The 1926 General Strike remains the one and only true general strike in British working class history. It ended in defeat after only 9 days. But it could have won. Its defeat was engineered by the leaders of the Trades Union Congress, in full collusion with the capitalist class and its government.
The workers' only independent political party of the time - the Communist Party - was already under the influence of Stalin in Moscow and so encouraged the strikers to put their full confidence in the union leadership, calling for "All power to the General Council".
Over the course of this past century the working class may have seen many changes, but the lessons of the general strike and of its betrayal, remain just as relevant today.
A pre-revolutionary situation
This unprecedented strike carried out in solidarity with 900,000 mine-workers, locked out of their pits by the coal bosses, took place in the context of more than a decade of working class struggle before, during, and after, WW1. The miners themselves had been at the forefront of many of these battles and even after these "9 days in May", continued their fight alone for another 6 months.
Their slogan, "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day" spoke for all workers in Britain in the 1920s, who were facing wage cuts right across the board. Around 2 million workers came out in solidarity. While such "sympathy" strikes were not formally illegal in 1926 as they are today, the strikers still had to face up to the power of the state, with its police, army and navy.
As the Russian revolutionary communist, Leon Trotsky, pointed out, conditions at the time had all the hallmarks of a "pre-revolutionary" situation: the working class could no longer tolerate the appalling conditions it was already subjected to, while on the other hand, as a result of the deep post-war economic crisis, the capitalist class was preparing to drastically increase the rate of exploitation even further, to restore its profitability. And to win, the bourgeoisie had to crush workers' resistance.
In these circumstances, a decisive workers' victory could only have been achieved by overthrowing the capitalist class and taking over power.
But at the last moment, the strikers were disarmed by the reformist union leadership, which had managed to maintain control of the strike and was thus able to call it off, just when it was reaching its most militant peak.
To turn the "pre-revolutionary" into a "revolutionary" situation, workers need their own independent revolutionary policy and leadership. The 1926 General Strike is just one example of the consequences of the absence of such a leadership.
Up to today, the only example of a working class revolutionary party which has successfully carried out the overthrow of the capitalist class and its government and instituted its own class rule, is the 1917 October Revolution in Russia under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky's Bolshevik party.
But even without a revolutionary party to lead it, the 1926 strike, in its short course showed how, when workers engage in real struggles, they invent many potentially revolutionary forms, like strike committees, to take their struggles further.
Rise of the tide
The period either side of WWI had been one of constant working class revolt. "Unofficial" strike action exploded between 1910 and 1914, leading to mass strikes in the years just before the war. Tens of thousands of dock workers struck in London, followed by 200,000 railway workers and a "general" strike of miners lasting 5 weeks.
In response to the pressure of this wave of strikes, the so-called "Triple Alliance" was formed in 1914, by the then leaders of the Miners' Federation, the National Union of Railwaymen, and the Transport Workers' Federation. These union leaders pledged solidarity - "all for one and one for all" - should one of their sections go out on strike. But the outbreak of WWI put an initial brake on workers' militancy.
Indeed, when war broke out, many coal miners - up to a quarter of the workforce - signed up for the army, since it afforded a way out of the appalling labour conditions they were subjected to. So in 1916, the government prohibited the recruitment of miners into the army, to ensure that enough coal could continue to be produced for the war effort. In fact, some mines had already closed due to a lack of labour power. In 1917, the wartime government took over control of all the mines, running them alongside an "advisory committee" of 7 coal owners and 7 union officials. Profits were, however, still guaranteed to the coal owners, with the government distributing "excess profits" to those owners whose mines did not make a profit.
Militancy returns after the war
After the end of the war in November 1918, the militancy of the pre-war period began to return. The Russian Revolution in 1917 shook the world, Britain included, and raised the prospect of a workers' government in Britain in the minds of millions of workers. Soldiers mutinied because their demobilisation was too slow. Engineers went on strike in the shipyards in Glasgow and Belfast in 1919, followed by railway workers, and by 100,000 coal miners in Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Fife and South Wales.
The miners were chosen by the bosses to be the first target of their battle to restore profits. The coal industry (there were 3,000 separate pits, owned by 1,500 different companies) was vital, both economically and politically. Coal was the main source of energy - and cheap coal was a necessity for the whole economy.
