La the last two or three years the British labour morement has increasingly been beought face to face with an old truth of working class politics: that forms of strugale and organisation which seemed adequate to achiere the immediate aims of the wotken for many year quite quickly become Inudficient through a new turn of events, a «harpening of the social crisis or an escalation of the forms, of attacks by the capitalist class.
* here the working class is involved in struggles againat individual groups of employers over pey and conditions of employment, epecially in periods of economic boom, the trade unions are very effective instruments for saccessfully carrying out the light. But in periods of acute social crisis like the present. strikes for higher pay involve a struggle with very much more than employers. All kinds of Institutions which in times of social peace may have appeared quite neutral in the working chun's fight for a decent standard of living suddenly become the main obstacles to victory: the government, the capitalist press, the police, the courts and legal system, even tbe urmy. And correspondingly, organisations based upon bargaining over the price and conditions of sale of labour power - trade anions - though still vitally necessary, become Inadeguate to the tasks of defending the interests of the working class, even on the pay front. Still wider forms of organisation have to be established.
CRUCIAL LESSONS In essence these problems are not at all new for tte working class movement. The workers in other countries have many times faced and ovencome the inadequacy of relying upon motmal official trade union organisations and social democratic political parties to reccessfully carry forward the class struggle. And even the historical experience of the British working class movement - though much mote backward than that of the Russian, Spanish or German workers - provides many crucial lessons for today.
In his annual report to the Dockers' Union ponference of 1912, Ben Tillett summed up a situation not very different from the one we ate entering todayThe soquence of erents for 1912 followed the ususl course: claims for intreases and.
strices, efforts at mediation, negotiation and conciliation, Board of Trade effort, police Taltment dumb and acsuiescent. Labour Party impotent where nut indifferent, strugaie anu en d ol ame in some cases with Industrial gains - In the 1912 strikes we had to fight Parliament, the Torees of the crown, the judges of the law _. We had the Press of both parties and the capitalists against us; the police were incensed by the employers and rewarded for every act of violence, the imported police being as usual the worst of is a tiger, and both are savage and pitiless dowards the weak.' Beter the Fist Wortd War, the working clears Ia the strikes of that began to develop new weapons for hitting back against the many sided attacks from the capitalist class and the state machine. And in the General Strike of 1926 sections of the labour moverent demonstrated that when it came to a showdown between the ciasses, whatever the bourgeoisie had to throw against the workers could be returned a hundredfold when the labour movement was united and effectively organised.
BASIC ISSUE Increasingly today, working class militants are viewing every pay strike as part of a general struggle between the capitalists and the workers, which will only be resolved when one class decisively defeats the other. In 1926 districts where lugge numbersof workers are ments scranged. This will both keop a number of poople busy and provide amosement for many uLu.
And in case this had not sunk home, the bulletin added these choice remarks:
'Keep smiling -. Retuse to be provoked, Get Into vour carden. Look alter tho wile and kiddies. If you have not got a ganden get inta the country, the parks, the playgrounds Do nat hang around the centre of the city"
This was indeed sound advice for someone wanting to sabotage the strike. For its outcome was preciscly being decided in 'the centre of the city- and every available worker had to be mobilised for action there.
The first task was to establish centrai organisation in every area to direct the entire operations of the working class. In general, this work had to he done from scratch, through local improvisation. The only national forco which had some notion of the type of organisation required was the Communist Party. Even its grasp was marred by a wrong understanding of the political problems facing the movement in the General Strike. Nevertheless, in the preceding months it had campaigned for workers to draw on the experience of 1920 and form Councils of Action in every town. At the start of the strike, the most advaniced seciors of the movement tollowed this line ot action and were thereby able to most effectively push the movement forward towards victory. Without such organisations the activities of the strikers were hopelessly fragmented and wasted.
FOOD AND TRANSPORT Where all-embracing organisation existed, the cnormous potential power of the workers could be felt almost overnight. In Durham, the local Council of Action made its first priority the fight over food and transport. It passed a resolution stating the followingWhoever handles and transports food, the same person controls food: whoever controls food will find the "neutra!" part of the population rellying to their side. W'ho feeds the people wins the slrike..
The correctness of this was shown dramatically within two days. A member of the Council reported:
"After 40 hours of the general stoppape Sirs nosley irhe state orficlal In charee ol the whole region for the goverrment) came by night to negotiate personally with the committee. Sixty hours ufter the strike began, Sir Kingsley, accompanied by General Sir Ao Nongomey, were once more at strike headquarters making a plea for "dual cuntrol" of the transport of food. This proposal was ITDCIIZTEIN TC COLOO DILIC COCAEITICC "we cansot agree to out men working under any farm of dual control"
This was merely one of the first of thousands of humiliations which the generais, knights and other slave drivers of the capitalist class had to suffer at the hands of the Councils of Action as the strike movement rolled forward. Some of the most effective organisation to control transport was achieved in London. For cxample, in West Ham and Poplar all motor traffic on streets was prohitited by the local Councils of Action except for transport bearing transport facilities. They actively mobilised all possible vebicles and organised their use at the Fife, 3 cars and 100 motorbikes. hours off. ment with armed violence.
FIRST crush the Rusian workers stute.
Further articles will include detailed material on the ex service of the strike movement. In Bolton the Council controlled 57 motorcycles, in Coventry 9 cars and 60 motorbikes, and at Methil in An even more urgent problem in many areas than that of food and transport was the organisation of mass picketing to crush the blacklegs organised by the government. This work could not possibly have been carried through effectively if left to the individual unions. In some ureas the Councils of Action achieved miraculous feuts of mass picketing For example, in Bolton, the Council organised no less than 2,280 pickets over a period of two days, while in Doncaster a foree of 1,000 was continuously operational on the picket lines, each man doing a stretch of four hours on, 20 But it was in this field that the strike movement faced one of its most crucial tests: police attacks against the strike, In Doncaster, tor example, the picket was kept going but at the cost of 85 arrests during the strike. In some areas the police were trying to crush the moveFolloming the October revolation and the crention of a workens republic in Russia in 1917, the British ruling class and those of the other main imperialiss powers began to organise military infervention to In 1919 'Hands Off Russii" committeer lnd boen by Oliver The attitude of the trade union bureaucrats to the question of wurkers" self-defence was the same during the General Strike as it has been today in, for example, the building strike or the hospital strike: a policy of trying to aver! their gaze wlicre possible and capitulating outright to the state where necessary. During the General Strike, the TUC declared that the idea of a Workers" Defence Corps was "both unwise and impracticable.' Thi, view was not, however, universally shured by the Royal Constabulary, In Methil, Fife, in particular, the polico learnt to respect the Couneil of Action's Workers' Defence Corpi. A member of the Corps reported:
'After police charges on mass pickers, the Delence Corps, which 150 workers bad' joined ar the outset, was co-organised. Its numbers rose to 700, of whom 400, commanded by workers who had been NOOs during the wat, marchod in military formation through the lown to protec! the pieker. The police did not interfere again. In Middlesbrough, the Council of Action bocame so authoritative during the strike that it asist the Polish nation to defend its existence with all Che meana at their disposal'. When dockers in Danzig struck, refusing to laod munitions for the Pales, British troops trom the Baftic fleet were seat in to cnush the strike. On 3 ugust, Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, sent an ultimatum to the Soviet gowernment threatening war. On5 Auguat,
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the sign "By Permission of the TUC'. But the Councils of Action did not restrice their work to passively blocking the use of