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SECOND OF OUR OCCASIONAL SERIES OF ARTICLES TRACING THE CAREERS OF 'LEFT' MPS 1926 betrayal: the Organiser of a Bermondsey Labour Bureau explains the 10% Docherty Viewers of the recent TV films "Days of Hope" will have noticed the brief appearance of the figure of Alf Purcell, a left on the general council in the crucial days before and during the 1926 general strike. Many will have been struck by the words of a Communist Party leader portrayed in the series about the need to ally with such people as Purcell in order to win the commanding heights of the trade union movement and the parallel with Stalinist policies of today cannot have been lost.

However, one of the political weaknesses of the TV plays was their inadequacy in showing the basis of the failure of such "left" figures as Purcell and A. J. Cooke. We intend to return to the Days of Hope series when there has been more time to examine the published version, but for now something must be said of the role of the prominent "left" trade unionists of the time, and of the reasons why in the end they proved incapable of serving the interests of these millions of workers who looked to them for leadership.

MILITANT

It must be emphasised at the outset that Purcell all his life was a selfless and militant trade unionist. When he died in December 1935 hundreds of workers followed his coffin through a bleak winter day.. Purcell was no molly-coddled bureaucrat, living off the backs of his members, he was a skilled and principled negotiator on behalf of many groups of workers, For example, he brought some of the toughness derived from his career as an amateur boxer into negotiations lasting 23½ hours in November 1919 when he won important concessions for workers in shops run by the Co-operative movement. It was precisely such strengths as this that highlight the profundity of the failure of Purcell. The reputation he gained as a militant, a syndicalist, and a founder of the Communist Party, precisely made it possible for him to carry on his shoulders a large proportion of the betrayed aspirations of the workers in 1926. His failure was not a personal one but was part of the inability of an entire generation of the British working class and socialist movement to break from the bounds. imposed upon them by syndicalism and dogmatic Marxism.

Alf Purcell's life encompassed every phase of working class militancy and political radicalism during his active life. Born in the East End of London in 1872, he was a french polisher. by trade and active in a series of trade union bodies that eventually in 1910 became the National Amalgamated Furniture Trade Association. As the national organiser for these was well known as a lett-wingts, an active supporter of the Soviet Union, and a continual advocate of united action by different sections of workers in Britain and internationally.

LEFT WING

Nor were Purcell's activities confined to the trade union movement. He was associated with virtually every left-wing political organisation that existed in his day. As early as 1890 he joined as a teenager the Legal Eight_ Hours and International Labour League, a body set up under the inspiration of Engels to campaign not simply for the aim set out in its title, but also for the setting up of a During the 1890s Purceil was a member of the Social Democratic Federation at a time when this was the only body in Britain claiming adherence to the principles of revolutionary Marxism He joined the Independent Labour Party when this campaigned for the political interests of the workers as a i class. He was also actively associated in the years before 1914 Outcome of the with the Industrial Syndicalist Education League, which put forward militant policies for the trade union movement.

Purcell represented the South Salford branch of the British Socialist Party at the foundation of the Communist Party in the summer of 1920, and proposed the important motion expressing support for the Soviet system of government. Though he left the CP soon afterwards, he was a member of two labour delegations to the Soviet Union, actively much more than the series of dead dogmas presented by Hyndman and the SDF.

Purcell's early development was part of the struggle for the mobilisation of the mass of the workers that built the non-craft unions, and for the expression of its political independence that made possible the establishment of the Labour Party. Later, however, he reverted to that separation of 'political' Marxism from: militant trade unionism that characterised the movement in the years before 1914.

Thus even though Purcell was always a militant trade unionist and a passionate denouncer of the capitalist system, he was never able to be these two things together. He put on his 'political hat as a member of the ILP and the Communist Party and his 'trade union' hat as a negotiator and union leader. This was how he could be associated for a time with the pathetic efforts of the middle class syndicalists of the guild socialist movement in the early 1920s to set up islands of socialist enterprise in a sea of capitalist depression and slump.

After the collapse of these schemes during the depression from 1921 onwards Purcell's syndicalist background made him consider that militancy and unity on the part of the working class would be enough to defeat the enormous onslaught of the employers and the Tories. Because • had no other policies or procapitalism with as much eloquence as he liked without being able to pose in any way the means for its overthrow. state, but it could not be in any sense an instrument in the overall emancipation of the proletariat.

The alliance played its part in establishing the position occupied by Purcell in the General Strike period. He came into his own in reflecting the mood of disillusionment with the lack of achievement of the 1924 Labour government.

While many of the right-wingers were away in the Cabinet, Purcell told the Congress of that year that what was needed was "a well worker Principle weapon of the disciplined industrial organisation' , and through this could br forged 'an instrument of solidarity capable of changing the existing structure of capitalism and bringing about a workers' state'.

CHALLENGE

However, such policies were quite inadequate without a challenge for the leadership of the unions. Purcell of course was hostile to those openly right-wing union leaders like J.H.Thomas and Arthur Pugh who re-established their predominance in the movement just before the General Strike.

However, because he saw no fundamental conflict with them and in no way vied with them for the leadership of the movement he became simply a helpless junior partner in their systematic betrayal of the workers in the smashing of the General Strike.

So it was that although Purcell did not play a conspicuous part in the negotiations leading to the General Strike and its ignominious calling off, he was nevertheless part of a leadership that held back the struggle. Purcell was a member of the Organising Committee set up by the General Council at the last NO 2. ALF PURCELL then shocked, and then bitter. Members of the Coventry Council of Action sent a delegation to the TUC headquarters to ask "the national leaders not to giverway" since "our ranks were solid"

One of the members of the delegation later recalled that when they arrived they were ushered into a room to meet Purcell. It was only then that this trade unionist realised that "the mighty leader whom I had known as a fighter" the "iron man who had enthralled me at May Day meetings" 'had feet of clay". Purcell was said to be "the most disappointed man in the country", but he had himself played a key role in bringing the disastrous situation about.

So it was that the most consistently 'left' trade union leader of his day failed the working class. He did not immediately lose his position, but reverted instead in the period of enormous attacks that followed the defeat to his: basic syndicalism and reformism. Now abandoned and criticised after the- event by his erstwhile allies of the CP, Purcell along with the other TUC leaders abandoned the pretence in 1927 when they took the initiative in disbanding the Anglo-Russian Committee. aole cur lo unempiuytu wurners 17»1 After this, Purcell retired from the national scene and for the last few years of his life was Secretary of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council. In this role he became again a simple trade unionist concerned with such issues as road safety and municipal finance. As a fighter for the overall interests of the masses in those dark days, the worst of the depression, Purcell was a spent force.

It is important to end by stressing that Purcell remained all his life a militant, and never consciously capitulated to the employ-

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gramme to put forward to the working class, he could denounce