After a period of sustained assistance from the leaders of the International, the British Communist Party was eventually weaned away from its sectarian stance. In the process, the party also agreed – in contrast to the pre-war propagandist groups – to conduct serious and systematic work in the trade unions as well as in the Labour Party as individuals. However, Communists faced a witch-hunt and expulsion from the reformist International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) or the “Amsterdam International”, as it was commonly known, under the slogan: “Revolutionaries and Communists out of the unions!” This forced those expelled to set up the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU), which gathered together the forces driven out of the old federation.
“This offensive tactic of the partisans of Amsterdam”, stated the RILU, “must be fought with firm and decisive resistance in the local branches, with the slogan ‘Down with the splitters, long live the unity of the trade union movement!’ In no case should we favour the aspirations of Amsterdam by willingly abandoning the trade unions: that would be too easy for the supporters of Amsterdam and too damaging for the left wing of the labour movement.” It continued: “The workers who are expelled from the trade unions must not be dispersed, but should remain organised within the same structures they belonged to before being expelled, and continue to act as legitimate members of the trade union which has expelled them.”
British trade union leaders, Robert Williams and Alfred Purcell, together with representatives from 47 other unions including the Russians, went to Moscow to initiate the new federation. The RILU refused to turn its back on the old federation but instead offered the IFTU a united front bloc against the employers’ offensive. “In formulating our tactics towards the old trade unions, we have to take into full account the fact that they bring together many millions of workers”, stated the resolution of the First Congress of the RILU.
The task of the revolutionary elements within the trade union movement is therefore not to break away from the unions the best and most conscious workers and use them to form small organisations, but to instil in them the revolutionary spirit and remain within them, taking up on a day-to-day basis the revolutionary aspirations of the working class, and thereby strive to transform them into instruments of the social revolution.
Further on in the resolution, there is a particular reference to Britain. The tactics suggested to the British Communists were quite clear:
In Britain, in spite of the existence of a powerful trade union movement which is undergoing a deep crisis, there are attempts to create new organisations along the lines of the IWW, such as the One Big Union, etc. These attempts are to be categorically and firmly condemned. The task of the revolutionary workers of Britain is to remain inside those huge mass trade unions and to struggle within them for the victory of the ideas of the Red International of Labour Unions. Separating a few tens of thousands of revolutionary workers from the trade unions and isolating them in separate small organisations would be a crime against the British and world working class. Therefore, all those organisations that adhere to the point of view of the Red International of Labour Unions must concentrate all their activities inside the trade unions, and work within them, winning one branch after another, with the aim of uniting the wider masses, and not just the selected few who find themselves outside of the masses.[4]
The following year, in December 1922, the Fourth Congress of the Comintern chose to examine trade union work in some detail and adopted the Theses on Communist Work in the Trade Unions. This dealt with a series of problems ranging from the role of the Amsterdam International to the activities of anarcho-syndicalism. It also discussed at great length the question of the expulsions of militants from the reformist unions and the paramount need for trade union unity. The Theses stated:
Despite the fierce anti-Communist witch-hunts being stirred up everywhere by the reformists, we must continue to fight for the slogan of the Communist International – against the splitting of the trade unions – with the same militancy with which we have fought for it up till now. The reformists are trying to use expulsions to provoke a split. Their aim in systematically driving the best elements out of the unions is to make the Communists lose their patience and nerve, so that instead of completing their carefully thought-out plan to win the trade unions from within, the Communists will leave the unions and come out in favour of a split. The reformists, however, will not succeed…
The preservation as well as the restoration of trade-union unity is possible only if the Communists have a practical action programme that can be applied in each individual country and in every branch of production. By using the practical experience of everyday struggle, the disparate elements of the workers’ movement can be gathered together and united and, where the trade unions are split, the necessary preconditions for organizational unification can be created. Every Communist must remember that a split in the trade-union movement is not only a distinct threat to the gains of the working class but also an immense danger to the social revolution. The reformists’ efforts to split the trade unions must be crushed at the outset, but this can be achieved only by serious organisational and political work among the working masses…
The more obvious the splitting tactics of our opponents become, the more sharply must we emphasise the need for unity in the trade union movement. Every factory and enterprise, every worker’s meeting must speak out in protest against the tactics of the Amsterdam reformists. The danger of a split in the trade union movement must be forcefully raised; this should be done not just when a split is imminent, but when it becomes clear that a split is being prepared. The attempts to remove Communists from the trade unions must be put before the whole trade-union movement for discussion. The Communists are strong enough not to allow themselves to be stilled without a murmur. The working class must know who is for a split and who is for unity.[5]
In the summer of 1921, a number of militant trade unionists, particularly miners from Scotland and South Wales, came together to form the British section of the RILU. By the end of 1922, the bureau of the RILU had gained the affiliation of 130,000 miners, 100,000 engineering workers, and 70,000 workers from other sectors. This growth reflected the increasing influence of the British Communist Party within the trade unions. However, Lozovsky, head of the RILU, later noted that the British Bureau was totally unsuited to British conditions, not least because it allowed the trade union right wing to accuse the CP of splitting the unions by encouraging disaffiliation from the TUC.
