The
National Unemployed Workers' Movement was a
British organisation set up in 1921 by members of the
Communist Party of Great Britain. It aimed to draw attention to the plight of
unemployed workers during the post
World War I slump, the
1926 General Strike and later the
Great Depression, and to fight the
Means Test.
The NUWM became the foremost body responsible for organising the unemployed on a national basis in the
interwar period, these years being characterised by high levels of unemployment. A central element of its activities was a series of
hunger marches to London, organised in 1922, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936.Perry, Matt;
Bread and Work: Social Policy and the Experience of Unemployment, 1918-39 p. 104; Pluto Press, 2000 ISBN 0745314864 The largest of these was the
National Hunger March, 1932, that was followed by days of serious violence across central London with 75 people being badly injured,Hitchner, Dell Gillette;
Civil Liberties in England from 1914 to 1940 p. 144; University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1940 which in turn led directly to the formation of the
National Council for Civil Liberties.
To the dismay of many within the wider labour movement, the
Labour Party and the official trades union bodies offered little support to the legions of unemployed workers during this period. The
Trades Union Congress and the National...
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