The whole episode shocked the Labour movement. Consequently, the 1931 betrayal pushed the rank and file of the Labour Party far to the left, determined more than ever to break with all efforts to patch up capitalism at the expense of the working class. This was the very danger referred to in The Times.
“Broadly speaking, the whole of the Socialist Party will be reconsolidated in Opposition – with this enormous difference, that they will have lost the guidance of leaders few indeed in numbers but the ripest of all in practical experience of affairs… The Labour Party … will now be definitely controlled by its more prejudiced and ignorant elements”, stated The Times.[4]
Outspoken left-wing figures such as George Lansbury, Stafford Cripps and Clement Attlee emerged as Labour’s political leaders. They were responsible until 1934 for the production of some of the most radical policies that the Labour Party had ever known. This was no accident and reflected the sharp swing to the left in the rank and file. The party programme For Socialism and Peace adopted in 1934 proclaimed “that what the nation now requires is not merely social reform, but Socialism”, and pledged a future Labour government to “establish public ownership and control of the primary industries and services as a foundation step” with workers having “an effective share in direction and control.” Cripps and Attlee both raised the question of emergency powers, an enabling act, to allow a future Labour government to push through this revolutionary legislation against the sabotage of parliamentary procedures and the House of Lords. Stafford Cripps even went as far as to threaten measures against the monarchy, but quickly retreated.
Remarkably, very few leading right-wingers went over to MacDonald’s National Government. Despite the fact that they had no political differences with MacDonald, they preferred to stay within the Labour Party to ensure that the party remained in “safe hands”. For example, Arthur Henderson did not differ with MacDonald in the least. He actually declared he “would have preferred that the idea of a National government had been seriously considered and approached in a proper way, and that the Labour movement should have been consulted, preferably at a specially convened Labour conference.” His decision to remain within the Labour Party, as an agent of MacDonaldism, was simply a tactical one.
The renegade Jimmy Thomas, however, basked in his newfound glory as a minister in the National Government. He waxed lyrical in his praise of bourgeois traditions and institutions, especially his beloved monarchy.
“The relationship between the reigning monarch and a Cabinet Minister representing the Privy Council,” stated Thomas in his Memoirs, “has always been a phase of British political life that appeals strongly to the imagination of the people. Conjecturing is a mental exercise that seems to stimulate every grade of society. Fallacies are encouraged and developed; and, often, if the truth is prosaic when shorn of all exaggerations, it yet leaves in the mind of the commoner a purifying sweetness. To find, as I did, that there may be no unbridgeable gulf between the Throne and the masses, induces a feeling of utter exhilaration.”[5]
Despite the “purifying sweetness” of their relationship, the dramatic shift to the left in the Labour movement was reflected in a profound radicalisation within the Independent Labour Party, which drew around itself 100,000 leftward moving workers. The party had broken with reformism and was moving rapidly in the direction of Marxism. To use Marxist terminology, it had become a centrist party, halfway between reformism and revolution. In Easter 1932, the ILP tragically split from the Labour Party, over the issue of the parliamentary discipline of its four MPs. Unfortunately, the ILP split at the wrong time and over the wrong issue. They had no clear perspective of where they were going. Due to its wrong orientation and its lack of clear ideas, it was reduced within a few years to a rump of a few thousand members. This is a salutary lesson for those sects who try to set themselves up in competition with the mass organisations of the working class. The ILP had considerable forces, yet this did not prevent it from ending up as a small sect in the end. The masses do not break easily from their traditional organisations. It was a wasted opportunity, whose important lessons need to be learned, especially by today’s trade union and Labour activists. “Those who do not learn from history”, wrote George Santayana, “will be doomed to repeat it.”
The National government had taken Britain off the gold standard and embarked on a series of savage cuts, especially in unemployment benefits. The attacks of the National government were met with spontaneous localised struggles against the “economies”. The unemployed, who were mainly organised around the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM), waged a series of bitter struggles, including demonstrations and marches, against cuts in benefits and the hated Means Test. The TUC, which had originally established links with the NUWM, immediately severed them following the General Strike. Typically, Citrine declared the NUWM “a subsidiary of the Communist Party” and therefore beyond the pale. It was, nevertheless, instrumental in these years in championing the cause of the unemployed. In 1932, to the horror of the authorities, the proposed wage cuts provoked mutiny in the Naval Fleet at Invergordon, the first since 1797, which forced the government into a hasty retreat.
