Review – Comrades in Conscience by Cyril Pearce (2001)

I couldn’t help but pick up this book when I saw. The book covers Huddersfield, where I lived for a few years, during World War One. In particular it deals with working class resistance to the war.
It is a well researched book, examining not only academic reports but examining both the local and national press reports (including the Huddersfield weekly workers paper simply called ‘The Worker’). Indeed it is able to discuss academic work and put forward his own views without boring the casual reader (which is something I which I could say for many other books).
Pearce starts by giving the background to the opposition to the war, covering the state of the two working class parties (the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the British Socialist Party (BSP)) in Huddersfield as well as the remnants of radical Liberalism and also other organisations in Huddersfield (such as Adult Schools, Socialist Sunday Schools, Huddersfield Trade Council, the local press etc.)
At the time the workers parties were in a bit of disarray but, ironically, the war fused them together and saw them organising jointly against the war, in particular, through the Trades Council. Such a no-go area for pro-war views was Huddersfield that it was labelled ‘a hotbed of pacifism’ (of course people were still recruited for the war from Huddersfield, just fewer than some other areas).
Pearce details the different stages of the war, the governments initiatives to supply themselves with troops for the front and the various tactics used by the workers parties and their sometime radical Liberal allies. In particular he focuses on conscientious objectors (COs and hence the title), not only refuting other academics work in this area, but explaining how support for working class COs was mobilised and how although leaders of the working class parties becoming imprisoned for their resistance for the war affected them, they were able to gather more support and replace them.

There are some problems with the book however. Firstly, it is £15 which I think is a bit steep for a book whose actual content covers only 210 pages (it has over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes however). Secondly, it ends rather abruptly at about mid 1917, although it does mention a few events after much more detail of the after effects of their struggle would have been interesting. And thirdly, for me the book lacks much analysis of the tactics of the various parties and organisations – it is more concerned with presenting the facts of how successful the tactics are, perhaps this a task for another writer though.
Despite these criticisms, the book is a very good read about a topic that contains lessons for all socialists and is worth reading if only to acquaint oneself with the history of this period in England.

Review – War and the International by Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson (1986) Socialist Platform

This is to some extent a review in two parts, firstly I wish to give a general feel of the book and criticism and secondly I wish to draw upon a couple of the main lessons from this period.

War and the International is a book aiming to provide a history of the Trotskyist movement in Britain over the period immediately preceding, during and immediately after the second world war. The book is written in a very easily readable style and is littered with footnotes and references to interviews with many of the participants in the movement at this time. For this reason alone I would say this book is worth reading to find out more about this period.
However, I don’t think the book gives as full a history as is possible. Whilst it is very good on giving an internal history of the various Trotskyist currents at the time and their relationships with one another and the Fourth International, as you read it you feel like not enough context is given of the situation in Britain – just enough for the events to make sense is recorded but not enough in my opinion to get a really good feel of the influence of these events.

There are a few key things the book touches upon – firstly is the question of entrism. The book reports the various discussions on this issue and correctly criticises them for missing the boat in terms of not entering the labour party when it became very active in 1944/5, and then entering the party in a manner that effectively liquidated the gains of both the WIL and the RCP. There is also some discussion on the idea that Marxists should be in a reformist party in order to provide a leadership when the radicalised masses enter a party, but as the period shows those groups operating within the labour party during the war stagnated whilst the openly organised WIL made some major gains for an organisation of it’s size – additionally it’s main leaders Jock Haston and Ted Grant also managed to correctly analyse (although a little late) the developments internationally after the war.
The second is the question of left unity (or in this case unifying the sections of the Fourth International in Britain). The main lesson that comes out of this is that unity must be on a principled basis – the failure and time-wasting of fusions attempted by the IS of the Fourth International on a purely organisational basis is testament to this. Indeed, they manipulated sections to reinforce their own lack of authority when their perspectives turned out to be completely wrong. Indeed, these manipulations probably impeded the development of Trotskyism in Britain – I wonder what would have happened if the WIL had continued without being pressured through various fusions?
There are other lessons two, of how the WIL organise struggles during this period and the principled manner internal debates were conducted involving large amounts of the membership without distracting too much from the work of the organisation. This period is more than worth the study – and given the mis-education people get about the second world war and the period surrounding it I think such discussion is very worthwhile.

