Stalin and his allies drew from the defeat in Germany in 1923 the conclusion that capitalism was entering into a period of stabilisation in which there was no real chance of a revolutionary development in Europe. The Stalin faction of the Soviet Communist Party and the Comintern imposed this line on the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). It was the rejection by the Communist Party of a revolutionary perspective, in favour of tailing the TUC General Council and the lefts, in particular, which politically disarmed the working class and facilitated this historic betrayal. It was one shared by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party leaders, who responded by selling out the strike after just nine days, leaving the miners to fight alone until they suffered defeat. In fact, it was the estimation of the dangers inherent in the strike made by governing representatives of the British bourgeoisie, and not their latter-day interpreters, which was correct. Above all, the argument for the strike being an unfortunate incident rests upon its short duration and the subsequent course of development of the working class. This picture is usually backed up with anecdotes about football matches between strikers and the police (which actually took place, courtesy of the union leaders-the strikers won 2-1), and about strike-breakers who were a comical assortment of students, members of the Women’s Institute and Colonel Blimp types.

It was supposedly a terrible misunderstanding, resulting from an over-reaction domestically to a perceived threat that was actually external. Had such a terrible outcome occurred, they claim, those responsible would have been the Tory grandees, whose incendiary actions risked undermining the efforts to secure an industrial settlement acceptable to both sides.Īs a recent book, A Very British Strike, 3 May-, by Guardian journalist Anne Perkins, claims, “To a large extent, Britain’s General Strike in 1926 was an almost accidental by-product of the fear of revolution in a calmer atmosphere, there might have been no catalyst.” This interpretation is aided by the writings of the labour historians of a social democratic and Stalinist pedigree, all of whom insist that revolution was either never a possibility or, if the danger did present itself, its realization would have been the greatest disaster ever visited upon the British people. Yet for the most part, historians portray the strike as an exceptional episode in the otherwise reformist, law-abiding and pacific development of the workers’ movement in Britain-a society characterized by sharp class antagonisms but ones which can be resolved through compromise within the framework of parliamentary democracy. From its first days it involved millions of workers, including more than one million miners. The strike had the potential to develop as a revolutionary confrontation between capital and labour. The general strike was an event that should have signaled the beginning of a pronounced development towards revolutionary socialism by British workers and a political and organizational rupture with the trade union and Labour Party bureaucracy. Its lessons are essential for the development of a revolutionary strategy, not just in Britain but the world over. The British General Strike of May 1926 remains, after the passage of more than 80 years, a defining moment in the history of the workers’ movement.

Below is the text of a lecture delivered at a summer school of the Socialist Equality Party held in August of 2007.

Black friday general strike