When the General Strike began on 4 May 1926, the coalfield communities of South Wales answered the call with militancy.
Throughout the valleys, workers moved quickly to organise and coordinate themselves for the strike. This was a period of inspiring class struggle, which proved the courage and militancy of the working class and their ability to run society for themselves.
In the Rhondda, strike committees were formed within hours of the strike beginning on 4 May. By the following day, they were controlling the region’s transport.
They decided what lorries could carry and where they could go, and issued permits accordingly. They liaised with railway workers to prevent the movement of coal without their permission. They oversaw the distribution of essential supplies to ensure the needs of the workers and their families were met.
Local union branches held mass meetings to elect delegates, making sure that the committees were directly accountable to the rank and file. Discipline amongst the workers was high, workers respected the political authority of the committees, and scab labour was virtually non-existent.
From the outset, these strike committees began operating as workers’ councils, replacing the functions of local government and showing a disciplined, democratic form of workers’ power in the area.
Merthyr, which had long been a centre of radical working class politics, became a focal point for militancy in South Wales. The strike committees maintained public order throughout the area.
They coordinated the pickets with shifts organised to maintain a regular presence at key locations. They blocked the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS) from providing scab labour. The town functioned without bosses, police, or state oversight. The strike committees kept society running.
In Swansea, dockers and railwaymen formed joint strike committees that quickly asserted control over the port.
From the second day of the strike, coal and food shipments were halted and the movement of goods was tightly monitored and controlled. The committees coordinated picketing at railway sidings and dock gates, making sure that no trains or ships moved without the workers’ permission.
When the government attempted to force supplies through using the OMS, the workers responded with strong organised resistance to prevent it. The workers intercepted lorries, turned back scab drivers, and maintained a visible presence at key transport hubs.
According to reports from the South Wales Miners’ Federation, the port remained effectively shut for the duration of the strike. Workers refused to cooperate with any attempt by the government and the bosses to resume operations. The committee ensured that key supplies continued to reach working class families, while denying access to strikebreakers.
The port, which was an important strategic asset in the area, was not just shut down, it was actively run by the workers themselves.
And yet, despite this inspiring level of improvised organisation by the workers, the local TUC leadership failed to support it. Tied to the line of the national leadership, they actively tried to discourage the workers from militant action and self organisation, and refused to coordinate the improvised action taking place by the workers.
In some areas, they even advised workers to stay away from picket lines and protests. Instead, they encouraged them to use the time to be at home with their families. While strike committees were building the organs of workers’ power, union leaders were searching for a way out of the strike.
When the TUC abruptly ended the strike on 12 May through an unconditional surrender to the government, the decision was met with disbelief and anger from the rank and file across South Wales.
On 13 May, picketing continued in Merthyr and the Rhondda, with strike committees still active and miners refusing to return to work. In Swansea, dockers and railway workers held firm, keeping the port shut for several more days.
The mood amongst the workers initially was not one of defeat, but of resistance. They had seen their own power in action, they had experienced in practice, the power of the working class.
Find more articles in our series ‘The 1926 General Strike as it happened’.
South Wales: “Power was in the Hands of the Workers”
This article by Rob Sewell was first published in issue 299 of The Militant for the 50th anniversary of the 1926 General Strike.
In industrial South Wales, the General Strike was solid from the beginning. Councils of action or strike committees were established in most towns and valleys.
In the mining valleys, refusal to join the strike would have led to social ostracism from the whole community – so instances of this were very rare! In fact, throughout the nine days, only one instance can be found of a miner attempting to black-leg. He was hospitalised for the remainder of the strike, after trying to go into work at Oakwood Colliery, Maesteg!
The power of the workers’ organisations in South Wales was such that the OMS or Emergency Power Regulations were rarely employed by the authorities during the strike.
The overwhelming numbers and power of the miners and their families in the valleys of South Wales resulted in these communities, such as Mardy and Bedlinog, being run by the strikers virtually unchallenged. It appeared not so much a situation of ‘dual power’, as an actual transfer of power to workers’ organisations!
