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Title: Debating the Miners’ Strike
Author: Black Flag
Date: 1984
Language: en
Topics: miners strike, 1980s, Britain, labor movement, industry, solidarity, Black Flag (U.K.), bolshevism
Source: Retrieved on 19th May 2021 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/93207x
Notes: From: Black Flag no. 114. (vol. 7, no.6C) 1984, no.116 (vol. 7, no.6E, 6/8/84), no.118 (vol.7, no.6G 3/9/1984) and no. 119 (vol.7, no.7A, 15/10/1984).

Black Flag

Debating the Miners’ Strike

The Miners and the Left

The activities of certain of the groups of the ‘revolutionary left’

during the present miners strike raise whole questions about what is and

what is not solidarity?

The major activity of most ‘revolutionaries’ on the left has of course

been selling ‘THE PAPER’, but it is not the selling of the paper that is

so bad as what is actually written in them. Many of the ‘revolutionary’

parties have used their papers to attack the strategy of the strike,

personal union officials and in some cases the whole principles of the

strike.

The principle that no person has the right to sell another person’s

livelihood has been attacked by the Revolutionary Communist Party who

want a national ballot and Workers Power who want a branch ‘show of

hands’. It may not have occurred to these vanguards of the working class

but people are voting everyday with their feet.

The overall strategy of the strike has been attacked by all and sundry

but the main aggressor has been the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP has

made personal assaults on people such as Jack Taylor, Yorkshire Area

President, over the handling of the Orgreave situation, although the

directing of pickets is neither controlled by Taylor or Scargill but by

the Yorkshire region co-ordinating committee. They believe that Taylor

has deliberately held back on the picketing of Orgreave and restricted

the movement of pickets.

The overall strategy of the strike has been good, considering the lack

of pickets, the wide number of targets and the determination of the

police to stop them, the only tactics available to the miners has been

the hit and run tactics of guerrilla warfare. Orgreave was of course a

diversion from this strategy and the end result was hundreds of arrests

and injuries for very little other than an education in the true nature

of the police.

Although we as anarchists have different ideas about organisation than

the hierarchical structures of the NUM and different political

principles to people like Scargill and Taylor, this is not the fight

that we are engaged in. There is little that we can criticise these two

on during this strike. Both of them have thrown themselves into the

frontline, both have been assaulted by police, they like all other paid

NUM officials have given up their wages and during this strike have been

nothing more than propaganda and symbolic figure heads.

Getting back to the SWP’s assault on the miners. They have argued for

Orgreave to be turned into a mass symbolic battle, day in day out

(perhaps they want a permanent pitch to sell their paper), being totally

unaware of the limitations of such an action and ignorant of the forces

that the state has, to fight such a pitched battle.

But it is not just the words in the papers of the left that are dubious,

but all their other forms of ‘solidarity’. Fund raising ‘for the miners’

is a great thing to latch on to. The SWP started off its miners fund,

which has not [now?] reached £14,000, the purpose of this fund ‘to put

the miners case over to other workers’, i.e. fund the paper, and other

SWP propaganda. Money is also raised by many groups to send miners to

their conferences and meetings. But more often than not it is used by

the party to control situations, pay for busses etc, and build up their

prestige. Of course not all of the ‘left’ groups are as bad as each

other and some have given useful solidarity work to the miners and their

families.

This brings us onto the question, what is solidarity? Solidarity comes

in various forms, first is propaganda and education in support of people

involved in struggle. In most cases strikes and other struggles go

hardly noticed and any form of propaganda is useful. But there is

propaganda in support of the strike and propaganda for your own cause,

the best example is the Support the Miners Posters by the Revolutionary

Communist Party, which has RCP taking up a third of the poster, a true

poster of solidarity should have the name of the group showing

solidarity in print, that has to be looked for.

Likewise the written word, either in papers or leaflets, should be used

to inform people of the struggle and the events going on, and not as a

means to criticise the people involved, point out the ideological

differences, but the aim of solidarity is to educate and propagate not

to take over.

On the question of fundraising, it is very simple if all funds are

handed over to those who are going to use them, now we think it would be

better if we did this with the money people have entrusted to us, if

people gave money for a specific purpose such as buying food, then to

buy food direct.

There is also more direct support like attending picket lines and

demonstrations in solidarity. On both these events we are there to add

our weight, either to show our banners and flags in support or to add

bodies to the push, blockade or in a symbolic manner depending on the

nature of the event.

