struggies that fook place between 1918 and 1921 had this character, us have some of the recent struggles in which the British working class has engaged: over the Industrial Relations Act, the Pentonville 5, the 1971 minen" strike, the NIRC fines, Phase 2, and, currently, the Shrewsbury sentences. The line of the Government over Phase 3-its refusal to make any Red Weekly 11 January 1974 a whole, Thus it was that a wretched toady like J.H. Thomas could hold on to the leadership of the National Union of Railwaymen and disonent the entire working class movement with his exhortations on the need to reject "unconstitutional' action and stick to the rules of Parliamentary 'democracy" even if, R Pege Arnot The Miner Yours of Struggle Alan Bullock Lte anic Tines of E Post War History of the British Working Clas
left-wingers. The Government and the capitalist press accuse the trade unions of challenging the Government, How many left-wing trade union leaders have been prepared to stand up and say that this accusation is true, and that the full power of the trade union movement ought to be used to bring down this anti-working class Government?
The 'left' bureaucrats may be able to record certain successes as long as the Government i prepared to make concessions on individual issues. But as soon as the Government stands firm, the left's militancy explodes like a balion at the first prick of a pin. For if you are not prepared to challenge the right. of the Government to govein, then what can you do if that Government refuses to make any concessions on a particular policy and proclaims its intention to fight tooth-and-nail? The right have a clear answer: abandon the folly of 'unconstitutional' action and put all your faith in 'political action' (ie leaflets and elections). The left' can only run around in circles until they get dizzy. Thus it is that when the crunch comes, the phony 'left" always concedes leadership to the right, as in 1921 when Bevin gave way to Thomas.
Rank-and-file unity faced with the contrasion and techer do.
The fundamental answer to the right-wing domination of the workers" movement is not, creation of genuine instruments of rank-and-file control over the struggle. This was the but the lefts' like Hugh Scanion and ... with no effective unity at the base of the unions involved. Thus the rank and-file had to watch the bureaucrats juggling with their fate, without any way of making their own feelings felt. When the left architects of the Alliance ran out of steam and passed leadership over to the right there was nothing the rank-and-file could do. Under such circumstances, there was little that faced with the confusion and treachery that permeated the union bureaucracies. This was the tragedy of Robert Williams, President of then, the clection of 'left' bureaucrats, but the the Transport Workers Federation. A revolutionary socialist of long standing, a fervent advocate of the direct exercise of the industrial power of faced a desperate choice on "Black Friday'-to vote for strike action in the face of NUR oppos ition, action which was bound to be partial and therefore posed great dangers for his union, or to muintain bureaucratic solidarity" at the cost of betraying the miners. He chose the latter course. The Communist Party expelled him for his complicity and he began a rightward drift, deepening despair and eventual suicide ending. the process only after he bad crossed beyond the fringes of the workers' movement in pursuit of his new masters —Ramsey MacDonald and J.H.Thomar.
How different things might have been if the Triple Alliance had sunk deep roots into the rank and file, creating local joint committees of railmen, transport workers, and miners. The sectiotalism that haunted the Alliance could been overcome and the ability of Thomas to use the NUR members like pawas in his treacherous game would have been greatly weakened, Even if the Triple Alliance leaders had tried to repeat the treachery of "Black Friday, the rank and-file would have had the means to organise solidarity independently of the bureaucrats. It would have been possible for someone like Williams to call for such action and to set about the lask of organising national coordination of the rank-and-file bodies to replace the bankrupt shell of the Triple Alliance executives. No matter what turns the bureaucracy or sections of the bureaucracy may take today we must remember this: the only way to keep the movement on course is for the rank-and-file Jack Jones today provide no real alternative necessary. Elected strike committees wherever strikes or occupations are launched, and joint committees of miners, rail drivers, and engineers to plan cordinated local struggles, are both ways of carrying this into pructice. With the decision of the Govemment to make the whole working class carry the burdens of the fight over Phase 3, an urgent and practical necessity is for Councils of Action in every area. Such bodies, bringing logether the entire local labour movement, can coordinate the resistance to the Tory lockout and prepare for an offensive to smash Phase 3 and bring the Tory Government tumbling down, no matter what course the bureaucrats try to pursue.