Socialist Challenge No. 112, 6 September 1979
The scan: sc-n112-sep-06-1979.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge
HYPOCRITES
THE TORIES are doing everything they can to discredit the unions.
Tory minister Geoffrey Howe led off with the charge that the unions have been responsible for causing the economic crisis. Trade unionists live in a dream world', he says.
The Tory press followed on with news of an outbreak of industrial sanity'. Leyland worker Mike Savage became a ruling class hero overnight when he refused to strike without a vote.
Then Panorama added its own exposure on Monday of how deals are worked out behind the scenes at the TUC, and dragged out right-wing union leader Frank Chapple to confirm Tory accusations that the unions are unrepresentative.
The picture they paint is of ordinary workers being manipulated by a faceless, undemocratic union machine. What hypocrisy!
Geoffrey Howe never complained when the TUC General Council endorsed Callaghan's incomes policy. Nor when it imposed the 12 month rule without the agreement Congress.
The Tory press never reported the
BLACKPOOL 7
The he to
Unite,
don't
fisht!
TORY
working
winning arguments.
the suspicion concerns.
of
Mitfor
SKIN TIGHT
On a sombre Sunday
THE WOMEN
BLACK
scores of engineering factories which did vote to strike, or interviewed any of the 1¾ million workers who came out. And Frank Chapple was not questioned on Panorama about how democratically his union is run.
The overwhelming support the engineers' strike received on Monday and Tuesday shows that for all the
people has not punctured. But the best way to ensure that militancy remains is through involving the membership.
When shop stewards refuse to call mass meetings and take strike votes they play into Tory hands. The only way to win support for action is by
When union bureaucrats manoeuvre to prevent a real debate on differences at the TUC they deepen
of rank and members that it does not reflect their
Trade union democracy is not a luxury. Without it there can be no genuine unity. One way to fight the Tories is to fight for democracy in the labour movement, for rank-and-file control over all decisions.
Saturday sent a message to the Trade Union Congress. It said: "Unite, don't fight!
the Congress has done. have shown lots of unity in words but there's still no sign of unity in action against the Tories.
There was unity in speeches, in resolutions demning the Tories' policies of cuts and increased unemployment; in government's union rights.
fight, the TUC decided to go on chatting with government ministers.
that the unions should stop
THE DAILY MIRROR last
fighting page
workers' union.
Well, that is exactly what
They They debated
fiery be curbed. conresolutions
rejecting the 'unity'. attacks on
But instead of launching a
There had been proposals
unity are
talking to the Tories, and start avoiding action.
them. These came from the Bakers' Union and from UCATT, the building
should have been the and adopted. The unions have nothing to gain by negotiating with James Prior on how far union rights should
But Len Murray got these
withdrawn from the agenda in the name of
It does not surprise us that ers' the Daily Mirror calls for this. It is after all merely echoing Jim Callaghan, the man that this pro-Labour newspaper is defending against the party's left wing. Callaghan's calls for
also aimed at
No. 112 6 September 1979 15p
We have different message of advice: Unity, yes; but only for action.
Don't be put off fighting for a socialist response from
unions and the Labour Party by the smokescreen of a false unity.
And above all start building action now to defend basic rights.
*Throw the full support of the trade union movement behind the engineering work-
strikes for a decent minimum wage.
*Build for the TUC demonstration in defence of abortion rights on 28 October.
*And make the test of those leaders who call for unity what they are doing in action.
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OUR POLICIES
C'apitaliom is in crisis, The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in The interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that the two rital lasts confronting retounonary soctansts are.
• To build broad-baser class struggle tendencies in opposition do class-collaborationism in the labour morement. These should
non-exclusive grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin to fight for the creation unified democrane revotutionary socialsi organisation which can.
application united front tactics, peein lo be seen as an alternative thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be hased on the understanding that:
The struggle for
workers against the with that of other oppressed layers of society — women, black people, gays struggling for liberation. This socialism can only beachiered by creating new organs of poner and defeating with necessary means the power of the capitalist state. 2 ,1)er socialism will
infinitely dentered than what exists in Britain today. right. polifical parties and currents that do not rake no arms agals lut socialis state. The stalinist models of "vocialisn' In ine look and Fastern Kurope have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of Halakes We are opposed to them and will offer fuli support to all fighting for scialist democrac!.
