The Performance of Power: Sam Watson a Miners' Leader on Many Stages

The Performance of Power1: Sam Watsona Miners’ Leader on Many Stages

HUW BEYNON AND TERRY AUSTRIN*

Abstract This paper draws on the biography of Sam Watson, a miners’ leader in theNorth East of England, to examine the ways in which power relations operatedwithin the British labour movement in the forties and fifties. At that time theMarshall Plan and the concern by the US government to control the spread ofcommunism in Europe provided a critical backdrop with the CIA’s labor attachéprogramme providing links between the AFL and the CIO and the British TUC.Recent research has identified the significant role played in the development of thesearrangements by Watson.

The reliance of the Labour Party on the networks of national, regional and localtrade unions has not been a central concern of students of this period. Certainly inaccounts of the Marshall Plan, national figures like Ernest Bevin predominate. The“unveiling” here of Watson suggests the possibility of more fruitful investigations ona wider canvass. His relationship with the US mission in itself raises questions as tothe social and political processes that made it possible for a middle ranking tradeunion official to occupy such a significant position of power and influence.

The article draws on archival research and, most significantly, upon interviewsconducted by the authors in the late seventies with key trade union officals andpolticians. It explores the different ways that Watson dealt with communism andwith members of the Communist Party, and the key role he played during criticalstruggles within the Labour Party. The detail of the “insider” accounts reveals thecomplex ways in which power was performed across and within different arenas – inNorth East England as regional secretary of the NUM; in London on the nationalexecutive committees of the Labour Party and NUM; and abroad as a member, thenChair, of the Labour Party’s International Committee.

“So let us look at history as history – men placed in actual contexts which they havenot chosen, and confronted by indivertible forces, with an overwhelming immediacyof relations and duties and with only a scanty opportunity for inserting their ownagency – and not as a text for hectoring might-have-beens.”2

Introduction

The period immediately following the Second World War was acritical period for Europe. In the UK the pre-war promises of radicalsocial change came to the fore with the election of a Labour gov-ernment backed by a strongly unionised labour force and a pow-erful cadre of assertive trade union leaders. However a major and

* Huw Beynon is Research Professor at the Wales Institute of Social andEconomic Research (WISERD), Cardiff Univerity, UK: email [email protected]; Terry Austrin is Adjunct Associate Professor at the School ofSocial and Political Studies, University of Cantebury. New Zealand: [email protected]

Journal of Historical Sociology Vol. •• No. •• •• 2014DOI: 10.1111/johs.12052

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

mailto:[email protected]



significant change was also taking place in the world’s politicaleconomy, as US hegemony took hold. Rapid European recoverydepended upon the Marshall Plan with its long term loans from theUS. This economic plan was politically driven, aimed at developingEurope “in the likeness of the United States.”3 The containment ofany threat of communism was central to this. As a result, the CIAhad an influential presence among the personnel of key institu-tions, including the Marshall Plan’s office, in the European Recov-ery Program, in the US Labor Attaché Program, in the AFL and theCIO, and in the British TUC. One of the consequences of thisintervention was seen in the inclusion of the trade union leadershipinto the hierarchy of government “with trade unions acting not onlyas a power for their members but as a power over their members,thus strengthening state power”4 This echoes the view of Politicaland Economic Planning in 1948 to the effect that:

Organised labour is no longer a force of opposition to a social system controlled byand in the interest of the employing class, it is an integral part of the new socialsystem . . . (and) in a position to exert . . . an ever increasing degree of influence.5

There were problems with establishing this arrangement however.Although the UK was not high on the CIA’s list of a communist threat– France and Italy having much stronger Communist Parties and areviving KPD in Germany – it’s labour movement was, nevertheless,seen to be a sensitive area. Of particular concern was the coalindustry which was the critical source of energy supply and where anumber of key trade union officials were Communist Party members.The industry employed three quarters of a million unionisedworkers, many of them highly politicised, who were in a position toexert a strong influence on the way in which post-war British societydeveloped.6 In this context three of the most able labour attacheswere posted to the UK. In the view of Hugh Wilford these men SamuelBerger, William Gaussman and Joseph Godson,

. . . proved to be first-rate analysts of labour affairs in Cold War Britain, . . . .penetrating the highest echelons of the British labour movement, promoting anti-communist activities, and publicizing American labour values.7

Samuel Berger, a former assistant to Selig Perlman at the Uni-versity of Wisconsin, had been in Britain throughout the war,“travelling the country cultivating friendships with sympatheticlabour leaders such as Sam Watson of the Durham miners.”8 ThatWilford chose to identify Watson is of interest, making it clear thathe was a key contact for Berger and that their close relationshiplasted into the 1950s. Watson would, it seems make regular use of

2 Huw Beynon and Terry Austrin

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons LtdJournal of Historical Sociology Vol. •• No. •• •• 2014

Berger’s “embassy apartment as a pied-a-terre in London, and evenasked the Labor Attache to use his influence to obtain FA Cuptickets [for him].”9 That the personal links extended far beyondformal discussions was made clear when Watson’s daughterannounced her engagement to Roy Godson, the son of another ofthe Attachés. Joseph Godson, born in Poland in 1913 and a lawstudent at New York University, had been a Marxist in early life,became disillusioned with the Soviet Union, joined the US ForeignService in 1950, and arrived in London as Labour Attache in 1953.It is clear that he built on Berger’s links and became closelyassociated with Watson and the Labour Party leadership. On oneoccasion the labour correspondent, Geoffrey Goodman, recalledWatson handing documents to Godson in a private room during ameeting of the Socialist International.10

This relationship between Sam Watson and the US mission in theUK, if plainly of some interest in itself, also raises questions as tothe social and political processes making it possible for a middleranking trade union official to occupy such a significant position ofpower and influence. The reliance, and at critical moments depen-dency, of the Labour Party on the networks of national, regionaland local trade union leaders has been largely unexplored in anydetail by students of the 1940s and 1950s. Certainly in accounts ofthe impact of the Marshall Plan, national figures like Ernest Bevinpredominate.11

If we move further afield and look at studies of mining and tradeunionism in this period we find Watson making an appearance inFoot’s account of Aneurin Bevan12 and, more extensively, in NinaFishman’s account of the life of the General Secretary of the NUM,Arthur Horner, a prominent member of the Communist Party.13 Inthe more general established accounts of the period, Watsonappears as a footnote to the main story which is dominated by thenational leaders. For example, Vic Allen’s study of right wing lead-ership focused on Deakin of the Transport and General Workers’Union (TGWU) where Watson is mentioned as giving support toDeakin on the issue of trade union independence.14 Watson passesunnoticed in Allen’s other book on Power in Trade Unions.15 InLouis Minkin’s extensive study of the relationship between thetrade unions and the Labour Party, The Contentious Alliance, heemerges as the “talented miners’ leader Sam Watson,” seenunproblematically as the person who acted as a bridge between theLabour Party and the unions. Minkin notes that his chairing of theNEC’s international committee added to his status in this regard.16

Watson was, and remained until his retirement, Secretary of theDurham Miners Association (DMA), that became an area within thenewly established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on 1st

The Performance of Power 3


January 1945. Though elected onto the national executive commit-tee (NEC) of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain in 1935 andcontinued in that capacity with the NUM, he never stood for thepowerful positions of either National President or General Secre-tary. However, he was repeatedly elected to the National ExecutiveCommittee (NEC) of the Labour Party where he chaired its Inter-national Committee and from where he exerted considerable influ-ence. Oddly this is not mentioned in the “official” and detailedaccount of The Durham Miners. Here, Watson is seen as “one of theindustry’s most influential and cogent spokesmen”17 and while thedetails of his achievements as union secretary are made clear thereis no reference to his broader political role.

This tendency for regional studies of mining to focus upon thelocal mining community also applies to the many post-war socio-logical studies which, while excellent in their own terms, havelittle or nothing to say on the webs of power and influence withintrade unions. This pattern was established in the classic studyconducted in Yorkshire, Coal is Our Life18 and repeated albeit witha more comprehensive framework fifty years later in Warwick andLittlejohn’s study Coal, Capital and Culture: A Sociological Study ofmining communities in West Yorkshire.19 More recent studies of thepost-war period from labour historians have paid attention to theways in which national issues have been developed and inter-preted at the regional level.20 Taken together these studies estab-lish the post-war period as one in which the nationalization of themines was preeminent in stabilizing workplace relationships afterthe war, improving wages and living conditions. They also refer-ence the scale of political factionalism within the union and thedifferent political balance in each of the areas.21 Most significantlythey document the ways in which the trade union in (left wing)South Wales and (right wing) Durham contained work place, mili-tancy and protest. Read alongside the perceptive detail inFishman’s biography of Arthur Horner22 they provide a complexpicture of the workings of the National Union of Mineworkers inthis period.

What is missing perhaps is an account that cuts across disci-plinary boundaries and examines the daily interplay that took placein the forties and fifties between and within areas of the NUM, andhow within these interplays power was exercised, locally andnationally, both within the union and within the Labour Party. Ithas been observed that while historical sociology has only reluc-tantly called on biography, it has the capacity to “serve as a pointof entry into a newly refracted array of social processes and rela-tionships.”23 Sam Watson – who, moved in the various circles of thelabour movement and influenced many critical outcomes. was our



“point of entry” into the post-war world. In this regard Watson’s liferaises important issues for historical and sociological analysis.

Searching For Sam Watson

In the late nineteen seventies and as part of a research project onchanging elites within County Durham we became aware of thesignificant role that Watson had played in the area in the post-warperiod. At that time we were interested in the sixties and the way inwhich, as a consequence of coal mining closures a once ascendantNUM had been replaced by general unions, notably the General,Municipal and Boilermakers Union (GMBU) within local labourpolitics. However it became clear to us that the arrangements thatWatson had put in place during the forties and fifties could be seenas emblematic of a form of political ideology and practice that hasbeen termed Labourism.24 This, and the particular and determinedway in which Watson spent his energies, can be seen as a criticallink between the politics of coal mining and those of the CIA.

