The National Minority Movement, formed in 1924, involved at its height a quarter of the trade union membership and had experienced and authoritative class fighters as leaders. So why didn’t it shape the course of events in May 1926, asks PAULA MITCHELL?
“If the British proletariat had a leadership that came near to corresponding to its class strength and the ripeness of the conditions”, said Leon Trotsky speaking during the 1926 general strike, “power would pass out of the hands of the conservatives and into the hands of the proletariat within a few weeks. But such an outcome cannot be relied upon”.
In today’s volatile, crisis-ridden world, one thing unites all the sparring interests of capitalist powers and big businesses: the attempt to maintain profits and power on the backs of the working class. The only way forward to a secure, decent life for the vast majority of humanity is to break with capitalism and build a socialist society. Huge struggles lie ahead. Building working-class organisation and leadership is paramount.
In this hundredth anniversary year of the 1926 general strike – the closest the working class in Britain has come so far to revolutionary change, betrayed by the leaders of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) – the experience of the National Minority Movement (NMM) is rich in lessons for the struggle for organisation and leadership today.
Formed in 1924 on the initiative of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the NMM brought together up to 1.25 million trade unionists in the period running up to the general strike.
The end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century was a period of world-shattering events. British imperialism’s world dominance declined, rivalled and overtaken by first German and then US emerging powers, precipitating – but not resolved by – world war. British capitalism was in intense crisis and the only way forward for the capitalist class was to try to drive down wages. War was the ‘midwife of revolution’: the overthrowing of landlordism and capitalism by the working class in Russia in 1917 had enormous international effects.
Those few decades in Britain are the story of a working class forced to struggle, forging new organisations, both industrial and political, raising up and testing leaders, gaining and losing, steps forward and steps back.
From the ‘new unionism’ of the 1880s and 1890s that drew thousands of unskilled and semiskilled workers into organisation for the first time; through the 1911-1914 ‘Great Unrest’ involving more than 3,000 mostly unofficial strikes; the post-war 1919-1920 strike wave and the ‘Black Friday’ betrayal of the miners in 1921 by the leaders of the Triple Alliance (of miners, railway and transport workers’ unions); to the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, later to become the Labour Party; and the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920 – the first lesson from this period has to be that the creation of effective workers’ organisation and leadership is a living process.
It is not one act, not the product of a few great minds, but an ebb and flow, inseparable from the objective conditions, and influenced by international events. But that does not mean that these processes need to be just left to chance – equally important is the potential role that can be played by a Marxist leadership, to assist the working class to organise and prepare, and to point the way forward with a programme for power.
Following a small economic boom, the British economy had collapsed in 1920-21. By spring 1921, over 23% of the workforce was unemployed. Union membership plummeted and the number of activists thinned. In 1922, the young Communist Party, inspired by the Russian revolution and looking to its leaders for guidance, organised a conference: ‘Back to the unions – stop the retreat’.
At that stage, the question for the leadership of the Communist International (the international organisation founded in 1919 by the Russian Communist Party) was the struggle for influence over the working class – how could the new communist parties in different countries lead the masses to revolutionary conclusions when they were small and the workers were looking to other organisations for leadership. The second congress of the international in 1921 agreed “the principal task of all Communists over the next period is to wage a firm and vigorous struggle to win the majority of the workers organised in the trade unions”.
“While supporting the slogan of maximum unity of all workers’ organisation in every practical action against the capitalist front, Communists cannot in any circumstances refrain from putting forward their views, which are the only consistent expression of the interests of the working class as a whole”. This method of the united front would enable the CP to reach big layers of workers, and its programme be tested. It would apply pressure to the trade union leaders and expose their limitations.
Building the National Minority Movement
The CP held regional conferences. Already existing Miners’ Reform Movements started to coordinate, and the Miners’ Minority Movement was launched in January 1924. A Metalworkers’ Minority Movement followed, and then the National Minority Movement in August 1924.
The NMM was launched with a conference of 270 union delegates from union branches and trades councils, representing between them as many as 200,000 workers. It was led by trade unionists with real authority, including non-CP members such as miners’ leader AJ Cook. Tom Mann, who had been a dockers’ leader in the period of new unionism, and had played a leading role in the Great Unrest and the 1919-1921 strikes as a transport workers’ and then engineers’ leader, became president of the NMM. Other key figures included Harry Pollitt, who went on to become the general secretary of the CP, JT Murphy of the engineers, and Wal Hannington from the metalworkers.
A 1925 What We Stand For pamphlet explained that “the purpose of the Minority Movement is to gather active workers together, to organise them, so that they can decide upon common programmes and policies, and to actively agitate and pursue those programmes and policies in their respective organisations”.
In this time of acute capitalist crisis, the stated aims of the NMM included: “To organise the masses of Great Britain for the overthrow of capitalism, the emancipation of the workers from their oppressors and exploiters, and the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth”.
