Henri Simon on the '84-'85 Miners' Strike

Submitted by Craftwork on May 16, 2016

From about 1977-'91, the left communist Henri Simon (https://libcom.org/tags/henri-simon) (one of the founders of the influential ultra-left group Échanges et Mouvement) lived in the UK, worked with the London Workers' Group (which produced Workers' Playtime (https://libcom.org/tags/workers-playtime)) and wrote a book on the miners' strike (https://libcom.org/history/bitter-end-gre%CC%80ve-des-mineurs-en-grande-bretagne-mars-1984-mars-1985). It's probably the only book length treatment of the miners' strike from an ultra-left perspective. Any prospect of someone translating this as a labour of love (I would, but I don't know French)?

Steven.

7 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on May 16, 2016

We were absolutely love it if someone would translate this!

Nymphalis Antiopa

7 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Nymphalis Antiopa on May 16, 2016

It's probably the only book length treatment of the miners' strike from an ultra-left perspective.

Though not just about the miners strike, and not from a specifically "ultra-left" ^prespective (more situ influenced), this is a book-length text covering a history of the British miners and includes a great deal of detail and background about the strike among other things:

http://dialectical-delinquents.com/articles/class-struggle-histories-2/so-near-so-far-a-history-of-the-british-miners/

Steven.

7 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on May 16, 2016

Craftwork

From about 1977-'91, the left communist Henri Simon (https://libcom.org/tags/henri-simon) (one of the founders of the influential ultra-left group Échanges et Mouvement) lived in the UK, worked with the London Workers' Group (which produced Workers' Playtime (https://libcom.org/tags/workers-playtime)) and wrote a book on the miners' strike (https://libcom.org/history/bitter-end-gre%CC%80ve-des-mineurs-en-grande-bretagne-mars-1984-mars-1985). It's probably the only book length treatment of the miners' strike from an ultra-left perspective. Any prospect of someone translating this as a labour of love (I would, but I don't know French)?

had a couple of thoughts about this. One was that we could try to crowd fund a bit of money for a translator. Also if someone could OCR it, then we could do an initial machine translation with Google translate, then it would be a much more straightforward job for someone to just tidy it up…

rat

7 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by rat on May 17, 2016

A few years ago, I donated to the The Sparrows' Nest archive, copies of the original correspondence and papers between David Douglass and people involved in the Echanges et Mouvement network including Cajo Brendel. I've been searching the online catalogue of the The Sparrows' Nest to try and locate the material. I thought that it may have been scanned and digitized and so readable on the net. If I can locate it I'll try and post it on Libcom.

Libcom already has one of the texts and also the excellent pamphlet Goodbye to the Unions:

Answer to Dave Douglas - Cajo Brendel:
https://libcom.org/library/goodbye-to-the-unions-echanges-et-movement-3

Goodbye to the Unions! - A Controversy About Autonomous Class Struggle in Great Britiain

http://libcom.org.libcom.org/library/goodbye-to-the-unions-echanges-et-movements

Craftwork

7 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on May 17, 2016

Yeah, there's also Karl Nesic's obituary, which should be translated. http://www.troploin.fr/node/86