At the same time, it was antiquated and under-invested. By the end of the war, just 12% of coal was being cut mechanically, the rest being mined manually! This labour-intensive industry employed over one million workers - the largest working class battalion in the country.
The miners were demanding a 30% wage increase, a 6-hour day, and the permanent and "formal" nationalisation of the mines. When their strikes threatened to spread across all pits, the union leadership intervened to take control. The Triple Alliance announced that its members would be called out on strike if the miners' demands weren't met.
In response, in February 1919, the government set up the Sankey Commission, which promised to investigate conditions in the mining industry. The aim was to give the impression that the miners' demands were being taken seriously. In this, ministers found willing collaborators in the union leadership. Alongside six representatives on the Commission chosen by the coal owners and the government, the miners' union was allowed to nominate six of its own, which included the Fabian Sidney Webb and the historian and Christian socialist, RH Tawney. The chairman was "Sir" John Sankey - a high court judge and Labour politician.
The Triple Alliance delayed any strike action for 4 months, while waiting for the Commission's findings... But its reports, when finally published, were contradictory. Sankey himself recommended nationalisation, with compensation for owners. But the report from the bosses' representatives was in favour of continuing private ownership. The Liberal prime minister, David Lloyd George, played for time. Some wage rises were granted and the quasi-state control of the mines continued on the basis of a 1917 agreement. The union leaders were content not to force the issue by rocking the boat any further, and the strike threat of the Triple Alliance was withdrawn.
Black Friday and the TUC
In 1920 a global recession hit the economy, due to the massive scaling down of wartime production. Prices fell, and the bosses responded with factory closures and sackings. In Britain, official unemployment rose from 250,000 in December 1920, to 2 million just 6 months later.
It was at this moment that Lloyd George's government decided it was too expensive for the state to continue to run the mines, and it chose to return them to private control. The date for this was set for 31 March 1921. Immediately, the coal owners issued notices to the miners of pay cuts of up to 49%! And since they knew that the miners were never going to accept this, they pre-emptively locked them out of their pits.
In response, the leaders of the unions' "Triple Alliance" threatened a strike on 8 April. These were: Frank Hodges of the Miners' Federation, who later became a director of several coal, iron and steel companies; Ernest Bevin of what would soon become the Transport and General Workers' Union, and Jimmy Thomas of the National Union of Railwaymen, described by one historian as "the personification of the beery, cheery, plain-speaking man that music hall comedians felt the British working class man to be".
While these union leaders, who preferred negotiations to fighting, talked, the government prepared for a fight: a state of emergency was declared and troops were sent to mining and other working class areas. However, just before the strike, on what came to be known as Black Friday, Bevin and Thomas seized on a pretext that the Miners' Federation had broken ranks by rejecting the chance of a settlement, and called off their strikes. The miners were left to strike in isolation for three months, before going back to work on the owners' terms. Over the next year, wage reductions were forced on many other sections of the working class, including engineers, shipbuilders, and textile workers.
In the wake of this defeat, the government also took the opportunity to go on the offensive against the recently founded Communist Party (CPGB). Seventy of its members were jailed, its headquarters were raided, and its weekly newspaper was censored.
These workers' defeats and bosses' successes, took place in the context of deep economic recession and constantly high unemployment. Over the next few years there was a downturn in the class struggle. Nearly a quarter of all workers - around 2.5m - were out of work in 1921. Throughout the 1920s, the number of unemployed never fell below 1 million. The miners' union leaders were able to use the brief increase in demand for British coal exports due to the Ruhr crisis of 1923 (when revolutionary workers went on strike in Germany's main coal-producing region!) to negotiate an increase in miners' wages, but it was just a matter of time before the coal owners would look to reduce them again.
After the collapse of the Triple Alliance and Black Friday, the TUC formed the General Council as its executive body, to be elected annually by conference, in place of its then Parliamentary Committee. The General Council was made up of leaders of the main trade unions, including Jimmy Thomas. Its stated aim was to "assist any union which is attacked on any vital question of Trade Union principle". It was meant to allow the union leaders to control the whole trade union movement, particularly since workers everywhere were now faced with generalised wage cuts and lay-offs. Union leaders did not want a return to unofficial, wildcat strikes, and so the General Council began to act as mediator between bosses and sections of striking workers, intervening in strikes of shipbuilders, dockers, builders and railway workers.
