In the period of intense and bitter struggles described in Part 1, the
massacre at Peterloo in August 1819 was just the most extreme example.
Arthur Thistlewood was able to gather around him a mixed collection of
other individuals equally impatient to bring matters to a head and have
it out with the country’s political leaders. They believed that violent
direct action was the answer.
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are
doomed to repeat them. For this reason, socialists take the study of the past
struggles of working people very seriously. In 1820 six men, convicted of treason, were publicly hanged
and then beheaded outside Newgate Prison in the City of London. The crime of
which they had been convicted was plotting to assassinate the entire Cabinet as
it sat enjoying a working dinner. This attempt at a violent coup d’etat is now
largely forgotten, tucked away as a footnote in the history books. It deserves
to be better known.
Kinder Scout in the Derbyshire peak
District is one of the most beautiful areas in Britain. The high
moorland has no farming value, yet working people were denied all
access. The area was reserved for grouse shooting, a hobby of the
rich. In the Great Depression after 1929,
walking and cycling were two of the only leisure activities young
workers could afford. On April 24th Benny Rothman
led the mass trespass that eventually gave chunks of ‘our’
country back to us.
At the 1944 conference of the ILP there were
clear indications that a steady move to the right on the part of the leadership
was taking place. This posed the question of what the left wing of the party
should do. Here Ted Grant raises the need for the left to sharpen up its ideas
and take a firm stand.
In the middle of the war the ILP was floundering. Not having
a fully worked out Marxist programme, it combined opportunism and sectarianism
at the same time. They could not understand the method as outlined by Ted Grant
at the time, which was not to issue mere denunciations of the Labour Party
leaders. It could "only be done by demonstrating to the masses, by their own
experience, that their leaders are incapable of representing their interests."
At the end of the Second World War the Labour Party was elected into office, a clear rejection of Churchill and his anti-working class policies. But the statements of the Labour leaders revealed that they intended to continue with capitalism. The British ruling class understood they could use these leaders, discredit them and then bring back the Tories. Ted Grant warned the Labour leaders that this is what would happen.
Towards the end of the Second World War the coalition government in Britain was pushing through the Town and Country Planning Bill in such a way that it guaranteed the property rights of the big landowners. In this article Ted Grant called on Labour to break the coalition and nationalise the land without compensation to the big landowners!
On the 80th anniversary of the 1926 general strike in Britain we look at what led to it and why it eventually was defeated. In spite of the tremendous militancy of the British working class, the top leaders of the trade union movement proved to be only too willing to compromise and get the workers back to work.
Eighty years ago an earthquake shook the very foundations of British capitalism. In the greatest display of militant power in its history, the British working class moved into action in the General Strike of 1926. For 9 days, from May 3, not a wheel turned nor a light shone without the permission of the working class. In such a moment, with such power, surely it ought to have been possible to have transformed society? How can such a position have ended in defeat? (by Phil Mitchinson, originally published in May 2001)
Twenty years ago on March 5, 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
embarked upon the most important class struggle in Britain since the general
strike of 1926. A ferocious battle ensued. Billions of pounds were spent by the
ruling class to crush the miners’ militancy. More than ten thousand miners
were arrested; two were killed on the picket lines and countless others injured.
Decades of so-called consensus were obliterated and the real and ugly face of
British capitalism was exposed for all to see.
An essential lesson to draw from the miners’ strike is the vital role of
leadership. The miners’ leaders stood head and shoulders above the majority of
British trade union leaders. The leaders of the NUM were a source of
inspiration. At the same time these leaders were inspired by the courage and
determination of the rank and file miners, of their wives and their communities.
Unfortunately courage alone is not enough to win such titanic battles. It must
be accompanied by correct tactics and strategy.