[Review of «British Syndicalism 1900-1914: Myths and Realities"…]

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Review of «British Syndicalism 1900-1914: Myths and Realities" by B. Holton, Published by Pluto Press at $2.95.

The transport strike 1912-the first national strike organized by a union. The forerunner of the post-war huge strikes by the Once showed place in written whilst firewatching in terrifying conditions during the Siege of Leningrad. Written in response to the nationalistic demands of the bureaucracy, the music fell below Shostakovitch's best standards, as invariably happened when he had to make accomodations of this kind.

WITH-HELD His Eighth and Ninth Symphonies were attacked and his First Violin Concerto was witheld for several years.

During the short Kruschev "thaw" the Fourth Symphony and Lady Macbeth, renamed Katerina Ismailova, reappeared. But, in 1962, Shostakovitch still offended the authorities with his Thirteenth Symphony, which used poems by Yevtushenko.

As soon as a composer uses words, - meanings become explicit and the protest against antiSemitism of "Babi Yar" , the first poem, went against the official line.

Trotsky again Shostakovitch lis concern at women's Soviet society. using a TANT poem "At the Store":

"Russia's women: our honour and judgement, They have mixed concreter hey have endured every- plowed land, reaped the harvest. thing and will endure everything. Theirs is the strength to do anything."

But these same women are given short-change and short-weight. The last poem pointed at the petty bureaucrats - "Genius will conquer regardless of the charges made against it. Those who slandered these great men [Shakespeare, Pasteur, Newton, Tolstoyl are now forgotten - it is their victims who are remembered"

During the last 12 years of his life Shostakovitch was relatively unmolested, protected to some extent by his immense international reputation. If open criticism of the state was difficult, then he retreated into a language of musical code messages. He used the notes corresponding to the letters of his own name - D S CH - when seeming to want to make a personal comment.

the Bolshevik Central Committee At times he quoted well-known works by other composers and his last, Fifteenth Symphony ended with a quotation from his own maligned Fourth Symphony, a wry way of having the last word.

When Lady Macbeth was resurrected minor changes were made. Interestingly, he inserted a single extra line into the song of the old convict on his way to Siberia, adding the words, "Oh, why is this life of ours so dark and fearful. Is man really born for such a life?"

whilst the music hints at a phrase from Mahler's Song of the Earth, "A Drinking Song fo the Earth's Misery" made any explicity political rever Though Shostakovitch never made any tance to Stalinism, and though on many occasions he cowered before the instructions of the bureaucracy, his best music shows that art cannot be created by bureaucratic decrees but is forced at times to develop through a struggle against them.

The word 'syndicalism' is often used in the working class movement, but less often understood.

It is thus of some value to have at last a book that describes its main doctrines and the chief forms that syndicalism took in the period just before the First World War, when it was a distinct and organised tendency in the British working class.

We intend in this article to give an account of the background of this movement and some of the great struggles that gave birth to it. In our next issue we will analyse the theories of syndicalism and the views about it presented in Holton's book.

The syndicalist movement was part of the twin crisis of the imperialist system and working class leadership that culminated in the slaughter of millions in the First Imperialist War in 1914.

Syndicalism represented the resistance of the working class to the growing drive directed against them by crisis-ridden imperialism in the form of rationalisation and speed-up.

At the same time, workers confronted their bureaucratic union leaders — who had established their positions in a period of capitalist growth and boom - to fight at all in their interests.

Syndicalism represented therefore a particular stage in the development of workers' struggles and a particular view of how they should be fought.

growing trade unions.

Despite the argument in this book that it was 'no alien import' it was not a specifically British phenomenon, but part of the response of workers throughout the world to one phase of capitalist offensive.

One of the values of Holton's book is that it provides a reminder of the strength and intensity of workers' struggles in Britain in the years immediately before the great sell out at the beginning of the war in 1914.

MASS PICKETING

This was a period of mass picketing, widespread soldarity action, violent controntation with blacklegs, soldiers and police, and the rejection, time after time, of bargains made by the trade union leaders.

