“In short, there was from the collapse of Owenism and Chartism in the eighteen-thirties and -forties right down to 1900 practically no sign that the British Trade Unions ever thought of themselves otherwise than as organizations to secure an ever-improving standard of life by means of an ever-increasing control of the conditions under which they worked. They neither desired nor sought any participation in the management of the technical processes of industry (except in so far as these might affect the conditions of their employment or the selection of persons to be employed), whilst it never occurred to a Trade Union to claim any power over, or responsibility for, buying the raw materials or marketing the product.”—(History of Trade Unionism (1920), p. 653.)
The New Syndicalist Revolutionary Ferment of 1905
Between 1905 and 1910 new socialistic beliefs of a Syndicalist character began to be absorbed by sections of Trade Unionists, especially the miners and the engineers, who soon exhibited a spirit of revolt not only against the capitalistic system, but more especially against the limited aims of contemporary Trade Unionism. There commenced, and up to the beginning of the war, continued a definite struggle in the Labour movement between the constitutional Trade Unionists who held tight to their ideals of State Socialism, and the revolutionary industrial Unionists, led by James Connolly, and Tom Mann, who preached their doctrine of Syndicalism, advocating first the abolition of craft Unionism—the system under which all workmen of a particular craft, for example, engineers, are enrolled in their own craft Unions irrespective of the industries in which they work—and its replacement by industrial Unionism, that is to say, the enrolment in one Trade Union representing each industry of all men engaged in that industry irrespective of their particular craft or occupations, such as to a limited extent prevails in the railway, mining and transport industries; secondly, the appropriation of the means of production in each industry by the manual workers who would produce the output, charge the price and conduct the industry. Connolly, who was afterwards executed for complicity in the Irish Rebellion of 1916, came from the United States of America in 1905, and persuaded the Socialist Labour Party of Glasgow to link up forces with the American Industrial Workers of the World. Mann, who was recently the Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, brought the seeds of revolutionary Syndicalism from Paris and sowed them personally by means of a widespread campaign.
Without any doubt, the Socialist Labour Party, an organization not, however, affiliated to the Labour Party, has contributed more than any other agency to the spread of Syndicalism in England. It describes itself as “a revolutionary political organization seeking to build up a communist movement in this country.” It works “to sweep away the mass of debris which was once known as the parliament institutions,” Those who want to appreciate its activities in these directions ought to follow them in Dr. Miliukov’s Bolshevism—An International Danger, and I can personally vouch for and add to his testimony. The Socialist Labour Party was indubitably the power behind the revolutionary propaganda before the war among the miners and the railwaymen, and to some extent among the dockers, and it was responsible for many of the numerous “irritation strikes” in 1911-14 and for the Clyde strikes in 1916. Its disloyal action during the war, through the medium of the workers’ committees and shop steward organizations, is later described. The S.L.P. and the I.W.W. were the original founders of the “Hands Off Russia Committee.” Such has been the revolutionary ferment leavening English and Scottish Labour since 1905—to it we largely owe our present recurrent outbursts of industrial insurrectionism.
The Socialist Societies
There are, as previously explained, certain Socialist Societies definitely affiliated to the Labour Party; others are unofficially recognized, and there are yet others not recognized, either officially or unofficially, which comprise numerous persons who through their Trade Union or local organizations, or individually, are members of the Labour Party. These advocate brands of Socialism ranging from State Socialism to revolutionary Syndicalism.
The Social Democratic Federation
The Democratic Federation, founded in 1881 by the late Mr. H. M. Hyndman, mainly as a federation of Radical clubs, with a veiled socialistic programme embracing land nationalization, was the first attempt at a political Socialist organization. In 1889 it became the Social Democratic Federation, avowedly socialistic. Late in 1884 it split into the Socialist League, under Mr. William Morris, pledged to a revolutionary, anti-parliamentary programme; and the Social Democratic Federation, led by Mr. Hyndman. But, captured by anarchists, the Socialist League broke up, many of its leaders rejoining the Social Democratic Federation. The Federation was affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee on the formation of the latter in 1900, but soon withdrew, and in 1908 called itself the Social Democratic Party. It amalgamated in 1911 with a number of local Socialist bodies and changed its name to the British Socialist Party. In 1916 it was affiliated with the Labour Party. Later, in 1916, it declared against the war and pursued a disloyal policy. This attitude, mainly exhibited through its weekly newspaper, the Call, led to considerable secessions from the British Socialist Party, and to the foundation by the late Mr. H. M. Hyndman of the National Socialist Party with its weekly newspaper, Justice, which, while advocating the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth on a democratic basis, actively supported the war. On July 31, 1920, the British Socialist Party merged its identity in the Communist Party, pledged to establish Sovietism and the dictatorship of the proletariate.