against it. A local "plan of campaign" adopted by the Durham Trades Council Just before the strike started put the issue in a nutshell, Jt declared:
Objectie - we must defcat the Clvil Commissioner and all his strike hreaking apparatus. That is to say, these will be concentrated azamnst the strikers in the Region the whole af the Cvil and Military institutions that are under centml control: and also the CIvil institutions usually class d as Loca! Goerement To win, the whole of the working class bad to be mobilised in united action. And yet throughout the strike the General Council relused to make this call. It even spent its time urging the demobilisation of those who had stopped work. Its bulletin, The Brizish Worker, announced:
The General Council suggests tsat in all Red Weekly 12 May 1973 Page 4 TiKe Ene saip to Sala European working class moverent.
Phove: Russin workers defend new pairs chaimed on 4 April: The marionettes are in W'arsaw. but the strings ate pulled from Dondon and Paris On 10 May, London dokors loading a ship called the Jolly George bound for Poland discon ered crates of munitions and other war matemal, and realied that the carpo was intended as aid for the Polish invasion of Rusia. They immediarely struck and relused to At fist the Poles advanced rapidly, taking Klex, che capital of the Ukraine, on 12 June. But by the end of June the Polish armies lad boen thrown back intu headlong retrent, Fruring the sumer the Red Armies chased the Polish forees right to the gates of Warsaw -arousing tremendous cathusisse througlout the At this moment the serene ailence of the British gow erseat was broken and Llayd George's real policy became clar. On 12 July he sent a Note to Russia saying the British government would feel bound to cinss muwement was ready to launch crushing msass WHAT ACTION?
What could the working claas do to stop military in tervention? There was a clear choice: whether or not to acuept the bonrgeoiale's political rule book and allow the matter to be sotted out in Parliament - the option of writing letters to Ml's, lobbying Parliament, hokling some protest demonstrationis and hoping that Llnyd George and Churchill woukd be reasonable" and accept the feeling of public opinion. In other words, to obey the law, respect purliamentary demoemey arad thereby allow tbe interests of the international working class movement to be trampled under foot as happened in 1914 and many times since.
But in 1920 the working class morement decided to kick aside the whole Fraudulent parapbernalis of
secured the withdrawal of all mounted police and special constables from the streets of the city 'in the interests of order"!
The crucial feature of the Councils of Action -whatever the particular names that they went under - was the fact that they possessed an all-embracing character, with the authority to speak for the entire working class movement locally, Irrespective of trade or political standpoint. The sole common denominator was support for the strike itself. Just how mixed the composition of the Councils could be was shown in the one at Blaengarw, Wales. The Secretary was a member of the Communist Party and it had representatives, not just from the unions and the co-op, but from the British Legion, and even the local Conservative Club! The exact organisational forms of the Councils of Action were rarely identical in any two places. A number consisted of little more than the members of the previous Trades Council, but in most cases the sheer scope of the organisational work made them very much broader, Nevertheless it was unusual to find one which was constituted on the basis of elected important to be sorted out in any parliamentary pantomime. On Sunday 8 August a special issue of the Daily fierald appeared, with a banner headline umming up the stand of the working clans move sent: "Not a Man, Not a Gun, Not a Soul'. Months of broad agitation by the 'Hands Off Russia Committeer were rapidly bearing fruit, and on that day hundreds of meetings took place throughout the country organised by Labour Parties, Trades Councils: and other trade union bodies. Earlier in the sumener at the June Labour Party Conference a motion by the left had proposed the immediate summoning of a matron conference svire for is olleer the organisation of a general strike that shall put an end once and for all to the open and covert participation of the British Government in attacks on the Soviet heavily defeated, being opposed by, among others, Ernie Bevin. But by August the demand for such action coull no longer he resisted by the Labour On 9 August a special meeting of the TUC Parliamentary Committee, the Labour Party NEC and the Parlamentary Labour Party pasaed a resolution which stated Diat war was beies prepared against Russia and declared that such a war would be an intolerable crime against humanity... the whole industrial power of the orginiscd workers will be used lo dofeat this war; the Executive Committees of affiliated organisations throughout the country must hold themselves ready to proceed immediately to London for a National Conference; they are advised to in struct their members to 'down tools on instructions ience of dual power in France, Spain, Italy and Russia.
representatives of strike committees, let alone on the bash of mass elections by the strikers themselves. Both the traditions of the official labour movement and the extreme haste with which they were formed tended to make them weighted on the side of local dignatories of the unions.