In developing our search for the Durham leader in 1979 weinterviewed a number of people occupying positions in the diversemilieu that Watson worked across. These included his widowJennie and also the three surviving union officials who had spentmuch of their career working with him – Alfred Hessler, Charlie Pickand Kit Robinson. We interviewed Lord (Bill) Blighton (who still livedin his local council house) and had known Watson as a young manand lodge secretary. In Durham we talked with two universityprofessors, E.O. (Teddy) Allen an economic historian and PeterKaim-Caudle a social policy expert whose political views were veryclose to Watson’s. Both knew the miners’ leader well and had givenlectures to mining audiences as part of the education programmethat Watson had established at Redhills the headquarters of theDMA. Amongst others we interviewed Michael Foot MP in his con-stituency home in Tredegar and Dennis Skinner MP in the tea roomof the House of Commons. Both had been frequent visitors toDurham in the fifties and (from different perspectives) had madeshrewd observations of Watson and his political strategies. To getan assessment from within the national executive of the NUM wetalked with Will Paynter, a member of the Communist Party, whohad been president of the South Wales area of the NUM and waselected General Secretary of the NUM in 1959. In the local arena weinterviewed a number of lay members of the DMA (some of themprominent members of the Communist Party) who had been activein this period. We also interviewed Sir William Reid who had beenresponsible for the Northern Region of the National Coal Board in



the 1960’s and who told us that, on his appointment, he felt that hewas “going to Sam Watson.” All of these interviews were recordedand transcribed.

In addition to this tracking of the milieu that Watson operatedwithin, we were able to reference a variety of different documentarysources that gave us access to the way he understood his world andexercised power. The lodge minute records of Boldon colliery –where he was lodge secretary until 1936 – were revealing and havebeen used by us elsewhere.25 Through the records office at Redhillswe were able to read Watson’s annual reports and in the SamWatson Collection at the County Durham Record Office we read thedetails of his lectures and some of his correspondence. We havereturned to these records and to the transcripts in piecing togetherthe world of the man befriended by the three Labour Attaches, whothrough his various roles and networks became as determined asthey were to weaken any emergence of communism within the tradeunion and labour movement. In this we have explored the ways inwhich he, as a miners’ leader, used his power in different ways andin different settings. We show how his trade union and politicalactivities embodied an “oppositional consciousness that typicallycohabited with political collaboration,”26 along with a strongemphasis on the practical. It was this which Watson came toespouse as the legitimate form of the British Labour Movement.

Local Leader

In Durham in the 1940’s and up until his retirement in 1963, noman exerted more power than Sam Watson: leader of the minersand, by common understanding, “Mr. County Durham.” With theelection of Will Lawther to the post of President of the newly formedNUM, Watson was the only one of the area officials (known asagents) who had been in post in the 1930s and this gave him anunchallenged authority within the headquarters of the DMA. In thepost-war period with the coal mines nationalised, and the area’spolitical representatives (Members of Parliament and local council-lors) overwhelmingly members of the Labour Party, Watson becamethe pre-eminent figure in social and political life in North EastEngland. Here Durham stood in contrast to other of the Englishregions. In relation to Lancashire, Howell has observed that theunion there “could never establish the hegemony over the region’strade unionism and politics that could be claimed by counterpartsin Durham.”27 This hegemony gave considerable breadth to hispower and influence, made clear in this assessment by MauriceRidley. Ridley had worked in the coal mines and as an active



member of the Communist Party was in a position to observe theway Watson worked as a political trade unionist:

I think that the most important trade union and political figure in the Durham areaand probably on Tyneside, between the middle thirties and the middle fifties wasundoubtedly Sam Watson. From becoming agent of the Durham miners, he movedon to become secretary of the miners and very quickly becoming an importantmember of the Labour party executive, elected at the top of the pole, year after yearby the trade union section for a period of twenty years. Watson was one of the bigfigures in the power set up in the Labour party, whether in government or out ofgovernment. Trade union wise, within the Durham miners, in spite of oppositionby Communists and others, he dominated the miners’ union. He never had anyserious competition from men of calibre such as they had in South Wales at thesame time.

Ridley continues to explain how:

His influence was not only within the unions, particularly in Durham, and within theLabour party executive, but his importance was seen in the local politics at DurhamCounty in the election of County Councillors, in the election of local councillors. SamWatson played an important role in the election of members of parliament within theDurham area, through directly or indirectly the delegates from all the miners’ lodgeswho had the majority of the votes and selecting candidates. He played a large partin the local politics in an area from County Council level downwards.

The root of Watson’s power, of course lay in the fact that he hadbeen a coal miner, and throughout his life he would make referenceback to his time in the mine. He was born in Boldon in 1898. Hisfamily had been miners on the Durham coalfield since the eigh-teenth century and his was the fifth generation of Watsons to enterthe mines. In 1928 at the age of 30 he was elected lodge secretaryby an overwhelming majority and in 1935 as a lay member, he wonan election to the National Executive of the Miners’ Federation. Inthat year he had published a pamphlet on unemployment and theoperation of the Means Test in the Durham coalfield. Bill Blyton,then the secretary of nearby Harton colliery remembers Watson inthis way:

He had a first class brain and he was a good negotiator for the men. Sammy wasn’tconnected with the Labour Party much before 1934 until his ambitions werebuilding up to be an Agent . . . He was very left wing in those days, very left wing.He became very right wing when he got in with Gaitskell but in the thirties he wasvery left wing. I remember one time we refused to let the Communist Party join inwith the Harton colliery contingent when we were demonstrating against the MeansTest. But when they came to the top of Stanhope Road from Boldon Watson invitedthe Communists to join in with the Boldon men. He was very left wing in those days.

Maurice Ridley shares this memory and confirmed to us that, atthat time, Watson was “on very good terms with both members of



the ILP and the Communist Party.” That he was on good terms withthe left and aware of the left political debates of the day was alsorevealed in the lodge minute books. These meticulous records ofmeetings also contain Watson’s personal writings with references toboth Lenin and the Communist Party. He was elected as a full timeofficial of the DMA in 1936 and two years later at the nationalconference of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain seconded aresolution of support for the Spanish Republic, asserting that:

There is still more that our Organisation can do if we were true to our class and trueto the principles in which we believe28

In this vein he supported Stafford Cripps in his attempt to forma Popular Front against fascism and in support of Spain.

Watson, then, was a man of the left and he emerged from anauto-didactic “socialist” tradition. As Teddy Allen put it:

He had a wide range and he did wed what I call this typical nineteenth centurypolitical economy, political philosophy kind of approach to things with an intensebelief in the rightness of the Labour, of the Socialist cause but an immense aware-ness of two things. The frailty and weaknesses of men, and the need to be firm andat the same time to educate them into something that is better for them. He was thismixture.

In Allen’s view, he had the “kind of mind that would have been athome in a small Oxford college.” In the context of Durham, and thepolitics of the Labour movement this mind, on Allen’s testimony,turned to power, something which “he liked and exercised withterrific ease.”

The importance of the coal industry and its role in post-warreconstruction inevitably involved him in affairs of state and of thefuture of the miners’ union. To this end, he worked closely withArthur Horner, the Communist secretary of the South WalesMiners, in preparing the framework for the new National Union ofMineworkers. However by this time his politics had shifted to theright, most especially in relation to the USSR and the CommunistParty.

The war period had a decisive influence. It had provided himaccess to a world beyond mining and the miners’ union. As we havenoted, he had many conversations with Samuel Berger duringthose years, and he became an active supporter of Radio FreeEurope. Maurice Ridley recalled the impact of Stalin’s pact withHitler in the North East. In his view, this would have had an effectupon Watson, affecting his view of the USSR and later its role inEastern Europe. As the post-war period chilled into the Cold War,Watson was positioned within a variety of social, political and



institutional networks operating across local, national and trans-national milieu. With enormous skill and with the use of differentperformative styles, he exercised power on these different stagesin the support of the Labour Party. Geoffrey Goodman observedWatson closely in the fifties and concluded that he was a kind ofMetternich of the Labour Movement; immensely shrewd, far-sighted, and, despite his confirmed right wing stance, surprisinglyfair and sensitive to the Left, especially to Aneurin Bevan.29

Union Power

To sharpen our awareness of Watson as a power broker it isinstructive to compare him with his fellow union agents. In thepost-war period these men were local figures whose role in both theunion and politics was firmly rooted in the local scene. They, in amore direct way than Watson, can be seen to represent thoseaspects of local, working class culture (club, party, union) whichbecame firmly established as central, northern institutions in thisperiod. Jim Kelly for example was a county councillor and heavilyinvolved in the organisation of the working men’s clubs and theFederation Brewery which they owned. While President of theDurham area and an extremely competent chairman and negotia-tor, he never entered Watson’s orbit. He referred to Watson as “thelittle champion” and was, in the view of contemporaries more thanhappy to “let him get on with it.”

Kit Robinson, elected agent in 1958, put it like this:

Jimmy Kelly was a very clever fella but because Sammy would take the work load,Jimmy would lay back and let him. . . . He was chairman of the Federated Breweriesand of course he was more interested in the Breweries than he was in the Union. Helet Sammy do the work at Redhills and he did the work in the breweries. But whenhe was needed he was there.

Alf Hesler, elected in the same year as Robinson, was like Forsterand Joyce before him, a local councillor. He remembers his election:

I was on the County Council and the District Council and therefore I knew repre-sentatives from the different parts of the coalfield. When I was up for election theyall put a word in for me and that helped a lot.