The defeat of the 1924 Labour government led to an increase in industrial struggle. The mine bosses were demanding wage cuts. Left leaders gained dominant positions on the TUC General Council, and were seen as being associated with the NMM, invited to its conferences and quoted in its publications.
And the NMM grew in support. Reading its reports gives a real flavour of a serious attempt by the young CP and trade union activists to reach masses of workers and point a way forward. The NMM claimed, in an open letter published in January 1925, that between August 1924 and January 1925, they held a building workers’ conference with 96 delegates; a railwaymen’s conference with 46 delegates; a Glasgow conference with 120 delegates; and a Leeds conference of 49 delegates. These were officially representing their branches and district committees. Conferences were also planned in Manchester, Newcastle and Cardiff over the following weeks. In 1925 it claimed 200 mining branches. There were also engineering, construction and transport Minority Movements.
A series of pamphlets was produced, from a general What We Stand For to pamphlets on specific issues such as the seven-hour day, and a programme for industries such as textiles and construction. It produced a weekly paper, the Worker, and a fortnightly Mineworker.
Using methods familiar to Marxists in the trade unions today, NMM activities included attending trade union branches, trades councils and union conferences; contesting trade union elections; and supporting strikes. It reported that it was financed by contributions from individual supporters and affiliation fees from trade union branches – ‘2d’ per member per annum. Trades councils affiliated on the basis of one shilling per thousand members.
A Workers’ Charter was published for discussion and debate in the workers’ movement. The NMM asked “all workers to study it carefully”, and “if the programme can be improved, if any left-wingers stand aside because they desire certain modifications, let them say so, and let us thrash out the matter in friendly discussion”. Its demands included a minimum wage of £4 per week, a 44-hour working week and the abolition of overtime; nationalisation of mines, minerals, banks, land and railways without compensation, and with workers’ control; and “an adequate Housing Scheme and the requisitioning of all empty houses, large and small”.
In a new year message at the start of 1925, the NMM declared: “When the [TUC] General Council commence their industrial conferences later in the year, they will find an organised band of workers who will no longer be content with promises and showy programmes, but will demand action”.
Major battle looms
An NMM open letter in January 1925 said: “It is quite clear that the new year now opening before us will witness some of the greatest battles in the history of the working-class movement. There is general agreement that to face these new battles, the trade union movement is not ready…”.
“We are witnessing the engineers, shipbuilders, postal workers, and railway workers, all putting in varying wage demands. The miners, facing unparalleled unemployment, working for wages and under conditions that are a disgrace to our movement, will soon have to fight their greatest battle of all, that will be to retain their seven-hour day. In the coming months the transport workers and the building trade workers will again be agitating for the realisation of their demands… and yet so far the existing leadership has failed to be able to harness this vast discontent into one great movement”.
The 1925 What We Stand For appealed “to all workers to join our movement, buy our publications, and thus become an active fighter in the movement that is going to sweep away the old ideas and methods, and go boldly, without fear or favour, on with the fight for the emancipation of the working class”.
On ‘Red Friday’, 30 July 1925, the government agreed to pay a subsidy to the mine owners to avoid pay cuts. This was interpreted by the right-wing union leaders as indicating that concessions could be won without much struggle. But the more active workers and NMM leaders understood that this was actually the government giving itself more time to prepare to take on the miners.
The second annual conference of the NMM was held in August 1925, with 683 delegates, representing 750,000 workers. As the months progressed it was clear a huge battle was looming. The NMM continued to agitate strongly for the trade union movement to prepare, including calling for and participating in local councils of action.
The role of the Communist International
There is never any guarantee of success in any battle. But the National Minority Movement, involving at its height a quarter of the trade union membership and with experienced and authoritative class fighters as leaders, was clearly a potentially powerful force. It could have helped to prepare what Trotsky described as the “deeply stirring proletarian masses” for the battle to come.
But its development took place at the same time as the degeneration in Russia began. Lenin died in January 1924. In the conditions following the revolution, including the isolation of Russia, Lenin’s internationalism was gradually replaced by Stalin’s idea of ‘socialism in one country’ and the international compromises and manoeuvres that flowed from that.
The Comintern (Communist International) proposed a bloc with the trade unions, the Anglo-Russian Committee (ARC). The ARC was described by the CP in a special supplement to the Workers Weekly in January 1925, under the heading ‘Forge The Weapon Of Unity’: “A working agreement has been made on one side on behalf of six million Russian trade unionists belonging to a country which has successfully fought a revolution, and where complete political power is in the hands of the workers, and on the other, of five million British trade unionists, belonging to the oldest trade union movement in the world, but a movement which is now undergoing most profound radical changes”.
