Letters
Letters to The Guardian: Tuesday 22 December 2009
Donald
Sassoon describes Nina Fishman (obituary, 14 December) as "one of the
most outstanding and original personalities of the British left", who
promoted a perspective of "revolutionary pragmatism" for the British
labour movement. In the turbulent times of the 1970s and 80s, Nina
energetically supported a resolution of the conflicts in British
society in the working-class interest through the introduction of
industrial democracy (workers' control) along the lines of the German
system of Mitbestimmung (co-determination)
and through constructive British engagement with the EU. But Sassoon's
description of the British and Irish Communist Organisation in which
she was then involved (as I was, too) as a "rather eccentric
quasi-Stalinist group" does her a disservice. It was through the tumult
of contending ideas that characterised that organisation, and in which
Nina engaged so energetically, that these very ideas emerged in the
first place – as did many others she shared, on nationalism in Britain
and Ireland, on the "British road to socialism", on the potential of
the Bullock report for British labour. Philip O'Connor |
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: THE INDEPENDENT, 27 January 2010
Sir/Madame
Your obituary for the Labour historian Nina Fishman (27th Jan) states
that 'she refused to join any political grouping' and continues 'She
became prominent in the NUM's administration during the 1972 national
coal strike, after which she moved back to teaching ...' |