24.10.2001

Our history CPGB and the miners

Having taken a lead in the Hands off Russia movement the CPGB threw itself into the struggle of Britain?s miners. At the end of August 1920 the miners voted in favour of an all-out strike, their twin demands being a wage rise to restore purchasing power and sizeable reduction in the price of domestic coal. The Party assessed the prospects in the lead article of The Communist September 9 1920. But the miners were abandoned by the reformist leaders of the Triple Alliance transport and railway unions, who forced the Miners? Federation back into negotiations with the employers. There were no concessions on offer, just the now familiar trick of a productivity deal, referred to as the 'datum line'. Over the signatures of its chair and secretary, comrades Arthur MacManus and Albert Inkpin the Party urged the miners to steel themselves for a bigger fight to come.

Manifesto

Fellow workers - the Executive Committee of the Communist Party feel it incumbent upon themselves to advise you to watch with ever increasing vigilance the series of crises - industrial and political - through which we are now passing. Despite all the lying and deceit of the capitalist newspapers, the Council of Action, representing on this rare and refreshing occasion the underlying spirit and determination of the organ?ised masses of the country hitherto unknown, have prevented yet another open attack upon Soviet Russia.

The declaration of the Miners? Federation for a general strike to commence on or after September 25 presents to us a first class industrial crisis which may have far reaching ef?fects on the development of the organ?ised labour movement. The transport workers and railway workers have shown unhesitating loyalty to, and soli?darity with, their allies, the minework?ers. The Triple Alliance will now have an opportunity of showing whether the confidence reposed in it by organised labour in general has been justified.

We hope and urge that trade union?ists employed in every section of indus?try will not be led away by the studied propaganda of abuse and misrepresentation employed to destroy the miners? worthy and commendable effort to de?termine the price of the commodity, for the production of which they are mainly, if not entirely, responsible. They who control supplies must inevi?tably control prices, and the mineworkers undoubtedly can give or with?hold the necessary supplies of coal ...

We desire to warn the revolutionary trade unionists and communists against the possibility of intervention on the part of the government in this dispute, which will mean the abandonment in part, or in its entirety, of the miners? claim. Signs are visible on all hands that the master class have lined up with more solidarity than ever in order to prosecute the class war against the legitimate demands of the minework?ers in particular and of trade unionists in general ...

Our duty, therefore, is clear in rec?ommending to militant trade unionists that they cannot hope for any radical improvement in their economic status unless and until they have broken the power of the capitalist and landlord class, who live their vicious and indo?lent lives at the expense of the produc?tive members of the community. Things are reaching a stage in which the workers must definitely assume control of their lives and conditions by controlling the factories and work?shops, running industry and transport for themselves - the working class. The majority of the working class despise the present government as well as all other capitalist governments.

The militants must be prepared, therefore, to take advantage of every industrial and political crisis in order to strengthen their position and to encour?age and inspire their fellow wage workers with a desire for the definite and conclusive overthrow of bourgeois civilisation, based as it is upon unem?ployment, prostitution and exploitation of the wage workers.

The Communist Party urges the toiling masses to prepare by every means in their power - through trade union branches, the existing Trades Councils, and the newly appointed Councils of Action - to assume respon?sibility for the control of the resources of the country which is rightfully theirs and for the administration of the means whereby they live.

Russia has shown us a magnificent example and has given to us an encour?aging and inspiring lead that we must follow, if we are to break the bonds of capitalism which keep us in wage slav?ery and subjection. Italy and its splen?did organised proletariat is on the threshold of momentous developments in this direction. Germany, Austria, disillusioned Poland, draw nearer to the establishment of Soviet governments. There is no country in the world where the workers could so easily become the masters of their own destiny as in Great Britain, and we, therefore, appeal to our revolutionary comrades in every trade, in every occupation, in every industry, to be loyal, to be vigilant and unceas?ing in their efforts for the final over?throw of the capitalist regime.

The workers alone can free the work?ing class.

The Communist
September 9 1920

An open letter to the miners

ithout strike or lockout, without the stoppage of a single wheel they [the miners] have been out-ma?noeuvred, forced to retreat from a discussion of the terms they put for?ward, forced into discussion of the terms put forward by the owners ...

The barrage sent up by the capital?ist press in the last week of August and the first week of September made such a noise that few people realised how strong was the miners? position. They were really unassailable. All the curses of the kept press were as ineffective as the curses of these creatures usually are. The bad house of capitalism was shrieking because it was trembling. The miners? case was on a basis of rock ...