The interests of worker, and
on a worrid seale, Capitalism not only created market. has created politics. Thus we fight for working class unit! on an international scale, his units will in the long run he decisise in defeating both the inneriola revime, in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Lalin America, and Asia
In Britain if implies demanding the immediate withdraw ai British troops from Ireland and letting ihe Irish people determine
The Communist parties in Europe are in crisis. Neither Farocommunist the pros Moscow wings have ans meaninglul strategy lor «serthron al the rapitalist state. Ten resolutionars socialist parties
Thall trolose. Conditions toxians
than over th preceding three decades. But such
Run!! be build reiertine sedlarianim and sering internal democrace nod dra lasury but asi vital necessits. the righe do arpanise lactions and rackencies.
I you agree with these principles and hu be inselved elisities to Serialist d ballenge supporters on sous area, Mol in 1h30 turn belon and send in to do.
interested
• I sould like anditional liferature
¡Prete it nod applicables
Name...
Address...
EDITORIAL character.
and
through
of
socialism
bosses
their be
message of the.
for surrender.
gunships, the summary
world.
and Tehran those and future are at stake.
world
sentenced to death world arranged by the local Imam sentenced two
slanderous Trotskyists
Africa
пОг
The
the globe.
are forget this fact.
This nears
in embassy by Reg
= 6 September 1979 Page 2
Socialist Challenge; 328/9 Upper Street. London N1
Defend the
Rebel Kurds face the firing squad. 'NO QUARTER given or received.' That was the
Kurdish people last demands by the Khomeini-Bazargan government
The indiscriminate continuous strafing of Kurdish towns and cities (Saddeq, Paveh, Zanlan) by government helicopter
executions of Kurdish prisoners, and the violence of the denunciations and slanders aimed at the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Kurdish people from the pulpits of Qom
have only increased Kurdish determination to resist. Nothing less than their liyes
The stakes are equally high in Ahwaz in the province of Khuzestan. There twelve Trotskyists members of the Socialist Workers Party (HKS), Iranian section of the Fourth International — were
In a secici trial conducted without the slightest pretence of legality. The trials,
Committee, also further HKS members. to life imprisonment. The charges contained not a single reference to any illegal or criminal act, merely
attacks against the ideas of and their political support for the struggle of the oppressed masses of Iran. Although a re-trial now seems to have been scheduled, the lives of these comrades may still be in the balance
Has the Iranian revolution come to an end? After only six months of seeing the light of day, are: the Iranian people now being led back into the dark night of repression for another quarter century? Has Khomeini replaced Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as the new Shah of Iran? We think not.
For 25 long years, the Shah ruled Iran with an iron fist. The suppression of all democratic rights and the crushing of all opposition was carried out with a brutality and cruelty unmatched throughout
Those who rail against the repression launched by Khomeini should not for one second
Both under the Shah's regime and under the rule of Khomeini, power is wielded without the scantest regard for the interests or wishes of the Iranian masses. But it is the manner of coming to power which is crucial. The Shah took hold of the reins after a CIA-backed coup in which the workers movement and the oppressed suffered a crushing defeat. Khomeini, on the other hand, rode to power on the crest of a mass movement unequalled in this
A letter protesting against the death sentence is handed in at the Iranian
2XQ.
Iranian revolution!
Kurdestan, Khuzestan, and
the workers in the oil fields
was not Khomeini. 'The masses', the Russian Revolution, of the cultural
the
Insurrections,
by the desire to speak freely,
exploitation landowners and capitalists.
Revolution programme of 1963, exiled for
vision he invoked by compromise with
were gone.
Ernie Roberts MP and others.
Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution/ Advertising: 01-3598371. century. Every section of society, including the massed ranks of the urban poor, the nationalities in
Turkomenestan and Azerbaijan, women, and the organised power of
and all the other industries mobilised to bring down the Pahlavi dynasty. It isto this mass movement that Khomeini owes his present position. He was, to be sure, in the leadership of this movement; but the movement
wrote Trotsky in his History of 'go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime.' The repression meted out by the SAVAK agents of the Shah, the denial of all democratic rights, a land reform which made millions of peasants landless and destitute and drove them to live jobless in ghettos around the cities, racist denial
rights non-Persian nationalities, and an economic collapse which was steadily deepening and nourishing the discontent of ever widering layers of society...these conditions were without doubt too much to endure.
are merely spontaneous explosions of anger or discontent. Although they may not have had 'a prepared plan of social reconstruction, the masses in Iran . were moved by a thirst for control over their own lives,
by the need for democratic rights and for the ending of their
at the hands the Shah, the
The failure of both the National Front and the Tudeh Party to oppose the land reforms in 1963 and the absence of any political leadership created a vacuum into which Khomeini could move. He had been alone in voicing any opposition to the white
and had been this very reason His reputation was clear, and in the sketches of an Islamic Republic which he offered from Paris the masses saw the possibilities of a regime free from exploitation, one in which they could see realised their rightful demands. Khomeini seemed to add weight to the
This steadfast refusal the Pahlavi regime and his unrelenting exhortations to the masses to continue the struggle until the Shah and all his hangers-on
Demonstration called
and Iranian embassies.
