Name Vic Allen | Died October 26, 2014 | |
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Books International bibliography of trade unionism | ||
Vic Allen | Talk (Official Video)
Vic Allen (12 January 1923 – 26 October 2014) was a British sociologist, historian, economist and emeritus professor at the University of Leeds who worked closely with British trade unions, the peace movement and anti-apartheid activists. He was revealed to have been a traitor and "agent of influence" for the East German Stasi secret police in 1999.
Contents
- Vic Allen Talk Official Video
- Vic Allen Talk Lyric Video
- Early life
- Academic career
- Other activities
- Death
- Books
- References
Vic Allen | Talk (Lyric Video)
Early life
Born in Hawarden in Flintshire, Vic Allen left school with no qualifications at fifteen to become an apprentice bricklayer. He worked as a bricklayer before and after service in the RAF in World War II. During this time, he became an accomplished amateur boxer competing at a national level. While working as a bricklayer, he began to be educated in Marxism and socialism by fellow workers who lent him books. He became more politicised after being sacked from a site for joining a trade union.
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. He retired from Leeds in 1988 with the title Emeritus Professor.
Other activities
Allen was the official historian of the British National Union of Mineworkers, 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. 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.
He was revealed in September 1999 to have been a traitor and "agent of influence" for the East German Stasi secret police, from material contained in the Mitrokhin Archive, possessing the code name "Barber". 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."
Death
Allen died on 26 October 2014, aged 91.