THURSDAY tv As an exposure of social demoeracy caught in the parliamentary trap, revealing its impotence, collaboration and inevitable betrayal, the third episode of Days of Hope was excellent. But in conWast to une urst two programmes, me workers in Tull flood - moble, intell gent, inventive and strong in the face of adversity - were never really seen. That is our chief strength, and the absence of that element was this episode's weakayespectany as it was ser ouring ne 1924 dock strike.
The first Labour Government has just been elected, carrying with it and trampling under foot all the aspirations of the workers' movement. It will take time, but we have planted our feet firm ly on the road to socialism, says Ben's oroner-in-law, rnup nargreaves, a newly elected Labour MP. Ben, by contrast, has just emerged from prison, a fullyRedged communist, after serving 2½ years for desertion.
Much of the action takes place in Hargreaves' house and involves Ben and Joel - ais mining mate trom Durnam, also just released from serving a jail sentence determines vnetner mey are doie to work extended discussion about the merits of the parliamentary versus the revolutionary road to socialism. The dialogue is witty, and the humanity, confidence and and moral superiority of the communists shines through. Yet the scenes are too concerned with getting over the political ideas verbally, rather than via the action and depiction ol every day working class events, to make good visual television or two programmes.
If anything, the scenes in the Houses orarlament - where ben. doe ano their mining comrades down from Durham get literally lost in the 'corridors of power on their way to a party held for a Russian trade delegation - are the most telling, if only to show how the wnole environment or parnament Is so alien to the workers' movement.
The sub-plot, if you can call it that, is the rapid integration of Hargreaves into the parliamentarv arena coupled with his struggle of conscience when he is told by an Irish journalist that the MacDonald Government is 'up to its radical neck in collaboration with the police an and civil service should there be widespread civil disturbance. Hargreaves says about the Soviet Union: Russia needed Lenin. We don't because there are no cossacks here. The journalist replies: "The cossacks are all around vou! BLIND ALLEY But still Hargreaves is by his parliamentary vision, which allows no room for the activity and intervention of the independent workers' movement - sees no wav out and is re duced to impotent moral rage: "It's so bloody unconstitutional! he moans.
ane a tae ume me coomed dock strike is in the background (though strangely never seen), spelling out fear and loathing for the empioyers and Labour Government alike. The red-baiting traitor Ernie Bevin, leader of the spending more energy making sure he isn't upstaged by the Communist Party than actually leading the struggle of the as when Joel chastises his fellow miners for going to see Buekingham Palace: 'You're a bloody disgrace to the working class.
*It ought to be with the money they get off us!
eatism and a little despair, both at the and at the stubborn, trusting faith of Ben and Joel in the Communist Party, so shortly to be deformed and led off the The dock strike is defeated, the Labour Government is thrown out of office and the workers in the film are given no chance to learn the lessons us up, 1o4t really orings us down to earth with a vengeance with the stark - trapped as he truth about the political weakness of the British labour movement. Josiah Wedgwood. breservee cne strike-orearneoans passed onto him by the Tories from the scrutiny even of his Cabinet colleagues. let alone the working class. As the programme concluded: "The plans were intact when me conservanves resumed office a few months later. ment and the people were kept in ignorance throughout. The plans were then used as the basis of the strike-breaking force in 1926.' There are brilliantly funny scenes too, - 'But it's a lovely building.
But the final impression is one of defcringing, doomed dead-end of parliamentary "socialism' as embodied in Hargreaves rails by Stalin's bureaucratic misguidance.
If the miners' struggle of 1921 lifted ised are:
Witchell Both parlia economic crisis