Solidarity (UK)
Solidarity (UK) was a revolutionary syndicalist-style organisation in the United Kingdom which operated during the 1960s and 1970s. Solidarity (UK) was known for their workerism and heavy emphasis on organising workers at their places of work. Unlike the rest of the left, Solidarity (UK) said that only workers could make meaningful communist revolution.
Disagreement with other left-wing forces
Solidarity (UK) harshly criticised "trad-revs" or traditional communists, social democrats, trade unions, Trotskyite parties, the social movements and life-style anarchism for avoiding the central issue of the boss-worker relationship. Solidarity (UK) claimed that the traditional communist parties, social democrats and trade unions had made a devil's deal with the national bourgeoisie--that the traditional parties of the left supported the boss against the worker. Solidarity (UK) claimed that the critical support given by most Trotskists for the Soviet Union (or China, Vietnam, Albania, Yugoslavia, etc.) or for "national liberation struggles" lead by nationalist bourgeoisie in the third world was a betrayal of the working class. Solidarity (UK) additionally claimed that the social movements and life-style anarchists were falling into the same trap of ignoring the working class and supporting nationalist bourgeoisie in the third world, or increasingly engaging in silly cult-like behaviour.
Solidarity (UK)'s criticism of the Soviet style societies was in the tradition of Council Communism and stated that the Bolshevik party was not a workers' party, and seized state power in the interests of a new class of bureaucrats and party functionaries. Solidarity (UK) perceived the October 1917 revolution as being a genuine revolution by the working class, but like the 19th century revolutions, it was high-jacked by a group of revolutionary bourgeoisie and rapidly crushed.
Account of actual lived experience in Solidarity (UK)
Solidarity was initially formed by people leaving Trotskyite traditions, and the traditions of the day dictated that physical violence would be used against "splitters."
- Soldarity was formed by ex-members of the Healyite Socialist Labour League. People leaving the SLL could expect a dose of 'proletarian justice'. Rumour had it that Solidarity members kept a load of incriminating SLL central committee papers which they threatened to publish if needed. Strangely enough nobody in Soly got a pasting from the SLL heavies.
Influenced by changes in French revolutionary pratice, Solidarity published a varied series of works. Controversial views about class structure was always a tension within the group. The mixture of industrial workers and intellectuals proved fruitful in this case.
- Solidarity was heavily influenced by Socialisme ou Barbarie amongst other things. Actually, looking back, the influences were probably more eclectic. Solidarity published many pamphlets, they fell into a number of categories which probably reflect the different influences on and within the group. One effort was to republish the works of Castoriadis into English (under the name Paul Cardan). Some of these were fascinating, most were concerned with his attacks on what he saw as Marxism.
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- It was from this trend that Solidarity's ideas of society being divided into order givers and order takers came, rather than a working and a capitalist class. This was not a view held by everyone and anyway many simply seemed to see the ideas of order givers and order takers as being another way of talking about the working and a capitalist class. Others took it far more seriously and I think that these ideas still linger on in the anarchist movement in the politics of Class War and Andy Anderson et al.
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- A second strand was rediscovering important moments of revolutionary working class history. This saw many excellent pamphlets, including Brinton's Bolsheviks and Workers Control. Without Solidarity's efforts we would all be much less knowledgable in Britain.
- A third effort was in publishing industrial accounts which gave voice to what workers were doing during important periods of struggle, particularly in the late sixties. In the late seventies we tried to continue this in the magazine with a couple of special motor supplements. We were able to do this because some of the original members had an industrial background.
Solidarity was always a small organisation, but influential for its size. While it lacked formal membership, it had a tight informal network, effectively binding together activists in local groups.
- At that time [1972] Solidarity had autonomous groups in a number of British cities and was bringing out more than one paper. ... It was a time of mass industrial struggle and each issue carried fascinating commentaries and analysis of what was going on, combined with what workers were saying. I first went to one of their meetings in 1973, I think. It was in London and they were in the process of having a split.
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- At that time [mid 1970s] membership fluctuated around the 80 to 100 mark. There were groups in London, Aberdeen, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford and probably some other places too. We held conferences every quarter and brought out the magazine Solidarity for Social Revolution at the same interval. Whilst we were never a membership organisation as such, people still had to be known by others and be accepted into membership which depended on agreement with As We See It.
Splits and fusions with other organisations
Like most left wing organisations, Solidarity faced regular fusions with other groups, and regular splits by dissatisfied or dissident members. Unlike other groupings, these splits did not break the organisation, and were not a consciously used to eliminate dissidents.
- The group that were to form World Revolution (subsequently part of the ICC) started off as members of Solidarity. The arguments centred around the Castoriadis views, and as so often happens ideas became polarised. As it turned out Solidarity were probably better off without them.
- As the seventies went on a group of us in the [Socialist Party Great Britain] SPGB became more influenced by Solidarity and eventually were kicked out and formed what became Social Revolution . We were never very big, we had 12 - 15 members, but we began to meet Solidarity more and eventually Brinton suggested that we merge the two organisations. Before we did that we had lengthy discussions which led to a rewrite of As We See It and As We Don't See It (the basic statements).
- The Manchester group were co-operating with the local ICC to produce Wildcat as a free sheet. The ICC members left the ICC before Manchester Solidarity split [from] Solidarity.
- A load of us left in the early 80s and from that split Wildcat eventually emerged. Other ex-Solidarity types started Counter Information. That of course is another tale. In my opinion, Solidarity was one of the most important organisations in post war Britain. Apart from the syndicalists, every group in Britian today owes something to their ideas.
- --from Louis Robertson Recollections of my time in Solidarity
Famous pamphlets
The main activity of Solidarity (UK) was selling workplace newspapers to workers and selling pamphlets. Solidarity (UK)'s most successful pamphlets were often republications of Socialisme ou Barbarie texts. A brief list of the most important pamphlets follows (most of these pamphlets are available online, or through WCML):
- "As we see it." and "As we don't see it." were the programmes of Solidarity (UK)
- ANDERSON, Andy [Ernest T]. Hungary 56 (London: Solidarity, 1964). 48 p., maps
- Workers Councils and the Economics of a self managed Society Solidarity Pamphlet No. 40 (London: Solidarity, 1972). 59 p.
- Brinton, Maurice. The Bolsheviks & workers' control, 1917 to 1921: The State and Counter Revolution (London: Solidarity, 1970).