The Role of the Individual in History

nA look at the Chapter – ‘From Lenin to Castro’ in George Novack’s Understanding History.

I’ve been meaning to blog on this topic for a while. The question of how much individuals can alter history is an important one. Why? Well, if an individual can have no influence over the course of history then why be an activist? Or if they have a controlling influence over the course of history, then why bother with collective action?

Novack explains that Marxism gives primacy to objective factors in the development of history, for example, the development of the forces of production. But it also recognises there is also the subjective factor of human interaction with these events. Depending on objective factors, the human interaction can have a huge or no effect, or even somewhere in between those two poles. It is of course at the high point of events where the actions of individuals are of the greatest influence.

If we look at the events of the 1917 Russian Revolution, as Novack does, we see that the actions of one individual, Lenin, was quite decisive. Not because Lenin in himself was especially important, but because of the social position of Lenin as the authorative figure within the Bolshevik party, armed with the theoretical ideas to lead such a party. Novack also discusses the role of Trotsky. In my opinion, although Trotsky was more theoretically accurate in the development of the revolution (ie. his theory of the Permanent Revolution), he could not have fulfilled this role because he’d rejected the need for a centralised revolutionary party until he became convinced during the course of the revolution. This is not to say that we want only one person to be decisive. For myself, the value in belonging to a revolutionary party is studying the lessons of history and leading struggles so that when the time comes we have hundreds and thousands of individuals who could play a decisive role.

This can be seen in the development of political, organisations and campaigns. Any of these things has one or several main activists who play the leading roles in these groups, with many other people following their lead. Hopefully some of these other people will gradually get more and more involved, and new activists become created. (Okay that’s a bit simplified but you get the jist). In any campaign, it doesn’t necessarily need to be that individual at the beginning, but especially as they gain people’s confidence specific individuals become more and more important, indeed to an extent they become identified with certain issues or groups.

Novack also discusses Cuba. Here I disagree with him when he says that Castro and the July 26th Movement created the missing revolutionary conditions in the country. The revolutionary conditions already existed, what was missing was a correct leadership. The leadership that Castro and his comrades gave did influence the direction of the struggle in Cuba dramatically, leading to an overturn of the dominance of capitalism in that country, but a movement led by the workers in that country would have been even more dramatic and fruitful.

A Brief Look at the Origins and History of Police Unionism in Britain – Pt1

This is part one of this post - partially becuase I haven't done the other half yet which will cover the period after the 1918-19 police strikes, but also becuase they are two fundamentally different periods in police unionism history. I also would like to do a piece or two on prison officer union, probation officer unions and also court staff as i think these are areas of interest

