The workers wanted a general strike
The end of the Easter holidays was marked by a spect- right-wing government was clearly running strong.
Even the long Easter holiday had failed to break the acular resumption of mass protests against the wage momentum. A number of picket lines were maintained settlement imposed by the Schlueter government on all over the vacation period, cutting off oil supplies to
Danish workers. On Wednesday, April I0, a huge mass Copenhagen and stopping some transport systems. In rally took place in front of the Danish parliament the Danish capital, where nearly half the country's building, perhaps even larger than the March 29 demowhich was already reckoned to be the largest population is concentrated, the bus drivers worked, but put up signs in their buses saying: "We're driving
Once again the main centers were paralyzed by a de seen in the country since the Second World War. so that people can visit their families and friends
Workers rallied outside union during the Easter holiday and discuss how we can get headquarters demanding that their organizations open Such action by the unions would rid of this government." returned to their jobs, Tuesday, April 9, transport in the population centers was blocked by picket lines and mean direct defiance of the law, since after the parliaand any move by labor leaders to support strike act- ment imposed a settlement all strikes became illegal cipants in the April 10 demonstration who were inter- a number of workplaces went out. Most of the partiivity makes them liable to draconian fines. viewed on BBC-4 radio expressed strong support for
The sentiment for a general strike to force out the a general strike to force the government to resign.
DENMARK. nstration, facto general strike. up the strike funds. Gerry FOLEY
The upsurge of militancy brought an overflow attendance at the Copenhagen area shop stewards' meeting on April 9, Three thousand shop stewards crowded and another thousand "A motion calling for the convening of a national shop stewards' meeting to organize strike would have carried," Soeren Soendergaard, a leader of the Danish section of the Fourth International, told me in a member of the CP and managed to prevent such a motion from reaching the floor.
So the meeting called a national day of revolution. But the way was prepared for it by the steady decline of the CP in the 1950s, in which its betrayal in the 1956 general strike was a factor.
The Communist Party started out in a strong position after the Second World War because of the role it played in the resistance. In the first election after the war, the CP got 12% of the vote and was able to challenge the Social Democrats in the labor movement. This historically weakened the control of the Social Democracy over the labor movement. But after the 1958 split, the CP's vote in the parliamentary elections fell to a low of 0.6%. On the other hand, since the CP
The day people should have was excluded from the parliament, in order to survive as a political force, it had to build a rank-and-file movement in the unions. On the basis of a series of strong strikes at the end of the 1960s, it gave impetus to the development of the shop stewards' organizations. Its influence here has now enabled it once again to defuse a decisive workers struggle at the key moment.
Following the failure of the Copenhagen shop stewards' meeting on April 9 to offer a lead, on Friday April 12, most workers had gone back. Strikes continued mainly where leading activists were fired. In fact, the rightist govern-
Carving up the unions for the benefit of the bosses (DR) action for Wednesday, resulting in another de facto general strike, but offered no perspective for organizing the fight be-
"Only a national shop stewards' meeting could organize a general strike," Soendergaard said, "since the union leaderships and the major workers parties are against it."- With no perspective for continuing the fight, after large numbers of workers had already been on strike for three weeks, about two thirds of the strikers returned to their jobs on Thursday. On that day also the Communist Party began to oppose a general strike openly.
Thus the CP seemed well on the way to liquidating the second general strike movement in postwar Danish history.
It was the Communist Party that defused the general strike of 1956. Two years after that, the CP split and lost its position as a major political force in the country. In the immediate sense, this crisis was the outgrowth of the reaction against the crushing of the Hungarian
International Viewpoint
22 April 1985
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