50 Years Ago: The taming of the TUC

What has happened to the trade unions, to their national platform the T.U.C., and to their political shadow the Labour Party? Where now is the trade union army that fought the general strike in 1926? In what dump have they parked their rusty weapon, the strike? Where are the Reds of yesteryear, and who are these men and women with their generous sprinkling of O.B.E.s, Knighthoods and Peerages who at Margate earned from the discerning observer of the Manchester Guardian (10/9/48) the tribute that “once again the T.U.C. has shown the moderate good sense that often seems to surprise its own leaders as much as the critics”?

How are we to account for the incontestable and remarkable fact that the workers—to whom the T.U.C. is supposed to give guidance and inspiration—got from it little but gloom, austerity, wage-freezing, and appeals to work harder; while the capitalist press and financial circles are congratulating themselves that it was a very successful congress from their point of view!

The long years of muddled thinking have to be paid for and there is no easy way out. Backing the Government in running capitalism means stultifying the trade union movement and spreading apathy and despair; with the certainty that at the end of the road, even if the present production crisis is eased for a time, there will be new crises and new and larger wars. The alternative is the seemingly slow but in fact the only way, the way indicated by the Socialist Party at its formation, that of working for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. There are no short cuts and there is no other way.

(From front page article by ‘H’, Socialist Standard, October 1948)