At Redhills though:

I found that I had too much work; county council, district council and the miners’job. So I went and saw Sam and I said “I’m cutting the councils out”. He said “don’tresign from the county council because you can help us in many ways”. But I stillwanted to resign so he asked me if I’d wait until the following election of the council.I said I would.



Such men – and others like Jack Robson, Executive Committeeclerk at Redhills, district councillor and sometime mayor ofDurham city – were in no position to challenge Watson. But in theiractivities within the machinery of the local labour movement theyprovided him, and the miners’ union, with enormous influence andwith it a range of contacts and avenues for action. The sameprocess worked with the members of Parliament. In the 1945election Durham returned 6 M.P’s who were members of the NUMand directly sponsored by the Durham Area. In addition EmanuelShinwell, M.P. for Seaham was Minister of Fuel and Power andHugh Dalton, the Chancellor of Exchequer and a close friend ofWatson’s represented Bishop Auckland. Bill Blyton was themember for Houghton le Spring and in the 1950’s he remembers anincident which reveals the operation of Watson’s political networks.At that time the miners at Whitburn Colliery were on strike:

The union wouldn’t support the strike, Sam wouldn’t make it official, and theNational Assistance Board wouldn’t pay their families social security. At that timethe man in charge of the Assistance Board was called Nicholson. He had been a ToryM.P. and I knew him. So Sam called us in to the County Hotel and I met Nicholsonand we got it all squared up.

Charlie Pick, the Kibblesworth secretary was elected as Agent in1954, and we interviewed him in his home in Birtle near Chester-le-Street. We talked with him about Sam Watson and in his assess-ment he immediately outlines the range of cultural and politicalnetworks that were available to him and how:

at that time the man who really was Durham was Sam Watson. He was the leadinglight in Durham County in every field. Just after I got there he was made DoctorWatson by the University. Prime Ministers used to stop with him at (his home) Bede’sRest, Ministers used to stop with him; he would make visits abroad to Yugoslavia, toIsrael. Sam was a household name. No matter which colliery you went to in theCounty, they expected Watson, Some of them never said, but you could tell – it wasWatson who was the DMA. . . . He was “Sam Watson” and he knew he was “SamWatson”. He couldn’t be wrong. He knew he was right and he considered himself to befar in advance of anything that anybody else in the County was thinking.

Others also remember the hard, inflexible side of Watson and theway in which he fitted, all too neatly, into the history of centralisedunionism on the coalfield. University Professors Kaim-Caudle andAllen were both observers of Durham affairs in this period,although they shared Watson’s political beliefs they both makesimilar criticisms of his approach. Peter Kaim-Caudle:

Sam Watson was an extremely able man, and an extremely good negotiator, I wouldsay that he did the job of negotiating wages for the Durham miners better than



anyone could have done it. He was extremely shrewd, extremely well informed andhard-working. But all the same he had about him that whiff of corruption that youassociate with powerful trade union leaders. Not “corrupt” in the sense that he hadbeen bought off by the Coal Board or anything like that. He was an extremely toughnegotiator. But he was the leader of the Durham miners, and he used to hold courtin the County Hotel and if you met him there for a discussion all the drinks werepaid for by the Durham miners.

Teddy Allen situates Watson’s style in the Durham tradition. Heremembers an occasion when he visited Watson at his office inRedhills:

we were talking on rather academic terms about trade union structure and all thatsort of thing, and then the phone rang he went to it. It was a Lodge down on thecoast, the miners hadn’t gone down, they’d gone to the pit head but they’d not gonedown on their shift and he used bad language, “get the so and so’s down that pit andI’ll be there this afternoon”, this was the boss again. And in that respect I think hewas very like Crawford, the first secretary of the DMA who sent a long telegram tothe Castle Eden Dean, just as he, with some other delegates, was going to meet thecoal owners in Newcastle. And Crawford blew up, he said “this is no good, this is nothow you should conduct your affairs. You must know that you are in the wrong”.Sam was like that. In that kind of tradition. He could really dress them down. Thenas he put the phone down, turned and came back to his desk and grinned at me andsaid, “you have to do that sometimes you know”.

Kit Robinson, loved horse racing and we interviewed him at hishouse – “Arkle” – in North Durham, He was another of Watson’sadmirers and remembers him as

a very strong willed person. It was remarkable to see him. He was five foot nowt andhe’d argue with great big chaps coming out of the coalfield”.

He was some machine. And he made a lot of enemies in Durham– of all political shades. Stan Haswell, Labour councillor inSpennymoor remembers confronting the general secretary with hisunpopularity:

I said to him “Sam why is it that you have the capacity for bringing out the extremeemotions in people. They either love you or they hate you; I’ve never met anyone inbetween”. And his reply was that the only people who didn’t make enemies werepeople who never did anything.

A Foot in Both Graves

While Sam Watson’s powerbase was in Durham, his capacity toexercise power came from the links he established beyond theDMA, most particularly through his position on the national execu-tive committees of the NUM and the Labour Party and the close



personal relationships he had developed with the leadership of bothorganisations. It was generally assumed in the Labour Party in thisperiod that the NUM was run by Lawther and Watson in tandem.The NUM of course, had strong voting powers within the Party andit was at this interface that Watson was at his most influential. Wetalked about this with Dennis Skinner, MP for Bolsover who was aminer active in the North Derbyshire area of the NUM at this time.He recalled that:

Durham always spread the idea most effectively in political terms that it wasessential for miners to vote Labour. Clearly this was true in the coalfields generallybut it was particularly true in Durham. . . . . . (where) they unswervingly followedtheir leaders. And in the post-war period their leaders were increasingly right wing,but votes were cast without demur. Sam Watson was of course a central figure inthis. In Yorkshire another right wing area – there was always plenty of turbulencebut in Durham, Watson kept it all under control A lot of leaders on “the Right” arenot all that’s bright; they just accept the status quo and go along with it withoutthought, That couldn’t be said of Sam Watson. He was a right winger who had apurpose and he was very clever. He had that concern for detail which all effectivepeople – on the left or the right – have; and there always looked like there was astreak of ruthlessness around. He certainly wasn’t a loud mouth on the Right.Within the Labour Party he was concerned that policies were carried through. Andthis is the important thing about him, most union officials put the TUC first; they siton the General Council of the TUC and the Labour Party executive is normally thesecond choice. But for Watson it was his first choice.

This is an important observation. In pointing to the uniqueness ofWatson’s choice of role, Skinner highlights the strategic thinking ofthe Durham leader and the way in which this fitted with the changein perspective that he had developed after the war. While it wouldbe wrong to see this as a direct consequence of his links with thelabour attaches, it would be unlikely that this strategy hadn’t beena topic of discussion. It was a strategy that was consistent with himeschewing national office and remaining rooted in his regionalhome. While other regional leaders preferred their regional base toother alternatives, none was of the stature of Watson, with theoptions that were open to him.30 There is no doubt that Watson’sdecision to remain in Durham was one of conscious political choice.We talked to Jenny Watson, his widow, at her home “Bede’s Rest,”bought by the trade union for an earlier leader, Peter Lee and takenon by Watson in 1945. Situated high above Durham overlooking theuniversity and cathedral, she sat in her elegant drawing room anddescribed how:

Sam loved Durham. He loved the people, He was on the national executive of theLabour Party, so he was in on the national and international scene; and he had hisbase here. It was at the time when the Communists were making ground in thecoalfields and Sam was determined to stop this in Durham. . . . . He felt that the



Communists were taking the power if not the glory on the industrial front and hewas determined to stop it. They couldn’t get seats in Parliament so they’d get controlof the unions. Sam’s attitude was “if they get up at 6.00, you get up at 5.00.” Heworked terribly hard; he didn’t seem to need much sleep.

Kit Robinson elected as Agent from Easington in 1959, workedclosely with Watson until his retirement. He agreed that:

Sammy would never wear communism. And, following Sammy’s methods there wasnever any communism in Durham. His method of suppressing it was the same asthey used to suppress the Right Wing. ‘If you’ve got an advantage, use it’; and that’swhat Sammy did. He wouldn’t have communism at all. They called him ‘the littleDictator’ which he was.

Watson’s “dictatorship” was assisted by his deep knowledge ofand familiarity with the rule book of the DMA. Built up over eightyyears this bolstered the strongly centralised structure of the countyunion giving considerable powers to the union officials.31 While inSouth Wales the Executive Committee, elected for a three yearperiod, provided a solid check upon the activities of the minersagents and officials, in Durham, the Executive was a much weakerbody. Its members were elected for a twelve month period at sixmonthly intervals and this meant that no continuity was built upover the year. A further rule required the lapse of two years beforea man could again sit on the Executive Committee. No matter whatthe intentions of the rule makers (it has been said that the aim wasto increase democracy) the effect was to increase the power andinfluence of the permanent officials. Such a framework successfullyensured that no group of lay officials built up the confidence andcontinuity of experience to challenge a man of Watson’s ability. Inaddition, rules which prevented Executive members from speakingon issues relating to their own lodge or colliery (they were “county”not “lodge” officials now) and others which prevented lodges frommandating their delegates to the union council meetings, securedthe union apparatus from direct lodge influence. In this arrange-ment, the NUM in Durham became, as so many people have said tous, “one man rule.”

In the immediate post-war period two issues dominated the poli-tics of the NUM – the success of the newly nationalised industryand support for the new Labour Government in its attempts atpost-war reforms and economic reconstruction. The Labour Partyhas been described as a “broad church” with a variety of differentpeople of different persuasions drawn to it.32 However “duringthe inter-war years and well into the 40s, there was no Labourintellectual, be it Tawney, Durbin, Dalton or Gaitskell, who did notbelieve in the superiority of a planned economy with a large



measure of public ownership.”33 In practice, this commitment wasdeveloped within the framework of the Marshall Plan and thiscreated internal problems, particularly in relation to the LabourGovernment’s anti-communist rhetoric.34 In France a similartension had led to a split within the coal trade unions and a majorcrisis for the French nationalised industry.35 That a similar crisiswas averted within the NUM had much to do with the way in whichSam Watson operated.