But what made the Councils of Action a revolutionary break from the past was precisely the combination of their all-embracing character and the nature of the functions pushed upon them by the tasks of the Genoral Strike itself. The main functions have already been outlined above, apart from the crucially important job of producing local strike bulletins, organising mass meetings and other propaganda activities. In addition, in different areas a whole host of other tasks were taken up: prisoners aid, collection of finances, intelligence work. In Dartford, the Council of Action set up a special committee to cheek local prices. In St. Pancras a special sub-committee was set up to conduct special meetines and propaganda for women. In many areas special entertainment committees were set up.
parliamentary democracy: the issues at stake were too from the National Conference; and a Council of Action shouki be immedintely constituted to take such steps as may be necessary to carry the above decisions into effect.' A fifteen man Counel of Action was organised immediately and in a matter of days some 350 local Councils of Action had been formed throughout the country. On 13 August the National Conference with 1,044 delegates, met in London and passed a resolution instructing the Councils of Action to re main in readiness until the government had clearly backed away trom aggressre pins Lloyd Goorge immediately backed down in the face of this threst of crushing mass action He tried to claim that the government had never intended intervention and that the wotking dass o'% missing a Tues about nothing. The capitalist press was outraged, with the Observer sneering: The methods of 'Labour' and its Councils of Action, are bombastic, hysterical and ridiculous What Chey Greaten is to make a revolution in order to force an open door. For a brief moment the Labour right was carried away by the great movement, with Ramsay MacDonald declaring for once correctly: There was to open dour tin Labour appeared before it. And tH Thomas was even moved to make the following accurate statement: During the past lew weeks we have gone through what i, perhaps, the most momentous period of the Trade Union and Labour Movement in our long history; a period which found for the first time a united and determined working can errort to cusHenge enc existing order of parliamentury government."
for the strike.
Beiow: May Day, 1926 established.
DUAL POWER in Ashton. He reported:
EDe sEnke acroplines. In a number of areas, local cinemas were taken over for the holding of mass meetings. In Stepney, where Labour had a majority on the individul capitalists and their families. And we of the 1920s.
As the strike developed increasing efforts were made to link up the local Councils of Action on a regional level. On the lourth day of the strike a conference was held in the north cast at Gateshead attended by 28 Councils of Action, fifty-two strike committees, four Labour parties and three Trades Council.
Similar moves took place in the East Midlands, Kent and the London area. But the strike was called off before any national fink up could be In every town the Councils of Action operated in more or less continuous session, meeting at least every day, with emergency committees frequently operating during the night.
As the strike progressed, the local capitabsts were increasingly forced to recognise the authority of the Councils of Action. The start was being made towards a complete overturning of the established relationship between the working class and the bourgeolsic. This experience was put in a mut shell by a sheet metal worker member of the Council of Action declared:
Employers of labour were coming, cap in hand, begging for pennission to do certain things.. Most of them were turned empty away after a most humiliating experinen, for one and all were put through a stern questioning just to make them realise that we and not they were the salt of the earth 1 Shoulast of the many occasions when t nad been turned empty away from the door of some workshop in a weary struggle to get the means to purchase the essentials of life.
