The imperialist epoch, the highest stage of capitalism, ushered in a period of intense rivalry, economically, politically and militarily. The key capitalist powers, especially Germany and the United States, were increasingly driven to extreme rivalry, between themselves and Britain, for the control of world markets, colonies and spheres of influence. In the thirty years prior to 1913 the political map of the world had radically changed; the total colonial area conquered by the imperialists had increased by 50 per cent. But some 86 per cent of this area was in the hands of just six Great Powers; actually the concentration was far higher than even these figures show since three powers alone possessed 81 per cent of the total colonial area. From these colonies vast amounts of tribute, minerals and raw materials were extracted by the imperialist powers. With their export of capital the imperialists also benefited from cheap labour on a vast scale. As one employer eloquently put it, “there are no Factory Acts east of Suez.”
International relations soon reached fever pitch in the global battle for markets and spheres of influence. Within a short time, these rivalries would reach boiling point and culminate in the bloody devastation of the First World War. This violent upheaval marked the age of imperialism and the re-division of the world by the leading capitalist powers. It was also to mark the beginning of the general decline and death agony of capitalism, epitomised by war, slump, revolution and the rise of fascism.
In Britain, despite the reforms of the Liberal government, the social gulf between the classes continued to widen dramatically. In a study by Chiozza Money entitled Riches and Poverty (1905), out of a population of 43 million no less than 38 million were categorised as poor. Money-wages between 1900 and 1908 had increased by only one per cent, while the cost of living rose steadily, causing real wages to decline. According to GH Wood’s calculations, quoted by Cole and Postgate[1], average real wage-rates were 4 per cent lower by 1910 than they had been in 1896. According to another source, average real wages probably fell by 10 per cent between 1900 and 1912. In contrast, profits and interest rose by 55 per cent between 1899 and 1913. Under such conditions of class polarisation, and a massive build up of grievances in the working class, strikes began to develop. “The fall in real wages was one of the causes of labour militancy”, noted Glyn and Sutcliffe.[2] In February 1907, following the introduction of the Trades Disputes Act, a strike of music hall workers won union recognition and improved conditions, when 2,500 pickets brought performances to a halt. This was followed by a seven-month strike of engineers, and major strikes by shipwrights and joiners, which lasted nearly five months.
In 1907, a Belfast strike over wages by dockworkers, carters and coal labourers, led by the great socialist Jim Larkin, hit the headlines. The strike united both Catholics and Protestants and almost culminated in civil war when 10,000 troops were drafted in to break the strike. The labour unrest that paralysed Belfast drew support from the Belfast Labour Party, the Independent Orange Order, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The struggle had split the Protestant Orange Order on class lines, and drew support from across the religious divide. The movement had driven back religious sectarianism, which was deliberately fostered by the bosses in order to split the workers. “Not as Catholics or Protestants, as Nationalists or Unionists, but as Belfast men and workers stand together and don’t be misled by the employers’ game of dividing Catholic and Protestant,” read posters along the Falls Road. The situation deteriorated as a mutiny broke out within the ranks of the Belfast police force. This was eventually suppressed and practically the entire force was transferred to country districts in an attempt to isolate the troublemakers. The dockers went down to defeat, but despite this, industrial strife continued to reign on the docks. “There had not been such an upheaval in a hundred years, and there has not been one since”, states historian Emmet Larkin.[3]
In the rest of Britain, while the government leaned over backwards to appear democratic, the ruling class was engaged in an all-out, anti-union offensive against organised labour. The ruling class was alarmed at the growing strength and confidence of the Labour movement, and in particular its political wing. In 1909, a Liberal trade unionist and member of the Trade Union Political Freedom League, Mr WV Osborne, with the full backing of the employers, took legal action against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for using its funds for political purposes. After success in the Appeal Court, the matter was taken to the House of Lords. The Law Lords upheld the appeal, and declared in the Osborne Judgment that it was illegal for trade unions to finance Labour candidates or indeed any political objective. At this time, there was no individual membership of the Labour Party, which relied overwhelmingly on affiliated union fees. Given that finance is the sinews of war, the judgement therefore served to paralyse the Party’s activities.
Immediately following the Osborne affair, injunctions were issued against no fewer than twenty-two trade unions forbidding them to continue their political affiliations. Through the scraping together of financial donations, the Labour Party managed with extreme difficulty to fight two general elections in 1910. It was not until 1913 that the Liberal government, under intense working-class pressure, finally acceded to new legislation to redress the balance, but not without stinging qualifications. The Trade Union (Amendment) Act, while allowing trade union affiliation to the Labour Party, placed grave restrictions on this funding. The law now prevented general union funds being spent on political activities. Such finances could only come from a special political fund, which could only be set up after a successful ballot of union members. Anybody who objected to the political fund was allowed to “contract out”. Of course, none of these legal restrictions applied to the Liberal and Conservative Parties, which received their cash from big business, or any other organisation for that matter. It constituted a blatant class onslaught on the organised Labour movement, and despite several Labour governments since then, still remains the situation up to the present-day.
Despite these attacks and difficulties, trade union membership had grown to two-and-a-half million by 1910. The Lib-Lab approach of the parliamentary leadership, however, together with the class collaboration of the trade union leaders, led to growing discontent and frustration amongst the rank and file. This was to result in a growth of syndicalist and semi-syndicalist tendencies in many unions, a rejection of political parties, and the belief that trade union action alone was sufficient to resolve workers’ problems. While this was an erroneous view, this syndicalist ferment in the unions proved to be the precursor to a massive revolutionary upsurge of the British working class, known in Labour history as the “Great Unrest”.
