Exhibition Review: Betrayal? (2026)

Exhibition Review from the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Great Betrayal? One Hundred Years On. The lessons of the 1926 strike revisited (Working Class Movement Library)

In May we reviewed an exhibition at the People’s History Museum in Manchester marking the centenary of the General Strike. There are a number of exhibitions on this topic (see generalstrike100.com), including one at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, which is on until December, and focuses more on the strike itself, rather than the years since. It is entitled ‘A Great Betrayal?’, which clearly indicates its main theme.

The display consists of information boards plus some original documents. It is made clear that the government had prepared for a confrontation beforehand, for instance by setting up the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, and it referred to the strike as an attempted revolution. All army officers were required to participate in strike-breaking. The BBC of course did not present the union side of the dispute. The TUC, which apparently turned down an offer of financial support from Russia, voted for a general strike, but as a defensive action, not as a challenge to the authority of the state (though it is not at all clear what that could have involved).   

The information boards are made more personal by including information about individual workers and their treatment. For instance, the miner Bill Muckle spent over two years in prison after helping to derail the Flying Scotsman train, while Jack Forshaw was arrested for distributing a supposedly seditious pamphlet. He was diabetic and died after being mistreated in jail, before being sentenced.

The documents displayed include a booklet on the impact of the strike in Bolton, and also copies of various strike bulletins and of the British Worker and the government propaganda sheet The British Gazette.

An informative exhibition, though naturally rather restricted in its coverage, and also rather optimistic about what might have been achieved.

Paul Bennett

Political Notebook: The tale of the arrogant man . . . (1979)

The Political Notebook Column from the November 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The tale of the arrogant man . . .

The Liberal Party goes on a lot about ‘The Great Spirit of Liberalism’ which it so passionately cherishes. In his essay ‘On Liberty’ John Stuart Mill argued that liberals should be prepared to debate all subjects from every point of view so as to arrive at the correct conclusion.

Cyril Smith is a Liberal MP. So when Bolton branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain was looking for a defender of capitalism to debate with, they wrote to him anticipating a liberal-minded response. Smith replied thus:

Thank you for your letter. No, I do not provide audiences and publicity for my political opponents, much less ones with whom 1 totally disagree.

Firstly it is supreme arrogance on the part of the Liberal Party to imagine that we would have to rely upon the personality of Cyril Smith to provide us with an audience for a debate. Secondly we wonder which of his political opponents Mr Smith does not ‘totally disagree’ with. Thirdly it is a pity that the Honourable Member for Rochdale’s mind is not as broad as his backside.

. .  And the ignorant man

Dr Rhodes Boyson MP does not claim to be a liberal. He is a firm believer in the highly disciplined inculcation of the correct attitudes in schools and Universities. Which in layman’s terms means that he believes in training children to be efficient wage slaves. He recently received a letter of criticism from one member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (who presumably had a second-class stamp that she could find no better use for). She received a reply which demonstrates the confusion of the MP for Brent North’s mind. He wrote, “You may have noticed that, since the socialist reform and the comprehensive schools came in, less working class children are going to University.’’ 

What socialist reform does he mean? Socialists have never concerned ourselves with the reform of the capitalist education system. Rhodes Boyson makes the fundamental error of referring to Labour as a socialist party. He then goes on to use another incorrect definition of socialism:

All one would need is to look round the world where Socialist Governments are in control and see the inequalities there are far wider than in Britain . . .

Which socialist governments does he mean? If he is referring to the state capitalist dictatorships which the SPGB has consistently opposed, we would have expected him to show great admiration for the system of suppressing free trades unions, enforcing the law by means of brutal terror and organising education on the basis of strict discipline which has been mastered by the Russian and Chinese regimes. They are, after all, the very policies which he advocates in the name of freedom. Rhodes Boyson is clearly a man of many illusions, such as that Labour is socialist and state capitalism is socialism. He shares his illusions with millions of members of the working class. But Dr Rhodes Boyson is currently a government minister with responsibility for Higher Education. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Free Press? Free Speech?

Copies of the following letter were sent to The Guardian, The Bolton Evening News and The Manchester Evening News. As they would not publish the letter, we reproduce it here.

Dear Editor,

That Britain is supposed to be a free country in which all shades of political opinion are given an opportunity to be heard is one of the more persistent myths of capitalism. On Saturday 28th September a crowd of over one hundred people in the Bolton shopping precinct were given a chance to observe socialist freedom of speech in action. An outdoor meeting of the Socialist Party of Great Britain was in progress; the speaker was presenting our party’s case for a society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution; a number of interested people were usefully and critically joining in what is a traditional and long established medium of free discussion. Then the police arrived. Not because they suspected our speaker of being a criminal or because they believed that there was any danger of violent disorder or even, because as members of the working class, they wanted to find out what was in their interest. Their announced intention was to stop the meeting because it did not have the prior authorisation of the police. One and a half hours later, after a long wait in an interview room at the Bolton Central police station, two members of our party were charged, nominally for causing an obstruction to the highway (which did not occur until the police arrived and shoppers came to see what was going on), but in fact for attempting to address people in public without consulting the police.

There are two principles involved here. Firstly, the opportunity to set up a platform and address a crowd without police authorisation has been an accepted political tradition in Britain for most of this century. If it is now to be denied to us, may we know whether this is a government decision or, as we suspect, a further example of the increased use of police powers at the expense of the freedom of the weak and the powerless? Secondly, we consider that the freedom of assembly of those of us who are prepared to commit rational ideas to public scrutiny in the shopping centres, the parks and the factory gates should be recognised at least as much as the freedom of others to hold military processions, commercial displays, slogan-shouting demonstrations and pre-election walkabouts.

