In England, between 190o and 1910, there was a growing dis satisfaction among the rank and file with political action. Despite the fact that the influence of the Labour Party in the House of Commons secured to a greater degree than ever before the trade union movement freedom of industrial and political action by the Trades Disputes Act of 1906 and the Trade Union Act of 1913, it was felt by the far-sighted among the rank and file that a speeding-up was necessary, and State collectivism as a way out towards industrial democracy was discredited. James Connolly, the Irish Labour leader who was executed after the Easter rising in Ireland in 1916, started a similar organization to that of Daniel De Leon on the Clyde in 1905. In his pamphlet Socialism made Easy, he enunciated the syndicalist principles "that they who rule industrially will rule politically," and that "the functions of Industrial Unionism is to build up an industrial republic inside the shell of the political state, in order that when the industrial republic is fully organized it may crack the shell of the political state and step into its place in the scheme of the universe." Tom Mann, while in France and Australia, to which had been imported ideas of the I.W.W. from America, was powerfully influenced by the same theories, while on the Rand, in South Africa, a small but very influential group of leaders was working out the struc ture, forms and policy of a movement similar in character. In 1910 Tom Mann preached the new faith in all the big industrial centres and rapidly won many followers. Then followed the railway strike of 191' and the great coal strike of 1912. It is quite clear that the National Union of Railwaymen and the Miners' Federation of Great Britain became organized as two of the most powerful unions in consequence of the new thought, not because their leaders had adopted syndicalism in the form taught by De Leon and the French group of thinkers, but because they adapted it in the peculiar British way ; they made it practical and definite; they shaped it in alliance with the political and trade-union struc ture of Britain. They disagreed with the syndicalist view of the State, but they recognized the driving power of the theories that stated "that political power is a reflex of industrial power." The transport workers soon had a similar federation, and after the strikes of 1911 and 1912 and the Irish transport workers' strike of 1913, the Triple Alliance (of railwaymen, transport workers and miners) was formed in 1915.
The alliance was brought to a test in 1921 by the coal dispute. The other sections of the Triple Alliance, the leaders of the rail waymen and transport workers, withdrew from their agreement to take part in the general strike called for on April 15, 1921, because the miners had refused to consider temporary district settlements. On April r, 1921, over one million miners were "locked out" for refusing to accept drastic reductions in wages. Again, so far from accepting any syndicalist notions of power, it is clear that the miners fought then, not for any change in the economic system of capitalism, but for the preservation of a tolerable standard of living. Exactly the same position arose
again on May 3, 1926, when the general strike actually took place, not because of any revolutionary object of overthrowing the State, but in defence of the miners' standard of life.
The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of June 1927 brought out clearly the two points of view : the trade-union view that sympathetic strikes even on a national scale need not neces sarily be syndicalist in aim, but a legitimate weapon in defence of their standard of life ; and the opposite view that whenever a strike inflicts "hardship upon the community," whatever that may mean, it may be declared illegal if it can be adjudged to be political in its object.
The classic controversy between the reformist and the revolu tionary conception of working-class action has again been demon strated by the emergence of Communist propaganda among the trade unions. The "National Minority Movement," after its first conference on Aug. 25, 1924, sent a manifesto to the Trade Union congress in which occurs the following : "For the first time in the history of the congress a definite and organized opposition within the unions faces the existing leadership and raises unreserv edly the banner of revolutionary working-class politics in British trade unionism." The promoters of the movement sought to show that it was the successor of the forces at work in trade unionism to bring about more efficiency, such as the shop stewards' movement, the amalga mation movement and the workshop committees' movement. The trade unions are convinced that this minority movement is dis ruptive, that its purpose is to set the rank and file of the working class movement in bitter opposition to its elected and responsible representatives, that it has no affinity with syndicalism or the pre war revolutionary trade union of the Continental type, that in short it simply represents Communist activity and propaganda within the unions. Its power for mischief is deemed to be great, and, although unimportant in numbers and of little influence, because of this steps have been taken to deal with it.
See also DIRECT ACTION ; SABOTAGE; and GENERAL STRIKE. BIBLIOGRAPHY.—H. Lagardelle, Le socialisme ouvrier 0910 ; G. Sorel, La Decomposition du Marxisme and Reflexions sur la violence (Eng. trans. by T. Hulme) ; J. A. Estey, Revolutionary Syndicalism (1913) ; J. G. Brooke, American Syndicalism (1913); L. Levine, Syndicalism in France (2nd ed., 1914) ; P. F. Brissenden, History of the I.W.W. (2nd ed., 192o). The following general works should also be consulted: M. Beer, History of British Socialism (2 vols.) ; S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism (latest ed., 192o) ; R. W. Postgate, The Bolshevik Theory and Revolution from 1789 to i906 (192o) ; Bertrand Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction (6th ed., 192o) ; and the following works of G. D. H. Cole: The World of Labour (1913), Self GovernMent in Industry (3rd ed., ;918), Intro duction to Trade Unionism (1918), Labour in the Commonwealth (1919) and Guild Socialism Restated (192o). The pamphlets of Daniel De Leon and James Connolly should be read, and The Miners' Next Step, published in 1912 at Tonypandy. (S. H.; J. M. RE.)