non hat the cullwar moran exocea ke a Dou from the blue, with no apparent reasons for it except erhaps the hijackings infortunately this impression as been reinforced by the inability of the Britisl revolutionary left to prepare people for this showdown.
ase berthe imperiates and the Arab e ora tom -he active collusion of the soviet wreaucracy. The fedaveen was borne by the Jordanian "Snecial Forces' had been trained in street warfare and indoctrinaFor impertusa or constuure an intoleradie provocation to ine regime. Ine) simply gave the imperialists an alibi for military interpention if the regime needed help. as in the Congo and •Isewhere, the U.S. Marines would be going in to rescue American citizens. Secondly, the regime used the hüach ings to create a split in the Palestinian resissuccessfully putting pressure on Fatah to & FLP out of palestine Lideration Organt 4r Central Committee. Hussein calculated, wrongly as it turned out, what with the fedayeen split and weakened this was the ideal moment to try to crush "them.
What is clear is that o section of the Palestiniar esistance movement had for some time recognised dan wes inevitable and must be prepared for. At least pince June this awareness had penetrated deep into the «етиес camos a nea more corresponaent un voraar just before the showdown reports the following typical Blouse of snellne ue wrewous nene when questoned aoout tre the head of the family replied: "Don't think am not; 1 am pleased for it shows that we Palestinians are becoming strong, that we are beamnine io make aussem irigntene 12a1 they must attack us wildly in attempts to prevent us The refugee camps were no longer camps of rejugees out bases of armed, mobilised and indomitable freedom fighters.
The determination of the masses to crush the regime which for weeks before the civil war had been sneume new canos, was transwarea oy one ortne Potevian wanovara oreanicatons into a nottien strategy for destroying the Jordanian state. This polistrategy is outlined in an interview given to Th Red Mole by a representative of the Democratic горша, rron tor ine Laeration of ralestine ( not to be confused with the PFLP of George Habbash)
The mobilisation of the masses against the reactio.
ay Jordanan rerime nud nor been Durt orin Pategy of all the Palestinian organisations. In fact a week before the crisis oen of the leaders of Fatah stressed, when addressing a conference in Amman, We wish to restrict ine Palestine revowton to one enemg-Israel. We leave the struggle in the other Arab -ey different strategies within the Palestinian Ant have figured greatly in the manoeuvrings of Hussein and the other Arab states during the civil war. The fighting, which escalated into a counter revownomy war bean when the zoroanan army gunned down a militant from the Democratic Front out side the Post Office in Amman as he was putting un a power carryie tRe soror. Al rower to te Resistance, the masses and the soldiers.
Hussein has put a price on the heads of Hawatmeh, leader of the D.F. and of Habbash of the PFLP; Nasser agreed to Arafat's request to intervene and put pressure on Hussein on condition that Fatah would expel the D.F. and the PFLP from the PLO Ine auterences over strategy wunın ine ratestaran resistance reflect class divisions within Palestinian society. Not all Palestinian refugees live in the camps, anu sne ratestman bourgeorste ana mauie ciuss, Of Kuwait and Beirut and Amman, while they support the aim of establishing a Palestinian state, have an even greater determination not to have their economic and reaction at the expense of the impoverished and martyred Palestinian masses. And such impulses will undoubtedly be expressed inside the Resistance Movement itself.
The interview with the Democratic Front is therefore of considerable importance for us, in underclass divisions within Palestinian society and the political differences within the Palestinian movement. we muse comparai tose wno denownes the Resistance on the grounds that it is fragmented, petty-bourgeois Aral the Palestinian movement will be influenced greatly by the degree to which the Marxist wing of the resis ance is cole to wul ne sanDor orare mates -What was the main lesson of the June war? It was that an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine is the presence of a Marxist-Leninist Party. The local Communist Parties had failed to constitute such parties and therefore the Democratic Front was created from various leftist and petty-bourgeois forces. -Has the Democratic Front made a class analysis of Palestinian society?
