On the morning of Tuesday 15 September, 1931, the Cromarty Firth rang to cheers from the Royal Navy ships lying off Invergordon. This was the sound of thousands of sailors coming out on strike - the Invergordon Mutiny had begun. It's called a mutiny, but it's more accurate to call it an industrial dispute carried out by servicemen.
In 1931, the Great Depression was two years old and had eight yet to run. Britain's new National Government was making massive austerity-driven cuts to public sector pay. Some of the worst hit of all were the older ratings of the Royal Navy. They faced a 25% pay cut at a time when they barely earned more than men on the dole.
The cuts spelled ruin for them and their families. They had only one weapon - to strike - but that would be called mutiny, and mutiny could mean death. But with no alternative, they went ahead. Planning their action in canteen meetings ashore, the men decided to strike. When four ships were set to sail, HMS Valiant, the first due to depart, her men assembled on her fo'c's'le and they cheered and they cheered and the other striking ships answered back. Although it's not known how many sailors were actively involved, it was enough: the strike was on. As the mutiny stretched into its second day, it struck utter existential fear into the British establishment. The Admiralty finally came up with a face saving solution. They ordered the ships to sail for home ports down south, promising to help hardship cases, but even though it ended the strike, it did nothing to damp down the terror which had seized the government - and crucially the security services. They were convinced that communist agitators lay behind the mutiny and that they were plotting to strike again. Naval intelligence sent agents to the ports, some posing as radical sailors, looking for agitator. The Communist Party, shocked that they'd missed the mutiny, sent its men to the Portsmouth bars also hunting for radical sailors. They soon bumbled into each other. The secret agents sprang a trap on the Communists and charged them with incitement to mutiny. The efforts of the Communist Party to recruit serving sailors in the naval ports in the 1930s produced very little effect.
Twenty four so-called ringleaders of the strike were unceremoniously kicked out of the Navy. A further 93 men were groundlessly discharged. Some of these men, previously no radicals, were now destitute and turned to the Communist Party. One, Able Seaman Len Wincott, went to Russia as a hero of the mutiny (although he would later spend 11 years in a Stalinist Labour camp), but no communism lay behind the mutiny.
But also see
http://libcom.org/files/invergordon-mutiny-liz-willis.pdf
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