Friday Central Hall,
SWP, Workers Action.
cannot fulfil the needs
taking office Bazargan introduce single
Never. be destroyed.
This latter
Nurdisn people democracy, climate
freedom have
itself.
which themselves
been forced rely movements of the Islamic Guards -
ghettos, untrained and undisciplined
the military hardware at its disposal.
oldest, are prepared to resist to the end.
gradually beginning to crumble. homini. The Arabs of Khuzestan indicated a
regions.
cracks. For instance,
campaign of
Kurdish people. can spread over
struggles of the nationalities.
is offering LU
and political rights of the Kurdish people
such manoeuverings. to throughout the world.
Hands Kurdestan! prisoners! Stop the executions! members! Defend the Iranian Revolution!
Students Abroad (AKSA) to protest the attacks on the Kurdish people. Saturday 8 September assemble Speakers Corner 1pm for march to Iraqi
Committee to Defend Democratic Rights in Iran.
Public meeting: 'Stop the repression in
7 September, 7.30pm, in Assembly Hall, Westminster.
Khosravi (HKS, Iran), Shirko Abid (AKSA), Fred Halliday, labour movement speakers. Sponsored by AKSA, Kurdestan Solidarity Committee, IMG,
By claiming to rise above classes, Khomeini exploited the unity of the anti-Shah movement. But this 'national unity' could not obscure for long the fundamental class issues at stake in Iran today. Because of the dependent character of the Iranian economy in relation to imperialism, the bourgeois government of Bazargan installed by Khomeini
and wishes of the people which are the tasks of the Iranian revolution. Since
been unable reform. Unemployment continues to rise, inflation is rampant, industry is at a standstill, and food production is as unreliable as
But the expectations of the masses remain, and these expectations run counter to the type of society which Khomeiai-Bazargan want to rebuild - a capitalist society. The dynamic of the movement which led to the fall of the Shah cannot be appeased. It will either sweep forward to bring the land into the hands of the peasants, the means of production into the hands of the workers, and the formation of a proletarian government — or it will
the task which the Khomeini-Bazargan government has set itself. The violent attempt to suppress the demands of the
attempt in which the class consciousness of the masses can only grow. The persecution of the left and the abolition of press
exactly the same aim. If this is achieved, the government will move to clamp down on the other nationalities, and on the working class
But Khomeini-Bazargan are on shaky ground The forces of repression at their disposal are at best unreliable: Many sections of the armed forces,
were part of the mass radicalisation earlier in the year, are unwilling to go into action against the Kurds. The government has
on the uncoordinated - often hastily recruited from among the unemployed in the urban
- and on an economic infrastructure which is unable to service
And the Kurdish people, armed from the youngest to the
Moreover, the credibility of the government is
The widespread boycott of the elections to the Council of Experts
reservoir opposition continue to pose a threat to the stability of the oil-producing
International action can prise open these
the announcement by the Foreign Minister of Iran last Sunday that the HKS militants are not at present under sentence of death was a self-confessed response to the internationa
Fi pickets, demonstrations, telegrams. for the drop eg of all charged therenese merely • We shall continue our campaign, not merely
greates! contribution we can make in this country to the building of a revolutionary leadership in Iran.
Today the class struggle which died down after the February insurrection is coming to life again in the form of civil war. The resistance of the Kurds, now at the forefront of the revolution's defence,
into the Arab nationality Khuzestan, into the Turkomeni and Azerbaijani regions; the struggles of women and of the working
can draw strength from the
Imperialism can support only one side in such a war. Already the State Department in Washington
the of Khomeini-Bazargan. The stability of a capitalist regime in Iran is more important to the human rights demagogues on Capitol Hill than the lives
Socialists internationally have a duty to counter
A defeat for the : Iranian revolution will bea defeat for the oppressed masse
No to the arms sales!
Release the Kurdish Release the HKS
by Association of Kurdish
-
Supported by Ad Hoc
• Iran'..
Speakers: Hojabr
Page 3 scan of this page
Right to Work
A blister
By Jude Arkwright, on the Right to
Work March
Tuesday 4 September
THERE ARE over
people, mainly young, on this year's
Right to Work march to the TUC. So
tar the march has been
Liverpool, Kirkby,
Preston, we'll get to
tonight.
