one of the basic forms of the proletariat’s class struggle. A general strike includes the workers of one, several, or all branches of industry, transport, and municipal economy, on a national or regional scale. More and more often diverse sectors of the population participate in general strikes, including office and professional workers and members of the intelligentsia. The highest form of general strike is the general political strike.
The idea of a general strike was first proposed (as a “sacred month”) as early as 1839 in England, by the Chartist convention, but the Chartists soon repudiated it. In August 1842 a strike began in Lancashire in support of Chartism. It spread to other regions of the country and almost reached the proportions of a general strike. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th—until the end of World War I (1914-18)—there were general strikes in which workers of all sectors of the economy of the country or of most of its regions participated. Examples of such strikes include the general political strike of 1893 in Belgium, the general strike of 1903 in south Russia, the all-Russian political strike of October 1905, the coal miners’ general strike of 1912 in Great Britain, and the general strike of January 1918 in Germany. In the years between the two world wars, the general strike of the French railroad workers in 1920 and the general strike of 1926 in Great Britain were instances in which the workers of some or all segments of industry or transport participated. The Bolsheviks, led by V. I. Lenin, persistently struggled against the Mensheviks in Russia and the opportunistic reformists in the Second International, who repudiated general strikes. The Bolsheviks also struggled against the anarchosyndicalists, who regarded general strikes as the only means by which the working class, organized into trade unions, could supposedly liquidate capitalism and take over the control of the means of production. Speaking of the Revolution of 1905-07 in Russia, Lenin pointed out that it “was the first though certainly not the last great revolution in world history in which the mass political strike played an extraordinarily important part” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 30, p. 311). The Bolsheviks also stressed the importance of the combination of a mass political strike with rebellion during the Revolution of 1905-07 in Russia. “The general political strike,” wrote Lenin in February 1906, “in the present stage of the movement must be regarded not so much an independent means of struggle as an auxiliary to insurrection” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 12, p. 227).
During World War II (1939-45) in European countries occupied by German fascist troops, workers in a number of instances employed general strikes as one of the means of struggle against the invaders, for example, the Athens general strike of 1943 and the general protest strike of 1944 against the occupation of Denmark.
After World War II, as the general crisis of capitalism intensified and the strike movement progressed, general strikes became more frequent, the number of their participants grew, and the strikers’ demands and appeals became more diverse. They called for an end to intervention in Indo-China and to the capitalistic streamlining of production, and they demanded more extensive social rights for workers and opposed attempts to curtail these rights. In the course of these general strikes, workers’ economic demands have been combined more and more with political demands directed against the state monopoly system. General strikes are becoming an important element in the toilers’ struggle for far-reaching socioeconomic reforms. General strikes of various proportions have occurred in Italy, France, Japan, the USA, Great Britain, Belgium, Brazil, Argentina, and other countries. One of the largest strikes in the history of the strike movement was the general strike of 1968 in France.