Marxism and Stalinism in Britain 1920-1926 (Part II)

[p019] Marxism and Stalinism In Britain (Part I!) A group of syndicalist labour leaders, amongst them Tom Mann in the company of Keir Hardie (seated left). the shaping of the amorphous body of ideas that became known as Syndicalism around 1910. At the time when Tom Mann began interpreting French anarcho-syndicalist methods in terms of the British working-class experience in 1910, SLP ideas were already influential among advanced workers. Among the railworkers, miners and en- gineers of the pre-1914 period particularly SLP ideas took root; the theories of the SLP, de- veloped in opposition to the growing bureaucracy in the Labour movement, were a major factor in the Ruskin strike in 1909 which led to the estab- lishment of the Plebs League and the Labour College movement. Students from the mining and railway unions were prominent in this develop- ment, and the Miners’ Next Step, produced by members of the Plebs League, displayed definite signs of the influence of SLP ideas. The significant fact about the theories of the SLP, however, was that although they became an integral part of the theoretical equipment of advanced workers in this period, they did not lay the basis for the construction of a mass revo- lutionary party. The fact was that in reducing Marxism to a few basic postulates on the nature of capitalism and presenting the movement of the working class towards Socialism as an auto- matic process, the SLP had obscured both the role of the party and the need for the working class to destroy the existing bourgeois state in order to effect the Socialist revolution. In the last analysis the SLP’s theories could be reduced to the purely practical premise of the need for effective trade union organization, and it was in this sense that 8 T. A. Jackson, Solo Trumpet, pp. 54-55. 15

[p020] the SLP prepared the way theoretically for the growth of Syndicalism in Britain. The British Socialist Party The development of the SLP was not the only reaction to the growing bureaucratic control and sterile formulae of the SDF leadership. From the turn of the century there was a parallel movement to the SLP within the SDF, in this case to turn the SDF away from its sectarianism and towards affiliation with the Labour Party. This tendency was, in effect, the obverse of that represented in the SLP; it originated from the same reaction against the SDF leadership but sought to orien- tate the SDF towards the mass Labour -movement via the LRC and, later, the Labour Party. Thus while the SLP looked for a direct revolutionary route to the working class through its theories of industrial unionism, the opposition that re- mained inside the SDF looked for a similar route to the working-class masses through the LRC which, it held, could be converted by the SDF to Socialism. Objectively, these two tendencies represented in a fragmented way an important reaction against the methods established by the SDF by the turn of the century. Both were an intuitive recognition of the need for mass work at a time when the working class was only be- ginning to develop an awareness of its separate class interests, but because the two tendencies were completely separated, the one in the SLP, the other in what became the BSP by 1911, the two aspects of mass work, in the Labour Party and trade unions, were not to be united in an overall revolutionary perspective until the forma- tion of the CPGB. As a result of this, both ten- dencies suffered from the weaknesses attendant upon their one-sided reaction to the leadership of the SDF and the particular stage reached by the British working class in the 1900s. The major question before Marxists in Britain from the 1880s was the creation of an independent working-class party in conditions where the working class as a whole were only beginning to awake to their antagonism to capital. The im- mediate issues raised in this process were the extension of the trade unions and the mounting demand for social reform; as Engels appreciated, a movement for working-class political indepen- dence would have to concentrate on these im- mediate issues and through the process of agitat- ing on them develop a Socialist consciousness among the working class. The relevance of Engels’ suggestions for British Marxists was in- creasingly appreciated by rank-and-file members 16 of the SDF. In the 1890s there was a significant degree of local co-operation between the members of the SDF and the ILP over immediate issues, while from 1901, when the SDF decided to with- draw from the non-Socialist, trade union-domi- nated LRC, this experience of the 1890s produced, in areas where the SDF had a significant working- class membership (as in Lancashire) a growing demand for the repudiation of the sectarian SDF leadership and re-affiliation with the LRC. It was only in this way, the supporters of this tendency agreed, that the SDF could play an effective role in converting the working class to socialism; to. reject affiliation meant isolating the LRC from Marxism and leaving its supporters at the mercy of the vague, petty-bourgeois ideology of the ILP. ‘Are we’, asked a Lancashire delegate at the 1905 Annual Conference of the SDF, ‘going to leave the moulding of the working-class move- ment to the leaders of the ILP?’ and it was the Lancashire delegate at this conference who stressed in a principled way the need for affiliation to the LRC—A. Greenwood of Blackburn, speaking on the Lancashire resolution for affiliation, stated the position held by this tendency up to the founding of the BSP, and beyond, to the affiliation to the Labour Party in 1916: The LRC represents the beginning of the last and greatest struggle for the political machinery of the country by the most intelligent and best organized of the workers. This does not seem to be appre- ciated by the SDF ... the LRC movement is a semi-conscious recognition of the conflict of in- terests between the proletariat and the master class; it is better in character than its leaders in the House of Commons. ... We want to make it a Socialist movement, and must establish sympa- thetic relations with it. Harry Quelch’s reply for the Executive made clear the rigidity of thought of the SDF leaders against which the supporters of the Lancashire resolution struggled: Not a single new reason has been placed before us for adopting the course recommended... . If we rejoin the LRC we shall have no voice in the selection of candidates but will be called on to support them no matter whom they are. ... We cannot have Socialist unity, he added, under the LRC, which contains anti-Socialists. Erroneous concepts built-in The movement against the positions represented by Quelch gathered impetus during the course of 9 See Engels’ articles in the Labour Standard for 1881, reprinted in The British Labour Movement. Fourth International, February 1968

