Not a Revolution

Duncan Bowie on the General Strike

Nine Days in May by Jonathan Schneer published by Oxford University Press

It was perhaps inevitable that the centenary of the General Strike would bring forward a cohort of new studies. For labour historians, there is a mix of perspectives – for some, it was a brave struggle of the working class against the odds; for others, it was a failed revolution; and for those of a more left-wing persuasion, it was a betrayal of the working class by the right-wing trade union leadership.
For those seeking analysis rather than a somewhat romanticised narrative, Schneer’s is the best book.  Schneer is an American historian who has written eight books, including a sound study of the Balfour Declaration and the origins of the Arab-Israeli politics. What I found most interesting about Schneer’s book is his detailed study of the negotiations between trade union leaders and the government, both before and during the strike.  This could have been very boring, but Schneer brings it to life. He makes full use of both official documents and the memoirs of the participants. He recognised the different perspectives of members of the cabinet, with Prime Minister Baldwin appearing conciliatory, compared with hard-liners such as Joyston-Hicks, the Home Secretary (known to all as Jix), William Bridgman, the first Lord of the Admiralty and Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who edited the Government’s propaganda publication The British Gazette. But Schneer also focuses on the negotiations between the TUC’s negotiating committee led by Arthur Pugh and Jimmy Thomas and the miner’s leaders, Herbert Smith and Arthur Cook.  Thomas is the key figure for the union negotiators, seeking to protect the miners  (and also his railwaymen’s union) but also seeking a compromise solution to end the strike, while it is Smith, refusing all compromise, rather than the better-known Cook, who is the most effective miner’s representative.

Schneer is also excellent on the government’s preparations for the strike, led by Jix and his  Supply and Transport committee. There is much on the role of the “specials”, the organisation of volunteer strikebreakers, the non-government Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS)  and the use of both army and navy. Schneer also examines the role of the mine-owners and their leadership – Sir Evan Williams and Sir Adam Nimmo. There is also a good analysis of both trade union organization based at their Eccleston square offices, and their attempt to coordinate strike action and the action of local Councils of Action, who were often more militant than the central trade union leadership. Schneer also covers the various back channels of negotiations between trade unionists and government, and the role of Herbert Samuel, in putting forward proposals for a settlement, accepted by the government and the trade union leadership, but rejected by the miners’ leadership, who would not, understandably, accept any agreement which might involve a reduction in miners’ wages.

Schneer’s main argument was that the strike was never going to be a revolution. Neither the TUC nor the miners, nor, for that matter, the Communist Party, wanted to bring down the government.  They wanted a better deal for the miners. This was a large sympathy strike, not a political revolution seeking regime change.  What is perhaps surprising is the limited role of Ramsay Macdonald, Philip Snowden and the Labour leadership, who had been in government only 18 months before. Jimmy Thomas was, of course, a leading Labour politician and former cabinet member (as colonial secretary)  as well as a prominent trade union leader, and he, in fact, became the dominant figure in Schneer’s narrative. It is perhaps understandable how he was to be regarded by the miners and trade union militants as leading what was seen as a betrayal, but it is clear from Schneer’s narrative that continuation of the strike would not have achieved the miners’ objectives.

As the TUC’s general secretary, Paul Novak, says in his endorsement of Schneer’s book,   Schneer “brilliantly digs below the surface” and this is important both for us to understand what really happened and to learn lessons for the very different current situation, where coalmining no longer exists in Britain, trade unions more generally are much weaker than in 1926, and the capitalist regime is even stronger and is now the driver of government policy, irrespective of the intended political direction of any specific administration.