How Glasgow Fought the State

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SIXTY-FIVE years ago this month Glasgow was in the grip of a general strike.

Although the strike began with the limited economic demand for a cut in the working week, it posed - as general strikes do by their very nature -the question of power in society. - Whilst the strike leaders saw the strike purely in terms of a fight for the 40 hour week, the press treated it as a threat to the whole capitalist order. And for once the press was right.

The strike was a continuation of struggles which had rocked Glasgow throughout the war.

In January 1919 the militancy finally fused into an all-out struggle by the Glasgow labour movement. Spontaneous revolt against slum housing, mass unemployment, long hours, and rock-bottom wages, had been given a revolutionary edge by the struggle for national independence in Ireland (which broke into open war that same month, January 1919) and by the overthrow of capitalism in Russia.

On Saturday January 18 500 delegates attended a meeting jointly organised by the Clyde Workers Committee and other labour organisations. They decided to call a general strike from January 27 for the 40 hour week.

In the following week workplace meetings were held throughout Glasgow. In some places the workers need persuasion to wait until January 27.

On the day all the main factories were shut down. A mass meeting of the strikers in St Andrews Hall passed a motion pledging no return to work until a 40 hour week with no loss of pay had been won.

After the meeting, at least 10,000 workers marched through the city centre to a rally in George Square. As the Glasgow Evening Times reported, "A few enthusiasts, who had a red flag in their possession, hoisted it to the top of the flagpole in front of the Municipal Buildings. The raising of the flag was greeted with loud outbursts of cheering"

The hoisting of the workers' flag over the buildings of the Stan local authorities was more symbolic than perhaps the 'few enthusiasts' realised. The strike was a challenge to the capitalist authorities, which could result either in utter defeat or the overthrow of bourgeois rule. :

Tragically, the strike leaders did not realise this.

Despite that the revolutionary• logic asserted itself. Mass pickets challenged the state's mono-. poly of force The bodies responsible ensuring the implementation of the decisions of the strike's? Joint Committee were the 'district committees, consisting ten members each plus a delegate to the strike's central Information Bureau. Each district committee also had a local speakers' sub-committee of three members, an entertainments sub-committee of three, and a messengers' service of six.

These district committees decided on exemptions from the strike and special permits for transport, organised the marches, stopped the trams... In essence they were soviets embryos of the form of working class democracy which had overthrown and replaced capitalist rule in Russia:

Unlike the strike leaders, the ruling class realised the revolutionary nature of the general strike and used all the weapons at their disposal against it. The methods they adopted demonstrate the impossibility of a peaceful, parliamentary road to The government did hesitate about sending in the army -because they feared that troops used against the strikers might mutiny. But when the strikers defeated the police in streetfighting on January 31, their hesitation ended.

Thousands of troops, fully equipped, poured into the city. Howitzers were positioned in the City Chambers, the cattle market was transformed into a tank depot, machine guns were posted on the top oi hotels and (remembering Daster 1916 in Dublin) the main post office, and armed troops stood sentry outside power stations and patrolled the streets.

New regulations were introduced to legitimate any violence the army might use, and the Cabinet had a whole series of further anti-strike decrees in preparation.

Strike waders were arrested. The press backed up the government's counter-offensive with a campaign of red-baiting..

The strike organisers did not know how to respond. The strike ended officially on February 11; in the days up to then there had been a gradual return to work, and the only alternative to an overall return-to-work decision would have been to leave the most militant workers isolated and prey to victimisation.

The national leadership of the trade unions played a crucial role in the failure of the strike. Instead of campaigning for support, they + had ordered their members to work, and in most cases refused strike pay.

In both its strengths and its weakness the strike contains a wealth of lessons for the labour movement of today. 'The know. ledge we have gained will not be wasted. Be ready!", the Strike Bulletin had told ita readers.

And it is up to the revolutionary socialists of today to draw the lessons from struggles like Glasgow 1919, and thereby ensure that they are not wasted chapters in the history of the fight for workers' power. How to fight SER Where af we stand Te Lebaur socialist Join Fight the for Puty ORGANISER bolas! Socialist Two pamphlets for 45p, including postage, from Soc :ialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lar le,' London N8.

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Socialist Urganiser no.162 January 19 1984 Page 10