Zbc IRew lEra Series 
 
 (VOLUME EIGHT) 
 
 DIRECT ACTION
 
 IN THE SAME SERIES 
 
 NATIONALISATION OF THE MINES. 
 By Frank Hodges, J. P., Secretary of 
 Miners' Federation. 
 
 WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA. By George 
 Lansbury. Being an account of his 
 experiences during his recent visit to 
 Russia. 
 
 AFTER THE PEACE. By H. N. 
 Brailsford. 
 
 A POLICY FOR THE LABOUR 
 PARTY. By J. Ramsay MacDonald. 
 
 A NEW ARISTOCRACY OF COM- 
 RADESHIP. By William Paine. 
 
 LAND NATIONALISATION. ByA.EmiL 
 Davies, L.C.C, and Dorothy Evans, 
 formerly Organiser of the Land 
 NationaHsatiort Society. 
 
 PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF THE 
 LIQUOR TRADE. By Arthur 
 Greenwood, Vice-President of the 
 Workers' Educational Association. 
 
 THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK. By 
 Robert Williams, Secretary of the 
 Transport Workers' Federation. 
 
 LABOUR AND NATIONAL FINANCE. 
 By Philip Snowden. 
 
 Other volumes will be announced later. 
 Quarter cloth. Crown 8vo. Price 4/6 net each volume. 
 
 LEONARD PARSONS 
 PORTUGAL STREET, LONDON
 
 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MELLOR 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LEONARD PARSONS 
 
 PORTUGAL STREET 
 
 136408
 
 First Published November 1920. 
 
 Leonard Parsons, Ltd.
 
 HD 
 
 TO 
 
 H. E. M.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 One of the commonest of sayings nowa- 
 days among both employers and workers 
 is, " Things cannot go on as they are. There , 
 must be a smash." Everywhere men and 
 women are conscious of Hving in times of 
 revolutionary change, and everywhere they 
 wait expectantly for the crisis. All the 
 countries in which Capitalism holds sway are 
 rapidly being divided into hostile camps — 
 on the one side stand those who seek to 
 preserve the world as it is, on the other 
 those who seek to destroy and, after de- 
 ■> stroying, to re-create. Midway between these 
 warring sections there are groups that either 
 do not understand, or dare not face, the 
 5 meaning of this appearance of war. They 
 ^ cannot, or will not, believe that all hope 
 < of peace has gone, and they fear the in- 
 l cvitable suffering tliat open war brings in 
 ^ its train. Their position is one of insecurity, 
 ^ for every day brings further proof of their 
 ^ isolation. They luid thtinselvcs thrown this 
 I way and that in the struggle for supremacy ;
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 they are, in very deed, being ground be-" 
 tween the upper and nether millstones. In 
 a world which is marked by the existence 
 of deep social unrest, they find themselves 
 vainly " ingeminating ' Peace, Peace ' " — 
 when there is, and can be, no peace until 
 the struggle between those who own and 
 those who are owned is settled for all time. 
 Unless one is prepared to regard the world 
 from this point of view, there can be no 
 real appreciation of what is taking place, 
 and no real appreciation of what is to happen 
 in the future. The old order of civilisation 
 is decaying and a new one, lising out of the 
 old, is being prepared. The world has come 
 to the cross-roads, and the contest over 
 " the right of way " has been joined. 
 
 It is the purpose of this book to explain 
 the meaning and implications of the way 
 in which this contest is being fought out, 
 and, in particular, to urge that the struggle 
 for supremacy is concerned primarily with 
 the economic facts of life, that the prize 
 that accompanies victory is, for the one 
 side, the preservation of the status quo, and, 
 for the other, a new social order based not 
 on the struggle for existence, but on the
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 idea of mutual service of all to all. Social 
 unrest is but the symptom of a deep under- 
 lying disease from which civilisation suffers; 
 it is a sign that the circumstances of life 
 deny to some what freely they afford to 
 others ; it is a proof that injustice is being 
 meted out. In short, the continued growth 
 of social unrest arises from a realisation of 
 social inequalities, and from a desire on 
 the part of those upon whom these in- 
 equalities fall to redress the balance. There 
 is a war in progress between those who have 
 and would continue to hold and those who 
 have not and desire to possess. 
 
 The struggle of the classes has two sides : 
 it is a struggle for social equality, for the 
 abolition of all economic distinctions be- 
 tween man and man, and it is a struggle for 
 the right of every individual to express 
 himself in the work he does, for the right to 
 labour not for the benefit of an employer, 
 but for the well-being and liappiness of one's 
 fellows. The struggle finds its expression 
 on the economic field, for on that field is 
 to be found the basis of all life. Bread and 
 butter are the fundamentals of all existence, 
 and a world in which the supplies of bread
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and butter are unfairly distributed is a 
 world marked by social injustice and social 
 inequality. This fundamental economic in- 
 equality affects every sphere of life, and 
 eventuates in a world whose people are 
 sharply divided in morality, in methods of 
 life, in outlook and in speech. It produces, 
 within a society, two classes — the one leisured 
 and cultured, free from economic care and 
 worry; the other condemned to a lifelong 
 struggle to sustain animal existence, pressed 
 by fear of starvation, living the drab exist- 
 ence of a beast of burden. It produces a 
 race of masters and a race of slaves. More 
 and more as Capitalism develops the segre- 
 gation of these classes is affected, and 
 the continued free development of " big 
 business " can only end in the absolute 
 division of mankind into machine-minders 
 and machine-owners. Such a world is the 
 apotheosis of Capitalism and the burial-ground 
 of freedom. 
 
 Fortunately for the world there is no free 
 and unhampered development of Capitalism. 
 The wage-slaves are everywhere questioning 
 the divine right of their masters. They are 
 seeking for a new basis of life, and blunder-
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ingly, but surely, are working for a change 
 that shall destroy for ever that power of 
 man over man that springs from the pos- 
 session of property. The under-world is in a 
 state of unrest, and it is striving to throw 
 off the chains that weigh it down. That 
 throwing-off is in process the world over, 
 and in no country is Capitalism left un- 
 challenged. The world is in revolt, and the 
 weapons used to consummate that revolt 
 are economic. Direct Action is the watch- 
 word of both tliose who defend and those 
 who attack. 
 
 This, at least, is the point of view I hold, 
 and it is with a desire to explain to those 
 who arc opposed to me, and to help those 
 who agree, that I have written this little 
 book.i My hopes lie with all the countless 
 millions the world over who are striving to 
 create out of the chaos of the old a new 
 world, free from injustice, economic slavery 
 
 and unmerited suffering. 
 
 W. M. 
 
 September 1920. 
 
 1 Mij thaiiks arc (hie in Mif<s Torr and W . Ilulmes, 
 of ''The JJaihj Herald" sUiQ, for the help theij have 
 {liven me.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? ... 15 
 
 II. AN OPEN WAR ..... 35 
 
 III. WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? .... 46 
 
 IV. "THE community" . ... .66 
 
 V. SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES . . 75 
 
 VI. SYMPATHETIC ACTION AND SABOTAGE . 96 
 
 VII. TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF . . .111 
 
 VIII. EDUCATION AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE . 123 
 
 IX, THE APPROACH 137
 
 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION ? 
 
 Direct Action can, in a general way, be 
 defined as the use of some form of economic 
 power for the securing of ends desired by 
 those who possess that power. Taken in 
 this general sense it is merely another name, 
 when employed by the workers, for the 
 strike, when used by the employers, for the 
 lock-out. It is an attempt on the part of 
 the workers or of the employers to extract 
 advantages for themselves by their control 
 over the economic life of society. 
 
 A section of the working class desires, let 
 us say, an increase of a penny an hour or 
 the shortening of its working week. These 
 members of the working class rely for the 
 securing of their ends upon the strength of 
 their Trade Union, whose object it is to 
 give them control over the commodity,
 
 16 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 labour power, that they sell in order to 
 live. They are confronted by the economic 
 power that belongs to the owners of the 
 machinery of production by the very fact 
 of that ownership. The demand for higher 
 wages or shorter hours resolves itself into a 
 struggle between these two forms of economic 
 power, and the final form of that struggle is 
 the refusal of one or other of the contending 
 parties to allow industry to continue. That 
 refusal is expressed by the workers through 
 the strike, by ca' canny, or some form of 
 sabotage; it is expressed by the employers 
 through the lock-out or through some less 
 dramatic, but at the same time effective, 
 cutting off of supplies. Trusts and cartels, 
 combinations and agreements are all forms 
 of direct action used by the emjiloying class, 
 and their object, as the object of the Trade 
 Unions, is to secure ends that seem to those 
 concerned desirable and worth obtaining. 
 
 Against direct action which seeks ends 
 that are not likely to threaten the structure 
 of Capitalism itself, very little criticism is 
 raised. The history of the hundred years 
 of Trade Unionism and of the last hundred 
 years of Capitalist development is the history
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 17 
 
 of the greater acceptance by " the commun- 
 ity " of the idea that an employer has the 
 right, in combination with other employers, 
 to refuse to continue his business except on his 
 own terms, and that the workers have an 
 equal right to refuse to sell their labour power 
 on terms that they deem unsatisfactory. The 
 strike for higher wages or shorter hours is to- 
 day regarded as perfectly legitimate, if not 
 justifiable, and a whole series of laws has been 
 passed to enable the Trade Unions to en- 
 gage in this particular form of direct action. 
 The Trades Disputes Acts constitute the 
 charter of the working class under Capital- 
 ism, and establish its right, in the eyes of 
 the law and of all " respectable " people, to 
 withdraw its labour in a concerted and 
 coherent manner. That right and that 
 charter have been won only by dint of 
 the workers refusing to be content with 
 anything less. They have had to fight for 
 the legal recognition of the ordinary re- 
 formist strike, and having won that par- 
 ticular fight, they are expected to remain 
 content. A hundred years ago it was a 
 conspiracy in the eyes of the law for men 
 to combine together to secure higher wages
 
 18 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 or shorter hours. To-day it is a conspiracy 
 for men to combine together to secure the 
 ownership of the mines for the nation. 
 Every argument that has been used against 
 the wage strike is now being used against 
 the strike that seeks radically to alter the 
 conditions under which the workers live. 
 The strike has always been a revolutionary 
 instrument, in that it has challenged in a 
 practical way the right of the employer 
 "to do what he likes with his own," but, 
 hitherto, it has been employed only to 
 ameliorate the conditions of wage slavery; 
 it has not been directed against wage slavery 
 itself. The question that every one, both 
 workers and employers, is asking to-day, is 
 whether or not the workers of any country, 
 or of the world, are justified in using their 
 economic power to change the system of 
 society under which they live. 
 
 The answer to this question depends largely 
 upon the view of society that one holds. 
 To those who see in society a gradually un- 
 folding " organism," whose parts are indis- 
 solubly linked, and possessed of a hfe 
 greater than the lives of the separate parts, 
 the use of direct action by one section of
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 19 
 
 the community in order to dispossess another 
 section must of necessity seem immoral and 
 unjustifiable. To those who regard society 
 as a battleground for contending economic 
 powers, the use of direct action for revolu- 
 tionary ends will appear not only justifiable, 
 but as the only method of solving the 
 problems of life. If society and if " the 
 community " are possessed of a unity greater 
 than the diversities and differences of their 
 component parts, then all efforts should be 
 made to preserve that unity. But if the 
 underlying fact of society is the existence of 
 differences and divisions, and if the forms that 
 society takes at any particular moment are 
 the reflection of those differences and divisions, 
 then it becomes essential that those differences 
 and divisions should be brought to a crisis and 
 solved by the final success of one section or the 
 other. The particular form taken by society 
 at a given time is cither the reflex of the 
 struggle of its various elements for power 
 and control, or it is the result of a gradual 
 unfolding of an " organism " possessed of a 
 real social consciousness and social unity. 
 If one takes the first point of view, 
 then naturally and inevitably direct action
 
 20 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 becomes not only one of the weapons to be 
 employed in the struggle, but actually the 
 primary one; if one takes the latter point 
 of view, any form of action that disturbs 
 the underlying harmony of society must be 
 condemned. 
 
 The fundamental fact of civilisation to- 
 day, as I see it, is the struggle of economic- 
 ally powerful sections for the right to govern 
 and control those who are economically 
 weaker. Every community in which Capital- 
 ism holds sway is divided roughly into two 
 classes— those who have to sell their power to 
 labour in order to live and those who are 
 enabled to purchase that power through their 
 control over the means of life. The object and 
 desire of those who sell is to get in the open 
 market as high a price as may be for the 
 commodity they have to offer; the object 
 of those who buy is to purchase that com- 
 modity at the lowest possible figure. It is 
 not here a case of the interests of those who 
 buy and of those who sell being identical, 
 but a case in which those interests are directly 
 and fundamentally opposed. If a man wants 
 to sell an article for a sovereign, and finds 
 that the purchaser is not prepared to pay
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 21 
 
 more than ten shillings, and if to sell at a 
 sovereign is the only way in which the seller 
 can secure sufficient upon which to live, 
 then the purchaser who offers ten shillings 
 is not a friend, but a foe. The desire of the 
 seller is to compel the purchaser to pay his 
 price. If the purchaser cannot continue 
 unless he gets control of the article that is 
 offered for sale, then he will pay the price 
 demanded, but if he can continue he will 
 hold up the purchase until the seller, for 
 economic reasons, is forced to part with 
 the commodity at less than he desires to 
 take. The seller in society to-day is the 
 worker; the buyer is the Capitalist. The 
 seller is deprived of any and all forms of 
 property, save the property inherent in his 
 readiness and willingness to work; the 
 buyer possesses property which depends for 
 its development on his power to purchase 
 the willingness of human beings to apply 
 their labour to his possessions. One wants 
 to buy, the other wants to sell, and the place 
 where they meet is the open market. Were 
 the sale an isolated sale in a world where 
 only the actual buyer and the actual seller 
 existed, the two interests would be, if not
 
 22 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 identical, at any rate closely allied. There 
 would be one article for sale and one pur- 
 chaser, and the purchase price would be 
 fixed by the desire of the seller to dispose 
 of his commodity and the desire of the 
 purchaser to buy. Unfortunately for the 
 workers there are more articles for sale than 
 there are people willing to buy, and the 
 result of this is that the selling price of the 
 commodity, labour power, is beaten down 
 to the level of subsistence. 
 
 If one compares the price of a worker in 
 the labour market with, say, the price of a 
 pound of cheese in a grocer's shop, it can be 
 seen how infinitely superior the position of 
 the cheese is to that of the worker. The 
 supply of cheese is limited, and the price is 
 governed by the existence of combinations 
 controlling that supply. The housewife can- 
 not refuse to buy cheese at ninepence a 
 pound in the hope of getting it for four- 
 pence in the next shop. That sort of thing 
 does not happen. But in the labour market 
 that is exactly the sort of thing that does 
 happen. The price of a worker varies from 
 district to district, and still more from 
 country to country, in proportion a^ the
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 23 
 
 supply is plentiful and the organisation 
 weak. Given a thousand workers after a 
 thousand and one jobs, the price for their 
 labour power will be higher than it would 
 be were there the same thousand workers 
 and only nine hundred and ninety-nine jobs. 
 The existence in the labour market of more 
 people wanting work than there is work quite 
 inevitably reduces the price they get for 
 selling themselves. Labour, unlike cheese, 
 is in normal times practically unlimited, and 
 even if the supply of one country fails, there 
 is always the possibility of falling back upon 
 the supplies available in otlier parts of the 
 world. 
 
 This may sound an extravagant compari- 
 son, but any fair analysis of the facts of 
 Capitalism will show its tmth. If I am an 
 engineer desirous of obtaining work, and 
 there is a scarcity of the particular class of 
 labour in which I am skilled, then there is 
 no question but that I shall be able to get 
 pretty nearly the price I put upon my 
 labour power. That was the case during 
 the European War. There was a greater 
 demand for the skilled engineers than there 
 was supply. Had it not been for the exist-
 
 24 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 ence of the Munitions Act, the price of 
 labour power could, theoretically, have been 
 forced up indefinitely. But if when I offer 
 myself as an engineer I find that there are 
 five other engineers likewise offering them- 
 selves, it follows that the price given for my 
 labour power will suffer through the exist- 
 ence of these other five men equally anxious 
 to sell themselves. The employer, taking 
 advantage, necessarily and rightly from his 
 point of view, of the surplus of labour in 
 the market, will hire that man who is 
 prepared to sell at the lowest price. That 
 lowest price is fixed more or less by the cost 
 of subsistence, because it would not pay an 
 employer to buy at a price that inevitably re- 
 duces the capacity of the worker to labour, nor 
 would it pay a worker to sell at a price that 
 would result in his capacity to labour being at 
 once deteriorated. The struggle in the open 
 market over the price to be paid for the 
 labour of human beings is the bedrock 
 foundation of Capitalism. Every capitalist 
 depends for his existence upon there being 
 more workers after jobs than there are jobs 
 for workers, and the pool of unemployed is 
 the safeguard of private enterprise.
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 25 
 
 Consciousness of this fundamental fact is 
 the reason for the existence of Trade Unions. 
 They represent an attempt on the part of 
 the sellers of a certain type of commodity 
 to create a ring or corner in that commodity. 
 They represent the effort on the part of 
 the working class to overcome the inevit- 
 able results tliat spring from the superfluity 
 of " hands " and a restricted market in 
 which those " hands " can be employed. The 
 Trade Unions rose in order to prevent the 
 competitive buying and selling of labour power 
 from reducing the workers to a position of 
 absolute slavery, but the power of the Trade 
 Unions to effect this purpose is conditioned 
 by the wage system, with its fixation of the 
 prime cost of labour power at the cost of 
 subsistence. The alternative that faces the 
 worker who dislikes the idea of selling him- 
 self to an employer is starvation. And the 
 capacity of a Trade Union, however well 
 organised, to force up the price of the com- 
 modity it controls is conditioned by the 
 extent to which those who compose the 
 Trade Unions are prepared to face that 
 starvation. The employer when purchasing 
 the commodity that does not need to be
 
 26 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 fed, or the man who sells a commodity that 
 is in no danger of starving, is in a stronger 
 economic position than the Trade Union 
 which is attempting to dispose of a com- 
 modity that is liable to die, or the worker 
 who is selling his labour power in order that 
 his body may be kept alive. The brutal 
 fact of present-day society is that those who 
 purchase labour power trade upon the need 
 of keeping body and soul together which 
 forms the predominant desire of every human 
 being. The paradise for Capitalism is the 
 country in which there are fewer jobs than 
 men and the country in which there has 
 been no attempt at combination of the 
 workers to raise their standard of living. 
 The paradise for the wage-slave is the 
 country where there are more jobs than 
 men and where labour is organised to the 
 iVth power, whilst capital remains unco- 
 ordinated and uncombined. 
 