Trotsky explained in July 1926, after the defeat of the general strike: “We were absolutely correct to conclude this alliance when we did, but in order to turn it against the opportunists; in order to push vacillating leaders forward as far as possible; and in order to expose them”.
But for the right wing in the TUC, the ARC was a shield for inaction. The lefts on the TUC General Council, Arthur Purcell, George Hicks and AB Swales, became the British reps on the ARC, and for them, a radical international position became a cover for inaction in Britain. Due to the ARC and the pressures from the Comintern, instead of following Trotsky’s advice, the CP became increasingly uncritical of the left leaders.
‘Unity’
This tendency is evident all through the NMM material in 1925, in particular with the drum-beat for ‘unity’. The slogan of the What We Stand For pamphlet was: “The main issue – what is it? Unity”. “Never did we face such grave battles as now and never was there such a need for unity and purpose of action against the exploiters as at the present time… The greatest weakness of our labour movement lies in the fact that there is a complete separation into watertight compartments of political parties and trade unions, both engaged in rivalry as to which shall dominate the movement, and also the complete lack of centralised leadership”.
The call for unity was an international one too. In January 1925, the NMM organised a conference on international trade union unity, attended by 617 delegates, representing 600,000 workers.
Unity is an instinct of any workers going into battle and there was pressure for unity in Britain and internationally. But it should never be unity at any cost – it should be accompanied by an independent programme of demands that meet the interests of the working class, and structures that organise that pressure of the workers on the leaders. As Trotsky was warning in 1925: “The Communist Party can prepare itself for the leading role only by a ruthless criticism of all the leading staff of the British Labour movement”.
The NMM material was generally critical of the right-wing TUC leaders: “Against the hesitancy and lack of leadership on the part of the present leaders, we are opposing the vigorous class leadership of the Minority Movement”. But at the same time, the Workers Charter included the demand for the “creation of a [TUC] General Council with full powers to direct the activities of the unions”. In 1925-1926 that meant putting authority in the hands of those with no intention of preparing a fight.
And there were not clear enough demands placed on the left union leaders. Again as Trotsky warned: “Messrs Lefts do not have a line of their own. They will go on swinging to the right under the pressure of the bourgeois-Fabian faction and to the left under the pressure of the masses”. That ‘line’ could have been provided by the National Minority Movement and the CP. The pressure of the masses needed to be applied, through demands and criticism, which would help to push the left leaders in the right direction.
In October 1924, JR Campbell, cofounder of the CP, wrote: “It would be a suicidal policy for the Communist Party and the Minority Movement to place too much reliance on what we have called the official left wing… It is the duty of our party and the NMM to criticise its weaknesses relentlessly, to endeavour to change the muddled and incomplete left viewpoint of the more progressive leaders into a real revolutionary viewpoint… But the revolutionary workers must never forget that their main activity must be devoted to capturing the masses”.
Yet increasingly that did not happen. For example, in January 1925, a special supplement to the CP’s Weekly Worker for the international unity conference, quotes uncritically a speech of Swales, a TUC left, who said:
“Like all countries we in England have our militant section, our extremists. In some countries they caused a split. In Britain there is no split. We have met abuse sometimes, and discipline was upset. But only good comes from this new blood. Most of my colleagues were young firebrands, but responsibility has sobered them down”. Why uncritical? Because Swales was arguing for links with the Soviet Union.
The NMM did recognise that “the left wing leaders are either going to be forced to openly identify themselves with the Minority Movement or be forced to line up with the right wing against the Minority Movement” but there were no concrete demands placed on them, especially as battles were looming and it was clear that the right wing were sitting on their hands.
Towards the general strike
The Samuel Commission published its report on 11 March 1926, proposing reorganisation of the mining industry and wage cuts. The mine bosses proposed a 13% pay cut, and that an hour increase in the working day be implemented on 1 May. The NMM condemned the commission report and called a special ‘national conference of action’ on 21 March.
The Glasgow Herald reported on this special conference: “The large hall was filled and it was announced from the platform that 876 delegates were present from all parts of the country, representing trade unions, trade councils, cooperative societies and guilds, and similar bodies, with a membership of 950,000 organised workers”. Tom Mann is reported saying: “We of the Minority Movement believe there has been too much yielding to capitalists by trade union officials and the trades unions’ rank and file… We mean business. We take our fight to the capitalist. We will fight the boss class and beat them”.
The capitalist class had used the breathing space since Red Friday to prepare, including organising anti-working class forces such as the Organisation for Maintenance of Supplies and the National Citizens Union. The NMM conference discussed that “no workman could be indifferent to the meaning of the building of these organisations. It meant that unless they showed solidarity they would be economically enslaved more than they had ever been before”. Meetings of workers had been interfered with, and attempts made to capture platforms, and the unions “must hasten, under the supervision of the trades councils, to form workers’ defence corps”.