The National Union of Mineworkers was formed out of a previ-ously federated structure of quasi-independent regional organi-sations, with a long history of factionalism drawn on political andreligious lines.36 In the post-war period South Wales and Scotlandwere strongly associated with the “left” while Durham, Yorkshireand Nottingham were seen to be of the “right,” with representativesof those persuasions on the National Executive Committee. ThePresident of the union became the preserve of the “right” ( Lawther,Jones, Ford) while the “left” produce two General secretaries fromSouth Wales (Horner, Paynter). Lawther and Horner both hailedfrom “little Moscow” mining villages – Chopwell in Durham andMaerdy in the Rhondda –and shared many memories of the strikein 1926 and the hardship of the thirties. As national president,Lawther’s political priorities had changed, but a fraternity based onthese common experiences nevertheless remained, for him and formost of the members of the NEC.

On the NUM executive committee there was near completesupport for the National Coal Board, and Arthur Horner, its GeneralSecretary and prominent communist, probably provided the mostgifted and articulate defense of the newly formed organisation. Hewas a forthright supporter of the need to increase productivity andreduce absenteeism and unofficial strike action and often wonthrough “by virtue of his force of character and intellect.”37 Howeverin the context of the cold war he was vulnerable, and in 1948, hissupport for the French communist trade union brought him intoconflict with Lawther and placed him at the centre of a mediastorm. To many it seemed that Horner would be forced to resignwith untold consequences for the newly formed NUM. Watson wason the sub-committee the NEC had set up to advice on the matter,and his hand is clearly visible in the report. In Fishman’s view he“evidently had no intention of unleashing a witch-hunt.”38

Watson’s concern was to protect the NCB and preserve the NUM,and Horner was essential to both. Moreover Watson was clear thatthe miners of South Wales and Durham – working coking coal, oftenin narrow seams and dangerous conditions – had shared interests,and the thought of a South Wales “breakaway” around a humiliatedHorner would have been anathema to him.39 These concerns were



also fraternal ones. Watson liked being in the company of Horner andPaynter and Moffat. He liked them better than he liked the newPresident Jones, someone he damned with the faint praise as “a manwho gave yeoman service to the Trade Union and Labour move-ment”40 As such, after the 1948 crisis and the retirement of Lawther,Watson, (unencumbered by office or by any status as “leader of theright”) was in a position “to ensure that Horner was not stranded ina vulnerable position inside the union. His solicitude enabled Hornerto survive awkward situations when right-wing Executive members,particularly Ford, might have inflicted damage.”41

Will Paynter was elected as President of the South Wales Minersin 1951 and it was in that year, on the National Executive Com-mittee that he first became aware of Sam Watson’s presence withinthe union. He remembers meeting around a U shaped table withWill Lawther and Arthur Horner at the top. While the delegates sataround the outside of the “U.” “Sam sat inside the square oppositeLawther. And as I’d be talking Sam would be nodding and I’d think“I’m doing bloody well today” but when I’d finished Sam would puthis hand up and the lot of them would put their hand up againstme.” But he remembers Watson without rancour:

I had a good personal relationship with Sam Watson. He was a close personal friendof Arthur Horner too. At that time the union headquarters was in WestminsterBridge Road and after the Executive meeting Dai Dan Evans and I would go acrossthe road to the Oxford pub for a meal with Sam. And the discussion was on Marxism.Sammy used to know Marxism. It wasn’t a serious discussion; more or less banterreally but Dai Dan Evans had been a lecturer with the NCLC and he and I wereMarxists. But Sam was never viciously antagonistic. His personal relationships withpeople were outside his politics. The people who followed him in the union weresmaller, petty men. Sam was never petty.

Kit Robinson, an astute observer of personal relationships, sawboth sides of Watson’s relationship with Communists, tough anddictatorial at home, yet happy to debate and talk with nationalfigures from other areas. He noted how the Durham leader:

was very well liked and respected by his enemies. The Moffats, they were commu-nists, and Sammy and them were rivals. But Abe Moffatt thought the world ofSammy. They respected each other, and when Abe retired, Sammy brought himdown to Durham and presented him with a travelling case.42

Will Paynter’s memories help convey something else about theway in which Watson used his strategic base in Durham. Remem-bering him as “a very capable man” he notes how:

With this position of strength in Durham, Sam Watson became the king maker. Hedidn’t speak a lot in conferences but he knew when to speak; and he spoke well. He



became a very important man in the Labour Party. And that became the situation:Lawther (also from Durham) ran the policy of the TUC; Sammy in the Labour Party.The Executive was just a cipher. Sammy understood his power base in Durham. Andhe was very shrewd here. When I ran for the position of General Secretary of theNUM in 1959 Sam never advised anyone to be nominated in the Durham coalfield.I was opposed by Ford a colliery clerk – Durham didn’t nominate. And I think whathe thought was “lets get him there, in London, where we can control him. Let’s gethim out of South Wales”.

As we talked with him in Pontypridd in 1981, Paynter reflected onthat decisive decision. It had been, he felt, “a mistake” for him torun for national office. At that time, he said “I was in tune with the(South Wales) coalfield and it was in tune with me. It was a goodcoalfield to work.”

Watson remained in Durham, with the powers of a man unen-cumbered by national office. Close to his home base, where (toborrow some of the language of the day) he was the “commander inchief.” and linked to the national scene through the national execu-tive committees of party and union. We can see how both thesenetworks of power – local and national – reinforced each other andalso called upon different performative skills. At home he could bethe hard union boss; in London the congenial colleague. At home(as we learned from the description provided by Charlie Pick) hisother networks nationally and beyond the union enhanced hisposition. Nationally, the secure northern base gave him strength attimes of trade union elections and also (as we shall see) in otherways too.

He used to say that he “had his feet in both graves.” In theseroles, Jenny Watson recalls that half his life was spent in London orabroad. It was in the personality and experience of this remarkableman, that strands within working class experience in Durham werefused into a political strategy, and organisation which, in thisperiod, was decisive. Within the pageant of historical developmentWatson was a central figure; an actor on the historical stage,acutely aware of both his role and his significance. A man cast inthe nineteenth century, aware of the past; a man who used powerwith ease located in a trade union now firmly secured throughnationalisation.

Changing Politics: Bevan and Bevanism

Toward the end of the forties and elections of 1950 and 1951political priorities changed. By this time, even with the election of aTory government, the future of the NCB seemed more secure.Moreover the perceived threat of communism (in spite of persistent“reds under the beds” scares) had receded. Increasingly political



pressures centred around the Labour Party, initially over the lead-ership and then (once again) foreign policy and the issues ofunilateralism and the European Europe. Watson was centrallyengaged on all of these fronts, each of them involving his complexrelationship with another Welsh man Aneurin Bevan. Like Watson,Bevan was an ex coal miner, he was elected MP for Ebbw Vale in1929 and was, for many years, the leader of the Left within theLabour Party. In the post-war administration he had been theMinister responsible for Health and Housing where he made amajor impact and developed a dedicated following from amongstthe coal miners. Watson and Bevan were very close, and MichaelFoot described how they had “a tremendous kinship” which in hisview clearly came from “their common mining background.”

The strength of this mining fraternity was revealed immediatelyafter the narrow election victory in 1950 when Herbert Morrisonattempted to row the government back from its commitment tonationalisation and public ownership. Morrison’s “ten point plan”for the reorganisation of the Party had considerable support butwas finally defeated at a special meeting of the Executive at BeatriceWebb House in Dorking as a result of Bevan’s alliance with Watsonand Morgan Phillips.43 As Foot explained the situation to us;

Nye was strongly opposed to this of course but so too was Sam Watson and MorganPhillips. The three of them were strongly resistant to any such doctrine. Threeex-miners, whose minds were in many respects not at all alike but sharing acommon background in the mining industry.

And, he might have added, a powerful commitment to the publicownership of that industry. But there was more to it than that.Bevan and Watson also shared similar views of the world. Footdraws a sharp contrast between them and Ernest Bevin:

Sam Watson was chairman of the Labour Party’s International Committee and in thepost-war period he was strongly critical of the suppression of the socialist parties inEastern Europe. In those days Bevin as Foreign Secretary, was a strict anti-communist. Bevin – an incredible egotist – had not the capacity for an imaginativeunderstanding of other people let alone other political parties. Sam Watson wasquite different. He and Nye shared a desire to develop a more sophisticated socialistattitude to the parties in Eastern Europe and the other socialist parties in the world.In those days, you see, the left of the Party was largely pro-communist and pro-Russian. . . . . . . . many people thought that the building of socialism in Britainwould be based upon cooperation with Russia. It was a strong feeling and one whichSam Watson didn’t share, nor did Nye, Sam wasn’t pro-Communist, Nye wasn’t andI wasn’t.

This close relationship, that held the line at the Dorking meeting,was to fall apart two months later. The labour attaché Joseph



Godson did not support Watson’s close relationship with Bevanseeing him as a serious threat to US interests. When Bevanresigned from the Cabinet44 Watson’s response was terse.

