flooded with post-mortems of the The Eurocommunist wing of the Communist Party has tried to hijack une discussion analysis that argues that methods of mass picketing were the essential cause of the NUM's defeat and that the union should have held a ballot in April. Public opinion was alienated because of these errors.
Bea Campbell, in an article entitled 'Politics Old and New' in the Statesman 1985) endorses this view. Posing her argument within framework of feminist critique of both the 'hard left' and the hard right she attacks the 'male left' for 'muscular militancy' and violence with political strength, failing to assimilate the lessons of the Greenham Common women's peaceful encounters police and the military.
But the real core of the debate is about what kind of alliances the labour movement needs to turn the tide against Thatcher in the light of the experience miners' COULTAS takes up the mell.
TO take Bea Campbell's supposedly strongest point first, not the same kind of confrontation with the state as Greenham Common women's peace protest.
The peace camp Greenham was and still is a very effective protest demonstration to alert public attention to the cruise missiles The non-violent demonstrations there have made it very difficult for the police and the authorities to claim that they are keeping the it is clear they are preparing for the most horrendous of all The picket line at Orgreave was different. It, and the other pickets in involved a different type and scale of mobilisation altogether: the industrial power of the most milltant trade union pitted mighty forces of the British Ability to paralyse the economy is a decisive part of any such struggle, and mass dispute. This is esy to urgenis necessary such dispute. courts and law have always legislated against such picketing.
The dominant view from the mining communities about such conflicts misrepresented in Bea's article. wasn't hard to tind women in Oller. ton who supported the strike and yet felt alienated from what one described as "men behaving angry, brutal, useless.
Thousands of women mining communities fought for the right to go on the picket line - and also had many illusions about state destroyed overnight when they experienced the behaviour of the police.
Many women in the mining communities didn't have to even go to a picket line to experience the state's persecution of the miners as their homes and villages were invaded and they were beaten up.
In fact anger at media bias and police interterence with the right to travel freely round the country, when they thought they were fighting March the supposedly equating and for with the the VALERIE arguOrgreave was danger of against the state. of women deliberately It like men do; One side's as from the Greenham women, the provocative ple miners' titude to everything else.
attack on the left, Pit This assessment the 'argument' by she dia. not have negotiating syndicalist long before the dispute began, had been careful to distinguish between their chosen form of protest and the situation confronting women in El Salvador for examBea Campbell claims to be the authentic voice of feminism. But in reality her political allegiance is first and foremost to the theses of Eric Hobsbawn presented in Marxism Today. Her political support for the project of a popular front, a "broad anti-Thatcher alliance', determines her atHer article is aimed centrally as an strike. In short Scargill and the NUM were the cause of the problems.
Tribune is praised by Bea, along with the Labour Coordinating Committee for spreading doubts about the NUM tactics.
Neil Kinnock comes under fire not for sticking the knife into the miners but for failing to twist it effectively enough — for not telling the miners outright not engage picketing and instead to adopt more 'subtle, strategic and satisfying forms of struggle? alliances to win, is false to the core. The NUM had to start its 'arrogant' battle for jobs on its own. up to others within the labour movement as well to mobilise the forces necessary to win the war.
nock to lead, to popularise, to go out and fight for action, was the obstacle the NUM confronted.
labour movement to turn words into action. The NUM made the calls for support but with the exception of the NUR, ASLEF and the NUS, and particularly their ranks, Scargill in husbands. couraged leaaersip.
photo• MARTIN SHAKFSHAFT AFI history leaderships British pressed letarian And if ever the ability of the work ing class to take social initiatives, an reach out to new forces, was to b demonstrated in text book fashion i was in this strike No one on the left should get awa the idea that this was an automatic one either. Arthu the early 1970s • Was defender of page 3 of the Yorkshir Miner and the pin up it carried at tha time. Miners sang very sexist songs o the Mansfield march back in June womer Against Closures movement swept through the mining communițies changing al titudes. Significantly, as women too on the state they were strengthene in their resolve take on thei The movement was by the national NUM The first national women's marc in Barnsley on 12 May was built by th NUM, despite some uneven response at a local level, South Wales being notable weak spot here.
Nor could it be said that the NUM lacked the ability to popularise th dispute or draw other social group behind them. Scargill's speech Labour Party conference galvanise the entire event for example and th NUM created the greatest solidarit movement round a strike in post wa Not for years had there been leader with resonance among the ranks of th workers - and other layers of socie ty. And, unlike 99 per cent of othe the history ot in Scargill and the NUM sought out an spoke up for the demands of the of women, blacks, the ke demands on Ireland and for the right of gays and lesbians One of the oldest, most pre unions was beginning challenge the prejudices of the Britis labour movement.
The Eurocommunists are hostil to this alliance between the exploite and the oppressed forged in struggl against the lories