Returning to the miners strike our job as anarchists is to give

solidarity. Although this fight affects all of us, it is primarily the

fight of the miners and their families. We may not like the the

structures they choose to work within, we may not like their individual

politics or religion, but these things are irrelevant, just as

irrelevant as if a policeman is an atheist or in favour of unilateral

nuclear disarmament. There will be plenty of time after the strike to

put our political theories over, but during this dispute there is only

one form of propaganda, and that is propaganda by deed, through no

strings, non dogmatic, consistent and practical solidarity.

Letter: The Miners and the Left

Dear Black Flag,

Having just read your article “The Miners and the Left” I feel compelled

to write to you. Whilst I agree with most of the article – am similarly

sickened with the “revolutionary lefts” redefinition of solidarity as

selling “THE PAPER”, I believe that funds raised for the miners should

go directly to the miners; etc. – I disagree with some of the

conclusions you made, which seem to be concerned with how @s should

behave during disputes generally.

Firstly, as a anarchist, I don’t like to be told what “my job” is –

that, I see as authoritarianism. We’re all continually told what to do

by the State and its various forms without other @s doing the same.

Surely one of the things which makes @ different is its toleration and

support of a variety of actions/means of changing the social order.

Secondly, I question the writers assertion that any papers or leaflets

distributed on picket lines should merely inform people of the

particular struggle they are participating in. Don’t you think that

people on picket lines are aware of why they are there? Leaflets, it

seems to me, are useful in describing the particular struggles of those

people in the context of the wider struggle (that we are involved in and

fighting).

Finally, I don’t entirely agree that we as anarchists should not be

allowed to make any criticism of striking workers and I do not believe

that, in the case of the miners or any other group, “the structures they

choose to work within are irrelevant”. Whilst I obviously support the

premises of much industrial action, as an autonomous, thinking person I

do not always unreservedly support the action of pickets – I’m not

exactly crazy about the sexism of some of the striking miners, for

example. I think we should move away from this very middle class,

vanguardism view of striking workers as somehow beyond any criticism,

“sacred”. Constructive criticism can help bring about change

particularly if its from people who are quite clearly showing support

and solidarity on picket lines, demos or in any other ways.

R. G.(Exeter)

REPLY

The purpose of the article was to stimulate discussion and debate about

the nature of solidarity and how it should affect the way anarchists

work.

Written propaganda should be used to educate people about the goings on

and reasons for a particular struggle and should be directed at those

outside the struggle. The widespread ignorance and acceptance of

misinformation even amongst political people during the miners strike,

points to the need for alternative news. But as anarchists we should not

abuse the position of providing alternative information by trying to

direct struggles or cause divisions and weakness amongst those we are

supporting.

There is no need for us to uncritically support workers involved in

struggles, but we should be aware of where our opinions and ideas are

going to, and the effect they will have. There is only one way to be

sure that our ‘criticisms’ are constructive and not divisive and that is

through personal contact made through giving practical solidarity.

As anarchists we believe that people are capable of organising their own

lives and although the NUM may not be organised in the pure libertarian

way we would like it has been created by the miners for the miners. The

reason why the NUM and all other unions are not organised in a

libertarian way, is because of the failure of anarchists over the last

100 years to convince people of the advantages of non-hierarchical

federalist forms of organisation. For us to go running in during

disputes (and to be honest how many anarchists gave a damn about miners,

mining communities and the NUM, before this strike?) laying down the

line, attacking the structures and generally being negative, neither

does our cause any good or helps those involved in fighting against the

state and bosses.

Also we must not let our idealistic purity to get in the way of our

basic beliefs. People involved in struggle are quite capable of

questioning the structures they are involved in and the wider society as

a whole, and people do try to change things. During the miners strike

great breakthroughs have been made in the struggle for women’s equality

(sexism confronted, women organising etc.) in altering people’s

attitudes to the police, in questioning local power cliques and society

generally. Our solidarity besides helping to win the direct struggle,

can also go to strengthen and develop new attitudes, but to do this we

must be trusted and respected, which means being involved in practical

solidarity on a grass roots level without pushing our politics,

self-righteousness and arrogance.

M. (Doncaster)

Letter: The Miners’ Strike and the Anarchists

The article (The Miners’ Strike and the Left) in Black Flag 114 was

correct to state the paramount importance of the miners’ strike for the

working class in this country. Considering themselves an integral part

of that class it goes without saying that class struggle anarchists up

and down the country are committed to supporting the strike and aiding

its victory.

The article was also right to point out the various intrigues and

manipulations that other groups of the revolutionary Left are indulging

in during the miners’ strike. But then this was expected; we know from

experience the parasitic way Leninists feed off workers struggles. We

hope that as libertarians we take a more principled position in workers

struggles.