The force capable of making a scientific study of Palestinian society has not existed in the past. What we could do was to gain a general view of the class structure of Palestinian society.
First of all, there is a feudal class based on the West Bank but extending to the East Bank and to Israel proper. There is also a strong Jordanian feudal class in different localities of Jordan, which is the basic element of support for the regime. This feudal class betrays the -Palestinian nation.
There is a comprador bourgeois class, which was formed out of elements within the British administration and the Jordanian bureaucracy This class has close links with the feudal class. It serves, and is a parasite upon, imperialist interests, persecuting the masses through exploiting their labour.
Thirdly there is a small national bourgeois class on the West and East banks. Generally it is not capable of revolutionary struggle against the Israeli and Jordanian regimes; it wants peaceful conditions for business. Although it ost its connections with the Arab markets after the June war, it makes use of the occupation to do business within Israel and can act as a medium for Israeli goods exported to Jordan. Some social groups within the national bourgeoisie are at present supporting the revolution, but they will not remain with it up to its final goal.
Next there is a large petty-bourgeois class, the Jordanian economy being based on services. The petty bourgeoisie is adversely affected by the occupation and is persecuted by Israel, the feudal and comprador classes. It has been the class that has carried the responsibility for struggling against Israel and the reactionary regimes for twenty years; it has failed in this task. Fatah, Saiga and the PF LP are expressions of this class and demonstrate its weakness, but thev do fiant the enemv. it has not yet reached the stage of development where it has defined interests and ideology and a party which expresses these.
Most of the Palestinians became refugees, forming a class of semi-proletarians: some work in services, some in agricultural work, many unemployed.
Only the poorer classes-peasants, workers and refugees -can be permanently mobilised, organised and armed to struggle to the end for the national-democratic revolution. In addition the petty bourgeoisie can be mobilised. They must be led by a Marxist-Leninist party -How does the Democratic Front handle the relationship between the resistance movement and the Jordanian regime?
In Jordan there are two powers in contradiction and the Democratic Front sees that it is in the interest of the revolution to deepen the contradiction between the resistance movement and the regime. We have directed our work along three lines: the establishment of militia, of elected people's councils, and of joint Palestinian-Jordanian unions.
Until the Democratic Front existed there was no militia for the resistance movement. We said that this was a necessity and the other organisations agreed. But while we saw the purpose of this militia as being to deepen the contradiction with the regime, the other organisations at earlier stages saw its role as being to prepare for an eventual Israeli invasion of the East Bank; for us the role of the militia was as a most effective weapon for defeating the regime and its value for this purpose has been shown in the clashes with the regime.
The question of elected people's councils is still in debate. Through people's councils the masses can become effectively engaged in production and in political and social life. Due to our propaganda and influence on the bases of the other organisations we have been able to have two experiences of elected people's councils, in the camps of Souf and Gazen in the Jerash area. They started six months ago and through their experiences we have been able to prove to the bases of the other organisations the value of people's councils. In these camp the masses depend not on the political organisations but on the people's council which struggles with the masses and runs their affairs governing their military and social lives. —What was the attitude of the other organisations to the people's councils?
Both the Fatah and the PFLP leaderships reject the concept. The PFLP actually raised the slogan of "Down with people's councils", arguing that they would be dominated by the right-wing and backward elements in the camps. But we influenced the bases of both these organisations through the local coordinating committees to adopt this form: the Fatah base in that area was progressively orientated. In other camps, villages and cities the idea is still rejected by other They were organised by all the resistance organisations and by independent individuals. Eight organisations took part in the elections, making alliances to form unified lists; thus Fatah had one list, while Saiga, the PFLP, the DPFLP and the Popular Front General Command united to ut forward a single list. The election was ope o everybody in the camp to vote and the Fata list gained a majority on the council, the Democratic Front winning three out of the 22 seats. After the election the PFLP leadership instructed its three delegates on the council to withdraw.