By 1910, the prolonged upswing of world capitalism, ushered in after the defeat of the Commune, was drawing to a close. This period represented the peak of British imperialism’s power, which was now being relentlessly challenged by German and American capital. The loss of Britain’s privileged position forced the ruling class to rationalise its industrial base and cut back on the concessions that had underpinned the position of the “aristocracy of labour”. The birth of New Unionism in the late 1880s and early 1890s was a direct response to the new conditions that were being imposed. The mighty class movement of 1910-14, which reached a revolutionary fever pitch, constituted a qualitative deepening of this process. “It was not only the aristocratic status of British industry in the world, but also the privileged position of the ‘aristocracy of labour’ within Britain that was shaken”, wrote Leon Trotsky. “1911 to 1913 were years of unparalleled class battles by miners, railwaymen and other transport workers… In those days a dim spectre of revolution hung over Britain.”[4]
From 1910 until the outbreak of war, the number of working days lost in strikes rose to an annual total of more than 10 million or more, while membership of trade unions shot up from two-and-a-half million workers in 1910 to 4 million by 1914. In the same period, TUC affiliations rose from one-and-a-half million to nearly two-and-a-quarter million.
The “Great Unrest” began with the stormy South Wales Cambrian strike that raged from November 1910 to August 1911. It proved to be the first break in the dam, which would result in a deluge. The Cambrian Combine, headed by the coal baron Lord Rhondda, typified the reorganisation introduced by the coal owners. Their aim was to boost profits by means of driving down wages, speed-ups, and intensifying the exploitation of labour. For the coal owners, in an industry where labour costs represented 70 per cent of the total, this was a vital step in boosting profit margins. However, while the owners planned their attacks, discontented younger miners were pressing for militant action to secure a guaranteed minimum wage. A battle royal was being prepared throughout the coalfield. As expected, the Cambrian miners refused to accept the new rates offered to them by the so-called Conciliation Board and a strike took place. The following 10-months saw 10,000 Rhondda miners involved in ferocious battles against state forces. In Tonypandy on 9 November, a miner was shot dead by troops of the Hussars and Lancashire Infantry dispatched to South Wales to crush the miners by the Home Secretary, a man who would become an infamous enemy of the working class in years to come – Winston S. Churchill. With considerable casualties on both sides, a touch of the unreality was lent to the proceedings by the King’s message regarding the “safety of pit ponies.” Although the strike was defeated, the struggle established the demand for a minimum wage as a central issue throughout the British coalfield, which was to culminate in the national stoppage of 1912.
By November 1910, the dockworkers’ and transport unions joined forces to form the new militant Transport Workers Federation, with left-winger Robert Williams as its secretary. In June 1911 a wave of strikes broke out over pay and conditions on the docks in Southampton, Cardiff and Hull. They were quickly joined by workers in Manchester and London. The London dockers were faced by an alliance of ruthless Port employers and the Liberal government, which refused point-blank to negotiate with the strikers. Once again, Churchill threatened to dispatch 25,000 troops to the docks to break the strike. The dockers’ leaders warned of armed conflict in the streets if troops were used to strike-break. Daily mass demonstrations were held throughout East London in support of the strikers, some numbering over 100,000 strong. The government, taken aback by the workers’ militancy and alarmed by the explosive situation, hastily persuaded the employers, headed by Lord Devonport, to concede a number of the strikers’ demands and avert an impending debacle.
In the city of Liverpool, the strike movement reached civil war proportions. A 70,000-strong transport strike, led by Tom Mann, assumed the character of a regional general strike, and crippled the city. The government rushed two war ships to the Mersey, their guns trained on the centre of Liverpool. 7,000 troops and special police were drafted in to deal with the strikers and break their resolve. The government had turned the city overnight into an armed camp. The aim of the government was to intimidate the strikers with a massive show of force. This failure led the government to bring matters to a head. On 13 August, a monster demonstration at St George’s Hall Plateau in central Liverpool was brutally attacked by the police and pitched battles spilled over into the streets. During the fighting two strikers were shot dead. The Manchester Guardian reported that it was “a display of violence that horrified those that saw it.” The following day the Riot Act was read, as virtual martial law was imposed on the city. “Let Churchill do his utmost, let him order ten times more military to Liverpool and let every street be paraded by them; not all the king’s horses with all the king’s men can take the vessels out of the docks to sea”, stated Tom Mann defiantly. By the end of the month, after Mann threatened national sympathy action from other sections, the employers gave in and sued for peace on the union’s terms. It was a proud victory against brutal employers and the Liberal government. As a result of the dispute, the membership of the Dockers’ Union rose from 8,000 to 32,000, as thousands rallied to its ranks.
In the same month of August, the leadership of the rail unions were forced to call a national all-out strike over the failure of the bosses to honour their 1907 agreement. In an attempt to defuse the situation, the government offered a Royal Commission, but the union swiftly rejected the ploy. The strike-call was answered by 200,000 rail workers, which brought the railway system to a complete standstill. This was a challenge the government could not ignore. “Then blood be on your own head,” retorted Prime Minister Asquith. Churchill this time mobilised 50,000 troops to key industrial centres. According to the Webbs, “a policy of repression had been decided on, and bloodshed was near at hand.” Amongst numerous disturbances, the troops opened fire on strikers in Liverpool and in Llanelli, South Wales, killing two strikers. “Strikes are assuming a mass character,” noted Lenin in the Russian paper Pravda.[5] Churchill with gritted teeth decided that it was “… a new force in trade unionism… The general strike that must be dealt with.”