The formation of unions for police officers came as a result of dissatisfaction over pay and conditions prior to the First World War, although the first recorded instance of collective action dates back to 1872. Most grievances either related to conditions of service (in particular ruthless military discipline practiced within the force) as well as pay disparity between different regions. This led to the formation in 1913 of the Metropolitan Police Union, which soon expanded to have a branch for provincial members and in 1914 became The National Union of Police and Prison Officers (NUPPO).
It is worthwhile noting that the State has always been especially opposed to granting those working for the State the same trade union rights as other workers. NUPPO was no exception. As Rob Reiner notes in The Blue-Coated Worker, “Membership was secret and the Union met in a clandestine way. This was necessitated by the Union’s illegal status… Policemen discovered to be members were suspended.” (pg 20.)
NUPPO began forging links with the labour movement, whom its leaders were sympathetic to. This of course was made more complicated by the role of the police in repressing strikes, but the union became affiliated to the Labour Party, the TUC and many local trades councils.
The deteriorating position of police incomes during the First World War meant that they had gone from being relative to that of a skilled worker to just below that of an unskilled worker. This led to an increase in membership of the union, and importantly leadership of the union passing from ex-police officers to an executive of current police officers, several of whom were committed socialists.
In 1918, an event occurred that led to Sylvia Pankhurst describing it as “The Spirit of Petrograd”. This was the police strike in the late summer. The immediate stimulus for the strike was the dismissal of Constable Theil, a leading member of the union on August 27th 1918. This led to the union resubmitting its previous demands for recognition and a pay increase, as well as now demanding Thiel’s re-instatement, with an ultimatum that the union would strike if these conditions were not met. The deadline was ignored and the strike started on midnight August 29th and was almost total, by the August 31st approximately 12000 Metropolitan police officers were on strike. The government of Lloyd George was quickly forced to concede to the unions demands on pay, conditions and the re-instatement of Thiel. However, the question of union recognition was not completely answered by Lloyd George saying that he could not recognise a union in wartime.
Although not fully recognised, the concessions led to an ease of repression against union activists and also a massive expansion of the union itself. Moreover, both in recognition with it’s loyalty to the workers movement and realising its own strength the union publicly declared that its members would stop repressing workers, and not be used for strike-breaking. The union in London also fought for democratic control of the police force rather than the despotic control of the Home Office appointed Commissioner, General Macready.
A battle emerged over the newly created elected representative board which was to negotiate wages and conditions with Macready. The union made all the officers on the board ex-officio members of its executive and dominated it. It used this board to extend its control over police deployment and refused to pass on orders against the interests of police officers and workers alike.
However, on 24th February 1919, after the board refused to accept one of Macready’s orders he moved against the union and drew up plans for elected three different boards each representing a different ranks of the police force, constables, sergeants and inspectors individually. Union activists were dismissed and the Home Secretary in support of Macready that any policemen who retained membership of the Union would lose their jobs, and on 8th July 1919 starting bring forth a bill to ban police from being members of a trade union. Crucially, however, the government combined repression with concessions that vastly increased pay and used the new three-tier representative structure to establish the Police Federation, a kind of company union that still exists today.
The union had already balloted on strike action over recognition, improvements in pay and the reinstatement of a union activist, getting 44,599 in favour with only 4324 against. However, they blundered when they called off action after reports of Macready bringing in the military to strike-break against them. In fact the government had been planning against them ever since making the concessions the previous year. The union tried to lean on the rest of the labour movement for support, however, a combination of opposition to a strike from the tops of the movement as well as the difficulties of convincing workers who had previously had the police used against to come out in support of the police, meant that the supportive action that took place quickly dissolved away. Most of the police did not come out, when the last ditch strike action took place as the bill prohibiting union membership was read out in parliament. Indeed, only in Liverpool was the strike a success with over half the membership coming out, but it was eventually suppressed, with all strikers dismissed from the force.

Review - Why I Write by George Orwell

Why I write is a collection of four essays of various sizes published in 2004 by Penguin as part of their Great Ideas collection. Of the four essays, A hanging is the shortest, which describes an execution during Orwell's time in Burma. Why I Write is another short essay dealing with the motivations of writers and journalists when they put pen to paper, intermingled with a brief depiction of Orwell's life. Politics and the English Language is not much longer, but in it Orwell discusses the quality of writing in 1940's political material. This is a piece which I think is still highly relevant today, particularly the points Orwell makes of the overuse of metaphors, lack of clarity of writing and using more words to ake a point than is necessary. The Lion and the Unicorn is by far the longest, larger than the previous three combined. Writing this during the Blitz, Orwell comments on the situation in Britain at that time. Despite, in my opinion, his misconception of situation leading him to support patriotism and wanting a form of utopian socialism (a misconception more than likely due to his middle class background), Orwell makes several good points. The first is a condemnation of the Stalinists (which of course Orwell makes in other writings) for their crying out for pacifism and their pro-Hitler behaviour. Secondly the ineptness of the British ruling class in their foreign policy, which shows how much of a brake on development they were (and still are). Thirdly the need for a complete break with capitalism, which was missed by the very Labour Party Orwell canvassed for in 1945 along with the Social Democratic and Stalinist parties of Europe who saved capitalism from revolutionary overthrow. There are better accounts of the political situation during the second world war, but Orwell demonstrates the three above poiints excellently. This book isn't a must for socialists but it is a worthwhile read.