Реферат: General Strike Of 1926 Essay Research Paper

development was not only the result of the General Strike but, as Phillips

emphasised, also due to the "sectional conflicts which took place in the

early 1920s, which had been in many cases more costly to the firms involved, and

which certainly seemed a likelier mode of resistance to further attack on wages

now".

After the end of the strike the Conservative government emphasised its

industrial neutrality again and continued to refuse any responsibility for

managing the economy. Nevertheless, after the General Strike it responded with a

new Trade Dispute Act which made general strikes illegal, tried to severe the

financial link between trade unions and the Labour Party and made picketing much

more difficult. The government’s intentions was to drive the trade unions back

into their ‘labourist’ line, but because the trade unions lost the General

Strike, among other reasons, exactly because they were too much committed to

this ‘labourist’ line, this policy was highly superfluous and in fact the new

legislation had virtually no effect. The government, therefore, was never able

to capitalise on its victory, but as the history of the strike showed that was

never its intention.

Among historians the most controversial issue concerning the General Strike

is its impact on the development of the Labour movement. For Marxist historians,

such as Martin Jacques and Keith Burgess, the General Strike marked a central

watershed in this development. They emphasised a shift to the right of the whole

Labour movement and a further strengthening of traditional ‘labourist’ forces ,

whereas the left and especially the Communist Party was isolated and lost its

influence. Jacques described this new direction as a general rejection of

militancy and the use of industrial action for political ends, the strict

separation of the political and the industrial spheres, the notion of solving

Labours’ problems within the capitalist system and finally the acceptance of the

common interest between wage-labour and employers. For Burgess, the idea of

class collaboration which was symbolised in the Mond-Turner talks especially