Comments on: The miners and democracy

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 20:55:19 +0000

“As noted, the membership had much too little to do with it.” C’mon. Just who do you think turned out for the mass picket lines in Yorkshire when the pits in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire kept working? Even in Yorkshire, some pits were back working in the winter of 1984/5 before the strike was finally called off. IMO the mining strike was almost certainly a play in the Cold War and intended to bring down the Thatcher government at a time when the personal alliance between Reagan and Thatcher was tightening the squeeze on the Soviets by deploying US cruise missiles in Britain. Much circumstantial evidence points to this assessment, as I hinted above. The mining strike in the winter of 1973 had brought on the February 1974 election and a change of government so the Soviets hoped for a replay of that scenario leading to the return of a Labour government. By the early 1980s, the Labour Party in opposition was deeply committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament with several cabinet ministers in Blair’s government now, including Blair himself, much engaged in that campaign. It’s arguable that one motive for Blair’s unstinting support for the Bush administration’s gambit in Iraq was to repair the credibility of Labour governments in Britain with American administrations.

By: Doug Muir

Doug Muir — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 15:21:34 +0000

“Not altogether their fault. The government picked the time of the confrontation.” The announcement of the closure of Corton Wood Colliery was provocative, of course, Proximate, ultimate, camel, straw. You might want to review the chronology of McGregor’s actions in the 60 days or so following his appointment to run the Coal Board(December ‘83 IMS). the NUM’s membership might and should have given more thought as to whether the market conditions were opportune for the strike As noted, the membership had much too little to do with it. Doug M.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 00:08:52 +0000

“Not altogether their fault. The government picked the time of the confrontation.” The announcement of the closure of Corton Wood Colliery was provocative, of course, but from their own perspectives, the NUM’s membership might and should have given more thought as to whether the market conditions were opportune for the strike to achieve both its ostensible and undeclared objectives. As it was, for many detached or distant observers, the whole thing looked like an exercise in futility, albeit an exercise that brought huge hardships to strike afflicted mining communities then and later. I mentioned the outcome of the 1987 election not out of triumphalism but to show that the impact of the strike on national political sentiment was minimal, which only underlines the ultimate futility of the strike. Arguably, the consequences of the damage to the political credibility of the NUM and the strikers have been longer lasting than the social pain of the hardships inflicted by the strike. The instructive insight now is that many on the self-proclaimed left evidently haven’t yet learned the lessons. In retrospect, the strike is still seen as a high-point in the class battle against “Thatcherism”, without explaining quite what that is in terms of policy specifics, and without acknowledging the implications of the fact that other trade unions backed off from supporting the NUM at the crucial moment. Yet another insight into downstream consequences comes from election results in mining areas lately: candidates standing for Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party regularly come at or near the bottom of the poll. BNP candidates, if any, tend to attract more votes. One of the reasons I don’t find that surprising comes from this entry from George Orwell’s diary entry on 16 March 1936 when he was researching for the book that became: The Road to Wigan Pier (1937): “Last night to hear Mosley speak at the Public Hall, which is in structure a theatre. It was quite full – about 700 people I should say. About 100 Blackshirts on duty, with two or three exceptions weedy looking specimens, and girls selling Action etc. Mosley spoke for an hour and a half and to my dismay seemed to have the meeting mainly with him. He was booed at the start but loudly clapped at the end. Several men who tried to interject with questions were thrown out . . . one with quite unnecessary violence. . . . M. is a very good speaker. His speech was the usual clap-trap – Empire free trade, down with the Jew and the foreigner, higher wages and shorter hours all round etc. After the preliminary booing the (mainly) working class audience was easily bamboozled by M speaking as it were from a Socialist angle, condemning the treachery of successive governments towards the workers. The blame for everything was put upon mysterious international gangs of Jews who were said to be financing, among other things the British Labour Party and the Soviet. . . . M. kept extolling Italy and Germany but when questioned about concentration camps etc always replied ‘We have no foreign models; what happens in Germany need not happen here.’” [George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Vol. 1 An Age Like This 1920-1940; Penguin Books, p.230] It was not accidental that the proper name of the nazis was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Nor was it accidental that Stalin had no insuperable ideological objections to the Soviet Union signing up to a Friendship Treaty with Nazi Germany on 28 September 1939 when Britain and France were already at war [Norman Davies: Europe (1996), p.1001].

