Ralph Darlington Archive | ETOL Main Page
From Socialist Worker, No. 2846, 12 March 2023.
Copyright © Socialist Worker.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Worker Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
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Author Ralph Darlington spoke to Sam Ord about his new book and how the events of 1910 to 1914 in Britain serve as an example of how workers should organise to win |
The< a href="https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/1911-the-great-unrest/" target="new">“Great Unrest” of 1910 to 1914 was one of the most sustained and impressive explosions of industrial revolution Britain has ever experienced. In a new book, Labour Revolt in Britain 1910–14, Ralph Darlington explores this inflammatory period of class struggle.
The “Labour Revolt” – as Ralph describes it – rose after 20 years of relative calm from workers and retreats by trade union leaders. Some 300,000 miners in South Wales coalfields struck in 1910–11 over pay. In 1911 around 961,000 workers from docks, railways, mines and more walked out – including a Liverpool-wide general transport strike.
The following year, 1912, saw a series of strikes among Midlands metal workers. And in 1914 a London building workers’ lockout struck. The newly industrialised workforce was involved in 4,600 strikes for pay, conditions and trade union organisation.
This included new layers of workers who previously had never considered industrial action. In Bermondsey, south London, 15,000 women workers from over 20 mostly food processing factories spontaneously came out on strike.
But it wasn’t just the number of strikes that drove them to victories. The unrest was dominated by workers in precarious conditions taking action independently from trade union structures. Workers’ strength was built and maintained through militancy. Compromise was trumped by workers mostly organising from below.
This uptake in workers’ militancy meant that from 1910 through to 1914 trade union membership rose from 2.5 million to 4.5 million. Ralph spoke to Socialist Worker about the lessons of this exciting period.
SW: How is the revolt in the 1910s relevant to today’s struggles?
RD: There are considerable differences between workers’ struggles today and those from 1910 to 1914. The scale of the revolt that took place in the pre-war years was huge compared to what we are experiencing today.
But the book looks at the series of distinctive features of that revolt, which I think carry over to today and have some pertinence.
Absolutely relevant today is the fundamental problem of trade union officials, the notion of a distinct social layer with interests different from members. Although willing, every now and again, to give some support to action, union leaders ultimately ended up restraining and hampering, if not sabotaging action.
I also tried to draw out the role of rank and file organisation. In the pre-war years strikes were driven by an unofficial militancy and rank and file pressure. There is bottom up pressure today but on a much smaller scale.
During the pre-war years, you see a considerable layer of militants in different unions and across industries pushing in their respective disputes.
There were embryonic forms of organisation in different ways. Still, they were primarily oriented on changing the trade union structures rather than on the strikes themselves in the pre-war years. At the moment we’ve got a movement which is awakening from years of atrophy.
SW: How can the workers’ movement learn from 1910–14?
RD: The central issue during the Labour Revolt was the separation between industrial struggle and political ideas.
There was a contrasting situation between those who put all the emphasis on politics and ideological propaganda about changing society and those who exclusively focused on industrial struggles. This divide hampered the left.
Again, I think that’s relevant today – not because it plays out in exactly the same fashion. But I think industrial struggle – as primary and important as it is, as the means by which workers can win better conditions and so on – has to have a political edge.
The classic example for me is how RMT general secretary Mick Lynch represents workers in an industry where the government is the central player. He himself attacks the government all the time. And yet, at the same time, when he’s asked by reporters, ‘Is your strike political? Are you able to break down the Conservative government?’ He says, ‘No, it’s not at all. It’s just about better terms and conditions.’ It’s a glaring contradiction.
Today we have new people coming into industrial struggle for the first time. And we’re wanting to encourage them to see the importance of solidarity and making networks of workers independent of officials. But at the same time, I think there’s the question of wider politics.
Taking up and seeing the relevance of campaigns and movements to do with climate, immigration, and racism is essential.
SW: How did the Great Unrest from 1910 grow?
RD: One thing I’ve tried to demonstrate fairly clearly is that there was a reciprocal relationship between strikes winning material gains in terms of wages and conditions. And then to a massive growth of trade union membership.
That strength revitalised healthy union organisation, which was boosted by much larger numbers. You see a direct connection between them, and it wasn’t a simple one way thing. Workers had to have union organisation before they went on strike. All the while it was only through going on strike that other workers went into trade unions.
There was a direct link between militancy and the ability to win real gains, which made workers see the relevance of the union.
SW: Was it just traditional union organising that built struggle?
RD: When you think of the docks, and the transport industry, which were at the centre of the pre-war struggle, vast numbers of those workers were casualised and unorganised.
The unions that were to be the beneficiaries of massive advances in union membership were beforehand not very strong organisations. They were damaged by 20 years of retreat. On the Liverpool docks, it was primarily completely unorganised.
Struggle built the confidence in which unions could grow and develop, attracting unorganised workers. Women workers working in women’s only workplaces were regarded as entirely marginal to the main sectors of industry in manufacturing but were drawn into action.
There were strikes by all sorts of workers – golf caddies, lab workers, miners, who previously never thought of organising. So in that sense perhaps the question you’d ask is how best to organise today.
Before the First World War the greatest number of workers were involved in strikes, and the organisations which benefited most were the existing unions. They were transformed completely.
I’m not discrediting the activity of smaller unions, but when you look at struggle on a mass scale, it’s a mistake to discount the existing unions.
SW: What was the role of women in the Great Unrest?
RD: I’ve put a lot of effort into looking not only at the sort of struggles people know about but also those they may not know so much about. A good segment of these were struggles by women workers.
I’ve looked at a number of these struggles, and what I discovered is quite exciting. Women workers – although the numbers involved were only a fraction of the larger number of male workers – were engaged in a very active way, particularly young women.
Women sat on strike committees alongside men. They weren’t passive. They were very assertive, aggressive, willing to picket, protest at the police and be involved in attacks on strikebreakers.
Women in Bermondsey, south London working in 20 different factories right next to the docks, struck. Most of those women had friends and family who worked in the docks and had just been on or were still on strike.
They were influenced by what the men were doing, but they were also influenced by the suffrage movements. The Suffragettes were not the only part of the suffrage movement, but they played quite a significant role in terms of ‘deeds, not words’ and civil disobedience.
They were physically hitting ministers such as Lloyd George and Churchill, blowing up buildings, slashing artwork and more.
So I think they were influenced by this broader movement to be assertive and to defy authorities. In today’s world, some socialists may look at climate change campaigns or whatever direct action and think it’s irrelevant to the labour movement and dismiss it in the same sort of fashion.
It puts a gulf between those activists and workers.
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Last updated: 4 August 2023