Peter Venters
A founder member of the Communist Party, Venters attended the various unity conferences leading up to the creation of the Party, in company with William Docherty, Abe Moffatt (see entry for Moffat), Alec Campbell, and Robert (Rab) Smith (see entry for Smith).
Venters was secretary of the Cowdenbeath District Trades Council and secretary of Cowdenbeath National Union of Mineworkers during the formative years of Communist Party dominance of that town. Mary Docherty has recalled that, in the early 1920s period, many Fife Communist Party members were ‘weak in theory and were militant miners instead of conscious Communists’.
As one of the most committed Marxists in the area, Venters was one of Fife’s most prominent Communist speakers during the 1926-1927 miners strike, although there were many! (For example: James Hope, Bob Lamb, J Mc Arthur, Abe Moffat, Willie O’Neil, Bruce Wallace, John O’Neil, Bert True, Will Crooks, Andrew Jarvie, Tom Smith, Alec Campbell, J Watt, J Gourdie, (Davie?) Proudfoot, Jimmie Lee (the father of Jennie Lee MP), Joe and James (Jimmie) Stewart (the latter becoming a Communist councillor at Lochgelly). Venters died in 1958.
Michael Walker; Source: Mary Docherty `Auld Bob Selkirk: a man in a million’
Be the first to comment