The Soviet Union and the British General Strike of 1926 Alastair Kocho-Williams University of the West of England, Bristol alastair.kocho-williams@uwe.ac.uk This paper addresses the Soviet analysis and response to the British General Strike of 1926 in the light of newly available documents. The recently discovered and published stenograms of Politburo meetings provide new information concerning Soviet politics and the political process. Previously, scholars have had only Soviet official documents and protocols of Politburo meetings, which only detail participants with a brief summary of decisions (vypuski) along with who received these summaries. 1 From the protocols, and other sources, scholars were aware that verbatim stenograms existed, some of which were published and distributed to Central Committee members and other party leaders with instructions for them to be returned after they had been read. 2 Amongst the ‘lost Politburo stenograms’ is the record of a lengthy, heated, discussion of the ‘lessons of the British General Strike’ on 3 June 1926. 3 It is this that the current paper is chiefly concerned with, detailing the Soviet stance towards the General Strike, inconsistency in the Soviet analysis, the extent to which Soviet internal politics was linked to foreign policy, how as senior figures disagreed factions developed around divisions in policy, and the way in which the handling of the international situation formed a strand of the opposition to Stalin and the Politburo majority in 1926. 4 The British General Strike ran from 4-12 May 1926. Although it drew British industry to a halt, and hadn’t been planned much in advance, there had been ample warning of a coming labour dispute, of which the British and Soviet Governments were well aware, although the Soviets had concluded that major action was unlikely and were taken by surprise when the strike was launched. 5 On 1 May miners across 1 I am grateful to Paul Gregory and Alexander Vatlin for their assistance in the writing of this paper. ? Kiril Anderson et al. (eds), Stenogrammy zasedanii Politburo TsK RKP(B)-VKP(B) 1923-1938 gg. (3 vols Moscow 2007), vol. 1, p. 19. 2 Ibid. p. 27. Some enclosures from the appendix of the discussion of the General Strike were not circulated to as wide an audience. 3 Politburo Protocol no. 30, 3 June 1926, reproduced in Adibekov et al. (eds), Politbiuro TsK RKP(B)- VKP(B) povestki dnya zasedanii 1919-1952 Katalog (3 vols Moscow, 2000-2001), vol. 1, p. 464. 4 Paul Gregory, “Watching Stalin Win,” Hoover Digest, 2007, no. 4, http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/10653636.html on 13 August 2008. 5 Gabriel Gorodetsky, “The Formulation of Soviet Foreign Policy – Ideology and Realpolitik”, in Gorodetsky (ed), Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-199: A Retrospective, (London, 1994). pp. 37-9.