[p021] the 1906 Liberal Government and led eventually to the formation of the BSP in 1911 (a merger of the SDF with a number of ILP branches and Clarion Scout groups), and to the decision to affiliate to the Labour Party in 1914. This develop- ment was, however, very much an empirical reac- tion to the previous sectarianism of the SDF. In the same way that the SLP made no overall analysis and Marxist evaluation of the SDF and its defects, so the tendency which pressed for affiliation to the Labour Party did so not from the standpoint of a developed theoretical position but from a purely practical standpoint. The speci- fic role of a revolutionary party in relation to the Labour Party and to the overall development of the Labour movement was never considered and the ‘conversion’ of the Labour Party to Socialism was throughout conceived in the very general terms set out by Greenwood in 1905, and wholly in the context of ‘parliamentary Socialism’. The processes that led to the formation of the BSP and its affiliation to the Labour Party were, in fact, not only the product of a long-drawn-out struggle in the SDF but a reaction to the ‘labour unrest’ of the immediate pre-war period which ‘served to crystallize dissatisfaction with the Lib- Lab policies of the Parliamentary Labour Party and awaken the feeling in the ILP and SDF of the need for a more determined struggle for Socialist objectives. There was, consequently, the growth of a significant centrist tendency in the Labour Party and ILP at the very time when the BSP decided to affiliate to the former, and, in fact, the actual formation of the BSP and the terms in which it anticipated affiliation made it clear that it was part of this centrist current. The BSP entered the Labour Party essentially as a ‘ginger group’ whose role could be considered analogous to that of the ILP. On the question of the war it displayed, along with a large section of the ILP, an opposition that was, in the last analysis, pacifist; practical action against the war was seen in terms of exerting pressure on the wartime coalition to conclude a ‘democratic peace’ in line with the majority at the Zimmerwald con- ference, and there was no evidence that the BSP considered intervening in the industrial struggles during the war in an attempt to give them an anti-war character. Again, the immediate effect of the Russian Revolution on the BSP was similar to the effect on the ILP; there was enthusiasm for the Revolution, a large amount of activity in opposition to Allied intervention in Russia and a general desire to emulate the success of the Bolsheviks. Yet all this did not essentially change Marxism and Stalinism in Britain (Part Il) the character of the BSP; given its Marxist com- mitment it took up, from 1919, the idea of forming a Communist Party in Britain, but the nature of the party that was envisaged was an enlarged and more effective version of the BSP. The methods of work associated with the party’s ‘ginger group’ activities within the Labour Party had become deeply ingrained, and while it moved towards the creation of a Communist Party, the BSP essentially anticipated a continuation of its role on the extreme left wing of social democracy. This attitude towards the formation of the CP and its relations with the Labour Party was re- inforced by the strong vested interest built up by sections of the BSP in the local government and parliamentary work of the Labour Party, whence a strong opportunist current emanated. This was to remain influential in the CP during its early years, a point strongly stressed by Tom Bell in his autobiography.” BSP not the CPGB in embryo Because of its revolutionary traditions, extend- ing back to the 1880s, and because it was the largest of the Marxist groups in Britain, the BSP inevitably played a major part in the formation of the CPGB. But Macfarlane is incorrect in his implicit suggestion that the BSP was in some ways an embryo Communist Party. The fact that it began to consider industrial action in addition to parliamentary agitation before the First World War did not in any way anticipate the relationship between industrial and political activity which the CPGB was later to attempt to establish, as Mac- farlane seems to argue.” The consideration of industrial agitation by the BSP was a direct re- sponse to the syndicalist upsurge after 1910, but although the BSP had a correct appreciation of the weaknesses of syndicalism, its leaders made no attempt to establish the relationship which in- dustrial could have to political action. The nature of the imperialist state was ignored and the signi- ficance of direct revolutionary struggle in the fac- tories for the establishment of alternative working- class power was wholly neglected. Thus Fred Knee, a leading BSP militant on the London Trades Council, wrote very correctly of syndicalism that: You cannot get very far by mere ‘industrial action’. So long as the Capitalist state remains, with its army, navy, and police, and its hand on the 10 i.e. after the small chauvinist group led by Hyndman. had left the BSP in 1916. 11 Tom Bell, op. cit., pp. 190-191. 12 Macfarlane, op. cit. 17

[p022] machine of administration, so long will it be possible for this capitalist state, when thoroughly awake to any danger, to throttle any strike, how- ever big....% But the policy offered by Knee and the BSP generally was parliamentary action to take over the existing state as a vehicle for socialist legislation. The role of trade unionism, in this context, was limited to the fight for immediate improvements in wages etc. To this end the BSP adopted an ‘industrial policy’ that had for its aim the support of such trade union actions and the development of strong trade union organization, but this differed very clearly from the later trade union work of the CPGB, which was conceived in a wholly revolutionary context. Syndicalism in both BSP and ILP The taking up of industrial organization by the BSP leadership before 1914 was, moreover, largely an attempt to head off the growing oppo- sition in the party to pure parliamentary activity, and the growing support for syndicalism. But the fact that the BSP (like the ILP, where similar developments occurred) was unable to provide a revolutionary political lead in the trade unions, as part of a general attempt to take up the class struggle on all fronts, left the field wide open for syndicalism. This did not apply just to the 1910- 1914 years of ‘labour unrest’. The feeling among rank-and-file members of both the BSP and the ILP that the struggles against capitalism on the industrial front was somehow primary, and par- liamentary struggle secondary, deepened during the war and under the impact of the Russian Revolu- tion. Indication of the mood was provided by the resolution adopted by the ILP Divisional Con- ference in South Wales in 1918 that: The time is ripe for the ILP to extend its activities to the Economic, in addition to the Political Field, seeing that it is in the field, factory, workshop, and mine that the real issue with the capitalist class is met, and that only by the workers organiz- ing industrially as well as politically will the over- throw of Capitalism be brought about.