LEADING Communist Party members imprisoned in October 1925 — the government's way of preparing for the General Strike. union leaders.
Just such an organised left wing today?
THE CLOSE collaboration by the leaders imperialism's 'war effort' of 1914-18 bureaucracy.
This process of bureaucratisation had already begun earlier with widespread erosions of democracy and the growth of material and social privileges for the leaders as mass BIHOTS developed.
World War saw a positive effort by the capitalist class to integrate trade union leaders into the affairs of government and state.
This was all the easier since the latter worked on the political could achieved through Parliament; trade unions were merely defending workers" wages within the capitalist system.
Many militants reacted to the class collaboration of the union leaders by rejecune any nonon or caacismp as bad in itself. An influential pamphlet, The Miners' Next Step.
*Leadership implies power held by the leader. Without power the leader The possession of inevitably leads to corruption.
When the various shop and reform committees first together nationally, in August 1917, they would accept administrative national body without CACCULIVC DOWCIS Even those who didn't totally reject argue simply for non-reliance upon the union leaders whilst getting with the job of building workers committees in the workplace.
'We will support the officials just so long as they rightly represent the workers, we will ael macpenAJ COUN Movement support. IN PREVIOUS issues we have argued that the main task facing socialists in the trade unions is to rebuild the left so as to provide Communist Party of Great Britain. What is its relevance for one which Workers National Rank & File Council.
But when was inadequate.
But the First with people who would.
basis that only be the STOl conditions and Movement argued: argued:
power stewards so altering the came General only an contact with the workers."
class The movement's highest body cils, and elected miners union secretary with Minority - the National Minority dently immediately they misrepresent us. nal was Ine amitude or Ene wartime Clyde Workers Committee, Vorkers anyand the the shop stewards movement began to collapse after the war, it became apparent that even this Non-reliance on the union leaders was not enough. You had to take the tight to them - to re establish rank-and-file control over them and, where they failed to rightly represent the workers, to replace them It was this conception which lay behind the formation in 1924 of the National Minority Movement, drawing together a broad opposition inside The change in tactics towards the trade union leaderships was best summed up in the campaign to strengthen the powers of the TUC General Council, giving it powers to lead a general strike. As the Minority •We can guard against the General Council becoming a machine of the capitalists...by developing a revolutionary class consciousness amongst the trade union membership...and by constitution of the Council as to ensure that those elected thereon have the closest the The aim was to break the unions collaboration and turn them into militant organisations for for class struggle. How was the Minority Movement organised to achieve this?
policywas national conference. Delegates to it came from branches, employed committees, trades coun Minority and -LO aLL. Movement industries and locali in different localities The conference elected a national executive to take decisions between conferences. Furthermore, a section of the Minority VIOVCHICH organised in each industry - notably the mines, engineering, and transport - with its own executive committee.
The Minority Movement ference decided on a set of policies covering most of the major issues of the day:
*Against wage-cutting and for across-the-board increases, with a £4 minimum wage.
*For stronger powers to the TUC General Council, and the building of worksnop and tactory communeces *For affiliation of the unemployed committees ane tates councIs to u TUC, and for workers control in industry.
*For repudiation of the Plan, through which imperialism was trying to stabilise its rule in Europe.
Each section also added demands appropriate to its own industry.
it was on the basis of agreement with this action programme that militants participated in the Minority Movement.
However, the Minority Movement failed to meet its first decisive test: preventing the betrayal of the 1926 General Strike. What did this show?
It had become clear nine months earlier that a major confrontation was inevitable over the employers" attempts to cut wages. commission appointed to report on the dispute between the miners and mine-owners was a stalling tactic to allow the government time to prepare for a showdown with the unions.
The TUC did nothing to prepare workers meanwhile.
Minority Movement launched campaign of preparation. It fought the setting up of Councils of Action in every area linked to the trades councils, to see that all workers were mobilisea TOr action and to ensure the distribution of food and essential services during the course of the strike itself.
On 21 March 1926 it called Special National Conference Action to prepare the rank-and-file, and campaigned to set up workplace factory committees delegates to the Councils of Action Ai the same time it also demandec that the TUC General Council itselt should organise by calling a National Congress of Action.