By: Doug Muir

Doug Muir — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 19:05:20 +0000

That was the inherited position in Britain in the early 1980s and there was little that could change about that in the short or even the medium term. Er… that was my point. If the intent of the strikers was a knock down fight with the government, the timing of the start of the strike – in the spring and with record stocks of coal above ground – could hardly have been worse. Not altogether their fault. The government picked the time of the confrontation. And it’s hard to see how any NUM leader, never mind Scargill, could have stretched out negotiations for six months. There were indications at the time that the NUM hoped and expected other trade unions would follow the NUM’s lead and commit to industial action Indications? Hell, they came right out and said so, repeatedly. Although they turned weirdly timid when it came to /formally/ asking for help. Not lining up allies in advance was yet another gross tactical blunder, of course. Add it to the list. At the next election in 1987, the government was returned with a comfortable majority. Not relevant, unless you’re just feeling like getting a quick gloat in. The ‘87 win probably had very little to do with the strike per se. Indeed, the strike probably cost the government more votes than it gained. Insofar as it did help the government, it was indirect (frex, by exacerbating the pre-existing painful divisions within Labour). I remember the 1987 election well—the poster with the soldier with his hands over his head, and all the rest of it. Fascinating, but outside the scope of this thread. Anyhow, the political effects of the strike, good and bad, were actually deeper and more lasting than one election. The mining strike of 1984/5 broadly followed the strategy Ridley outlined. I was wondering if someone would bring up the Ridley Plan. If anyone is interested, there’s a Usenet newsgroup that deals with alternate history—soc.history.what-if. It’s infested by three or four remarkably tenacious trolls, but still manages to produce a surprising lot of high quality threads. We had a discussion of the miner’s strike a few months ago; go to groups.google.com and search for “Ridley Plan” and the thread should pop right up. Doug M.

By: Doug Muir

Doug Muir — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 18:52:03 +0000

supposed to convey the impression to readers of this thread that I think Lenin was an all-round wonderful human being. Those two threads (greatest Marxist, greatest figures of the 20th century) included quite a lot of discussion of whether we were talking about “great” in the “hugely influential” sense, or “great” including the implication of “good, positive, beneficial.” ISTR you came down pretty clearly in favor of the latter, but you never did say why—at least not WRT to Lenin. (Trotsky, yes.) It’s in the archives here, if anyone wants to look. Not to yank your chain. (Well, okay, maybe a little.) But I do think democratic centralism has been a lingering curse. Perhaps it was an obvious bad idea, but Lenin’s triumph made it a very attractive one. IMO this helped grease the skids on the slide to tyranny for many, if not most, revolutionary movements of the left. Happy? Delighted to the point of tingling. But that’s just because the baby has finally gone to sleep, actually. Doug M.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 14:21:55 +0000

Doug: “Britain in 1984 was hooked on coal” That was the inherited position in Britain in the early 1980s and there was little that could change about that in the short or even the medium term. Given sufficient time there was a running government policy option to direct the nationalised electricity industry to invest in other means for generation instead of coal-fired power stations. At that time, the principal identified alternative was nuclear power, a route chosen in France, where c. 70% of electricity then (and since) came from nuclear power in consequence of policy decisions largely made decades before during De Gaulle’s presidency (1959-69), I believe. In Britain, it could take up to a decade to build a nuclear power station as construction tended to be inflicted with its own variety of industrial relations problems. The Conservatives in Britain had foreseen the possibility of a coming show-down with the NUM before their election to government in May 1979. As I recall, The Economist ran a piece in the autumn that year reporting a political assessment by the late Nicholas Ridley of the options for responding to the NUM’s monopoly grip on coal production for power supplies. The mining strike of 1984/5 broadly followed the strategy Ridley outlined. Something not mentioned here so far is that prior to the strike, power station stockpiles of coal had been built up to record levels. If the intent of the strikers was a knock down fight with the government, the timing of the start of the strike – in the spring and with record stocks of coal above ground – could hardly have been worse. There were indications at the time that the NUM hoped and expected other trade unions would follow the NUM’s lead and commit to industial action to prevent movement of coal supplies to power stations and block the handling of any imports of coal or the heavy oil some power stations were equipped to burn as a coal substitute. That hope remained unfulfilled. Famously, miners in parts of the East Midlands kept on working after local strike ballots and by the winter of 1984/5, some miners in pits in other regions were starting to trickle back to work. The cause was lost. A year after the strike started there was a general return to work. At the next election in 1987, the government was returned with a comfortable majority.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 09:53:35 +0000

