13. “Nine Days That Shook The World”¶
Core Argument¶
The 1926 General Strike stands as both the supreme demonstration of British working-class militancy and the greatest tragedy in its history. For nine days, the working class paralysed industry, threw up Councils of Action as embryos of workers’ power, and confronted the ruling class with the question of state power itself. Yet the strike was betrayed not by the enemy, but by the workers’ own leaders. The TUC General Council, from the outset, treated the strike as a negotiating bluff; when the government called it, the Council sought surrender. Leaders like Jimmy Thomas and Ramsay MacDonald were obsequious, distancing themselves from the action they were supposed to lead. The government, under Baldwin and Churchill, waged open class war through the British Gazette and the BBC, while the TUC’s British Worker was praised by The Times as a “moderating influence”.
The strike’s spontaneous strength terrified the union bureaucracy. The working-class response far exceeded expectations; industry was paralysed, and Councils of Action organised picketing, permits, and defence corps. The ruling class lost control. Trotsky argued that the strike posed the question of power: either the workers take it, or suffer severe defeat. The main danger lay in leaders who feared victory. The TUC refused to call out key sections like power workers, secretly negotiated with Sir Herbert Samuel, and on 12 May capitulated unconditionally to Baldwin—without guarantees for the miners or against victimisation. The strike was actually strengthening; striker numbers increased by 100,000 the day after the surrender. The TUC leadership, both right and so-called Left, had no confidence in the working class. The Communist Party, by uncritically supporting Left reformists, fostered illusions and threw away the chance to build a mass revolutionary leadership. Objectively, the working class could have taken power, but lacked a determined Bolshevik-type party.
Yet the strike transformed the outlook of activists. Labour Women declared in June 1926: “genuine class consciousness was born in the ten days of the strike.” The general strike will again be on the order of the day in future class battles, as post-war Europe has shown—in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and France in May 1968. As miners’ delegate Peter Chambers told the TUC in January 1927: “We will have another general strike without you, and we will win next time.”