A British Road to Socialism? Die Kommunistische Partei Großbritanniens und der große Bergarbeiterstreik 1984/85

Abstract

Jörg Arnold: A British Road to Socialism? Die Kommunistische Partei Großbritanniens und der große Bergarbeiterstreik 1984/85, in: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2025. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, pp. 151–164.

The popular memory of the famous British miners' strike of 1984/85 owes much to the contribution of communist intellectuals. Yet communism itself has been written out of the story. While popular memory owes much to the interpretations first put forward by communist intellectuals, the actual strike as it was fought out between workers and the state in 1984/85 was almost entirely overlooked by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). This was despite the party's significant presence in the coalfields and the presence of communists on the National Union of Mineworkers’ National Executive Committee. This chapter addresses both elements of this paradox: first, the inability of the CPGB to influence, let alone shape, the unfolding events of 1984/85; second, the hegemonic position of communist interpretations in the cultural memory of the strike. It shows that in the 1970s dissident communists had begun to argue that changes in Britain's social structure had begun to diminish the importance of the industrial worker. In encounters such as those later depicted in the 2014 feature film Pride, these intellectuals saw the potential for a cross-class alliance being realised.

Über den Autor

PD Dr. Jörg Arnold, geb. 1973 in Eschwege. Lecturer in Contemporary History an der University of Nottingham und Privatdozent an der Universität Tübingen. Studium der Geschichte, Englischen Philologie und Pädagogik an den Universitäten Göttingen, Edinburgh, Southampton und Heidelberg. 2007 Promotion in Moderner Geschichte an der University of Southampton, 2024 Habilitation mit Venia Legendi für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte an der Universität Tübingen. 2019 bis 2021 Marie Curie Fellow am Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). Forschungsschwerpunkte: Gesellschaftsgeschichte der Deindustrialisierung, (Nach)-Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus und Zweiten Weltkrieges, Geschlechtergeschichte, Stadtgeschichte. Wichtigste Veröffentlichungen: The British Miner in the Age of De-Industrialization: A Political and Cultural History, Oxford 2023; The Allied Air War and Urban Memory: The Legacy of Strategic Bombing in Germany, Cambridge 2011 (Tb. 2016).