Inspired at the power of organised labour, unorganised workers joined the unions in droves; in some cases non-unionists even preceded the union workers in coming out on strike. There were militant demonstrations and processions in the main towns and cities. The working class became more and more confident as the strike went on. There were continual clashes between strikers and police. Thousands of workers were arrested, charged with incitement, and jailed for terms of six weeks to two months. But these measures failed to intimidate the workers, and each day more sections were coming out on strike in an unstoppable wave.

Initially taken aback by the scale and thrust of the movement, the government recovered its nerve and began to show its teeth. Battleships were anchored in the Mersey, the Clyde, and off the coast at Swansea and Cardiff. The OMS was incorporated into the government forces under Churchill. All army and naval leave was cancelled, and two battalions were dispatched to Liverpool. Hyde Park in London was turned into an armed camp. To the dismay of the General Council, the government continually denounced the strike, as a revolutionary challenge to the Constitution. “The General Strike is a challenge to Parliament and is the road to anarchy and ruin”, stated Baldwin. Hamilton Fyfe saw the irony in this when he wrote in his diary: “This is to be the line, then. The General Council is to be held up to detestation as an assembly of Guy Fawkeses, bent upon blowing up Parliament and property, the Constitution, everything.”

Despite a deliberate attempt by Churchill to suppress it, the TUC issued its first issue of the British Worker on the 5 May, the second day of the strike. “The workers are growing more determined as the days pass. They are not ‘drifting back to work.’ On the contrary, the trouble everywhere is to keep those men at work who have not yet been ordered to strike”, stated the British Worker.

And as to getting the ‘trains and things’ running with ‘volunteers,’ the first day’s boasts have quite failed to materialise. The train service remains a skeleton – and an even bonier skeleton than yesterday.

A few London buses are being run by ‘volunteer’ drivers, each guarded by a policeman. Here and there in the provinces the same thing. But what does it all amount to? In all Manchester, for example, three tram drivers!

A few buses, a few passenger trains. But the mines are still, the goods traffic has ceased, the docks are closed, the factories are closing.

Not all the OMS in the world can get them going again. Only the organised workers can do that.

And the organised workers, solid, disciplined, calm, are refusing to do it until justice is done to their fellows.

The third day. And still everywhere complete calm, complete order.

The General Strike immediately demonstrated the enormous power of the working class. Nothing moved without its permission. The government was, in effect, completely paralysed. Clearly, this was no ordinary strike. Whether the TUC leaders liked it or not, the General Strike posed the question of power. Whatever the immediate issue, once set in motion such a strike has logic of its own. It raises the question point-blank: Who governs the country? This question demands an answer. No evasions or middle way is possible. Either the strike leads to the workers taking power or a severe defeat can ensue and the capitalists will impose their will. No other outcome is possible.

Two days into the strike, on 6 May, Trotsky wrote a brilliant appraisal of the unfolding events:

A general strike is the sharpest form of class war. It is only one step from the general strike to armed insurrection. This is precisely why the general strike, more than any other form of class struggle, requires clear, distinct, resolute and therefore revolutionary leadership. In the current strike of the British proletariat there is not a ghost of such a leadership, and it is not to be expected that it can be conjured up out of the ground. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress set out with the ridiculous statement that the present general strike did not represent a political struggle, and in any event did not constitute an assault upon the state power of the bankers, industrialists and landowners, or upon the sanctity of British parliamentarism. This most loyal and submissive declaration of war does not, however, appear the least bit convincing to the government, which feels the real instruments of rule slipping out of its hands under the effect of the strike. State power is not an ‘idea’ but a material apparatus. When the apparatus of government and suppression is paralysed, the state power is thereby paralysed. In modern society no-one can hold power without controlling the railways, shipping, posts and telegraphs, power stations, coal, and so on. The fact that MacDonald and Thomas have sworn to renounce any political objectives may typify them personally but it in no way typifies the nature of the general strike which if carried through to the end sets the revolutionary class the task of organising a new state power. Fighting against this with all their might, however, are those very people who by the course of events have been placed ‘at the head’ of the general strike. And in this the main danger lies. Men who did not want the general strike, who deny the political nature of the general strike, and fear above all the consequences of a victorious strike, must inevitably direct all their efforts towards keeping it within the bounds of a semi-political semi-strike, that is to say, towards emasculating it…

Now is not the time to predict the duration, the course and still less the outcome of the struggle. Everything must be done on an international scale to aid the fighters and improve their chances of success. But it must be clearly recognised that success is possible only to the extent that the British working class, in the process of the development and sharpening of the general strike, realises the need to change its leadership, and measures up to the task. There is an American proverb which says that you cannot change horses in mid-stream. But this practical wisdom is true only within certain limits. The stream of revolution has never been crossed on the horse of reformism, and the class, which has entered the struggle under opportunist leadership, will be compelled to change it under enemy fire. The conduct of the really revolutionary elements in the British proletariat and above all the communists is pre-determined by this. They will uphold the unity of mass action by every means; but they will not permit even the semblance of unity with the opportunist leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions. An implacable struggle against every act of treachery or attempted treachery and the ruthless exposure of the reformists’ illusions are the main elements in the work of the genuinely revolutionary participants in the general strike. In this they will not only aid the fundamental and protracted task of developing new cadres, without which the victory of the British proletariat is wholly impossible, but they will directly assist the success of this strike by deepening it, uncovering its revolutionary tendencies, thrusting the opportunists aside and strengthening the position of the revolutionaries…

The present collision of the classes will be a tremendous lesson and have immeasurable consequences, quite apart from its immediate results. It will become plain to every proletarian in Britain that parliament is powerless to solve the basic and most vital tasks of the country. The question of the economic salvation of Britain will henceforth confront the proletariat as the question of the conquest of power. All intervening, mediating, compromising, pseudo-pacifist elements will be dealt a mortal blow. The Liberal Party, however much its leaders may twist and turn, will emerge from such an ordeal even more insignificant than it entered it. Within the Conservative Party, the most die-hard elements will obtain preponderance. Within the Labour Party the revolutionary wing will gain in organisation and influence. The Communists will advance decisively. The revolutionary development of Britain will take a gigantic stride towards its dénouement.[5]

As explained, the General Council attempted to reassure the ruling class that the strike posed no threat to King or Country, and was simply called to help the miners. But the ruling class would hear none of it. They correctly saw the General Strike as a direct challenge to the Constitution, the Baldwin government and the capitalist system. However, instead of providing the necessary leadership, the TUC leaders acted as a gigantic millstone around the neck of the movement. In the pages of the British Worker, workers could read their Message to All Workers. It stated: “The General Council of the Trades Union Congress wishes to emphasise the fact that this is an industrial dispute.” But a general strike by its very nature goes far beyond the boundaries of an ordinary industrial dispute. It necessarily has a political character because it brings out sharply the fundamental class division in society and challenges the bosses’ right to rule. Baldwin and Churchill were therefore quite right to present it as a declaration of war. The difference was that, whereas they showed great determination to lead their armies into battle, the officers of the Labour movement were desperate to surrender without firing a shot.

  1. Trotsky, op. cit, pp.144-47

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