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The National Unemployed Workers' Movement, 1921–36

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Ralph Hayburn
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Between the wars, the response of the British Labour Party and Trades Union Congress to the problem of the unemployed was extremely limited. Committed to gradualist philosophies, the leaders of the labour movement were unwilling to attempt genuine socialist remedies in office, and, in opposition, to provide a militant leadership for the protest movement. The National Unemployed Workers' Movement, begun in 1921 and not finally dissolved until after the outbreak of the Second World War, was the only body which attempted to mobilise unemployed discontent. After 1926, the Labour Party Executive and the General Council of the TUC consistently refused to have any contact with this organisation on the grounds that, like the National Minority Movement and the later Rank-and-File Movement, the NUWM was merely a subsidiary of the British Communist Party. This article is an attempt to show that by a process of induction the Labour leaders branded the unemployed movement as a whole on the basis of the known Communist allegiance of a number of its leaders, and to demonstrate that they allowed themselves to become so sidetracked by the issue of whether or not the NUWM was a Communist front that their own efforts on behalf of the unemployed suffered in consequence.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , December 1983 , pp. 279 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1983

References

1 In this and similar areas historians have often accepted the position of the official labour movement without much question. Martin, R., Communism and the British Trade Unions 1924–1933. A Study of the National Minority Movement (Oxford, 1969), p. v,Google Scholar has noted that “The threat posed by the ‘Red Machine’ to the British trade union movement has been a permanent theme in both academic and popular discussion of British labour history. Yet the discussion has been stronger on invective than analysis”. Stevenson, J. and Cook, Ch., The Slump. Society and Politics during the Depression(London, 1977), ch. 9, devote a section to the origins of the NUWM. But even their otherwise excellent book does not deal as fully with the subject as this article attempts to.Google Scholar

2 House of Commons Debates, 15 April 1929.

3 Trade-union membership fell from 5.5 million in 1925 to well under 4.5 million in 1932 and 1933. Cole, G. D. H. and Postgate, R., The Common People, 1746–1946 (London, 1964), pp. 596–97.Google Scholar

4 Report of the 62nd Annual Trades Union Congress, 1930, pp. 287–88.Google Scholar Skideisky, R., Politicians and the Slump. The Labour Government of 1929–1931 (London, 1967), has demonstrated that, even if it had been in a majority, Labour would not have followed a substantially different course from the one it chose, and that the Liberals, therefore, must not be blamed for Labour's failure to introduce radical measures to deal with the problem of unemployment.Google Scholar

5 Report of the 63rd Annual Trades Union Congress, 1931, p. 342; Report of the 64th Annual Trades Union Congress, 1932, p. 268.

6 Labour Party, Report of the 33rd Annual Conference, 1933, p. 30.

7 Report of the 66th Annual Trades Union Congress, 1934, p. 123; Report of the 67th Annual Trades Union Congress, 1935, p. 122.

8 Report of the 67th Annual TUC, pp. 123–24, 128; Social Service Review, published by the National Council of Social Service, 09 1935.

9 Report of the 68th Annual Trades Union Congress, 1936. p. 56; see also Report of the 69st Annual Trades Union Congress, 1937, p. 116.

10 Rochdale Observer, 13 February 1932; Heywood Advertiser, 18 August 1933; Oldham Evening Chronicle, 9 and 25 March 1932.

11 See my article “The Voluntary Occupational Centre Movement, 1932–39”, in: Journal of Contemporary History, VI (1971), No 3, p. 156–71.

12 Report of the 65th Annual Trades Union Congress, 1933, p. 120; Report of the 66th Annual TUC, pp. 125–27. In some districts “a good deal of pressure” was placed on unemployed trade unionists not to join the centres. Mess, H. A., Voluntary Social Services since 1918 (London, 1948), pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

13 For the latter see Labour Party, Report of the 36th Annual Conference, 1936, pp. 296–300.

14 Report of the 33rd Annual Conference, p.221.

15 Report of the 36th Annual Conference, pp. 208, 256.

16 Report of the 61st Annual Trades Union Congress, 1929, p. 171.

17 Labour Party, Report of the 30th Annual Conference, 1930, p. 29. Organisations proscribed included the National Minority Movement and Friends of Soviet Russia.