“ It was because neither the BSP nor the ILP were capable of conducting their political work in the manner suggested by this resolution that many of the rank-and-file of both parties, before, during, and immediately after the war were swept into the syndicalist movement in its various forms. On the whole they remained members of their respective parties, but as industrial militants they sought expres- sion for their conviction of the need for 18 revolutionary struggle outside Parliament, which, in the absence of a lead from their parties, could only be provided by syndicalism. In treating all the revolutionary groups of the pre-1920 period in clinical isolation, Macfarlane is guilty of exces- sive formalism. He describes the evolution of organizations, not the way these groups were ‘related to the real problems and aims of workers. The fact was, that in the 1919-1920 period mem- bers of the revolutionary groupings, including sec- tions of the ILP, came to share a basically syndi- calist outlook despite the formal policy difference of the groups and parties to which they belonged, and because they could not connect theoretically and politically these syndicalist tendencies, the BSP and SLP in particular played an essentially syndicalist role in the industrial field up to the founding of the CPGB. Syndicalism as a consciously organised force existed for a relatively brief period in the British labour movement, from 1910 to 1914; but in the absence of any viable alternative linking revolu- tionary activity in the trade unions to that in Parliament and elsewhere it exerted a powerful inffluence on young militants, and _ established methods of organization and revolutionary action which persisted among advanced workers up to and beyond the formation of the CPGB. Two ideological influences were at work in the creation of British syndicalism; the theories and methods of French anarcho-syndicalism, which represented the past petty-bourgeois anarchism of the French artisans carried over into the modern factory- based working class of France, and the theories of the SLP on industrial unionism, discussed above. The former were brought to Britain by Tom Mann, and with their emphasis on violent, direct struggle against the industrial bourgeoisie they found a response in a working class which was entering a period of unprecedented industrial struggles. The latter were even more influential, in that they offered an elaborated scheme for revolutionary action which proceeded from the immediate aims of the working class for strong trade unionism and showed how this could be associated with the eventual revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. These ideas of the SLP were taken over and in- corporated into the general philosophy of syndi- calism, while the SLP itself tended to remain uninvolved in the syndicalist struggles of the period. Its sectarianism and unwillingness to work with any tendency that did not completely accept 13. British Socialist, June 1912. 14 Merthyr Pioneer, January 19, 1918. Fourth International, February 1968

[p023] its policies meant that the SLP did not effectively participate in the industrial struggles of the pre- 1914 period or attempt to bring theoretical clarity to their leadership. When SLP-ers did begin to participate in such struggles, notably during the war in the Shop Stewards’ Movement, it was on a wholly ‘practical’ trade union basis. For a while the SLP’s sectarianism succumbed to purely syndicalist practice. . The growih of state intervention Syndicalism provided an organized expression for the revolt of rank-and-file militants, particu- larly in the rail, mining and engineering unions, against the domination of the union by the old Lib-Lab leaderships, the expression of whose in- dustrial outlook was found in the industrial rela- tions established since the 1890s. Close relations with the employers and, increasingly, the state had been built up via conciliation machinery, the Board of Trade, etc. Such leaders looked to the state, particularly after 1906 when it was admini- stered by a Liberal government, to intervene in and adjust industrial disputes, notably in in- dustries which were nationally organized, or in- which unions were struggling for nationally- organized collective bargaining—mining, railways, engineering, etc. The period after 1906 in par- ticular saw this developing relationship between the state and unions expanded and _institu- tionalized by the movement of trade union officials into full- or part-time posts in government de- partments to administer the embryonic welfare services of the Liberal Government, the Labour Exchanges, the Trade Board Acts, and to act as Labour Advisers to the Board of Trade. By 1913, 117 places had been provided at the Board of Trade for trade union officials, 124 in the National Insurance Department, 48 at the Home Office (where, for example, Tom Richards, secretary of the South Wales miners, was an assistant official) and 85 in other departments.“ In quantitative terms this development represented only a small beginning compared with developments during and after the First World War, but in qualitative terms it represented an important advance from the position hitherto occupied by Lib-Lab trade unionists in their relations with the state and served to consolidate and give an institutional form to the previous disposition of such trade unionists to class peace. In rebelling against the domination of such officials in the mining, rail- way and engineering unions in particular, young militants were rebelling, in part at least, against a significant new stage in the evolution of the Marxism and Stalinism in Britain (Part I) imperialist state and its relation with the working class; the need of the state in a period of mass trade unionism to bring the leaders of the unions into an institutionalized relationship with it and to subject them more effectively to the require- ments of capitalism as a whole. Thus the pattern was established that was to become of particular significance after the war. The unions and em- ployers were brought into organized contact with the state for the purpose of settling crucial dis- putes in key industries and the result of their joint effort imposed upon rank-and-file trade unionists. In the event of resistance from below to the terms so concluded, the repressive powers of the state were deployed to coerce the rank and file into acquiescence. Even before the war this sort of development became apparent in the great industrial disputes between 1910 and 1914. In South Wales, for example, the Cambrian Com- bine strikers had to struggle not only against the employers but against the efforts of the SWMF and Board of Trade officials to impose a com- promise settlement on the one hand, and the massive detachments of police and troops dis- patched by Churchill on the other. After the war, the dual procedure of coupling repression by the state with reliance on the trade union bureaucracy to come to terms became most marked, notably in the 1921 struggle and the General Strike. The syndicalism of the 1910-1914 period, and indeed the syndicalist manifestations of the whole period up to the General Strike, were an intuitive and empirical reaction to these developments, but, lacking an overall understanding of them, pro- duced no permanent revolutionary opposition, only a propensity among advanced workers towards specific forms of militant but essentially limited rank-and-file activism. Industria! unionism as antidote As a way round the growing bureaucracy in the unions and the conciliation machinery, etc., on which this was based, Syndicalists proposed the building of mass industrial unions controlled by rank-and-file executives who would be wholly responsible in the most direct manner to the membership. The abolition of sectional craft unions which such a development would bring would allow effective industry-wide action against the employers (who in this period were grouping themselves in trade federations) and would pave the way for the eventual seizure of industry by 15 Halévy: History of the English People, vol. 6, - pp. 446-7. 19

