THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LABOR PARTY FROM A DRIVING FORCE OF THE WORKING CLASS TO A CENTER-LEFT PARTY

Goncharov Nikolay Alexandrovich

From the beginning of the 20th century the Labour Party, or the Labor Party, was the main force representing the interests of the British proletariat and was feared by the ruling class of the United Kingdom represented by the Conservatives and Liberals. But since the 1920s, the party has gradually shifted its ideological positions from the left flank to the center. This was facilitated by the Labor leadership's desire to consolidate its hold on power, which was an elusive goal given the strong positions of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, which retained its floating influence. A key point in the beginning of Labor's turn to the center-left can be seen as 1926, during the General Strike. During this large-scale event, which some contemporaries perceived as an attempted revolutionary insurrection, and others, mainly the Conservative part of Parliament, as an act of "Soviet interference", Labor found itself at a crossroads - to support the proletariat, consolidating its influence over the labor movement, but being under the threat of state repression, or to withdraw itself, thus tarnishing its image among wage earners, but gaining a foothold in Parliament without fear of being banned. The decision of the Labor Party leaders, particularly in the person of former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, to support the workers in their struggle for better working conditions, led not only to Labor losing its influence among its core constituency and turning to bourgeois circles, but also to a split in the party itself, which prevented it for a long time to come.

Keywords:Labor Party, Labor, labor movement, General Strike, miners.