The National Minority Movement was officially launched in August 1924 at a conference attended by 270 delegates, representing some 200,000 trade unionists. Tom Mann was elected its president; Harry Pollitt became its national secretary, and George Hardie its organising secretary. The aims of the new organisation were
“to organise the working masses of Great Britain for the overthrow of capitalism, the emancipation of the workers from oppressors and exploiters, and the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth; to carry on a wide agitation and propaganda for the principles of the revolutionary class struggle, and work within existing organisations for the National Minority Movement programme and against the present tendency towards social peace and class collaboration and the delusion of the peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism; to unite the workers in their everyday struggles against the exploiters; to maintain the closest relations with the RILU.”
The Minority Movement, in the bitter industrial climate of the time, rapidly built up fractions amongst the engineers, transport workers and railway workers. Its main forces, however, were still concentrated in the powerful Miners’ Federation, the largest union in Britain. The growth of the left went hand in hand with calls by the CP for increased powers for the TUC General Council, to transform it into a genuine General Staff of the trade union movement. “A real General Council must be established”, wrote Pollitt in the Labour Monthly, “with power to direct the whole movement, and not only with power, but under responsibility to Congress to use that power and direct the movement on the lines laid down each year by Congress.” Despite the important advances made by the left however, the TUC General Council was still dominated by the right wing.
At the same time, the lefts on the TUC General Council unfortunately had a mixed track record in defence of left principles. An ominous sign of their future role was the stony silence of Hicks and Purcell at the 1925 Liverpool Labour Party Conference when the decision was made to exclude Communists from Labour membership. “The Lefts in the conference”, noted JT Murphy, “fearful of being classified as communists, rendered them no support.”[1] On international issues, however, the left-wingers were exceedingly revolutionary in their speeches.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party, through the pages of the Workers’ Weekly and its leadership of the Minority Movement, built up great hopes in the left union leaders, largely due to their radical stance on the Soviet Union. Alfred Purcell (president), Fred Bromley (secretary), Hicks and Swales had led an official TUC delegation to the sixth All-Russian Trade Union Congress in December 1924. The following April, the General Council reinforced its left credentials when the Anglo-Russian Joint Advisory Council was established to promote unity between the Russian trade unions and the Amsterdam Bureau. The Communist Party became the most enthusiastic supporters of Anglo-Russian unity, and the campaign to unite the Amsterdam International with the RILU. This position began to reflect a new line emanating from Moscow, with the emergence after Lenin’s death of the triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev.
Already at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in 1924, Zinoviev had put a question mark over the future role of the British Communist Party: “In Britain we are now going through the beginnings of a new chapter in the Labour movement. We do not know exactly whence the Communist mass party of Britain will come, whether only through the Stewart-MacManus door [Bob Stewart and Arthur MacManus were prominent British Communists] or through some other door. And it is entirely possible that the communist mass party may appear through still another door – and we cannot lose sight of that fact.”[2]
It was in reply to these doubts and confusions that Trotsky wrote his book Where is Britain Going? in 1925. In a preface to the second German edition, written during the British General Strike, Trotsky graphically analysed the situation facing the British workers and the revolutionary implications of the unfolding crisis:
Capitalism has been portrayed as a system of continual progress and consistent improvement in the lot of the working masses. This used to be the case, at least in some countries during the nineteenth century. In Britain the religion of capitalist progress was more potent than anywhere else. And it was just this that formed the foundation of the conservative tendencies in the Labour movement itself, and especially in the trade unions. Britain’s wartime illusions (1914-18) were, more than anywhere else, the illusions of capitalist might and social ‘progress’. In the victory over Germany these hopes were supposed to find their highest fulfilment. Yet now bourgeois society says to the miners: ‘If you want to ensure for yourselves at least the kind of existence you had before the war, you will reconcile yourselves to a worsening of all your conditions of life over an indefinite period.’ Instead of the perspective of an uninterrupted social progress recently held out to them, the miners are invited to move down one step today so as to avoid tumbling down three or more steps tomorrow. This is a declaration of bankruptcy on the part of British capitalism. The General Strike is the answer of the proletariat, which will not and cannot allow the bankruptcy of British capitalism to signify the bankruptcy of the British nation and of British culture.[3]
In the meantime, on 30 June 1925, the coal owners gave a month’s notice to terminate the existing contracts, substituting drastic wage cuts, the abolition of the principle of a guaranteed wage and national agreements. The Miners’ Federation rejected these attacks outright and referred their case to the TUC General Council, which had promised the miners their full support. The struggle that was to be unleashed was no ordinary struggle concerning the coal industry, but one that affected all workers.
The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, in his negotiations with the miners’ leaders made the situation crystal clear: “Yes,” he said. “All the workers in the country have got to face a reduction in wages.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean all the workers of this country have got to take reductions in wages to help put industry on its feet.”[4]
The Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks underlined the point the following day when he told an audience at Althorp Park that “we have got to find a remedy [for the industrial depression] and if need be, however disagreeable it may be, I am going to say straight out what the Prime Minister is alleged to have said in conference yesterday – namely, it may be that in order to compete with the world the conditions of labour, hours and wages will have to be altered in this country.”
The ruling class had declared all-out war on the working class. They were being told unequivocally it was their lot to shoulder the entire burden of the capitalist crisis. However this unprovoked attack by the coal owners and government served to rally the whole trade union movement behind the miners. The TUC met the executives of the railway and transport unions, who indicated, in the event of a miners’ lockout, they would stop all movements of coal. This position was endorsed by a conference of trade union executives, who also pledged their full support. This was the night the General Strike was conceived.