[p024] the unions. The Miners’ Next Step, dealing with the new problems posed by the growing centraliza- tion of ownership in the mines, set out clearly the attitude held by advanced rank and file militants: A rapidity of industrial development is forcing the (Miners’) Federation to take action along lines for which there exists no machinery to properly carry out. The control of the organization by the rank and file is far too indirect. The system of long agree- ments, with their elaborate precautions against direct action, cramp the free expression of the might of the workmen and prevent the securing of improved conditions, often when the mere exhibition of their strength would allow of it. The sectional character of the organization in the mining industry renders concerted action almost impossible, and thus every section helps to hinder and often defeat the other.. .1 The answer lay in the construction of a revolu- tionary industrial union the very logic of whose militancy would lead to the eventual seizure of power: as a policy for such a union the authors of The Miners’ Next Step proposed: . that a continual agitation be carried on in favour of increasing the minimum wage and short- ening the hours of work until we have extracted the whole of the employers’ profits. . . . That our objective be, to build up an organization that will ultimately take over the mining industry and carry it on in the interests of the workers.!” It is readily apparent that the real concern of such a policy was with the immediate, day-to-day issues confronting rank-and-file miners. Certainly, it expressed in a general way the growing feeling of the need for revolutionary change, but by totally ignoring the state and the political ques- tions raised by revolutionary trade union action, the syndicalism of The Miners’ Next Step could offer no more, and no less, than a series of pro- posals for fighting the mine owners on the in- dustrial front on something like an equal footing. The Leadership factor An essential part of the syndicalist philosophy, moreover, was its rejection of leadership and its development of something approaching a mystique from the concept of rank-and-file spontaneity. The rejection of the need for an alternative leader- ship within the trade unions stemmed originally, at least in the practical form which it took from 1910, from the South Wales syndicalist movement, and was enshrined in the proposals of The Miners’ Next Step: but the rejection of leadership characterized the movement generally, both 20 before and during the war. The failures of the Trade Union and Labour Party leaderships were blamed not merely on misleadership and wrong policies but on the institution of leadership itself. ‘Leadership implies power held by the Leader. Without power the leader is inept. The posses- sion of power inevitably leads to corruption. All leaders become corrupt, in spite of their own good intentions. No man was ever good enough, brave enough or strong enough, to have such power at his disposal, as real leadership implies.” So wrote the authors of The Miners’ Next Step, who described their movement as a ‘no leader movement’. Essentially, the aim of such a move- ment was to encourage the rank-and-file to assert control over the apparatus of the union and direct it to their own ends. The official leaders would become subordinate to an ‘unofficial executive’ of rank-and-file members from whom the policies of the union would flow in accord with the wishes of the membership, expressed at regularly held conferences. In practice, this form of syndicalism was, in the last analysis, the purest ‘rank-and- filism’; it confined its attention to agitation among the rank and file, on a ‘ginger group’ basis, on immediate issues, with the aim of pressurizing the existing union leaders into the adoption of specific policies. A number of supporters of the unofficial movement in South Wales clearly ex- pressed such an aim when they wrote that: . . . we ought to be a ‘ginger group’ constantly attempting to galvannize the executive committee into life and focussing their efforts in the direc- tion of our programme...” Because of this, the syndicalist movement, in South Wales and elsewhere, was marked by its weak organization and diffuse character; its ability to unite a wide range of tendencies around immediate objectives (as in South Wales over the minimum wage issue or during the war over dilution in the engineering industry) and its failure to develop any permanent revolutionary tendency out of such agitations. Loose association v. organization In a sense, this neglect of leadership was bound up with the syndicalist theory of the automatic movement of workers towards the seizure of in- dustry. The very spontaneity of the movement 16 The Miners’ Next Step, pp. 16-17. 17 Ibid. p. 26. 18 The Miners’ Next Step, p. 13. 19 Merthyr Pioneer, July 13, 1918. Fourth International, February 1968

[p025] made powerful organization unnecessary; all that was needed was a loose association of propagan- dists to stimulate the thinking of the rank and file along the right lines. This became very appar- ent in the proposals brought forward shortly before the war for the development of a national syndicalist movement: The ISEL [Industrial Syndicalist Education of the movement—wr.] consists at present of a small number of loosely organized groups and a large number of individuals scattered all over the country. The time is now ripe for the formation of strong Syndicalist organization, on national lines, whose function shall be the spread of Syndi- calism throughout the length and breadth of the land. This could be done by means of autonomous local groups of Syndicalists federated into a na- tional body, without, if possible, an Executive Committee, for Executives are always caucuses.” This was written in 1913 by the Northern Organizer of the ISEL, and although his proposals never came into operation as far as the ISEL was concerned, as the League was in a state of disin- tegration by the end of 1913, they indicated the general lines of syndicalist thinking on organiza- tion and accurately reflected the outlook of lead- ing elements in the South Wales unofficial move- ment, the Amalgamation Committees in the engin- eering industry and the Vigilance Committees on the railways, and anticipated the weak, decen- tralized form that the Shop Stewards’ Movement was to assume during the war. The price for syndicalism The antipathy to leadership and the predilection for pressure group tactics from below were thus given theoretical form in the years of ‘labour un- rest’ before 1914 and became deeply ingrained in the consciousness of leading militants. The experiences of this period were to be of major importance in shaping the