12223
Yesterday we walked 25 miles in 0Ilt day, after night rainstorm brought down our marquee and soaked our sleeping bags at 5am. As a result there are lots of blisters News nowhere The Clapham mullahs WE REALLY must protest at the new soft attitudes being displayed by the Workers Revolutionary Party rewspaper Newsline, journal Clapham Mullahs.
in an article commented on the threatened executiens of the 14 members of the Iranian Socialist Workers Party, section of the Fourth International:
'The Iranian SWP is an offshoot of Tariq Ali's misnamed tional Marxist Group and the SWP of the United States, which is led by FBI spies.
The article continued: failing to launch a bogus 'women's rights" provocation, and then failing to stir up "human rights" to rescue the agents of the Shah's regime and the SAVAK torturers, the SWP began Kurdish minority in the province and the Arabs in the south.
After reporting the trial of the 14, Newsline informed its reader (Colonel Gaddafi) that the Iranian SWP controlled by American agents whose purpose is to overthrow and imperialist exploitation intrigues against the fion.
• This type of biting exactly the sort employed in the heroic Moscow trials of the 1930s when it was proved that the well-known Jew, Leon Trotsky, was an agent of the Nazis and other assorted counter-
Trotsky executed by Stalin's agent for his crimes.
But Newsline to its shame shows no such resolve as far as the Iranian 14 are concerned. The article completely capitulates to bourgeois liberalism and merely says that the 14 should be booted out of Iran.'
Having said that, let us give credit where due. Last Newsline revealed that our very own reporter in Nicaragua, Clive Turnbull, 'was the man whe turned state's evidence at the judicial inquiry into the death of Warwick student Kevin Gately, killed during a police charge
five hundred
But we've
through Leyland and
Blackpool population is unemployed.
been so welcoming.
spray painting. when
half
anti-fascist
from
of this charge
the way of justice. duly planted in his head.
Hampton Football
of its 1 September edition:
on 25 August it
Iranian
state of the country.
Interna. 'However,
an organisation Keep it up Alex!
'After Give up Guiness
the prize for following the
western
Khomeini
base for hardly consistent
and. war campaign.
Arab revolu-
logic was whose head
Jonathon Guiness,
right-wing Monday Club.
was later
SIEMENS
Saturday
the television For coully.
in Britain, turn the page...
and aches and pains. Sometimes it seems a bit like an endurance test.
been calling in at factories, trade union headquarters and labour clubs on the way, and we've been really welcomed. It's not surprising, really — in Kirkby half the
The attitude of the police has not
• On the very first day one Asian youth was arrested for
Then when 25 marchers — members of the National Union of School Students and about
them Revolution supporters — went to a school to talk
demonstrators London's Red Lion Square in 1974.'
This certainly came as a surprise to us, not to say the renegade Turnbull, who pathetically requested evidence
at secreta.
Although Newsline is a bit short on evidence we did not let that stand in
An ice-pick was
Let us leave the last word to Lawrie McMenemy, the manager of South-
Club, praising the Clapham Mullahs' newspaper thus in
'As part of my up-bringing I was taught to look for the Sports Page first. In some papers this is difficult, because for some reason they tend to
• mundane unings polities, the Common Market and the
your supplement there is no such problem.'
THE Daily Star has just about won
anti-Irish hysteria boating accident of Lord Mountbatten. Last Thursday it called on 'every husband who enjoys a pint of Guiness or Harp (actually women enjoy them as well'- Ed.) can order a different brew at the local'.
Such a boycolt everything Irish' campaign might be all very well for the likes of Star proprietor. Victor Matthews but not buying Guiness is
with such
The company is after all owned by a very English aristocratic family
happens one Тогу MP, leading advocate of the hanging of "terrorists', and a former head of the
"ITI A west German militant's view of
system in that what's going on behind the commercial TV screens
ck o
to students, they were all arrested
They had gone to talk about the campaign and the need to organise to fight for jobs and for their rights in school.
They were all done for breach of the peace and came vo in court the next day. All of them were bound over to keep the peace for a year, with a £100 fine if they don't.
-This is what you get for asserting your democratic right to organise. All those who were under 17 were kent overnight in the cells and one of them was badly beaten up by the police.
