Ebook: Reform, revolution and direct action amongst British miners: the struggle for the Charter in 1919

Introduction / with Paul Blackledge -- Part One -- Political alternatives in the labour movement in 1919 -- The Miners' Federation of Great Britain : bureaucratic reformists, militant miners and the development of the Miners' Charter -- Fife and Lanarkshire -- Nottinghamshire -- South Wales -- Selling Sankey -- Part Two -- Introduction: A background sketch of the summer's crisis -- Perspectives on nationalisation in the period of manoeuvre -- A second wave of unrest -- Yorkshire -- The demise of direct action and the triumph of electoralism.;"In Reform, Revolution and Direct Action amongst British Miners, Martyn Ives offers a new perspective on one of the most volatile periods in labour history. His research into the astonishing coalfield militancy of 1919 reveals it was a watershed year on a par with 1926. Indeed the General Strike was in many ways merely its dim echo. Whilst historians have skated over the labour unrest of 1919, Martyn Ives uncovers a remarkable incidence of unofficial mass strikes in the coalfields, waged against mine-owners, government and trade union leaders alike. Led by revolutionaries, and infused with political radicalism, this mass movement offered a glimpse of an alternative road to socialism, based upon the organised industrial power of the working class"--Résumé de l'éditeur.