19.10.2011

Their fight is our fight

Our history: the CPGB begins to organise the unemployed.

The 1920-21 jump in unemployment was dramatic. In the 12 months from September 1920 numbers out of work in Britain rose from 250,000 to two million. The newly-formed Communist Party of Great Britain responded with revolutionary dynamism.

In October 1920 the London District Council of the Unemployed was formed to coordinate the activities of 30 local committees.1 Its organiser was Wal Hannington, a leading CPGB member. The chair and secretary were also Communist Party members.

This new organisation was clear that the united action of all workers - employed and unemployed - was the key to fighting the wage cuts and job losses imposed by the ruling class. They mobilised thousands to lobby the Labour Party and TUC, urging them to back protests and industrial action against unemployment.

In response to this pressure, a special labour movement delegate conference on unemployment was held on January 27 1921. The reformist leaders on the platform refused speaking rights to the LDCU and avoided commitment to action by securing an adjournment “to allow the membership to be consulted”.

At the reconvened conference a month later these leaders limited discussion to their own, official motions, thereby ensuring that the fight was conceived of entirely within the parameters of parliament and legality.

This 1921 article by comrade Hannington in the party’s weekly begins with his assessment of the event.

Advice to the unemployed

The much talked of labour conference on unemployment came and went and the hopes of the great army of workers were once again frustrated by the yellow trade unionists, led by Thomas and Clynes.2

When I picked up my paper in the morning, and read the resolutions to be submitted, I realised the outcome of the conference, but I still had a little hope left, thinking that the delegates would at least put up a fight in favour of direct action. Not a bit of it; Thomas and Clynes told them what to do, and they obeyed like good disciples.

The Labour members of the House of Commons are instructed to point out to the government the inadequacy of merely extending the Unemployment Insurance Act (how statesmanlike), as if the government does not already know how inadequate it is.3 Mr Clynes protested against the statement in the king’s speech that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved by legislation. Evidently the king is more versed in Marxian economics than Clynes.

And then, once again the elected representatives of the London District Council of the Unemployed Organisations were refused a hearing, but at least I succeeded in turning the conference into a bear garden for 20 minutes.

The conference finished at 12.30pm, leaving the problem precisely as before. In the afternoon 10,000 of the unemployed demonstrated throughout the west end of London, realising with heavy hearts that the trade union leaders, with their somewhat comfortable environment, are betraying the poor wretches who are on the streets, selling their homes up weekly in order to sustain their half-starved wives and children.

I definitely accuse the Labour leaders of cowardice. What have they done since the conference on January 27 to test the feelings of their members on ways and means of turning their resolutions into acts? They have refused to carry out their own resolutions.

At the time of writing we have in London a very effective unemployed organisation. Each borough sends two delegates to sit on the London District Council. Our demands are:

• Work, or full maintenance at trade union rates of wages.
• With a view to absorbing some of the unemployed in useful industry, the immediate establishment of trade between Great Britain and Russia, and the full and complete recognition of the Soviet government.

We know that unemployment is a necessary part of capitalism. A continual supply of cheap labour-power is indispensable to capitalist production. But we say that, when capitalism is responsible for nearly two million men and women being cast upon the scrapheap, at the mercy of the landlord and the profiteer, then capitalism must shoulder the responsibility of its own shortcomings, and maintain our families whilst we are on the streets through no fault of our own.

Today the government is expending thousands of pounds daily in suppressing the independence of Ireland by force. Where does the excessiveness of our claim come in? We do not ask a Black and Tans one pound a day, but only just maintenance at trade union rates of wages.4 The Labour Party’s trifling demand is for 40 shillings a week for a married man. Basing it at pre-war rate, it amounts to about 17 shillings. This is an insult to the unemployed. If the British government paid to every man and woman unemployed today one 16th of its weekly expenditure on the war, it would work out at very nearly £4 per week. If it is worth spending £56 million a week on destroying human life, it is worth one 16th of that for the preservation of life.

Now let us have a look at the second claim - trade with Russia. Why is the government so reluctant over this? The one main reason is that Russia is now in the hands of the workers; they own and control the means of production and distribution. In other words, they are striving to build up communism, wherein the masses shall enjoy the highest standard of living possible. And the capitalist governments know that by trading with Russia they will consequently be aiding a system of society that will one day stand out as a shining example to be copied by the rest of the workers throughout the world.

Now we arrive at the question of making our voice heard and putting our demands into effect. The mere passing of resolutions with nothing to back them up will accomplish nothing. But by the use of the industrial weapon - the strike - the unemployed workers can put the fear of god into the hearts of the capitalist class.

The man inside the workshop has got to realise that our fight is also his fight. He has got to realise that he is not immune from unemployment - any day he may be cast upon the scrapheap. Can he not see that we are being used as a weapon to beat down the standard of living of our class? The mouthpieces of big finance and capital, chairmen of huge trusts and combines, are openly declaring war against the standard rates of wages.

I want to ask the unemployed trade unionist: Are you going to stand idly by, while the parasite class openly declare war against you, your wives and children, while the funds of your organisations are being exhausted weekly by the payment of out-of-work pay to the unemployed members?

Do you realise that the workshop conditions and all the things that you were once so proud to say you fight for as a trade unionist are being filched from you daily? I say to you, with all sincerity and honesty, if you are going down at all, for god’s sake go down fighting. If you do not, you will brand yourselves as a body of cowards, deserving of the humiliation you receive.

The unemployed are now organising their forces for a big move. The clarion call is being sent out to all the unemployed organisations, right throughout Great Britain, with a view to calling a national conference to consolidate the movement, and make it an effective fighting organisation which no government or Labour Party can subjugate.

In the meantime, I want the unemployed to interest themselves in the literature of the Communist Party, and learn the great principles of communism and become a potent factor in society, instead of a human machine to be used or discarded according to the whims and fancies of the employing class. Understand that ‘knowledge must precede all intelligent action’.

Surely you are not content to drift on in hopelessness and despair without asking yourself the question: Why am I at the bottom of the social abyss, while another class that have never soiled their hands with one day’s hard work enjoy all the beauties and luxuries of life? Realise, comrade, that no leader can lead you out of bondage: it has to be the work of the masses themselves.

The Communist March 12 1921

The call for a national conference to consolidate the movement was answered just one month later, when representatives from 70 local committees set up the National Unemployed Workers Committee Movement (the forerunner of the National Unemployed Workers Movement) and appointed Hannington as its national organiser.

Notes

1. See Weekly Worker August 4.

2. JR Clynes (1869-1949) rose through the ranks of the Gasworkers Union to become a rightwing member of the first Labour government in 1924. Jimmy Thomas (1874-1949) was National Union of Railwaymen general secretary, and also served in the 1924 administration.

3. The Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920 extended unemployment benefits to the majority of manual and lower-paid non-manual workers from the age of 16. The act was amended in 1921 to stipulate that males under 18 and unemployed women workers would receive less than males over 18.

4. The Black and Tans (named after the colour scheme of their uniforms) were ex-army ‘hards’ and criminals who were granted sentence reductions if they volunteered for service in Ireland. These counterrevolutionary attack dogs of British imperialism were responsibility for countless acts of barbarity against the Irish people, including the notorious burning of the centre of Cork in 1920.