In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

STRIKES 219
the government, whose disappointment is expressed by Churchill in
unusually blunt terms: "These people think themselves stronger than the
State. But that is a mistake" (Gilbert, 479). On November 19 the coal
miners' union ends up accepting a settlement which verges on capitulation.
While the miners succeed in keeping the workday to seven and a
half hours, they agree to a wage cut of about 10 percent and give up
demands for a nationally unified tariff treaty (Chronik, 181). But although
the owners have won the battle, they may well have lost the war.
The labor struggle in Great Britain, which has lasted half a year, has
weakened the British coal industry vis-a-vis its competitors on the Continent,
and the experience of the general strike has persuaded even some
of the most conservative politicians that they cannot lend their unconditional
support to the side of capital (Parker, 121-122).
The events in Britain, which are perceived as a test case for the sociopolitical
future, attract international attention. Leon Trotsky, whose
loss of influence and power culminates in his exclusion from the Soviet
Politburo in October (Chronik, 166), interprets the general strike in
Great Britain as the ultimate confirmation of his concept of continuous
revolution and his belief that the Soviet Party should support such developments
wherever they occur. But instead of trying to understand the
failure of the workers and their unions to win this battle, instead of
making an intellectual effort that would probably oblige him to revise
his political and theoretical position, Trotsky yields to the temptation to
blame the outcome of the general strike on his rival Stalin. He criticizes
him for having supported the wrong representatives within the British
Communist movement: "If the general strike proved the rightness of the
Marxist forecast, as opposed to the homemade estimates of the British
reformists, the behavior of the General Council during the general strike
signified the collapse of Stalin's hopes" (Trotsky, 525-526). This is shortsighted:
it reveals how much Trotsky's personal resentment prevails over
his political views; moreover, he omits the obvious key questionnamely,
whether the socioeconomic frame-conditions that gave rise to
the Marxist theory of class struggle can still be taken for granted.
For more than five years, the unemployment rate in Great Britain has
oscillated between a minimum of 11 and a maximum of 16 percent.
Exports of raw materials and of products from literally every industrial
sector have fallen dramatically, especially in comparison to those of the
United States and the major continental nations. Particularly in the coal