 Any one looking round the world to-day 
 will see that neither the worker nor the 
 employer is likely to reach his paradise. 
 On both sides there is organisation of a 
 kind, and in every country the tendency is 
 for the supply of workers greatly to exceed
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 27 
 
 the number of jobs. This latter fact, coupled 
 with the organisation of the employers, in- 
 evitably gives to them the whip hand so 
 long as the system exists under which men 
 and women have to go into the open market 
 in order that they may live. The struggle 
 for higher wages on the part of the workers 
 is, in short, foredoomed to failure under the 
 conditions which at present obtain. Every 
 nominal advance obtained through their 
 organisations is taken away through the 
 power possessed by the Capitalist to control 
 prices and, by means of this control, to rule 
 the world. Faced with this, it is difficult, 
 to say the least, to maintain that the salient 
 fact of modern civilisation is the fact of 
 social unity. It is, indeed, not only difficult, 
 but manifestly absurd. 
 
 The problem of the future is how to solve 
 this struggle, that inevitably exists when 
 that section of the people known as the 
 working class has only the choice between 
 starvation and the sale of its power to 
 labour. No amount of sympathy for tlic 
 poor or Christian charity can overcome the 
 fact that an employer would be an idiot 
 who did not get his labour ])ower as cheaply
 
 28 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 as he could, and the worker would be a fool 
 who did not sell that power at the highest 
 possible price; nor can any amount of 
 sympathy or charity overcome the inevit- 
 able result of the desire for cheapness on 
 the one hand and the claim for a high selling 
 price on the other — the result is war. This 
 war is rightly and properly termed the 
 Class War, and is the struggle between those 
 who have economic power, and as a conse- 
 quence control politics, and those who are 
 striving to achieve that economic power 
 which will give them the control of all the 
 machinery and instruments of civilised life. 
 It is a war that is being fought out in every 
 workshop, in every pit, and in every factory ; 
 it is a war that finds its reflex on the political 
 field and that governs and controls all legis- 
 lation and all social activities. 
 
 The main facts of the division of society 
 which accompanies the wage system are two. 
 In the first place, the great majority of people 
 are condemned to an existence that holds 
 out to them very little possibility of leisure 
 or happiness. In the second place, they are 
 compelled, by the struggle, to forgo any possi- 
 bility of being able to control the processes
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 29 
 
 of production, and thereby of expressing 
 their own individuahty in the work they do, 
 for once a man has sold liis labour power 
 to an employer he has signed away any 
 control over the way in which that labour 
 power is to be employed : he has ceased 
 to be a man and has become a machine. 
 
 The wage system finds expression, then, 
 in the existence of a working class subsisting 
 on wages fixed on the fodder basis, save for 
 their Trade Unions economically powerless, 
 and deprived of any control over the methods 
 and purposes to which their labour power is 
 put. 
 
 The Class War arises from the fact of 
 economic distinctions and will disappear 
 with the disappearance of those economic 
 distinctions. It can only be waged on the 
 economic field, and the power of a section 
 of the community to achieve any change, 
 whether that section be composed of em- 
 ployers or workers, depends upon its power 
 to prevent the smooth running of the 
 economic life of the community. Politics 
 and the results of political action are merely 
 the reflex expression of economic interests 
 and economic struggles. The vote is the
 
 30 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 symbol that the dominant economic class 
 has had to recognise the existence of a 
 growing economic power, and it is given not 
 as the result of a spirit of liberalism, or 
 because of a belief in democracy, but through 
 fear. The workers of Great Britain have 
 won their political advancement because of 
 their enhanced solidarity on the economic 
 field. Take from them their economic 
 strength and the vote becomes utterly 
 useless. 
 
 It is, I know, a common thing to-day to 
 affirm that changes are accomplished through 
 the power of the vote, but those who make 
 these assertions do so because they have 
 never really looked at the underlying facts 
 of life. It is amusing, too, to notice that 
 the chief defenders of political action as 
 a method of securing radical and drastic 
 changes in the organisation of society are 
 often men who draw what political power 
 they have direct from the economic organ- 
 isations they represent. Take, for instance, 
 men like J. H. Thomas. He represents in 
 Parliament the constituency of Derby, but 
 he is listened to, and draws what power he 
 has, from the fact that behind him stands
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 31 
 
 the economic power of the National Union 
 of Railwaymen, whose members are scattered 
 throughout every constituency in the British 
 Isles. He represents, in so far as the fact 
 of his being a member of Parliament effects 
 anything, not a well-defined geographical 
 area, but a well-defined economic unit. Only 
 in so far as the things he stands for have the 
 backing and the power of this economic 
 organisation can he achieve anything, how- 
 ever small it be. And so with every other 
 Labour member. They go to Parliament to 
 try to put on the Statute Book measures 
 that express desires and aspirations that 
 have behind them the driving force not 
 of a politically disunited class, but of an 
 industrially conscious section of the com- 
 munity. Take away from them the power 
 to call to their aid the economic forces of 
 their organisations, and they become in- 
 effective orators. Assure to them the back- 
 ing of the economic organisation of labour, 
 and they possess the possibility of changing 
 the face of the world. 
 
 The discussion that centres round the 
 relative merits of political and industrial 
 action as the means of achieving the change
 
 32 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 from wage slavery to Communism has tended 
 to take the form of an attempt to decide which 
 is the weapon to use. Conducted on these 
 hues it is futile and barren, for it overlooks 
 the obvious fact that, since the struggle 
 between the classes is economic, the force 
 that can secure victory must itself employ 
 economic means. Political action stands as 
 the handmaiden of economic power, and its 
 effectiveness is to be judged in proportion 
 as it expresses, in one field of human activity, 
 the claims put forward by a pdrt of the 
 community on the basic field. Political 
 action registers desires expressed on the 
 economic battleground. 
 
 Parliament to-day is not a place in which 
 disinterested citizens settle the problems of 
 society according to theoretical presupposi- 
 tions, with the sole object of securing justice 
 for all, but a place in which economically 
 powerful grouj^s strive to secure a victory. 
 Victory ultimately goes to that group which 
 is best organised, not inside Parliament, but 
 inside the workshops and on the Stock 
 Exchange. The banks are secured against 
 loss on the outbreak of a great war, not 
 because the shareholders and directors have
 
 WHAT IS DIRECT ACTION? 33 
 
 votes, but because they have the power, by 
 withholding supphes, to bring starvation 
 down upon tlic country. Engineering workers 
 secure modifications of the Munitions Act 
 because they have the power of preventing 
 munitions of war from being made. The coal- 
 owners prevent nationalisation just in so 
 far as their control over the mines is greater 
 than the control of the Miners' Federation 
 of Great Britain. A clever politician is a 
 man who can rightly appraise the strength 
 of varying economic forces engaged in the 
 class struggle, and can translate that cor- 
 rect appraisement into terms of legislative 
 enactment. 
 
 Where then lies the power of these op- 
 posing economic forces ? In the case of 
 the employers, their power comes from their 
 possession of the fruits of the work of Labour 
 during the past centuries. They own the 
 means of production, and they are able, if 
 they so desire, to prevent those means of 
 production from being utilised. The power of 
 the working class lies in its Trade Unions, 
 which are organisations designed to create 
 a monopoly of labour and to prevent the 
 full effects of the struggle for existence
 
 34, DIRECT ACTION 
 
 from being felt. Stripped of all outward 
 decencies the world to-day stands forth as 
 the battleground of contending economic 
 powers. Round the struggle, intended to 
 conceal the effects of the struggle, has grown 
 up a whole paraphernalia, a whole series 
 of political organisations, whose supporters 
 pretend to be engaged in seeking the good 
 of the State. The whole function of these 
 organisations is to obscure the real facts. 
 Behind and above all this semblance 
 of parliamentary government and political 
 representation lies the fact of the struggle 
 between those who possess and those who 
 are possessed. The Class War is the ex- 
 pression of the existence in every capitalist 
 society of two contending sections engaged 
 in waging an economic war and necessarily 
 compelled to use in the waging of that war 
 weapons that are economic. Politics, rightly 
 understood, is but an expression of this 
 economic contest. It does not stand on its 
 own, nor is it cai3able itself of solving the 
 riddle that Capitalism has set.
 
 II 
 
 AN OPEN WAR 
 
 Directly one comes to examine tlie 
 actual working out of the class struggle in 
 our own country the inevitability of that 
 appeal to force which culminates in the 
 Dictatorship of the Proletariat becomes 
 clear. So long as the demands put forward 
 by the workers do not threaten the existence 
 of the present system of j^roduction, the 
 harsher side^of the methods used to obtain 
 concessions is somewhat obscured. The 
 appeal to direct action as expressed in move- 
 ments for higher wages and shorter hours, 
 though the only method which can win those 
 concessions, is never carried to extreme 
 lengths. Within the Capitalist class there 
 are always good employers who recognise 
 that it will pay to treat their human machines 
 decently, that there is an economy of " high 
 wages," and that it is to their ultimate 
 interest not to accentuate this phase of the 
 struggle. And as long as they can pass on 
 
 35
 
 36 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 the increases by additions to the price of 
 the commodities they sell, without enraging 
 the mass of the consumers, this policy of 
 recognising Trade Unions and arriving at 
 compromises works. Directly the whole 
 mass of the workers begins, as a mass, to 
 demand a better standard of life, and refuses 
 to allow " the extra charge on industry " to 
 be passed on, this method of compromise fails, 
 and the appeal to naked force has to be made. 
 This position has been reached as a result 
 of the " Great War " in practically every 
 European country. There is a universal 
 demand that the distribution of the world's 
 products shall be on a more equitable basis, 
 and a universal determination that this more 
 equitable distribution shall not menace the 
 price of commodities. The workers have 
 grown weary of living through taking in 
 each other's washing ! This weariness means 
 for the Capitalist interests one thing, and 
 one thing only — an attack upon their profits ; 
 it means an attack upon the whole system of 
 production. To meet this immediate steps 
 are taken, and to-day no section of employers 
 settles a wage demand without consultation 
 with the rest of the employers. The struggle
 
 AN OPEN WAR 37 
 
 for wages has become a matter of concern 
 for all the owners, for a " concession " 
 made to one section of workers means an 
 immediate demand by another section for 
 a similar concession. Only by a concerted 
 policy can this general movement be warded 
 off, and that concerted policy has been 
 adopted. The formation of the Federation 
 of British Industries marked a definite stage 
 in the class struggle. It was in effect a 
 declaration of class consciousness from the 
 owners and a challenge to the workers. To 
 this challenge there was only one possible 
 response— if the system of profit-making is 
 incompatible with an equitable distribution 
 of the world's wealth, then the system must 
 go. The ordinary " man in the street " by 
 force of circumstances finds himself fighting 
 in alliance with the Communist, though had 
 one called him a Communist he would have 
 been gravely insulted. All he knows, and 
 cares, is that his wages do not keep pace 
 with the cost of living, and knowing that, 
 he demands a change— what that change 
 must be the Communists alone have made 
 clear. 
 
 Coincident with this quickening of the
 
 38 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 class struggle through the continual depres- 
 sion of real wages comes the failure of 
 Capitalism " to produce the goods." Every 
 nation that took part in the Great War, with 
 the possible exception of America, stands 
 to-day face to face with bankruptcy : ex- 
 penditure exceeds income; losses are made 
 good by loans that still further increase the 
 losses; the printing presses work at high 
 pressure to produce paper, and the condition 
 of the world steadily grows worse. The 
 panacea for this, according to the Capitalist 
 philosophy, is " production and still pro- 
 duction." The workers are attacked for 
 " ca' canny ing," they are criticised for re- 
 fusing to work under a system of " Prussian- 
 ism," they are lectured for demanding more 
 wages or shorter hours. But the workers 
 pay little heed to these frantic appeals. 
 And rightly so. They want to know who 
 is to profit by increased production ; they 
 ask why they should produce more in order 
 to make greater and greater profits for 
 somebody else ; they ask why they who have 
 suffered under the system should now turn 
 round and save it. True the machine is 
 breaking down, but what is needed is not the
 
 AN OPEN WAR 39 
 
 old machine patched up, but a new one of a 
 different design and make. Capitalism has 
 completed its mission, and, if the world is 
 to be saved^Capitalism must go. 
 
 The practicanappHeatton-of^tlm-H^^olt is 
 to be seen in the demand by the Mliaers' 
 Federation of Great Britain that the miVies 
 shpuld belong to the nation and be controllrd 
 bv the miners. A million workers haYe, 
 tlprough their representatives, declared tlmt 
 tliey are not prepared to go on produein 
 oal under a system that extracts profits an^ 
 oyalties from their labour; they are nol 
 repared to see the industry any longerl 
 ontrolled by a few in the interests of a few. 
 hey claim that, as workers, they Imvc the 
 ght to certain conditions of work which 
 ^^ill mean greater safety in working and more 
 leisure and opportunity for themselves and 
 their families. These claims can only be 
 met by tlic institution of a new system of 
 production, and they insist that this shall be 
 don(\ Here the issue is clear and it has been 
 raisecKhi a practical form. How will it be 
 fought dXxb4 — Tiic—dfridrng fjictor will be 
 the amount of economic force the two parties 
 — the miners and the mine-owners — can bring
 
 40 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 to bear on the State. It is not a question of 
 what is just or right. It is simply a question 
 of whether it is better to have coal on the 
 miners' conditions or to go without. I am 
 not concerned with the question of whether 
 the miners' terms are in the long run the right 
 ones from the point of view of Communism 
 — they may or may not be — what matters 
 is that they are the miners' terms. The 
 struggle is economic, and it will be settled in 
 the economic field. It may be that the force 
 wielded by the mine-owners and by the 
 threatened interests of other Capitalists will, 
 in the first round, succeed in defeating the 
 miners. It may be that this section of 
 workers will for the moment be forced to 
 accept less than its terms. If that happens 
 it does not destroy, rather it strengthens, 
 the whole case for direct action ; it proves 
 that the economic power of the Miners' 
 Federation was not equal to that of combined 
 capital, but it proves, too, that it was the 
 economic power of combined Capitalism 
 that caused the miners to be defeated. 
 Momentary defeat for the miners will simply 
 involve the enlargement of the sphere of 
 operations, and will bring the struggle to a
 
 AN OPEN WAR 41 
 
 head in other industries. The miners cannot 
 go back to an acceptance of the old system ; 
 the workers in other industries cannot afford 
 to let the miners be permanently defeated, for 
 fear of what may befall themselves ; the mine- 
 owners cannot agree to an abolition of private 
 property in mines, because it involves their 
 extinction; the general body of Capitalists 
 cannot see the mine-owners defeated, because 
 their turn will come next. Open and naked 
 war is the result, and the weapons are 
 economic power arising from possession of 
 property and economic power arising from 
 possession of a monopoly of labour power. 
 The use of direct action by the miners is 
 dictated to them by the facts of the situation 
 as it is presented. 
 
 The necessity for an appeal to direct action 
 becomes more insistent the more the object 
 sought threatens the existence of private 
 property. That is the real reason for the 
 alarm caused by the miners' campaign, by 
 the demands of the dock-workers for an 
 inquiry into the profits made by ship-owners 
 and others, by the amazing revelations of 
 the deals in wool and yarn, by the gambling 
 in cotton shares. A searchlight is being
 
 42 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 turned upon the whole system of production, 
 and the glare means danger for all who 
 depend on the system. Both sides are 
 fighting, and the issue depends upon the 
 economic power they wield. As I write the 
 employers are using a new tactic. Faced 
 with a demand for more wages, they threaten 
 to close down and to cease production; the 
 reason given is that it is impossible under 
 present conditions to make a profit out of 
 the labour of the workers. This threat to 
 close down is the employers' final bluff in 
 the game of direct action. The object of 
 the bluff is obvious : through the fear of 
 unemployment the workers are to be diiven 
 back to work on conditions that will ensure 
 to the firm a profit for the future. Rightly 
 viewed it marks the collapse of Capitalism. 
 The fact that this threat has so far only 
 operated in luxury trades will no doubt 
 obscure its real meaning; it may even 
 induce the workers to make promises and 
 attempt " to save the firms." But what 
 has happened in one case is bound to happen 
 everywhere — employers will play the bluff 
 in industries that are vital and essential, 
 and in those industries Labour will not be
 
 AN OPEN WAR 43 
 
 put off its game. Instead of releasing the 
 pressure the workers will steadily increase 
 it, until the only alternative is the extinction 
 of private ownership and the " running of 
 industries for use." Direct economic pressure 
 is the only way to make the employers cry 
 out and to render impossible the present 
 methods of production. That point Labour 
 every day realises more fully, and that 
 realisation gives to the weapon of direct 
 action its real value as the instrument of 
 revolution. 
 
 Elsewhere I deal with the criticisms 
 brought against the use of direct action to 
 secure the ending of the present forms of 
 ownership and control ; here I am concerned 
 with the fact that the more the pressure of 
 the workers infringes upon these forms, the 
 clearer becomes the fact that it is economic 
 power that tells. At home the struggle over 
 the mines is but the beginning of tlie final 
 effort of the workers to overthrow, and of 
 the employers to preserve, a system that by 
 its very nature produces conflict. Abroad 
 the success of the Russian Revolution has 
 united all far-seeing Capitn lists in an effort 
 to force their respective states to employ
 
 44 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 direct action. That they have not succeeded 
 as well as they could have wished is due 
 solely to the obvious determination of great 
 sections of the workers to use their economic 
 power to prevent intervention. The threat 
 of direct action by the Triple Alliance in 
 1 91 9, the renewal of the threat by the Council 
 of Action in 1920, the fear that that threat 
 might be made good — these are the causes 
 which have induced the British Government 
 to cease open intervention. Direct action 
 at home, coupled with the success of the 
 Russian armies abroad, will effect what no 
 amount of " good-will " could ever produce. 
 The lesson of the Russian episode is that a 
 general attack on Capitalism anywhere calls 
 up Capitalism everywhere in defence, and 
 that this general rally can only be met by a 
 rally of all workers to the side of those 
 engaged in the attack. To put the whole 
 matter " in a nutshell," the economic revolu- 
 tion in Russia cannot remain Russian — it 
 must and will become world-wide. Russia 
 to-day threatens all Capitalism, and has 
 caused everywhere a sharpening of the 
 hostility between the two great forces in 
 the world — Labour on the one hand, and
 
 AN OPEN WAR 45 
 
 on the other Capitalism. The day of concilia- 
 tion and bargaining has gone — the day for 
 open war has come not only in Russia, but 
 in every country where Capitalism prevails. 
 To crush Bolshevism now is the only hope 
 for Capitalists everywhere ; that they cannot 
 crush it is due in large measure to the opposi- 
 tion of the workers in this and other countries 
 — opposition expressed in terms of direct 
 action.
 
 Ill 
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY ? 
 