The trade union movement has a traditional dislike of resignations when memberscannot get their own way and a greater dislike when, following full opportunity fordiscussion, a majority decision is cast aside45

The rift between them got worse and was undoubtedly exacer-bated by the fact that his close friend Joe Godson and the otherLabour attaches “considered Bevan beyond the pale”46 Four yearslater an election took place for the position of Treasurer of theLabour Party in which Bevan and Gaitskell were the rival candi-dates. This election was seen as a prelude to a future struggle forthe leadership of the Labour Party itself and the votes of the tradeunions would be crucial. Bevan was counting on the support of allthe coal mining areas and of Durham in particular. By this timehowever Watson and Godson had come together in a close relation-ship with Gaitskell. Foot remembers it this way:

Watson and Gaitskell became very close indeed. He was very pro-Gaitskell andGaitskell was very pro-Sam Watson. And it was a relationship which, I’m sureGaitskell benefited from greatly. You see in those days – in spite of what’s being saidnow – the leadership was determined by the bloody unions, And in Sam Watson,Gaitskell had a very shrewd, a very powerful friend. Gaitskell you see, had beenminister of Fuel in the 1945 government, He took over from Shinwell and that wasthe basis for their alliance, Then, of course, the issue of Israel; Dora Gaitskell wasJewish and very pro-Israel and that was a bond too.

Watson was to support Gaitskell and intended to ensure that theDurham area voted in that way.47 Both Foot48 and Dalton49 giveaccounts of Bevan’s anger and his belief that the Durham leaderwas distorting the views of his membership. Things were to come toa head in Durham in July 1954.

In Durham, the DMA had since its inception in 1871 organisedan annual Gala – known as the Big Meeting – to take place in thecity of Durham on the second Saturday in July.50 At this meetingnational and international speakers would attend and they wouldbe selected by lodge vote. This was one of the most democraticfeatures of the centralized trade union, and Bevan was extremelypopular with the membership and regularly elected as a speaker.This was governed by one rule – that no speaker could attend forconsecutive years. In 1954, in the middle of the controversy overthe election for Treasurer, the lodges elected Bevan as a speakerwho delivered a speech openly critical of the Durham leader.

I am quite prepared to abide by the decision of the miners of Great Britain when theyhave had a chance of expressing their views democratically. The movement is going



to survive as a democracy not a bureaucracy. We are reaching a dangerous statewhen some trade union leaders get space in the capitalist press to attack otherrepresentatives and when those trade union leaders themselves often do not repre-sent the men for whom they allege they are speaking.

Here was a moment when the two worlds – the local and thenational – collided. For years spatially separated and skillfullymanipulated by Watson, here they came together in open conflict infront of thousands of his members. Fences needed to be mended.

After the Gala the guests went up to Watson’s house, Bede’s Rest,where Hugh Dalton planned to spend the night. In the morning hehad breakfast in bed and he recalls how:

Sam Watson comes in and talks. . . . He relates a talk with Nye at the House ofCommons before the Miners’ Blackpool conference, when they decided to supportHugh Gaitskell for the treasureship. Nye said he supposed he would get the miners’vote. Sam said he didn’t know but Durham were voting for Hugh. Nye, very angry,said he would denounce Sam at the Gala. This was a conspiracy by bureaucracy nota democratic decision. Sam ‘When you win a vote you call it democracy; when youlose you call it conspiracy. What qualifications have you to run for treasureranyhow? Nye; ‘Gaitskell is not symbolic of the Trade Union Movement. Sam ‘Do youthink you are?’51

Having dealt with the immediate fallout from Bevan’s speech,Watson planned longer term and returned to the Rule Book. DavidTemple notes that:

By the next time Bevan was eligible to speak at the Gala, the Durham Executive hadbrought in the Five Year Rule which decreed that no speaker could invited to speakat the Gala more than once in five years. . . . (in order) ‘to widen the range ofspeakers’52

Alongside this local rule change Watson combined with ArthurDeakin (the General Secretary of the Transport Workers) on theNEC of the Labour Party in an attempt to further marginalise theWelsh MP. Bevan’s attacks on the leadership had led to several ofthe national executive calling for his expulsion from the party andthis had Deakin’s support. Gaitskell was also of that view and hisdiary of 18 March 1955 carries the following note:

. . . went to see Sam Watson at the Russell Hotel, whom I found with Jim Bowman,now Vice President of the Coal Board, and Joe Godson. We went over the wholeground again. Sam told me he had come to these conclusions: –

(1) That we must expel Bevan(2) That Atlee must at least support this . . . . . . .

He had given up his earlier idea of an apology53



Jim Bowman had previously been Watson’s equivalent in theneighbouring Northumberland coalfield, Vice President of the NUM,and another man of the left. Here at the Russell Hotel the fourrepresentatives of the new order, trade union, nationalised indus-try, future leader of the Labour Party and the CIA meeting togetherto deal with the Party’s left wing. The attempt at expulsion failedbut in the months that followed Watson would strongly opposeBevan’s candidature for the leadership of the party once Attlee hadstood down. In 1955, only Labour Members of Parliament voted inthese elections and Gaitskell won easily with 157 voles to the 70obtained by Bevan and the 40 who voted for the aging Morrison.Watson’s influence had been behind the scenes, and sometimesmore direct, as Tam Dayell revealed in his Obituary of Robert WoofMP for Blaydon:

I once had a long conversation with Woof about the Labour Party and his attitude toclass. I asked him, how could it be that, with your views which led to your being oneof the 10 MPs at the start of “Victory for Socialism” (the left-wing group organised byStephen Swingler and Sidney Silverman), you could on every critical vote cast infavour of Hugh Gaitskell and the leadership? Woof was nothing if not candid. “Tam,I do what Sam Watson tells me to do. I know at the end of the day which side mybread is buttered.” Dennis Skinner said: “At meetings of the Miners’ Group we allknew that Bob Woof’s natural inclinations were with the Left, but we all equallyunderstood that he had to do what Sam Watson wanted.”54

During this period Geoffrey Goodman had many conversationswith Watson and draws attention to his activities behind the scenesand also his concern with the strategic direction of the labourmovement and ways in which it could be influenced. He notes hisworries over developments within the Transport and GeneralWorkers Union and shifts in the balance of power within the tradeunions – perhaps away from the coal miners. With the Labour Partyin opposition he was looking to the future. Goodman recalls that:

Sam Watson told me on two occasions in 1957 that he regarded Nye Bevan as anatural and a great future Foreign Secretary. Watson believed that a combination ofGaitskell’s leadership with Bevan as an effective Number Two would give Labour andunbeatable team in the General Election55

To this end, with Gaitskell secure in the leadership, Watsonturned his attention on his old friend and adversary, over whom, inGoodman’s view, he “had an unusually persuasive effect.”56

In opposition, foreign policy and issues of defence continued totrouble the Labour Party and as Chair of the International Com-mittee Watson was at the centre of major disputes. Bevan was theleading figure in this movement for unilateral disarmament and at



the South Wales Miners’ Gala in 1957 had urged the Labour Partyto “call the people out on the streets against the bomb.”57 Gaitskellwas strongly opposed to this tendency and the issue was to come toa head at the annual conference of the party at Brighton. It was leftto Watson to resolve the problem. On his own account, reported byRichard Crossman, Watson had visited Bevan at his hotel roomarmed with:

A bottle of whisky and ten little bottles, five of tonic and five of soda, and by the endof the evening Nye wasn’t noticing whether it was tonic or soda. They had reallytalked for two whole evenings and Sam had gradually got Nye round to the mood ofthe next Foreign Secretary and representative of the world’s mineworkers58

At that time Bevan was already rethinking his position onunilateralism and how a Labour Government could deal positivelywith the Soviet Union. Nevertheless it seems clear that it wasWatson’s persuasion that moved him to make the conferencespeech with its most brutal rejection of the unilateral cause as “anemotional spasm” It was left to the New Statesman to declare “TheDeath of Bevanism.”

The Gala: Man of the People

We have seen that Watson’s anti-communism was a complicatedpractice, and how in his dealings within the Labour Party heexerted influence in a variety of different ways. More of a backroom operator than a conference speech maker, but extremelyeffective none the less, But there was more to him than this, andmore in his armoury of power. He was also keenly aware of thepower of emotion, and in some ways he was an emotional man.Much of this was revealed each year at the annual Miners’ Gala inDurham.

The Durham Miners’ Gala was an important item in Watson’scalendar. In this post-war period, and under his guidance, thisfestival, with its roots deep in the nineteenth century became apowerful force that was molded by the Durham leader into anoccasion of national and international significance for the miners’union and the Labour Party. It was where the representatives of thediverse milieu of Watson’s world were brought together with the aimof mutual reinforcement.

Jenny Watson, Sam’s widow, talked at length about this:

The Gala was the highlight of the year. It was the highlight of my husband’s life. Itwas a fantastic political platform. It was faithfully recorded in all the newspapersand the radio. There was only a small platform before Sam became General Secre-tary; but it grew and it was deliberate. The men in the coalfield, at the coalface,



picked the speakers, of course, but Sam was forever asking around for the guests.As I say, it was a major political platform, and Sam realised that.

What Jenny Watson was most clear about was the degree towhich the development of the Gala as an annual event representeda conscious political decision by her husband. “It was deliberate, ohyou must understand that. It was a deliberate thing.” In SamWatson’s words the Gala was “an anvil upon which the purpose andmeaning of the union could be hammered out.” In this he wasconsciously striving to affirm and consolidate the link between theLabour Party and the trade union, and make the Gala the LabourParty occasion of the year.

This was made clear in 1946, in the first Gala after the war,taking place on the eve of the nationalization of the coal mines on1 January 1947. That year it was estimated that a quarter of amillion miners and their families marched through the city. It wasthe same the following year as Michael Foot remembered:

I started there in 1947. That’s when I shared the platform with Arthur Horner. It wasstrange because the Durham area emerged as a right wing within the union and theLabour Party, but I was elected to go there regularly. The Durham Miners’ Gala is afine occasion today, taking place as it does in that beautiful city. But in those daysit was absolutely sensational. There were so many lodges you see and they had tostart bringing them in at half past eight in the morning. The whole city absolutelythrobbed with the thing from early in the morning right through until you left. Andyou left absolutely drunk with it – the music, the banners and all in that beautifulcity. It overwhelmed you really. In those days it was, far and away, the best workingclass festival that there was in this country. Far and away the best. It was justmarvelous.