However, though the article was right to condemn the Leninists and then

emphasize the importance of real solidarity it seems to me it then went

on to adopt an attitude that borders on mere liberalism. Because we

oppose the Leninists’ practices do we really have to throw the baby out

with the bathwater and refrain from any kind of specifically

revolutionary propaganda about the strike?

The line pushed by the article is currently fashionable: “There will be

plenty of time after the strike to put over our political theories, but

during the dispute there is only one form of propaganda, and that is

propaganda by deed, through no strings, non-dogmatic, consistent and

practical solidarity.”

We have to be involved in giving practical aid and solidarity of course

(and I have been), but any variety of socialist can do this, and even

bleeding heart liberals will collect food for the miners’ families (not

many round our way: typesetter). We should be in the thick of the

struggle as anarchists and workers, and we take our own ideas into that

struggle.

The article condemns the Socialist Workers Party for taking Jack Taylor

(Yorkshire Area President) and other full time officials to task for

certain aspects of their handling of the strike. The article says

there’s little we can criticize these on during the strike (!), and of

course they’ve given up their wages during the strike. Was the article

written by Scargill’s press agent? True, they have given up their wages

during the strike, but then as bureaucrats they’ve got plenty to spare.

I don’t think much of the SWP’s strategy, and [it?] is no more valuable

than Jack Taylor’s (such as their fixation with mass picketing). But I

do read ‘Socialist Worker’ because it gives probably the best industrial

coverage of all the left-wing press, and I’ve seen no evidence of the

“SWP’s assault on the miners” as the article puts it. They have

criticised the way the strike has been conducted at various junctures

and the failings of full time officials but does this constitute an

‘assault on the miners’?

I heard Arthur Scargill speak at a rally a few weeks back. Referring to

the NCB closure plan he more or less said “I told you so, you should

have listened to me” to the assembled miners. That is the attitude of

the most militant of the NUM full time officials; a unionism from the

top down. No realization that the grass roots hadn’t listened to his

warnings because in a reformist unionism the bureaucracy, no matter how

left-wing, talks a different language to the grass roots. As anarchists

we believe in a unionism by the workers, not an ineffective unionism for

the workers. So save your solidarity for the miners, bureaucrats don’t

need it.

This strike holds a number of lessons for the workers movement, and

maybe one or two two for the anarchist movement… Firstly it has shown

once more the tremendous resilience and power of organised and militant

workers. Secondly it has shown the ethical bankruptcy of the Leninist

groups whose main priority is selling their paper behind the picket

lines while people at the front are getting their heads cracked open.

Thirdly it has shown yet again that reformist unionism isn’t up to the

job. Much of the sacrifice and commitment of the miners and their

families has been squandered at times (as when the area NUM leaderships

gave “their” steelworks special dispensations to carry on production).

As to the response to the bureaucracies of other unions, the less said

the better (wot? – typesetter).

The article misses the basic point: that the dynamism behind the strike

from day one has come from the grass roots of the NUM. On this welcome

development, as anarchists and believers in a revolutionary unionism

under the conscious control of militant, self-organised workers, we must

base our propaganda and activity. We seek working class unity yes. But

don’t confuse that with entertaining the mistakes and missed

opportunities of reformist trade unionism.

D.M.(Middlesborough)

REPLY

There is a difference between revolutionary and anarchist propaganda.

Revolutionary propaganda can be seen as the education and agitation

which increases peoples understanding of the present society, whilst

anarchist propaganda is presenting the anarchist approach to changing

society. Whilst revolutionary propaganda in this miners strike, such as

pointing out it is not solely a mass conspiracy against the miners, but

it is the natural function of the DHSS police etc., is important,

putting over the complete anarchist ‘package’ is not. Therefore the best

way to put over anarchism is not by claiming to have the solution to the

miners strike, the world and everything, but by proving ourselves as

useful allies in the struggle.

Not all NUM bureaucrats (full time, paid officials) are better off than

all the miners, some are at the bottom of the structure, are worse paid,

these too have given up their salaries. Simplistic attacks on

bureaucracies based on ‘they get more money’ etc, is basically petty and

shows a lack of understanding of the problem. As anarchists we believe

that bureaucracy, hierarchy etc. weakens workers organisations, whether

they are paid more or less is irrelevant.

