Thatcher blocked Soviet aid to striking miners in 1984

[PaddyJoe]

Newly released papers describe how Margaret Thatcher managed to prevent $1m raised by Soviet miners from reaching Arthur Scargill's NUM in 1984.
Interesting piece in today's Guardian which sheds light on what was going on behind the scenes in British/Soviet Union relations at the time.


She was the prime minister at the height of her powers, using every arm of the state to crush the striking miners. He was the Soviet heir apparent who had authorised a large donation to help striking comrades in the UK.

Now newly released Downing Street documents have shed fresh light on the relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev, exposing how Thatcher exerted intense diplomatic pressure on the future leader to successfully block a Soviet donation of much-needed cash to the strikers.

The documents, released to the Guardian after a five-year freedom of information battle, show how the pair clashed during the titanic miners' strike that convulsed Britain in 1984-85.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/margaret-thatcher-soviet-aid-miners?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Gruffalo]

Nothing would surprise me about that woman. In my opinion, the most evil woman to have lived during my lifetime.

[C. Flower]

Fascinating report. But Thatcher was representing her own party and class: Gorbachev was the bigger snake in the grass.

[LeDroit]

What a woman. Crushed the unions belief that they owned the country and returned it to the taxpayer who actually does. We need her like in Ireland more than ever now.

[PaddyJoe]

Actually we had her like in the shape of Harney, McDowell and co. Not much left of them now.

[C. Flower]

What a woman. Crushed the unions belief that they owned the country and returned it to the taxpayer who actually does. We need her like in Ireland more than ever now.

She believed that Britain could be wealthy without a skilled working class. Proved dismally wrong, and much of the toxic derivatives mistaken for wealth by the City have still not fully "gone off".

[PaddyJoe]

There's another good piece in that section about the secret behind the scenes plans to run down the coal industry. These included importing more coal, building more gas fired and nuclear power station; switching coal deliveries to power station to road instead of rail and increasing supplies of electricity from France.

Other parts of the plan included changing the law so that rioters could be more easily prosecuted, and cutting state help with mortgage interest payments for home owners on benefits. The latter was to ensure that strikers with homes could face repossession, but was not to be officially acknowledged as part of any anti-strike plan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/margaret-thatcher-undermine-miners-union

[Summerday Sands]

East Germany also gave aid to the struggle whilst the miners & their families were on the bread line, for that they should be applauded.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7874300/Miners-strike-funded-by-East-German-communists.html

Thatcher only supported unions when they were Polish, she cared not a jot for the British working class & crushed them with all her might. Wicked woman.

[ModestMouse]

What a woman. Crushed the unions belief that they owned the country and returned it to the taxpayer who actually does. We need her like in Ireland more than ever now.

Wake up LeDroit! You appear to be having some sort of Extreme Right Wing wet dream.

Thatcher was a ***** who intentionally set herself on a collision course with the unions with the singular aim of starving them into submission and handing absolute power and control back to employers and her Capitalist cronies.

The social inequalities and the global recession we are experiencing today are a direct result of Thatcher's "boom and bust" and "greed is good" policies. The last thing any country needs is another Capitalist despot ******** the working classes to line the pockets of wealthy elite.

You really should seek out better role models than Right Wing lunatic dictators.

[Andrew49]

What a woman. Crushed the unions belief that they owned the country and returned it to the taxpayer who actually does. We need her like in Ireland more than ever now.

We had (and still have) her spawn here in the clothes of the PDs. Mary Harney was delivered through an orifice of Thatcher.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c135/theknitter/bootout2.jpg

[culmore]

Pity we dont have her in charge of our poor country now, she would sort out the HSE and the rest of them

[LeDroit]

Pity we dont have her in charge of our poor country now, she would sort out the HSE and the rest of them

+1

You're damn right. The PC whingers on this thread would hand the country over wrapped in a bow to the blackmailers in the unions. She broke their stranglehold on the country and won it back for the majority.

[Baron von Biffo]

Actually we had her like in the shape of Harney, McDowell and co. Not much left of them now.

Not much left of the country either, after their endeavours.

[antiestablishmentarian]

What a woman. Crushed the unions belief that they owned the country and returned it to the taxpayer who actually does. We need her like in Ireland more than ever now.
What a load of sh*te: the only thing Thatcher proved is that destruction of industry and reliance on finance capital for growth is a disastrous recipe for the economy. Her attack on the working class movement only crippled the British economy in the long run through declining real wages and an increased dependency on credit for the sustenance of the internal market, the consequences of which the British economy is suffering from now.

[Summerday Sands]

What a woman. Crushed the unions belief that they owned the country and returned it to the taxpayer who actually does. We need her like in Ireland more than ever now.

That old line is always trotted out as well as "She made Britain Geat again". It's all guff the unions never ran the country, if they did they Why did they threaten to close the Clydebank shipyard?, or the miners in '72. Was it the unions who let the hunger strikers die? Was it the unions who attacked the Falklands?

The Tory party did all that, they have been in power now since 1979, including the 13 years by proxy under New Labour. They've ruined the country & continue to do so.

[Aspro]

Pity we dont have her in charge of our poor country now, she would sort out the HSE and the rest of them

Well her Irish incarnation Mary Harney set up the HSE so I don't see how that line of logic is going to get us anywhere.

As for the usual "standing up to the unions" tripe - we have the current destruction of our living standards and diversion of public funds from the needy to the greedy because of the compliance of the trade union leadership in betraying their members, not because of their militancy in protecting them.

Thatcher and her poisonous neo-liberal capitalism should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

[C. Flower]

Well her Irish incarnation Mary Harney set up the HSE so I don't see how that line of logic is going to get us anywhere.