Watson was aware of the capacity of this “working class festival”to move people and to be a part of a political project. In 1946 theplatform included Clement Attlee the Prime Minister and AneurinBevan. It also included the US Ambassador Averill HarrimanHarriman was an international diplomat of some distinction and aleading figure within the US Democratic Party. In 1941 PresidentRoosevelt sent him to Britain and the Soviet Union to expedite U.S.lend-lease aid. He then served as U.S. ambassador to the SovietUnion before he took up his post in London. He was centrallyinvolved in the Marshall Aid program and his presence on theplatform in Durham flowed from the links that Watson had built upduring war time. It also revealed something of Watson’s purpose.On the one hand he was bringing Harriman and the others to speakin order to “keep a window open to the outside world for hisminers.” That was Teddy Allen’s view of his purpose. There wasanother, which involved showing “his miners” to Harriman, perhaps



a reassurance that the US money was safe; that this wasn’t arevolutionary gathering but an organized and democratic meetingof a disciplined work force.

The Durham Miners’ Gala was a unique event, unlike anythingfound in any other coalfield. Its historical origins in the nineteenthcentury, the Methodist influence in its banners, and the nearmedieval setting of the City of Durham were elements which com-bined to produce an extraordinary working class occasion. It was acombination of parade, family reunion, political and revivalistmeeting. Over decades “the Big Meeting” supported two platformsof speakers and under Sam Watson’s guiding hand, leading figuresfrom the Labour Party came to dominate the occasion. Attlee alsospoke in 1949, as Prime Minister and again in 1951, 1953 and1955. With Attlee’s departure Hugh Gaitskell became a regularattendee, with Watson skillfully bending the Five Year rule to invitethe leader as his guest and inviting him to address the meetinginformally.

By this time Watson had established the Big Meeting as aninternational diplomatic event with the American, Israeli and Yugo-slav ambassadors regularly invited to witness the spectacle, pre-sented as a demonstration of free people. Here, a further purposewas revealed, as Watson explained that Gala Day was an exemplarof democratic freedom and of the British Labour Movement:

A more peaceful demonstration than that which the Yugoslav and Israeli Ambassa-dors and many other foreign visitors to Durham saw at the Gala could not beimagined. Miners, their wives and families started from their homes in the earlymorning, and with their bands and banners, travelled by bus and train and even onfoot to do just what they liked within the limits of the law. There were no ordersrapped out from the Miners’ Hall. The people could shout, sing, dance and drink allday, and members of the Association were free to attend or to absent themselvesfrom the gala as they chose. No thought of regimentation. They could criticize oreven ridicule their leaders or the political speakers who addressed them. There wereno secret police, indeed the Durham police, led by their Chief Constable (Mr. A.A.Muir) seemed to be enjoying themselves just as much as the miners.59

This reference to the Chief Constable is not insignificant. For intheir visit to Durham, these international guests would meet withall elements in the new Labourist society. The tradition had beenestablished since 1871 of holding a luncheon on Saturday, and in1946, for example the US Ambassador Averill Harriman sat at thetop table with the Prime Minister Clem Attlee and Labour govern-ment ministers Aneurin Bevan, and Hugh Dalton along with NedMoore the DMA President. They were joined by local Labour MPslike Emanuel Shinwell, representatives of the Church, the Dean ofDurham, Dr. Arlington, and, as we have said, the police force in thepresence of the Superintendent T. Hetherington of the Durham



Constabulary. However, Watson, whose stage it was, sat himself,amongst the lay delegates, away from the invited dignitaries, at thefar end of the room. On this occasion he was making it clear that hewas a man of the people, a miner amongst others.

On Gala day Watson would be up at six in the morning takinghis son David to watch the first bands come in and to meet oldfriends and introducing them to new ones. For him, it was ameeting of the community of miners when guests from a nationaland international orbit were introduced into his Labour society ofcoal miners. Will Paynter regularly attended in the fifties and wasso impressed that he introduced a similar event into the calendarof the South Wales miners. However he recalled one incident,that took place before he became General Secretary of the NUMthat was particularly revealing of Watson and his understandingof the occasion. George Brown Labour MP and candidate for theleadership after Gaitskell’s death, began to attack Paynter as acommunist.

But Watson came over immediately and told Brown that he’d better shut up becauseI wasn’t a “communist” on this occasion, I was President of the South Wales Minersand a guest of the Durham Miners. He really told him off.

Like Bevan, Brown had overstepped the mark but in a ratherdifferent way, one that revealed more clearly the problems Watsonfaced in bringing the various parts of his world together in a largelyinformal and uncontrolled setting. Bevan’s speech had called forthe need for long term boundary maintenance dealt with through achange in the rules and, in the immediate aftermath, a detailedexplanation of the event to Hugh Dalton as he ate his breakfast inbed. The response to Brown had to be more immediate, establishingclearly and with vigour that boundary lines had been crossed andthat transgression would not be tolerated, as this was a meeting ofminers. In spite of his deep commitment to the Labour Party (whereBrown was a key actor) Watson was at root a miners’ leader andthis was a trade union occasion.

All this highlights Sam Watson’s concern for context, and theenormous energy he devoted to securing the basis of power in eachof the arenas.60 To this extent Bevan was wrong, for Watson wasanything but a bureaucratic functionary. Speaking of Gala DayTeddy Allen, noted how:

for Sam there was a concern for both the local community and the wider sphere ofpolitics. This set him against any idea of the union as a kind of routine officefunction. This strongly influenced his attitude to the Gala. The Gala was a folkmeeting, a family gathering. I don’t know that he took an enormous part himself inthe speaking and things like that, but he was a sort of father figure to it and hegloried in the sort of community spirit of which it was a manifestation. . . . . . .



At the Gala, Sam Watson’s various networks of power, cametogether. Here statesman and villager, prime ministers and citizens,union officials and union members and their families met in a waythat was seen to emblemize in colour, sound and in flesh and blooda particular kind of politics, remembered so vividly by Michael Foot.

In 1912, a previous secretary of the DMA, John Wilson wrote that“Our Gala has incorporated us in the permanent institutions of theCounty.” The miners, he said “were feared at first” but now “ourGala has been pronounced the demonstration par excellence.” Inthe 1940’s and 1950’s, and under Sam Watson’s studious direction,the Gala was placed rather differently. It became a national andinternational event and one that was used to showcase a particularkind of social life, politically interpreted by the Durham leader. Itwas through the Durham Gala, more than any other occasion, thatleaders and led within the Labour movement met alongside theinstitutions of Church and State. At this meeting it was the tradeunion (now a key institution in post-war society) which played host,increasingly supported by the National Coal Board.

In 1962, at his last Gala as General Secretary, Watson walkedinto Durham with the men and women of his former lodge, BoldonColliery. The bands played him out with “Auld Lang Syne.” On thatday the Coal Board produced a film of the Gala in his honour. Ayear later he returned as a guest and once again stood on thebalcony of the County Hotel to be cheered. Alongside him, on thatday, stood his close friend Dr. William Reid, Chairman of theNorthern Division of the Coal Board. By this time Godson had leftthe London office to take up positions in Yugoslavia. He wasreplaced by John Correll. In an interview with Maurice Weisz heconfirms the continuity of the relationship with the Durham leader.He remembers that:

In Britain I became pretty well acquainted with the miners up in Durham and [wentto] their annual gala. One time there were a hundred thousand miners at the galain Durham. And Sam Watson, who became particularly close to the Americans andwas a good friend of the Ambassador, he was the great trade union leader then. . . .a great man.61

Conclusion

In the immediate post-war period trade unions in the UK wereinvolved in a form of weak corporatism that involved them directlyin the decision making processes of the state. The NUM was moreinvolved than most given the nationalisation of the coal industryand the vital role it played in a single energy economy. We have seenhow Sam Watson, as a regional official in the NUM was able to play



a critical role and we have identified key public and privatemoments and conversations on diverse stages to illustrate this.

In assessing the roles of the CIA and their Labour Attaches,Wilford emphasised their concern to oppose communism andincorporate “US labor values” into the British labour movement.Sam Watson is portrayed as a willing helper in this process andthere is considerable evidence of his close personal relationshipswith the US Embassy.62 However it is easy to over-estimate theextent to which the trade unions and the labour party within a coldwar climate needed CIA support in either its control of labour or itsanti-communism.63 Certainly US hegemony helped, but RhiannonVickers is persuasive when she concludes that:

The politics of productivity were not forced upon an unwilling partner . . . the BritishLabour government actively imported US style Fordist accumulation . . . in order toestablish its own vision of social democracy based on class compromise rather thanclass conflict . . . Organised labour played a crucial role in this64

We would add that particular individuals in key positions playeda critical role and that Sam Watson was one of these people. It isworth recalling Dennis Skinner’s observation that Watson was aman with a purpose; a meticulous man, secure in office, not out tomake friends. He was a man intent on using the undoubted powerof his position to the clear political end of supporting the LabourParty in establishing a fairer society. He called himself a democraticsocialist, but we have stressed how he was involved in and person-ally connected to different milieu and political traditions – thecorporate as well as the democratic – that provided him with thecapacity to position the NUM in relation to both the Labour Partyand the Communist Party. We have examined how at times thesedifferent milieu and their claims came into conflict.