outlook of the Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Control Movement (SS & WC») in particular, from which emerged the in- dustrial basis of the CPGB in 1920-1921. Despite its militancy and strength under the peculiar war- time conditions in the engineering industry, the SS & WCM was never much more than the feder- ation of autonomous groups of militants envisaged by The Syndicalist. Its National Administrative Committee (NAC) had no executive powers and it could not direct national campaigns. This was to make for the loss of initiative by the SS & WCM in crucial struggles, most notably that for the 40-hour week on the Clyde in 1919. The lack of power of the NAC was a concrete expression of the strong feeling against leadership that found Marxism and Stalinism in Britain (Part 11) expression equally in the failure of the SS & WCM to make any effort to win leading positions in the engineering unions. As J. T. Murphy commented: It is quite certain that had the leading shop stewards of that period, when the workers were supporting them, really made a planful effort to win the leadership of the engineering unions, they could have succeeded in the course of a few years.”! A similar state of affairs prevailed in the un- official movement in South Wales, which was, as Macfarlane notes, to become an important basis of support for the CPGB in 1920-1921. Here there was no dogmatic opposition to the election of supporters of the movement to official positions, but such elections were never conceived in rela- tion to the overall strategy of the movement. Sup- porters were elected to the EC of the SWMF as individuals, not representatives of the unofficial movement, and in no sense under the discipline of the latter. Indeed, such a movement could have no disciplined expression and those of its sup- porters who did become union officials tended to reveal themselves as quite orthodox trade union- ists within a very short time. On the eve of the war, some of the leaders of the unofficial move- ment were attacking their ‘spokesmen’ on the union EC, notably the former protagonist of the movement, Noah Ablett: They were pledged to abstain from supporting reactionary policies, wrote C. L. Gibbons, one of the authors of The Miners’ Next Step, ... they were to keep revolutionary policies and militant policies to the fore; they were to force the EC to take action along lines laid down by the militant section in the coalfield. Have they done this? Unhesitatingly we answer ‘No’. They have ceased to be revolutionary except in words. In the matter of deeds they are not to be distinguished from members of the openly reactionary majority on the EC... .” The lesson drawn from this, however, was not the need to elaborate a form of organization that could work as a disciplined body against the ‘re- actionary majority on the EC’, but the futility of contesting the leadership of the union at all. What was needed was more effective ‘rank and filism’, more pressure from below, and in the subsequent period, culminating in the lock-out of 1921, the unofficial movement concentrated on the develop- ment of ‘ginger groups’ at local level. The question of supplanting the leaders of the SWMF by an 20 The Syndicalist, January 1913. 22 South Wales Worker, June 13, 1914. 21 J. T.:Murphy, New Horizons, p. 81. 21

[p026] alternative was ignored, with disastrous conse- quences in 1921. Central Labour College and the Plebs League It is important to note that the syndicalism characterized above did not arise solely from the purely practical problems confronting rank-and- file trade unionists before and during the war. Syndicalism arose from _ specific theoretical premises that were closely associated with the level of understanding of Marxism that existed in this period, not only among Syndicalists but among members of the BSP and SLP. It was the theoretical postulates of Syndicalism that gave the very specific and necessarily: transitory rank- and-file struggles of the period a definite revolu- tionary orientation and won from such struggles numbers of advanced militants whose syndicalist inclinations were to persist after the immediate struggles had died away and who continued to represent a definite tendency in the areas where they worked, ready to give syndicalist leadership to whatever new struggle developed. A degree of permanency was given to the syndicalist tenden- cies established before the war by the Central Labour College and its classes in the localities. The College evolved from the students who broke away from Ruskin College in 1909 in opposition to the indoctrination of the potential trade union leaders at the College with bourgeois theory and values. The 1909 strike and the subsequent estab- lishment of the CLC were an integral part of the reaction of young militants to the growing bureau- cratization of the unions and their development of organized ties with the employers and the state. Ruskin was understood by these militants, many of whom were from unions like the SWMF and the ASRS (the most important of the rail unions) where rank-and-file unrest was strongest, as an institution for the training of trade union- ists in their new role as associates of the employ- ers and state in the development of peaceful industrial relations. In opposition to this, the Ruskin strikers wanted training in Marxist theory to prepare trade unionists for a revolutionary role. Not only would the CLC train trade unionists to confront the employers as educated militants, it would create, in the person of every trade union- ist who attended the College, a potential local revolutionary leader who would return to his locality to organize classes in Marxism and thus help develop an informed rank and file who could consciously assert their control over union affairs and direct the course of the unions towards the 22 seizure of industry. The Plebs League was the embodiment of this concept. Its branches acted as the local units of the CLC, organizing classes in Marxist economics and industrial history, and drawing around them advanced rank-and-file mili- tants who opposed the conciliatory policies of their union leaders. The role of such branches and class leaders was clearly expressed by Ablett, who suggested that: In the present loose democracy of the trade unions individuals count for much. Such a body of men, scientifically trained to adapt themselves to the needs of the workers, with a knowledge of the economics of Labour, coupled with the ability of speech and pen would naturally be expected to wield a great influence in their respective localities ...73 His prognosis proved very apt in relation to the Cambrian Combine strike where the Rhondda Plebs played a major role in canalizing the struggle into a general movement for the minimum wage; in fact, the Plebs League and the CLC were to be very closely con- nected with the South Wales unofficial move- ment up to and beyond the formation of the CPGB. Elsewhere, too, the Plebs and CLC played an important part in developing rank-and-file consciousness. Indicative of their influence among the miners and railworkers was the agreement in 1914 by the SWMEF and the NUR to assume joint sponsorship of the CLC.*% Elsewhere the ties with the unions were less close, but there is little doubt, from an examination of the reports in Plebs Magazine over the period 1910-1920, that the movement established itself firmly in a number of important industrial areas, London, Lancashire, North-East England and the West of Scotland included, and exercised considerable influence in forming the outlook of some thousands of militants.” Role and Influence of the College The widespread influence of the Labour College movement is worth emphasizing, for it meant that, more than the BSP and SLP, it acted as the main institution for the propagation of Marxism 23 Plebs Magazine, February 1909. 24 This sponsorship was, it might be noted, indica- tive of the fact that the ‘Marxism’ of the CLC did not fundamentally conflict with the outlook of the orthodox trade union leaders on the ECs of the NUR and SWMF. 25 E.g. in South Wales by 1917 the CLC classes were attended by 500 miners. Fourth International, February 1968

