Not down that 1930s

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Attlee addresses Hyde Park rally at end of Hunger March, November 1936 Ever since there was capitalism there have been men and women thrown out of work when they were no longer needed.

And ever since then there have been protests by those who demanded the right to a job, and to a living.

There has never been a time when those who were prepared to compromise with the employers and their system have been able to provide policies for the restoration of jobs.

Various reformists and bureaucrats have only made gestures in the direction of the unemployed when they have been compelled to do so. They have always been scared of the unemployed, of their anger, of their challenge to the system of exploitation and waste.

The ruling class and the government have always responded with great venom and violence against organised movements of the unemployed, using every weapon to confront them.

The first 'hunger march' consisted of a single man, Abel Couldwell. He was the only representative of the 'blanketeers'-unemployed Manchester textile workers who in 1817 set out to march to London to petition the Prince Regent for help and work-to reach London after most of the march was [broken up by the military and its leaders arrested.

In the middle of the nineteenth century it was mostly the skilled workers who were organised in unions.

They looked down on the unskilled who were often thrown out of work and, without any dole, became destitute.

Even in those years, it was the Marxists and revoluitionaries who took the initiative in organising the unemployed to fight for their rights and for jobs.

The Marxist movement began in an organised form in Britain a century ago in 1881. And it immediately took up the defence of the unemployed, ignored and despised by the rest of the prganised movement.

In November 1887 large humbers of unemployed workers marched to Frafalgar Square, where they were brutally attacked by the police.

Papular Front This helped to give the unorganised a feeling of power which made possible the struggles of the Match Girls in 1888 and of the dockers in 1889.

During the next phase of unemployment the Marxist Social Democratic Federation was again active.

In February 1903 thousands of the unemployed marched again to Trafalgar Square. Over the next five or six years, 'Right to Work' demonstrations were organised over many parts of the coúntry and fear of these activities was an important factor in the setting up of Labour Exchanges and unemployment assurance in 1909-11.

After the First World War, it was still the Marxists who were in the forefront of organising the unemployed.

The then still small Communist Party recognised the potential of the unemployed as a force.

Ex-soldiers who had been conned by promises of 'homes fit for heroes' were a large component of the unemployed, and frequently reacted violently to their humiliating treatment at the hands of the unemployment officers and parish Guardians.

In 1921 Communist Party members played major role in setting up the National Unemployed Workers Committee Movement to organise these unemployed in defence of Why call it a People's March for Jobs and not labour movement mard for jobs? Regional MiC: ire organised the 517₴ ales Marca bickering over words? Of 1s there something more behind the name?

Anybody who has been involved in the trade union movement realises Regional TUCs don't just spontaneously decide to organise things which like this march) involve great resources.

The name and the march's orientation are a thought-out policy. But the heart of the policy is the decision that the marches would aim not to bring down the Tories but to ask Thatcher to change her policies.

By opposing the slogan "Bring down the Tories» the march organisers considered they would be able to involve anybody un the their rights.

Over the next few years there was constant agitation around the questions of benefit payments and methods, with the government making repeated concessions and as soon as possible clawing them back, which steadily strengthened the NUWCM.

Attention

The first of the big hunger marches to London took place in 1922, and served to bring attention to the problem of unemployment more sharply than before, and in response to this the TUC decided to set up a Joint Advisory Commarch, including critical Tories and more specifically, including the Church.

In this they have been distril I: you follow the PE = Vime Star :33 ief.

Ai virtually every stop 3 Bishop or vicar is the star speaker and when Liberal MP Cyril Smith goes on the march he is praised to the skies.

The aim of the organisers is to create the broadest movement against unemployment and to continue this after the march is over.

What is wrong with this?

The fact is that the Tory attacks are creating a mass anti-capitalist movement.

The local election results are one aspect of this; another are the riots in Bristol and Brixton.

The most oppressed sections of society are on the move.

Where •ATFORM mittee to assist the local campaigns.

It invited Walt Hannington, a prominent leader of the NUWCM and a well known CP member, to address the TUC Congress in 1924 and its first official conference of trades councils in 1925.

Partly because of the hostility of the trade union leaders, but also because of the ultra-left policies of the Communist Party, the unemployed movement, which changed into the National Unemployed Workers Movement in 1929, became separated from the official trade union movement, and ceased for a time to challenge the leaders in any way.

In 1927 it organised a workers are struggling in defence of jobs, as at Lee Jeans, Ansells and Lawrence Scott.

The most dramatic action was that of the miners, who dealt a shattering blow to the Tories.

late mids or this rising Sass abe bet way to drag in ibe Church.

Then. supposedly in order to maintain this broad movement', the policies of the march and of the future campaigns are geared to what the Church wants.

Peter Carter (CP EC member), a major organiser of the march, said in Oxford that stoppages of work on the march should not be called strikesbecause this might antagonise the Church.

And Tony Benn invokes the Bible in one of his speeches to the marchers.

Through the door of the Church comes the capitalist class.

What is happening is the march organisers are turning march of South Wales miners London. This was opposed by most of the trade union leaders, except Arthur Cook of the Miners Federation. Despite this, many labour movement bodies along the route supported the marchers and provided them with food and shelter.

In a similar way the 1928 march from Scotland won the grudging support of the Edinburgh Trades Council, against instructions from the TUC, and in 1929 there were more local rebellions against TUC orders not to support hunger marchers.

The 1930 Hunger March was organised against what was known as the 'not genuinely seeking work' a mass movement (and the large-scale response to the march shows its mass nature) towards a capitalist solution.

This whole policy is tied in with the TUC's 'Alternative Economic Strategy', , the centre of which is expanding the (capitalist) econamy By turning unemployment into a moral issue rather than showing it is caused by capitalism, then the appeal is made to sections of the capitalist class bankrupted by the Tories.

Winning over layers of the petty bourgeoisie who themselves are crushed by big business is important; and it is even possible to win a section of smaller capitalists.

But instead of enlisting the support of such elements for workers' struggles, the working class are being led behind the politics of smaller and larger businessmen.

In other words, the socialist solution -the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism-is pushed out of the way in return for these Jarrow marchers on the road.

clause, penalising those on the dole who were alleged not to be seeking employment.

Pitched battles with the police took place in Berkenhead in 1932 against efforts to tighten the 'means test' on benefits.

Again in 1930 the TUC tried to prevent locat support and help for the marchers. But despite this they had some success in changing the system of benefits, particularly in abolishing a 'not genuinely seeking work' clause.

The reactionary policies of the MacDonald-led 'National' Government after 1931 increased the strength of the unemployed movement and the hostility of the dubious "allies"

But is this diversionary line something new?

Is it by chance that previously inactive Communist Party Stalinists all over the country are coming out to work for the march, or that they were a major force in initiating it?

The answer to both these questions is a resounding No!

The CP first started putting forward the People's Front' policy in the mid1930s. They claim that they learnt this lesson from fighting fascism.

The reality is something rather different.

Prior to 1935 when the People's Front policy was officially adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern (although in fact it had been operating in practice for about a year), the policy of the Comintern known as the "Third Period" had been based upon the theory of "social According to this theory (operational from 1929 to 1934) social democratic uni bot ma the est. mit Cou the mai NU stre Jan ban WOL

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road again!

JARRON