The height of Watson’s power was in the forties and fifties65 whentrade union leaders were placed in positions of power within thestate and were centrally involved in establishing the conditions ofclass compromise within the major industries. This rise in thestatus of trade unionism was seen as an enactment of their centralimportance to a democratic society. Writing in 1947, Watsonasserted that:

It is not an exaggeration of a historical fact to say that the rise of Trade Unions inthis Country coincided with the birth of Parliamentary democracy. Organised labourhas been the main source of power which fostered the development of free citizen-ship and became the mainstay of democratic government. Before the workers,through the Unions, had fully asserted the right to combine, freedom and democracywere but empty words. Freedom of association was the starting point of all otherfreedoms.66



In many ways this strong statement of democracy fits withTawney’s account of the radical tradition:

The rank and file of the labour movement.(who)..regard democracy, not as anobstacle to socialism, but as an instrument for attaining it, and socialism, not as theantithesis of democracy, but as the extension of democratic principles into spheresof life which previously escaped their influence67

The emphasis on democracy is persistent in Watson’s speechesand writings. Again in 1947 he criticised the USSR where “under thebattle cry of “Socialism” a totalitarian state apparatus is being setup.” He quotes Rosa Luxenburg’s writing “from the depths of herprison cell” on political freedom and the fact that the “supervision ofpolitical life throughout the country must gradually cause thevitality of the Soviets themselves to decline.” He reinforces thischallenge by reference to Karel Capec’s play R.U.R. that “demon-strated that in such a society men and women need only be robotsand not individual personalities.”68 Here, the power of an indepen-dent national trade union movement operating within a parlia-mentary democracy, is contrasted with the Soviet model whichsubordinated the trade union to the Communist Party. In his variousspeeches Watson would illustrate this through his experiences as amember of visiting delegations to the miners in the Soviet Union. Assuch the anti-communism stemmed from a trade union perspectiveand it would seem that he fits the account provided by DennisMcShane of leaders whose views “did not emerge from malignant,right wing personalities but (were) based on a quarter century ofdisappointed observation of the Soviet experiment”69 Undoubtedly itwas his support for the condition of trade unions and socialists inEastern Europe that got him most animated.70

This emphasis on the trade union and its independence frompolitical interference from the labour party was central to his viewof politics and was strained by the party’s circular on the Commu-nist Party. However we have seen how, in the coal industry, theneeds of trade unionism and the success of the NCB dominated.Here, corporate and democratic threads of labour thinking cametogether and sometimes conflicted. It needed the social and admin-istrative skills of people like Sam Watson to pull them together andlegitimise the new arrangements. In this as a man born in thenineteenth century he was able to draw upon a range of experienceand personal contacts to great effect, emphasising them in differentways in different contexts. We have signalled the performativeaspects of all this and with it the idea of the various “stages” oflabourist society – Redhills and the DMA, the National ExecultiveCommitttes of the NUM and Labour Party, the Miners’ gala- to



emphasise the knots and difficulties involved in operating withinthis multi layered tradition during a period of rapid change.

It was his ability to move across different political traditions thatenabled him to work with Arthur Horner and retain his support ofthe union and nationalization, while at the same time limiting therole of the Communist Party within the Durham region of the NUM.In his friendship with Aneurin Bevan he emphasized their commonidentity as miners while providing support for Gaitskell and theassociation of the labour attaches. It was by following how heworked across these different connections and handled these con-flicts and pressures that we were able to trace the ways in which hisactivities contributed to the production of the Labour Party as “aliving political organism, always seeking new ways to adapt anddevelop older ideas, if only to gain and maintain political power.”71

It is tempting therefore to finally reflect on his legacy. At the timeof his retirement, Watson together with Reid had established theplatform for the implementation of a major programme of collieryclosures. Perhaps his political blindness was most striking in hisview that the decline of coal production was both inevitable andprogressive. As such he enthusiastically established proceduresthat would achieve the orderly run-down of mining in Durham andin the 1960s over a hundred coal mines were closed in the area,with South Wales and Scotland experiencing run down on a similarscale. With the decline in mining, the NUM became reduced to aminority role in the affairs of Labour in the County and nationallyleading to the relative isolation of the NUM within the labourmovement, signalling an end to “carbon democracy.”72 In this newcontext the union embarked on a more radical and confrontationalapproach culminating in three national strikes, the longest in1984–85. For its part, the Labour Party, most clearly under thebanner of New Labour, distanced itself from the trade unions inways that precluded the rise of powerful leaders like Watson.Seen in this way, Watson’s career, and his exertion of power,was intricately bound up with the nature and form of the “conten-tious alliance”73 between party and union that came to fore in theyears after the war: an alliance that is generally referred to asLabourism.

Notes

1 We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpfulcomments and also the help and support we have received in preparingthis paper from Chris Jones, Tony Lane, Ruth Milkman, Theo Nichols andGareth Rees.

2 E.P. Thompson (1965) “The Peculiarities of the English” in Miliband.R. and Saville, J., The Socialist Register 1965, Merlin Pressn p. 342.



3 Quoted in Hogan, M. J 1987 The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, andthe Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952, Cambridge UniversityPress p. 22.

4 Rhiannnon Vickers, Manipulating Hegemony: State Power, Labour andthe Marshall Plan in Britain, New York, St Martins Press, 2000, p. 5.

5 Political and Economic Planning, British Trade Unionism, PEP Publish-ing, 1948, p. 148 PEP was a policy think tank set up in 1931 as anon-governmental planning organisation funded by large corporations. Itwas highly influential for almost fifty years before merging with the Centrefor the Study of Social Policy to form the Policy Study Institute (PSI) in 1978.

6 See Mitchell, T. (2011) Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age ofOil, London: Verso. Most recently Mitchell has argued that in its concern todefeat communism in Europe, the Marshall Plan was aware of the impor-tance of the coal m iners and saw that “the way to weaken the kinds of callsfor broader-based democracies that are beginning to take place in Europeis actually to . . . to replace the basic energy infrastructure of Europe,moving from coal to oil” See. Galkina, A., Marriott J and Mitchell, T., (2013)Roundtable discussion, “From Caspian Sea to Arctic to Middle East, HowOil Pipelines Threaten Democracy & Planet’s Survival,” October 8, 2013,http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/8/from_caspian_sea_to_arctic_to.

7 Hugh Wilford, “American Labour Diplomacy and Cold War Britain.”Journal of Contemporary History, 2002 Vol. 37, No. 1. pp. 45–65.

8 Ibid p. 51. Soo also G. Berger, A Not So Silent Envoy: A Biography ofAmbassador Samuel David Berger, New Rochelle, New York, 1992.

9 Wilford, op.cit p. 53.10 Ibid p. 60 ff.11 See for example Hogan, op.cit.12 Foot, M. (1975) Aneurin Bevan 1945–1960, Paladin.13 Fishman, N. (2010) Arthur Horner A Political Biography 11: 1944–

1968, Lawrence and Wishart.14 Allen, V. (1957) Trade Union Leadership; Based on a study of Arthur

Deakin, Longmans, p. 147fn.15 Allen, V. (1956) Power in Trade Unions, Longmans.16 Minkin, L. (1991) The Contentious Alliance, Edinburgh University

Press, p. 93–94.17 W.R. Garside (1971) The Durham Miners: 1919–1960, Allen and

Unwin, p. 459.18 Dennis, N., Henriques, F. and Slaughter, C. (1956) Coal is Our Life; An

Analysis of a Yorkshire Mining Community, Eyre and Spottiswoode.19 Warwick, D and Littlejohn, G (1992) Coal, Capital and Culture: A

Sociological Study of mining communities in West Yorkshire Routledge (1992).20 See for example A. Taylor (1984) The Politics of the Yorkshire Miners,

Croom Helm; Howell, D (1989) The Politics’ of the NUM: A Lancashire View,Manchester University Press; Gildart, K. (2001) North Wales Miners: AFragile Unity, University of Wales Press; Francis, H. and Smith, D. (1980)The Fed: A History of the South Wales Miners in the Twentieth Century,Lawrence and Wishart; Curtis, B. (2013) A History of the South WalesMiners, University of Wales Press, Williams, C. (1996) Democratic Rhondda:Parties and Society 1885–1951, University of Wales Press.

21 A comparative study of union democracy in the US and UK considersfactionism in the NUM to be weak when compared with unionorganisations in the US. Rather emphasizing its powerful regional



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substructures and the limited power of the national officials. In its view theNUM was “more a fedederation of stroing regional groupos of miners thana cenralised national organization” Edelstein and Warner eds. (1979) Com-parative Union Democracy; Organisation and Opposition in British andAmerican Unions, New Brunswick, N.J. Tranaction Books, Second Edition.

22 Fishman, op.cit.23 Karen A. Hansen, “Historical Sociology and the Prism of Biography:

Lillian Wineman and the trade in Dakota Breadwood 1893–1929,” Quali-tative Sociollogy, Vol. 22. No. 4, 1999, 353–368.

24 This term has a long history and has been central to a debate withinMarxism on the failure of the British working class to develop a transfor-mative socialist politics. In the post-war period it was developed mostforcefully by John Saville in two seminal articles “Labourism and the LabourGovernment” in Saville, J, and Miliband, R. (1967) The Socialist Register,Merlin Press; “The Ideology of Labourism” in Benewick, R. et al. eds (1973)Knowledge and Belief in Politics: the Problem of Ideology, George Allen andUnwin. Howell has offered a pessimistic account of the failure of the conceptof labourism that questions the credibility of the claims associated with itsuse. In particular, he questions the absence of context and the contrastbetween labourism and “a never realized and imprecise alternative” ofsocialism. David Howell “The Ideology of Labourism” in Howell, D, Kirby, D.and Morgan, K. (2011) John Saville: Commitment and History, Lawrence andWishart. His argument follows that of Raphael Samuel and Gareth Stedman-Jones “ “The Labour Party and Social Democracy” in Samuel, R. andStedman-Jones, G. (1982) Culture, Ideology and Politics, Routledge andKegan Paul, In this paper we follow the interpretation of these authors withthe emphasis on the need to move beyond a general discussion of ideologyand provide a greater empirical focus drawing, in our case, on the activitiesof Sam, Watson.

