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Abstract

Working-class politics was dominated for much of the 20th-century by a conflict between the two philosophies of militancy and reformism. The former used confrontation and sometimes violence as a means of achieving a political goal whilst the latter relied on existing government and legal structures to enact change; it is a conflict which arises out of the question, does the system work? I explore this in the context of Britain’s working class in the 1930s as the social and economic crises which define the decade developed and hit those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale the hardest. Militancy was the modus operandi of the Communist Party of Great Britain and its affiliated organisations: the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement used mass demonstrations to represent the jobless, whilst the Jewish People’s Council Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism, although not Communist-led, was greatly influenced by the Party’s antifascist work in the East End of London. Reformism will be looked at through the established Labour Movement which included the Labour Party and its affiliated trades unions in the Trades Union Congress as well as their allies in the Outdoor Movement.
Both of these factions worked tirelessly to win more working-class rights and achieve greater representation through their respective methods. Although neither side can claim complete victory over this decade as both endured serious setbacks and embarrassments, there were success using either method as will be shown in relation to party politics, unemployment and the Means Test, rambling, antifascism, rank-and-file movements, and the East London rent strikes of the late-1930s. One thing, however, is clear. The campaign to improve the lives of the working class through more rights and greater representation was most successful when the Left was united in opposition to the forces which worked to the proletariat’s detriment – be it in the form of the National Government’s policies, the rise of fascism, or exploitation at the hands of ‘slum lords’.

Course: History - BA (Hons) - C1087

Date Deposited: 2020-09-21

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13544.html