[p027] among advanced workers.* The Marxism of this movement was highly abstract and formal in character. Marxism was presented by the CLC and Plebs as the best means of explaining the world and attention was confined to education in Marxism in the purest sense. Marxist method was employed to explain the working of the economic system and the evolution of class society; the fact of the class struggle was made clear but no attempt made to relate such education to the immediate and long-term ends of the workers’ movement, except in the most general and formal sense. Such Marxism was very much under the influence of positivism and ideas of mechanical evolution inherited from the later decades of the nineteenth century. It explained the necessary evolution of capitalism from an individualistic to a monopoly stage and held that the development of the class struggle to a consequently higher stage was an automatic reflex of this process. Once workers had been taught the elementary facts of the class struggle and had learnt the nature of their exploitation, they would automatically de- velop strong organization to confront the employ- ers and eventually contend with them for power. Such an approach to Marxism was clearly related to the propagandist character of the revolution- ary movement of the period. More important, it essentially denied the need for any organized party and placed the emphasis merely on the propaganda work of small groups of activists, as in the Plebs League. As such, it was quite in line with the current ideas and methods of the BSP and SLP, as set out above. J. T. Murphy pointed to these characteristics of the CLC movement when formulating a critique of it in the early 1920’s: What ‘certain fundamental elementary principles’ do you propose to get across? he asked the CLC, referring to a recent statement of aims, merely the fact of the class struggle and never a single suggestion as to how the workers are to wage the struggle? No mention of what are the fundamental and elementary requirements of victory in the struggle? Shall we spend months unravelling the Theory of Value and never mention the elemen- tary fact that the workers must have a revolu- tionary workers’ party—lest we be accused of party politics? 7” The disenchantment of 1921 Murphy was correct in his characterization of the education activities of the movement; he was wrong, however, in suggesting that no practical, political activity flowed from them. The presenta- tion of Marxism in mechanical terms provided Marxism and Stalinism in Britain (Part 11) the theoretical basis for the advocacy of spon- taneity and the opposition to leadership in the practice of the Syndicalist movement, which was so closely linked to the CLC. At its worst, this educational movement provided the training for left opportunists in the trade unions, men who could address correctly formulated rhetoric to the rank-and-file but who had no lead to offer except within the context of orthodox trade unionism. When such trade unionism was fundamentally challenged in the post-war period of political- industrial struggles such leaders were reduced to impotence, like Robert Williams, or moved very rapidly to the right, like Frank Hodges. At its best, the CLC took advanced mili- tants part of the way towards an understanding of the class struggle but because it could establish little connection between Marxist theory and the day-to-day problems of the Labour movement the CLC left such militants leaderless and prone to purely localized forms of struggle on immediate trade union objects.” The experiences of 1919- 1921 were to be of fundamental importance in revealing to such militants the inadequacies of this form of Marxism. J. T. Murphy’s critique, quoted above, was one example of the reaction of a leading militant to his experience of the Marxism of the CLC. At the same time, the CLC and Plebs had formed very close links with organized workers in a number of areas, and in these cases the reaction against the theory of the movement and its practical expression in Syndi- _calism came only as a result of the bitter experi- ences of 1921, when the inadequacy of syndicalist forms of organization was experienced in prac- tice. This was particularly so in South Wales where the CLC had become very firmly entrenched in the indigenous Syndicalist movement. It was here that Syndicalist organization achieved its full expression in the months before the lock- out in 1921 and there was the clearest evidence that. the loose, highly parochial organization that existed was felt to be entirely adequate to pro- vide leadership for the rank and file. Towards the end of 1920 Will Hewlett, a leading member of the unofficial movement, expressed this feeling in 26 Of course, a large number of CLC local organi- zers and Plebs members were also members of the BSP, SLP or ILP. They all tended to share a common approach to Marxist theory. 27 Plebs Magazine, April 1923. 28 <A. J. Cook, an active member of the Plebs League and lecturer at numerous CLC classes, represented one of the best products of this movement. 23

[p028] an article explaining how the South Wales rank and file were organized; it is worth quoting at some length for the evidence it provides of Syndicalism in its most advanced form on the eve of the massive industrial struggles of the 1920s: I know there is an idea abroad that South Wales is covered by a network of Unofficial Com- mittees. This is not so. In fact there is no permanent unofficial organization in the coalfield. What does happen when it is necessary is that the advanced or rebel element does meet and discuss matters ... then go back to their respective Pit Committees and Lodges, put their views forward . . . and if their opinions are accepted the dele- gates to the Councils and Conferences are in- structed to act accordingly. Thus we are enabled to carry out our advanced policy in a constitu- tional manner... . It is fair to claim that the major portion, if not the whole of the advanced reforms in the coalfield is attributable to the unofficial or rebel element. This element is gener- ated and developed through the ‘Central Labour College Evening Classes’ owned and controlled by the NUR and the SWMEF. This again is provided for in the constitution. ... Hewlett then went on to advise