 There is a common argument used against 
 the advocates of direct action which raises 
 the whole question of Democracy. Within 
 a country where the vote is possessed by 
 the great bulk of the population there is 
 no need, it is said, for a recourse to the 
 clumsy weapon of the strike. The possession 
 of the vote gives to the possessors the power 
 to effect the change from private to public 
 ownership without violence and by recog- 
 nised constitutional methods. Why then 
 attempt to set back the clock of political 
 progress and appeal to methods that smack 
 more of barbarism than of civilisation ? 
 Still further point is given to this criticism 
 by the charge that those who would use 
 direct action are running counter to the 
 whole trend of events which gives a wider 
 and wider control of political forces to the 
 workers, who, by sheer weight of numbers, 
 can, at the ballot-box, outvote the defenders 
 
 46
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 47 
 
 of the present system. To use direct action 
 within a democracy amounts to an act of 
 treason, and against it all the forces of the 
 State must be used. 
 
 This point of view finds vigorous expression 
 from politicians who are not desirous of 
 ending the present system, as well as from 
 those who stoutly claim that they are. 
 Speaking at Criccieth in 1919, Mr. Lloyd 
 George said : " This threat of direct action 
 is a complete subversion of every democratic 
 doctrine. If it ever had any justification 
 it has none now, after the great extension 
 of the franchise witnessed within the last 
 couple of years. In the long iiin the working- 
 classes will suffer from it." Mr. J. R. 
 ('lyncs, in an article for a magazine called 
 Over-Seas, gave cordial adhesion to this 
 \icw, and added : "A Government could 
 not allow any section of the electorate to 
 put itself outside the law without using the 
 resource of the State to require compliance 
 with Parliamentary decisions. . . . Men 
 can strike at Parliament at the polls, but 
 in no other way." The philosophy behind 
 these utterances has been put into words 
 by Mr. J. R. MacDonald, who, in his study of
 
 48 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 " Syndicalism," states that " any project 
 of social reconstruction which founds itself 
 on reality must begin with the facts of social 
 unity, not with those of class conflict, because 
 the former is the predominant factor in 
 society." The same belief is expressed in 
 another way by Viscount Haldane. In an 
 interview on the relative merits of the Labour 
 and Liberal Parties he laid down as axiomatic 
 the following political philosophy : " The 
 State is nothing more or less than all the 
 people of the nation." 
 
 Direct Actionists challenge the whole of 
 this theory. They deny that the possession 
 of a vote by all the adults within a specified 
 geographical group makes that group self- 
 governed, and they deny that the State is 
 an expression of the wills of all the people. 
 With considerable bluntness they declare 
 that those who oppose direct action for 
 these reasons are accepting the philosophic 
 assumptions of the Capitalists, and are 
 erecting into the image of a God the State, 
 which is merely part of the machinery of 
 Capitalism. It is, they declare, dangerous 
 to the success of the workers in the class 
 struggle to attempt to make them believe
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 49 
 
 that democratic forms absolve them from 
 the necessity of employing their economic 
 power, and still more dangerous to support 
 the doctrine that the State stands in some 
 way for the greatest common nudtiple of the 
 wishes and desires of the citizens. There 
 is, in short, a cleavage of philosophy and 
 outlook, and that cleavage explains both the 
 advocacy and the criticism of direct action. 
 Let us examine the argument against 
 direct action that arises because of a belief 
 that a country is democratic. The first 
 question that has to be faced is, " What is 
 democracy?" For lack of a better defini- 
 tion we will take the old one made famous 
 by Abraham Lincoln, and say that 
 democracy is " government of the people, 
 by the people, for the people." The great 
 part of the life of a people is spent at work. 
 Unless the principle enunciated by Lincoln 
 runs in the workshops it is useless to expect 
 it to exist elsewhere, for the whole of a man's 
 life depends ultimately upon the sort of 
 existence he leads whilst at work. No one 
 will maintain by any stretch of the imagina- 
 tion that modern industry can be caHed 
 "democratic " : it is sheer autocracy, tempered
 
 50 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 by the power of Trade Unionism. There is 
 no pretence made of " government of the 
 workers, by the workers, for the workers," 
 and any " captain of industry " will tell you 
 that the whole idea is preposterous. All 
 Capitalist industry depends upon the exist- 
 ence of a class that sells its labour power 
 in return for its keep, a class that by that 
 sale signs away, theoretically — and despite 
 Trade Unionism very often practically — ^any 
 rights it may be held to possess outside the 
 workshop. Once the factory buzzer has 
 sounded all pretence of democracy goes. 
 
 What has really happened is that in 
 response to the growing economic pressure 
 of the working class, expressed through 
 Trade Unionism in its various forms, the 
 class that controls politics because of its 
 control of property has in its own interests 
 given to the workers the shadow of freedom 
 without the substance. Political democracy 
 is founded to-day not upon the fact of 
 economic equality and industrial self- 
 government, but upon the old principle that 
 in a struggle the dominant party often finds 
 it politic to surrender something of Httle 
 value as a security for the retention of
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 51 
 
 something fundamental. In a sense it is 
 true that any extension of the franchise 
 represents an advance by the workers in 
 their struggle for freedom, for such an 
 extension does mark the fact that the owners 
 of property have been compelled to meet 
 their enemy in the gate. The fly in the 
 ointment, however, is that they hold the gate. 
 Outside arc the workers, possessed of sufficient 
 economic power to win a formal recognition 
 of equality on the political plane; holding 
 the gate are the few who, through their 
 possession of a dominating economic power, 
 dictate how far that formal political equality 
 shall have play. It is the gate that matters, 
 and the struggle for its possession must be 
 waged on the economic field. 
 
 Arguments against direct action drawn 
 from the " fact " of political democracy are 
 no arguments at all, for they obscure the point 
 that there can be no real " government of 
 the people, by the people, for tlie people," in 
 what is called politics unless that govern- 
 ment finds full expression in the economic 
 life of a community. The road to freedom 
 lies not through the poning-]3ootli, but 
 through the workshoj) gates. Until this
 
 52 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 simple fact is appreciated by the workers 
 Labour will be forced to fight on a terrain that 
 is favourable to its opponents; an apprecia- 
 tion of it will at once lead to an alteration 
 both of the issues and of the methods 
 employed. To gain economic freedom 
 involves the workers in the task of securing 
 economic power, and, having once secured 
 it, of employing it on the economic field. 
 Just in so far as the workers rely on the vote 
 as the primary weapon, they will fail to win 
 freedom; just in so far as they recognise 
 that the value of the vote is in proportion 
 to their industrial and economic strength, 
 they will succeed. 
 
 The case of the constitutional elements in 
 the Labour Movement against Direct Action 
 has, then, no real substance against the fact 
 that political democracy without industrial 
 and economic freedom is a sham. But 
 apart from that altogether, their case accepts 
 the theory of the State enunciated by Capital- 
 ist philosophers. According to this theory 
 the State is the expression of the desires and 
 wishes of the people, and its main concern is 
 the common good. This can only be true 
 if the salient fact of modern civilisation is
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 53 
 
 Social Unity, if there is a common good 
 for all the dwellers in a community, and if 
 the whole idea of the Class Struggle is so much 
 moonshine. In previous chapters I have 
 argued that the salient fact of life to-day is 
 Social Disunity, that there is, and can be, no 
 good common alike to those who possess and 
 those who have been dispossessed, and that 
 the Class Struggle is the one dominant force. 
 Holding this view, I regard the State as 
 merely an instrument of the economically 
 powerful class for the suppression of the 
 non-dominant class. Historically the State 
 has always been a weapon of coercion, con- 
 cerned both in its legislative and adminis- 
 trative side with the upholding of property- 
 rights, and dependent not upon consent, but 
 upon force. It is " the executive committee 
 of the Capitalist class," and its overthrow is 
 the mission of the workers. 
 
 To prove this in detail would take us 
 beyond the scope of a book of this character, 
 but one or two obvious examples will perhaps 
 show what the general lines of such a proof 
 would be. In 1914 the State was declared 
 to be in danger, and tliose who used tliis form 
 of words meant to convey that the freedom
 
 54 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 and happiness of all the millions of workers 
 of the United Kingdom were in jeopardy. 
 The " State " was in danger because of the 
 attack launched by the German Emperor 
 upon the liberties and rights of small 
 nationalities. Lurid pictures were drawn 
 of the condition of helotry to which the 
 British workers would be reduced were the 
 German Eagle to fly over Buckingham Palace, 
 and the workers were persuaded to take part 
 in the crusade for " freedom and democracy." 
 How many people after a study of the Peace 
 Treaty of Versailles would still maintain 
 that in 1914 millions of workers were faced 
 with the loss of inestimable privileges because 
 of German aggression ? Does not practically 
 every clause of that Treaty prove that what 
 was in danger were the claims of rival 
 groups of Capitalists to iron and steel and to 
 concessions in various parts of the world ? 
 Does not practically every clause prove that 
 the war was the result of the scramble for 
 markets and a direct effect of Capitalism? 
 The '' Big Four " were concerned, when 
 drafting the Treaty, not with the happiness 
 and freedom of the workers, but with the 
 securing to the owners of wealth of this free
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 55 
 
 and unfettered right to exploit not only 
 their own " hands," but " hands " wherever 
 they could be found. The war that began 
 in August 1914 resulted not from a threat to 
 freedom and democracy, but from a threat to 
 the interests of the Allied Capitalists from the 
 Capitalists of Central Europe. The " State " 
 that was in danger was " the Executive 
 Committee of the Capitalist class." Fortun- 
 ately five years of war has resulted in 
 bringing that State into even more imminent 
 jeopardy. 
 
 Another example on a smaller scale may 
 be found in the action taken by the State 
 whenever the " rights of property " are 
 assailed. The war produced a situation 
 under which the operation of the laws of 
 supply and demand ceased to affect the price 
 of commodities. One commodity, labour 
 power, became particularly scarce, and the 
 opportunity arose for its price to be driven 
 up beyond the level of subsistence. The 
 situation that faced employers after the 
 Black Death was repeated after the great 
 recruiting campaign. At once the econo- 
 mically dominant class which controlled 
 the State — which was, in fact, the State —
 
 56 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 grew alarmed. The result was the Munitions 
 Act — a measure designed, in the words of 
 one of the permanent officials of the Govern- 
 ment, " to prevent wages from rising." The 
 State was seen in its true colours as the 
 instrument of the holders of economic power. 
 Had the workers not possessed economic 
 power also, the only commodity whose price 
 would have been controlled would have been 
 labour power — actually, of course, the history 
 of the country during the war was the history 
 of a struggle of economic forces over the 
 price of commodities of all kinds. Strikes 
 and rumours of strikes were the weapons of 
 the workers, silent economic pressure was 
 the weapon of the ship-owners and the great 
 armament firms. In the end the workers 
 came off worst, but the experience proved 
 to them that the " State " will give to them 
 just what they can wring from it — and no 
 more. 
 
 No doubt idealists who see life through 
 rose-coloured glasses will regard this analysis 
 as too brutal to be true. To them there is 
 only one answer. " If the facts are not as 
 stated, what are the facts ? " The only 
 alternative explanations offered rest on the
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 57 
 
 so-called fact of " social unity," and against 
 this every fact of experience tells. The 
 more the idealists continue to live in an 
 atmosphere of their own creation the worse 
 for them in the end. The struggle exists, and 
 its implications may as well be faced. 
 
 One implication in particular calls for 
 notice here. Great play is made by critics 
 of the Russian Revolution with " The 
 Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Here, if 
 anywhere, is a confutation of all the much- 
 advertised belief of Communists in the prin- 
 ciples of " Liberty, Fraternity, Equality " ; 
 here is the horror that good people always 
 believed Communism to be, wicked and foul 
 in its awfulness. No self-respecting person 
 could have dealings with such a monster, and 
 many of those in the Labour Movement, who 
 resent intervention in Russia, carefully ex- 
 plain that they do not agree with Lenin and 
 Trotsky. They regard the " Dictatorship of 
 the Proletariat " as the negation of democracy 
 and the denial of freedom. 
 
 What, in fact, is this dictatorship ? It is 
 the application of the principle upon which 
 modern Capitalism rests for the definite 
 purpose of ending modern Capitalism. It
 
 58 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 is the use of coercive state to coerce the 
 " coercers." It is the proletariat— the people 
 who breed — using the machinery of Capitalism 
 to destroy the remnants of the class that has 
 hitherto been able to impose wage-slavery 
 upon them. No one believes that this use 
 of force by the workers is a "nice" thing; 
 what matters is whether or not it is inevitable. 
 That it is inevitable on the theory of the 
 class struggle can instantly be seen. With 
 the consummation of the change from private 
 to communal ownership, with the change 
 from ownership by the few as the normal 
 mode of life to the application of the principle 
 of communal service from all to all, there 
 arises within the society affected by this 
 change a struggle which still is a struggle of 
 classes — but this time the suppressed class 
 is the former class of oppressors. Not all at 
 once do they see the light, and the dictator- 
 ship of the proletariat is the instrument born 
 of Capitalism to make them see. The 
 dictatorship of the proletariat is the counter- 
 part in the transition period from individual- 
 ism to Communism of the dictatorship of the 
 few which is the normal and necessary con- 
 dition under modern Capitalism. It differs
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 59 
 
 from this latter dictatorship in that it is 
 transitory, and not permanent and normal. 
 Below the workers there is no class to oppress. 
 Once they have freed themselves the raison 
 cVetre of the coercive state disappears, and 
 the way is free for the establishment of a new 
 order of society. But just as to Capitalism 
 organised Labour is a constant menace, so 
 to the new society which is being born 
 through revolution the existence of counter- 
 revolutionary elements within it is a menace. 
 When those elements are supported by the 
 counter-revolutionaries outside, the menace 
 becomes greater, and the measures taken to 
 suppress it assume a sterner form. The dic- 
 tatorship of the proletariat finds expression, 
 for instance, in the "Red Terror" not by 
 choice, but because against the new order all 
 the forces of Capitalism the world over are 
 aroused — and the only thing that Capitalism 
 understands is force. The State which they 
 have wielded for so long is turned against 
 them, and its name is the " Dictatorship of 
 the Proletariat." 
 
 To libertarians like Mr. Bertrand Russell 
 and to emotionalists like Mrs, Pliihp Siiowden 
 the contemplation of tlie possil)ility of this
 
 60 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 dictatorship brings not an understanding of 
 its necessity, but disgust at its existence. 
 They are so terrified at the idea of what the 
 dictatorship of the proletariat may produce, 
 so horrified at the possible suppression of 
 *' formal " liberties, that they fail entirely to 
 see the actual suppression of real freedom 
 which accompanies the existence of the 
 dictatorship of Capitalism. Observing the 
 hard and rigid discipline imposed upon the 
 workers in Russia by the dominant Com- 
 munist party, observing that there the right 
 to work carries with it the responsibility to 
 share in the common toil, they cling to the 
 "freedom" that Capitalism allows to people 
 like themselves, and ignore the slavery that 
 Capitalism necessitates for the many. Afraid 
 of losing their own privileges, they pretend 
 to be concerned about safeguarding these 
 same privileges for the workers. They talk 
 and write as though leisure and culture were 
 the lot of all, instead of being the possession 
 of a few — and talking and writing like this 
 they become, despite themselves, the de- 
 fenders of the present system. Behind their 
 horror and disgust lies an unwillingness to 
 face the harsh fact of life that in a society
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 61 
 
 where the great mass of people sell their 
 labour power to private individuals there 
 can be no release save through the forcible 
 wrenching of this power to exploit other 
 human beings from the hands that now 
 possess it. They are afraid of the conse- 
 quences of the Class War, and they hope, by 
 denying this war's existence, to avoid the 
 consequences. I am afraid that their lives 
 will be one long disillusionment. 
 
 Lenin and Trotsky are not dictators be- 
 cause they like it — a more uncomfortable job 
 it is hard to imagine— but because the facts 
 of the transition from Capitalism to Com- 
 munism demand that upon some one shall 
 fall this responsibility. A revolution cannot 
 be run without iron discipline among the 
 revolutionaries, nor without a total disregard 
 for the ordinary canons of bourgeois morality. 
 People who call themselves Socialists and 
 hope to destroy the wage-system without 
 hurting somebody, and without shedding any 
 of their traditional beliefs, live in a fool's 
 paradise — and the end of such a paradise is 
 distressing mainly to those who live there. 
 
 Bertrand Russell and Mrs. Philip Snowden 
 are types — able and sincere types— of Socialists
 
 62 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 who cannot, or will not, face facts. Quite 
 honestly they desire a world free from 
 economic servitude, quite earnestly they 
 deplore the sorrows and sufferings of the 
 poor, but they are not prepared to take 
 the necessary steps to end the servitude and 
 abolish the suffering. They are afraid of 
 force. But how else do they propose to 
 achieve their ends? By- weeping ? That 
 hurts nobody. By preaching ? That cuts no 
 ice. By appeals to the rich to get off the 
 backs of the poor ? That only fixes the rich 
 firmer in the saddle. Against the power of 
 threatened interests weeping, preaching and 
 appealing can accomplish nothing — history 
 proves it, ordinary horse-sense shows it — for 
 when interests are threatened they fight — and 
 to meet them those who are attacking these 
 interests must needs fight too. 
 
 The methods employed in that fight will 
 vary from country to country and from time 
 to time — but in every country and at all 
 times they will involve the assumption of 
 power by the class that is now bereft of 
 everything but the power to rebel. And 
 the form of that assumption is the dictator- 
 ship of the proletariat.
 
 WHAT OF DEMOCRACY? 63 
 
 The fundamental reason for the dictator- 
 ship is that in no other way can the present 
 system be ended. It is for those who 
 imagine that there is another way to declare 
 their plans — for those of us who see no other 
 way the duty is to prepare our forces so that 
 the period of the dictatorship shall be as 
 short as possible. It is not for us to defend 
 our belief and our methods — it is for the 
 others to show that our methods and beliefs 
 are inadequate and wrong. That, I believe, 
 is a task beyond their power, for always they 
 come face to face with this clear issue and 
 this straight question : "In the event of 
 the organised workers in any country achiev- 
 ing an economic revolution do you propose 
 that the fruits of that revolution shall be 
 made secure ? If you reply, ' Certainly we 
 wish the fruits to be secured,' then we 
 ask ' How ? ' If those who have been dis- 
 possessed struggle, as they will, to regain 
 possession, arc they to be suppressed ? If 
 they seek to produce a counter-revolutionary 
 movement, are they to be fought ? If they 
 seek to enlist the help of outside Capitalist 
 governments, are they to be opposed ? Or 
 must those who have secured victory in the
 
 64 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 first round fail to press home their advantage 
 because to press that advantage will outrage 
 your traditional beliefs ? " 
 
 If the prize is worth securing it is worth 
 the price demanded. And that the prize— 
 a society free from economic subjection, a 
 society based upon the principle of common 
 service, a society based upon the idea of 
 social equality — is worth securing not even 
 Bertrand Russell or Mrs. Philip Snowden 
 Avill deny. But they fear the instrument 
 that must be used, and that fear will involve 
 them in tacit support of the present system. 
 They, and all like them, have to face the 
 dilemma, either they are prepared "to go 
 all out " for their ideal or they are not. If 
 they are prepared, then they must accept the 
 need for the dictatorship, if they are not 
 prepared, then they must give up the attempt 
 to achieve their ideal. 
 