Doug, I’m aware that we tangled on the question of Lenin in discussions both of the greatest figure of the 20th century and of Norman Geras’s “greatest Marxists” poll, but I’d dispute your characterization of what I said there as “repeatedly expressed admiration”, at least if that is supposed to convey the impression to readers of this thread that I think Lenin was an all-round wonderful human being. For the record, I don’t endorse either Bolshevik or Jacobin versions of the view that the will of the proletariat or people can be incarnated by a small elite. Happy?

By: Doug Muir

Doug Muir — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 09:12:35 +0000

The presumption of a vanguard to speak for the workers and to articulate their “real” wishes whether they recognize them or not has done fantastic damage to the left over the past century. I firmly agree with this. But an imp is whispering in my ear, asking how Chris reconciles this with his repeatedly expressed admiration for Lenin… since “democratic centralism” was arguably Lenin’s key innovation and his most lasting contribution to both socialist and revolutionary practice-on-the-ground. But no. Away, imp. Doug M.

By: Doug Muir

Doug Muir — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 09:09:04 +0000

The question of subsidizing coal is relevant, so it’s good that bob has raised it. Unfortunately it’s a lot more complex than he’s making it out to be. Britain in 1984 was hooked on coal, and there was no easy or simple way to get the monkey off. Nuclear power brought in a whole new set of problems. Renewable technologies simply weren’t there yet. Oil-burning plants required expensive imports (remember, North Sea was only just coming on line then) and put British electricity prices at the mercy of the world crude market. Which is not to say that the traditional solution—keep all the pits open and give the miners whatever they wanted—was the way to go, either. But nor does it mean that the Thatcher and Major investments in coal showed them friendly to mines or miners; they really had no choice, macroeconomically speaking. On the miners’ side, of course, the issue of saving jobs turned out to be a fatal distraction. The coal industry was going through a period of increased mechanization and higher productivity worldwide, so jobs were pretty much certainly going to be lost at some point. A sensible policy would have been to accept this but seek to minimize the suffering—invest in retraining programs, let workers retire and not be replaced, you name it. It’s not like these problems were new, or lacking in solutions that had already been worked out elsewhere. Scargill’s insistence that he was defending, not just jobs today, but jobs forever—in his own words, “the right of a coal miner’s son to be a coal miner”—was just another of his numerous and egregious tactical mistakes. It caused reasonable Britons, who might otherwise have supported the strike, to pause and say, well, what if they /do/ win? Agh, don’t get me started. Doug M.

By: Gary Farber

Gary Farber — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 05:08:18 +0000

Although an American who was deeply politically interested at the time, with many British friends, almost all on the left of one variety or another, I must say that the issue appeared then, to those of us lacking either the Internet, or a sectarian god we were willing to accept (much as they were offered), opague,not entirely clear, much as we were inclined to oppose Thatcher and respect labor, er, “labour.” I find this fascinating, therefore. (I guess it was anti-leftist to not automatically assume that a union must be right, but I had that weird way of not being automatic that made me not a regular member of any group, despite my distinct tendency to a sympathize with a union side.)

By: msg

msg — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 19:07:16 +0000

Chris- The point about the vanguard opportunistically using and discarding democracy – the same thing in a reverse polarity happens around things like the media technologies that have insinuated themselves into the public mind, below the threshold of conscious participation. There’s those that will use those same technologies for messages that subvert the original intentions of whoever built them, and there’s those who feel that using them, no matter what the message, is compromised from the outset. Mass adult smoking, for all the yammer of self-help and twelve-step cultists, was the direct result of subliminal coercion and seduction. Its sudden reversion to pariah behavior was the direct result of those tools applied to remedy. But what discomfits me is the acknowledgement of the process was never made plain, and still hasn’t been, because that’s where its power lies I suppose, and to me that’s still insidious. Big Brother on a health kick. So, democracy is well and good, but when the people themselves are no longer capable of freely choosing their leaders, even though the form of choice has been maintained, then what? That would be the argument I guess. Or you have, in the US especially, fundamentalists whose loyalties are to something higher than democracy, participating in the democratic process until they have enough of a base to subvert the system to a theocracy. So how does tolerance protect itself from intolerance, without becoming it? Can democracy allow the participation of non-democratic citizens? Where’s the check and balance? Doesn’t it rest on faith in the innate nobility of the common man? Can the nature of the common man be manipulated? What then? Tyranny and dictatorship for the good of the people. It’s so 20th century.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 18:28:39 +0000

