![]() ![]() In Ireland from 1918 to 1922 there were no less than three national general strikes, called for political ends and a host of other smaller strikes, known at the time as ‘Soviets’ which combined political and economic demands. Thus in 1926 when British trade unions called a general strike against wage reductions, they called it off after 9 days in order to avoid fatal confrontation with the government.īut the general strike as a political weapon has proven to be highly effective. As an economic weapon in industrial disputes the general strike has proved cumbersome – a nuclear option- precisely because its implications are so radical.Īn indefinite general strike may or may not usher in the socialist age but if strictly enforced across essential services, it would certainly bring existing society to a helpless halt within a few weeks. ‘The General Strike’, as envisaged like this, the millenarian uprising of the oppressed and the peaceful end of all exploitation, never took place, in Ireland or anywhere else. James Connolly in 1908 thought that the general strike was a good alternative to insurrection. ‘Under a social democratic form of society the administration of affairs will be in the hands of representatives of the various industries of the nation that the workers in the shops and factories will organize themselves into unions, each union comprising all the workers at a given industry that said union will democratically control the workshop life of its own industry … and regulating the routine of labour in that industry in subordination to the needs of society in general … representatives elected from these various departments of industry will meet and form the industrial administration or national government of the country. Within a short time it would have to surrender and the triumphant workers would take over society The workers would refuse to transport the government’s troops or to man its services. Then and thus the new society will spring into existence, ready equipped to perform all the useful functions of its predecessor. ‘On the day that the political and economic forces of Labour finally break with capitalist society and proclaim the Workers’ Republic, these shops and factories so manned by industrial unionists will be taken charge of by the workers there employed, and force and effectiveness be thus given to that proclamation. James Connolly, principle Irish theorist of the general srike. ![]() Larkin’s main lieutenant in the great strike and lockout of 1913 in Dublin, James Connolly was explicit that the general strike would one day not only bring down the existing industrial order but also shape the future, ‘cooperative commonwealth’. The most notable of these was the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, which from the start, under its charismatic leader Jim Larkin, aspired to be One Big Union for all Irish workers. In Ireland, syndicalism was a formative part not only of socialist politics, but much more importantly, in the thinking of the new industrial unions. The new faith, known as syndicalism, also envisaged the unions being the blueprint for a new democratic socialist society. ![]() ![]() The general strike as proposed in the early 20th century, would bring down capitalism and establish the framework for a new socialist society. ![]()
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