 Let them, instead of shuddering at the 
 prospect of the present minority being 
 coerced by the representatives of the present 
 majority, try to understand the reasons for 
 that coercion. To do that they will have to 
 re-examine their whole philosophy — and if 
 that re-examination still leaves them where
 
 WHAT OF DEIMOCKACY? 65 
 
 they are, then they must be content to be 
 regarded as defenders of the present system, 
 for only upon the assumption that the moral 
 values of the present system are true for 
 all time can their attitude be maintained. 
 
 They profess to desire a fundamental 
 economic revolution. Are they prepared to 
 secure that revolution whatever the cost? 
 If they are, well and good; if not, then 
 " those who are not with us are against us " 
 — ^and despite their good intentions they 
 stand as defenders of the values and 
 shibboleths of Capitalism.
 
 IV 
 
 " THE COMMUNITY " 
 
 One of the commonest of the shibboleths 
 employed by Capitalists and their defenders 
 in their joint endeavour to destroy the argu- 
 ments of those who support direct action, and 
 to weaken the workers when engaged in a 
 conflict, is that a strike threatens the life of 
 " the community." At the moment this 
 method of attack is reserved for use in 
 strikes that occur in great basic industries. 
 Nobody yet, except perhaps the particular 
 employers involved, has been found to main- 
 tain that a strike of women workers in the 
 chain-making trade for a slightly larger 
 starvation wage should be opposed because 
 the success of the workers would imperil the 
 stability of society — but let the miners or 
 the railwaymen or the engineering workers 
 put forward a demand, whether it be a 
 demand for higher wages or for a fundamental 
 reorganisation of the industry, and imme- 
 
 66
 
 'THE COMMUNITY' 67 
 
 diately the chorus is raised, " Tlie community 
 is in danger." 
 
 What is the community, to which such 
 touching reference is made in times of indus- 
 trial crisis? Presumably those who use the 
 words mean to imply that it is all the 
 people living within a defined geographical 
 area exclusive of those who are engaged in 
 the struggle with their employers. When 
 the miners are striking, the community con- 
 sists of dockers, railwaymen, engineers, 
 navvies, bootmakers, clerks, lawyers, etc., 
 financiers and capitalists ; when the railway- 
 men are on strike, the miners mysteriously 
 take their place in the ranks of the com- 
 munity. You pays your money and you 
 takes your choice ! Actually, " the com- 
 munity " in any Capitalist country is, in the 
 main, composed of men and women who are 
 compelled to sell their labour power to the 
 owners of property. It is composed, in other 
 words, of workers. In a sense it is true 
 that under Capitalism each section of workers 
 necessarily fights for its own hand, but with 
 the development of Capitalism these separate 
 struggles tend to become unified; machinery 
 is created which gives to them coherence and
 
 68 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 meaning, and makes them all part of the 
 struggle of the exploited class to get on even 
 terms with their exploiters. Every big strike 
 in a basic industry, every little strike in a 
 small trade, properly regarded, is not an 
 isolated and spasmodic outbreak, but a skir- 
 mish, an affair of outposts, between the 
 workers and the employers. Inevitably, 
 whilst these skirmishes are in progress, and 
 so long as they are not properly organised 
 and controlled, other members of the working 
 class suffer from the effects of the stoppage. 
 When a basic industry is held up the essential 
 supplies are curtailed, but the object of the 
 strike is not to produce suffering among the 
 rest of the workers, but to force the employing 
 class, for the moment represented by the 
 mine-owners, the State or the railway com- 
 pany, to acknowledge Labour's right to a 
 fairer life. " The community *' is compelled, 
 so long as the strikes are fought out sepa- 
 rately by sections of the workers, to stand 
 by and wait for the outcome of the struggle. 
 They are in the position, not of being 
 attacked, but of being non-combatants in" 
 the Class War. Their time for taking the 
 offensive will come, and then those who were
 
 'THE COMMUNITY' 09 
 
 combatants become,, in their turn, non- 
 combatants. In the final struggle there will 
 be no non-combatants, for all the members 
 of "the community " will be lined up on one 
 side or the other. 
 
 The employment of " the community " 
 weapon by the workers' opponents is, in 
 fact, a dodge. It is successful only in so far 
 as there is no clear understanding amongst 
 those sections of the working class not 
 engaged in the dispute of the actual situation 
 in industry. It is particularly successful 
 amongst tlie lower middle class, the j^^i^i 
 bourgeoisie, and small shop-keepers, because 
 here that understanding is lacking. These 
 unfortunates find themselves being ground, 
 as it were, between the upper millstone, Big 
 Business, and the lower millstone. Organised 
 Labour; they have little or no organisation 
 of their own in the economic field ; they live 
 on small salaries or on the doubtful returns 
 that come from speculative business. They 
 are indeed in a sorry plight. Clerks find 
 that the cost of living runs far ahead of 
 their yearly earnings ; small shop-keepers find 
 themselves unable to compete with tlie great 
 multiple shops in the open market. They
 
 70 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 are aware of only one thing, that the amount 
 of money they handle seems ever to decrease 
 in real value. They read papers, subsidised 
 and backed by big business interests, and 
 they are told that the reason for every rise 
 in the cost of living is the rapacious demands 
 of the working class. Reading this they find 
 a false comfort, and become the stalwart 
 supporters of things as they are and the 
 bitterest opponents of the other workers 
 who are attempting to alter the world. They 
 fail to see that their position as members of 
 the petit bourgeoisie is, in all essentials, that 
 of members of the class which they love to 
 call " the working class." If they are clerks 
 or commercial travellers, or if they follow 
 any of the " respectable " callings, they are 
 exploited by the firms for whom they work; 
 if they are shop-keepers, they are crushed 
 out by the Self ridges of the world. Their 
 fight and their quarrel is not with the workers 
 who are attempting to raise their own status, 
 but with those who, taking advantage of 
 their weakness, of their lack of organisation, 
 reduce their standard of living or buy up 
 their means of livelihood. Their enemy is 
 the Capitalist and their ally the workers.
 
 'THE COMMUNITY' 71 
 
 In short, the real " community " that is 
 attacked when the workers in a great basic 
 industry take action is not the " community " 
 of the lower middle class but the " com- 
 munity " of Capitalists. 
 
 It is none the less true that this con- 
 stant use by tlie Press of the phrase " the 
 community in danger " has a tremendous 
 influence on the amorphous unorganised 
 mass of workers who stand between the 
 Organised Labour movement on the one 
 hand and the Organised Capitalists on the 
 other. It is, indeed, one of the most power- 
 ful weapons at the disposal of Capitalism, 
 and Capitalism's control of the Press makes 
 it possible for a hundred papers throughout 
 the country to exert tlicir influence on the 
 minds of the petit bourgeoisie. Those who 
 own do not desire the facts of the Class War 
 to be talked about or written about. They 
 seek always to conceal the real position, and 
 by means of the Press, the pulpit, the novel 
 and the school they make " the worse case 
 appear the better." That the lower middle 
 classes are in danger, no one will deny, but 
 they are in danger not Ixeause of the upward 
 march of their " working-class comrades,"
 
 72 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 but because of the ever-increasing grip of 
 capitalist trusts and combines on the busi- 
 ness hfe of the world; most of all they are 
 in danger because of their own stupidity in 
 not recognising that until they become pos- 
 sessed of economic power they will be help- 
 less in the battle of life. They have the 
 remedy in their own hands. Let them link 
 up their destinies with the destinies of the 
 manual workers, let them join the organisa- 
 tions of the manual workers, let them recog- 
 nise that they are members of the exploited 
 class, and begin to wage the Class War. 
 
 There is something tragic in the way 
 in which this phrase " the community in 
 danger " hypnotises this great middle mass, 
 but apart from the circumstances already 
 mentioned, the hollowness of the cry is 
 apparent when one begins to consider the 
 actual position of £he country in which we live. 
 What constitutes the public or the "com- 
 munity," taking these words at the value 
 given to them by the Capitalist Press ? The 
 National Union of Railwaymen, the Miners' 
 Federation of Great Britain and the Trans- 
 port Workers' Federation, which constitute 
 the Triple Alliance, and are the organisations
 
 'THE COMMUNITY' 73 
 
 against which most of the " community " 
 stunts are directed, have an aggregate mem- 
 bership of about 1,750,000 men. They repre- 
 sent practically all the workers engaged in 
 these three great basic industries. At the 
 very least, close upon nine million people are 
 dependent upon the work of the members 
 of the Triple Alliance for their daily bread. 
 The Alliance, in short, represents nearly a 
 fifth of the entire population of the United 
 Kingdom. To talk of this fifth of the popu- 
 lation as " the unscrupulous minority deter- 
 mined to impose its will upon the com- 
 munity," is, to use a phrase of a Scottish 
 pastor whom I once met, " clotted nonsense." 
 They form part of the great army of 
 manual-working wage-slaves, who, together 
 with their wives and families, number over 
 thirty million of a population of forty-seven 
 million. When the Press talks about the 
 working class, or that section of the working 
 class that is involved in a dispute, as being 
 engaged in an attack upon the " community," 
 they are, in effect, saying that thirty million 
 of the population through their advance 
 guards are waging a war upon the sixteen 
 million minority, and even that sixteen
 
 74 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 million becomes appreciably smaller when 
 one subtracts the organised civil servants, 
 teachers, the lower branches of civil engineer- 
 ing, and so forth. The "community" that 
 is being attacked is the remnant of Capitalists 
 and parasites of Capitalists. 
 
 That there still exists a large mass uncon- 
 scious of the real divisions in society is due 
 to the astuteness and cleverness of the 
 economically powerful owners of the world's 
 wealth. For the moment the eyes of this 
 mass are blind, but what argument cannot 
 achieve the force of circumstances and the 
 pressure of events will. The middle classes 
 must make the choice — either voluntarily or 
 under compulsion — between the workers and 
 the owners. A failure to choose, a failure 
 to realise the facts, can only end in their 
 getting the worst of both worlds in their 
 attempt to get the best. If they " come 
 over and help us," well and good; if they 
 remain where they are, or openly join the 
 Capitalists, then they must face the conse- 
 quences — and in the Class War the fate of 
 those who waver is worse than that of those 
 who fight. They perish without even the 
 comfort of striking a blow.
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 
 
 The need for direct action arises from 
 the fact of Capitalism. Within the system 
 of production for profit the existence of a 
 monopoly that springs from the possession 
 of property calls forth a counter- monopoly 
 springing from the possible possession of the 
 control of the commodity labour power. 
 Very early in the history of the modern 
 working-class movement it was realised that, 
 however beneficial competition among em- 
 ployers might be, competition, unchecked and 
 unregulated, among the workers produced 
 nothing but low wages and evil conditions. 
 Every employer from the point of view of 
 his workers was not an isolated individual 
 bargaining with isolated individuals, but a 
 combination from whom concessions could 
 only be won by combination. The fact that 
 an employer possessed the instruments that 
 the workers must needs use if they were 
 to live, gave to him an economic grip against 
 
 75
 
 76 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 which individual bargaining was helpless. 
 And so the first organisations of workers 
 arose. Their business was to prevent em- 
 ployers from buying the skill of craftsmen 
 at cut rates, and their outlook was definitely 
 reformist. A fair day's wage for a fair day's 
 work was their motto. The need for organ- 
 isation had been made apparent because of 
 Capitalism, and the weapons the workers 
 used — the strikes and bargaining backed by 
 the power to strike — were conditioned by 
 the very people against whom they were to 
 be employed. The father of direct action is 
 the Capitalist system. 
 
 Trade Unionism arose because the system of 
 production necessitated the protection of indi- 
 vidual workers from the attacks of individual 
 Capitalists who are in reality combinations. 
 There was nothing aggressive about Trade 
 Unionism ; it was purely defensive in its 
 purposes, and it merely applied to labour 
 power the lesson that factory production 
 and large-scale production had taught the 
 employer. Its weapon was the strike, as 
 the weapon of the employer was the lock- 
 out; its object was to sell a commodity in 
 the highest market, as the object of the
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 77 
 
 employer was to buy that commodity in 
 the cheapest. Both sides employed essen- 
 tially the same methods. 
 
 It is not without point to recall that the 
 arguments brought against the efforts of 
 the workers to combine, and against the use 
 to which they put their combinations, were 
 just the arguments that are employed to-day 
 against those who would use industrial pres- 
 sure to attain ends that are other than 
 reformist. Terms of abuse that to-day are 
 hurled about in the colunms of The Morning 
 Post found their counterpart in the speeches 
 and articles of the defenders of property 
 during the last century. Then a strike for 
 higher wages was '^ Anarchy," now a strike 
 for the national ownership of the mines is 
 "the end of all things''; then the existence 
 of a Craft Union claiming better conditions 
 for its members within the Capitalist system 
 was regarded as the forerunner of revolution, 
 now the existence of a great industrial 
 federation demanding freedom for its mem- 
 bers is regarded as the revolution itself. 
 
 Nothing that is said by opponents of 
 direct action to-day has not been said by 
 the opponents of reformist Trade Unionism
 
 78 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 in the past. It may well be that just as 
 now the existence of Trade Unions is accepted 
 as essentially right, and the use of the strike 
 for better wages and conditions is safeguarded 
 by law, so within the next fifty years people 
 will regard with amazement those who oppose 
 the use of Labour's organisations for revolu- 
 tionary ends. Whether that be so or not 
 matters little, for Labour must employ its 
 power in this way or cease the attempt to 
 raise its status. Capitalist methods of in- 
 dustry have developed in such a way as to 
 render ineffective the old form of unionism, 
 with its reliance on craft and its acceptance 
 of Capitalist morality. Within the system 
 there is no chance for Labour, and the organi- 
 sations, that have hitherto worked within, are 
 now being forced to work directly against 
 the forms created by Capitalism. Direct 
 action is not a theory built out of airy 
 nothing, but a form of action necessitated 
 by the facts of life. 
 
 What those facts are, I have already shown, 
 and in this chapter I propose to deal with 
 certain changes necessitated by those facts. 
 The first essential of an organisation that 
 proposes to supplant Capitalism is that it
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 79 
 
 shall be fit for the work. You cannot em- 
 ploy an instrument capable only of raising 
 the wages of a section of workers within 
 an industry for the purpose of taking the 
 industry over, and of running it once the 
 employers have been removed. A degree 
 of organisation is demanded that the old 
 Trade Unionism never conceived, for a revo- 
 lutionary purpose calls for a revolutionary 
 instrument. The struggle, then, between 
 the owners and the owned demands the 
 complete organisation of the workers in each 
 industry, and the linking-up of the industries 
 into a close organisation, with a central co- 
 ordinating body possessed of a co-ordinated 
 policy and the power to make that policy 
 effective. The owners have learnt this lesson, 
 and they have their Federation of British 
 Industries, their Combines and Trusts, their 
 working agreements — in short, they have 
 their machine. Equally definitely Labour 
 has not. 
 
 There arc in existence in the United 
 Kingdom close upon 1200 Trade Unions. 
 Formed on every conceivable theory of 
 organisation, they attempt the task of secur- 
 ing the workers against oppression, llow
 
 80 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 far they are successful even in this limited 
 task may be judged from their failure to 
 see to it that the wages of their members 
 increase as the cost of living rises ; how far 
 they are successful may be judged from the 
 existence within the movement of bitter inter- 
 union quarrels upon which the energy of 
 organisers and members is fruitlessly wasted ; 
 how far they are successful may be judged 
 from the unwillingness of all the organisa- 
 tions to sink their differences for the sake of 
 the common good. Despite the fact of the 
 concentration of capital, despite the growth 
 of class consciousness among the employers, 
 the Trade Union Movement still lacks real 
 concentration, and still clings to an outworn 
 craft or sectional consciousness. The Army 
 of Labour is a figure of speech representing 
 an aspiration, but not a reality. To the task 
 of reorganising the Trade Union Movement 
 all the best energies of the workers should be 
 bent, for upon that reorganisation depends 
 their future status in society. And in essay- 
 ing that task they will not be without any 
 guidance as to the forms that should be 
 sought — the guidance is to be found within 
 the system of production against which their
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 81 
 
 efforts are directed. In broad outline the 
 ends to be aimed at are : (1) Real Industrial 
 Unionism; (2) Central Control; and (3) the 
 Creation of a Commissariat for the future 
 Army of Labour. 
 
 Industrial Unionism means the grouping 
 together of the workers within an industry, 
 not on the basis of craft or grade or sex, 
 but upon the basis of workers. It is a form 
 of organisation that follows not the process 
 or the employer, but the product, and its 
 aim is to secure an absolute monojooly of 
 labour power among those engaged in turn- 
 ing out a particular commodity or in render- 
 ing a particular service. Nor docs it stop at 
 an industry. Each industry has connections 
 with, and to a varying extent is dependent 
 upon, practically every other industry, and 
 Industrial Unionists seek to express that 
 interdependence in the form of the organisa- 
 tion. To attain their ends they put forward 
 different and often conflicting proposals, 
 and from amongst these proposals the choice 
 has to be made — or rather from amongst 
 these proposals one will be found that most 
 nearly fits the situation. Personally I hold 
 that, in this country, the change will come
 
 82 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 not through the creation of new organisations, 
 but by the pressure of events and ideas 
 upon the existing forms. The way to the 
 Industrial Unionism of the future hes througli 
 a development of the Trade Unionism of 
 to-day. Slow the process of amalgamation 
 may be, but it is inevitable, and however 
 impatient one gets at the delay, he must 
 recognise that attempts to start new forms 
 mean still further delay and still more 
 confusion. There is no royal road either to 
 freedom or to proper organisation, for the 
 path is marked out by the system that some 
 day is to be destroyed. 
 
