Nina Fishman

Arthur Horner (1894-1968) was a miners' leader from the 1926 general strike to his retirement as general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1959. During his life he played a crucial role in the fight for a national mineworkers union, and in the development of the National Coal Board.

Arthur Horner (1894-1968) was a miners' leader from the 1926 general strike to his retirement as general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1959. It was his warmth, good humour and enthusiasm which made 'little Arthur', as he was affectionately known by his union colleagues, really memorable. This title tells his story.

The near destruction of the coal industry and the NUM offers a timely vantage point from which to appraise their history. This book presents a collection of specially commissioned essays by leading authorities on miners' history, which challenge the stereotypical imagery of miners' solidarity and loyalty to the Labour Party. This book examines the politics of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, the unique influences of syndicalism and communism within some of its constituent areas, and the uneven pace of the Labour Party's 'forward march' within the coalfields. Such national developments are then studied within their diverse regional contexts through a series of case studies which permits comparison between the major British coalfields. Finally, the book considers the attempts to overcome these regional diversities with the formation of the National Union of Mineworkers and the nationalisation of the mining industry.

This is a pathbreaking book, essential reading for students of interwar political and social history. Previous histories of the period have underestimated the crucial role which Communists played in trade union organisation from top to bottom. Despite its relatively small size the Communist Party occupied a strategic place in the trade union movement: the leaders of the movement, notably Ernest Bevin, refused to acknowledge this at the time. Thanks to her extensive research and numerous interviews, and to the ’opening of the books’ of the Communist Part, Nina Fishman has been able to uncover a fascinating story, one which official Communist historians have never told, and which other historians could only recount in fragments. The main protagonists are the Communist Party General Seretary, Harry Pollitt, and the Editor of the Daily Worker, Johnny Campbell. The book brings to vivid life the work of activists on the shop floor and in the coalmines during the Depression and the Second World War. The book includes the first comprehensive analysis of Communist activity in key sectors of the British economy, notably in engineering shop stewards’ movements and among London busmen. It concludes with an authoritative review of Communists' part in the British war economy and a vigorous challenge to the conventional wisdom about the effect of Communist Party changes of line on the war on activists’ abilities to incite and lead strikes.