Reform, Revolution and Direct Action amongst British Miners
The Struggle for the Charter in 1919
While other historians have skated over the labor 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 mine-owners, the government, and trade union leaders. Led by revolutionaries, this mass movement also offered a glimpse of an alternative road to socialism.
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“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