 There are, however, certain outstanding 
 movements within Trade Unionism that have 
 special significance in this connection. The 
 first is the Shop Stewards' Movement. How 
 far anything exists that merits the name 
 of a movement is an open question, but of 
 the existence of a strong body of opinion 
 within the ranks of organised labour that 
 sees in the shop steward the hope of the 
 future, there can be no doubt. And for our 
 purposes the idea behind the " movement " 
 is of more importance than the movement 
 itself. Hitherto it has been the general
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 83 
 
 practice of Trade Unions— a practice directly 
 due to their craft basis — to regard the local 
 branches as the units of administration and 
 the units of action. Organisation has not 
 been industrial in character, but territorial, 
 and the disputes in any particular shop or 
 works have had to be submitted to meetings 
 of members of the organisations affected 
 drawn from the locality in which the works 
 is situated, and often, as a result, including 
 men not connected with the industry con- 
 cerned. Again, the members of each organisa- 
 tion in the shop or works in question have 
 had to wait for the sanction of their various 
 executives before they could move. The 
 result of this waiting is that the favourable 
 moment passes and the workers remain un- 
 satisfied. To remedy this tlic Shop Stewards' 
 Movement declares that the unit of produc- 
 tion must be the unit of administration. 
 The place where the struggle occurs is the 
 works or pit or other unit of production; 
 the bond that unites the workers is the fact 
 that they are all engaged upon the making, 
 or getting, of a particular commodity. The 
 object of all organisation among the workers 
 is to be able to stop production— and they
 
 84 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 argue that these facts lead not only to 
 Industrial Unionism, but to a form of organi- 
 sation based upon the shop. Practical ex- 
 perience has, in short, taught them that 
 Capitalist methods of production have left 
 Trade Union organisation behind, and they 
 seek to bring it into line. No one, I think, 
 will question the justice of the case, nor will 
 any one be found seriously to argue against it. 
 Consider any successful strike, and at once 
 it will be seen that its success has depended 
 upon the putting into practice of this theory ; 
 consider an unsuccessful strike, such as the 
 Moulders' sixteen weeks' struggle, and it 
 will be seen that the failure is due solely 
 to a disregard of this theory. From this it 
 follows that the unit of administration in 
 the Industrial Unions of the future must be 
 the unit of production. Organisation must 
 begin with this unit, and always the bond 
 must be the bond of the product and not 
 the bond of habitation. That is the funda- 
 mental lesson of the Shop Stewards' Move- 
 ment regarded purely from the point of 
 view of organisation. Other lessons for the 
 workers this movement has, but, as the shop 
 stewards will recognise, those lessons are
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 85 
 
 conveyed in the general purpose of tliis 
 book. 
 
 The second movement is the Triple Alliance. 
 I am not concerned with the achievement or 
 lack of achievement of that Alliance, but 
 solely with certain fundamental theories 
 that lie behind it. The Triple Alliance is 
 an expression in concrete form of the doc- 
 trine of sympathetic action ; it is an expres- 
 sion of the fact that the sympathy of one 
 section of the workers with another section 
 cannot stop short of rendering definite help 
 by means of concerted action; it is the 
 beginning of the machine for making effec- 
 tive the sympathetic strike. Instinctively 
 the workers have felt that, in so far as they 
 handled the products of any employer or 
 section of employers with whom a Union or 
 a number of Unions was in dispute, they 
 were blacklegging. No single strike takes 
 place without a discussion arising on the 
 question of " tainted goods," and no big 
 strike occvu'S without an attempt being made 
 unofficially to put into operation the boycott 
 of those goods. The instinctive resort to 
 this form of direct action has its roots in 
 the real necessities of the situation. It is
 
 86 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 a necessary outcome of the belief that the 
 interests of all workers are one, and the 
 perfect machine of Labour must make pro- 
 vision for its extended use. The Triple 
 Alliance is a temporary machine created 
 because the interdependence of mines, rail- 
 ways and transport was so close that a 
 dispute in one section automatically involved 
 the others — a strike at a pit immediately 
 involved the railwaymen, for they had to 
 decide whether by shifting coal from other 
 pits they were not in effect engaged in 
 blacklegging ; a strike on the railways at 
 once involved workers engaged in other 
 forms of transit. The creation of an organisa- 
 tion capable of meeting this situation was 
 essential, and in 1914 the Triple Alliance 
 was launched. The idea of sympathetic 
 action became by that step a recognised 
 weapon of the working-class. Since 1914 
 the development of Capitalism has gone on 
 apace, the interdependence of industries has 
 grown greater, and as a result the need 
 for a wider organisation than the Triple 
 Alliance has become apparent. That wider 
 organisation must include all sections, and 
 must be able to apply the weapon of the
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 87 
 
 sympathy strike whenever and wherever it is 
 needed. 
 
 I have used the word " must " in this 
 connection because there seems to be no 
 halting-place between the old method of 
 detail fighting and the new one of unity of 
 command. The Labour Movement is faced 
 with an organised Capitalism that always 
 uses the weapon of sympathetic action; it 
 is faced with an organised Capitalism that 
 recognises an injury to one member as an 
 injury to all. There is no other course 
 open to the workers if they desire to advance 
 — or even if they desire merely to keep what 
 they have got — than to expand the applica- 
 tion of the principle already accepted by the 
 Triple Alliance. The once-dreaded doctrine 
 of the sympathetic strike has become a 
 matter of urgent practical necessity. 
 
 Once that is recognised, the way to the 
 creation of a General Staff becomes com- 
 paratively simple. The position at the 
 moment is that there exists no central body 
 capable of controlling Labour or capable of 
 acting in the name of Trade Unionism. 
 Every year a Congress asseml^les, and talks, 
 often with eloquence and power, on the
 
 88 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 various subjects that are urgent. Its talk 
 eventuates in resolutions, tlie resolutions are 
 duly considered by the Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee, the Congress reassembles and the cycle 
 begins anew. The reason is not far to seek. 
 Just as the craft basis of organisation is a 
 relic of the simpler modes of Capitalism, so 
 the T.U.C., with its Parliamentary Committee, 
 is a relic of the days when Labour served 
 its ends by " lobbying " and deputations, 
 of the days when the movement had found 
 no political expression. The function of 
 the Parliamentary Committee was to convey 
 to the King's Ministers the wishes of organised 
 Labour — that function it fulfilled admirably, 
 the only drawback being that the function 
 has for years been out of date. What is 
 needed now is a central co-ordinating body, 
 representative of the various industries into 
 which the workers are grouped, endowed with 
 powers of control, concerned with preventing 
 overlapping of organisation and waste of 
 energy, and able to move the whole force 
 of Labour in the industrial field. It is a far 
 cry from the present Trades Union Congress 
 to the kind of organisation just sketched, 
 but there are signs that a body with powers
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 89 
 
 similar to these will arise. Within the move- 
 ment the forces that arc compelling a re- 
 organisation on the basis of industrial unionism 
 are also compelling a reorganisation of the 
 old central machinery. And as with the 
 creation of Industrial Unions, so with the 
 building up of a General Staff, the process 
 will be gradual and will work within the 
 existing forms. I admit that it is hard to 
 believe that any good thing can come out 
 of the Parliamentary Committee of the 
 Trades Union Congress — but it is at least 
 as hopeful as anything else within official 
 Trade Unionism. 
 
 More important for our immediate pur- 
 poses than the question of how this new 
 organisation will come, is a realisation of the 
 need for it. It if be true, as I have argued, 
 that the power of the workers depends 
 upon their power to stop production, and if 
 the hampering of production depends upon 
 the creation of a monopoly of labour, not 
 only in one industry, but in all industries, 
 the need for a supervising and controlling 
 force is apparent. It is not a question of 
 gaining advantages for this or that section 
 of Labour, nor of winning temporary increases
 
 90 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 of wages for a few, but a question of building 
 up a machine that shall take the place of the 
 present system, and that shall be able to control 
 production in the interests of all. For that 
 purpose a central co-ordinating body is re- 
 quired. Without it the old story of divided 
 effort will be repeated, and energy that 
 should be expended in the struggle against 
 exploitation, will be wasted in internal dis- 
 putes and internal quarrels. The final goal 
 that Labour seeks makes this central body 
 a necessity. Equally the immediate situa- 
 tion calls for it. Capital is centrally organised 
 and increasingly centrally controlled, and 
 that fact alone is sufficient justification for 
 the demand that Labour shall be likewise 
 equipped. 
 
 Elsewhere I deal with the historical work- 
 ing-out of this idea of a General Staff. That 
 history is not yet completed, for the Army of 
 Labour will not be properly equipped until its 
 staff is endowed with power to act— until the 
 idea behind the Council of Action of August 
 1920 becomes the idea behind the whole 
 movement. Nor will it be properly equipped 
 until the objective of the army is frankly 
 revolutionary and the staff functions to that
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 91 
 
 end. Gradually the actual form of the 
 machinery is being created, but the spirit 
 is far to seek. Nor do I think that that 
 spirit will arise in the offices cither of the 
 General Staff or of the great Unions ; it will 
 grow in the workshop and mine, and the 
 speed of its growth will depend upon the 
 extent to which power and authority are 
 delegated to the Avorkers when actually 
 engaged at their work. The General Staff 
 without the spirit throughout the rank and 
 file will, despite its form, be as useless and 
 futile as the Parliamentary Committee. 
 
 It is here, and on the question of giving 
 executive authority to the General Staff, 
 that the struggle over the problem of the 
 reorganisation of the British Trade Unions 
 will come. There are vested interests in- 
 side the Army of Labour which will resent 
 any proposal that they should surrender 
 their independence of action; they will 
 revolt against the idea of discipline. That 
 revolt will be faced and defeated, but the 
 struggle will be no light matter. 
 
 There is another essential part of the 
 equipment of Labour that calls for attention. 
 It is the building-up of a commissariat.
 
 92 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Strikes are to-day productive of terrible 
 suffering among the women and children, 
 and the weakest link in the chain of Labour 
 is found in the stomachs of the non-com- 
 batants. Patiently and silently they have 
 to stand by, spectators of the struggle between 
 their men and the employers ; for them there 
 is no joy of battle to lighten the terrors of 
 an empty larder; for them the possibility 
 of making conditions better in the future 
 must seem small compared with the fact of 
 their hungry children. It is the wives and 
 mothers who shoulder the heaviest burdens 
 when direct action is applied in its final forms. 
 Between them and starvation stand the 
 dwindling funds of the union and the un- 
 organised help of the rest of the Labour 
 Movement. It is here that the Co-operative 
 Movement can help. 
 
 There are many who see in the Co-operative 
 Movement the embryo of the future society. 
 They visualise its development, both on the 
 distributive and productive side, until the 
 day comes when all the people are members 
 of their " Store," and all the stores part 
 of a productive and distributive agency 
 owning and controlling all that the world
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 93 
 
 needs for a healthy and happy Hfe. There 
 are many who see in the Co-operative Move- 
 ment merely another form of Capitalism, 
 less brutal in its effects, but still based upon 
 the idea of profit-making. The function of 
 co-operation, as expressed through the stores 
 and wholesale societies, is for them some- 
 thing that will pass. It is transitory, not 
 final, and incapable of transplanting the 
 Capitalist system. Others, again, there 
 are who, whilst not believing that the Co- 
 operative Movement can ever fulfil all the 
 functions its idealist members desire, yet 
 hold that, in the society of the future, 
 the principle of voluntary association and the 
 methods of the Co-operative Movement will 
 find a secure and certain place. This last 
 view is, I believe, the correct one, but 
 whether that be so or not, the interesting 
 point for our immediate purposes is that 
 those who hold these differing views of the 
 ultimate place of co-operation are all alike 
 agreed that the movement has a great part 
 to play as the ally of organised Labour in 
 the fight against oppression and exploitation. 
 What that part is can here only be roughly 
 sketched. The use of direct action, on
 
 94 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 however small a scale, involves the dis- 
 appearance for the time being of the workers' 
 regular source of income; it involves an 
 immediate " tightening of the belt " and a 
 definite shortage of food and clothing. Direct 
 action on a large scale necessarily accen- 
 tuates this condition. The Co-operative 
 Movement can be, and should be, used to 
 protect the workers from the worst effects 
 of an appeal to the use of force. All its 
 members are workers, and upon them fall 
 the ultimate effects of the success or failure 
 of any strike; they have common interests 
 with the section that is for the moment 
 involved in the dispute ; it is to their interest 
 to aid them. Spasmodically this aid is 
 given now. The C.W.S. Bank advances 
 money to the Unions for strike pay, the 
 Co-operative Wholesale Societies supply food 
 at cost price, as in the case of Dublin. But 
 there is as yet no combination. What is 
 required — indeed what is actually being 
 created — is an organisation representative 
 of the Consumers' and Producers' sides of 
 the movement, whose business it shall be 
 to secure a supply of food during the periods 
 of strikes. To this end they should help
 
 SOME PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES 95 
 
 to develop the Co-operative Movement on its 
 productive side, they should urge still further 
 experiments in the control of transport and 
 shipping, they should encourage the expendi- 
 ture of capital on farms and dairies, tea and 
 sugar plantations, clothing mills and boot 
 factories — and all this should be done not 
 primarily in order to fit the Co-operative 
 Movement to take the place of Capitalism, 
 but in order to secure the workers against 
 defeat through the wasting bodies of their 
 wives and children. The Co-operative Move- 
 ment forms part of the economic power the 
 workers wield, and its immediate function 
 is to be used as a weapon in the class struggle. 
 All the suggestions that have been ad- 
 vanced in this chapter are practical conse- 
 quences of a belief in the theory that the 
 workers' ultimate struggle lies in the economic 
 field. They have been urged not as a final 
 panacea for the evils that exist as the result 
 of class domination, but as protective 
 measures demanded by the nature of the 
 struggle and called for by the facts of the 
 struggle. They are, in short, the " practical 
 politics " of the war of the classes.
 
 VI 
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION AND SABOTAGE 
 
 In the previous chapter I have outlined 
 roughly certain of the practical consequences 
 that spring from the acceptance by the Trade 
 Union Movement of the belief in the use of 
 direct action for other than reformist ends. 
 In the main these consequences, as will have 
 been seen, involve radical reorganisation of the 
 movement, with the consequent surrendering 
 of the individual authority of Union Execu- 
 tives to a central co-ordinating body. What 
 was accomplished in the realm of theory by 
 the creation of the scratch Council of Action 
 to deal with the Polish situation in 1920 needs 
 to be translated into a permanent form for the 
 governance of the organised working-class 
 movement. But the direct consequences in- 
 volve not only the re-creation of the machine, 
 but the adoption, as a definite method, of 
 certain forms of direct action that have 
 hitherto been responsible for the greatest 
 
 96
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 97 
 
 amount of criticism and opposition, both 
 within and without the ranks of Labour. I 
 refer to the sympathetic strike and to the use 
 of sabotage. 
 
 Any one who has seen a Trade Union 
 demonstration must have been struck by the 
 unanimity with which the banners of the 
 demonstrators declare that " An injury to 
 one is an injury to all," and he must have 
 wondered how it was that this perfectly 
 justifiable sentiment seems to be lost sight 
 of in any crisis. If it were true that an 
 injury to one is an injury to all, then the 
 interests of a day labourer in the Hebrides 
 should be of vital importance to the skilled 
 engineer in London, but the fact remains 
 that a dispute affecting a Hcbridean passes, 
 in the main, entirely unnoticed in the ranks 
 of the skilled engineers. Strikes on' ques- 
 tions affecting one grade of workers are 
 regarded as having no bearing upon the status 
 and position of other grades, and yet, at the 
 same time, there is an instinctive feeling 
 among men in the workshops that every 
 dispute of which they learn, however small or 
 wherever it occurs, has a bearing upon their 
 own position. The sympathetic strike is the
 
 98 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 organised translation of this instinctive 
 feeling into action. 
 
 During the last twelve or fifteen years there 
 have been spasmodic attempts to create the 
 machinery necessary for the effective applica- 
 tion of the economic power of the workers as 
 a whole in support of any section whose 
 interests were threatened or whose demands 
 were refused. A strike, for instance, among 
 shop assistants in London has been accom- 
 panied by the expressed intention of organisa- 
 tions representing transport workers to refuse 
 to handle goods consigned to the employer 
 whose attitude has caused the dispute. There 
 have, too, been unauthorised and even 
 authorised movements by railwaymen in sup- 
 port of other sections of Labour, and the 
 doctrine of " tainted goods " has been applied 
 spasmodically, but without any real national 
 attempt at co-ordination, in practically every 
 large dispute since the great Dublin lock- 
 out. 
 
 None the less the official leaders of Labour 
 regard with the greatest concern any theorist 
 who argues that if a dispute is worth while 
 embarking upon, it is worth while winning, 
 and that if winning involves the use of other
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 99 
 
 sections than those directly concerned in the 
 result of the dispute, those other sections 
 should be moved in support. The reason for 
 this hostility lies in the fact that practically 
 every dispute, however small, brings into the 
 arena all the transport workers, and in par- 
 ticular the railwaymen. These pivotal classes 
 of I^abour argue, and argue quite correctly, 
 that, if they are to be expected to help every 
 Tom, Dick, or Harry engaged in a dispute, 
 they must be secured against financial loss, 
 and must, through the Trade Union Movement, 
 be given some say in deciding whether or not 
 a dispute shall be fought out to the finish. 
 It is, in fact, an easy thing to say that an 
 injury to one is an injury to all, but it is by 
 no means an easy thing to put that sentiment 
 into practice. The fear of the disintegrating 
 effects of the application of the sympathetic 
 strike upon well-organised bodies of Labour 
 is, I believe, at the back of the failure of 
 the Trade Union Movement to adopt this 
 particular form of direct action as one of 
 its weapons against Capitalism. 
 
 I cannot attempt to say more on this 
 question here than dogmatically to state 
 certain beliefs and put forward certain
 
 100 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 practical suggestions arising out of those be- 
 liefs. Organised capital quite definitely and 
 deliberately has recognised the truth of the 
 interdependence of one set of employers on 
 another, and to-day no decision is reached 
 on the question of taking action in face 
 of the workers' demands until the whole 
 body of Capitalists has been consulted. 
 For this purpose there has been created 
 an organisation known as the Federation of 
 British Industries. Representing the great 
 mass of employers, it wields tremendous 
 power both in the outside world of industry 
 and in the inner world of government. One 
 section of employers, say, for instance, the 
 coal-owners, finds itself faced with a demand 
 by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, 
 and immediately that section seeks and 
 obtains the support of engineers, ship- 
 builders, railway magnates, financiers. Sup- 
 port is given without any outward display, 
 and, in nine cases out of ten, the " man in the 
 street " is totally unaware that the support 
 is being given. Quietly and effectively the 
 Federation of British Industries can render 
 assistance, because only in the extremest of 
 cases is it necessary for the Federation to
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 101 
 
 take dramatic action, such as the declaration 
 of a lock-out covering sections of industry 
 unaffected by the particular dispute. Labour, 
 however, if it is to act sympathetically, must 
 almost always act in a dramatic way. Men 
 must be called out here and called out there ; 
 this lot of goods must be declared tainted and 
 orders given that they shall not be handled; 
 this section of workers must be told not to do 
 this class of work, and so on — every one of the 
 moves involving an immediate and open 
 dislocation of the industrial life of the 
 community. 
 
