This article was included in our trade union free sheet for Summer 2025. Download the mini paper as a pdf.
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While Labour is attacking workers in Britain and across the world, what is the committee of the Durham Miners’ Gala (DMC) worried about? Bizarrely: the spectre of communism! Or to be more precise: the image of Stalin!
The DMC wrote to us to “instruct the CPGB-ML not to display images of Joseph Stalin at the Durham Miners Gala” as “such images are not in keeping with the values [!] of the Durham Miners’ Association (DMA) or our gala”.
These ‘labour movement custodians’ seem nervous that the very presence of Stalin’s portrait will expose their weak servitude to economism and to Labour-led social democracy – ie, their abject betrayal of the working class. [We wonder: has any other image been banned from the gala? Any party or banner? Any bourgeois or pro-capitalist ideology? Certainly not the rabid representatives of genocide in the Labour party!]
The DMC added, by way of ‘explanation’: “Since 1871, the gala has expressed the vital importance of trade unionism, the duty to look after each other in the community [!] and the desire to build a society where wealth is created for the common good. It gives a voice to the oppressed throughout the world. The gala brings people together in peace.”
As to ‘wealth being created for the common good’, that is simply not what happens under capitalism. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist can explain to this puny trade union ‘gentry’ that although workers labour mightily under capitalist conditions, they yet remain poor – and get ever poorer over time. Their work generates wealth that enriches the exploiting class. That is how capitalism works. That is the system that the present trade union bureaucracy and the Labour party serve.
And because we do not flinch from pointing out these uncomfortable truths, the worthies of the self-identifying ‘left’ endlessly proclaim that our party is ‘anti-union’! No, comrades, we are not against trade unions, but we are implacably opposed to everything that ties workers to their present conditions of wage-slavery and impoverishment.
What we are fully in favour of is helping the working class to organise itself as a class and in its own interests.
Trade unions will undoubtedly have a vital role to play in this process, but to do so they must break all organisational, ideological and political links with the imperialist Labour party (a servant of our enemy class) and get shot of the servile Labour-allied bureaucrats who currently control them.
One would hardly think it needs pointing out that all those trade union leaders being rewarded on retirement with a seat in the House of Lords are not getting a pat on the back and a fat expense account because the ruling class is grateful they spend decades fighting for their members’ (or our class’s) interests against the interests of the bosses!
Under conditions of capitalist-imperialism, you can serve the system or you can serve the working class by fighting for the system’s overthrow. There is no ‘third way’.
Far from defending the rights of workers, the DMC wants to preserve the link with the imperialist Labour party, and to keep workers’ activities within the bounds of capitalist exploitation, thus keeping workers in subjection to this criminal gang.
The beautiful banner they don’t want workers to see carries powerful words from Stalin’s well-known work The Foundations of Leninism – a book that schooled millions of class warriors, workers and socialists around the world:
“Either place yourself at the mercy of capital, eke out a wretched existence as of old and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon – this is the alternative imperialism puts before the vast masses of the proletariat. Imperialism brings the working class to revolution.”
Stalin’s words, along with the teachings of Lenin, Marx and Engels, have never been more relevant and more needed by the workers. Perhaps that is why the DMC is so haunted by them?
Durham miners in the USSR
It is interesting to note how far the ‘values of the Durham miners’ have transformed over the decades. We invite our snivelling servants of capital, Guy and Mardghum, to read the report of a former general secretary of the Durham Miners’ Gala, John E Swan, written on his return from a trip to the Soviet Union in February 1937:
“In contradistinction to Britain, the introduction of science and machinery to industry [in the USSR, at a time when none other than Josef Stalin was the general secretary of the Communist party and leader of the country] is welcomed by the workers because the burdens of toil are reduced thereby and the industrial progress is reflected in an improved status for all instead of the increased wealth being diverted to the benefit of an unproductive few.”
Swan’s report noted that the USSR’s economy was still in the throes of transition, but described how Soviet workers were forging ahead with courage. Transport was improving, and the whole of the state was being organised with the faith and assurance that poverty would soon be banished. Of special interest to miners were the parts of the report dealing with trade unions, holidays with pay, pensions, workmen’s compensation, hours of labour, safety in mines and mines inspection.
During their visit, the Durham miners visited a plant producing tractors, rolling stock and heavy machinery, which employed 32,000 workers, 16,000 of whom were women. They reported that the Soviet working day consisted of just eight (fully-paid) hours, one of them being for meals. Wages were higher for skilled workers than unskilled, but all were paid for their off days.
“We were informed there were 900 expectant mothers, who would be given special care during the prenatal stage and for some time after their babies were born. Expectant mothers are given light work for four months before time of childbirth, with no reduction in their standard of wages, while for two before and after the birth of the child, they are paid full wages and not allowed to work at all. If she so desires, a mother may also be sent to a rest home.”
The report described the catering at the works canteen, which was of high quality and very low priced. All was described as being decent food that would contribute to keeping workers healthy and well fed. Creches for workers’ children were fully funded by the trade union.
The Durham miners also reported on a trip to the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow:
“All the important members of the Presidium, including Stalin, were present. Stalin was dressed in a khaki-coloured tunic and looked remarkably fit and well. He received a great reception, and there was no mistaking the affection the people had for him. Those newspapers who reported him to be a sick man would have had a great surprise had they seen how well and fit he looked.”
The Durham visitors heard a grand speech by Soviet president Mikhail Kalinin, in which he talked about the perilous march of fascism into Spain and described the USSR’s support for the international workers’ heroic battle against it. He also outlined betrayals by the counter-revolutionary Trotsky and his treacherous followers.
So what exactly about all this real working-class history has got the DMC so worked up?
The committee is clearly not thinking about how to serve British workers and bring socialism. Nor about how to expose and destroy the treacherous Labour party – that most insidious of enemies within our ranks.
Like far too many in the Labour-aligned trade union and labour movement bureaucracies, it would appear that the DMC’s members are too preoccupied with defending the petty privileges that go with being a trade union worthy to have any energy left for considering the fate of the working class or the future of humanity.
These privileges are paltry when seen in the context of our movement’s grand aims, but among other advantages they include the ability to control the ‘DMC2021 limited company’, which holds £4.5m in assets (£1.7m of them in cash).
Do the DMC committee members care for the millions of workers languishing in poverty and unemployment? Or for the millions being targeted by British bombs and sanctions?
Or do they just know which side their bread is buttered on?