When our members appear in court they will plead ‘Not Guilty’. If the magistrate is typical he will accept the word of the police regarding the obstruction and will be indifferent or hostile to the principle of freedom of speech as it affects the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Next time I am on an outdoor platform and I am told that such a privilege would not be allowed in Red Square (which is part of a system that we have consistently opposed since 1917), 1 shall remind those present that state oppression is not confined to the state capitalist dictatorships, but is alive and kicking on the streets of Bolton.

Steve Coleman

Does capitalism reward inventive genius? (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent celebrations held in Lancashire to commemorate the memory of Samuel Crompton, a Bolton weaver and inventor, who died 100 years ago, call to mind a question often asked of the Socialist. How about the inventor under Socialism?

Ironical as it may seem, it is such inquiry that throws a lurid light upon the treatment that Capitalism has meted out to genius and ability. When this is understood, the position of all under Socialism will present no difficulty. We do not claim that exceptional ability can exist apart from the social conditions which give it birth. We propose to show that it is those who can exploit such ability to-day who reap the reward which the labour of others makes possible. Without the discoveries in the remote past of such now apparently simple things as the wheel, the lever, the ratchet, all the machinery of to-day would be unthinkable. Without the skill and dexterity of the workers, past and present, all the inventive genius ever born would have remained sterile. The cotton industry of to-day is one to which a number of fundamental inventions have been applied during the last century. Their application, with its operatives, has increased its productivity far beyond the effective demands of the world’s markets, but under the present system these operatives live in poverty and suffer years of short-time working through their very productivity. What insanity ! And what of those who did so much to make such output possible. One of these was John Kay, inventor of the “Fly Shuttle,” one of the most important inventions made toward the improvement of the loom. He was a man of whom it was said he invented “everything.” But his ideas were shamelessly stolen, and he died in poverty and obscurity somewhere in France. Another, James Hargreaves, saw a spinning wheel overturned which caused him to reflect upon certain improvements. He invented a machine as a result of which 20 to 30 spindles could be attended by one person. He died in Nottingham Workhouse. Richard Arkwright invented the water-frame. He appears to be one of the few who gained financial reward, yet, strange he is one about whom there are doubts as to his originality. He was assisted by Kay, who declared “the water-frame was no device of Arkwright’s,” but of another obscure individual. Whether this was true or not he, like others, had to contest his patent rights, and had at one time as many as nine law-suits going. Samuel Crompton invented the “mule,” a combination of Hargreaves spinning jenny and Arkwright’s water-frame, which, with Watts’ steam-engine revolutionised the cotton industry. He was a man of gentle and sensitive nature, made a violin, taught himself to play, and earned eighteen-pence a night in a Bolton theatre while working in his spare time on his invention. His machine was such that any mechanic who saw its finished condition could carry away its leading features ; crowds gathered round his house, and he was often afraid to go out lest it was stolen. A few months, he says,

“Reduced me to the cruel necessity of destroying my machine altogether, or giving it up to the public. To destroy it I could not think of, to give up that for which I had laboured so long was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. In preference to destroying it I gave it to the public.” (National Dictionary of Biographies, Vol. XIII.)

For using his invention, 80 firms and independent manufacturers gave him a document possessing no legal validity, in which they agreed to pay him certain sums. As a result, he received the handsome reward of £67. Sir Robert Peel offered him a partnership, but he declined. Like so many of his type, he possessed little business acumen. Making fortunes possible for others, he reaped little or no pecuniary reward himself, and died in poverty, embittered with his experiences. A like fate has awaited in the past composers, artists, scientists, poets, writers, public performers, etc. It is the Capitalist reward and fitting tribute to a rotten system. Mankind will ever crave to approbation of his fellow-man. When, with the coming of Socialism, security and a full life is made possible for all, those who show exceptional ability will not need to give of their talent to serve the profit of the idle few, but will add to the comfort of the whole race —whose best interests will be identical with their own.

W. E. MacHaffie

Northern Propaganda Tour (1977)

Party News from the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Branch Formed

In the last week of February a group of London members toured West Yorkshire and Lancashire and, with the help of local members, staged five indoor meetings with great success.

The first two meetings were held in Bradford, at the University and the Textile Hall: the subjects were "Introducing the SPGB” and "Socialism Yes — Labour No!” There were good-sized audiences for both. At the second one several vociferous opponents from left-wing groups and the Labour Party were present. Our Central Organizer wrote in his report: “The way in which the speaker dealt with them left me in no doubt that this meeting was one of the finest I have ever attended.”

On the following days meetings were held in Bolton and at Keele University. Both roused considerable interest. We have several members in the Stoke and Keele area, and there are good prospects of a discussion group and further activity there.

The final meeting of the tour was at the Crown Hotel in Manchester. Because of the size of the audience, the landlord turned customers into another bar to provide a larger room. While it may be too early to start talking about the reconstitution of a branch in Manchester, members round the city are doing a lot of useful work. We look forward to hearing more from there before long.

It was a hectic five days, covering 800 miles, and a tonic to the members who went as well as the local members. The specially stimulating outcome is the formation of a new branch of the Party, to be known as the West Yorkshire Branch. Details of its meetings can be found on the Directory page; Socialist Standard readers in that area, take note!