18 Report of the 63rd Annual TUC, pp. 5–76.

19 Report of the 64th Annual TUC, pp. 298–305; Report of the 65th Annual TUC, pp. 270–74.

20 National Hunger March, 1936, Metropolitan Police Records, Mepol 2, 3091. At the same time, a third group of marchers were also converging on London, a contingent of 140 blind unemployed organised by the National League of the Blind, but this is also usually overlooked. National League of the Blind: March to London, 1936, Home Office Papers 45/16545, Public Record Office.

21 Almost all the men whom the author interviewed in the South-East Lancashire region were former engineers. Mr Edmund Frow, co-editor with M. Katanka of 1868 – Year of the Unions, and until 1971 District Secretary of the engineering union in Manchester, was one of the leaders of the Salford Branch of the NUWM in the 1930's. I am indebted to Mr Frow for many of the suggestions contained in this article, and for making available tome much of the NUWM material on which it is based.

22 Jefferys, J. B., The Story of the Engineers 1800–1945 (London, 1945).Google Scholar

23 Pribićević, B., The Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control (Oxford, 1959), pp. 104–05; see also Martin, Communism and the British Trade Unions, op. cit.Google Scholar

24 Pribićevíc, , The Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control, p. 107.Google Scholar

25 Jefferys, , The Story of the Engineers. op. cit., p. 218.Google Scholar

26 Hannington had been a prominent shop-steward in the later part of the war, and had joined the St Pancras Ex-Servicemen's Organisation in September 1920, soon after losing his job.

27 Cole, and Postgate, . The Common People, op. cit., p. 561.Google Scholar

28 Pelling, H., A History of British Trade Unionism (Harmondsworth, 1963), p. 166.Google Scholar

29 Martin, , Communism and the British Trade Unions, p. 33.Google Scholar

30 Pelling, H., The British Communist Party (London, 1958), p. 64.Google Scholar

31 McCarthy, M., Generation in Revolt (London, 1953), pp. 151–63.Google Scholar

32 Communist Review, December 1931; Report of the National Administrative Council of the NUWM, July 1931, 16 pp. Copies of the NAC reports are held in the University of Hull Library.

33 See for example Communist Review, December 1931 and February 1932; International Press Correspondence, 4 May 1934; Labour Monthly, May 1932.

34 Report of the Sixth National Conference of the NUWM, 1929, 25 pp.; Report of the Seventh National Conference of the NUWM, 1931, 24 pp. Available at the University of Hull Library.

35 How to Fight Unemployment: Report of the Eighth National Conference of the NUWM, 1933, 20 pp.

36 The Fight against Unemployment and Poverty: Report of the Ninth National Conference of the NUWM, 1934, 16 pp.; NAC Report, September 1935, 9 pp.

37 NAC Report, September 1935, 9 pp.

38 Martin, , Communism and the British Trade Unions, p. 53.Google Scholar

39 MacFarlane, L. J., The British Communist Party (London, 1966), p. 126.Google Scholar

40 The Fight against Unemployment and Poverty, op. cit.

41 MacFarlane, , The British Communist Party, op. cit., p. 275.Google Scholar

42 NAC Report, May 1932, 14 pp.

43 NAC Report, September 1932, 19 pp., NAC Report, December 1932, 22 pp.

44 How to Fight Unemployment, op. cit.

45 Interview with Harry McShane, Scottish organiser of the NUWM, at the University of Hull, March 1969. A tape recording of the interview is held by the University Library.

46 See Lewis, J., The Left Book Club. An Historical Record (London, 1970), pp. 107–15;Google Scholar Samuels, S., “The Left Book Club”, in: Journal of Contemporary History, 1 (1966), No 2, pp. 65–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Foot, M., Bevan, Aneurin, I: 1897–1945 (London, 1962), pp. 158–59.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 158.