This issue — which class is to go cap in hand lo which — is the contral one in the class struggle, but in the General Strike, it became the burning House of Commons on 13 May, the day aftor practical question of the day. Was the working class to assert its rule over the capitalists, or Then as now, the bourgeoisie tried to obscure the issue by calling for the defence of parlis mentary democracy against an unrepresentative How topical these thoughts must seem to Vic minority. But for all save the blind, the General Strike placed the institutions of "British Parliamentary Democracy for one in the light of day. The Durham council of action took the trouble to list them one by one:
(1) Local and rational Governmen#officials (2) The organisation for the maintenance of supplics. (OMS), (3) Various other stake hreaking bodies, composed mainly of middle-class persons improvised steps towards fuily hedged organs 44) The Fascists one al whose Denisations has entered into an arrangement with the (5) The Special Constabulary, in which it i likely many of the Fascists will enrol. (6) The Special Civil Constabulary, a body of armed men with steel helmets organised Pancros deliberately invited representatives of solely for the purpose of coping with (7) The regular County and Borough police (8) The Army, the Navy and the Airforce, squipped with tanks, machine guns, submarines, torpedo boats and We could agree that this list is not entirely complete. The foroes making up the campfollowers of Parliamentary democracy would also have to include the judges, the prison administration a0d some thousinds ol might also mention, last but not least, Jimmy Feathers and Wilsons of the Labour leadership Those were the real forces of the Parliamentary democratic state in the General Strike, as they are today. And they were straining every sinew in those nine days to crush the action of millions of working class men and women struggling to defend their living standards. In this context, the Councils of Action took on a new significance, well beyond the immediate practical tasks of organising the strike for which they had been created: in however im provised and partial a way, they alone could claim to represent the intercats and needs of the millions of working people.
And every day the strike lasted, they came lo fulfil this role more and more. They were coming into existence totally independentiy and outside the control of any of the established institutions of society, including those of the official trade union channels. It was this leaders were frank cnough to admit this. Dukes, Jeader of the General and Municipal Workers, Every day that the strike proccoded Lie control and the authority of that dispute was passing out of the hands of responsible mecutives into the hands of men who had no authority, no controL and were wrecking the movement from one end to the other.
These men with no sutbority, no control' who were nevertheless taking control of the move ment were none other than the mass of the strikers themselves, organised in the strike architect of the General Council's betrayal, spelt out his own motives equally clearly in the the strike bad peen called off:
What't dreaded about this strike moro than anythine che was this if by chance it shouk have got out of the hands of those who would be able to exercise some controL, every sape man knows what would have happened Feather and Co! How well they must have summed up his feelings as he trotted in and out of Downing Street during the last months of industrial confrontations, political strikes and flying pickets!
A BEGINNING The all-embracing organisations thrown up locally in the General Strike were only first, of working class power. In some ureas they were little more than very active Trades Councils. Some of them were made up largely of the local union and Labour Party officials, while the more advanced centres like St the strike committees to form the Council of Action, thereby turning it much further along the road towards democratie workers councils lice those created by the Russian workers during the revolution.
In general, even among the militants there was very little understanding of the potential of the Councils of Action as embryos of class power Theidea of regularising democratic representation of the mass of workers on the committees democracy practiced in one of the most advanced areas - Manstield. He wrote:
"In a rown ndjacent to Manstield a perhaps novel method was employed to get a strike committee Eunctioning. A mass meeting of strikers was called, and a strike committen elected by it. care boing taken to have cach section of workers represented. Whntever may be said about this method, it corcainty secured representation of the rank and file.' The crucial political importance of such demo.
cratic involvement of the mass of worcers was grusped by a Communist Party militant organising on Typeside when he outlined the plan of campaign in that arca The intention was that the setting up of the councils of action would cable the ahole theatre of war from Tweed to Tees to be corred with a notwerk of local councils From THESE AOU DoSER CO DO THE O ship, as things developed, than was possible Irom the ratics of local or district officiah of trade unions (who howeve, found themschies constituted as the lenders of their members The experience of the Councils of Action in the Gencral Strike provides vital lessons for the working class movement today, helping it to find a path forward out of the reformist deadand which the present leaders are still offering as they did in 1926 Red Weekly 12 May 1973 Page
Nationalised industry is somehow immune from the capitalist mode of production, and in such a neutral arena "industrial democracy and "warkers control can fleurish. But this doesn't solve the dilemma at all, as miners and steel workers have discovered to their cost.
----- pull-quotes -----
several on dual power. acDonald
local borough council, the Council of Action took over all municipal buildings and used them Thomas, Ramsay MacDonald, and the other
was capitalism going to emerge victorious and strengthened out of the General Strike?
more than anything else which led the TUC leadership to call off the strike. Some of th
committees and Councils of Action up and down the country. Thomas, the chief
was not generally grasped. An indication of this is given in a militant's report of the mass