Welsh miners and the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

'The fight against fascism is the fight for trade unionism... one hundred per cent conscious militant trade unionism is the most important safeguard against fascism ... Scab unionism is fascism in embryo'.1 These were the words of Arthur Horner, President of the South Wales Miners Federation (SWMF), at an antifascist rally in Tonypandy, less than two months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Homer's speech crystallized the mood of the South Wales coalfield at this time and goes some way to explain the commitment of Welsh mining communities to the Spanish Republican cause. The outbreak of the Civil War in July I936 coincided with a recrudescence of social unrest and political activity in the South Wales coalfield, unrivalled since the General Strike of I926. The support which the Spanish Republic received from the coalfield in men and materials was symptomatic of a sharpening class consciousness, the result largely of the peculiar socio-economic structure of Welsh mining communities in the mid-g93os. The alignment of Welsh miners with the Republican cause was neither a momentary response to the heroic nature of the war, nor an artificial phenomenon stimulated from above by a trade union or political bureaucracy. Rather it was a re-emergence of class consciousness, centred on foreign affairs and thus expressing itself in feelings of international class solidarity. The SWMF had been internationally minded since the end of the first world war. It had affiliated to the Red International of Labour Unions (a trade union subsidiary of the Communist International), and it had taken intense interest in Spanish workingclass affairs. The Ferndale Lodge was not untypical in protesting against the shooting of Spanish miners during their abortive