In the coastal towns of Newport, Cardiff, Barry, and Swansea, general strike committees were set up by the trades councils. Although these areas were not dominated by the miners, there was an enormous loyalty to the TUC’s call, and overwhelming solidarity for the miners’ struggle. As later in 1972, 1974, and 1984/85, the miners’ fight was their fight.
The whole of South Wales was under the control of the Earl of Clarendon, who was determined to keep transport and communications in operation. As a result, troops and the navy were called in. HMS Simoom, HMS Tetrarch, HMS Caledon, and HMS Cleopatra, together with a submarine at Cardiff, were used to try and keep the ports free.
Success
The strikers replied by paralysing all normal road and rail transport throughout the region. The authorities claimed that a skeleton service operated the Great Western Railway, with 81 percent on strike. But the majority of the remaining 19 percent were clerks.
The attempt at the use of ‘voluntary’ scab labour provoked great bitterness, which resulted in violent clashes in Cardiff, Swansea and Pontypridd.
A Home Office report outlined the situation in Cardiff on the first day:
“All continues quiet. It is hoped to run the corporation buses in Cardiff Aber tomorrow. A submarine arrived in Cardiff today and a cruiser is expected tomorrow. Several potato boats are to be unloaded by non-union labour: adequate protection has been arranged.” (Quoted by H. Francis in The General Strike 1926)
The next day, 200 ‘specials’ had been enrolled and the cruiser HMS Cleopatra arrived. The potato boats were unloaded with police protection!
Scab labour was recruited to man the buses. But on 6 May, when a solicitor attempted to drive a tram, he was blocked by angry trade unionists in Queen Street. The police staged a baton charge and a girl was injured. The ‘mob’ was dispersed by reinforcements of foot and mounted police. Further disturbances took place, which immediately resulted in four men and a woman being jailed at Cardiff under the Emergency Powers Regulations.
The authorities had tried desperately to break the strike in Cardiff. But the movement remained loyal to the miners’ movement and the TUC. In fact, on the day the General Council called off the strike, 12 May, a big demonstration was held at Cathays Park that was very hostile towards the ‘settlement’. By late evening on 13 May, the return to work was negligible.
A similar picture was to be seen in other towns. Newport was also paralysed. Although the strike ended on 13 May, so tense was the situation in Newport and Swansea that the cruisers Cleopatra, Caledon, and Tetrarch remained present for some days.
In Swansea, such was the stoppage that even local newspaper boys struck for 4p per day. “The whole movement was a complete success from beginning to end. The response to the instruction to strike was complete and unanimous. In the great industries upon which Swansea industrially depends, black-legging was practically unknown…” (Swansea Labour News, 22 May 1976).
A strike committee was established representing 35 unions (encompassing 35,000 trade unionists). “The committee practically worked night and day giving increasing attention to the conduct of the strike…” (ibid). Such was the feeling against scabbing that TUC instructions were defied and ‘essential’ services brought out.
“In Swansea, the solidarity of the printers was magnificent.” Everyone responded except one stubborn old man. With typical pride, the Labour News stated: “The printers firmly upheld Swansea’s reputation of being the best organised town in the trade union world.”
In Llanelli, the trades council was converted into a council of action, which practically ran the town during the nine days. All ‘essential’ services were stopped, and the police stations and market were taken over. The market was used to distribute food to the needy, while the police force received their orders from the council of action.
The valley areas had developed a strong, close-knit community, which became fertile soil for the growth of radical ideas. Anarcho-syndicalist movements had sprung up amongst the rank and file of the South Wales Miners Federation from its birth in 1898.
This tradition can be traced through the Unofficial Reform Committee, the Plebs League, the South Wales Socialist Society, the Communist Party, and the Minority Movement.
By 1926, the South Wales Miners’ Federation had accepted most of the programme of the Miners’ Minority Movement. The ideas of Marxism also found a great response amongst the class-conscious mining communities. The thirst for knowledge and culture was reflected in the building of over 1,000 Miners’ Institute libraries, containing a wide selection of socialist literature.
