posted Mar 26, 2010, 4:28 AM by Dick Pountain
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 ...' In
fact Nina Fishman was for some sixteen years a leading member of the
British and Irish Communist Organisation, and in 1973, in that context,
she developed a series of policy positions which, had they been
followed by the Labour movement, would have rendered the rise of
Thatcherism and the consequent collapse of working class power
impossible. The obituary presents her as an academic who
eschewed politics but she is best seen as a political activist whose
academic work was a continuation of politics by other means. Yours Peter Brooke |
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