It's not a joke getting picked up by
the police in Anderton's territory. know what happened to those who had to stay at the police station. But despite the efforts of the police we are all still determined to fight back mosl of Ine people option. unemploced cant fight alone hey have so little power. marching on the TUC - to demand a big campaign in the trade unions for a 35-hour week, a minimum wage, and against all redundancies. FIGHT RIGHT TO WORKS FOR THEI Unemployed or working come to the Revolution Young Workers Conference in Birmingham on Saturday 15 September, 11am to 6pm. There'll be workshops and discussions. Get all the details from: 76B Digbeth, Birmingham 5. Tel: 021-643 9209.
the TUC
Chief Constable We still don't
Bakers' Union here have you spend That's why we're
You will be surprised to learn that
REVOLUTION
Career ones Avery Career
I hate the army and I hate
nate the chail setrice the RAp don't want. to , the tropical Boat Bating and I won't open letter bombs mules for you.
They offered me the ort,
they offered ne you wanna sake tea at the anything They said I'd better take they "à got They're gonna hare introduce hey' conseription
If they wanna they wanna get ne making predeription . to take I've got no choice get ne, well is to keep you Every Job they offer never knock ones that Career opportunities are th never knock J0U dock
this is precisely what the TUC leaders
are afraid to do.
Why should they worry about the
unemployed? As Val Dunn of the
pointed out in he
address to us at Preston: 'Socialism is
supposed to be caring about people. If
people you don't
Imperial Hotel in Black on at £5,000 dinners the
The only way we'll make these
leaders shift is if we organise to make
them. The Right to Work march is the
beginning, we have to go on from
10p
GIRO
FIGHT BACK
• To eat say are yo
they knock ofter you are the dock shop Socialișt Challenge: 6 September 1979 Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Battle over control lies behind blank screens
Nottingham Post-and now for the boycott
TV strike
By an ACIT member at London Weekend Television THE TIMING of the dispute that has blanked out ITV screens for almost a month was no accident. The unions were forced showdown in August, advertising is at als programmes are made then and the companies could afford to fight.
The firm stand taken by members of the
major involved EETPU; and NATTKE — must have come as a nasty shock to the companies.
Alan Sapper, issociation Cinematograph, ind allied Technicians, has tried to portray the dispute as simply about pay. supplied by ACTT itself show him to be wrong.
The net revenue of the ITV companies last year was £363m, while the claim presented by the unions, which amounts to about 25 per cent on the national rate, would cost {3m to settle in
That's only three days revenue, so from day three of the dispute, early last month, the companies had sacrificed more than it would have cost them to cough up.
The real issne is: Who runs the television industry? Behind the fight over pay lies a trial of strength over the re-allocation of franchises, control of the fourth TV channel, and the implementation of new technology.
The present dispute came to a head on 10 August after a 'final' offer of 15 per cent. When this was withdrawn by management, along with a threat to suspend those action, ACTT called out all nationally:
Fleet Street has about earnings of €17,000 a year and more in ITV. The fact is that pay ranges from £3,300 a ·12,000 for a handful of producers. The few programme really big earners, as Sapper has pointed out, are about as typical of the television industry as Elton John is of the Musicians' Union. By Brian Simister Vice president, Nottingham Trades Council, personai capacity LED BY Thoresby miners' band, 800 trade unionists marched on the offices of the Nottingham Evening Post on Saturday to form a mass picket.
The pickets represented journalists, print workers, engineers, public sector workers and many other trades and industries from all country - all in support of the 28 locked out journalists victimised for taking part in the journalists' strike last winter.
We were opposing a particularly violent anti-union management which since 1973 smashed organisation within the plant and by so doing has made 300 printworkers
Central to this triumph of modern management Christopher Carew, managing director of the paper, High Sheriff of Nottingham-
Suffer little
children
BURY Tory councillor Evelyn Waite has a simple philosophy. It could be described as "suffer little white I go to Portugal.
weeks ago she casting vote to impose, for the first time, fines on old age pensioners and children who return library late. The move, Waite told the local press, was to teach children 'a sense of responsibility' R
But Waite's 'sense of responsibility' is such that she is going on an all-expenses paid trip to Portugal to watch the filming show It's a Knockout.
Waite will be
person council delegation which will
cost Bury's ratepayers £1,500.
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 1
into a the month when lowest. Few
ACTT,
general secretary of the
Television
But figures taking industrial its members
produced its usual smears
assistants to around London
Chief Constable. local clubs at £15 a head.
until 5.20pm over the
provinicial that we were
few arrests were made.
Eventually effective proved too much for us, delivery vans through — the Post's sports editions.
Pole-
Nottingham
and Local
all cuts in public
Cuts galore
children A CALL Authority to used her Southwark and example and
books Colchester Trades Council.
the trades council campaign.
of the BBC-TV
has Just part of a three
of Nursing
Inflation rates mean that a 35 per cent rise now would leave ACTT members no better off by July 1980 than we were in July 1975. This is, union wants to: cost-of-living clause which was frozen under the Labour government's pay policy.
