her Tory governments' policies wrought on working class communities in the 1980s - and is still being felt today. "I would suggest as a memorial to Mrs Thatcher that instead of the usual headstone or statue, a dance floor should be erected over her grave". This was proposed by a writer to the Observer paper from Durham, a former mining area, on the 30th anniversary of her coming to power. Seeking to avoid the anger and opposition that a state funeral for Thatcher would invite the government is nonetheless planning a state funeral 'by any other name'. Having spared no venom to attack millions of low-paid, unemployed and disabled people forced to subsist on benefits, Downing Street discovered it had a delicate side and has declined to say how much the 'ceremonial funeral' will cost the public purse. No doubt it will be in the millions. Nonetheless many ex-miners and their families, trade unionists and socialists are now dancing - in celebration of her demise. The Guardian reported on the response in Orgreave, a town famed for the major attack on striking miners orchestrated by Thatcher in the 1980s. One veteran "said he was thinking of getting t-shirts printed saying 'Thatcher's in hell - she's only been there a few hours and she's already closed down the furnaces'." The Guardian described responses to her death: "Propping up the bar, the men compared text messages they'd received throughout the day. A typical example: 'I enjoy a good swim. But if someone asked me what my favourite stroke was I'd say Maggie Thatcher's.' Another proudly brandished a text message he'd received just after 1pm saying simply: 'Parteeeeee time.'" Myths 'By your friends shall ye be known' is a well-worn cliché but in Thatcher's case it is insightful. Many have taken to social media to remind us of who Thatcher counted among her pals - murderous Chilean dictator Auguste Pinochet and former US president Ronald Reagan, her co-architect of brutal neoliberalism. But at the same time, politicians, press barons and editors are fawning and flattering in the praise they spew out for her as the prime minister who they say made Britain great again. She was nothing of the sort. Tory MPs and right-wing commentators on the BBC and elsewhere also use the opportunity to attack the trade unions. In analysing her role and legacy, we must start with de-bunking some popular myths. The film industry tried to sell the Iron Lady as a feminist icon. Thatcher was the first female prime minister but her reactionary policies set back previous advances towards women's equality. Her commitment to 'Victorian values' and belief that "there is no such thing (as society)" were the ideological justification for cutting public services and pushing the burden onto the family, which in most cases meant women. She opposed 'subsidising' mothers to go out to work saying it would have discouraged them from staying at home to look after their children. Over half of Britain's working women were denied the right to maternity benefits, paid maternity leave and shorter working hours. Publicly funded childcare fell to the lowest level in western Europe. While being a grocer's daughter from Grantham rather than an aristocrat or millionaire may have made Thatcher more determined to succeed as a politician in an old-boys club, it was the economic and political conditions in Britain in the 1970s that allowed her right-wing policies to come to power rather than any personal qualities. Economy Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary, has previously remarked that: "Friedrich Engels, alongside Karl Marx, the originators of the ideas of scientific socialism, commented that each era calls for personalities required by objective circumstances. But if they do not exist in a rounded-out form, it 'invents' them. Thatcher, without any of the scruples or hesitation of the aristocratic Tory grandees, was the brutal face of British capitalism required by the situation. She not only polarised society but the Tory party itself." Twenty years earlier during the post-war economic upswing and mixed economy consensus, she would not have become Tory leader or, if she had, not as a Thatcherite. But the economic stagnation and industrial strife of the 1970s meant that the ruling class abandoned the post-war settlement of mildly re-distributionist and Keynesian policies in favour of attacking the living standards and rights of the working class in order to restore the profitability of an ailing British capitalism. Thatcher, a convert to the monetarist, free-market ideology of Hayek and Milton Friedman, replaced the defeated prime minister and Tory 'wet' Ted Heath in 1975, and won the general election in 1979. However, it was the Labour leadership that prepared the way for Thatcherism by starting to implement neoliberal policies in the 1970s. Thatcher won three general elections and stayed in power over eleven years, giving the appearance of being both popular and impregnable. However, she was neither. According to opinion polls, she was, during her time in office, actually the second most unpopular post-war prime minister. But the Labour leadership failed to take advantage of this. On the one hand it had failed to tackle the problems of the working class and on the other hand it had directed its energy against challenging the left, particularly Militant. In this it revealed its degeneration from a pro-workers' party at bottom to what it is today, indistinguishable from the other pro-capitalist parties. After the 1981 inner-city riots her personal approval rating was only 23% and a Times headline read: "The most unpopular prime minister since records began". After defeating the miners' strike in April 1985 the Tories were 5% behind in the polls and in April 1990, when the poll tax was introduced in England and Wales, they were 24% behind Labour! Popularity? In other words, at the height of class struggles which polarised society, Thatcher was clearly seen as fighting for her class against the majority of society, the working class. Much of her perceived strength was actually the reflected weakness of the trade union and Labour leaders. While her 1983 election victory owed most to the so-called Falklands Factor, Thatcher jingoistically wrapping herself in the union flag to defeat the "enemy without" at the cost of hundreds of lives, the right-wing Social Democratic Party (SDP) split-off from the Labour Party and the beginning of the witch-hunt against Militant supporters (the forerunner of Socialist Party) meant