The third major form we have worked for to deepen the contradictions of the regime has been unified mass organisations for the Palestinians and Jordanians. We have seen that there are separate unions, cooperatives and committees for Palestinians and Jordanians, while we believe that historical and political factors have unified the Palestinian and Jordanian people and they must therefore have unified institutions This deepening of the contradictions has come to a head on the question of the Rogers plan. —How does the resistance movement aim to defeat this plan?
Fatah doesn't say how it intends to defeat the plan. It simply says, "We are against Rogers" and that if we are attacked we will hit back. But the question is, hit back for what? For revenge? To kill the masses? Or for a political objective? They don't give an answer and are entirely on the defensive. The PFLP wants to crush the regime and seize power. But how to seize power! Their answer is: by conspiring, by lobbying and by having a coup; they want to use the national forces in the army to give power to the PFLP leaders and not to the masses. The Jordanian regime has started a civil war, but the PFLP does not see the fight as a civil war to crush the regime, as a fight at every door by the masses to give the masses power; instead they concentrate on spectacular individual actions like seizing the Intercontinental Hotel as they did in June, surrounding the radio station, hi-jacking planes. Such actions have a very short life and they are no substitute for a revolutionary orientation to the masses. In this situation we have put forward the slogan: "All power to the resistance, the armed masses and the soldiers"; and we work for this slogan not through a deal, but by putting it on every door in Jordan, by working for it in the streets. -How does the Democratic Front approach the problem of forging links with the international revolutionary forces?
We are not linked with the USSR, China or the Fourth International. The Democratic Front is a Palestinian/Jordanian organisation. We have to correlate with the forces within the Arab world. but the question of whether to build an all-Arab revolutionary party is still a matter of debate within the Democratic Front.
that:
2. A protest against the unreasonable, underhand and inadequate negotiation procedure. 3. A protest against the Managing Director's admitted total lack of concern for the welfare of his backstage staff. fifth day.
Roger A. Dade, Cambridge students may be interested in this passage from Involuntary Journey to Siberia by the Soviet oppositionist Amalric, about his own trial-it shows the increasing convergence of latter-day Stalinism and post-liberal capitalism in legal repression, whatever their other differEnCES, "A court sentence ought not to be an act vengeance but the expression of a generally acceptable idea of justice. The educational value of a trial lies in convincing the defendant and everyone else that he is being judged in strict accordance with the law and with the ethical standards that mankind has arrived at during its long history; it certainly does not lie in the judge tediously haranguing the court or in his crudely defaming the defendant and witnesses. There is even less educational value in trials staged for avowedly propaganda purposes-as an object lesson to others. This is not a way of enlightening people but only of intimidating them, and it brings nothing but discredit on the courts." -P. 117.
PIGS BELIEVED IN PAISLEY CASE When Leicester Black Power militants and Irish immigrants were attacked by police in June at a Paisley rally, Nottingham Red Circle convenor Nick Beeton was arrested and charged with police assault. His appeal was recently heard at Leicester City Quarter Sessions where the police repeated their lies. Nick was asked to pay, another £50 costs making his total "fine' over £100 although the legal maximum for this offence is supposed to be £50. Under pretence of "costs" the recorder handed down this further 50 penalty despite the fact that legal aid was supposedly available in this case.
Since the case a police enquiry has whitewashed the role of the police in this affair where black people were beaten for hours in police cells, and, despite medical evidence, the Director of Public Prosecutions has decided to take no action.
Nick needs funds and his adress is 25 Henry Road West Rridoford Notting. We print below an unabridged version of a letter headed "JUSTICE AND BROTHERHOOD" which was published in the Irish Times of August 15, 1970:
Sir, upon our American friends. freely in.
or fifteen minutes.
ful and deliberate.
of him, and he of them.
VINCENT A. CONNELL (and 15 others).
Javier Varona-Cuban militant (1936-70) In Havana on the morning of March 1, 1970 the young Cuban lawyer, novelist and teacher of philosophy, Javier Varona, committed suicide. A left-wing militant of the 26th July movement since the early and difficult days of the struggle against the tyranny of Batista, Varona managed to convert himself into a revolutionary with a phenomenal grasp of Marxism-Leninism. As a man of the "Third World" he understood clearly and followed with a passionate interest of a revolutionary scientist the development of the revolutionary struggle in the advanced capitalist countries.