The union has strong support for its resistance to management. example, a meeting of 450 ACTT members at Weekend Television hearted support' to the unions' position, with only six votes against.
But the union leaders' eagerness to go to arbitration is an evasion of the rea shire, and a close friend of the area's |
early
We were not alone on Saturday. In case Nottinghamshire's police force proved unequal to the task, police reserves had been drawn in from other areas, and for further "protection', the company had hired bouncers from
We massed outside the gates and
prevented anything lishing from moving. Yet as more and more police reserves were being marched up in military fashion it became clear
going to pe greatly outnumbered. A melée ensued and a
the constabulary and four Where break well behind schedule for
There will be other pickets, and we need more people on them. But these in and of themselves are insufficient.
Trades Council
The Bury branch of the National
Officers'
Government Association has protested against the introduction of the library fines and has launched a local campaign to fight
caciallule
• Essex Area Health follow the Lambeth, Lewisham AHA'5 reruse lo. Impicnichl these vicious cuts' has been made by
The call came at the launching by an anti-cuts
Hazel Smith, secretary of the cuts campaign and a member of the heaith union COHSE, said: 'Conditions are so bad in the Essex area hospitals that
received national notoriety because of a Royal College
report criticising standards in some Essex tiospitals..
It's those
again
stake.
Ten
reactivate
underway, Last Friday, for
gave 'whole If they
negotiating to weakened
issues at convening a working conference in
November, charged with the task of planning and implementing a comprehensive boycott of supplies and advertising.
The Post has shown a willingness to use any method, legal or otherwise, to defeat the unions. The weakness on the union side has been the lack of coordination and disunity. In estab-
effective boycotts, weaknesses have be overcome locally and nationally.
As the National Union Journalists discusses country-wide
Again re-instatement of its 28 members, the TUC and the branches of every union whose members have any dealings with the Post should take up the fight for a boycott.
In this way, we will be able to move together in November to smash Pole-Carew's bastion of anti-trade unionism.
'If the hospitals are struggling to keep going now, how are we going to manage with yet more cuts?'
The anti-cuts campaign hopes to draw together all sections labour movement. It will launch a cuts bulletin to highlight and monitor any expenditure cuts in and around Colchester.
Further information:
Smith, COHSE, Essex Hall, 45 Mill Rd, Colchester.
Switch on
A GLIMMER of light in the long cold Surtiner Tonighi of September repeats on at 10.15pm BBC
showing again Spongers, Jim Allen's brilliant play about a woman's attempts to obtain social security benefits.
Set in the context
flas-waving Jubilee celebrations in
1977, the play stabs a knife in the guts
of the real scroungers.
bloody workers
when the current ITV years ago, companies received their franchises, the unions successfully established control over staffing levels and other aspects of organisation. As the scramble for the new franchises and IȚY2 gets
want to avoid the companies repetition of this situation.
Win the dispute, companies will be in a position to dictate terms
unions, in particular over the introduction of new technology.
Electronic news gathering equipment
such
of
the sacked the
Hażel bombs to kill
to be drawn from August of 49-year-old Ken Cummins,
14 years al
ment, near Reading The
nad a medical
of the plutonium in his lungs. An emergency operation failed to stop the cancer
job creation programme. the
about much more than Financial Times mournfully is
signs of
favour.
YOU don't have to drop nuclear Said Geoff: 'It was horrifying.
people manufacture them. That's the verdict could see
the death on 10 thinner each day. who 'wasted away' after working for handling of atomic waste.
the Aldermaston Transport Atomic Weapons Research Establish-
Last week the victim's brother, Geoff Cummins, revealed that Ken death.
last October when it was discovered that by the Aldermaston authorities he had four times the safe level of years ago when traces of contamina-
tion were Cummins' body.
already in use throughout much of the world. But in Britain, with the exception of IN, its introduction has been blocked, principally by ACTT. All the major companies have installed this equipment, and are itching to use it.
The unions want safeguards over crewing levels and jobs. Without these, the system could make Fleet Street's new technology look like a
With all this at stake, the dispute is evidently
pay, •and the • noted, it is the rank and file which has made the running.
The blank screens are now beginning to affect the lucrative autumn schedules. There
chinks in ITV's armour, particularly among the smaller companies. The™ tide is no longer running in the companies?
