The General Strike 1926: A New History
By David Brandon
Published by Pen & Sword Books, 2023, £25
Reviewed by Harry Cooper
This book by David Brandon, a lecturer and author particularly of railway history, is an excellent and comprehensive history of the 1926 general strike. One of its major strengths is its focus on the economic context, and particularly the decline of Britain’s industrial power and the crisis in the coal industry, leading to a decisive showdown between capital and labour.
In this context, Brandon carefully reviews the failure of the trade union leadership, their cowardly role, and their fear of a major social upheaval challenging the capitalist order, which led the TUC to sell out the general strike.
The distinctive feature of the British economy between 1880 and 1914 was the loss of its industrial competitiveness and superiority over Germany and the United States in critical industries. In particular, the German economy in sectors such as coal, iron, steel and manufacturing left Britain behind. This was, to a significant degree, the result of increasing research and development by German industry, leading to the expansion of production and higher productivity. In comparison, British industry became increasingly backward, less productive, and heavily reliant on intensifying the exploitation of labour to maintain profitability, rather than through the advance of industrial technique. This was especially the case in heavy industry. Instead of meeting the industrial challenge of her competitors Britain attempted to avoid them. Capital was instead directed toward finance, shipping, insurance and acting as an intermediary in the world trading system with, as Brandon says, Britain increasingly experiencing “import penetration from foreign manufactured goods, cheaper and often of higher quality than those made at home”. Between 1875 and 1914 Britain’s share of global manufacturing fell from 32% to 15%, dropping to third place behind the US and Germany.
Brandon also provides a comprehensive picture of the increasing industrial unrest and class conflict in Britain in the decade before world war one. In particular the years 1910 to 1914 were marked by an unprecedented scale of industrial conflict involving millions of workers across major industries.
In 1911 strikes broke out involving railway workers, seamen, dockers and carters. An acrimonious strike took place in the South Wales coalfields which spread to the Taff Vale Railway at Tonypandy. A nationwide strike of railway workers was narrowly averted by Lloyd George – who recognised the immense danger to Britain’s economic stability involved – although his creation of ‘Conciliation Boards’ to sidestep the conflict, as Brandon notes, never genuinely addressed workers grievances, did not involve union representation as such, and were widely mocked by workers as ‘Confiscation Boards’. The 1911 railway strike was nevertheless a portent of things to come. An estimated 200,000 railway workers struck for better pay and union recognition for collective bargaining purposes while the government deployed 58,000 troops to the main sites of strike activity.
In 1912 there was a national stoppage in the mining industry for a minimum wage with 80 percent of members of the Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) in favour of strike action. Although railway workers, critical to the transport of coal, did not come out in sympathy, it was becoming increasingly clear to many workers, particularly in railway, transport and mining, that combined union action was the key to success. The 1912 miners’ strike which only lasted several days and was successful in securing a minimum wage for miners throughout Britain, but not the end of the despised district agreements, shook the ruling class. Brandon quotes the statement of one senior politician at the time that “this coal strike is the beginning of a revolution. Power… is passing from the House of Commons to the trade unions… There are unpleasant years before us”.
The formation of the ‘Triple Alliance’ in 1914 which brought together the unions of miners, railway and transport workers provided a lever of enormous power to labour, and that is how it was viewed by the ruling class and grassroots union activists. Many workers saw the alliance as a means to a substantial improvement in their wages and conditions – and many also saw it as a powerful tool in the fight for a socialist society. However, as Brandon describes it, “the contrast between the visionary ideals of the rank-and-file activists and the much more limited view that the leaders held was to be put to the test in the troubled years after the Great War”.
By 1914 British capitalist society was extremely unstable and approaching breaking point. On the eve of the war, Brandon writes, Britain “could with some justification be described as a society in a state approaching revolution. Unprecedented industrial unrest, women’s struggles for political and social emancipation, the ‘Irish Question’ and the Conservative and Unionists’ contempt for the rule of law in encouraging mutiny in the armed forces over the issue of Home Rule, the intransigence of the House of Lords in seeking to block progressive legislation; these were among issues tearing society apart”.
“Then came the declaration of hostilities and, overnight, these took second place to the war effort but the tensions of which they were symptoms were not extirpated… The war only exacerbated the old tensions and created new ones which led, at least between 1918 and 1920, to a situation which, if anything, was even more volatile than that experienced in the immediate run-up to the war… This fifty-year process of uncomfortable change provides a background and a context which is essential to any understanding of why the general strike occurred in 1926”.
