12 Facts About Bert Ramelson

Baruch Rahmilevich Mendelson, commonly known as Bert Ramelson, was an industrial organiser and politician for the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Bert Ramelson held the post of National Industrial Organiser from 1965 to 1977, and was editor and a member of editorial board of the World Marxist Review from 1977 to 1990.

Bert Ramelson's father was a Talmudic scholar and his mother ran a corner shop inherited from her father, which the family lived in.

Bert Ramelson later recalled that he became disillusioned after Histadrut called a strike on an orange grove in the kibbutz, demanding that the Arab workers be replaced by Jews.

Bert Ramelson was wounded twice on the Aragon and Ebro fronts.

Bert Ramelson organised an escape from an Italian prisoner of war camp after the Italian armistice of September 1943 and fought with the Italian Resistance.

Bert Ramelson was commissioned second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in March 1945 and later became an acting staff captain in India.

Bert Ramelson held this post from 1946 to 1953 and encouraged political activism within the Yorkshire mining community, working with the National Union of Mineworkers, where he mentored the young Arthur Scargill.

The tactics implemented by Bert Ramelson mobilised militant trades unionists to organise within the labour movement.

Bert Ramelson opposed the Industrial Relations Act 1971 and fought for the release of the Pentonville Five.

Bert Ramelson married his first wife Marian in 1939, whom he met in the Communist Party in Leeds.

Marian Bert Ramelson wrote Petticoat Rebellion, a work about women's rights, and was a leading activist in the Party.