Getting on to the SWP. They have not attacked full time officials, they

have attacked selected individuals ie. Jack Taylor, because he is a soft

target. Even they aren’t stupid enough to attack Scargill, which could

be quite easily done in the same tone as their attack on Taylor. On the

lines of [‘]more mass picketing needs national not regional control

Scargill’s failure to take control from the regions will lose this

strike etc. etc.[’] But they have personalised the miners problems into

Jack Taylor – in the same way as the SUN newspaper of the Rupert Murdoch

Party blames it all on Scargill.

The Socialist Worker may give a good coverage of industrial news but so

does the Newsline (WRP daily paper) and for that matter the Financial

Times and the Sunday Times & Observer business sections. In all cases

there is a need to read between the lines.

Letter: Anarchists and the Miners’ strike

Dear Black Flag,

I was pleased to see the letter from RG (Exeter) in the Flag No. 116. I

had been furious about the article “The Miners and the Left” and had

intended to write to you myself.

I am stunned that any Anarchist can write that the structures that the

miners, or any other strikers, work within are “irrelevant”. When I read

the article a picture immediately entered my head of a hypothetical

union run on fascist lines and headed by a dictator. One sunny day the

dictator called a strike and threatened to expel/beat up/ murder every

worker who did not support it. As it happened a group of Anarchists

supported the premises of the strike and joined the dictator and a small

band of others in their actions. A few of the @s had some qualms about

it and asked: “Is it really libertarian to work with a dictator?” But

their newspaper hastily reassured them that the structure of the union

was irrelevant.

You can’t be serious.

I thought M (Doncaster)’s reply was useful. It clarified a lot of points

which should have been said more clearly in the original article.

There’s a lot of difference between “running in during disputes,

attacking the structures and generally being negative” – which I am sure

no @ would advocate – and seeing the structures as “irrelevant”.

I was amazed to learn that the article was written to stimulate debate

about the nature of solidarity. You could have fooled me!

I thought it was a thinly disguised attack on the SWP. Next time could

you make it a bit clearer. An interview with the miners as to their idea

of useful forms of solidarity would have been far more interesting.

Another point about Ms reply to RG. It was couched in terms of

disagreement yet to me M seemed to be making very similar points to RG.

eg. I was glad to hear that M does recognise as does RG, that criticism

if it comes from people clearly giving solidarity can be constructive.

Last point – above all “The miners and the Left” was a waste of valuable

space which could have been filled with info about workers’ struggles –

in particular about the miners strike, which to me, is the most

important industrial action for years and deserves all of our informed

support.

Fighting with the miners,

C.G. Hackney/ London E8

REPLY

To CG, Hackney,

For your information, the article “The Miners and the Left” was written

from a report ‘Bores Under the Floor’, which happened to be written by a

miner for miners; also from conversations with miners on picket lines;

as our neighbours; as our friends; and as our comrades. Of course it was

about the nature of solidarity. As for the attack on the SWP, that comes

directly from the miners.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but your hypothetical case seems to be a thinly

disguised, cheap and safe attack on A. Scargill! He did not call the

strike – this happened as a direct result of miners coming out in

support of the Cortonwood men whose pit was threatened with imminent

closure. Scargill & Taylor had nothing to do with it – see previous

issues of Black Flag which spells this out quite clearly. Expulsion of

scabs is a call from the rank & file. Of course there are doubts about

this, but it is up to the rank & file miners to decide. Plus, the deaths

in this strike have been the deaths of pickets; people are lying in

intensive care with broken skulls & suspected brain damage – they are

pickets injured by thug pigs. Old women have had their homes broken into

by pigs wielding truncheons. Children have had limbs broken by these

same pigs.

Having been involved with this strike from day one, not only on picket

lines daily but also giving economic support, moral support, our time

and energy to the communities involved in this dispute – including our

own – I find your cheap jibes insulting. If you believe that debating

about the nature of solidarity is a waste of space then there’s

something wrong – because the nature of solidarity is about workers

struggle and vice versa. Our reporting of the strike in this area for

Black Flag has been informed – if you want interviews with miners go on

the picket lines – you’re not too far from Kent, & talk with the people

involved there.

There seems to me to be too much attacking of the NUM in this strike[1]

and not enough attacking the NCB, the government, or the pigs. The

structure of the NUM may not be perfect, but attacking that during the

middle of the most important workers struggle in the country for years,

is counter-productive. Miners themselves have started to question the

structures but want unity now & we should respect this. This is not

defending the bureaucrats, only the rank & file. Talk with members of

the mining communities, don’t patronizingly spout purist platitudes from

the safe confines of Hackney. And if you want articles on workers’

struggles, and can’t get to Kent, why not try writing about those

struggles in your area – or aren’t there any?!

