Empire and Revolution: A Socialist History of the First World War by Dave Sherry

Author:Dave Sherry [Sherry, Dave]
Language: swe
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909026629
Amazon: 190902662X
Publisher: Bookmarks
Published: 2014-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Sheffield and the struggle against conscription

Lloyd George’s victory over the shop stewards’ movement saw him promoted from Munitions Minister to Secretary of State for War in the National Government. In 1916 he had no qualms about ordering the execution of James Connolly and the other leaders of the Dublin Rising.

It was Lloyd George who imposed conscription to ensure the smooth flow of cannon fodder to the front. He ordered the Battle of the Somme in which over a million were slaughtered and admitted he was playing the role of “the butcher’s boy”. At the end of 1916 he engineered Tory support for a cabinet coup to oust Asquith and make himself prime minister. But while the arrogant Lloyd George wallowed in bloodshed, revulsion to the war grew.

The Sheffield Workers’ Committee was built out of successful unofficial action against conscription. In October 1916 Leonard Hargreaves, a fitter working at the Vickers munitions plant was conscripted despite a government pledge not to draft skilled munitions workers. After the horrors of the Somme, conscription was like a death sentence, yet the leaders of Hargreaves’s union refused to act.

Sheffield shop stewards, led by J T Murphy, an SLP member who worked at Vickers, organised mass meetings to demand that Hargreaves be returned to civilian life. When the authorities refused, the shop stewards moved fast and 12,000 Sheffield engineers walked out on strike. Motorcycle delegations were sent out across the country to win support for the strike. Within three days the action had spread to other centres and the government caved in. As a result shop stewards organisation was established throughout Sheffield and a new scheme was established exempting skilled munitions workers from military service.

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