As for the usual "standing up to the unions" tripe - we have the current destruction of our living standards and diversion of public funds from the needy to the greedy because of the compliance of the trade union leadership in betraying their members, not because of their militancy in protecting them.

Thatcher and her poisonous neo-liberal capitalism should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

What we do need is for the Union members to stand up to their obscenely overpaid, supine and complicit leaders.

[Aspro]

What we do need is for the Union members to stand up to their obscenely overpaid, supine and complicit leaders.

Couldn't agree more. Of course then you'd have the right-wing whingers calling for the State to smash these "traitors" who are causing "chaos, anarchy, wailing and gnashing of teeth etc etc" and who are jeopardising our economic recovery! ;)

[Baron von Biffo]

What we do need is for the Union members to stand up to their obscenely overpaid, supine and complicit leaders.

How would you see that working out?

[C. Flower]

How would you see that working out?

By means of electing people prepared to work for the average wage of their members :)

[Gruffalo]

[QUOTE]What a load of sh*te:

That would have been enough to make your point but the rest of your comment is all true.


the only thing Thatcher proved is that destruction of industry and reliance on finance capital for growth is a disastrous recipe for the economy. Her attack on the working class movement only crippled the British economy in the long run through declining real wages and an increased dependency on credit for the sustenance of the internal market, the consequences of which the British economy is suffering from now.

And one of the surest signs that she did all this is that you will find it hard to get anybody to admit that they voted for her. Somebody did but in 2 years living in the UK I did not meet one person who would own up to having voted for the wench.

[Baron von Biffo]

By means of electing people prepared to work for the average wage of their members :)

Other than symbolism what would that achieve?

[C. Flower]

Other than symbolism what would that achieve?

If we'd had any serious kind of union leadership, there would have been a General Election by now.

[Gruffalo]

serious kind of union leadership

There must be an Oxymoron in there.

[Baron von Biffo]

If we'd had any serious kind of union leadership, there would have been a General Election by now.

That doesn't answer the question of what would be achieved by cutting the pay of union leaders. In any event, it's not the function of trades unions to bring about general elections. We would be better served if the unions had withdrawn from the excessively political Partnership process and focused on their core function. Partnership damaged both our unions and our democracy.

[Stendec]

itll be a great day the day that ***************#mod4. Stendec will be crossways drunk for a week ::):)

[Cáthasaigh]

YouTube- The Exploited-Maggie

[Paul the Red]

Nothing would surprise me about that woman. In my opinion, the most evil woman to have lived during my lifetime.

Along with rose west,

In December 1984 He Gorbachev assured Thatcher he was not bankrolling the miners' strike. On the 4th February 1985 Gorbachev a:cool:nd Ligachev authorizing the transfer of a million roubles to the miners NUM.
Don't know if the miners got the money?.

[Ecoprincess]

Sinn Fein used to do a really nice T Shirt saying

"I still hate Thatcher"

Thatcher drove young educated people like myself from Britain. She was totally London centred, the rest of the country didn't exist except to be sold off to the highest bidder. In the miners strike she tore communities apart, these rifts have never healed, she turned citizen against citizen when the police taunted the miners with their pay slips and shouted "Eat Grass".

She took industry and agriculture and exchanged them for services, in Ireland some of us have realised this is a major problem to economic stability. While China revels in our stupidity producing every more goods for us to buy of them at ever increasing prices.

The only stable economy is a mixed one with agriculture, industry and services.

[C. Flower]

Sinn Fein used to do a really nice T Shirt saying

"I still hate Thatcher"

Thatcher drove young educated people like myself from Britain. She was totally London centred, the rest of the country didn't exist except to be sold off to the highest bidder. In the miners strike she tore communities apart, these rifts have never healed, she turned citizen against citizen when the police taunted the miners with their pay slips and shouted "Eat Grass".

She took industry and agriculture and exchanged them for services, in Ireland some of us have realised this is a major problem to economic stability. While China revels in our stupidity producing every more goods for us to buy of them at ever increasing prices.

The only stable economy is a mixed one with agriculture, industry and services.

This very much describes what she did - and our crisis now is to some extent a child of Thatcherism, although Thatcherism itself was a response to the unsustainability of a "welfare state" within capitalism.

[wickedfairy]

Nothing would surprise me about that woman. In my opinion, the most evil woman to have lived during my lifetime.

+1 and now we are in the same position and we haven't even had a strike, how easy was that.

[wickedfairy]

not to mention the Zircon project and BBC's offices being searched.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/resources/bbcandgov/zircon_affair.shtml

[C. Flower]

not to mention the Zircon project and BBC's offices being searched.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/resources/bbcandgov/zircon_affair.shtml

A very interesting page, wickedfairy. The BBC is so much a state organisation, each one of those Beeb/Gov clashes was quite an important moment.

[kozlov]

Evil *****!

[kozlov]

Satans bride used soldiers in Police uniforms to beat the poor miners down, Comrade Scargill was right !:mad:

[Andrew_t]

In 1983 the Conservatives won the election; they got more votes than any party before or since in the UK.

Scargill said that he did not accept that that meant that the working class had to accept Conservative rule for five more years. He believed that he and his union could reverse the verdict of the ballot box by industrial muscle, and Mrs Thatcher was right to prove him wrong.

[Sam Lord]

In 1983 the Conservatives won the election; they got more votes than any party before or since in the UK.

Scargill said that he did not accept that that meant that the working class had to accept Conservative rule for five more years. He believed that he and his union could reverse the verdict of the ballot box by industrial muscle, and Mrs Thatcher was right to prove him wrong.

A tad slow in your response I have to say ....:rolleyes:

[eamo]

A tad slow in your response I have to say ....:rolleyes:
Surely it was worth waiting for, damit it takes time to formulate such a devastating response.