Arena · Season 1 · Episode 381

The Daily Worker Story

Friday, May 25

When Lenin told the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain that its survival depended on having a daily paper, he could not have forseen that after 60 years of heroic struggle the Daily Worker, renamed in 1966 the Morning Star, would come perilously close to extinction because today's leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, had cancelled half its subscription. Beatrix Campbell, who worked on the paper for ten years during the turbulent 60s and 70s, talks to the people who sustained it during its glorious triumphs and constant crises, and in its pages finds a unique reflection of the history and culture of Britain.