ABSTRACT
The Party Centre were still sanguine that a national militant upsurge would occur by virtue of a national wages movement. Engineering provides further evidence, first of Party activists’ general expectation of an imminent militant upsurge in the form of a national wages movement and second of their adherence to union loyalism at the expense of rank-and-filism when ‘reformist’ leaders reached compromise settlements. Rather than risk an all-out confrontation with the Labour and trade union leadership, Harry Pollitt and Johnny Campbell bided their time full of confidence that the national militant upsurge would eventually appear. By 19 May the troubled London bus strike was the only remnant of the expected national militant upsurge. Despite the traumatic conclusion for activists involved in the strikes and the disappointment of everyone who had expected a national militant upsurge, there is no evidence that either King Street or members engaged in daily ‘economic struggle’ were depressed or beset by doubts about the future.
