National Minority Movement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Minority Movement was a British organisation, linked to the Communist Party of Great Britain which attempted to organise a united front with the existing trade unions. By the time of the NMM's formation in 1924, the Comintern had abandoned strategies based on the prospect of an imminent world revolution in favour of slow, gradual working within bourgeois institutions such as social democratic parties and reformist trade unions. The aim of the National Minority Movement was to convert the revolutionary minority of the working class into a majority. The NMM would organise workers who were dissatisfied with the existing unions but not willing to join the Communist Party, as well as those who were already CP members. In this way the Communists would increase their influence in amongst workers without splitting the existing organisations.
The NMM was affiliated to the Red International of Labour Unions. Its President, from 1924 to 1929, was the veteran trade union activist Tom Mann and its General Secretary, over the same period, was Harry Pollitt. Other prominent figures included Wal Hannington, who later became better-known for his work in organising the unemployed, the engineer J. T. Murphy and coal miner Nat Watkins. The NMM was divided into trade-related sections, the most important of which were the Mining MM, the Metal Workers' MM and the Transport MM.
The adoption of Third Period strategies led the NMM to alter its approach entirely, supporting unofficial strikes and attempting to set itself up as an alternative organisation outside the existing unions rather than a pressure group within those unions.
