Vic Allen

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Vic Allen
Vic Allen British communist.png
Born12 January 1923
Died26 October 2014 (disputed)
EducationLondon School of Economics (PhD)
OccupationTeacher
Author
University Professor
EmployerUniversity of Leeds
Known forAnti-apartheid activism
Communist activism
Smuggling money to fund South African trade unions
Notable work
Power in Trade Unions (1954)
Political partyCommunist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)
Criminal charge(s)Conspiracy to overthrow the government of Nigeria
Criminal penalty6 months prison (Made an Amnesty prisoner of conscience and released after six months)
Children2 sons
4 daughters
AwardsKgao ya Bahale award (2010)

Vic Allen (1923 – 2014) was a British communist, human rights activist, political prisoner, sociologist, historian, economist and emeritus professor at the University of Leeds who worked closely with British trade unions, and was considered a key player in the resistance against Apartheid in South African.[1] He was also known for being a key activist within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), and for spending his life supporting the South African National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

Allen was the mentor of British trade union leader Arthur Scargill, and also a brief acquantance of Nelson Mandela.[2] During attempts to establish trade unions in Nigeria, he was accused of conspiring to overthrow the Nigerian government and spent 6 months in jail.[3] He was also involved in a successful mission to smuggle £100,000 into Apartheid South Africa to fund trade unions, and in 1988 was present at secret talks in Cuba between Fidel Castro and black South African union leaders.[4][2]

In 2010 Allen was awarded the Kgao ya Bahale award, the highest honour awarded by the South African Union of Miners.[2][1] After his death he was widely commendated by his fellow academics and activists for his lifelong commitment to worker's rights and racial equality.[5][3][2]

Early life[]

Son of Jane (nee Fletcher) and Len Allen, Vic Allen was born and raised in Hawarden, Flintshire. Vic Allen left school at fourteen with no qualifications and became an apprentice bricklayer.[1] During his time as a bricklayer, he was lent books by a fellow construction worker which inspired him to pursue an education at the London School of Economics where he was taught by Harold Laski.[1] He worked as a bricklayer before and after service in the RAF during World War II.[1] During this time, he became an accomplished amateur boxer competing at a national level. Allen originally took up boxing in response to being bullied at school.[6] While working as a bricklayer, he began to be educated in Marxism and socialism by fellow workers.[6] He became more politicised after being sacked from a site for joining a trade union.

Political activities[]

While working for the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Vic Allen was sent to Nigeria to study trade union organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa.[1] During his time in Nigeria he attempted to help activists establish trade unions in the country, only for Allen to be arrested and charged with conspiring to overthrow the Nigerian government.[2][3] After 6 months in prison, he was released after being made an "Amnesty prisoner of conscience".[1]

Allen was the official historian of the British National Union of Mineworkers,[7][8] a confidante of Arthur Scargill, Ken Gill and Mick McGahey and an adviser to British trade unionists for over 40 years. He also aided trade unionists and campaigners in the fight against apartheid in South Africa from the 1960s onwards and, after the fall of the regime, wrote a three-volume history of mineworkers in South Africa on behalf of the South African National Union of Mineworkers.[9] He was a member of the national committee of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) for many years, and in 1985 he came last in a ballot to choose the chair of the organisation running on a pro-Soviet, unilateral disarmament ticket.[10]

In support of NUM, Allen was involved in a mission to smuggle £100,000 into South Africa to fund trade unions in the country.[2]

Through his connections with NUM, in 1988 Allen was present in Cuba at secret talks between union activists and Fidel Castro.[3][2] Also present at the talks were leading anti-apartheid activists Cyril Ramaphosa and James Motlatsi.[1][11]

In the early 1990s a close friend of Allen, Cyril Ramaphosa (who later became Deputy President of South Africa), took him on a trip to Johannesburg airport. To Allen's surprise, Nelson Mandela was present in the backseet of their car. Both Mandela and Allen shared a long car ride discussion world politics, and the two activists bonded over their shared love of boxing.[3]

From the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, Allen was a member of the management committee that owns the Morning Star.[6]

He was revealed in September 1999 to have been an "agent of influence" for the East German Stasi secret police, from material contained in the Mitrokhin Archive, possessing the code name "Barber".[12][13][14][15] Allen has admitted "pass[ing] on information about CND's activities ... [but] considered that perfectly legitimate because he belonged to a pro-Soviet, pro-East German faction of the group."[16] Allen defended his actions citing that none of the information he had discussed was secret.[6][14]

Honours and awards[]

In 2010, Allen was awarded the Kgao ya Bahale award, the highest honour awarded by the South African Union of Miners.[1][3] The award ceremony was held by a delegation of NUM leaders, including then President Senzeni Zokwana, General Secretary Frans Baleni, former NUM President James Motlatsi and former General Secretary Cyril Ramaphosa.[3] Also present at the awards ceremony were many South African activists who praised Vic Allen as a 'true internationalist'.[3]

Academic career[]

Allen went up to the London School of Economics in 1946 and gained a BSc in Economics in 1949 followed by a PhD. His PhD thesis was published in 1954 as "Power in Trade Unions".

