Red Flag or White? The Communists, the Working Class & the 1926 General Strike
by Rob Griffiths
(Communist Party, £5)

ROB GRIFFITHS’S Red Flag or White? The Communists, the Working Class & the 1926 General Strike offers a compelling exploration of one of the most pivotal moments in British labour history.

Griffiths provides insightful analysis, drawing on a wealth of historical sources to paint a vivid picture of the era’s political landscape. It packs an enormous amount into its 40 pages.

Griffiths starts in 1921 in order to trace “the road to ‘Red Friday’,” July 1925. Red Friday saw a victory, albeit temporary, for the miners.

Although it would have been better to commence in in 1919, he briefly sketches the economic and political background to the General Strike, covering the ill-fated 1924 minority Labour government, the deleterious effects of the reintroduction of the gold standard and the adoption of the Dawes Plan.

However, British capitalism as a whole was in crisis after WWI and the most severe impact was felt by Britain’s staple industries — coal, cotton and engineering. All three industries were faced with savage wage cuts and worse conditions after the defeat of “Black Friday” in 1921.

Illustrating the degree to which the government was preparing itself for what it knew was to be an all-out battle, Griffiths draws our attention to a little known Cabinet paper written by the minister of labour, Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland.

He pointed out that the government had defeated the trade union Triple Alliance 1921 (Miners’ Federation, TGWU, NUR) and thus presumed that it could do it again, relying as usual on the complicity of such right-wing trade union leaders as JH Thomas of the NUR.

Griffiths points out that the success of Red Friday was due to the fact that the now Quadruple Alliance (Engineers had joined) was now an alliance of rank-and-file workers (inspired and organised by the National Minority Movement), and thus it was not solely reliant on the leaders.

Again, as evidence of the preparedness of the government after Red Friday 1925, this time on the ideological front, Griffiths quotes the home secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks (Jix) who suggested that if working-class opinion wouldn’t support wage cuts, they would support the British constitution.

This was exactly how Baldwin framed the General Strike — “Who rules Britain?” — the very question that the TUC never wished to answer and hence insisted on framing the General Strike as a mere industrial dispute.

The government’s preparations were stepped up in earnest during the 10 months between Red Friday (July 31 1925) and May 3 1926. To avoid the Red Friday strike the government had climbed down and established the Samuel Commission (officially the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry) and announced a subsidy to the ailing mining industry (this expired in April 1926). During this period the government was busy with its meticulous “unostentatious preparations” (the PM, Stanley Baldwin) for what it knew was the inevitable battle ahead.

This included the strike-breaking privately run Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS). Griffiths traces the 1919 origins of this body — the “Supply and Transport Committee” set up to deal with post-war strikes — but notes that its newer form relied on volunteers, many of whom were recruited from the British Fascists. (Inspired by Mussolini, the BF was formed in 1923 — the first political organisation in the Britain to claim the label of fascism and with strong links to the Conservative Party.)

The TUC saw the OMS as a benign body formed to deal with civil emergencies. In contrast the CPGB recognised it for what it was — “the most complete scheme of organised blacklegging and strike-breaking.”

This clear ideological difference characterised the division between the left and right of the labour movement and helps explain the prevarication of the TUC, its unwillingness to prepare for the forthcoming struggle which it was anxious to avoid.

If trade union leaders were unwilling to face the class enemy, their members took a different view, as was shown at the 1925 TUC Scarborough Conference.

Influenced by the campaigning work of the National Minority Movement (led by Tom Mann and Harry Politt) the Scarborough Conference marked a high point of militancy in the British labour movement, passing radical resolutions against wage cuts and for increased factory-level organisation.

Clearly the TUC general council had no intention of implementing the will of Congress — it had moved to the right with the addition of JH Thomas (the villain of Black Friday) and the new TUC general secretary, Walter Citrine.

Nonetheless, once the miners were locked out, the TUC was forced to act. The rapacious coal owners had refused to compromise, and the miners had refused to surrender.

Following the rejection of the Samuel Commission’s report and the miners’ refusal to accept the imposition of worse contracts (a 13 per cent wage cut and an extra hour on the working day), the gloves were off and the General Strike was on.

Remarkably, in the space of 11 pages, Griffiths manages to present a whirlwind account of the nine days of the General Strike covering action in all parts of the country.

In particular he highlights the role of the Communist Party and its championing of councils of action. This is a matter of historical accuracy and not historical bias.

Whereas the TUC saw this as an industrial struggle, Baldwin’s government did not — for the ruling class this was a battle to preserve the survival of their state, and the main obstacle to this was the Communist Party. Hence the trial and imprisonment of the leaders of the CPGB. (Much more could have been said about the party’s role — the evidence can be found in the unique archives held by Marx Memorial Library).

The role of both the repressive and ideological apparatus of the state is well covered by Griffiths. This included the OMS and other bodies backed by special statutory powers and on the ideological front, the newly established BBC and the government’s paper, The British Gazette.

The TUC’s betrayal of the strike and the secretive machinations of JH Thomas are well known. The revised Royal Commission proposals in the form of the Samuel memorandum were approved by as the general council as spurious “formula” to end the strike.

This “formula” was rejected by the Miners Federation and the miners were left to fight alone.

In his post-mortem, Griffiths attempts to answer the question “why did the strike fail?” His answer is both thoughtful and inconclusive reflecting the changing view of the Communist Party itself.

While all on the left could accept the view that the TUC betrayed the strike, the conclusions to be drawn from this differed. During the “Third Period,” 1928-34 (“class against class”) the CPGB sought to end co-operation with social democrats and advocate direct confrontation against the capitalist class and state, thus reversing the Minority Movement’s strategy.

When this line was overturned it also meant that the General Strike and every other defeat could not and cannot simply be explained by class treachery.

As Griffiths says, we have to look at the weaknesses of our movement and in particular its political leadership — a vitally necessary task if trade union consciousness can ever transcend to socialist class consciousness.

And so he raises the question as to the limitations of trade union action in a battle with the state as 1926 turned out to be. His inconclusive conclusion is — lessons? What lessons?

This is a Communist Party pamphlet, but it’s not a turgid one! Rob Griffiths’s analytical narrative is both accessible and rigorous, making it suitable for readers new to the subject as well as seasoned historians.

His approach ensures that the complexities of the strike are neither oversimplified nor romanticised. Overall, Red Flag or White? stands out as an essential read for anyone interested in the history of British socialism, labour movements, or the intricate relationship between political ideology and collective action.

In foregrounding the vital role of the Communist Party, today’s communists can embrace and take pride in our own history and hopefully answer Griffiths’s important but unanswered lessons.

The pamphlet is available via shop.communistparty.org.uk, or it can be downloaded for free at https://shorturl.at/9rlCW.