As an intellectual in a socialist country, he spent his last years principally being preoccupied by the bureaucratic deformation of socialism.
When he died at the age of 34 years old, his intellectual creativity was at its peak. He worked on the problems of the historical necessity of the Cuban revolution, on the history of this revolution, and he developed the concept of the continental revolution and investigated other related topics. For those who knew him, he leaves behind with us a memory of his insatiable curiosity, of his constant radiation of ideas, and of his complete and utter dedication to the cause of the proletarian revolution.
His premature death is a tragic loss for present fegime.
N.1.
THE WORLD BANK IN DENMARK The exemplary actions of the revolutionary left in Denmark in connection with the recent antiWorld Bank demos should be an object lesson in organisations for revolutionists in Britain. From the day the Danish comrades discovered that the World Bank was having its conference in Copenhagen and that the conference was being graced by the presence of Mr. Robert McNamara himself, they decided to organise militant action A World Bank Committee was set up consisting of representatives from all left organisations, and three months before the conference took place, the World Bank Committee was well on its way to organise a massive welcome. On 20, 21 & 22 September the plans were put into action. Massive demonstrations greeted the delegates on arrival in Copenhagen and from then on they were hounded wherever they went. A mass demonstrating succeeded in mobilising 12,000 militants who marched to the specially-erected conference hall and held a militant meeting The two speakers from outside Demark were Sarah Lidman, a well-known Swedish author, and a representative of The Red Mole.
For two successive nights militant demonstrators paralysed the centre of Copenhagen. Outside the posh restaurants where these givers of aid were banquetting there were violent scenes of brutality; outside the opera house (where Mr. MacNamara was taken in by a side entrance) the demonstrators ihrew petro! bombs and bricks. The chants must have been heard inside the opera: "World Bank Out" "McNamara Go Home", etc. etc. (a lone SDSe from the States chanted in a stentorian voice: "McNamara, Up Against the Wall.") That night enraged by police brutality, the demonstra tors set a bank on fire and smashed to smithereens the Pan American office. At this stage the Danish police took out revolvers and fired shots in the air, the first time that weapons had been used since the days of the Nazis. Over 200 demonstrators were arrested, some of them at the point of a revolver, with their hands raised above their heads. The Danish bourgeoisie was clearly traumatised. It had gone out of its way to give the World Bank a warm welcome, and though it had expected demonstrations they had not been prepared for the militancy The World Bank leadership which had obviously thought that Demark would prove to be the mildest of countries were also shaken (a group of World Bank wives grabbed hold of a lone demonstrator in a hotel lobby and assaulted him in the most brutal way imaginable all of them were nice bourgeois upper-class ladies). The World Bank has been demystified in the best way possible. It does not dare to hold its conferences in the countries to whom it gives aid because of the chronic political instability, of the regimes. The actuality of the revolution ir. Western Europe, too, is now beginning to hound LA Hl hu moot nout goor n hanithu SOLIDARITY WITH RUDI DUTSCHKE There is not much to add to the general comment which has been made regarding of writing we hear that Dutschke's appea will be heard in the near future and clearly he will be allowed to stay in the country till then. Given the state of his health this period of suspense and uncertainty is not likely to help him in the coming period.
Usually it has been the Labour Gover ment which has kept revolutionaries.out of Britain (the case of Trotsky is one of many) and Mr. Michael Foot actually to one revolutionary that he had a better chance of getting a pasport under a Tor government than Labour. This situation has now been reversed as the Tories don. want Labour to be ahead even in this ugly business. As far as the revolutionar left is concerned, it should be cleas that Dutschke is expelled we should organise appropriately militant action. EVENTS EVERY MONDAY: Birmingham Red Circle meeting 7.30 p.m. at the Black Swan, Birmingham 5 WEDNESDAYS: Stafford Red Circle, Dog & Partridg South Walls, 8 p.m.