The Seaman's Strike
There was one significant wildcat strike that did break out at this time, despite the union leaders' attempts to maintain their control. Havelock Wilson, General Secretary of the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union (NSFU), was one of the TUC's most right wing leaders. In August 1925 he had already accepted a 10% wage cut on behalf of his members. As a result, an immediate unofficial strike broke out among sailors, starting in Southampton. In London, a strike committee was formed at the instigation of Communist sailors in the Minority Movement. Sailors who were already on their way to South Africa and Australia spread the strike on their ships. Their action continued until November, maintained by the strikers themselves, against the hugely powerful shipping combine, with no support from their union, the TUC or, of course, the government, which even cut off the striking sailors and their families from public benefits.
This "strike across the Empire", as it was called by its sole historians (Baruch Hirson and Lorraine Vivian), was inevitably defeated. However it was a prelude to the general strike the following year, as the bosses went on to attack the wages and conditions of the rest of the working class. The seamen, however, deserve to be remembered because they literally extended their "internationalist" hands across the oceans.
Lead up to the strike - Red Friday and government preparations
In 1925, the convertibility of the pound into gold was restored to its pre-war level. This amounted to a brutal 10% increase in the pound's exchange rate and a corresponding cut in the standard of living of the whole working population. The bosses now wanted wage cuts right across the board.
The coal owners were the first to act. They announced an immediate pay cut and an increase of the working day. The government gave tacit support to this, by refusing at first to get involved. The miners' union leaders appealed to the TUC General Council for support. This time, the leaders of the Transport and General Workers' Union and the train drivers' union, ASLEF, agreed to impose a total embargo on the movement of coal, promising a strike "if necessary". The government was not yet ready to confront a major strike. So at the last minute, it intervened, offering the mine bosses a nine-month subsidy - until 1 May 1926 - in order to postpone the threatened wage cuts.
The union leaders declared a "victory" on 31 July. But this was only a stay of execution. This was their so-called "Red Friday". The delay allowed Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government to finalise its preparations to confront any and all resistance which union leaders saw fit to mount in the future.
In fact, each successive government since 1919 had maintained a specific organisation, responsible directly to the Cabinet, to deal with a large strike wave. Named the "Supply and Transport Committee", it was ready to coordinate the emergency distribution of fuel and food in the event of a general strike. It had set up special divisional offices right across the country, in conjunction with various non-governmental and voluntary bodies. The most important of these was the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, or OMS.
After Red Friday, this machinery was put on full alert and stocks were built up. The OMS set about recruiting 100,000 strikebreakers to act as special constables, public sector workers, dispatch riders, drivers, etc., while the government organised 150 road transport committees all over the country, run by volunteers in each area.
As part of its preparations, the government again targeted the Communist Party, imprisoning 12 members of the leadership in October 1925 - half of them for six months and the other half for 12 months - for "incitement to mutiny"! When the General Strike broke out, a number of them were still in prison.
The trade union leadership, however, did absolutely nothing to prepare for the coming confrontation. They could have been in no doubt that their so-called Red Friday "victory" was at best a temporary pause - if not
a deliberate concession by the ruling class to play for more time, in order to prepare its own victory over the working class. But they wanted to avoid any move which might be construed as "provocative". So now they awaited the outcome of yet another investigation into the mining industry.
The Samuel Commission, which the government had set up at the same time as granting the temporary subsidy, was supposedly looking for "solutions" to the problems in the coal industry. In fact, only the TUC leaders took this Commission seriously. For the government and the coal bosses, it was again, merely a way to fob them off. They knew very well that the TUC leadership was likely to grasp at any straw they offered!
The General Strike
As the 9 month subsidy was coming to an end, the miners' union was notified by the coal bosses that from 1 May, wages would be cut by 13.5% and the working day would be gradually lengthened in stages over the next three years. The government, owners, miners' union leaders and TUC, nevertheless negotiated throughout April - but with no progress.
On 1 May therefore, at a Special TUC Conference in London, the union delegates and leaders were asked if they would approve a "National Strike" in support of the miners, to begin at midnight on Monday 3 May. They were also asked whether they would agree to hand over all control of this strike to the General Council - including the right to negotiate on behalf of the miners.