 The very fact of Labour's action having to 
 be of this dramatic character inmiediately 
 involves the movement in a struggle with 
 organised capital, and therefore with the 
 State. The struggle is open, and all Labour's 
 attacks and defences have to be conducted in 
 the full light of day. Of the effects every 
 member of the community is at once con- 
 scious. This fact has got to be faced, and the 
 only conceivable way in which it can effect- 
 ively be met is by the deliberate organisation 
 of Labour for the purpose of bringing to the 
 support of any particular section the weight, 
 either of the whole Labour Movement, or of
 
 102 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 such parts of the Labour Movement as are 
 deemed essential. Against the silent sympa- 
 thetic action of massed capital Labour has 
 got to use the more obvious method of the 
 properly organised strike boycott. There is 
 no question here of the general strike every 
 time and all the time, for in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred the general strike would 
 not, and should not, be called. One does not 
 use a sledge-hammer to crack a nut. The 
 general strike is Labour's ultimate — or at 
 least penultimate — weapon. It is held in 
 reserve for the capture of control. What is 
 demanded is the submission of all national 
 disputes to a central executive authority 
 empowered to move other sections of the 
 workers in support and to take such steps 
 as it deems advisable, once the dispute has 
 been submitted, to bring that dispute to 
 a successful termination. If Labour adopts 
 the weapon of sympathetic action, there can 
 be no question of giving to any section the 
 right to contract out of the obligations that 
 would follow such an adoption, and the 
 experience of the Triple Alliance will show 
 the necessity for rigid discipline. 
 
 The Triple Alliance, as I have pointed out,
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 103 
 
 is an attempt to give practical recognition 
 to the interdependence of various grades of 
 workers, but every time the Triple Alliance 
 has been put to the test it has failed as a 
 fighting machine, because its constitution does 
 not make it obligatory on any section to carry 
 out the decisions of the Alliance. The 
 miners, for instance, even though the other 
 sections of the Alliance regarded one of their 
 movements as being ill-timed, are under no 
 obligation to obey that expression of disap- 
 proval, and are free to *' run their own show on 
 their own." That means that the recognition 
 of the interdependence of rail way men, trans- 
 port workers and miners is only half-hearted, 
 and cannot be made effective until the power 
 to contract out from the obligations of the 
 Alliance is definitely refused. This weakness 
 of the Triple Alliance would only be accen- 
 tuated were the reorganisation of the move- 
 ment as a whole through the creation of a 
 General Staff to stop short of giving to that 
 Staff complete executive authority. One 
 cannot play at employing sympathetic action, 
 nor can one allow the effective employment of 
 that action to be jeopardised by the natural 
 desire of any section of the movement to
 
 104 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 retain full control over its own activities and 
 full right to refuse to abide by the decisions 
 of the others. The Labour Movement has 
 need to learn the lesson of unity of command ; 
 it has to be prepared to sacrifice the autonomy 
 that traditionally belongs to its various com- 
 ponent parts in the interests of that victory 
 which can only come when the forces of \)rgan- 
 ised Labour are employed according to plan, 
 either as a whole or in detail, as the forces at 
 the disposal of a State are employed in war. 
 
 Spasmodic and ill-organised sympathetic 
 action brings nothing but chaos. Organised 
 and well-directed sympathetic action calls for 
 a greater measure of discipline, of loyalty and 
 of sacrifice than the British Labour Movement 
 has hitherto displayed. Nobody when making 
 a speech on Labour platforms denies the 
 truth of the statement that " an injury to 
 one is an injury to all," but very few are 
 prepared to face the direct consequences 
 involved in putting this admirable principle 
 into practice. There is, in short, no quarrel 
 on theory; there is a very real and serious 
 unwillingness to face the consequences arising 
 from that theory. 
 
 When one turns to the use of sabotage one
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 105 
 
 finds not only a quarrel as to the practical 
 effects of the use of sabotage, but a real 
 difference of opinion on the theoretical ques- 
 tion as to whether sabotage is ever justified. 
 
 Sabotage means the clogging of the machine 
 of Capitalist industry by the use of certain 
 forms of action, not necessarily violent and 
 not necessarily destructive. It is commonly 
 supposed to mean, purely and simply, the 
 smashing of machinery, either by the direct 
 breaking-up of the machines or by rendering 
 them useless by methods involving a deterio- 
 ration of their value and efficiency. This 
 idea of sabotage is very partial and unfair. 
 The machinery of Capitalism can be clogged 
 quite effectively without the employment of 
 that form of sabotage which expresses itself 
 in destruction. There are, in fact, forms of 
 sabotage the employment of which would 
 be, directly and permanently, to the benefit 
 of the community, quite apart from those 
 forms of sabotage which are directly and 
 momentarily of benefit to the workers engaged 
 in a struggle. 
 
 One of the most appalling signs of modern 
 civilisation is the constant foisting upon 
 the public of adulterated foodstuffs and
 
 106 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 shoddy articles. It would be sabotage if the 
 workers engaged, for instance, in the grocery 
 trades were to refuse to sell any commodity 
 without describing to the purchaser exactly 
 what that commodity contained. They 
 would, to take a simple example, be sabotag- 
 ing their employer if they informed the 
 working-class housewife that the margarine 
 they were selling contained hardly any nutri- 
 tive qualities and had been produced under 
 conditions of labour not calculated to secure 
 cleanliness. They would be sabotaging if they 
 also added the further information that their 
 own wages as shop assistants, engaged in 
 selling the margarine, were of such a character 
 as to compel them to resort to other ways of 
 ensuring a reasonable livelihood. That is a 
 form of sabotage which, if organised through- 
 out the country as part of the fight against 
 Capitalism, would immediately reduce the 
 grocery and provision trades to chaos. 
 
 The same effects would be produced in the 
 woollen industry were the workers to re- 
 fuse to produce shoddy cloth, or were the 
 assistants in tailoring or drapery establish- 
 ments to inform intending customers exactly 
 what had been used to produce the goods
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 107 
 
 exposed for sale. In both these instances no 
 violence is used, but a properly organised 
 employment of the device of telling the 
 truth quite effectively clogs the Capitalist 
 machine. 
 
 A still more striking example of this form 
 of sabotage can be found in the refusal of 
 builders to erect houses that are not exactly 
 substantial or lasting. The housing problem 
 could be made infinitely more complicated, 
 without in the least hurting the interests of 
 those who have to live in the houses, by a 
 refusal of the organised workers in the building 
 industry to assist in the erection of jerry-built 
 dwellings. Such a movement would go far to 
 destroy the power of the contractor ; it would 
 compel public authorities to resort to direct 
 labour or to the Guild System for the com- 
 pletion of their housing plans, and, above all, 
 it would secure for the workers in other indus- 
 tries houses that, so far as the shell was con- 
 cerned, could be made into homes. Nor 
 need this form of sabotage stop at building, 
 for in all the trades that cater directly to tlie 
 consuming public the ]iower of the Capitalist 
 combine can most effectively be brokrn, 
 not by smashing the tools of production,
 
 108 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 but by telling the truth about the methods 
 employed. 
 
 It is extraordinary that the Labour Move- 
 ment should not have explored the possibili- 
 ties latent in its possession of these perfectly 
 peaceful forms of sabotage. The reason for 
 this remissness lies in the fact that the great 
 mass of the workers still think of sabotage as 
 of necessity involving destruction. But even 
 were it true that sabotage and destruction 
 were synonymous terms, it does not neces- 
 sarily follow that the workers would be un- 
 justified in employing sabotage as a weapon 
 in the Class War. Whether or not it pays 
 the workers engaged in a dispute to destroy 
 machines which, when the dispute is over, 
 they will have themselves to put right, is a 
 question not of morality, but of expediency. 
 On the moral side, any one who accepts the 
 theory of the Class War can have nothing to 
 say in reproof of any section of workers if 
 it chooses to put sand into railway-engine 
 boilers, or to destroy the vital parts of 
 machines, or to break looms. The workers 
 have the right to use every method likely to 
 weaken the power of their employers ; they 
 are concerned not with conventional morality,
 
 SYMPATHETIC ACTION 109 
 
 but with the problem of whether the use of 
 the weapon will " pay," and on this question 
 of expediency there is plenty of room for 
 discussion. Personally, though I realise that 
 every case must be judged on its merits, I am 
 inclined to think that, when all the advantages 
 and disadvantages to the workers of this par- 
 ticular form of sabotage are weighed in the 
 balance, the debit side will be much heavier 
 than the credit. There is no need to smash 
 machinery if one's ends can be served by less 
 destructive methods, and there are forms of 
 sabotage, as I have suggested, much more 
 capable of clogging the wheels of Capitalism 
 than the outright smashing of the machine 
 itself. 
 
 Sabotage and the sympathetic strike are 
 modes of working-class activity that have not 
 been sufficiently exploited in Great Britain. 
 They are modes that call for a high degree of 
 organisation, a high degree of discipline and 
 a tremendous power of self-control. The 
 spasmodic use either of the sympatlietic 
 strike or of any form of sabotage produces 
 nothing but disappointment for the users. 
 Their careful and ordered use could be em- 
 ployed as a potent and eflective weapon in
 
 110 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 the struggle of the classes. But that ordered 
 use depends upon the reorganisation of the 
 Trade Union Movement and the creation of 
 a central co-ordinating body with full 
 executive powers.
 
 VII 
 
 TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF 
 
 Within the last few years there has been 
 a growing appreciation among the workers 
 of the need for a drastic reorganisation of 
 the Trade Union Movement. More and 
 more it has been felt that the old Trade 
 Union Congress, with its obsolete Parliamen- 
 tary Committee and its total lack of real 
 authority and power, was unfitted to deal 
 with the tremendously urgent problems that 
 continue to face the workers. Equally there 
 has grown up a belief that a sectional organ- 
 isation such as the Triple Alliance, even if it be 
 eminently fitted to deal with its own domestic 
 crises, could not, and should not, be expected 
 to take the place of, or to act for, the movement 
 as a whole. The need was for some authorita- 
 tive body really representative of all organ- 
 ised workers, clos(^ly in touch witli the political 
 expressions of organised Labour— the National 
 Labour Party and other bodies — and working 
 
 111
 
 112 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 in harmony with the Co-operative Movement. 
 To give practical expression to these feehngs 
 and desires certain definitely constructive 
 steps have been taken, and there can be 
 little doubt that, as a result of these changes, 
 something will emerge more akin to a General 
 Staff than the old Parliamentary Committee. 
 
 What will happen is for the future to reveal. 
 Meanwhile there is some help and guidance 
 to be obtained from a brief chronicle of what 
 has been done since the Ai-mistice of the 
 European War was declajed. Haphazard 
 and experimental as the moves have been, 
 they are none the less moves — and moves in 
 the right direction. 
 
 The nine days' Railway Strike of Septem- 
 ber-October 1919 brought the Labour Move- 
 ment right up against the fact that it 
 possessed no body capable of taking hold and 
 using that strike for really big ends. Not 
 only had it no body of this kind, but it did 
 not possess any organisation capable either 
 of assisting the railwaymen to get what they 
 demanded or of procuring any satisfaction 
 from the State. Faced witli, this emergency a 
 scratch committee — calling itself significantly 
 enough the Negotiating Committee — was
 
 TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF 113 
 
 formed, largely at the instance of Robert 
 Williams of the Transport Workers' Federa- 
 tion. This Committee represented nothing 
 but a feeling that something had got to be 
 done, and in its endeavour to do something 
 it had to usurp the functions of the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee, which, as usual in a 
 crisis, neither wanted to do anything nor was 
 capable of doing anything had it wanted. 
 The Committee co-opted members from 
 various organisations, including the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee itself, called a conference 
 of permanent officials of Trade Unions, and 
 did its best to end the dispute. Its members 
 and the railwaymen's officials were alike 
 afraid of the possibilities created by the strike, 
 and used every endeavour to close the strike 
 down. Mixing threats of a general strike 
 with appeals to the sympathetic feelings of 
 Lloyd George, they at last succeeded. The 
 railway strike ended, the men got some of 
 the things they wanted, the Government won. 
 But the lesson of the dispute was not lost. 
 The need for a permanent central organisa- 
 tion was realised, and the members of the 
 mediating committee set to work to force a 
 reorganisation of the movement.
 
 114 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Articles in the Labour Press urged the 
 necessity for forming a General Staff which 
 should be prepared for rapid action in future 
 struggles. Statements were made by Trade 
 Union officials, among them Harry Gosling, 
 John Turner, C. T. Cramp, William Adamson, 
 Arthur Henderson, Robert Williams, Ernest 
 Bevin, and Fred Bramley, supporting the 
 proposal. There was general agreement that 
 the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades 
 Union Congress was not endowed with suffi- 
 cient power to act with speed and decision, 
 and Robert Williams said he was " begin- 
 ning to lose faith in the willingness of the 
 Parliamentary Committee to grapple with the 
 matter." 
 
 Early in October 1919 the members of the 
 mediating committee, which had acted during 
 the railway strike, met the Parliamentary 
 Committee to discuss the problem, and it was 
 decided that a joint sub-committee should be 
 set up to report on possible schemes. This 
 committee consisted of representatives of the 
 Parliamentary Committee, the mediating 
 committee, and of the Trade Union side of 
 the Provisional Joint Committee of the 
 Industrial Conference.
 
 TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF 115 
 
 At the end of November this joint sub- 
 committee presented an interim report to a 
 meeting of the Parliamentary Committee, 
 which then adopted a resolution for submis- 
 sion to the special Trades Union Congress, 
 which was to meet on December 9. This 
 resolution instructed the Parliamentary 
 Committee to revise the Standing Orders 
 of Congress so as to secure the following 
 changes in the functions and duties of the 
 Executive — 
 
 1. "To substitute for the Parliamentary 
 Committee a Trades Union Congress 
 General Council, to be elected annually 
 by Congress. 
 
 2. "To prepare a scheme determining the 
 composition and methods of election of 
 General Council. 
 
 3. "To make arrangements for the develop- 
 ment of administrative departments in 
 the offices of the General Council, in 
 order to secure the necessary officials, 
 staff, and equipment for an efficient 
 Trade Union centre." 
 
 The Parliamentary Committee was also
 
 116 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 instructed to consult with the Labour Party 
 and the Co-operative Movement, for the 
 purpose of devising means for carrying on 
 joint campaigns with these bodies. 
 
 This resolution was carried at the Special 
 Congress by 2,884,000 votes to 1,722,000, in 
 spite of the fact that J. Bromley, of the 
 Locomotive Engineers, who prophesied the 
 failure of this new body, and Frank Hodges, 
 of the Miners' Federation, spoke against the 
 resolution. 
 
 The Co-ordination Sub-Committee con- 
 tinued its labours, and, after the Special Con- 
 gress, met in consultation with representatives 
 of the Labour Party and the Co-operative 
 Movement. The terms of reference for its 
 consultations with these bodies were as 
 follows — 
 
 " Research : To secure general and statis- 
 tical information on all questions affect- 
 ing the worker as producer and consumer 
 by the co-ordination and development 
 of existing agencies. 
 
 " Legal advice, on all questions affecting the 
 collective welfare of the members of 
 working-class organisations.
 
 TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF 117 
 
 " Publicity, including the preparation of 
 suitable literature dealing with questions 
 affecting the economic, social, and politi- 
 cal welfare of the people ; with machinery 
 for inaugurating special publicity cam- 
 paigns to meet emergencies of an indus- 
 trial or poHtical character." 
 
 By the end of June 1920 the Co-ordination 
 Committee had presented its report to the 
 Parliamentary Committee. The report was 
 adopted, and was submitted to the Trades 
 Union Congress, which met at Portsmouth on 
 September 6, in the form of a resolution 
 amending the Standing Orders of the Trades 
 Union Congress. 
 
 The General Council which was to take 
 the place of the Parliamentary Committee 
 was to be composed of thirty members 
 representing seventeen trade groups, as 
 follows — 
 
 No. repre- Represent- 
 
 sented at 1919 ation on 
 
 n-nnrr-o Congrcs.s, in Council 
 
 *^^"UP. thousands. of 30. 
 
 Mininfj and Quarrying . . 712 3 
 
 Railways .... 515 3 
 
 Transport (other than Railways) .'jr.O 2 
 
 Shipbuilding . . . .154 1
 
 118 
 
 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Group. 
 
 No. repre- Represent- 
 sented at 1919 ation on 
 Congress, in Council 
 thousands. of 30. 
 
 and 
 
 Engineering, Founding, and Ve 
 hide Building 
 
 Iron and Steel, Enginemen 
 Minor Metal Trades 
 
 Building, Woodworking, and Fur- 
 nishing . . . . 
 
 Printing and Paper 
 
 Cotton 
 
 Textiles (other than Cotton) 
 
 Clothing . . . . . 
 
 Leather, Boot and Shoe and Hat- 
 making . . . . 
 
 Glass, Pottery, Chemicals, Food, 
 Drink, Tobacco, Brushmaking 
 and Distribution . 
 
 Agriculture 
 
 Public Employees 
 
 Non-manual Workers 
 
 General Workers 
 
 574 
 
 218 
 
 352 
 138 
 316 
 161 
 123 
 
 111 
 
 . 141 
 
 1 
 
 . 103 
 
 1 
 
 . 136 
 
 1 
 
 . 100 
 
 1 
 
 . 1,013 
 
 4 
 
 5,257 
 
 30 
 
 The Parliamentary Committee itself con- 
 sisted of only sixteen members, but the 
 Co-ordination Committee recommended the 
 larger number because of the greatly in- 
 creased number of workers represented at 
 Congress. 
 
 The General Council was to be elected by 
 Congress, each Union having the right to
 
 TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF 119 
 
 nominate candidates to represent it in its 
 group on the General Council. Having been 
 elected, the Council was to sub-divide itself 
 into five sub-committees, according to the 
 following plan — 
 
 Group A. 
 Mining 
 Railways . 
 Transport . 
 
 Members on 
 
 Sub-Committee 
 
 representing 
 
 industry. 
 
 . 3 
 . 3 
 . 2 
 
 Total 
 
 number of 
 
 members 
 
 in group. 
 
 8 
 
 Group B. 
 Shipbuilding 
 Engineering 
 Iron and Steel . 
 Building . 
 
 . 1" 
 . 3 
 . 2 
 • 2 
 
 - 
 
 8 
 
 Group C. 
 Cotton 
 
 Other Textiles . 
 Clothing . 
 Leather 
 
 . 2' 
 . 1 
 . 1 
 • 1. 
 
 ■ 
 
 5 
 
 Group D. 
 
 Glass, Pottery, Distri 
 etc. 
 
 Agrieultuvc 
 General Workers 
 
 but ion, 
 
 . 1 
 
 1 - 
 . 4 
 
 G 
 
 Group E. 
 
 Printing . 
 I'ublie Employers 
 Non-manual workers 
 
 . 1 
 
 
 3 
 
 80 
 
 80
 
 120 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 The duties of the General Council are 
 stated as — 
 
 (a) To keep watch over all industrial 
 movements, and to co-ordinate action. 
 
 (b) To promote common action by the 
 Trade Union Movement, not only on 
 wages and hours, but on any question 
 which may arise between Trade Unions 
 and employers, or between Trade Unions 
 and the Government. 
 
 The General Council has power to assist any 
 Union which is attacked on any question of vital 
 principle. 
 
 Propaganda for the purpose of strengthen- 
 ing Trade Union organisation, and the pro- 
 motion of solidarity with the Labour Move- 
 ments of other countries are included in the 
 General Council's duties. 
 
