ABSTRACT
Syndicalist ideas had been circulating there since 1902, when British followers of the American socialist, Daniel De Leon, broke away from the Marxist Social Democratic Federation to establish their own newspaper, the Socialist, and one year later, their own political organization, the Socialist Labour Party. One aspect of the syndicalist programme met with his sincere approval. Tillett had no doubts that unions should federate and eventually amalgamate into one giant organization – though his subsequent conduct suggests that he hoped ‘one big union’ would frighten the employers into granting concessions, and would never have to call a strike. From Tillett’s point of view, then, he was only being realistic in opposing a general strike in 1913. At the same time, however, he was indicating, perhaps unwittingly, how little he really cared for syndicalist doctrine which, after all, envisioned the general strike as the probable trigger of a working-class revolution.