At the moment we in mining areas feel that we are in a country that is

occupied by an enemy force – which we are. Pigs from London, Manchester,

in fact from all over the country, are occupying our streets and

attacking us. Living here doesn’t allow itself to us wasting time on

cheap jibes about a union. Our solidarity is with the men, women and

children who make up the pit communities, & we shall continue to fight

with them, and report about that fight.

Fighting with the miners (literally)

J & M (Doncaster)

The Miners & Social Change

Strikers now find themselves in major confrontation with the police. It

is an eye-opener for all those trade unionists who have been elected to

public office, to councils and to Parliament, who sit as magistrates or

school governors or on tribunals and fancy themselves as part of the

Establishment, to find that a determined government can at one blow wipe

it all away. Miners – even the lower echelon of the union machine – are

having to battle in the streets, to bleed under truncheons, to face

political grilling in police stations, to be stopped at roadblocks, to

have their homes searched, to be fined and imprisoned. All this has

happened before, but to ‘extremists’… suddenly the ‘extreme’ becomes

nearer than they thought.

Only a matter of months ago one odd member of the anti-strike brigade

was deprecating the printers of Fleet Street and their high wages (which

were fought for over the years) saying how much more he would think of

them (not that he would do anything) if they were to stop printing lies

– regarding this as totally unthinkable. Now they have done just this.

They have forced the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail to print the

other side, they have stopped the Sun altogether because it wouldn’t.

(‘An infringement of free speech!’ cry those who think only a few

proprietors have the right to freedom of expression).

Amongst the lies being hurled at the strikers is the one that says that

this is all a bid for power by or for Arthur Scargill. Mr Scargill is

being built up as the Lenin of the strike by the anti-strike brigade:

those who fight for it are tarred as wishing to build up a Scargill

Government, as puppets of Scargill, as bootlickers of Scargill, as

minions of a Scargill dictatorship.

The miners are organised in an authoritarian body, the National Union of

Mineworkers, and Scargill at it’s head has the spotlight on him. But to

imagine the fight is for ‘Scargill’ is to fall for the most obvious

brainwashing we have had since we were told the war was ‘won’ by

Churchill. Few men will undergo six months of voluntary semi (or actual)

starvation out of hero-worship or blind following – against the

brainwashing of the media – however eloquent or handsome Scargill is –

and if they did they would not have the backing of the women who have

emerged as the greatest of fighters.

Scargill happens to boss the NUM, but then the struggle is not for the

NUM. It is the whole structure of the NUM – tied to the closed shop

system beloved of British trade unionism because it saves them so much

bother and normally excludes having to fight that has caused the

division between workers. If an independent miners union wanted to fight

and some people didn’t want to, they could go and be damned.

In a closed shop union miners who want to scab – because of greed or

fear of the consequences or concern for their families – want at the

same time to remain as unionists because it is the only way they know to

guarantee having jobs at all. If expelled they appeal, to the courts.

What have judges to do with a workers union? A union is to fight

economic battles; not to be determined by every law. The fight would

have been long won since if those who felt threatened by the closures

had been able to part company with those who did not feel the threat

affected them yet, and who think they can afford to wait until it does

and work meantime, paying their mortgages and hire purchases and keeping

their holidays and cars.

If those who had no stomach to fight had been allowed to leave the

union, they would have seen there was no alternative but to fight. The

notion that ‘they should have balloted’ (echoed by all the reactionaries

who never hold ballots on anything affecting themselves) is a false cry.

The only purpose of balloting would be to preserve the unity of the

closed shop union. No miners would vote yes on whether they wanted pits

to close. A number would have disagreed with striking – but obviously

they would not be people being closed down, they would be the ones in

hopefully secure pits (or so they think).

The struggle has transformed the mining communities politically. Most

older miners always hoped that the task of mining as it is known would

eventually cease. But nothing is offered in its place. The NCB is taking

the means by which whole valleys and communities live and ordering them

to be extinct. This is being done by the nationalised coal industry,

which was a 75 year ambition of socialism and trade unionism – something

which the NUM forgets when it mightily attacks coal chief MacGregor.

The younger miners are battling against police and pickets. But this is

not a battle for the streets and it will not be won there. If the police

are defeated they bring in the army and all the reserve forces being

built up by the new dictatorship. That front must not be neglected and

it is one on which major support is needed, but like war the strike will

be won or lost on provisions. In this the women of the coalfields have

shown superb communal organising ability and received enormous support

which has won the admiration of organised workers everywhere. They must

not be allowed to perish for want of ‘lease-lend’.

Albert Meltzer.

[1] by people who know nothing of its history, structure and nature.