British Syndicalism by Bob Holton [Review]

So far as most people are concerned the history of the working class movement is as shrouded in myth and mystery as any ancient civilisation. The histories of whole peoples were wiped out for precisely the same reason that the history of the working class movement in recent times is wiped out: it does not suit the conquerors for it to be known, because traditions keep alive the spirit of revolt. When the archaeologist comes along, his revelations are at first greeted with scepticism as apocryphal, legendary, ‘romantic.’ Then after years of patient work – and when it is too late for the traditions to influence revolt – the jigsaw puzzle is added in. 

Bob Holton is something of an archaeologist of social history whose research in the British working class movement has come up – not with the bowdlerised Marxist history which provides an academically recognisable alternative interpretation to orthodox economic history – but with the facts about the working class movement in the first fourteen years of the century, when it was clearly moving to syndicalism. This syndicalism (as Ramsey Macdonald recognised in his theoretical analysis from the point of view of social democracy) was a clear cut challenge to State socialism. 

It was in fact a work of genius of the Communist Party to have diverted it, in a short period (1921 to 1931) to an acceptance of authoritarianism and dictatorship and political leadership. This was totally alien to the British working class (as to most others). They managed to evade the issue during the thirties, when the hatred of fascism and the real belief it was coming here helped the Communist Party to smash the libertarian ideas and aspirations of the working class. It did the fascist’s job for them and they became redundant to the capitalist class. 

I am no researcher, and in ‘The Anarchists in London 1935/55’ I based myself on recollections and anecdotes: in the postscript I made a reference to the Scottish and Welsh comrades I knew, and gave a sketch of the pre-World War I and after movement in those countries – briefly, because I confined myself to facts I knew from old comrades. Bob Holton goes deeper into the matter from research. Those who think my account was exaggerated and a mere ‘hankering for the glorious past’ will find themselves refuted in his account of British Syndicalism, in retrospect the golden age of the British working class movement, when it knew what it was fighting for, knew how to get it, and (but for the war) was on the high way to get it. It built a movement as great as any revolutionary organisation in the world, and even the Great War (with its demagogy, and even the internal deportation of strikers on par with the deportation of Irishmen today) did not deter it. The shop steward’s movement is a legacy of the days when the syndicalist movement tried to form a horizontal organisation on the forms of council communism and industrial unionism, because of the collapse of the vertical one which became a bureaucratic department of the State. 

The anarcho-syndicalist beginnings and influence are traced by Bob Holton. The whole syndicalist movement was wider than the labour organisations created by the anarchists. The militant figures in the labour movement were not only those taking a revolutionary line and disagreeing entirely with State socialism. There was a more ‘ecumenical spirit about; many ‘crossed the lines’ (some, like Tom Mann, saw nothing incompatible with belonging to the trade union movement, the ILP, supporting the Labour Party – and later the CP – yet being a syndicalist). The wider syndicalist movement is the one described in this book. It included those recognising how the industrial free society would be won, and accepting the libertarian criticism of the State, but not necessarily belonging to the anarchist groups of the time which were narrower in their scope? They might call themselves anarchists, or anarcho-syndicalists, or, in some cases, have accepted both parliamentary action and direct action and not regarded socialism and anarchism as incompatible (as was possible, at least in theory, before State socialism conquered). 

But it was a working class movement. When the Left politicians, and the middle class (it was originally the middle-aged middle class, before the era of ‘the student revolt’), took over, first of all the workers were divorced from anarchism – and then socialism itself became an alien creed as it was defined by the politicians. Anarchism was thought of wistfully by the older generation, and was unknown to the younger generation (which is now, of course, very much the older generation and has even in turn died out). 

This book is one of the most exciting accounts of British syndicalism I have read. It is an indication of the broadening of the scope of Pluto Press that it should have published it. Pluto Press is looking into workers’ history and coming up (for International Socialists, for whom it was once the publishers) with some fascinating titles which could have come from an anarchist publisher. Taking an unbiased look at Britain – no less than Italy and Spain – is bound to do this. 

British Syndicalism 1900-1914. 
Bob Holton, Pluto Press £2.95 p/b; £6.00 h/b. 

From Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review 2, 1977