May 1926

The General Strike cannot be used to get socialism. To get socialism requires a class conscious working class democratically capturing state power to prevent that power being used against them. In 1926, the very fact that the government were in power, that millions of workers had supported them and other capitalist political parties less than two years before at the general election, showed that socialism was not on the political agenda. Though a general strike may be useful under some circumstances to resist attacks on living standards, it cannot be used to overthrow capitalism. Socialism cannot be achieved by workers going on strike against capitalism after they have previously elected a capitalist government.The Socialist position is that the capture of political power is necessary to enable the economic action of taking over the means of production to be proceeded with. The socialist position is laid down in our Declaration of Principles: “The working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government”. The capitalists' monopoly over the means of production rests upon their control of political power. To leave this in their hands while attempting to carry out the social revolution would be folly and bound to lead to unnecessary bloodshed and suffering.

The British General Strike of 1926 was provoked by the mine-owners who, faced with an adverse market for coal, demanded a cut in wages and an increase in working hours from the mineworkers. A year before the strike Stanley Baldwin was to warn “All the workers of this country have got to take reductions in wages to help put industry on its feet”. But in1925 the government were not yet ready to carry this policy of Baldwin’s to the point of confrontation; instead they subsidised the pit-owners.  At the time this was seen as a capitulation, victoriously declared to be Red Friday.  But, as became obvious when the General Strike was called, it had been simply a temporary respite to allow the government to prepare for a more serious conflict. A year later the government felt more confident and the battle against the miners re-commenced. The Miners’ Federation asked the TUC to bring out all the major industries, in line with a resolution supporting the miners carried at the 1925 Congress. Baldwin had managed to prepare for the strike by recruiting special constables and setting up the strike-breaking Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies. The government monopolised the means of propaganda and the BBC suppressed any news that might have embarrassed the government and given encouragement to the strikers

 During the strike millions of workers came out in support of the miners. After nine days the General Council of the TUC called off the general strike, breaking every promise made and without gaining a single concession. The miners were left deserted to fight the mine-owners backed by the government on their own, with the unspoken acquiescence of the TUC and the Labour Party. The miners stayed out until August before being forced by privation and near destitution to accept the mine-owners’ terms of reduced wages (below 1914 level) and an increase in the working day by one hour. For the rest of the working class, the consequence was the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act restricting union activities which outlawed general strikes, sympathetic strikes and mass picketing, as well as banning civil servants from joining unions. This wasn't repealed until 1946

Making all the allowances for mismanagement and the pusillanimity of the union bureaucrats, the General Strike was extensive enough and solid enough industrially, and its defeat was so decisive as to make clear for once and for all the weakness of such a weapon as a means to obtain drastic alterations in the existing system.  it was defeated without too much difficulty by State action, and the workers went back to work sullen and bitter. That is a realistic conclusion rather than the romantic interpretation favoured by the Left. It was also a contest in which the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party and the Labour Party cut sorry figures, wailing over the failure of the leadership, their own leaders amongst them. Many who desire socialism have looked at industrial crises not with fear but with hope. They have thought that in a time of great distress the majority of workers, although not socialists, would be forced by their sufferings to revolt against the capitalists and their government, and that they would place in power a government which would try to remould society on a socialist basis.

The General Strike presented the Communist Party cadres an opportunity to try out their theory on the millions of workers who were involved in the strike or were sympathetic towards it. The result was just what we said it must be. Strikes can serve a useful purpose in resisting wage reductions or securing increases, but they cannot overthrow capitalism. To begin with, the workers themselves have not that purpose in mind, and even when they become socialists they will still need political organisation in order to capture the real centre of power—the machinery of government and the armed forces controlled by it. This no strike can do. The strikers wished simply to help the miners out of solidarity and realising they too would more than likely be the next target. In the main, neither they nor the miners had any wish to overthrow the government or to introduce Socialism. To the extent, therefore, that the Communist Party was able to make known their intention of using the strike to overthrow the State, they were not attracting but repelling the workers. As they later conceded, the  “strikers had no horizon beyond bringing aid to the miners, and thereby resisting the employers' offensive against themselves” (The Labour Monthly, June 1926 ). The workers had no desire to use the strike for revolutionary ends, and as the outcome showed, the State, with its financial resources, its armed forces, its support in the press, and its prestige with the mass of the population, has nothing to fear from striking workers even when they number two or three millions. In a large strike, as in a small one, starvation fights on the side of the propertied class against the wage earners. As James Connolly once said, a full wallet wins out against an empty belly.

It is all history now; the General Strike collapsed, leaving the miners to struggle on alone until deprivation drove them back to work. The Cabinet, exultant that what they saw as a serious threat to the constitution fail, passed a motion of thanks to Baldwin for his handling of the crisis and the Daily Mail trumpeted that he was “one of our greatest prime ministers”. The General Strike brought home the lessons for the socialist. Whilst a general strike, or more often its threat, may induce concessions, it cannot bring a solution. We know from the General Strike, and similar actions attempted in many countries at different times, that desperate men and women will take desperate action when goaded to it by the hardships of their life under capitalism. But we have seen from the General Strike how such spontaneous outbursts are nearly always defeated by the forces at the disposal of the ruling class through their control of the machinery of government. How much easier it is, and how much less costly in human suffering, to gain political control of Parliament by our vote than to engage in blind revolts. The best results of economic unity can only be effected by class-conscious workers who recognise the need for class action, class union, for working class ends; who realise that, as the road to emancipation lies in control of political power, political action is a vital necessity. Only knowledge, desire and self-confidence are needed to realise the free society of the future. Place not your trust in others, but be assured that the work there is to do must be done by yourselves. The Socialist Party, while recommending trade unionists to offer their utmost resistance to the worsening of conditions, never fails to point out that under capitalism the pressure on the workers is inevitable. It is not enough, therefore, merely to apply the brake to these worsening conditions. The system that gives rise to them must be abolished. So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of capitalism, and so long as they are prepared to place in control of Parliament parties that will use their power for the purpose of maintaining capitalism, there is no escape from the effects of capitalism. The workers will continue to suffer from the normal hardships of the capitalist system when trade is relatively good, and from the aggravated hardships which are the workers’ lot during economic recessions.


For an account of the General Strike in Scotland see Socialist Courier

See a contemporary article from the Socialist Standard about the General Strike