Increasingly, however, the Minority Movement began to foster the illusions of many rank-and-tile members in the General Council instead of taking the fight to the union leadership whilst not relying on them The Councils of Action were presented as appendages to the TUC General Council rather than as an independent means of launching thestrike or maintaining it in the event of a betrayal:
Councils of Action were under no circumstances to take over the work of the trade unions...The Councils of Wat Action were to see that all the decisions of the General Council and the union carrica out. con- The Minority previously major confrontation would no longer be simply about whether the miners wages were to be cut; it would throw into question the rule of the capitalist Political Class needed And the union leaders, rather than countenance the use of the strike weapon for political purposes, to overthrow the Baldwin government, would choose to sell out the miners.
But the Communist Party failed to Dawe. spell out objectives should be until after the strike had begun. Only on 5 May 1926 did it call for the resignation of the Baldwin government, for a Labour government to take its place, and for the nationalisation of the mines. b then it was too late.
Only by fighting for such objectives throughout the preparation strike, and winning Movement to could the basis have been laid for a real fight to continue the strike when the General Council called it off.
In particular, the way would have The been prepared conference of the Councils of Action to take the leadership of the strike.
The CP failed to campaign for these objectives because of Stalin's policy of wooing the 'lefts' in the Anglo-Russian Trade Union ComUsing pressurise the British government not to act against the Soviet Union was seen as more important than warning British workers the General Strike.
THIS WEEKEND Socialist Chalof lenge is holding a day school for supporters of the paper on the theme of 'Rebuilding the left in the unions'. sending Its purpose experiences of the early Communist Party in building Movement and the lessons we can draw for today.
Rich Palser, writing here on the Minority Movement, introducing the morning session on this.
The afternoon discussions concentrate on the public sector strike now taking place, asking:
How can Callaghan's campaign against the warned however that the VICtOry Tor InC to aid it. execulives were to be Movement had explained that such a objectives were and Jones.
these political OWI put solution the Minority campaign for them nationa The only party capable movement such an allance to against a sell-out in hand in hand.
SOCIALIST CHALLENGETRADE UNION DAY SCHOOL is to discuss the achieve these?
the Minority Teachers will be Time:
will Date:
Admission: 50p.
deal with Yet the betrayal of the General Strike, by cutting short a possible workers, actually weakened the position of the Soviet workers state far more than the Anglo-Russian Committee was ever The Minority Movement failed not because it involved left reformists in its ranks, but because the CP failed to fight within it to see that it remained politically independent of the left reformist bureaucracy Today many militants turn away from Broad Leftism because the Ci continues to subordinate its activity in the unions to an allance with the Purcells of today - such as Scanlon The British Road Socialism now sees a left/right divide in the unions as running through the bureaucracy, with the left trend as la core' a healthy one.
It is not surprising that the fact that it is a reformist bureaucracy makes little difference to the CP, since its based on parliamentary road to socialism.
However the alternative sometimes forward, of frontism rank-and-file groups, is equally no In campaigning against Broad Left electoralism and for mass control by the rank-and-file over their •OWI struggles, we should not reject the need to take the fight to the union leaders and win a new leadership in the unions. This is a mistake often made by Rank & File.
guarantee that a new Minority Movement today can avoid the mistakes of its predecessor is the building of a unified revolutionary winning that to a consistent class struggle position through open and democratic debate The tasks of building a new Minority Movement and of establishing a unified revolutionary party go strikers and. the manoeuvres of the General Council?
* How can full rank and file control over the struggle be achieved?
* How should the left organise to In addition to militants involved in the strike, contributors will include activists involved in the Ford and social workers' strikes, in the Socialist Alliance, POEU Broad Left, and Fightback'.
10.30am. Place: Starcross school, Risinghill St, London Saturday February.
Open to all supporters of Socialist Challenge in the unions. Creche/ accomodation available.
Socialist Challenge 15 February 1979 page 13
The link between individuThey pit the divides is about how the establishment working class strength through
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a credible alternative leadership to the class collaborationist Movement — was built in the early 1920s by the newly formed