Campaign begins for meetings on 100 years since British General Strike
Reports from SEP branches in London, Sheffield and Inverness are featured.
Our reporters•
The Centenary of the 1926 British General Strike
Come to a meeting on the General Strike near you!
May 4 marked 100 years since the beginning of the 1926 British General Strike. The strike, defeated after nine days, was a pivotal experience for the working class in Britain and internationally.
The Socialist Equality Party is holding meetings in Sheffield (May 12), Manchester (May 18), Inverness (May 24), London (May 30) and Glasgow (May 31) to discuss the enormous contemporary relevance of the event.
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Read a Marxist analysis of this critical experience
The Socialist Equality Party has produced a new pamphlet which examines the general strike through the Marxist perspective of Leon Trotsky, revealing how the potentially revolutionary struggle of the working class was betrayed by the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour Party, which it was unable to successfully combat because of the disastrous, opportunist policies of Stalin’s Communist International.
By analysing this historic defeat, this pamphlet provides essential lessons for today, emphasising that an independent, internationalist, and revolutionary socialist party must be built to lead the working class against the ongoing crimes of the ruling elite.
“The terrible impact of the betrayal of the general strike cannot be overstated. Trotsky had argued that the very survival of British imperialism now rested not on the right-wing social democrats, but on the supposed lefts, without whom the right wing could not maintain its position in the labour movement.”
“Trotsky saw his political tasks as two-fold: To refute the position that capitalism had entered a prolonged period of stabilisation, with no prospect of a revolutionary development. And to oppose the right-centrist adaptation to social democracy, the trade union apparatuses and the colonial bourgeoisie.”
More from the Socialist Equality Party’s campaign
Socialist Equality Party intervenes at Unite event in Barnsley marking centenary of 1926 General Strike
An SEP stall next to Glass Works Square, where the rally assembled, promoted the party's public meetings this month across the UK.
our correspondents•
Socialist Equality Party (UK) announces public meeting series on 1926 general strike
The events are aimed at arming workers with the lessons of this experience for the political battles they face today: against a right-wing Labour government of austerity and war, and trade union bureaucracies suppressing a struggle against it.
Socialist Equality Party (UK)•
Unite uses Barnsley May Day and 1926 General Strike centenary to proclaim “rebirth of the trade unions”
The final Barnsley rally, with Graham as keynote speaker, represented the very forces responsible for the betrayal of 1984-85 miners’ strike and every betrayal thereafter.
Robert Stevens•
The 1926 General Strike and the fight for Trotskyism today
This speech was delivered by Thomas Scripps, Socialist Equality Party (UK) assistant national secretary, at the 2026 May Day Online Rally, organized by the WSWS and the International Committee of the Fourth International:
“This historic struggle—whose immediate cause was the question of who would decide the fate of Britain’s mining industry: the workers or the capitalists—posed a direct and revolutionary threat to the capitalist state at the heart of the largest empire the world had ever seen...”
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