 Officials whose duty it is to specialise in the 
 work of collecting information on all matters 
 concerning the Trade Union Movement are 
 to be appointed by the General Council. 
 
 These proposals were submitted to the 
 Trades Union Congress held at Portsmouth 
 in September, and, with certain modifica-
 
 TOWARDS A GENERAL STAFF 121 
 
 tions, were adopted by 4,858,000 to 1,767,000 
 on a " card " vote. The modifications took 
 the form of adding an additional Group F 
 representing those unions having women 
 members. This new group is entitled to 
 two women to voice its claims on the General 
 Council. The net result of the Congress's 
 debates was, therefore, to approve the plan 
 of the sub-committee, but to give special 
 representation on the new General Council 
 to women. 
 
 There the matter stands. A new central 
 body has been formed endowed with wide 
 functions, but still incapable of exerting 
 executive authority. It is better than the 
 old Parliamentary Committee, not only be- 
 cause it does represent clearly defined indus- 
 trial groups, but because its instructions do 
 recognise the need for a new view-point and 
 a new type of activity. 
 
 Time alone can tell how far this new 
 machinery will work. Much will depend upon 
 the personnel of the Council, and of tliat the 
 best one can say is that the old blood is at 
 least slightly admixed with new. More will 
 depend, however, on the length to which the 
 Council is able to go in reorganising the
 
 122 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 movement as a whole. And here the old 
 traditional desire " to run their own shows " 
 will undoubtedly operate. The Council will 
 run the risk of being a General Staff without 
 an effective army to carry out its wishes — 
 and that danger is only too real. The 
 " forms " of organisation will exist at the top, 
 but below will still exist the same old chaos. 
 To meet this contingency there seems only 
 one expedient — the continued existence of 
 all the unofficial shop stewards' committees, 
 reform movements and the like. Their func- 
 tion will be to stir up the dry bones of the 
 movement, to give it purpose and direction, 
 and to help to force a re-shaping of the move- 
 ment. They are the gadflies whose function 
 it is to sting in the right place and at the right 
 time. An Army of Labour can, and will, be 
 created in Great Britain, but it will require 
 infinite patience and courage in the creating. 
 Maybe events will outstrip the slow progress 
 towards this army, and we shall be faced 
 with a revolutionary situation before we 
 are ready. Should that occur, then of the 
 machinery at hand the best use must be 
 made.
 
 VIII 
 
 EDUCATION AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE 
 
 Against the views to which expression 
 has been given in previous chapters the whole 
 educational practice of Capitalist countries 
 takes its stand. According to the conven- 
 tional theory education is something that 
 cannot be confined within the four walls of 
 a party or a sect; it is free and unbiassed, 
 concerned only with the development of 
 the human mind in the interests of truth; 
 it is " above the battle." On this theory 
 the Class Struggle can find no place in the 
 class-rooms of our Elementary and Secondary 
 Schools or in the lecture halls of our Univer- 
 sities and Colleges. There " Truth " is pur- 
 sued, and, in the rarefied atmosphere that 
 accompanies this pursuit, nothing so sordid 
 as the Class Struggle can exist. 
 
 It is an exceedingly comforting theory 
 
 for those to whom the continuance of the 
 
 present system means so much. Sheltered 
 
 behind it, they take the child at its most 
 
 123
 
 124 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 impressionable period and instil into it — 
 in the name of truth — views and attitudes 
 of mind that are the direct product of the 
 Class Struggle whose existence all " true 
 educationalists " so vigorously deny. Who 
 is there that does not recall how well the 
 interests of the prevailing forms of society 
 were served in his youth, and are served 
 now, by the lessons on geography and history 
 given by teachers who are themselves in 
 the grip of those forms? A child leaves 
 the Elementary Schools to-day completely 
 ignorant of the facts of social life in the 
 different periods of his country's develop- 
 ment, but possessed of an amazing collection 
 of dates of battles and a wide know- 
 ledge of the names of kings and queens. 
 To him Wat Tyler was a rebel who well 
 deserved death ; Henry VIII was a man of 
 amorous inclinations and stout Protestant 
 faith ; Elizabeth was a queen of great per- 
 sonal beauty who by the grace of God 
 defeated Philip of Spain; Charles the First 
 was executed by Cromwell because he tried 
 to extract ship-money from John Hampden 
 — and so on from the days of King Alfred 
 until the accession of George the Fifth. Any
 
 EDUCATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE 125 
 
 serious attempt to teach history as the 
 struggle of various classes to raise their 
 status and to win economic freedom, would 
 be frowned upon by school managers and 
 educational authorities as a departure from 
 the truth. 
 
 Nor does geography fare any better. 
 Take a lad who has just left school and ask 
 him what he conceives geography to be. 
 Probably he will regard you as a lunatic, 
 but if he should answer your query you 
 will receive amazing answers. He will be 
 able to tell you the names of rivers and 
 mountains from China to Peru, he will rattle 
 off the tributaries of the Ouse and the height 
 of the Himalayas, he will be sure of those 
 places on the earth that l^clong to the British 
 Empire— but beyond that, nothing. Geo- 
 graphy has for our Elementary Schools no 
 social or historical significance; it is merely 
 a matter of remembering names of places, 
 as history is of remembering names of kings. 
 
 Throughout the child's course his education 
 is conditioned by the system under which 
 he and his teacher alike exist. And though 
 constantly exerted pressure from Labour 
 may, in time, clear away some of the worst
 
 126 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 abuses of class-controlled education, nothing 
 of a radical nature can be accomplished 
 until the domination of one class ceases. 
 Education and educationalists will get their 
 chance in the schools and Universities when 
 there is no longer any need to train children 
 to take their appointed places in industry, 
 when the object of education is not to fit 
 the youth of a nation for positions within a 
 stereotyped class system. That day is not 
 yet. In the meantime the significance of 
 recent events in Russia merits close attention. 
 The economic revolution in that country 
 was followed immediately by a determined 
 effort to capture the schools. Instead of 
 the curriculum being moulded to suit the 
 needs of Tsarism, it is now moulded to serve 
 the needs of the Soviet form of society. 
 Lenin is using the schools to inculcate the 
 doctrines necessary for the continuance of 
 Socialism, just as under the old regime they 
 would have been used, had they existed, to 
 secure the continuance of the old system. 
 Now " revolutionary " doctrines and methods 
 are above par, then those doctrines and 
 methods were decidedly at a discount. The 
 new system is attempting to redress the
 
 EDUCATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE 127 
 
 balance of the old so that the coming genera- 
 tion of Russians will accept the Soviets as 
 in the past the bulk of them were taught to 
 accept the Tsar. Education in Russia to-day 
 is one form of the Class Struggle. 
 
 The education of the child under the present 
 system, then, is to be regarded as conditioned 
 by that system and formed to secure its 
 continuance. But there still remains the 
 problem of the education of adults. Apart 
 from the ordinary methods of adult education 
 in Great Britain — continuation classes and 
 schools, technical education and so forth — 
 three attempts have been made to reach 
 tlie adult Avorkcr— the Workers' Educational 
 Association, Ruskin College and the Central 
 Labour College. It is not my intention 
 to deal with the history of those three move- 
 ments, or to examine in any detail the results 
 they have achieved. All that need concern 
 us here is the question, " On what assumptions 
 do these movements work, and how do these 
 assumptions square with the fact of the 
 Class Struggle?" 
 
 Ruskin College may be dismissed with very 
 few words. Its main function is to train 
 men to take up positions within the Trade
 
 128 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Union Movement, and within its limits 
 it succeeds. The fact that its headquarters 
 are at Oxford is no accident, for the assump- 
 tion upon which it works is that there exists 
 something called " Culture," which can most 
 easily be acquired on " the banks of the Isis." 
 It aims at giving to the students some of 
 the advantages that are supposed to flow 
 from an Oxford education, and prides itself 
 upon the successes its students obtain in 
 the examination for the Diploma of Political 
 Economy and Science. It makes no pre- 
 tence of training and equipping men for 
 taking part in the struggle of the classes, 
 nor are the fundamental dangers of the 
 pursuit of a " culture " which can only be 
 the culture of a class ever examined. From 
 the point of view of those who regard the 
 Class Struggle as the salient fact of civilisa- 
 tion Ruskin College is neither fowl, fish nor 
 good red herring. It lacks independence, 
 and so long as it remains at Oxford it will 
 be stifled by the Oxford atmosphere. What 
 that atmosphere is only those who have 
 suffered it can say. 
 
 The Workers' Educational Association is 
 a much more ambitious effort. In its origin
 
 EDUCATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE 129 
 
 it is a humanitarian attempt to give to those 
 deprived of opportunities in their youth 
 an education that shall compare favourably 
 with that enjoyed by the more fortunate 
 and wealthy elements in society. It is 
 " non-political and non-partisan," and draws 
 support from all sections. Recognised by 
 the Board of Education, assisted by great 
 captains of industry, by Trade Unions and 
 Co-operative Societies, drawing its lecturers 
 in the main from men and women of Univer- 
 sity education and often of great academic 
 distinction, the W.E.A. seeks to fit the 
 workers for the battle of life by widening their 
 outlook and broadening their minds. OfTici- 
 ally it knows nothing of the Class Struggle, 
 officially it pursues " education, pure and 
 smiple," and in that pursvut calls upon the 
 assistance of the best brains available. 
 Officially, in short, it accepts the " view- 
 point " that education is above the battle. 
 
 Fortunately for the W.E.A. its constitution 
 leaves to the students a great amoiuit of 
 liberty. They can choose the subjects they 
 desire to study, they can suggest the 
 authorities that shall be consulted, they can 
 
 choose their lecturers and generally manage 
 I
 
 130 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 their own affairs. The value of this hberty 
 is that, within the wide expanse of the Asso- 
 ciation, it is possible to get rid of the official 
 view and to secure that the type of education 
 given is more revolutionary than would 
 meet with the approval of the Board of 
 Education, of the Universities or of many of 
 the supporters of the W.E.A. But this result 
 is only obtained by throwing overboard the 
 " non-political and non-partisan " character 
 of the organisation — in other words, by giving 
 up the pretence that education takes no 
 sides. It is, indeed, just in those places 
 where the official view has least hold that the 
 W.E.A. succeeds in securing the support of 
 the working-classes, and thereby in becom- 
 ing an efficient instrument of working-class 
 education. Places like the West Riding 
 of Yorkshire, for instance, have managed 
 to evade most of the regulations designed 
 to keep the W.E.A. in the straight path, 
 and the workers do control their own educa- 
 tion. Elsewhere the story is different and 
 the dead hand of Capitalism is all-powerful. 
 More and more as time passes this struggle 
 w^ill grow keener between the official view, 
 with its desire to preserve good relations
 
 EDUCATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE 131 
 
 with all sorts and conditions of men, with 
 its close connection with the Universities 
 and the Board of Education, and the un- 
 official view, with its insistence on the need 
 for the workers to control their own educa- 
 tion and no longer to be dependent, 
 financially or morally, upon outside forces. 
 The live elements in the W.E.A. are on the 
 side of the latter view. Their success will 
 mean the linking up of the W.E.A. with the 
 Central Labour College, their failure will 
 mean the entire capture of the W.E.A. by 
 those who see in its work the best guarantee 
 against revolution. 
 
 The third experiment in adult working- 
 class education is based upon a belief in the 
 need for the workers to control their own 
 education and in that education's being 
 concerned in the main with the position of the 
 workers within society. The Central Labour 
 College frankly seeks to harness education 
 to the chariot of the Class Struggle; it has 
 no use for " culture " when the culture is the 
 product and child of a " master class " ; it does 
 not aim at fitting men and women for " the 
 battle of life," or for holding responsible 
 positions in Trade Unions— its one desire
 
 132 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 is to equip men and women for the battle 
 of classes and to endow them with a thorough 
 knowledge of working-class economics, work- 
 ing-class philosophy and working-class 
 history. Unlike- the W.E.A., it is distinctly 
 political and partisan. 
 
 Formed as the result of a strike of students 
 at Ruskin College against the " bourgeois " 
 influences of the place and the connection 
 with the University of Oxford, the C.L.C., 
 after a stormy passage, is now financed and 
 controlled by the Unions. It draws, at 
 the moment, its chief support from the South 
 Wales Miners' Federation and the National 
 Union of Railwaymen, and the influence 
 of its students and of its lecturers is most 
 felt among these workers. But there are 
 signs that the sway of the College is extending 
 far beyond these limits, and no one who 
 wishes to understand the forces that are 
 making for a revolution in this country can 
 afford to ignore its work. Its ideal is inde- 
 pendent working-class education free from 
 the control or interference of all Universities, 
 State authorities or philanthropists, its 
 method is to spread a knowledge of Marxian 
 economics and Marxian philosophy by means
 
 EDUCATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE 133 
 
 of tutorial classes in industrial districts and 
 of a course for special students in London. 
 It is polemical in the manner of expressing 
 its views, and it pursues the creation of 
 " a class-conscious proletariat " with deadly 
 earnestness. Those who are not for it are 
 against it, and for " the wobbler " there is 
 short shrift. 
 
 Closely aUied with the C.L.C. is the Plebs 
 League, a propaganda organisation devoted 
 to spreading the gospel of independent 
 education wherever any one can be found 
 to listen, or wherever any one will buy its 
 organ, The Plebs Magazine. The League, 
 like the College, is uncompromising in its 
 hostility to other schemes for educating 
 the workers— schemes that to its members arc 
 but " dodges of the Capitalist class to nobble 
 the proletariat." In season and out of 
 season it carries on its work, and the fruits 
 can be seen in every district in England, 
 Scotland and Wales. 
 
 There can, I believe, ])e no question that 
 the future is with the C.L.C. The very 
 fact that it is built upon the basis of tlie 
 Class Struggle and is concerned solely with 
 fitting tlie workers to wngc that struggle
 
 134 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 and, after the struggle is over, to consolidate 
 the victory, ensures it success. It is marching 
 with the times and not against them; it is 
 in line with events as they unfold themselves 
 in Capitalist countries, and it has seen that 
 the only education that can be of service 
 to the workers is an education that gives 
 to them a grasp of their own position in 
 society and an understanding of their 
 mission. 
 
 That the C.L.C. is open to the charge of 
 narrowness and bigotry, no one will deny, 
 but rightly viewed such a charge is the 
 greatest praise that can be given. Analyse 
 the charge and it will be found to mean that 
 the C.L.C. refuses to turn aside from the 
 business of making the workers realise that 
 " the rich will do everything for the poor 
 except get off their backs." Greater praise 
 no working-class movement could secure. 
 At the same time it would be absurd to 
 overlook the defects of the C.L.C. Its 
 very insistence upon the need for a biassed 
 education tends to give to its lecturers, 
 and through them to its students, a curiously 
 academic view of life. " Teach the workers," 
 they seem to say, " the pure and un defiled
 
 EDUCATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE 135 
 
 gospel of Marxism, make them understand 
 the real meaning of Economic Determinism, 
 and all will be well." But the secret of 
 education surely lies in the power to relate 
 what is learnt in the class-rooms to what 
 happens in the streets. To know Marx 
 backwards and forwards may lead to a man's 
 becoming an active and intelligent force 
 for revolution ; equally it ma}'' produce a 
 prig of the worst possible type, who, faced 
 with a problem of actual life, seeks its solution 
 by an appeal to Das Kapital, as Calvinists 
 appeal to the Bible. Having quoted the 
 necessary phrase, sentence or chapter, our 
 Marxian haughtily leaves the actual problem 
 imsolved and retires in good order. I am 
 sometimes afraid that the present regime at 
 the C.L.C. is more apt to turn out the latter 
 type than the former. 
 
 The need of the workers in education is 
 not only that they should understand tlieir 
 position as workers, but that they sliould 
 know how to apply tliat understanding. 
 Education has its practical Ixarings. Educa- 
 tion has its practical side just as rcxoltitions 
 have their tactical lessons. What the C.L.C. 
 most needs, if it is to become a reallv IVuiirul
 
 136 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 seed-ground for revolutionaries, is that it 
 should give more attention to the creation 
 not only of men who understand, but of men 
 who can act. To learn how to achieve the 
 revolution is as vital as to understand why 
 the revolution must come. The " why " of 
 things the C.L.C. teaches, the " how " it is 
 in danger of forgetting. 
 
 This twofold education of the workers forms 
 one of the most potent weapons for waging the 
 Class Struggle, and only by the C.L.C. has this 
 fact been grasped. That there is room for 
 development the keenest admirers of the Col- 
 lege will readily admit, but the point that is of 
 value here and now, is that the assumptions 
 underlying its work are based not upon the 
 supposed existence of a universal culture, 
 not upon a theory that education is " above 
 the battle," not upon a philanthropic desire 
 to help the workers, but upon a conviction 
 that the need of the workers is to learn the 
 facts of their own history and to secure an 
 understanding of working-class problems 
 from the workers' point of view. Knowledge 
 is power, and the power the C.L.C. seeks is 
 the power to overthrow Capitalism.
 
 IX 
 
 THE APPROACH 
 
 In previous chapters I have dealt with 
 the philosophy that lies behind the advocacy 
 of direct action, and have outlined some of 
 the practical consequences springing from 
 an acceptance of that philosophy. It would 
 be foolish to ignore the fact that neither 
 the philosophy nor the consequences have as 
 yet been realised by the Labour Movement 
 of this country. Here and there will be 
 found groups of workers who consciously 
 strive to awaken their comrades to the full 
 meaning of the Class War, and who seek 
 every opportunity of pressing home the 
 lesson of history. These groups arc few 
 in number, but their effect far outweighs 
 their numerical strength. They are the 
 leaven at work within the Trade Unions. 
 Nor is their success slight. 
 
 Before the European War the idea of 
 using the industrial power of the organised 
 
 137
 
 138 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 working-class to secure objects more funda- 
 mental than increases of wages or shorter 
 hours was regarded as Utopian folly at the 
 best, and treason to the democracy at the 
 worst. Nowadays it is the commonest thing 
 in the world of Labour to find Trade Union 
 branches calling upon their Executives to 
 use the strike to gain objects that in the 
 old days were looked upon as the business 
 of politicians, and that were to be gained 
 only at the polls. Peace or war, private or 
 public ownership of great basic industries, 
 the abolition of profiteering in foodstuffs, 
 the release of political prisoners — all these 
 things are now regarded as legitimate causes 
 for the use of direct action. True, those 
 who pass the resolutions are often not very 
 clear as to why they do so, but this only 
 means that the pressure of events has out- 
 stripped their power to interpret or under- 
 stand them. They realise that some action 
 has got to be taken; they have come to 
 distrust the efficacy of the political weapon, 
 and instinctively fall back upon that refusal 
 to work that has served them well in the 
 past when lesser interests were at stake. The 
 British working-class is becoming direct-
 
 THE APPROACH 139 
 
 aotionist not because it wants to, but because 
 it cannot help itself. Crises arise that call 
 for instant action. Politics is a slow busi- 
 ness ; the strike is swift. Councils of Action 
 arise, and these Councils, by their very 
 existence, create the psychology of action 
 on which the success of direct action de- 
 pends. They know little about the funda- 
 mental facts of the Class War, but they see 
 the Government doing things they do not 
 like — and they want to put an end to it. 
 How ? And the answer comes, " Let's 
 strike." 
 