The storm against the wage cuts, the means test and the cuts in the dole continued to intensify throughout 1932. Huge demonstrations were organised and, in Keighley and Glasgow, fights took place with the police. Many unemployed, including the unemployed leader Harry McShane, were arrested. Arthur Horner, the miners’ leader, had been arrested in Mardy, trying to prevent an eviction. Hunger marches were organised and there was growing hatred and resentment expressed against the National government. In September 1932, pitched battles broke out on Merseyside, particularly in Birkenhead. Police, who used their batons on men, women and children, attacked demonstrators demanding relief and winter coal. This set the whole of Birkenhead alight in an attempt to stop the police terror, which lasted for some four days. In Belfast too, the unemployed fought hand-to-hand with police. Barricades were thrown up and troops were sent in to quell the workers, a number of whom were shot dead. It was a display of courage and unity by the working class, which crossed the religious divide, with support pouring in from all parts, irrespective of whether they were Catholic or Protestant. In the end, the authorities were forced to grant considerable concessions to put an end to the movement.
By 1933-4, when the worst effects of the slump began to pass, trade union membership slowly began to rise once more. Since the early 1920s, the bosses had imposed their own brutal regime in the factories. Casual employment ruled supreme on the docks and other labour-intensive industries. Workers were often hired and sacked within a day. However, the period 1933-34 saw a growth in the number of small strikes, particularly in the new, largely unorganised, industries that had grown up. For instance, in the East end of London, the workers at the Venesta Plywood Factory struck against speed-ups and 8,000 workers at Ford’s new Dagenham plant took action over wage cuts. Two of the most important strikes of the period took place at the Firestone Tyre Factory at Brentford in July 1933 and at the Pressed Steel Works in Oxford in July 1934. These mainly unofficial strikes, led by local militants, had an important impact and served to attract workers into the unions.
As expected, the right-wing union hierarchy viewed this increase in unofficial strikes with great suspicion and even outright opposition. After an unofficial strike on the docks, affecting some 2,000 workers, Ernest Bevin, leader of the Transport and General, warned against such strikes and their “unofficial” leaders, whom he denounced as “very often agent provocateurs for somebody.” The trade union leaders, wedded to their “New Realism”, totally failed to give any expression to these movements. In fact after 1934, there was no national official strike in any industry for some twenty years.
At this time, there was widespread discontent in the British coalfields. Successful strikes and stay-down strikes against the scab Spencer union took place at the Bedwas, Nine Mile Point, and Taff Merthyr collieries. As a result of these actions, the Spencer scab union’s influence was largely confined to Nottinghamshire. By 1937, after a prolonged strike at Harworth colliery and the threat of national action, agreement was reached to dissolve the Spencer union into the national Miners’ Federation. It represented a very important victory for the Fed, which helped to consolidate its position throughout the coalfields.
In the early 1930s, the rise of fascism in Europe and the eventual coming to power of Hitler in January 1933 provoked consternation throughout the British Labour movement. This debacle resulted from the tragic split in the German working class, brought about by the ultra-left policies of the Communist Party and the timidity of the social democratic leaders. With this paralysis and capitulation, Hitler boasted that he was able to come to power without breaking a window pane! The spines of the German workers were crushed by the juggernaut of fascism, despite the feeble attempts by the union leaders to reach an accommodation with Hitler. The mighty German Labour movement, the strongest in the world, was completely smashed, right down to the workers’ chess clubs. At the British TUC Congress in September 1933, when all the German union leaders were languishing in Hitler’s concentration camps, Citrine summed up the General Council’s attitude with the exclamation: “I hope to God we are never put into a similar position.” They had learned nothing from the German debacle. All they wanted to do was bury their heads in the sand and pray the British fascists would not come to power.
At this time, the leftward moving Labour Party passed a resolution pledging the Party “to take no part in war and to resist it with the whole force of the Labour movement… including a general strike.” However, the ranks of the TUC were cautioned against any such over hasty-action, with Walter Citrine, its general secretary, reminding everyone that a general strike against war was in fact against the law!