that Labour was divided and seen as unelectable. Had the pit deputies union NACODS acted on their big strike ballot, had the docks and railway solidarity strikes lasted longer, and if the TUC leaders had called a general strike in support of the miners, then the Thatcher government could have been brought down in 1984/5 like the Heath government was in 1974. Even then, Labour leader Neil Kinnock lost his party's poll lead by attacking NUM president Arthur Scargill and the Militant-led Liverpool City council in the run-up to the 1987 election. But Thatcher was beaten. Her government was forced to retreat in 1981 when the South Wales miners threatened to strike against pit closures. Liverpool Liverpool City Council, by mobilising mass support for its policies of building houses and creating jobs, forced the Tory government to concede an extra £60 million funding in the summer of 1984. This was heralded as "Danegeld" by the Times - Danegeld was the tribute in gold demanded from the English rulers in the 13th century by the invading Danes in exchange for not engaging in pillage and plunder. Thatcher then used these retreats, although forced on her, to prepare more thoroughly to defeat first the miners and then 'left-wing' Labour councils. Poll Tax After winning the 1987 general election, Thatcher made the mistake of attacking all the working class at once by introducing the Poll Tax, a punitive and regressive charge on all adults for local services. She declared the 'Community Charge' as her flag-ship policy. Militant warned it would be her Titanic. Starting in Scotland in 1989, where the tax was to be introduced first, Militant helped initiate a campaign of mass non-payment organised by anti-poll tax unions, which spread to the rest of Britain in 1990. At its height, 18 million people were refusing to pay the poll tax, the biggest campaign of civil disobedience ever. Just after the so-called poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square (caused by the police attacking a 200,000 strong demonstration) the Tories were 24% behind in the opinion polls. Despite courts, bailiffs and jailings, non-payment grew making the tax un-collectable. It was this mass opposition and unpopularity that persuaded the Tory Party to sacrifice their heroine, and with her the poll tax which was immediately scrapped by her replacement John Major. Thatcher herself was later to lament in her memoirs: "The eventual abandonment of the charge represented one of the greatest victories for these people [the organisers of the anti-poll tax demonstrations on 31 March 1990] ever conceded by a Conservative government." [Margaret Thatcher, 'The Downing Street Years', p661.] What this showed is that all Thatcher's perceived strengths, as a resolute, determined, single-minded strong leader, epitomised in her famous "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning" speech, turned into their opposite when her divisive policies completely undermined social support for the Tory government. Decisive was the leadership offered by Militant in the campaign of mass non-payment. Then she was seen as arrogant, stubborn, pig-headed, and unwilling to listen to her cabinet, leading to Tory splits and her removal. In sinking the retreating Argentinian battleship Belgrano and in her year-long "civil war" against the miners, the "enemy within", Thatcher displayed the brutal cold-heartedness of British capitalism. But she herself became the victim of the ruthlessness of her own ruling class. We'll shed no tears for her demise. She will be remembered forever for destroying manufacturing industry and causing permanent mass unemployment. Her monetarist policies of high interest rates and slashing public spending turned the recession in 1979-81 into a depression. Manufacturing output fell by 30% by 1983. Industries like steel, coal and engineering were decimated and whole communities with them. The former 'workshop of the world' became a net importer for the first time since the industrial revolution. Unemployment rose by over a million in just one year, peaking at 3.3 million in 1986 with a 'lost generation' of young people thrown on the scrap-heap. Thatcher, representing finance capital, believed that de-regulation, especially of the City, would lead business to prosper and wealth would "trickle-down." Combined with the proceeds of the selling off of council housing and mass privatisations of public utilities, there was the appearance of growing prosperity reflected in the 'yuppie' and 'loadsamoney' culture but this was superficial and only ever benefited a small minority. Her much-vaunted "share-owning democracy" never materialised, as workers quickly sold their shares and the financial institutions became the 'masters of the universe'. Legacy By the end of the 1980s, 12.2 million people, over a fifth of the population, were living in poverty, and the gulf between the richest 20% and poorest 20% had widened by 60%. This increase in inequality was to widen further under Blair's New Labour government as it continued Thatcherite policies of curbing the trade unions, privatising state resources and deregulating the City of London. In 2001 Labour's Peter Mandelson tellingly said: "we are all Thatcherites now", before enthusing that he was "intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich". Thatcher herself claimed that New Labour (Labour's conversion to capitalist neoliberal policies) was her greatest legacy and Labour leader Ed Miliband has praised some of Thatcher's key policies, stating: "Some of what happened in the 1980s was right. It was right to let people buy their council houses. It was right to cut tax rates of 60, 70, 80%. And it was right to change the rules on the closed shop, on ballots before strikes. These changes were right, and we were wrong to oppose it at the time." This complete capitulation to the market has now led Labour to accept the Con-Dem coalition cuts and pay freeze, making the need for a new mass workers' party even more urgent. It is fitting that Thatcher should die at the very time when free market capitalism, in the middle of its worst economic crisis for 80 years, has so spectacularly failed. She sought to "roll back the frontiers of socialism" but it is now those very ideas of socialism that will make a comeback as increasing numbers of workers and youth look for an alternative to the austerity, war and environmental destruction that is global capitalism today.

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.