Stanley Baldwin, who treated the class war very seriously indeed, convened an emergency Cabinet meeting to assess the situation. Having weighed up the balance of forces, Baldwin decided to play for time to enable adequate preparations before taking on the miners, and through them, the whole labour movement. The strategists of capital were not confident at this stage of defeating the movement and imposing the reductions across the board. In making this tactical retreat, the government announced a nine-month subsidy to the coal industry as well as a Royal Commission to investigate the industry’s problems. The views of the Cabinet were summed up by Maurice Hankey, the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet, in his report to the King: “The majority of the Cabinet regard the present moment as badly chosen for the fight, though the conditions would be more favourable nine months hence.” The nine-month subsidy was introduced to maintain wages while the Commission investigated the industry. After the pregnant pause of nine months, the General Strike was born.
Nevertheless, the trade unions met this government retreat with wild jubilation, and the Daily Herald displayed billboards with the immortal words: “RED FRIDAY!” What a contrast to the setback of “Black Friday”. Everything seemed as it should have been. However, the Miners’ President Herbert Smith warned about rejoicing too soon. “We have no need to glorify about a victory. It is only an armistice, and it will depend largely on how we stand between now and 1 May next year…” Cook also expressed himself forcefully:
Next May we shall be faced with the greatest crisis and greatest struggle we have ever known, and we are preparing for it… I don’t care a hang for any government, or army, or navy. They can come along with their bayonets. Bayonets don’t cut coal.
However, the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, asked sneeringly: “Is England to be governed by the Cabinet or by a handful of trade union leaders?” Ramsay MacDonald, Snowden and the other right-wing Labour leaders seem to share the same cynical outlook. “The government has simply handed over the appearance, at any rate, of victory to the very forces that sane, well-considered, thoroughly well-examined socialism feels to be probably its greatest enemy”, stated MacDonald.
The capitalist press reacted to the government’s retreat with a howl of protest. The contemptuous editorial in the Daily Express was simply headed “Danegeld”. This was a reference to the blackmail tax used to bribe the Vikings to desist from raids on England. The coal-owners too were itching for a fight. For instance, the chairman of the South Wales Coal-owners’ Association described the settlement as a terrible disaster. There had clearly been a split in the Cabinet over the issue. The more hot-headed and bellicose representatives of the bourgeois believed the showdown should have immediately taken place. The more sober-minded representatives understood the need to stage a partial retreat, better to deal with the working class later. This view was summed up by Neville Chamberlain in his diary: “a stoppage of such magnitude and accompanied by such bitterness would inflict incalculable and irreparable damage upon the country”, and that the subsidy was therefore justified. Although there were divisions, it was not about the principle of attacking the working class, but simply a tactical dispute over timing. “So, thank God,” the King wrote in his diary, “there will be no strike now.”
The September 1925 TUC Congress, still rejoicing at Red Friday, echoed to the rafters with “revolutionary” speeches. The new president, Alonzo Swales, brought the Congress to its feet with the words, “We are entering upon a new phase of development in the upward struggle of our class. All around are signs of an awakening consciousness in the peoples of all countries that the present system of society is condemned.” Tomsky, head of the Russian trade unions, attended the Congress as a fraternal delegate. Minority Movement-inspired resolutions were carried by large majorities, especially on international questions. The resolution asking for greater powers for the General Council was, however, remitted for further consideration. The right wing had argued that the General Council had already sufficient powers. This was true and the left’s arguments were somewhat of a diversion. The key problem was the calibre of leadership. As always, J. R. Clynes summed up the real unspoken feelings of the right wing: “I am not in fear of the capitalist class. The only class I fear is our own.” The grovelling Mr JH Thomas, the railway union leader, rejoined the General Council after two years absence (he had originally left to join the MacDonald government), together with Ernest Bevin of the transport union.
While the union leaders huffed and puffed a great deal in public, the Baldwin government moved swiftly in its preparations for the approaching showdown. “We were confronted last week”, said the Prime Minister, “by a great alliance of trade unions. If we are again confronted by a challenge of that nature let me say that no minority in a free country has ever yet coerced the whole community.” The fact that the trade union movement, together with their families, represented a majority of “the community” never entered his head.
As part of the plans, the government proceeded to divide England and Wales into eleven divisions, each under an appointed Civil Commissioner armed with the Emergency Powers Act. They were in turn under the direct control of Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson, Baronet, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, M.P., and Chief Civil Commissioner. Serving under the distinguished Mitchell-Thomson were such important personages as Major Sir Phillip Sassoon, Earl Winterton, the Earl of Clarendon, Earl Stanhope, Sir Kingsley Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel JTC Moore-Brabazon. Scotland had its own organisation directed by the Lord Advocate. These government forces were to take charge of emergency administration and ensure the maintenance of essential supplies and law and order. As an auxiliary, a volunteer strike-breaking organisation was established at the end of September, the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS). Generals and Lords, such as Lord Jellicoe and Sir Francis Lloyd, who had direct links with the government, led the paramilitary OMS. It had the complete support of the ruling class both in terms of finance and facilities. Leading fascists also joined its ranks as the most “effective assistance to the state”.
As a further precaution, on 14 October, the Home Secretary ordered the arrest of twelve leaders of the Communist Party. They were charged with seditious libel and incitement to mutiny, under the Act of 1797 and received sentences ranging from six to twelve months imprisonment. This was long enough to keep most of them out of the way in the run up to May 1926, although plans had already been made within the party to create a second-line leadership.