3. Schools of War¶
Core Argument¶
The repeal of the Combination Acts in the 1820s did not usher in an era of industrial peace; rather, it triggered an explosive growth in trade union organisation and a wave of ferocious strikes against wage cuts across Lancashire, Yorkshire, and beyond. Though most of these early battles were defeated, Engels discerned in them a vital education for the working class. Strikes, he argued, were the “military school of the workingmen,” and the unions themselves “schools of war.” Through these struggles, workers were transformed from a passive “class in-itself” into a conscious “class for-itself,” learning the indispensable lesson that effective resistance required industry-wide organisation, moving from isolated trade unions to broader trades unions. This period saw unprecedented violence, with government troops deployed against workers; the Merthyr rising of 1831 witnessed the red flag raised for the first time in Britain, and its leader, Dic Penderyn, was executed. Secret organisations like the “Scotch Cattle” in South Wales and the Glasgow cotton-spinners’ union employed terror against blacklegs.
The early 1830s saw ambitious attempts at national federation. The National Association for the Protection of Labour enrolled over 100,000 members, only to collapse after the Spinners’ Union was defeated in 1831. The 40,000-strong Operative Builders Union, influenced by Robert Owen’s co-operative ideas, fought a series of strikes and lockouts. Simultaneously, the “Captain Swing” agricultural uprisings swept southern England, with threshing machines destroyed in a desperate revolt; the government hanged nineteen men, transported 481, and imprisoned 644. The 1832 Reform Act, a concession forced by the fear of revolution, betrayed the working class by enfranchising only property owners, leaving the radicals of the middle class in power and the workers disenfranchised.
It was into this ferment that Robert Owen, returning from failed utopian communist experiments in America, turned to the trade union movement. In autumn 1833, he addressed two major congresses, leading to the creation of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (GNCTU). This was a historic step: a union of 500,000 members, including women and agricultural labourers, with the stated aim of the revolutionary transformation of society and the abolition of capitalist rule. The GNCTU was immediately drawn into defensive strikes, most notably the Derby lockout of 1833, which exhausted its funds and exposed its organisational weaknesses. The ruling class responded with intensified repression. In Tolpuddle, six agricultural labourers were transported to Botany Bay for administering an illegal oath to the union. The “Document”—a pledge to renounce union membership or be sacked—was used to smash organisation across the country. By August 1834, the GNCTU was dissolved, its funds gone and its leadership divided. The collapse of this revolutionary trade unionism marked the end of an era. The working class, having learned the limits of both utopian socialism and militant unionism in isolation, turned decisively to independent political action, entering the great Chartist movement (1837-48), the first independent working-class political party in history.