A motion was passed “to organise the workers into factory and pit committees”. Another motion urged “the General Council of the TUC immediately to convene a national congress of action at which plans should be prepared for the complete scientific utilisation of the whole trade union movement in the struggle”. And another called on the TUC to “initiate a campaign for an international trade union conference of action to prevent international blacklegging”.
But at this conference, just six weeks before the 1 May deadline, there was no clear exposure of the fact that the TUC leadership was not preparing. There were no demands on the left leaders to take a lead – to form, in effect, a ‘coalition of the willing’. While factory committees and councils of action had started up around the country, there was no clear direction to them – no calls for workplaces and union branches to send delegates, for those bodies to link up, and lead the preparations themselves. In fact, instead of using its potentially powerful position to take the initiative, the March 1926 conference still agreed on “placing themselves at the disposal of the General Council”.
At the start of the strike, the NMM produced leaflets. The Glasgow district, for example, produced what on the surface reads like a fighting leaflet: ‘Stand Solid And Win!’ “The Tory government is attempting to smash the entire British trade union movement”, it said. “They are not only resolved to beat the miners, but also to batter down trades unionism. The fight is no longer a miners’ fight: it is a fight of the entire British working-class; it is a fight for existence in the future”. The leaflet calls on every worker to “down tools, and line up solid. We must not go back on any compromise. Remain out until all claims are conceded”. “This is now a general strike – make it a general agreement… Down with compromise! Down with hesitancy!”
What there is no hint of, however, is that the compromise and hesitancy was coming from the top, the self-same body they were putting all their faith in. Nothing in the leaflet warns of the role of the right-wing leaders, no demands are placed on the left leaders, there are no calls to prepare and organise the councils of action or explanation of what role they could play in running the action, linking up nationally.
There is also no generalising out from the wage claims or ‘general agreement’ – no political guide. Despite the stated aim of the NMM to aim for the replacement of capitalism by socialism, at this moment of mass struggle they did not give the give the strike socialist aims – just the idea of a ‘general agreement’. The general strike was called off by the TUC leaders – including the left leaders.
Aftermath
On 13 May, the CP admitted: “Most of the left wing have been no better than the right. By a policy of timid silence, but using the false pretext of loyalty to colleagues to cover up breaches of loyalty to workers, they have left a free hand to the right to win and thus helped to play the employers’ game”. But the National Minority Movement, under the CP’s influence, had not put the lefts under any real pressure, or provided direction either to those lefts or the workers from below.
An NMM pamphlet published after the general strike was defeated asked the question: “Is trade unionism played out?” While saying “the NMM believes that this is a false statement of the position… it is still the mightiest weapon of the working class”, the pamphlet nonetheless repeated the same abstract strategy as in the run up to the strike: “Every union fights for its own ends… This has led not only to sectionalism, but to the development of a leadership that is totally incapable of leading the trade union movement even to the most elementary victories… It is necessary to stress more than ever this question of complete power in the hands of the General Council: not because we believe in the present leaders, but because we believe that a centralised leadership is a necessity of the movement… and out of the fight itself the new leadership will be developed to replace the existing discredited bureaucracy”.
In July 1926, Trotsky lambasted the “passive, conciliatory, wait-and-see attitude towards the treacherous leaders, on the pretext that they reflect the present stage of development of the working class, that ‘they are the best there is’, that ‘there is no one yet ready to replace them’ and so forth”.
The leadership of the TUC did not adopt the same passive approach. After the general strike, the TUC turned on the Minority Movement. In April 1927 it refused to recognise any trades council that affiliated to the NMM, and a year later it was proscribed by the TUC.
The great potential of the Minority Movement had been lost, largely due to its increasingly uncritical approach to the leaders in place of demands, warnings and assistance to the workers to organise themselves below, under the influence of the degenerating Comintern.
However, it would be wrong to conclude that the approach of the NMM in its origins would inevitably lead to this tragedy. In an ‘In depth’ article on Tom Mann, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) implies this was the case. It says: “With the Minority Movement struggling to find a balance between working with left union leaders and mobilising unofficial action, perhaps more was required. The reality was that Mann, both a union leader and an advocate of militant action, straddled this contradiction”.
The argument of all of the SWP’s writing on the NMM is that it concentrated on “electing and influencing left officials and the trade union machine rather than the more demanding job of patiently building among the rank and file”. (Socialist Review, 2014)
But it is incorrect to counterpose these two approaches. To not stand fighting candidates for union positions, and not place demands on left leaders, to push them, is to abstain from the battles over the leadership of working-class organisations. Even just organising ‘among the rank and file’ inevitably generates leaders – the question is what they stand for, what they do, how they are held to account, how they are kept under pressure, how they can be replaced.
These lessons will be vital to study in preparation for the upheavals ahead when general strikes are once again on the order of the day. ■