Communist Coalmining Union Activists and Postwar Reconstruction, 1945–52: Germany, Poland, and Britain

Abstract

The demand for coal in war-torn Europe after V. E. Day gave coalmining trade unions unprecedented bargaining leverage. Miners' incomes had been depressed throughout the interwar period, and they were now anxious to recover their past high wages and improve their conditions. In several key European countries, Communists were prominent among the leadership of mining trade unions. Communist miners' leaders Willi Agatz, Edward Gierek and Arthur Horner each faced unprecedented opportunities and challenges at the onset of the Cold War in 1948, as they sought to fuse their parallel identities as committed and influential Communists and as conscientious trade union negotiators in these newly advantageous circumstances. Each of these three “revolutionary” trade unionists pursued strategies that revived the position of miners, without undermining the potential for economic recovery in their respective countries — for which an uninterrupted supply of coal remained critical. A comparative study of the personal and political experiences of the three Communist miners' leaders enhances our understanding of the evolution of Communist trade unionism in the early postwar period.