for revolutionaries and militants today.
The debacle of the second Labour Government in 1929-31, following the crushing defeat of the General Strike in 1926, left the workers' movement in a bad position to fight back against the effects of the capitalist world slump and the offensive of the National Government.
The trade union bureaucrats, firmly wedded to a policy of peaceful cooperation in industry, were in a much stronger position to resist the demands and pressure of the more militant workers. When the TUC met in Bristol in September 1931, Walter Citrine, general secretary of the TUC, curtly announced that a deputation of Welsh hunger marchers would not be allowed to put their case to Congress.
LEADERSHIP The National Unemployed Workers MoveIn his final article on the unemployed struggles of the 1920s and '30s, BOB PENNINGTON draws some of the lessons of the failures of that movement - lessons which have a particular importance Party leaders, this policy had begun to pay off.
By 1924, however, the Stalin group in Moscow had begun to favour the policy of an alliance with the 'progressives' in the TUC. This meant a suone change m empuasis = was a change that was to have important consequences.
In return for an alliance with the TUC lefts' such as Purcell, Hicks and Swales, and the establishment of a joint TUC-NUWM action committee on unemployment, the CP began to drop their criticisms of the reformist policies of the official leaders - a policy which caused disquiet even inside the CP executive itself. Unity with the official leaders became the overriding concern, and was increasingly placed above the needs of the class struggle.
The militancy, courage and self-sacrifice of the NUWM were never in doubt. But what was fascists.
but it Dential. again. The Comintern announced the arrival of the "Third Period' of the imminent collapse of capitalism. The friends of yesterday became the main enemy of today, and social democracy was described as the real obstacle to the working class taking power - indeed, the social democrats were now described as social UNITED FRONT The about turn was complete. The right and the left were simply put in the same bag. At a time when the need for the broadest possible ism. united front of the workers was needed against the ruling class offensive - an essential prerequisite for preparing a new counter-offensive - the CP dismantled and broke up all its alliances with the trade union and Labour There was unfortunately a fertile soil for the acceptance of such a policy. Vanguard ain. battle took place as the workers fought back. The police went on a campaign of terror. Leaders of the unemployed were arrested. In the early hours of the morning the police broke into the workers' homes, beating up workers and their families.
The next night the police again returned and were met by fierce resistance when they smashed and clubbed their way into the tenements that lined the dock roads. Three days after the Birkenhead 'battles' had ended, Liverpool also erupted - but by then it was too late to save the Birkenhead workers.
Despite such tough resistance of the unemployed to vicious police repression, however, the movement was left uncoordinated and the NUWM took on the form of a protest movement. Its ties to the trade union movement had been weakened - when its members were lucky enough to get a job they almost invariably dropped out of activity. In the early 1920s its ranks had been stiffened by the arrival of experienced shop stewards and political militants. By the 1930s many of these people had become almost permanently unemployed, and their links with the organised movement were less strong and less influLESSONS For the working class of today, once again facing the threat of massive unemployment and a ruling class offensive spearheaded by the Labour leaders aided by the TUC, the experiences of the 1920s and '30s contain many fruitful lessons. They demonstrate the potential of mass working class action. But they also expose the lunacy of ultra-leftism and the dangers of accommodation to reformMost importantly they show that unless revolutionaries can break the grip of reformist ideology over the working class, and build a united front of the workers movement on a clear anti-capitalist programme, then it will be impossible to defeat the capitalist offensive and open the way towards a socialist Brit-