They were basing their claim on the human needs of labour ... Every mem?ber of the working class understood something of the miner?s life and so was willing to back him in almost any claim for increased wages ... The work?ers knew that the cost of living had gone up by 30% since the miners? last increase and.. .in spite of the newspa?per barrage, the workers realised as clearly as could be that the reduction of 14s 2d in the price of coal was a move on their own behalf and against the coal-owners, the coal profiteers and Government; on that alone they were willing to back the miners in their strike ? the workers of the country knew fill well that the Government had cheated the miners over the Sankey report [which recommended the nationalisation of the coal] ... they knew that the government would try to cheat both them and the miners once again. In a word, their whole attitude was sympathetic.

That was the strength of the miners position four weeks ago ... The miners held the strategic position; they had only to hold tight; the press barrage would have exhausted itself, leaving them unharmed, and bit by bit the government would have been forced to discuss the one and indivisible demand, they would have bluffed, no doubt, but finally they were bound to yield to the miners. A situation with potentialities for labour would have been created.

What has happened? The opportunity of mastery over events has been frittered away. Point after point has been given to the enemy. The strongest positions have been flung away. They dropped the l4s 2d - they dropped it for a sort of understanding that prices would not be raised at once. Then they found they could not get their 2s. The government had cheated them, and then began the alienation of the workers generally. The question of output was put forward. It was urged with all skill and advocacy by the prime minister, inspired by the owners who had been whispering in Downing Street from the very first. Presently the federation yielded again - wisely this time, perhaps - for once they had abandoned the 14s 2d, they had thrown away their strongest position. The conference postponed the strike. The government and the owners proceeded once more to drive a hard bargain, knowing that the threat of a strike was now empty - at any rate, of a national strike backed by all the forces of the federation. And last of all, driven from point to point, distrusting the Triple Alliance, without any feeling that they had a movement behind them, distrusting even their ability to call again the strike they had once postponed, the miners? conference in something like despair agreed to submit the owners proposal to a ballot vote of their members.

It is, it has been, a melancholy business. It is necessary for the rank and file colliers to note exactly what were the lessons as well as the fundamental causes which led to the debacle. We need not ponder over minor matters, thought there are obviously a number of things in which defective machinery, defective leadership, defective tactics went far to destroy the conduct of the campaign

The chief defect of the Triple Alliance goes more deep than these. It is the fact that the Triple Alliance is in the main run by reformist leaders. A Triple Alliance strike means a general strike, and a general strike means perhaps a revolution! No one but a revolutionist will face the possibility of revolution.

No one but a revolutionist faced with the prospect of casting the coun?try into a general strike will persist in a demand for 2s or anything similarly small. Every strike leader feels his responsibility. But what nerves him to decide is revolutionary outlook; what unnerves him is a reformist outlook. So long as the Triple Alliance is not con?trolled by a revolutionary - or at any rate a militant rank and file - just so long will the leaders of it, when brought to the brink of the strike, shrink from the responsibility involved in a general stoppage.

And now that you have examined the causes of defeat, let us see what this ?datum line? means. This ?datum line? which has to be reached before wages are advanced is simply payment by results on a national scale. As capitalism develops, as the big boss becomes bigger and bigger, he meets the advance of trade unionism by new methods of super-production. ?Greater out?put? is now the formula by which the employer is going to sweat money out of his wage-slaves and coin their blood for profits ...

Again, the Miners? Federation is the vanguard of British trade unionism, and a defeat of the vanguard affects the whole movement. Feeble though it may be from a communist standpoint, the class solidarity of the British workers is beginning. They are beginning to respond, they are emboldened by the victory of a section, and when a section loses they feel the shock of defeat. The miners? defeat will be felt through the whole movement ...

What ought the miners to do? It is well to recognise defeat, it is well to face it clearly and admit it. But, that done, what is the next step?

Remember that so long as the owners have the power over production there will be no advance possible. Whatever you put before them, how?ever strong your case may be, they will fool you and fool you again. The owners will fool you as long as they have control. That is why they made the government offer to have a general strike, an insurrection, anything sooner than allow the miners to control the price.

Therefore, the next movement in the mining industry must insist on control, of prices, control of conditions, control by the workers.

A renewal of the struggle will take place soon. Of that there is no doubt. What is doubted is whether it will be unsuccessful like this one has been.

In order to win the next struggle, the following period must be spent in overhauling the machinery, of the federation, of the districts, of each pit. At every election of a lodge secretary the candidate should be tested by their fitness in, and capacities for, a general strike.

Remember that the owners will fool you unless you get control.

Remember that reformist leaders will shrink back at the last minute.

Remember these things and choose men who, understanding that a strike may lead to revolution, will not on that account shrink back.

The Communist
October 7 1920