The Red Flag: Transnational Solidarity Between Durham Miners and the Soviet Union
The story of cross-border cultural exchange between unionised mineworkers in the United Kingdom and their counterparts in the Soviet Union is one that predates the October Revolution, endured the throes of the Cold War, and persisted in the wake of 1991. As such, there is a vast wealth of source material relating to the subject matter, so for the sake of brevity and personal interest, the scope of this article will be the lived experience of mineworkers and their families in County Durham, my home county, where there remains a genuine shared conception of Soviet friendship in former pit communities that has sustained to the present day.
The first recorded instance of interaction between the Soviet Union and County Durham came in 1926, when a party of Sacriston-residing miner’s wives left Britain for the USSR, calling upon the Soviets for aid amidst the bleak destitution of the lockout and General Strike. Annie Errington, DMA women’s section secretary, left a series of postcards documenting this journey. Visiting Baku, Moscow, Leningrad and the Donbass basin, she offered fascinating insight into the emergent role of the USSR as a benefactor and enabling agent to the Durham Miners, in this case empowering women who likely had previously never left the North East to undertake a journey across continents. Errington’s radical legacy is quietly recognised today in her hometown of Sacriston, wherein one may stumble across ‘Errington Bungalows’, an understated nod to an underappreciated slice of local history. Occurring simultaneously, the curious case of Chopwell’s radicalisation serves as a fascinating microcosm of general attitudes toward Sovietism across the region. Referred to in scholarship as a little Moscow, at the time of the General Strike, over 2000 men and boys were employed in three shafts at Chopwell Colliery. Pre-existing mono-industrial structures, in symbiosis with some outreach on behalf of the Soviets created a hotbed of bottom-up, working class Marxism in the North East: miners removed the Union Jack from municipal buildings, replacing it with the Red Flag, a diet of communist literature was implemented at the Sunday school, and a proposed name change of the local football club to ‘Chopwell Soviets’ was thwarted by the Durham Football Association. Evidence of this tract of history remains, again, in local street names: Lenin Terrace, Marx Terrace, and Hardie Street.
The next significant occasion in this story comes in 1936, ten years on from the General Strike and the Errington party’s trip, a delegation of Durham miners again ventured to the Soviet Union. From a pamphlet published by the Durham Miners Association documenting the tour, one can derive a true sense of impression on behalf of the visiting party, citing their approval of the Soviets outlawing of under 18’s working underground, the provision of food at work, and the constant presence of a doctor on shift. It is fascinating to view this material in light of subsequent goals of unionised mineworkers in England, namely their lobbying for improved health and safety in the workplace. The piece concludes with a resounding call for “closer unity between British and Russian miners”.
Perhaps the most curious example of a sustained relationship between County Durham and Russia comes in the 1940’s, with a letter penned by Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador to the Court of St James on behalf of Josef Stalin still occupying a prominent position in Redhills, thanking the Durham Miners Association for their kind donation of £1500 for an X-Ray machine.
Omitting the 1960’s and 1970’s for, again, the sake of brevity, we move to the Miners Strike of 1984 - the definitive apex of British mineworkers’ militancy, and symbiotically, the high-water mark of Durham mineworkers’ relations with their Soviet comrades. Conversations with my own mother and grandmother, a striking miner’s daughter and wife respectively, recall receiving tins of globus, as well as Christmas presents from Soviet miner’s unions. Margaret Ricalton, a miner’s wife from Ashington, received a free three-week stay in the Black Sea resort of Pitsunda courtesy of the Soviets, describing the visit as “a chance of a lifetime”, having “never been further than Yarmouth before”.
Conclusively, in the historical memory of the Durham coalfield, the Soviet connection is one that has retained its longevity. Even beyond the demise of the USSR, there are recorded instances of Durham NUM delegations to independent Ukraine and the Russian Federation. From conversations and street signs, to the banners paraded on Gala Day in Durham City, a sense of companionship with the Soviet Union has found its way into the cultural fabric of the North East, one that I believe has endured in the memory of the region beyond deindustrialisation.
Image courtesy of Oliver Dixon via Wikimedia, ©2007, some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