Harry, I’m sorry to learn of your experience of, and participation in, the 1984/5 mining strike but note that you haven’t responded on the matter that in Yorkshire at the time the strike was widely regarded as a way of bringing down the government elected with a large majority in June the previous year. That and the failure to hold a strike ballot, as remarked on by others above, doesn’t suggest much of a commitment to the ways of democracy. It is perhaps worth recalling that the Labour manifesto for the 1983 general election was later aptly described by Gerald Kaufman MP as, “the longest suicide note in history,” so you know who to blame for Labour’s failings. Curiously, that was when Blair was first elected to Parliament – he seems to have changed his mind since about Britain withdrawing from the European Community, extending state ownership of business and unilateral nuclear disarmament. Nor have you responded on the documentation relating to the Billions of taxpayers’ money sunk into maintaining and developing coal mining by the Thatcher and Major governments. If the real purpose of the strike was about preserving mining jobs, as claimed, the stark implication is that even more Billions would have been needed. The truth of the matter was that the NUM then had a monopoly grip on Britain’s electricity supplies with some 70% of electricity generation coming from coal sourced in Britain, as coal imports were effectively blocked, and the NUM wanted that monopoly further entrenched. Ultimately, of course, consumers of electricity and taxpayers would have had to pay. There is also the matter of Scargill’s links to Prof Allen, which are well documented in several sources, including Crick’s biography of Scargill, published in 1985. As you may recall, part way through the strike the then editor of the Yorkshire Miner suddenly took flight to East Germany to seek political asylum there. Btw The NUM has form – see Correlli Barnett: Audit of War, and, The Lost Victory, on the mining strikes during WW2: “More working days were lost through strikes every year from 1942 to 1945 than in 1938, the last full year of peacetime. Coal was far and away the worst offender, with no fewer than 1.2 million man-days and 2 millions tons of coal lost in the first quater of 1944 alone. Usually a coal strike was about wages, which really meant the miner’s place in the industrial pecking order. But one local strike during the Normandy invasion year of 1944, costing a 1000 tons of production, took place simply because the miners wanted to get rid of the canteen lady.” [The Lost Victory (1995), p.34]

By: harry

harry — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 16:53:17 +0000

Its part of ther tragedy that Doug is probably rihgt, and the vote was winnable. Perhaps not before the strike, and perhaps not after 2 months or so, but maybe within the first two months. But it is hard to believe that the strike was winnable, even with a ballot. That was one of the problems with the Labour leaders asking for a ballot—its absence gave them an excuse to do what they would anyway do—avoid giving conrete support. And they had reason to avoid giving concrete support, because the strike looked like a loser from before day 1. What would constitute victory? The NCB giving in? And then closing the pit a year, or two years later? By about August of 1984 all this was pretty clear.

By: Motoko

Motoko — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 15:44:26 +0000

Motoko: What do you think? I think you have good reasons to dislike Scargill.

By: harry

harry — Sat, 06 Mar 2004 15:25:24 +0000

Bob, In the last month of the strike, having witnessed a group of police officers start (not, note, provoke, START) a riot, I was beaten up by police officers and then convicted of threatening behaviour despite directly contradictory evidence given by the two cops at the trial, one of whom I’d never seen. I watched the magistrate smile with disbelief as the cps told their stories, and then convict me anyway. Thousands of other people had the same or similar experiences. If you have evidence disputing Chris’s claim that bq. “The police and the government and the courts acted violently and cynically against the miners and their communities: men were attacked and beaten, their freedom of movement was restricted, they were not given fair hearings by magistrates and courts.” give it, please. Chris, I agree with all that. Interesting, though, that at the time there was great opposition on the left to Tory laws requiring democratic procedures within unions, and also the OPOV elections for leadership positions in the Labour Party. Those aspects of those laws were absolutely right (the kind of thing that, simulatneously, in the US, leftists like TDU were enthusiastically pressing), as was the adoption of OPOV; not just right, but to the advantage of the left.