He
just wasted away to virtually nothing. You
him getting thinner
Ken Cummins' job involyed the Now the and General Workers • Union officials at Aldermaston are planning to take the Ministry of Defence to court over their member's AmOng EE questions to be answered is why no action was taken
first recorded Кеп
Page 5 scan of this page
By Geoffrey Sheridan
WHAT HAVE Congress House, Transport House, and New Printing House Square got in common? The answer is that none of these buildings — respectively home to the TUC; the Labour Party, and The Times publishing a NEHIER CLeRe
Today's debate at the Trade Union Congress includes thé issue of press freedom, and several union leaders expected opportunity to call for a feasibility study into the publication by the labour movement of a mass daily paper.
Moss Evans, Transport secretary, expressed his enthusiasm for the project last week by declaring that the TGWU which spends about £250,000 en its monthi journal, would be willing to spend an even larger sum on a daily paper produced by the labour movement.
By a member of the Hull News Group THE FIRST weekly newspaper in Britain to be ren by a trades council has just
latinched in Hull.
Hüll News, with 24 tabloid pages, will appear on news-stands throughout the city in mid-October.
eight-page DEDI edition was produced last week, with the aim of building cireulation and atracting advertising.
20,000 weekly sales by the end ol the year.
In city of nearty 300,000, where nearly evervone who , is eligible votes Labour, this target
This headline could be yours
Unions to take on
Fleet St in national
paper bid
ENACA
- is presently national daily newspaper, but
France, the
Union general HOW much longer will the bosses have a monopoly over the mass media?
seems reasonably realistic The only "competition' is the Hull Daily Mail and its weekly, the Hull Times.
Coming from. the same stable as the national Daily Mail, the editorial line of these rags is not hard to guess.
Hull News will report on and examine day to odi happenings in the city from a broad left-wing viewpoint. Editorial policy and control will lie with the fuf: hodv the trades council, and will be discussed at regular monthiy meetings..
The trades COuneil which has wide representation from left-wing
Few union activists need persuading that the
medhs in. Kritain anti-working class bias; the line-up on general election and the coverage of last winter's strikes amply attest to their rampant Toryism. In a country with 11 million paid-up trade union members, such a uniform volume of bias, distortion, and plain slander reqaires urgent correction.
The position in Britain is in sharp contrast to that in other West European
for example, not only Communist Party's newspaper L'Humanité have a daily circulation equivalent to that of The Guardian here, but now the Socialist Party, along with other left-wing openly defies the state monopoly of the airwaves by broadcasting radio programmes from the party HQ
It is understandable, however, if the theught of a TUC-Labour Party daily does not instil joy ii cheshen ts hich floamts. Te Judge by the discussion which took place
Trades Council launches weekly paper
-wues, . has "DEE newspaper management
members of the Huli News Group itself, to which a number of professional journalists trave offered practical help and which is an open body.
The pilot edition includes articles by left-wing journalist James Cameron, Labour MPs Frank Allaun and tony Benn. and local playwright Alan rialer, as well as by local speedway and rugby league stars.
Also published is poem on youth struggle, by "An E-grade Sausage".
The trades council
needs to be clarified. mass daily paper.
lorry drivers',
pronounced TUC-Labour
the strikers support? similarly. countries. does the
why there
And that is wants about $25,000 in advertising and DoRatOns success of Huli News.
We want to syndicate the paper's feature columns to other trades ( councils and to National ! Unien of Journalists' branches, so that they might attempt SHARI ventures.
*Why not send us an advert- expressing support? ntee dis. play times 1 col, costs just
fsls. donations, and inquiries to: Hul News, Corporation Chambers, Trinity House, Hull, East Yorks.
conference on 'Democratic accountability in the Media' held by the Institute of Workers Contrat, it is the question of ownership and control of a labour movement mass daily that
Is the dread hand of bureaucracy exhibited by the leadership of the TUC and the Labour Party, coupled with its opposition to most of the policies and activities needed to fight the Tories, reason to seek other means of launching a working class newspaper? There are two considerations why the answer has to be No.
The first is organisational. The TUC and Labour Party centralise the funds of the labour movement. Only these bodies have the capacity to provide the finances required to launch and establish such an expensive undertaking as a
The second consideration is political. Moss Evans pointed to the atrocious coverage of the
local authority and workers? strikes as the reason for the labour movement to have its own voice. Would a
Party paper have Probably not (although the TUC's pamphlet 'A cause for concern' ably lakes apart the mass media's coverage);
But there's the rub. While the strikers may not have been moved to respond to the attacks in the Mirror, the Mail, and the rest, it is considerably less likely that they woud have stood by if 'their own' paper had treated them
In all probability we would have seen pickets of Congress House and Transport House with demands by the strikers for the right to put their case and cail for support. In any event, that's what socialists would haye urged.