This vote, giving "all power to the General Council", was passed by a big majority. The TUC General Council had put this forward as a "negotiating tactic", to bring more "pressure" to bear on the government and coal owners. But at this stage neither the government nor the bosses were aiming to negotiate seriously. On their side, preparations to deal with a strike were complete - and they aimed to crush it by force.
Nevertheless, the union leadership continued to meet the government for talks over a compromise right up until the Sunday night deadline. It was then that Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin used the pretext of a Daily Mail print workers' stoppage to accuse the TUC of "interference with the freedom of the press" and to break off all negotiations. In fact, the workers had refused to print a Daily Mail front page anti-strike editorial entitled "For King and Country" which they regarded as an incitement to strike-breaking.
The government had prepared for, and now provoked, the reticent TUC leaders into calling the general strike. And they were obliged to organise it. Above all else, their priority was to ensure that the strike did not fall into the hands of "revolutionary agitators". As JH Thomas wrote later, "that danger, that fear [of losing control of the strike] was always in our minds, because we wanted at least, even in this struggle, to direct a disciplined army". Meaning, of course, that the workers on strike should come out and go back to work as and when the General Council ordered. There should be no attempt to push this strike further, nor (perish the thought!) challenge the power of the capitalists!
This "fear" dictated TUC policy from beginning to end. Before the strike had even started, the TUC had offered to "co-operate" with the government on food distribution - but in fact Baldwin had refused their offer. Its decision to hold back some sections of workers to act as a "second line" at a later date, was to avoid creating too much of a groundswell of enthusiasm which could have got out of hand.
The "first line" of strikers, called out on strike on Tuesday 4 May, comprised 1.75 million workers in transport (including railway workers and dockers), printing, iron and steel, gas and electricity and the building and chemical industries. Added to this were of course the miners, bringing the total workers on strike on the first day to over 2.5 million.
The "second line" was made up of engineers, shipbuilders, textile workers, electricians and woodworkers, among others. Of this "second line", only engineers and shipbuilders were ever called out on strike, and then, only on 12 May, the day the strike was officially ended! Nonetheless, in many cases workers went on strike anyway, including workers in unions which weren't even part of the TUC. In opposition to the TUC's confusing strategy, they applied the principle: "if in doubt, come out". However, postal and communication workers were left out entirely; they continued to work throughout the strike.
Against the strike, up to half a million volunteers were brought in by the OMS and other organisations - many of them students, unemployed, or casual non-unionised workers. In the event, the government didn't even need to use them all. Food distribution was maintained, most power stations kept running, and even some ports such as Liverpool and Dover were able to operate to some extent. The government did not have to resort to using the army and the navy, even though all leave had been cancelled, and regiments had been positioned around the country on the eve of the strike, including battleships in the Mersey at Liverpool, and armoured cars and tanks on the streets of London.
Councils of Action
It is the strikers' "Councils of Action" which, on the other hand, provide a glimpse of what might have been possible with a fighting workers' leadership. More than 500 of these were set up around the country during the strike, often based on the local Trades Councils, which had, since the 19th century, been organisations for bringing activists from the different trade unions together.
Most of these councils, and the various Emergency Committees and Strike Committees, were the initiative of Communist Party activists. About half of the Councils of Action published daily strike bulletins, even though the TUC ordered these be stopped on 10 May. They also organised pickets and issued permits for the movement of food and other goods, as well as relief for strikers and their families.
Reports from local areas show the potential that was there. In Birmingham, wrote one bulletin, "the extent of the stoppage is much greater than anybody anticipated, and all road, passenger and carrying [cargo] traffic has been stopped". In Aberdeen, "the railwaymen solid, no trains running, the docks are out solidly". In Doncaster, "the unions are out to the last man". These are just a few examples.
CP activists who could have at least attempted to take the strike further, were held back by their leadership, which was already under the influence of Moscow's counter-revolutionary policy. This leadership saw the Councils of Action not as a way to take the class struggle forward, but as a way, rather, of developing their own ties with "left-wing" union bureaucrats.
In fact, CP leaders had agreed that the TUC General Council should be given full power to lead the strike, (reiterating the slogan, "all power the General Council"), and some among them even proposed that the General Council could form a workers' government!
On the contrary, as Trotsky wrote at the beginning of the strike, "it must be clearly recognised that success is possible only to the extent that the British working class, in the process of the development and sharpening of the General Strike, realises the need to change its leadership, and measures up to that task".
