Methods of Working Class Action

[p036] METHODS OF WORKING CLASS ACTION We British workers, as Aneurin Bevan recalls, have “a ‘Jong tradition of class action behind us stretching back to the Chartists.” (p. 2). These class actions have taken ‘various forms, even in the fight for democracy. The right to vote once or twice every five years for an M.P. is important, but casting a ballot in a box is not the only way the people make their voices heard and their power heeded. Since the days of the Chartists, the working people have been accustomed to sign and present petitions, hold mass meetings and vast demonstrations in public places, picket, and strike. All these modes of popular protest have been used to good effect when the need or occasion arose. In fact, the Chartist movement used many forms of working class struggle from petitions to Parliament to in- dependent National Conventions of Labour. Ideas of armed insurrection were popular amongst the workers at the time. Not a few milk-and-water Labour leaders of the present day would condemn the Chartist methods as incorrect or outworn, but this is not so. It is not that they are obsolete but rather that they came too early, before capitalism matured and the workers were powerfully enough organised to win their just and basic demands. The example of the Chartists should remind us, however, that there can be far more direct expressions of working class organisation and action than Parliament or any other official institution provides. The Labour movement existed, functioned and made its power felt long before it secured representation in the House of Commons. Even after the Labour Party entered there the most important struggles of Labour were initiated and carried through outside Parliament by the trade unions. As Mr. Bevan himself points out, the Labour Party was brought into the world not by Act of Parliament, but by the unionised workers. ‘Toward the end of the nineteenth century the trade unions of Britain began to gather new strength, and in the first decade of the twentieth century 34

[p037] they burst into an angry roar of strikes and lockouts. The miners in particular gave the first few heaves of that pro- longed protest, which hastened the birth of the Labour Party and gave it many of its leaders.” (p. 94). And this same movement that gave birth to the Labour Party sounded the death knell of British Liberalism. “The death of British Liberalism began when the Liberal administration of Mr. Asquith came into collision with the. dockers, the miners, and the railwaymen.” (p. 94). The trade unions are the oldest and most important working class organisations, and they constitute the solid base of the Labour Party itself. Although they have different functions and independent organisation, neither the industrial nor the political arm can be detached from: the body of the working class. The tasks of the trade unions under capitalism are to: improve the conditions of the workers and to defend and increase their share of the national income. This not only involves conflicts with the employers. At certain critical’ junctures it brings the unions into direct conflict with the capitalist government, which acts as a force behind the employers. To win its demands the unions can be obliged to undertake a general strike which challenges and shakes the state power of the entire capitalist regime. In this way a strike which originates in economic demands cam acquire a highly political and revolutionary character which acutely poses the problem of power to the working class. Mr. Bevan is opposed to this line of class action, which he contrasts unfavourably to parliamentary action. He cites. as proof of the inefficacy of general strikes the failures of the Triple Alliance in 1919 and the General Strike of 1926. His account is worth quoting in full not only for its own significance but because it is a hitherto unknown aspect. of contemporary Labour history. “TI remember vividly Robert Smillie describing to me an interview the leaders of the Triple Alliance had with David Lloyd George in 1919. The strategy of the leaders was. clear. The miners under Robert Smillie, the transport. 35

[p038] ent workers under Robert Williams, and the National Union of Railwaymen under Thomas, formed the most formidable: combination of industrial workers in the history of Great Britain. They had agreed on the demands which were to be made on the employers, knowing well that the Government would be bound to be involved at an early Stage. And so it happened. A great deal of industry was still under Government war-time control and so the State power was immediately implicated. “Lloyd George sent for the Labour leaders, and they ‘went, so Robert told me, ‘truculently determined they would not be talked over by the seductive and eloquent Welshman’. At this Bob’s eyes twinkled in his grave, strong face. “He was quite frank with us from the outset,’ Bob went on. ‘He said to us: Gentlemen, you have fashioned in the Triple Alliance of the unions represented by you, a most powerful instrument. I feel bound to tell you that in our opinion we are at your mercy. The Army is disaffected and cannot be relied upon. Trouble has occurred already in a number of camps. We have just emerged from a great war and the people are eager for ‘the reward of their sacrifices, and we are in no position to satisfy them. In these circumstances, if you carry out your threat and strike, then you will defeat us. “ “But if you do so,’ went on Mr. Lloyd George, ‘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, asked the Prime Minister quietly, have you considered, and if you have, are you ready?’ From that moment on, said Robert Smillie, we were beaten, and we knew we were. “After this the General Strike of 1926 was really an -anti-climax. The essential argument had been deployed in 1919. But the leaders in 1926 were in no better theoretical Position to face it. They had never worked out the 36