Nevertheless, patient, consistent, energetic work, as Lenin had advocated, was paying dividends. In 1921, the party launched the “Back to the Unions” campaign, to counteract the drift away from the unions after the slump and the employers’ offensive. This initiative was later taken up officially by the TUC, again reflecting the growing influence of the party.
On 15 February 1921, the government, which had worked hand in glove with the coal owners, agreed to bring forward the termination of their wartime control over the coalmining industry. Soon after, the owners announced drastic wage cuts to make the mines economically viable. As the Mines Decontrol Bill became law, lockout notices were posted at the pitheads. On 31 March, nearly one million miners were locked out, having rejected wage cuts and a return to old district agreements. As a result, the MFGB called on their Triple Alliance partners for support to meet, in the words of the Daily Herald, “a frontal attack on the whole working class by the capitalists and their government.”
In response, Prime Minister Lloyd George used the new Emergency Powers Act to invoke a state of emergency. Military preparations were stepped up in face of the growing crisis, as reservists were called up and volunteers enlisted. In the process, troops were drafted into industrial areas and machine guns were posted at pitheads. Again, a showdown between the government and the working class seemed inevitable.
In solidarity the unions called a general railway and transport strike on 12 April. Support in the rank and file was solid. Unfortunately, the same was not true of the Triple Alliance leadership. At first the strike was postponed to the 15 April. Then, in an impromptu speech to a meeting of MPs at the House of Commons, the MFGB secretary Hodges made a personal offer of a temporary “settlement”. As soon as the miners’ executive heard of this proposal, it immediately disowned the suggestion, and Hodges was reprimanded. But using this as a pretext (“the miners had rejected a possible settlement”), the Triple Alliance leaders withdrew their support until the compromise “offer” was given due consideration. This split the movement down the middle at the crucial point. The Triple Alliance broke apart when it was needed most. The right wing, as always, had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The miners, not for the first time, were left to fight on alone.
This terrible day in April 1921 went down in Labour history as “Black Friday”, a bitter page in the struggle of the working class. The Triple Alliance was soon dubbed the “Cripple Alliance”. It was a humiliating climb-down. As expected, “Black Friday” signalled a general onslaught by the employers on wages and conditions. The miners continued to struggle on, but isolated and disheartened, they went down to defeat by June. Profound disillusionment swept through the mining communities and valleys, breeding feelings of hatred and desperation. The defeat coincided with the slump of 1920-21, which saw industrial production collapse by more than a quarter in a single year; unemployment rose from two per cent to 18 per cent of the workforce; mining, railways, metals, vehicles and cotton were the worst hit. In the offensive that followed, wage cuts were imposed on six million workers by the end of 1921. The following year, from March to June, a national lockout in the engineering industry, involving hundreds of thousands of workers, served to drain the funds of the AEU. This lockout signalled the break-up of the once-powerful Shop Stewards’ Movement, and drastically weakened workplace organisation. The growth of trade union membership to six-and-half million quickly went into reverse. Between 1921 and 1923 affiliations to the TUC dropped by over two million, as workers tore up their union cards or lapsed, disillusioned, into inactivity.