It's a good token of the rising spirit of revoluuonary interianonalsm Eat DoIn British and American insularity are being broken down to the point where a growing number of Americans are following the Black Dwarf with great interest.
Heartiest congratulations on your first birthday. May you keep growing.
With revolutionary greetings Harry Ring Editor The Militant 3/3 Broadway New York USA Police repression: its effects on our circulation The Left is forever being accused of exaggeration by those bourgeois paragons of virtue who never put a big toe outside the law and who don't need to because they can get all they want without.
"Look at this great society" they exclaim, "it doesn't stop you printing your paper." Sure great; let's have an incestuous little paper where we are the only readers. For when it comes to selling the thing, when we try to get other people to read it then the holy Powellite forces of Supply and Demand don't enTer InTO IE For a start every lilly livered prissy fingered chain newsagent naturally refuses this black meance a place on its booby bursting Womens' Own Tampax counter.
But the individual street newsagents, surely they I sell anything if it pays? you bet your sweet life they don't and no fault of theirs. Police threats, intimidation, "advice" "Oh come on now, this isn't Spain you know; this is England".
Take this for an example and I'm in B.D. circulation so I could repeat it many times. Here's a bloke on one of the best pitches in all London. "Can I have a Black Dwarf mate."
"Sorry lad, I don't take that one." (He's got IT, OZ, PRIVATE EYE on his stand). "Well, wouldn't you like to start?"
"Look mate, I'd like to take it, I'm sure DWARF UNDER ATTACK Dear Comrade Editor, Julian Atkinson and myself feel obliged to make what we sincerely hope will be the last comment on wnal we leel to be an unpleasant aberration.
Your editing of our first letter where we Dear Comrades, The Black Dwarf is entering the second year of its political life. For this specific reason we want to address to your our wishes of health and a long life. We know from our own experiences through ROUGE the difficulties which threaten the existence of revolutionary papers and what an achievement The Black Dwarf represents.
it'd sell as well as I.T. but I can't. When that paper came out the police came up to me and went round a lot of street sellers especially in the City. They told us it wouldn't be good for us to sell that one. 'We can't order you not to take it' they said like, 'but we just don't advise it.''' So take note fellow Dwarfs. I've got to sell this paper, I want to see it grow. I hope you do too. We must use unorthadox methods and that's where you come in. Wherever you are, if you pass a newsagent ask him for a Dwarf, if he hasn't got one tell him about it, get him to take three or half a dozen and then send us his address. Flot it yourselves, open up the Techs, working men's club etc.
BABES WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. Join went (David Kendall, the Dwarf in charge of advertising answers this question./ You mav have noticed that recent weeks have brought a steady increase in the number of ads in he Dwarf. This is a more people realise the Dwarf is her to very good cans tilde also very good for our finances. The We now have to define our policy towards ads. micrcase has Drouent its own problems thonen Which to accept and wich to reject? We want this to be a considered policy and if any thoughts on the matter we'd like to hear them generation out of the dust and the mud of the British "left"
League (French section of the Fourth International):
D. Bensaid The lines are fairly definite but there are one or some doubt.
We obviously won't accept not so much of a problem since the vendors of soap powder, cigarettes and cornnanes naven t snown mucn interest in us cather yet, lefty wing publishers wete pleased to we only wish we had the money pace to give them free publicity. Even left wing hands on when the end result might be another pion very contradicon you can lay your revolutionary, especially if the bourgeoisic are greedy enough to help. , safety helmets, NLF Nagbags and badges, banners, other left goodies are obvious candidates for when we come to cvents touen we are acco with muen more thorny problems. Some organisations which want to advertise or put an event in just aren't revolutionaries. They might even be fin thin the revole pretty goos their.
Rather than risk getting embroiled in sectarian yearrels we've taken ads and events from just about any left or not so left organization, which considers itself socialist. We'll probably going on doing just (Our diary would in fact be much better if onl organizations would write and tell us of thei is tre and we tie a pid time It's what the Dwarf's for) ads are another problem. Art for a toorumonary comes rom swuggie and not rom wealt aeverciess pesdes beme s userni conree ol mcome. unev te rawly harmiesd demonstration of how creative is the ive in. Most difficult of all is the the thoughts of the average producer of the erotic and exotic. So we are likely to reject more ads Dear Black Dwarf, When are you going to drop a little acid into your printer's ink? (Black and White is very Street). Happy First Birthday anyway. Only 99 more telegrams... ears to wait for the Queen s in this field than any other. Reject because the blatant penetration of yet another area of human activity by capitalist commodity relations has nothing to do with liberation or revolution. We will of course support people doing serious study into the effects of capitalism on people's minds and the twisted sexual relations tha twisted social relations, from encouraging people whose only response to the alienation and disintegration caused bv canitalis is to dream up ways of making a quick buck out of Some readers may be struck by the amount of Is it worthwhile? We think so •cause wo me unc paper ww ultimate v t cLEo lori. and we wil be able to brina von refinement, every alteration in the i a photo, different type print, colour type or colour on the front page, all these things cause mounting pruner s bus (nis is someting els our readers could write to us more often about. How do you like your Dwarf? How could it be improved, style, appearance, content or whatever ua vast can aso neip us cover events we mis ve missed before. Often revolutionaries need hel un ten expenses (nobody gets paid for writi - the war we can also cover events in a more out or outlets in more areas. London is getting better return. e a send you some sample copies it you Remember a Diary reader must ne a was. seller. We need your help.
David Kendall
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Why Does The Dwarf Print Ads?
It is "the thing" we need to develop even further in order to raise the new fighting
Be sure comrades of The Black Dwarf of our political backing in your struggle. For the political bureau of the Communist
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