[p039] revolutionary implications of: direct action on such a scale. : Nor were they anxious to. do: so.”’- -@: 20-1). In this story Mr. “Bevan reveals more than he says. He: gives a vivid exposure and startling confirmation “Of the helplessness of the British bourgeoisie; the colossal might of the workers in action; the impotence and cowardice of. their union leaders. Mr. Bevan tries to shift part of the responsibility for the refusal to “accept the authority of. the state” upon the workers. “The workers and their. Jeaders paused even when their coercive power was greater. than that of the State.” (p. 21). “ That is not quite accurate. It was the leaders who. drew back, not the ranks. No one told the workers what the real state of affairs was, or sought their opinion on what to do next. Frightened by the cunning Lloyd George, the labour leaders threw in the sponge without. consulting or informing the ranks. Indeed, not until the Aneurin Bevan disclosures in these pages has the labour public known this inside story of the Triple Alliance’ S- debacle. If the workers had then gone forward to take over the- government, England might have been spared the defeat of the General Strike in 1926, years of hard times on the dole, Chamberlainism and Churchillism, the Second World War and its aftermath. It would not be necessary to do now what should have been done then. Why wasn’t it done? According to Mr. Bevan, both the leaders and the workers were theoretically and prac- tically unprepared. But the art of labour leadership consists in educating and organising the working class to take power when the time is ripe. After all the experiences of the past three decades, no political or union leader can any longer have the excuse that the workers are unready to take the power. British labour has manifested eagerness to do so time and again. And if another 1919 or 1926 should recur, a genuine labour leader “must be ready to take on the functions of the state’-—and keep them. Would that violate British 37.

[p040] tradition? That depends on which tradition is taken as a guide : the revolutionary traditions of Cromwell’s men and. the Chartists—or the opposite traditions set by Smillie, Williams and Thomas. The elements of a serious conflict between the capitalist government and the unions are even now in the making. All the big unions are pressing wage claims. The em- ployers' and the Tories appear as determined to reject. these just demands as to continue raising the costs of living which have provoked them. Suppose the Conserva- tives refuse any concessions and stay in office. Will not the unions be compelled to take up the strike weapon— and is this not likely to produce a situation similar to 1919 and 1926? What should Labour and its leaders do if such a show- down ensues? Surrender and submit to defeat and demoralization, as before? Or should they learn the lesson of the past and make certain next time that the power of the country is placed securely and speedily in the hands of the masses who create its wealth, and not the parasites who monopolize and abuse it ? Methods of action in the class struggle are like tools. They can be properly used or mishandled. This is as true of Parliamentary action as the General Strike. It is essen- tial to understand the conditions and the aims of a General Strike before entering into it. Mr. Bevan correctly points out that the trade union leaders “had forged a revolu- tionary weapon without having a revolutionary intention.” This does not condemn the weapon, but its misusers. They should have been aware of the revolutionary con- sequences of their strike action and ready to carry it through to its logical conclusion. The same holds true of parliamentary action. Parlia- ment can be a mighty lever for propelling Labour’s cause forward. But it is not the only one, and under certain conditions not the decisive means for class action. What should be the right relations between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary actions? .Mr. Bevan criticises those 38.

[p041] who looked upon parliamentary action “as an auxiliary of direct action by the industrial organisations of the workers.” (p. 19). But it would be equally one-sided, as he does, to make industrial action always auxiliary and subordinate to parliamentary action. Both forms of action are indispensable for conducting the class struggle. They have to be properly combined to give maximum force to that struggle. Just as the Labour constituency Parties and the trade union branches are joined together, and should even more closely co- ordinate their activities, so the methods of industrial mass action and labour political action must mutually support each other. The class struggle goes on in all departments of social life; economic, political, and intellectual. This or that branch of the struggle may predominate over the others at a particular time. The centre of the movement can shift rapidly. Blocked in one direction, the energy of the masses invariably tends to assert itself in another. If their action in industry is paralysed by economic conditions, weak leadership or reverses, they will look to political methods and parliamentary measures for relief, and vice versa. But whichever may be foremost at a given ‘moment, the movement must be so organised, educated, and directed that it can wage a unified offensive on all fronts of the class struggle. The best working class leaders, such as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, were ‘distinguished by their ability to grasp all the varied aspects of the labour movement, and to direct them in a unified manner toward the acquisition of power. All the necessary weapons can be employed in this ‘Struggle depending on the circumstances. A _ politician who exalts one special method of working class action to the detriment of others resembles those military strategists ‘who single out some single arm of the military service as ‘tthe sole instrument for defeating the enemy. Wars are ‘won by the proper co-ordination of all military branches ‘and weapons—and wars can easily be lost by exclusive concentration on a single weapon. It can be the same in the class war for socialism. 39