The General Strike: A Weapon of Class War
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Following is a discussion on the page titled: The General Strike: A Weapon of Class War.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!Very good article by 'Gilmac' from the June 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard, written and published in the immediate aftermath of the 1926 General Strike:Link: The Strike
No, this month's article quotes from the June 1926 editorial, 'The General Strike Fiasco: Its Causes and Effects'. The Gilmac article is on the net for the first time.When I get my arse in gear I will also post Jack Fitzgerald's front page article on the strike from the same issue of the Socialist Standard on the blog.
Email received from someone in the US:
Quote:Dear Scoialist Party (UK)Reply to yours on the General Strike and Workers Councils (Apr / May 2016 Soc. Standard Mags.) , First, Your article on the General Strike weapon (May Pg. 10-11)whilst informative and useful is quite faulty on a few key points .First, you grossly underestimate, and demean the importance of workers class consciousness growing which set the basis of the workers advances from mere legal /truncated trade/craft union actions . General strikes tend to move affected parts of the class and allies to more militant , anti-capitalist wider fightback and their own demands and build socialist clarity .. Second , you contradict , by your own emphasis on narrow parliamentary activities negating that many advances to General Strikes also incorporate political trends and tendencies, socialists work, gettting a favorable and influencial hearing from masses of active / combined workers.The workers in combined actions , working, co-operating, in spreading support brings more workerst o see in reality the latent power of their own class unleashed from capitalisms legalist jails & electoral illusions, and raising the needed spirit of organizing as a wider , united class. against waged slavery and capitals wider hegemony over society . . . Third, you try to separate, almost with a Chinese wall almost the whole economic struggle from the political conflict with capitalist rule. In fact at whatever the level of struggle , class conflict needs to raise BOTH fronts of battle to the the fore, in the terrain of the worker lives for them to strengthen their educating and organizing as a class against the bosses rule economically and thru the the capitalist state machine.monopoly of controls. The is no guarantee of immediate advance to revolution and workers taking the power. But the training of industrial and bonifide socialistic political education and action raises the workers to be serious challengers to the rule of the bosses dominance, exploitation robbery, racism and wars.. In your snipes on the *Soviets*, (Apr, Reveiw, pg 20), the workers councils advanced struggles , your prejudice against mass combined industrial political tactics leads you to distrort the history of the workers councils risings.. Your asserting that workers councils just arise 'spontaneously ' and in less developed countries is flat out wrong ! The workers councils did not just step onto history in 1905 and 1917 in Russia , but also in rebellion to the imperialist World War 1 in advanced industrial nations as Germany , Austria and Italy , etc and played a huge role in forcing the bourgeois rulers to halt the carnage of WW1 and both the workers, as large sections of the armed forces in councils rebelled against the continuing barbarism.and after. That their efforts went furthest in Russia but could not advance to full socialism is hardly the western workers/farmers fault, Given the amount of repression , counter revolution, isolation , capitalist intervention and blockades & state capitalist controls resulted in the defeat of the huge revolutionary waves by the early 20s.. In Germany , Austria, Hungary , Italy , etc the workers councils had not he time to deepen political understanding assisted by their new Marxist revolutionary parties like the experienced Bolsheviks, as had happened in Russia, The Western European workers councils , soldiers/sailors and workers included strong influences of reformists , careerists and fakers in addition to harmful influences of nationalist reaction too., Thus these councils occupations , mass actions, General strikes and near civil war not achieve the tactical and strategic clarity they had in Russia, at least for a few years . Also as a result of illusions in bosses 'democracy' slick parliamentary facades, followed by political division , repression , and isolation , their diffuse attempts to establish workers rule were defeated bythe ruling exploiter classes. Finally, is not at least a tad of wooden and ossifed thinking for you to say that the workers councils, (albeit in different forms & experiences ) cannot again emergein countries like the UK or the USA, etc., especially in periods of capitals crises/plunder that will probably be even deeper, bloodier , more global in scope ?Quick question: Will the email from the US be addressed in a future issue of the Standard? ('Letter to the editors, etc.)In connection to 1926, I finally got round to scanning in Jack Fitzgerald's long-arsed article on the strike which appeared in the June 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard:Link: The Result of "Trust": A Lesson of the Great Strike
I find that the correspondent protests too much"The workers in combined actions , working, co-operating, in spreading support brings more workers to see in reality the latent power of their own class unleashed…"Yes i can agree with this and the General Strike article does touch upon this angle sympathetically. And the article does confirm the conclusion of the correspondent'The[re] is no guarantee of immediate advance to revolution and workers taking the power… raising the needed spirit of organizing as a wider , united class. "Wheras we stated "When we speak of the general strike we are not concerned with the general strike of a single trade union but of all workers. The movement is no longer a trade union movement but has become a class movement."I reread the Root and Branch pamphlet on the Seattle General Strike and that too had to dampen down romanticism. http://struggle.ws/hist_texts/seattle1919_p2.html"neither the strike committee nor the rank and file of the workers ever intended revolution….the reason which was the simplest and the most important. The vast majority struck to express solidarity. And they succeeded beyond their expectations…"The British 1926 had the exact same purpose but it failed miserably. Regards one point in his criticism of our attitude on soviets. The workers councils did just step onto history in 1917 in Russia. Unlike 1905, the 1917 soviets were the creation of political parties, hence not one factory delegation in their inaugural meeting
Quote:"Trust and ye shall be betrayed.” After all the lessons of the past the same “leaders" were entrusted with power, and acted along the same lines as before. Which was to be expected. The workers have still a fair road to travel before they will get rid of the superstition of "Leadership" or the dope of "good" and "bad" leaders. But the splendid solidarity of the rank and file, along with their steady refusal to follow the maniacs who advise the formation of "Workers' Defence Corps" and other methods of crude force, are healthy signs of the beginnings of an understanding of their slave position that forms the first step in the work of establishing Socialism.What more valuable lesson was there to learn than this one…but one that was sadly forgotten.I often find criticisms of our criticisms don't quite encompass the importance of the implications of them. When we call for the rejection of leadership, we are not calling for faith in the electoral system but the same self-organisation and self-activity the correspondent is also seeking.
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