the emulation of this movement; correct organization would flow from education on CLC lines. He urged Comrades ... to form up their evening classes for the study of Industrial History and Economics (Marxian) this winter, develop them to their fullest capacity, impart to the rank and file all the knowledge possible, then I do not fear the result - _ 29 Historic basis of syndicalism To a very large extent, the attachment to spontaneity, the opposition to strong leadership, the avoidance of questions of political action and the role of the state, and the purely mechanical approach to Marxism were inextricably bound up with the character of British capitalism in the period up to 1921. In a period of expansion, with booming profits and full employment, capitalism could afford to meet the demands of organized workers, if pressed in a sufficiently firm and mili- tant manner. In these conditions, it seemed to rank-and-file militants that they did not need to look beyond the forms of trade union activity advocated by syndicalism, nor question the Marxism that gave theoretical justification to this syndicalism. The methods of ‘direct action’, the theories of the CLC, were all acceptable to advanced militants because in the specific condi- tions up to 1921 they were empirically viable; they worked. There was no apparent need to look for 24 higher forms of organization or policy. This was borne out by the successes achieved by ‘direct action’ before the war, by the partial successes of the SS & WCM in controlling workshop condi- tions during the war and by the South Wales miners’ successful resistance to the Government’s attempted imposition of the Munitions Act in 1915. But, militant as these struggles were, they remained, it must be emphasized, wholly con- cerned with trade union issues, and while they were political in that they had the effect of prompting the intervention of the state and limit- ing the scope of governmental action to some extent, they had no consciously political aim, even during the war. Murphy stressed that none of the actions of the SS & WCM during the war had any anti-war intention: None of the strikes that took place during the course of the war were anti-war strikes. They were frequently led by men such as myself who wanted to stop the war, but that was not the actual motive. Had the question of stopping the war . been put to any strikers’ meeting it would have been overwhelmingly defeated. The stoppages had a different origin and a different motive. They arose out of a growing conviction that the work- ers at home were the custodians of the condi- tions of labour for those in the armed forces, as well as themselves .. .* Syndicalism obstructs the Clydeside movement Implicit in Murphy’s estimate of the movement during the war was an acceptance of its purely Syndicalist, non-political character. Murphy, a member of the SLP, along with other leading shop stewards, members of the BSP, ILP or SLP, sub- merged themselves in syndicalist activity during the war and made no real attempt to give the SS & WCM any definite revolutionary purpose until the post-war years. Indeed, in certain critical periods, notably during the ferment on the Clyde early in the war, the movement was a definite block to the development of political understand- ing. The Clyde Workers’ Committee (CWC) was wholly concerned with defending workshop con- ditions and laying the basis for a new industrial union for the metal-working trades. Despite the prominence of people like Gallacher (BSP), Macmanus (SLP) and Kirkwood (ILP) in its lea- dership, the CWC failed, in fact refused, to link its workshop activities to a struggle against the war, despite the objectively favourable conditions. 29 The Worker, September 4, 1920. 30 J. T. Murphy, New Horizons, p. 44. Fourth International, February 1968

[p029] This came out most clearly over the deportation from Glasgow of Macmanus, Kirkwood and four other leading shop stewards early in 1916. Opposi- tion to the Government’s action was ‘intense throughout the Clyde and there was a wave of demands from the workshops for a strike, but a report of a meeting of the CWC to consider this demand indicated how steeped the leaders of the Committee were in their syndicalist theories: At this meeting it was quite evident that the members were very indignant against the action of the Government. So keen was the indignation that a motion was submitted that the CWC should declare a strike in the Clyde District. The chair- man, William Gallacher, ruled this motion out of order as it was against the accepted aims of the CWC. This aim was the building of one industrial organization in the engineering industry. The members of the committee could inform their fel- low workers in the shop where they worked as to what happened at the Forge (i.e. Parkhead Forge) but beyond that the CWC had no jurisdiction... #1 Concomitant with the syndicalist attitudes of the leaders of the SS & WCM (whatever their formal political affiliations) was the organizational weakness of the movement, noted above, which prevented effective concerted action and produced dismal failure in the possibly revolutionary situa- tion at the end of the war. In brief, the war saw a strengthening of syndicalism because of the singularly favourable bargaining position of work- ers, the abnegation of leadership by the trade union signatories of the Treasury Agreements and the desperate need of the Government to keep the war effort in top gear. The South Wales strikes of 1915 and an anticipation Developments similar to those among the Shop Stewards occurred in South Wales, although there was no organized contact. South Wales saw a high level of industrial militancy during the war, notably in the 1915 strike in defiance of the Muni- tions Act. Like engineering, the coal industry was absolutely essential to the war effort and the bar- gaining position of the miners was consequently enhanced, despite the firm support for the war given by the leaders of the Miners’ Federation. In these circumstances the syndicalism that had de- veloped in the area before the war was reinforced even though the formal organizational structure of the unofficial movement disappeared with the out- break of the war. The success of the miners in 1915 seemed to provide a complete vindication for Marxism and Stalinism in Britain (Part I) the methods of syndicalism and greatly increased the propensity to this type of action in the period up to 1921. The full effect of the 1915 struggle on leading South Wales syndicalists was indicated in a controversy in the Plebs Magazine on the quéstion of the nature and role of the state and the need for a working-class revolutionary party to oppose the bourgeois state. The contribution of the protagonist of a revolutionary party, Will Craik, is worth quoting in some detail in order to bring out the full significance of the opposition to it from syndicalist sources: Since Imperialism set in, wrote Craik, the State has come to acquire a new significance. It becomes the driving force for the expansion of national capital over the face of the earth... . The organs and operations of the State are changed and augmented to meet the needs of this Imperialist phase of capitalism and especially to