25 Beynon, H. and Austrin, T. (1996) Masters and Servants: Class andPatronage in the Making of a Labour Organisation, Rivers Oram.

26 Howell op.cit.27 Howell, D. The Politics of the NUM, p. 6, 19 March.28 Quoted in Nina Fishman, Arthur Horner: A Political Biography I: 1894–

1944, Lawrence and Wishart, 2010, p. 394.29 Geoffrey Goodman, The Awkward Warrior, Frank Cousin: His Life and

Times, Davis-Poynter, 1979, p. 137.30 At one point Clement Attlee was seriously considering him as Foreign

Secretary.31 For details of the development of this rule book see Beynon, H. and

Austrin, T. (1996) Masters and Servants: Class and Patronage in the Makingof a Labour Organisation, Rivers Oram.

32 See for example Bevir, M (2011) The Making of British Socialism,Princeton University Press, and (more contemporaneously) A. McSmith(1996) Faces of Labour, Verso.

33 Stedman-Jones, G. (2005) “New Labour History” The Guardian.34 In 1947 the Labour Party issued a circular entitled The Communists:

We Have been Warned, that indicated that members of the CommunityParty “gained an influence inside some trade unions out of all proportionto their real strength” (quoted in Fishman, Arthur Horner a Political Biog-raphy, p. 768). This message was eventually endorsed by the TUC, insupport of a policy against members of the Communist Party holding officeat any level within a trade union.



35 Holter, D. (1982) “Mineworkers and Nationalisation in France:Insights into Concepts of State Theory,” Politics and Society, Vol. XI, No. 1.

36 See for example, Thompson, E.P. (1976) “On History, Sociology, andHistorical relevance” British Journal of Sociology, vol. 28, No. 3.

37 Fishman, op.cit. p. 798.38 Fishman, op.cit. p. 769.39 The constitution of the National Union of Mineworkers was based on

a document drafted by Horner and Watson in 1938 and they supportedeach other in the meetings that led up to the final settlement. So they kneweach oither well. In 1939 they had travelled together as part of a smalldelegation to Tarbes in the Pyrenees where the French Mining Federationhad opened a home for Spanish refugee miners. They were both “Work-men’s Representatives” on the regional boards of the coal industry duringwar-time and in. 1945 they served together on a special sub-committee setup by the newly formed NUM, alongside, Moffat and Jim Hammond, fromLancashire another member of the Communist Party.

40 Fishman, op.cit. p. 945 In her own judgement “Though they scarcelydiffered in what they expected from the Board, Jones lacked Horner’s flair,experience and flexibility. Many, if not most, if the recurrent apparentlyendemic, unofficial strikes in Yorkshire from 1945 to 1954, might havebeen diverted or quickly diffused if he had possessed a modicum of skill inhuman relations, or the ability to calculate and execute tactical manoeu-vres” p. 896.

41 Fishman op.cit. p. 896–7.42 Abe Moffat and his younger brothers Alex and Dave were miners from

the “Little Moscow” village of Lumphinnans in Fife and all active membersof the Communist Party. Abe was President of the Scottish Area of the NUM1945–1961. During that time he served on the National Executive Com-mittee of the NUM and also the Communist Party. See Abe Moffat, My LifeWith the Miners, Lawrence and Wishart, 1965.

43 Foot, op.cit. p. 284–6.44 He resigned over the imposition of prescription changes in Gaitskell’s

budget, something made necessary by an enormous rearmament pro-gramme agreed with the US. As K.O. Williams observed: “Bevan’s economiccritique of Gaitskell’s 1951 budget was confirmed by the response of theChurchill Government 1951–54, when the arms programme was greatlyscaled down on Bevanite lines.” Michael Foot: A Life, Harper, 2007, 153–4.

45 Quoted in Foot, op.cit. p. 335.46 Wilford, op.cit. p. 59.47 George Brown, an ally of Watson on the right of the Labour Party was

however not unsympathetic to Bevan on this issue. “Aneurin’s feeling thatGaitskell had been foisted onto the Party had substance . . . he owed hissupport to the backing he was given by the old hard core of the greatunions, then controlled by Arthur Deakin of the Transport Workers, TomWilkinson on the General Workers and Sam Watson and Will Lawther of theMineworkers,” George Brown, In My Way, Victor Gollanz, 1971, p. 80. Itwas in his support for Gaitskell that Watson’s politics can be seen to haveshifted most unequivocally. As Milliband argued: “There really is a differ-ence of outlook between men like Morrison, the products of an earlierLabour generation, and Gaitskellite revisionists. However great the for-mer’s propensity to compromise in practice, they are genuinely loath toabandon, finally and explicitly, the socialist facet of Labourism.” MilibandR (1961) “Foonote to Labourism,” New Left Review, 1 8, 65–66.



48 Foot. Op.cit. p. 434–5.49 B. Pimplott (ed), The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton: 1918–1940; 1945–

1960, Jonathon Cape, 1987, p. 632.50 For details see Temple, D. (2011) The Big Meeting: A History of the

Durham Miners’ Gala, TUPS Books and Beynon, H and Austrin, T. (1991)“The Iconography of the Durham Miners’ Gala,” Journal of Historical Soci-ology, Vol. 2 No. 1 March 1989, pp. 66–81.

51 Pimlott, B. (ed) The Political Diary of High Dalton: 1918–49; 1945–60,Jonathon Cape, 1986, p. 632.

52 Temple op.cit. p. 126.53 Williams, P.M. (1983) The Diary of Hugh Gaitskell 1945–1956,

Jonathon Cape, p. 304.54 Dayell, T. (1997) “Obituary: Robert Edward Woof” The Independent 4th

December.55 Goodman, op.cit. p. 156 ff. He added “He was wrong.”56 Ibid p.156.57 Quoted in Campbell, J. 1987) Nye Bevan and the Mirage of British

Socialsim, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, p. 336.58 Janet Morgan (ed) The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman,

Hamish Hamilton, 1981, p. 614.59 Durham Miners Association, Annual Report, 1953.60 In this article oblique references have been made to the attention that

the sociologist Erving Goffman gave to the manner and pattern of socialinteractions. Rarely cited outside sociology, Goffman understood thatrepeatedly social participants were involved in a framing process. See E.Goffman Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction, Bobbs-Merrill, 1961; E. Goffman, Frame Analysis: an essay on the organisation ofexperience, North Eastern University Press, 1971 This framing processestablishes a boundary within which interactions take place “more or lessindependently of their surroundings” Michel Callon, “An Essay on Framingand overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology,” in Callon,M. ed. (1998) The Laws of the Markets, Blackwell Publishers, p. 249.

61 Morris Weisz interview with John Correll, March 9, 1990, The Asso-ciation of Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral HistoryProject: Labor Series.

62 George Brown’s comment here is helpful “Sam had his emotionalprejudices, no doubt, and sometimes he was too uncritically pro-American.But such prejudices were out in the open and could be discounted”(Brown, G (1971) In My Way: Political Memoirs of Lord George Brown, VictorGollancz, p. 222). He was not alone in this of course. Rhiannon Vickersquotes a letter from Anthony Eden to Churchill about Walter Citrine,General Secretary of the TUC. Written in 1941 it states that” You knowCitrine’s feeling about communism which he expressed again with undi-minished emphasis, even going so far as to say that, were we given thechoice between life under Nazi or Soviet rule, he would be in doubt as towhich to choose” Manipulating Hegemony: State Power, Labour and theMarshall Plan in Britain, Macmillan, p. 50.

63 Ibid p.134. In the nineteen seventies and eighties this arrangementcame to be referred to as “class collaboration” by the new left leadership inthe NUM, notably Arthur Scargil. Nina Fishman has noted that Watson andLawther were prepared to settle for a left of centre leadership of the NUMin order to retain Horner and that they “became his personal guarantorsagainst attack from the Labour Party NEC or the TUC General Council;



(op.cit. p. 968). At that time there were considerable numbers of unofficialdisputes in the coal mines many of them relating to the command struc-ture which, like many of the management personnel, had remainedunchanged with nationalisation. It invites an interesting counter factualbased on the Left within the executive taking a much firmer line on thestructure of the NCB, and its impact that this would have had on Watson.Perhaps it is this area (the limits of the left response) that we find thegreatest impact of US hegemony.

64 Ibid p.134.65 Gildart describes this period as “The Golden Age of Labourism,” op.cit.

pp. 21–64.66 Durham Miners Association, Annual Report, 1947.67 R. Tawney, The Radical Tradition, Penguin, London, 1966, p. 147–8.68 Durham Miners Association op.cit.69 McShane, D. (1992) International Labour and the Origins of the Cold

War, Clarendon Press, p. 285. This assessment also gels with E.P.Thompson’s interpretation of the British working class which in his viewhad “dug itself into a dense network of defensive positions. And if it hasrefused to move out of them and to take up an offensive posture over somany decades, this is not just because of some ‘corporate’ conservatismbut also because of an active rejection of what appeared as the onlyalternative ideology and strategy – Communism,” “The Peculiarities of theEnglish” op.cit. p. 347.

70 See for example Brown, op.cit. p. 73.71 Foote, G (1997) The Labour Party’s Political Thought, New York: St

Martin’s Press, p. 4.72 Mitchell op.cit.73 See Minkin, op.cit.



Documents

The Performance of Power: Sam Watson a Miners' Leader on Many Stages