Rising militancy after the war
It was clear to millions of workers in Britain, including huge numbers who had served in the war, that the country would not become a ‘land fit for heroes’ after the war as leaders had promised. On the other side the ruling class felt increasingly fearful of the concentration of power represented by the emergence of national trade unions in key industries. Most of the union leaderships had declared their support for the war and could be relied upon to suppress unrest and ensure that the working class backed the war effort. Under the Munitions of War Act of 1915 compulsory arbitration was enforced and strikes in industries considered crucial to the war effort were deemed illegal. The war also had the effect of bringing sections of the union bureaucracy closer to the government, with many union officials feeling that they had a standing and respectability in the ‘system’.
Another significant development in the union movement, however, foreshadowing conflicts in the future, was the development of the shop stewards movement. As Brandon explains, “at grassroots level, union activists, especially those on the left, were concerned about their officials ‘cosying-up’ to the government and the employers… It is not surprising that a grassroots alternative leadership emerged as shop-stewards’ movements developed in critical industries across the country. Although there had been shop stewards in certain industries before the war, in the tensions of the immediate pre-war years and of the war itself these unpaid elected union officials assumed considerable importance in key industries. This rise of the shop stewards was evidence of the developing schism between the national leadership of the labour and trade union movement and the activists at local level, something that was very evident during the general strike”.
In September 1919 railway workers struck over proposed wage cuts threatened by the railway companies. Lloyd George referred to the strike as an “anarchist conspiracy”, and a “wanton attempt to hold up the community”. Brandon goes into some detail reviewing the history of the strike, the machinations of the government including the deployment of 23,000 troops, and the cowardly and unprincipled role played by Jimmy Thomas, Labour MP for Derby and a senior figure in the National Union of Railwaymen. Thomas’ role was in many ways a foretaste for the role he played in betraying the general strike in 1926. The companies and the government finally agreed to maintain existing wage levels for a year for an immediate resumption of work. Brandon highlights “the superb level of solidarity in the ranks of the railway workers. The footplatemen of ASLEF spurned the bribe the government offered and came out with the other grades” and, further, the “support from trade unionists in other industries… notably, the print workers in London’s newspaper industry [who] made it clear that they would not produce newspapers unless the railway workers’ case was given a fair hearing”. This was a sharp contrast “with the cringing apologetics of Jimmy Thomas”.
It was already clear to more astute elements of the bourgeoisie and its political leaders by 1919 that more valuable than any legislation or other powers it might utilise against the workers in a major clash, its most valuable asset was the indecisive and conciliatory character of the trade union leaderships.
The coal crisis and the general strike
Brandon discusses in detail the critical problems in the British coal industry which rendered virtually inevitable a major conflict between the coal owners and the miners. At the heart of the problem lay increasing competition in a capitalist world economy.
The quick end of the post war up-turn and the recovery of the French and German coal industry forced down prices and rapidly made the British industry loss-making by the early 1920s. As soon as the mines, which had been placed under government control during the war, were handed back to the owners, they demanded substantial wage cuts. There were a number of commissions set up by the government to enquire into the coal industry prior to the general strike (the Sankey Commission in 1919 and the Samuel Commission report in March 1926) but the fundamental structural problems of the industry made a solution – short of nationalisation – impossible.
In October 1924 the Labour government lost the election bringing its very short hold on office to an end. The new government saw itself as staunch defenders of capital. Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill looked forward to a major confrontation and got on with making preparations.
An increase in the supply of coal from American and Polish-Silesian mines and reopened German pits in the Ruhr region put huge pressure on the British coal industry. The return of Britain to the gold standard in April 1925 led to a revalued sterling which drove British coal prices higher in export markets. The response of the coal owners is succinctly summarised by Brandon: “The mine owners protested, pleading poverty. They owned an industry which was outdated, inefficient and desperately needing modernisation and reorganisation. Many owners were men of considerable wealth and influence who saw no reason why they should be subjected to reorganisation or other compulsory government intervention. They argued that since they were not getting the prices they wanted for their coal, there was no alternative but for the miners to work longer hours and take a pay cut”.
The miners were ready to fight and looked for support from the rest of the union movement. The TUC promised to support the miners and the railway, transport and seamen’s unions declared a ban on coal movements from midnight on 31 July 1925. The situation had all the makings of a general strike. The government suddenly backed down and promised a subsidy to the coal industry until 1 May 1926 in order to avoid a damaging confrontation. The victory was cheered by the miners and working class more broadly but given the deep structural problems of the coal industry could only be a temporary victory.