meet the need for war which henceforth becomes the means for capitalist expansion . . . The State that requires war without needs peace within. It has, therefore, to adapt itself to maintaining the latter as well as for the conduct of the former. It must become, directly, an economic power. Less than ever, then, can the industrial organization (of the working class) expand and the area of its activities extend without political consequences, without State intervention. The working class cannot attack the economic power of capitalism without attacking the political organization of that power...” This argument of Craik’s was, in a formal way, an anticipation of the understanding that was to grow amongst advanced workers after the war of the need for a revolutionary party. However, the counter-arguments of Ablett to Craik in the Plebs Magazine showed a complete inability to comprehend the theoretical objections raised by the latter to syndicalism. Ablett’s arguments were, in fact, an indication of the way syndicalism was deeply rooted in the empirist traditions of the Labour movement, to which Marxism was adapted; they indicated also the degree to which syndicalism was intensified by the specific condi- tions of British capitalism in the years before the post-war depression. It was only when this new economic phase began and the state intervened to support the coalowners in making the savage wage reductions of 192] that the failings of Ablett and his co-thinkers were revealed. In opposing Craik, Ablett based his arguments on the specific, 31 Quoted by J. T. Murphy, Preparing for Power, p. 123. 32 Plebs Magazine, March, 1917. 25

[p030] limited experiences in South Wales between 1910 and 1915: The economic power of the working class grows apace, he wrote, and Mr. Craik may rest assured that there is already sufficient economic power to deal with any more political or even the more serious juridical obstacles without in any way frittering away our energy by creating a political organization. During that period the miners, particularly the South Wales miners, have been’ through several crises in which the Government has had to intervene. . . The Government was compelled to meet us directly. If at any period the negotiations -were transferred to the ‘House’ then our business would have to be dealt with by men who could’ not understand as fully as we could our contentions. In the end the whole matter would be decided by our economic power... . It is easy to deduce from this that the larger the industrial organization the less need is there for any political organization. If the Triple Alliance decided to strike, of what use would a political organization be to them?... The struggles of the post-war years, however, and the profound influence of the Bolshevik Revo- lution broke down the narrow, trade union out- look of people like Ablett. The question of revo- lutionary action in Britain became inextricably bound up with the international struggles of the working class and the Bolshevik experience in Russia. The period 1919-1921 was to see the struggle to form a revolutionary party, the value of which had been denied by Ablett, but in conditions where the influence of Ablett’s syndi- calism remained strong and where the propensity towards the methods of the South Wales syndi- calists or the Shop Stewards’ Movement remained unchallenged. It was only through the decisive experiences of 1919-1921 that these traditional methods were broken down and the basis laid for a revolutionary party with the potential to inter- vene decisively in the struggles that were to culminate in the General Strike. OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION A TROTSKY ANTHOLOGY 26 Edited with an introduction by Isaac Deutscher (with the assistance of George Novak). Published by Dell Publish- ing Co. Inc. Distributed in Britain by New Park Publica- tions Ltd. Price 9s. 6d. A concise and invaluable collection of Trotsky’s writings. The theoretical genius of one of the world’s great Marxists and co-leader of the first successful socialist revolution is brilliantly revealed in this book. It is an indispensable addition to the library of all communists who are serious about studying, understanding and grasping the method and programme of contemporary Marxism. Orders to: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD I86A CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, S.W.4 Fourth International, February 1968

[p031] limited experiences in South Wales between 1910 and 1915: The economic power of the working class grows apace, he wrote, and Mr. Craik may rest assured that there is already sufficient economic power to deal with any more political or even the more serious juridical obstacles without in any way frittering away our energy by creating a political organization. During that period the miners, particularly the South Wales miners, have been through several crises in which the Government has had to intervene. The Government was compelled to meet us directly. If at any period the negotiations -were transferred to the ‘House’ then our business would have to be dealt with by men who could’ not’ understand as fully as we could our contentions. In the end the whole matter would be decided by our economic power. ... It is easy to deduce from this that the larger the industrial organization the less need is there for any political organization. If the Triple Alliance decided to strike, of what use would a political organization be to them? ... The struggles of the post-war years, however, and the profound influence of the Bolshevik Revo- lution broke down the narrow, trade union out- look of people like Ablett. The question of revo- lutionary action in Britain became inextricably bound up with the international struggles of the working class and the Bolshevik experience in Russia. The period 1919-1921 was to see the struggle to form a revolutionary party, the value of which had been denied by Ablett, but in conditions where the influence of Ablett’s syndi- calism remained strong and where the propensity towards the methods of the South Wales syndi- calists or the Shop Stewards’ Movement remained unchallenged. It was only through the decisive experiences of 1919-1921 that these traditional methods were broken down and the basis laid for a revolutionary party with the potential to inter- vene decisively in the struggles that were to culminate in the General Strike. THE AGE OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION A TROTSKY ANTHOLOGY ed, w ith an istoset 26 A TROTSKY ANTHOLOGY Edited with an introduction by Isaac Deutscher assistance of George Novak). ing Co. Inc. Distributed in Britain by New Park Publica- (with the Published by Dall Publish- tions Ltd. Price 9s. 6d. A concise and invaluable collection of Trotsky’s writings. The theoretical genius of one of the world’s great Marxists and co-leader of the first successful socialist revolution is brilliantly revealed in this book. addition to the library of all communists who are serious about studying, understanding and grasping the method and programme of contemporary Marxism. It is an indispensable Orders to: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, S.W.4 Fourth International, February 1968