That is the fight to be carried out by the national to militants in Kent, fight for an decisions.
The TUC left the matter in the hands of individual workplaces. But this placed the militants in an impossible cialon given the present climate 1 hen ine luc naa ue nerve to blame the rank and file.
But for Kent the fight goes on. So we'll still be asking. for support from TneaDou Movccl LU keep us going: We know from the experience of the last 12 months that such support will still be forthcoming.
In any event, we Kent, especially the women, are still up to our necks in activity.
moment have women touring Germanv. Denmark and the Netherlanas. as weli as Uclz vul about around the country.
We'll be trying to get as many as possible to the Chesterfield rally in celebration of Women's Dav Our feeling as a result of the strike is that the women have to get more involved in other struggles, especially of women. We teel we have a debt to repay to those who have helped AS FAR as we are concerned the issues facing miners today are just the same as when we started the strike 12 months ago.
anything the Coal Board evel more intransigent. This is therefore not the time to go back.
We consider the decision of the delegate conference to go back without the reinstatement of the sacked miners as treachery. We ale calling on all mulets throughout stand and fight and not to go back until re-instatement of everyone is achieved.
This morning (Monday), we held a mass meeting of over 2000 miners. This is almost a complete turn .out. Our motion to stay out was passed with only a nanolul nave 40 alains! Here we have miners who have been sacked The Board has declared that it is unwilling to re instate allyull We Will reconvene in two weeks or after we have had a further response from the Board.
Notts THE SCABS may boo and jeer when we walk back - but that's the way they've always treated great people. We go back with our heads up high knowing we did our duty to our families and our class.
Our mood is subdued. We don't want to go back without an amnesty for the sacked lads. But we feel that the South Wales headersh op helde gunte heads delegate Declaring their intennon o telia wnate ver loe outcome of the conference played right into the hands of the Board.
Here in Nottingham we'll continue to fight till the lads are re-instated. We've set up a trust fund which will pay the top grade pay to all those who history of the international working class.
It took £5000 million, a 975 res, lic stae.
arrests, starvallunl. the: effort defeat the miners. In response the miners usec mass pickets, open deSTURROCK (Network)
fiance of the state ad the law, mobilised whole communities to organise collective provision of welfare raised support I funds. mobilised thousands of activists in every of the country The strike brought into being the most dynamic movement of women since the suffragettes. miners supported and were supported by all sections of the oppressed exMonday morning that things were happening at Arntthorpe. Before light a mass picket assembled. The six cops present weren't expecting us.
The scabs had to be sneaked in through the back door. Morale was sky high. We then went on to a demonstration at Rossing ton. About 1000 miners inel wive. assembled from the whole ot the Doncaster area We met the scabs coming out of the early shift. They them what was coming 1o And so we went to the branch meeting to discuss 'THE MINERS returned to work this week after the greatest strike in the history of British capitalism, the longest mass strike in the history of any imperialist country. It is a strike which is a chapter of glory in the ploited.
They were defeated not bv the Tories ana nel state, but by the treacher!
of the TUC general council leaders of the Labour Partv. Ihe Notts scabs, the failure to close the power stations. the lack national solidarity action, were aue to the divisions in the working class promoted by the reformist misieaacts The miners burst through ou vears of ciass collaboration with the lorce oi a tornado. In the course of the dispute they have created the begin nings of an alliance of the oppressed which, next period, will transform the labour movement in The labour movement will never be the same ahalll The next years will see the tight to transform the movement, to secure a leadership which stands and fights - as the NUM did After the miners" British politics will never be the same again. For the first time since the general force genuinely at war with British capitalism has emerged.
From the militants of that strike, and those whe supported them, have come the future leaders ol the British working class No one who turned their backs on that struggle will ever amount to anything.
For monen.
section of the British working class stood up. showed it could remake society in its own image. that could change the world. A[ long last. the miners" has produced a leadership that begins to match that potential Finally, the force that showed itself in the miners strike will spread to the entire British working class. When it does, there is world that will save Brite power in the capitalism. The miners strike is not an end. but : beginning.
Today the militants : : the NUM, more than ar: other union, are engaged.:. a bitter struggle to save their organisation, their jobs, their workmates their communities The:= SnOuC estimate of just how difticult that struggle is going to be.
But Arthur Scargill got it right when he said the greatest achievement ot thi last year is the struggle it self. Thatcher would have been no 'softer' if the NUM had never struck. Out of that fight an entire generation of socialist fighters was Dorg British labour move poltics wil be r shaped from top to bottom • as its ettects work them• selves through. For months those who participated in the miners made history. The struggle will never be forgotten.
The miners strike will be remembered for what it was. The greatest strike in BrISAnISIOV proof that day the of Britain WOLKI will make socialism
----- pull-quotes -----
Jack Collins, Secretary Kent NUM
Paul Galloway, Thorsby Colliery,