It is a period that is often forgotten now in talk of "traditions of democratic compromise". in Britain, and it is well worth recalling some of the episodes from these days as a reminder of the sharpness of class conflict that always lies just beneath the surface.

In 1910-11, over 30,000 miners in South Wales went on strike for higher wages and in opposition to the old agreements by which wages were determined by profits of the employers.

This was before miners could be sure that once they struck, the mines would stop working.

In many places they attacked blacklegs and managers, and at Tonypandy one miner was shot -cÉk dead and a number of others injured during such a confrontation.

The aims of this struggle were not achieved, but in tuture there was never the same problem in stopping the pits, and in 1912 the leaders of the Miners Federation of Great Britain were compelled to call a four-week strike on the issue of the minimum wage.

This time there were no blacklegs and little violence and the miners secured a number of important gains.

By then many other important struggles had broken out. In the summer of 1912, 15,000 Hull dockers replied to a proposed settlement of their wage claim with the call "Let's fire the docks"!

In Merseyside, there were new levels of solidarity action as railwaymen fought their conciliation machinery with the support of dockers, seamen, tramway workers and many more.

BLOODY SUNDAY

Many strikers and their families were injured in a confrontation with police on 'Bloody Sunday', 13th August, and two days later, two men were shot dead when they tried to rescue those being hauled off to prison.

In this atmosphere, Tom Mann, the syndicalist leader who was on the strike committee greeted a ship full of blacklegs with these words:

"As for the scabs on board, the sooner they went to heaven or hell • according to which they were By John Docherty.

most fitted - the better for the world."

During the national railway strike that followed, strikers. at Chesterfield were only kept back from tackling blacklegs by repeated charges from fifty soldiers.

At Llanelly, efforts to prevent trains passing a level crossing resul ted in two deaths and many injuries not just of railway workers, under the guns of the Worcester and North Lancashire Regiment.

The explosion of an ammunition truck in the next week killed four more.

When a big strike of dockers broke out in London soon after, the Times of Ist August 1912. described one of the many violent conflicts between scabs and strikers in this way:

"Revolvers were fired on both sides, large stones were thrown at the men on the ship and bottles and other missiles flew about... The sound of revolvers was frequently heard."

Soon afterwards on Tower Hill. Ben Tillett made his famous cal with regard to the leading employer:

"God, Strike Lord Devenport dead."

Holton shows that the 'labou unrest' by no means came to an end after the London dock strike ar some right wing writers have asserted.

Struggles during 1913 and 1914 were more local, but they were just as intense.

In the strike of Leeds Corpor ation workers in 1913, strikers laid seige to electricity installations still working, while in the china clay industry in Cornwall, there were violent confrontations betweer police and strikers.

In Dublin from late August to early January 1914, one and a hall million working days were lost, 65t workers were imprisoned and I five killed during the great lock-out of transport workers.

IRISH UNION

There was a trial of strengt with the Irish Transport and General Workers Union of Jin Larkin and James Connolly fightin for its very life against the Dubli Employers Federation of Willian Martin Murphy.

In the course of this epi struggle the trade union movemen fed and provided for thousands o workers and their families, numer ous sympathy strikes took plac throughout Britain and Larki drew enormous crowds to meeting on both sides of the Irish Sea.

He attacked the hesitant anı unhelpful attitudes of the leaders o the TUC on one such occasion.

"A great many of the trad union leaders seemed to think the existed to apologise for capitalism to try to stop strikes and smoot! difficulties over.

These sentiments wer extremely popular at numerou large meetings of workers, thoug not at the TUC.

This great strike wave carried o well into 1914. Building workers i London were locked out durin most of the year, rejecting settle ment after settlement proposed b the employers and the unio: leaders.

When a minor member of th Royal Family went to lay th foundation stone of a scat produced building, a large demor stration of building workers wa heard to proclaim:

"Three cheers for Social Revol ution, three boos for blackleg three boos for Royalty."

This struggle and many other that could have broken out at thi point, was only brought to an en by the historic treachery of th leadership in supporting the wa that began in August 1914.

In the next issue we will sa: something of the theories advanced workers in this period, o the achievements and limits of th syndicalist outlook.

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resday Sth January, 1977