THURSDAYS: Glasgow Red Circle, Christian Institu Bothwell Street, 7.30 p.m OCTOBER 3rd: Nixon's visit. Ring 278 2616 for details.
OCTOBER 3rd: March & meeting to commemorate massacre of Tlatelolco 1968. March from Mexicar National Tourist Council offices, 60 Jermyn Street, S.W.1 (Green Park tube), 3.30 p.m. Meeting 7 p.m. Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1 (Holborn tube European Committee for the Defence of Mexican Political Prisoners, 197 Kings Cross Road, W.C.1.
OCTOBER 3rd: Spartacus League Löndon Branc party, 8 p.m., 101 Park Avenue North, N.W.10 vinescen green tuber OCTOBER 5th: Spartacus Ledgue/Red Mole meeting LSE, 1.00 p.m. Robin Blackburn on The death of the New Left"
OCTOBER 6th: 31st October Ad Hoc-Meeting, The Roebuck pub, Tottenham Court Road (Werren Street tube). 7.30 p.m. Everyone welcome. To organise o.E. Asla demo, si oct.
OCTOBER13th: First Red Forum: Moshe Machove Middle East. 8 p.m, 182 Pentonville Road, London N marzoen speaks on tne current situaton ueno (King's X). i Thiy. Lobe fist of five Red Porem пета тоглідану. Look in tn OCTOBER 6th: London Socialist Wölfan Group, 8 p. 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1 (King's Xi. Discu sion: Why Wormen's Liberation Now; & future agtivit Women only. Ring 574 7407.
wards, Unity Theatre, 1 Goldington Street, N. oben vin.che commemorative Cvenmu, (Mornington Crescent tube). Tickets 7/6 at door block bookings in advance 5/- (from Unity Theatre) Britain-Cuba Association.
OCTOBER 10th-11th: Irish Solidarity Campaign Con ference, Digbeth Civic Hall, Birmingham. De P. Yeats, 67 Birchwood Drive, Birmingham 12 OCTOBER 11th: Irish Solidarity Campaign RALLY Birmingham, 2.30 p.m. Speakers invited include: Bon Egan, Cathal Goulding, Padraig Yeats, Bob Purdie Berry Ruddy.
OCTOBER 13th: 31 October Ad Hoc Meeting, 7.30 g The Roebuck (see Oct. 6th)
OCTOBER 16th: IMG Fo rum on Ceylon.
Ring 278 2616 for details., OCTOBER 19th: Meeting to set up London Women" Coordinating Committee for winter and spring activities, 8 p.m., Camden Studios, Camden Stree N.W.1 (Mornington Crescent tube). Ring 574 7407 OCTOBER 20th: 31 October Ad Hoc Meeting, 7.30 The Roebuck (see Oct. 6th).
OCTOBER 22nd: VSC Public Meeting: "Demonstra tions & the Left-Effective Protest?' Speaker: Pa Jordan, National Chairman VSC. 7.30 p.m, Friepf" Meeting House, Euston Road lopp. Eustor sta OCTOBER 24th-25th: Workers Control Confurep Birmingham. Contact Institute for Workers Contro 45 Gamble Street, Forest Road West, Nottingham NG7 4ET. 0602-74504 OCTOBER 25th: Anti-Apartheid Rally, Trafalgar ( Square, 3 g,m.
OCTOBER 27th: 31 October-Ad Hoc Meeting, 7.30 The Roebuck. See Oct 6th.
OCTOBER 30th: Ernest Mandel debates. Tony Clift on Stalinism & State Capitalism. Caxton Hall, 7.30. OCTOBER 31st: S. E. Asia Demonstration. More details in next issue
----- pull-quotes -----
On Friday, September 19, the backstage staff of the London Cóliseum withdrew their labour for the duration of that night's scheduled perform- ance of Carmen. The Management were advised
1. This was a protest against the forced implementation of a democratically opposed new agreement scheduled for Sept. 28th.
the Dutschke affair. In particular Neil Ascherson's comment in The Observer sums up the situation aptly. At the time