WW archive > Issue 411 - 06 December 2001
Letters
Tactical tangle; Charming the SWP?; Campaigning unions; Violent objection; No to Spain
Non-aligned members unite
Bonn stitch-up
Irish SA closed down
The fight for left unity in Ireland
Obituary: Ray Gibbon 1929-2001
For the underdog
CPGB school
Opposing reaction and war
Banning papers and culture
Socialist Party splits from SA
SSP's Socialism 2001
Bigger and better
Party notes
An unofficial paper
SWP scores pyrrhic victory
Peter Manson gives his impressions of the Socialist Alliance's December 1 conference
Typical Loach
Ken Loach - The Navigators - 110mins, limited release
Pro-party and pro-paper
Overhyped The following statement was issued by the Socialist Alliance on Monday December 3
Huge success for conference
Our history CPGB mobilises unemployed
The boom following World War I was short-lived. In the 12 months from September 1920 unÂemployment in Britain rose from 250,000 to two million. Soon after its foundation the Communist Party of Great Britain instructed members to participate in and lead the struggles of the unemployed. In October 1920 the party's weekly paper carried an account of the fruits of this work in Coventry. 'Full maintenance at trade union rates of wages' was the main demand advanced by communists. This was taken up in the form of marches by the unemployed to local boards of guardians who were responsible for providing poor law relief to the unemployed. Often the marches would end with an occupation of the board offices until extra money was forthcoming. In 1921 the Party was instrumental in forming the National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement, a body which organised the unemÂployed throughout the United Kingdom in the years between the wars, years charÂacterised by permanent high levels of unemployment.