2019 is the centenary of the year in which British workers had probably their greatest opportunity to make a revolution.
Inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, British workers struck more than ever before, servicemen and police mutinied, and Labour took big strides electorally. But communists in Britain had still not formed a united party, Labour’s representation in Parliament was unfairly small and politically rubbish, and the trade unions were still dominated by bureaucrats.
There were similar workers’ mobilisations around Europe, rebellions in the British and other empires’ colonies, and soviet republics declared in Bavaria, Hungary, Alsace and elsewhere — all in the end defeated, but only in the end. The centenary is a huge opportunity to get people to imagine workers’ revolution as possible, and to expose the consequences of settling for less — and to persuade people of the missing link: a organisation of revolutionaries. Many articles about these events can be found on this website here.
We will have a pamphlet out in January, which will raise money for our fundraising appeal as well as serve education and recruitment. What you can do:
• follow the Twitter account @otd1919, and encourage others to. This will send out tweets marking events, day to day, as they took place through the year and giving web links.
• Watch out for the pamphlet and plan sales
• Consider a local event or meeting on the subject of 1919
• Find relevant videos, cultural events, or similar.