Brandon describes the nine months leading up to the general strike including the failure of the Samuel Commission. The Commission acknowledged the need for the reorganisation of the industry and recommended no longer working hours but a cut in wages, but not to the extent demanded by the employers. The Miners’ Federation restated its opposition to wage cuts, with the slogan ‘Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day’. The TUC was fearful of calling a general strike but the hesitation of the union leadership was not mirrored by the coal owners. On 30 April the owners terminated the existing agreement with the MFGB.
The general strike lasted from one minute to midnight on 3 May 1926 until twenty past midnight on 12 May. Brandon in the chapter titled ‘Days of Strike’ describes the determination, solidarity and discipline of the rank-and-file workers in the battle with the coal magnates. There was a very high response to the call to strike and the determination to fight to a victory by the mass of striking workers did not waver.
“The strike showed that any proper railway service, let alone normal economic activity, was unsustainable without the everyday contribution of working people”, Brandon writes. “It was their labour that underpinned modern society. This gave the organised working class enormous potential collective bargaining power, but they were lions led by donkeys”.
Late on day six of the strike the General Council told the MFGB executive that the miners had to take wage cuts and longer hours if there was going to be a settlement. The TUC was desperate to call off the strike but the miners’ leaders were determined that there would be no wage cuts. The TUC leadership became hostile to the miners’ leaders, with the TUC president Arthur Pugh telling them that they were living in a “fools’ paradise”. Thomas continued to vent his deep aversion to the strike, claiming without evidence that large scale violence would take place between the strikers and the police if there was no quick settlement of the dispute.
As Brandon observes, the government “now had little doubt that events were running in its favour. The strike had become a battle of wills between the government and the unions. Under the pressure of events the TUC’s will broke first”.
Capitulation by the TUC
On the ninth day of the strike the TUC made further attempts to force the miners’ leaders to accept a Memorandum of Settlement which provided for wage reductions and longer hours, but failed. At around noon representatives of the General Council attended 10 Downing Street to meet the prime minister as had been previously arranged. Totally humiliated, they were told that they were only permitted to enter if they provided assurances that the general strike had been called off. Brandon paints a graphic picture of the TUC’s abject surrender on that day.
“More humiliation followed as Arthur Pugh for the TUC preceded his statement that the strike was ending forthwith with pious hopes that a satisfactory settlement for all could be reached. This was followed by Ernest Bevin, a man who liked to be regarded as the sort who called a spade a spade, cringingly stating that he hoped the TUC’s action in ending the strike would be seen as one of strength not weakness. It was nothing of the sort. It was unconditional surrender. The miners were on their own. Almost beyond belief, the evening edition of the British Worker, in announcing the end of the strike, told its readers that the miners would now get fair treatment. For its part, the MFGB quickly disassociated itself from the TUC’s decision to call off the strike. The lockout of the miners continued”.
“On the government side there was no delusion about the nature of what had happened. Even Lord Birkenhead, one of the most hawkish of the inner circle, said he ‘felt something akin to compassion for the TUC leaders as they trooped dejectedly out of the Cabinet room’.”
The battle in the coal fields continued until November 1926 with neither side prepared to give ground. However the hardships of the miners and their families took a massive toll and eventually reached agonising levels. The coal owners were wealthy men and could continue to maintain their position indefinitely. With winter coming the morale of the miners was blunted and there was a slow return to work. The miners were essentially starved back to the pits. Most mines were operating by the end of November and miners were forced to take wage reductions, work longer hours and subjected to diminished employment security.
David Brandon’s history of the 1926 general strike is an excellent, detailed and well-argued account of the events. Great emphasis is appropriately laid on the structural problems of the British economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which was the root source of the conflict, and in particular, the contradictions of the capitalist profit system as expressed in the coal industry, which were insoluble.
Importantly, Brandon shows how the TUC leadership’s class-conciliatory approach to the conflict doomed the general strike to failure, leading to great misery and impoverishment of thousands of workers. Brandon’s book, alongside Trotsky’s contemporaneous writings on Britain in 1925-1926, provide invaluable lessons as, one hundred years later, the deep and intractable problems of British and world capitalism are leading to a stormy period of social upheaval and class conflict in which the question – capitalism or socialism – is once again inexorably posed. ■
This is an extract from a longer review of Brandon’s book, available here.