The reformism of the TUC leaders and their craving for acceptance by the establishment, along with the CP's official policy, cabled straight from Moscow, disarmed the party's activists on the ground. They were unable to provide a different perspective to the strikers, despite their often courageous commitment and their local initiatives. Indeed, Communist activists were targeted for repression throughout the nine days of the strike. More than half of the 4,000 strikers arrested were CP members.
Despite the government's focus on the CP, it's doubtful that this relatively small party would have been able to win over the working class to revolutionary objectives, even if it had a policy to do so. However, a central Council of Action, consisting of delegates from all the local Councils, could have enjoyed enough credit to propose a different policy from that of the General Council.
The other positive development in this direction were the workers' militias which were formed during the course of the strike, three of these in London boroughs and others in Leeds and Fife. They organised defence of pickets and working class rallies against the police and so-called "special constables", who were often volunteers from the universities, and particularly violent in their treatment of strikers. Unsurprisingly, the TUC leaders dissociated themselves from such initiatives, refused to condemn repression against Communists, and even returned a £26,000 donation for strikers sent to them by the General Council of Unions of the USSR - for fear of being accused of taking "Moscow's gold"!
End of the strike
On Day 8 of the strike, 11 May, part of the "second line" was called out, consisting of 41 unions, including engineers and shipbuilders. The response was again overwhelming. Far from weakening, the strike was reaching its highest point, reinforced by this large contingent of fresh troops who had been waiting impatiently for that day.
However, the fate of the strikers was already being sealed behind their backs. The General Council had been negotiating behind closed doors with Sir Herbert Samuel, unofficially called in by the government for this purpose. They had come up with yet another bargaining proposal which involved wage cuts for the miners, and which was rejected by the miners' leaders. Nonetheless, the General Council arranged a meeting with prime minister Baldwin for the next day, and on 12 May, called off the strike unconditionally! Their call for the second line to strike just the day before, was obviously a cover for their secret game of betrayal.
The strike was officially ended, but not the lock-out of the miners. They remained on strike on their own, since their own leaders did not dare to call an end to it. The miners were betrayed once more, but this was far worse than Black Friday, because this time a victory had been within their grasp.
Strikers all over the country heard the news of the end of the strike with bewilderment. Some drew the only possible conclusion: that they had won, and indeed the TUC was claiming victory. But the strikers were left in no doubt after Baldwin made his own victory announcement on the radio that evening.
After that, an angry mood developed, especially when the government issued a statement that it "had no power to compel employers to take back every man who has been on strike". In many cases strikers were offered re-employment only if they tore up their union cards and accepted lower wages. On the railways, for instance, bosses demoted staff who had been on strike and they lost their guaranteed hours of work for each week.
It was only the action of local union activists which prevented the employers from turning this defeat into a rout. Calls to go back on strike resulted in partial successes - preventing employers from taking too much advantage of the situation.
The miners carried on their strike alone for another 6 months, but were finally forced to go back down their pits. The workforce was cut, wages were cut, hours were lengthened and many again faced "demotion".
In conclusion...
Perhaps the strikers were bound to lose. But there are different ways to lose. Losing without fighting, while your forces are still intact, is the worst possible outcome. But losing after having caused panic in the enemy's camp and having built up such strong ties in your own, that even once defeated they cannot be undone, is quite another thing. Then, for instance, the extensive victimisations that followed the strike would have been impossible. And in the process a whole new tradition of organisation and a whole new consciousness would have been developed in the ranks of the British working class. Labourism and trade-union reformism would have come out of the strike badly bruised and the odds are that the Communist party, armed with such a policy, could have achieved a mass following - and a new generation of cadres capable of turning it into a revolutionary party.
In the midst of the strike, Leon Trotsky wrote that, "If the British proletariat had a leadership that came near to corresponding to its class strength and the ripeness of the conditions, power would pass out of the hands of the conservatives and into the hands of the proletariat within a few weeks. But such an outcome cannot be relied upon. This again does not mean that the strike is futile. The more broadly it develops, the more powerfully it shakes the foundations of capitalism and the further back it thrusts the treacherous and opportunist leaders, the harder it will be for bourgeois reaction to go over to the counter-offensive, the less proletarian organisations will suffer, and the sooner will follow the next, more decisive stage of the fight". This lesson remains entirely relevant for the working class and its revolutionary activists today.
4 May 2026