General Strike — sixty years on (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The so-called General Strike took place 60 years ago in the nine days 4-12 May 1926, in support of the coal miners but when it failed the miners stayed out for seven months before being forced back on the coal owners’ terms. This naturally invites comparison with the unsuccessful coal strike which lasted about a year in 1984-5. On this occasion, although the NUM called for supporting action by the TUC and other unions, and did receive some financial and other support, there was no general strike action such as there had been in 1926.

In spite of other similarities, including the formation of a rival miners' union based in the Nottingham coalfield both in 1926 and 1984, great changes had taken place in the industrial background between those dates. In 1926 coal was for all practical purposes the only source of energy. There were over a million miners, almost the highest total ever reached. In 1984 there were 241,000 and since the strike this figure has fallen to 140,000.

If ever there was a time when a strike by miners could be expected to have a decisive effect it was in 1926, especially as the miners belonged to the Triple Alliance, along with dockers and railwaymen who between them wholly dominated transport. By 1984 a large and increasing share of the energy industry was held by oil, gas and nuclear power. The recent big fall in world oil prices further undermined the competitive power of the coal industry and may still further reduce its share as a source of energy. During the 1984 coal strike prices were continuing to rise, in line with the inflation policy imposed by all governments. Labour and Tory, since 1945. It was very different in 1926.

With the suspension of the gold standard in 1914 prices rose fast until 1920. The government then decided to operate a deflation policy, through reduction of the paper currency in circulation. Prices fell drastically until 1922 and more slowly until 1925, when the gold standard was restored. A version of the events leading up to the miners' strike in 1926 put out in Labour Party circles was that the wage reductions called for by the coal owners in 1926 were caused by the re-introduction of the gold standard in 1925. That was a wildly inaccurate representation of what actually happened.

When prices began to fall in 1920, including the market prices of coal and other products of industry, employers pressed successfully for the reduction of wages. The wages of coal miners fell exceptionally heavily, the decrease having mainly taken place before the 1926 strike. Between 1921 and 1925 the average weekly earnings of coal miners had already fallen by 40 per cent. The further fall in 1926 was 5 per cent, though with some increase of hours as well. The Labour Party version disregards the fact that the gold standard stabilises prices; it does not reduce them.

The 1984 strike was mainly against the closing down of unprofitable pits, while the strike in 1926 was about wages and hours of work. The 1926 strike was against the private coal owners; nationalisation did not come until 1947. In both events the government threw all its weight against the strikers, the National Coal Board being just as ruthless as the private coal owners had been. The miners' union spent 40 years campaigning to create the nationalised coal industry and then another 40 years fighting against the capitalist monster they had helped to form — a demonstration of the utter uselessness of nationalisation — state capitalism — as a remedy for workers' problems. Both in 1926 and 1984 a prominent question was government subsidies to the coal industry. In both instances the withdrawal of subsidies helped to provoke the strike. The 1926 strike was followed by a tightening of the law against the unions, in the 1927 Trade Disputes Act. In 1984 the law had already been tightened by the Thatcher government. In both 1926 and 1984 the strikes had long been prepared for by the government, special organisations having been set up for that purpose. In 1984 huge stocks of coal had been built up at pit heads and power stations.

One aspect of the 1926 strike recalled an event that took place seven years earlier, when the Triple Alliance of Miners. Dockers and Railwaymen organised a kind of "general strike" against British military involvement in Russia. What was at issue was the ability of the government to intervene decisively. The year 1919 was marked by widespread strikes, including unsuccessful strikes by some of the police, by a number of mutinies in the army and riots and attacks on the police. It was against that background that the government faced the Triple Alliance in 1919.

An account of what happened was published in The Times (16 November 1979). The Prime Minister. Lloyd George, called the Triple Alliance leaders to meet him and told them "the army was disaffected and could not be relied upon":

  "If you carry out your threat and strike then you will defeat us. But if you do so. have you weighed the consequences? The strike will be in defiance of the Government of the country and by its very success will precipitate a constitutional crisis of the first importance. For if a force arises in the state which is stronger than the state itself, then it must be ready to take on the functions of the state, or withdraw and accept the authority of the state. Gentlemen, have you considered, and if you have, are you ready?".

According to the account in The Times the miners' leader, Robert Smillie, said "We were beaten and we knew we were". The strike did not take place. It is evident that the issue raised by Lloyd George in 1919 overshadowed the TUC General Council in 1926. They went into the general strike reluctantly and seized the first excuse to call it off. Long before 1926 the government had overcome its problems with the police and the army. It confronted the general strike and the coal strike confident of its ability to defeat them and resolved to do so no matter what the cost.

The term "general strike" is somewhat misleading. The number of workers on strike was only 1,580,000. apart from over a million miners. This was not because the TUC was unable to get other workers to strike but because those on strike (mainly transport workers, building workers, printers and engineers) were chosen to make maximum impact, without causing unnecessary and useless hardship to other workers.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, through the columns of the Socialist Standard, had much to say about the strikes and the general strike, based on an understanding of the realities of capitalism and recognition of the fact that a politically confident government. with effective control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, can defeat any strike if it is prepared to use its power to the limit. For example, the Socialist Standard in April 1919 stated that, given the backing of the state power, "on the economic field the Masters are in a far stronger position than the workers and can beat them any time they decide to fight to the finish". In the issue for April 1922, an editorial urged the unions to take united action. It pointed out that the employers were taking on one section of the workers after another:

  How can the situation be tested7 There is only one way. The organised workers must take united action to hold up industry. It is not a sectional question. The whole of the workers are involved, and if they remain divided, they will be attacked and beaten, in detail by the employers . . . First the stoppage must not be allowed to drag on indefinitely. If it does not achieve its purpose in a short, sharp, action, then it will have failed and the men must accept the inevitable for the present.
  Second, it must be carried out peaceably. Any attempt at riot or destruction must be sternly repressed, as it would at once give the signal for the use of the armed forces against defenceless men . . .
  Third, the decisions to come out and to go back must be in the hands of the rank and file. No power should be given to leaders — revolutionary or otherwise — to decide these points.
  Such action would cause practically no increase in the misery that already exists and it would be a real test of the situation.

There were then, and still are. other voices — organisations urging the workers to take violent action, or to rely on indefinite strikes, as if the workers can hope to starve the employers and government into submission.

Of course, the article went on to remind the workers that strikes only deal with the effects of capitalism without looking to the causes and emphasised the need to take political action for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle