The coal miners’ strike in the fall of 1948 has often been seen as the symbolic beginning of the Cold War in France. To date, however, only a limited number of historical works have examined this important event. By consulting the many archives available, this article seeks to understand this conflict, which can be reduced neither to the effects of Communist manipulation, nor to spontaneous ideological class action. On the contrary, the 1948 coal miners’ strike was a complex social and political movement, governed by varying temporal and geographical logics. This analysis in particular attempts to elucidate the extreme violence that defined this conflict, and which erupted not only in the relationships between the coal miners and the State, but also among the coalminers themselves.