The strength of the proletariat was reflected in the report given to the TUC on 9 May by Tom Griffiths, Labour MP for Pontypool:
“Observations made when passing through Rhondda Valley, Aberdare Valley, Taff Valley and Neath Valley showed every appearance of calm and orderliness…at 11pm when passing through Glyn Neath, crowds…were singing Hen W-lad fy Nhadau’…we observed throughout that there was no feeling of bitterness shown by any of the strike committees – a quiet feeling of confidence and determination prevailed everywhere.”
‘Little Moscow’
The ‘Western Mail’, the mouthpiece of the coal barons, earned the hatred of the strikers. It was subsequently banned in many miners’ libraries.
“The ‘Western Mail’, published in Cardiff, put the coal owners’ case more blatantly than any other newspaper in the country, and Bevan was particularly affronted when it made a vicious and, as he believed, obscene attack on A. J. Cook. He therefore organised a huge procession to Waunpound, the mountain between Ebbw Vale and Tredegar, where copies of the ‘Western Mail’ were solemnly burnt and buried. Bevan delivering the funeral oration.” (Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan).
At ‘Little Moscow’, as Mardy was known, the strike committee ran the whole affair. Work, food, transport, coal, and publicity was in its hands. To alleviate the situation amongst the needy, a communal kitchen was set up. Local newsagents were warned for selling the ‘yellow press’, and only trade union printed papers were admitted to the Miners’ Institute.
Prices were also controlled by the committee. Power was effectively in the hands of the workers. The ‘armed bodies of men’ remained ineffective.
Participants commented about the police raiding a house: “When they got out their car had been set on fire. They didn’t need names. I mean, you only need look at the village – it was all of ‘em done that!” (South Wales Miners’ Library)
Local preachers reflected the sentiments of the community. The Cwmgwrach Congregational Minister, the Reverend Edward Teilo Owen, was fined £20 (or two months’ prison sentence) for apparently stating in a Welsh sermon during the strike: “We have been squeezed. It is time to rebel.” He was also bound over for telling an assistant teacher that her services were not welcome if she rode in a scab train!
Miners’ wives played an heroic role: “Down in South Wales of course, the enthusiasm was tremendous, Mrs. Andrews, the Women’s Organiser, addressed a series of 20 meetings between 12 April and 13 May, which were attended by over 10,000 women. These were almost entirely miners’ wives.” (Swansea Labour News 12 June 1926).
When sentencing Mrs. Elvira Bailey of Treorchy to two months’ imprisonment, the magistrate said:
“You threw the first stone at the police constable and you set a very bad example to the women of the district. I find that the women have been taking too prominent a part in these disturbances and I must impose a penalty that will be a detriment to others.” (South Wales News, 3 November 1926).
Capitalist offensive
The betrayal of the general strike, not just by the right wing but also by the ‘left’ of the General Council, was treated with disbelief and anger in South Wales. Victimisation became widespread, and the miners were isolated for a further six months. The ‘Federation’ was broken, and officials and militants blacklisted.
Despite the assistance from fellow workers, hardship and hunger had crushed the miners into submission by the winter of late 1926. To avoid starvation and death, many were forced to emigrate.
In this period, the young Communist Party, when it was still a Marxist Party, had attracted hundreds of militant workers in the coal field, who sought a way out of the capitalist offensive.
It took decades for the wounds of the period to heal – although some families still had outstanding debts when the 1972 miners’ strike began!
Since 1926, a whole new generation of miners and workers has grown up in South Wales. A new period of massive class battles is on the order of the day. The capitalist crisis will force millions onto the road of socialist change.
Yet the present leadership of the labour movement is no real advance from that of 1926. Only a bold Marxist leadership with clear socialist policies will be able to advance the working class to victory – to the socialist transformation of society.
The control exercised by the workers through their own representative organisations, for a few brief moments in 1926, will become the accepted method of organising society in the not-too-distant future.