Allen was appointed a Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the School of Economic Studies at the University of Leeds in 1959, becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1963, Reader in 1970 and Professor of the Sociology of Industrial Society in 1973.[17][3][1] He retired from Leeds in 1988 with the title Emeritus Professor.[18][19]

Allen wrote and published three volumes of the history of the National Union of Miners (NUM) in South Africa, described by academics as one "one of the strongest and most insightful produced to date".[3] These three volumes took Allen 10 years to create.[1]

Death and legacy[]

Allen died on 26 October 2014, aged 91, his funeral was held at in the Yorkshire Dales, at a rural inn called the Craven Heifer, close to Skipton.[4][9][20][21] Vic Allen was married three times during his life, and fathered six children, and had 9 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren by the time he died.[3]

After Allen's death, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (South Africa), Frances Baleni, created a tribute dedicated to Allen.[22] A delegation of the NUM was present at Allen's funeral.[22]

Mr Baleni said of Allen:

"Back then black South African mineworkers had no names. We had company numbers. We were just a tool. Vic made it possible for us to train in the UK. We were taken to Trafalgar Square where anti-apartheid activists were camping day and night. That made me fully understand the meaning of empathy. Vic taught us to make sure we appreciated each other, never to leave anything to chance."[4]

Arthur Scargill, whom Allen had mentored before Scargill became the president of the NUM, described Allen as "an intellectual giant, a writer without peer."[4]

Books[]

  • Power in Trade Unions, Longmans, 1954
  • The Sociology of Industrial Relations, Longmans, 1971. ISBN 978-0-582-44482-9
  • Social Analysis: A Marxist Critique and Alternative. Longmans, 1975
  • The Militancy of British Miners, Moor Press, 1981. ISBN 090769800X
  • The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism, Moor Press, 1987.
  • The History of Black Mineworkers in South Africa Volume 1, Moor Press, 1992. ISBN 0850365651
  • Apartheid Repression and Dissent in the Mines. The History of Black Mineworkers in South Africa, 1948-1982, Merlin Press and Moor Press, 2003. ISBN 085036566X
  • Organise or Die. The History of Black Mineworkers in South Africa, 1982-1994, Merlin Press and Moor Press, 2005. ISBN 0850365678

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k Brittain, Victoria (19 November 2014). "Vic Allen obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Meddick, Simon; Payne, Liz; Katz, Phil (2020). Red Lives: Communists and the Struggle for Socialism. UK: Manifesto Press Cooperative Limited. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-907464-45-4.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k Beresford, Alex (12 April 2016). "Tribute to Professor Vic Allen". University of Leeds. LEEDS AFRICAN STUDIES BULLETIN NO. 77 (2015/16). p. 62-63. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Lazenby, Peter (12 November 2014). "Mourners pay tribute to the life of Vic Allen". The Morning Star. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  5. ^ Meddick, Simon; Payne, Liz; Katz, Phil (2020). Red Lives: Communists and the Struggle for Socialism. UK: Manifesto Press Cooperative Limited. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-907464-45-4.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d John, Haylett (11 November 2014). "Obituary: Vic Allen – 1923-2014". The Morning Star. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
  7. ^ Vic Allen, "My secret mission to meet Fidel", Cuba Si, 8 May 2003 Archived 3 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "Obituary of Carolyn Baylies" The Guardian
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Notice of death of Vic Allen, allafrica.com; accessed 31 October 2014.
  10. ^ Ian Hargreaves, "Spies are just not the same class of person as they used to be", New Statesman, 27 September 1999.
  11. ^ Allen, Vic (Summer 2003). "My secret mission to meet Fidel". cuba-solidarity.org.uk. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
  12. ^ Peter Schweizer, Reagan's war: the epic story of his forty-year struggle and final triumph over communism, Doubleday, 2002; ISBN 0-385-50471-3, p. 222
  13. ^ Stefan Berger, Norman Laporte, The other Germany: perceptions and influences in British-East German relations, 1945-1990, Wissner, 2005; ISBN 3-89639-485-1, pp. 86–87
  14. ^ Jump up to: a b "I regret nothing, says Stasi spy", BBC News, 20 September 1999
  15. ^ Paul Lashmar, et al "Scargill's ally was Stasi agent", Independent on Sunday, 19 September 1999.
  16. ^ "Britain betrayed", bbc.co.uk, September 1999; accessed 31 October 2014.
  17. ^ University of Leeds, Obituary
  18. ^ University of Leeds, List of Emeritus Professors Archived 26 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ Joe MacLaughlin and Mark Rowe, "East German agent with the perfect pedigree", The Independent, 19 September 1999.
  20. ^ 'Professor Vic Allen' - tribute by Alex Beresford, Leeds African Studies Bulletin, 77 (2015-16).
  21. ^ Obituary - University of Leeds
  22. ^ Jump up to: a b Meddick, Simon; Payne, Liz; Katz, Phil (2020). Red Lives: Communists and the Struggle for Socialism. UK: Manifesto Press Cooperative Limited. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-907464-45-4.
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