The TUC explicitly stated, when they called the General Strike, that its aims were to protect the working conditions of the miners only. The TUC leaders, who had been reluctant to call the Strike, continually tried to make the strike as respectable as possible. The General Council were not revolutionaries: they were responsible and moderate men, anxious that the strides made by trade unionists over the previous decades would not be destroyed. They were reluctant to take sympathetic action in the first place and had no wish to see the strike produce bitter and violent confrontation. The strike was simply an industrial dispute and the General Council was keen to make it appear as respectable as possible. They even declined a donation from Russian trade unions of 2 million roubles, the equivalent of £26,000.
It clearly suited the government to present the strikers as potential revolutionaries to win the propaganda war while the Strike was in progress. Through the British Gazette the government accused the strikers of attempting to challenge the British constitution. Strikers were portrayed under a negative light to reduce support on their side. The government wanted to make it obvious that their actions were wring and illegal thus making the strikers feel guilty. On their side, the strikers responded to the government’s accusations through the British worker where they repeatedly removed themselves from any protests made in their regards by saying that the aim of the strike was to merely defend just issues of the miners only.
Although there was much anger with the TUC leaders handling of the strike, there is almost no evidence of revolutionary intent among British workers in the country at large. The TUC had not called for a universal strike and was also cautious in using the term ‘general strike.’ It often preferred talking of a national strike. Hence it tried to pursue ‘moderate’ policies, especially by attempting to minimise the inconvenience to the general public. Another fact that evidences the non existence of revolutionary intent is that the workers were encouraged to spend more time at home rather than in the streets and to participate in sporting events to symbolise the essentially moderate nature of the stoppage.
The leaders of the Strike were to hastily negotiate an end to all industrial action for fear that their original moderate aims might become radicalised by local leaders the longer the action continued. At the beginning they had intended the strike to last a very short period of time as they were optimistic and were quite sure to achieve a quick victory. However, as time passed and the government’s propaganda was showing their actions as revolutionary they began to feel concerned and worried that the chances that violence may flare up thus passing initiative to the revolutionary leaders. Their strike was often compared to the Russian Revolution which did not at all reflect the moderate aims of the British workers.
In the years after the Strike, there was no political manifestation of frustrated revolutionary socialism. The Union movement actually making more moderate. Fewer strikes were called. The Labour Party continued to stress its slow, reformist democratic path to building socialism. In reality, the British working class remained relatively conservative between the two world wars in comparison to their continental brothers. Baldwin's Conservative government was able to pass the Trades Disputes Act in 1927. This act effectively made another attempt at a General Strike illegal and put the Unions firmly back in their place.
