Description
Book SynopsisWhile other historians have skated over the labour unrest of 1919, focusing instead on the general strike of 1926, Martyn Ives uncovers a remarkable incidence of unofficial mass strikes in the coalfields, waged against mineowners, the government, and trade union leaders. Led by revolutionaries, this mass movement also offered a glimpse of an alternative road to socialism.
Trade Review“This is a very long overdue book. It reveals a period of the most extraordinary militancy by the largest group of organised workers in Britain, a phenomenon which has largely been ignored. In 1919, as a revolutionary wave swept Europe, mass strikes gripped British coalfields waged against the coal owners, the government and the miners’ own national and regional union officials.” –Socialist Review
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction (with Paul Blackledge) PART ONE 1. Political Alternatives in the Labour Movement in 1919 2. The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain: Bureaucratic Reformists, Militant Miners and the Development of the Miners’ Charter 3. Fife and Lanarkshire 4. Nottinghamshire 5. South Wales 6. Selling Sankey PART TWO Introduction: A Background Sketch of the Summer’s Crisis 7. Perspectives on Nationalisation in the Period of Manoeuvre 8. A Second Wave of Unrest 9. Yorkshire 10. The Demise of Direct Action and the Triumph of Electoralism Bibliography Index
