1926 general strike.

[bluescouse]

Trotsky thought that this was a revolutionary situation, and with an effective leadership, there could have been a successful revolution. Any thoughts?
By the way, this is my first post, so hello everyone. :)

[Floyce White]

Trotsky certainly had lots of experience with the soviet model of organization, but the wrong kind of experience: as a political boss looking down on lower-class activists who he wanted to manipulate into being his "followers." So let's dismiss Trotsky's opinion and look at the issue for ourselves.

We could compare the 1926 British General Strike to general strikes in Chinese coastal industrial cities at the same time. History has shown that the general-strike model of unions and ad hoc strike committees:

(1) lacks well-rounded organization and only hastily and haphazardly accomplishes broader tasks beyond workplace issues, which is why long-term effort is required to build workers' parties, and

(2) is of a wholly defensive character, which makes it ill-suited for the offensive action of revolt.

The commune form of organization is offensive in nature and is created specifically for the task of revolution--as in the example of the 1927 Shanghai Commune. The commune model is better for this purpose than the general-strike model.

I'll add that the British Labour Party, then and now, is a "labor party" only in the bourgeois sense that labor contractors are interested in the politics of personnel management.

[bluescouse]

I agree with you that the Labour party, is and was, a bourgious organisation. However there were other players on the field, ie the independent labour party (a mass party at the time), and a reletively large communist party.
1) Only one section of the uk working class were defending themselves, the miners, the rest of the working class population took action to support them.
2)The workers had control of, the ports, the railways, fuel supplies, public transport, power supplies, road transport, and even most of the press.
3)Trades councils, and strike commitees, were admittedly, hastily convened, but worked effectively. This is where an effective vanguard party should have worked for a national trades council, to bypass the treacherous TUC leadership.

The strike didn't fizzle out, neither were the workers starved out, in fact support, and enthusiasm, for the strike was still growing, to the extent that even most tnon-unionised workers had also joined the strike.
The strike was called off by a bourgiousified TUC, who were afraid of losing control of the situation.