50 Years Ago – The General Strike
On its 50th anniversary the tales of the General Strike, real and legendary, will be told. The strike action of those Trade Unionists and others who took part was not based on a clear recognition of the position of the workers under capitalism and the class struggle resulting therefrom. The workers were not class-conscious, and therefore their actions were not a challenge to the existence of capitalism. Nevertheless, under the present order workers have to defend their living standards against their employers, and to that extent the General Strike must rank as a landmark in the history of the British working class; as the most determined display of solidarity we have seen this century. That is encouraging to the Socialist — if workers can unite on one issue for a limited purpose, they can certainly unite on the greater issue of Socialism. “Unity is strength”, and “A house divided against itself shall fall” (…)
Writing about the Strike fifty years later, what lessons were learned by the workers? Have they abandoned the idea of leadership inside or outside the Unions? The answer is no. Has the Trade Union organization and the TUC undergone a change of attitude on the question of class co-operation? Again, the answer is no. If anything, Trade Unions have become more insular: more concerned with the narrow issues affecting their individual members. They are completely steeped in capitalist ideology. Their world begins and ends with their members’ interests, not with the interests of the working class as a whole. The TUC is nothing other than a political wing of the present Labour government. Those who think in terms of a successful general strike with Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Len Murray, and the other untalented servants of capital, in place of J. H. Thomas, Swales, Hicks, Tillett and Pugh, etc. are deluding themselves. The present Trade Unions are hopelessly compromised with the Labour government, and this is to their disadvantage. They are expected to co-operate on wage reductions, redundancy policies, wage freezes, and hosts of other schemes which are of direct help to the capitalists. But the general strike is not a means or an aid to the establishment of Socialism. Joint action by groups of Unions against groups of employers can achieve benefits or prevent living standards from being depressed. This is the most that can be expected. The capitalist class will not, nor cannot, succumb to any other form of economic pressure as long as they control the State machine.
(Socialist Standard, May 1976)