struggles of the working class. Across show of police strength - were forced Worried at the failure of the Guardthe Unemployed Workers' Movement The eyes of the union bureaucracy were firmly fixed on either getting a Labour Government into office or persuading the capitalist Parliament to change conditions.
The mass movement that swirled around the heels of the union leaders was at best a useful means of excrung pressure. Al worst ll was an embarrassment - after all, it threatened to challenge the whole system with which they were collaborating.
When speakers from the NUWCM attacked the Labour leaders at demonstrations they were asked to ensure 'that unfriendly criticism and divisions' were avoided. The members of the NUWCM sitting on the joint committee with the TUC themselves actually moved this resolution.
R. Page Arnot, a leading member of the Communist Party - WILOSt members were often leaders of the NUWCM - had already complained in March 1923 that affiliation to the TUC was being presented as the main issue confronting the unemployed. This criticism expressed the doubts of some CP members who feared Labour's short-lived 1924 premier, Ramsey MacDonald - protected by the same police who clobbered the unemployed. that the struggle was becoming subordinated to a fake bureaucratic unity limited to policies approved The unemployed movement had established a base of support within certain sections of the TUC and its affiliated unions. The need to use that base to launch an effective challenge to the right-wing leaders was not carried through, however, and as a result the joint committee's