 Without a philosophy, without a coherent 
 aim, ill co-ordinated and frowned upon by 
 the Constitutionalists, the movement for 
 direct action is growing. Events themselves 
 will compel the workers to co-ordinate their 
 activities, to adopt a philosophy and con- 
 sciously to labour to end wage-slavery. 
 The workers are instinctively turning to 
 direct action, and this instinct will triuiiipli 
 over the old traditions and (;onstitutional 
 ways. 
 
 Immediately after the Armistice, when 
 the miners met to formulate their demands 
 (January 1919), they included as one of the
 
 140 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 four heads of their programme " nationahsa- 
 tion of all mines and minerals." In February 
 they took a ballot on the question of a 
 strike to enforce their demands, and the 
 voting resulted in a majority of five to one 
 in favour of direct action. The effects were 
 immediate, and at once the Prime Minister 
 offered a Coal Commission, to report on 
 wages, hours and nationalisation. The 
 miners took the offer in good faith, waited 
 patiently for the report, found their claims 
 approved by a majority of the Commis- 
 sion, and then realised that the Govern- 
 ment was prepared to repudiate its own 
 Commission. 
 
 At the Trades Union Congress held at 
 Glasgow, September 10, 1919, the miners, 
 in consequence of what they regarded as 
 Government treachery, put forward a reso- 
 lution asking for the co-operation of the 
 Congress " with a view to compelling the 
 Government to adopt the scheme of national 
 ownership and joint control recommended 
 by the majority of the Coal Commission in 
 their Report." The resolution also pro- 
 vided for a Special Congress to be convened, 
 " for the purpose of deciding the form of
 
 THE APPROACH 141 
 
 action to be taken to compel the Government 
 to accept the Majority Report of the Com- 
 mission." The Congress accepted the resolu- 
 tion by a vote of 4,478,000 to 77,000, a 
 majority of more than four millions, and 
 rightly this vote was regarded as a trivmiph 
 for the idea of direct action. The Trades 
 Union Congress was pledged " to compel " 
 the Government, and its only weapon was 
 the strike. 
 
 Immediately a campaign was started in 
 the country to weaken this resolve, and " to 
 bring back the Trade Unionists to the sane 
 paths of Constitutionalism." Practically the 
 whole Press of the country was mobilised 
 for this purpose, and for weeks on end the 
 workers were appealed to in the name of 
 " patriotism " and " democracy." The ap- 
 peals were not without effect, and the results 
 were made manifest in March 1920, when 
 the time came for the Special Congress of 
 the whole movement to meet for its final 
 decision. 
 
 On January 9, 1920, the Executive of the 
 Miners' Federation decided to call a Special 
 Conference of the Federation, to whicii the 
 delegates should come " instructed to say
 
 142 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 whether or not wc should propose at the 
 Special Trades Union Congress a general 
 Trade Union strike in the event of the Govern- 
 ment continuing to refuse to nationalise the 
 mines." 
 
 This Conference took place on March 10, 
 1920, and the vote was as follows— 
 
 For industrial action . 524,000 
 
 For political action . . 346,000. 
 
 The Special Trades Union Congress was 
 held in London on March 11, 1920, and the 
 vote on the form of action to be taken " to 
 compel the Government " resulted in a 
 majority of 2,717,000 for " political " action, 
 and a majority of 2,820,000 against " indus- 
 trial " action. 
 
 For political action . . 3,732,000 
 
 Against .... 1,015,000 
 
 For Trade Union action . 1,050,000 
 Against .... 3,870,000. 
 
 The pendulum had swung back and 
 " sanity " had triumphed. The consequences 
 of this reversal of policy cannot yet be 
 estimated, for even as I write the strike
 
 THE APPROACH 143 
 
 notices of the miners are running out. They 
 demand an incre§,se in wages; they have 
 been driven to ask for this very largely 
 " because the rest of the Labour Movement 
 failed to support them at a crisis." Wages 
 strikes are the inevitable result of continued 
 private ownership. 
 
 There can, I think, be little doubt that 
 before long the demand for direct action 
 to secure the national ownership of the 
 mines will again be raised, and perhaps this 
 time, from motives of self-preservation. Labour 
 will help the miners. If they do not, then 
 the responsibility for a continuance of the 
 vicious circle of wages and prices will rest 
 largely upon the shoulders of those upon 
 whom the effects are more serious. A partial 
 realisation of this is at the back of the much 
 more successful movement for direct action 
 to secure peace with Russia. The workers 
 do not like the idea of Britain interfering 
 in the internal organisation of another 
 country, they distrust the Capitalist in- 
 fluences at work behind th(^ scenes, but 
 equally they believe that Russia is a store- 
 house of grain, and that given peace the 
 cost of living will go down. For a mixture
 
 144 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 of motives they seem to be united for the 
 one purpose of securing pe*ace. It has taken 
 nearly eighteen months for this feehng to 
 be consoHdated, but it has been done. 
 
 At Southport, on April 16, 1919, a con- 
 ference of the Triple Alliance passed a resolu- 
 tion urging the Parliamentary Committee of 
 the Trade Union Congress — 
 
 " to convene, at the earliest possible date, 
 a special National Conference of the Trade 
 Union Movement, so as to enable the affili- 
 ated societies to decide what action, if any, 
 should be taken to compel the Government 
 to comply with any, or all, of the terms of 
 the resolution as passed at the League of 
 Nations Conference, the terms of which are 
 set out as follows — 
 
 " The withdrawal of the Conscription Bill 
 now before Parliament. 
 
 " The withdrawal of all British troops 
 from Russia. 
 
 " The release of all C.O.'s now in prison. 
 
 " The raising of the blockade." 
 
 As a result of this decision, the Govern- 
 ment began to " climb down," and in May
 
 THE APPROACH 145 
 
 Mr. Bonar Law persuaded the Parliamentary 
 Committee that direct action was " un- 
 necessary." In the same month, however, 
 a further poHtical question was brought 
 before the Trade Union Movement by tlic 
 pubUcation in The JDailij Herald of the 
 " Secret Circular " which had been issued 
 by the War Office to Commanding Officers 
 in order to obtain information as to whether 
 troops would " assist in strike-lircaking." 
 The three branches of the Triple Alliance — 
 the Miners' Federation, the National Union 
 of Railwaymen, and the Transport Workers' 
 Federation — each held a Conference in June, 
 and at each protests were raised against the 
 inactivity of the Parliamentary Committee, 
 while the demand that the Army should not 
 be used for strike-breaking was added to 
 the four previous ones. 
 
 At the end of the month the Labour 
 Party, the political expression of the workers, 
 met in full Conference, and carried the 
 following resolution by a majority of almost 
 a million— (1,893,000 to 935,000)— 
 
 " This Conference protests against the 
 continued intervention by the Allies in 
 
 K
 
 146 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Russia, whether by force of arms, by supply 
 of munitions, by financial subsidies, or by 
 commercial blockade. It calls for the 
 immediate cessation of such intervention. 
 
 " It demands the removal of the Censor- 
 ship so that an unbiassed public opinion may 
 be formed upon the issues involved. 
 
 " It denounces the assistance given by 
 the Allies to reactionary bodies in Russia 
 as being a continuation of the war in the 
 interests of financial Capitalism, which aims 
 at the destruction of the Russian Socialist 
 Republic, and as being a denial of the rights 
 of people to self-determination. 
 
 " And it instructs the National Executive 
 to consult the Parliamentary Committee of 
 the Trades Union Congress with a view to 
 effective action being taken to enforce these 
 demands by the unreserved use of their 
 political and industrial power." 
 
 In July, while the Government rapidly 
 completed the release of the conscientious 
 objectors, the Triple AUiance again met, 
 and, by a vote of 217 to 11, censured the 
 inaction of the Parliamentary Committee, 
 and recommended a ballot of their members
 
 THE APPROACH 147 
 
 on the strike question. In less than a week 
 after this decision Mr. Churchill announced 
 that all British troops would be withdrawn 
 from North Russia by the end of the summer, 
 and no further troops sent to any part of 
 Russia. This pledge being accepted, no 
 ballot was taken. But when the Trades 
 Union Congress met, in September, the 
 paragraph in the Annual Report in which 
 the Parliamentary Committee excused its 
 lack of activity was *' referred back " by 
 2,586,000 votes to 1,876,000— in other words, 
 the Committee was censured by a majority 
 of 710,000. 
 
 The months which followed the meeting 
 of the Congress were marked by a steady 
 rise in the determination of the workers to 
 put an end to the war with Russia, and by 
 an equally steady, though secret, determina- 
 tion on the part of the Government— or 
 sections of it — to use every means to destroy 
 the power of the Soviet Government. Matters 
 came to a head in April 1020, when the Polish 
 offensive — long secretly planned, and sup- 
 ported by France and Great Britain — was 
 launched. Vessels laden with guns and 
 aeroplanes were leaving tliis country for
 
 148 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Poland, and though every one knew that 
 aid was being sent so as to secure victory 
 for the PoUsh forces, the stream of questions 
 in the House of Commons was successfully 
 resisted by the Government. On May 6 
 Major Mackenzie Wood asked the Prime 
 Minister whether the Allies, or any one of 
 them, was giving moral or material support 
 to Poland in her attack on Russia. " The 
 answer is in the negative," replied Mr. Bonar 
 Law. On the same day The Daily Herald 
 published the information that the Jolly 
 George, lying in East India Dock, was being 
 loaded with munitions for Warsaw. On 
 May 10 the dockers refused to work any 
 longer on the Jolly George. On May 17 
 Mr. Bonar Law admitted that the British 
 Government had " offered to supply a certain 
 quantity of surplus stores " to Poland, and 
 Sir Robert Home at last contrived to re- 
 member that the Government had issued 
 an export licence for the " munitions of 
 war " intended for transport on the Jolly 
 George. 
 
 Immediately after this episode, the Dock, 
 "Wharf, Riverside and General Workers' 
 Union, meeting in triennial conference at
 
 THE APPROACH 149 
 
 Plymouth, passed by acclamation a resolu- 
 tion congratulating the London members on 
 " refusing to have their labour prostituted 
 for this purpose," so calling upon " the whole 
 of the movement to resist their labour being 
 used to perpetuate these wicivcd ventures," 
 
 Across the Channel at this same moment, 
 Irish railwaymen were refusing to work a 
 train carrying military stores from Kings- 
 town.^ Their action was followed by the 
 
 ^ One of the most effective instances of direct action 
 known to history was provided in the followinjif sprin<^ 
 by Ireland. In April last there were in Mount joy Prison, 
 Dublin, one hundred political prisoners, who, by the 
 Government's own admission, had either been ex- 
 cluded from the ameliorative treatment due to ix)litical 
 prisoners, or else had not been tried at all. These 
 men had been on hun^'er-strike for eif,'ht days, and 
 were nearing death. Dublin Castle had issued, in 
 the previous November, a pidjlie notification that 
 " prisoners who resort to hunger-strikiuL; will not iu 
 any circumstances be released from prison' either 
 unconditionally or conditionally." Announcements 
 were made from the Castle and in the House of 
 Commons that this edict stood unchan<^ed. 
 
 On the eighth day, the Executive of the Irish Trades 
 Union Congress called a general strike throughout the 
 country for the nexi dai/. " You are called upon to 
 act swiftly and suddenly to save one hundred dauntless 
 men," ran the manifesto. The strike took i>laee at less 
 than twenty-four hours' notice, antl even the Ca|)ilalist 
 newspapers could not tleny its comi)leteness. Late 
 on the evening of the second day, the prisoners were 
 released.
 
 150 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 other Irish members of the N.U.R., and the 
 Executive, which had at first recommended 
 its members to refuse to handle munitions 
 for Poland, found itself up against the more 
 difficult problem of Ireland. It became clear 
 that the matter must be treated by the 
 Trade Union Movement as a whole. 
 
 At the instance of the Triple Alliance, the 
 Parliamentary Committee of the Trades 
 Union Congress summoned a Special Con- 
 ference, held at the Central Hall, West- 
 minster on July 13, 1920, to determine the 
 policy of the Trade Unions on the Irish and 
 Russian questions. The following resolu- 
 tion, put forward by the Miners' Federation, 
 was carried by a card vote of 2,760,000 to 
 1,636,000— 
 
 " That this Congress protests against the 
 British military domination of Ireland, and 
 demands the withdrawal of all British troops 
 from that country, and demands the cessa- 
 tion of the production of munitions of war 
 destined to be used against Ireland and 
 Russia, and, in case the Government refuses 
 these demands, we recommend a general 
 down-tools policy, and call upon all the
 
 THE APPROACH 151 
 
 Trade Unions here represented to carry out 
 this policy, each according to its own con- 
 stitution, by taking a ballot of its members 
 or otherwise." / 
 
 Two days before, on July 11, at Glasgow, 
 the Scottish Trades Union Congress passed, 
 with only two dissentient votes, a resolution 
 calling on its affiliated organisations " to 
 refuse to manufacture, handle and transport 
 munitions, or to transport troops, for the 
 purpose of repression in Ireland." 
 
 Meanwhile the Polish offensive had at 
 first been successful, and both the Allied 
 Governments and the League of Nations 
 had refused to intervene for peace. But on 
 July 11, when the Red Army was practically 
 master of the situation, Lord Curzon sud- 
 denly demanded from the Soviet Govern- 
 ment an armistice for Poland on a line 
 chosen by the Allies, a London Conference, 
 *' under the auspices of the Allies," to 
 arrange the peace terms, and an armistice 
 for General Wrangel. For another month 
 the Allies continued to direct and to delay 
 the Polish negotiations, while the French 
 General Staff directed the Polish Army.
 
 152 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 On August 4 Mr. Lloyd George inter- 
 viewed the Russian delegates in London 
 and declared that Great Britain would aid 
 Poland unless the advance of the Red 
 Armies immediately stopped. The next day, 
 Arthur Henderson, as Secretary of the Labour 
 Party, warned all local Labour organisations 
 that there was grave danger of war. On 
 August 9, a Joint Conference of the Trades 
 Union Congress, the Labour Party and the 
 Parliamentary Labour Party was held at 
 the House of Commons, and the following 
 resolution, calling into being the Council of 
 Action, was passed — 
 
 " That this Joint Conference, representing 
 the Trades Union Congress, the Labour Party 
 and the Parliamentary Labour Party, feel 
 certain that war is being engineered between 
 the Allied Powers and Soviet Russia on the 
 issue of Poland, and declares that such a 
 war would be an intolerable crime against 
 humanity; it therefore warns the Government 
 that the whole industrial power of the organised 
 workers will he used to defeat this war. 
 
 " That the Executive Committees of affili- 
 ated organisations throughout the country
 
 THE APPROACH 153 
 
 be summoned to hold themselves ready to 
 proceed immediately to London for a National 
 Conference. 
 
 " That they be advised to instruct their 
 members to ' down tools ' on instructions 
 from that Na-tional Conference. 
 
 " And that a Council of Action be imme- 
 diately constituted to take such steps as 
 may be necessary to carry the above decisions 
 into effect." 
 
 On the same day, the Allied Governments, 
 conferring at Lympne, announced that they 
 were " in complete agreement regarding the 
 action to be taken," including " certain 
 naval measures." 
 
 On August 10 the Council of Action inter- 
 viewed Mr. Lloyd George, who promised a 
 " reassuring " statement in the House of 
 Commons. In effect, however, this statement 
 in the evening was a threat against Russia, 
 and one of the threatened weaj^ons was tlie 
 blockade. 
 
 On August 13 the National Labour Con- 
 ference, summoned by tlie Council of Action, 
 met at the Central ITall, Westminster. Th.re 
 were present 1,0 i I delegates, of whom 089
 
 154 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 represented Trade Unions and 355 repre- 
 sented local Labour Parties and Trades 
 Councils. The following resolution was 
 unanimously carried — 
 
 " The Trade Union and Labour Movement 
 hails with satisfaction the Russian Govern- 
 ment's declaration in favour of the complete 
 independence of Poland as set forth in its 
 peace terms to Poland, and realising the 
 gravity of the international situation, pledges 
 itself to resist any and every form of military 
 and naval intervention against the Soviet 
 Government of Russia. 
 
 " The Council of Action is therefore in- 
 structed to remain in being until it has 
 secured — 
 
 " (1) An absolute guarantee that the armed 
 forces of Great Britain shall not 
 be used in support of Poland, Baron 
 Wrangel, or any other military or 
 naval effort against the Soviet 
 Government. 
 
 " (2) The withdrawal of all British naval 
 forces operating directly or in- 
 directly as a blockading influence 
 against Russia.
 
 THE APPROACH 155 
 
 " (3) The recognition of the Russian Soviet 
 Government and the establishment 
 of unrestricted trading and commer- 
 cial relationships between Great 
 Britain and Russia. 
 
 " The Labour Movement further refuses 
 to be associated with any Alliance between 
 Great Britain and France, or any other 
 country, which commits us to any support 
 of Wrangel, Poland, or the supply of muni- 
 tions or other war material for any form of 
 attack upon Soviet Russia. 
 
 " The Council of Action is authorised to 
 call for any and every form of withdrawal 
 of Labour which circumstances may require 
 to give effect to the foregoing policy, and calls 
 upon every Trade Union official. Executive 
 Committee, Local Council of Action, and the 
 membership in general to act swiftly, loyally 
 and courageously, in order to sweep away 
 secret diplomacy, and to ensure that the foreign 
 policy of Great Britain may be in accord with 
 the well-known desires of the people for an end 
 to war and the interminable threats of war." 
 
 As I write, the Council of Action is still in 
 session. The military situation has changed.
 
 156 DIRECT ACTION 
 
 Russia, for the moment, has received a set- 
 back, and the circumstances calhng for 
 direct action remain. For the first time in 
 the history of the Labour Movement there 
 is a body in existence with power to act. 
 Executives have surrendered their autonomy, 
 they have sunk all petty jealousies for the 
 one end; throughout the country a network 
 of local councils exists, and the cadre of the 
 Soviet form of organisation is in existence. 
 I dare not prophesy, for with the British 
 Labour Movement the " swing of the pendu- 
 lum " may destroy all that has been created. 
 But at least this much has been achieved : 
 on an issue hitherto regarded as political, 
 as outside the sphere of economic action, the 
 whole movement — constitutionalists and revo- 
 lutionaries alike — has come together on the 
 platform of direct action. In the words of 
 that super-constitutionalist, J. H. Thomas, 
 " the basis of the constitution has been 
 attacked," and from that there can be no 
 receding. The battle of direct actionists 
 within the Labour Movement on one issue 
 at least has been won. So it will, in the 
 end, be won on all the other issues. 
 
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