It is these kinds of pressures which explain
¡cocaly ннец enthusiasm among the labour leadership for a daily. They would be placing themselves on a vulnerable line not simpły on trade anion matters but on ever Issue confronting the working class movement.
precisely what soclalists shomld
'USING THE MEDIA', a handbook for trade unionists and community activists on how to handle the media, has just been published by Pluto Press at £2.50 paperback..
In over two hundred pages it covers in an eminently practical way now. mne press, function; how to contact journalists, write press. releases, conferences, deal with interviews, and - not least → how to complain about and confront the mass media.
The handbook is written by DENIS MacSHANE, National Union of Journalists. Here he argues the need for availability of such information.
It is often difficult to explain to «journalist colleaguęs interested in the working of the trade
is endemic press, television and, less so, radio.
The reaction understandable.
If you are a striking lorry driver and you read on the front page of thi Sun that two million people are to be laid off because of your strike and millions of chickens are dying starvation on account of your cruelty when the truth is completely different probably the only chickens to suffer were those slaughtered to fill the bellies of Fleet congratulating themselves on another successful campaign against working people + of individual morality obiains inside the newsrooms up and . COUlEY The reaction of many workers in the face of such an experience is to say "To hell with the media', and refuse to have any dealings with journalists.
Such a reaction is understandable but a mistake. Trade unionists may ignore the media; that doesn't mean the media will ignore trade unionists.
From my personal experience of running courses for : representatives on how to use media, most are processes and tricks of the journalisțic trade The picket line shop steward who speaks freely to a friendly reporter may not realise how little control that reporter has over his or her copy when it Is handed in and how much it may be mangled or, thanks to headline, sensationalised by someone who was who hasn't any sense of what the
labour leadership.
Fleet Street to follow
which requires our attention.
They will say: 'You talk about
trade union
Most tinion journals
health right of reply,
given the
daily!
movement
campaign's pamphlet,
Road, Hadleigh, Essex. from: Marian
Using the media
10,000
radio, and TV
organise news releases,
deadlines,
past president of the
the wide
. who are dis-
cunning "or among workers for the
enough. workers . is the media.
and run motivation.
But there
on local radio,
Street. editors off Ics Dolses contact - you must wönder what kind
discuss .down the
#latule media relations.
from
trade union the wise to ..the
major example.
(his bias
not present at the scene or
demand the TUC and Labour Party leaders should do, for it is by insisting that they take up our struggles and confronting their collaborz. tionist policies that we can best challenge the
The Guardian has already poured scorn on the idea of a labour movement daily, and as the prospect draws closer we can expect the rest of
They have оБе particular response to the aceusations of bias
press freedo nd proprietorial control. But what about tl
journals? They are simply mouthpieces for the bureaucracies. Put your own house in order.' And so we should.
are a mockery of press freedom and therefore ought to be made a target at every single union conference, with demands for the regular election of editors, the
and genuine debate. Such 1 campaign would take us a long way forward i helping to persuade the mass of trade unionists and other sections of the working class that &. independent voice for the labour movement is & crucial asset. Forward to a TUC-Labour Party
*A Campaign for Press Freedom has jus been launched with sponsorship from variom
figures journalists and academics. Individual membership is £3. Thr
'Towards Press Fret dom', costs 30p. Details from: John Jennings. Campaign for Press Freedom, 274/288 London
*The South-east Region of the TUC is to hold a conference on 'Workers, Unions, and the Media' on 3 November. Speakers include Bill Keys, general secretary of SOGAT, and Tony Benn. Up to four delegates from unios branches and chapels, at fi a head. Detais
Scott, South-cast TUC, • Congress House, Great Russell St., WCI.
issues are really about.
Employers have long learnt the importance of handling the media professionally. There are an estimated full- or part-time public relations and press officers putting over the employers' point of view Trade unionists need to learn some aspects of the work that PROs do. They need to know how to issue press how organise ICW endeines ow have SCANE of go 'off-the-record', learn how to make a good case in a 90-second television interview, use the growing network of local radio-stations — 57 will be in operation in 1982.
Too often the trade unionist's first contact with a journalist is when s/he is phoned up for a comment in the middle of a dispuțe.
Relying on his or her native instincts 'iș not good S/he should have some training or guidance on how to handle
Obviously all the media training in the world is not going to counter the bias of a press that is privately owned with clear political
are many journalists especially in the provincial press and who would like to report fairly on union affairs but are by surty, uncooperative when they try to make
The trade untion movement must fundamental reforms in the ownership and control of the media. But at the same time the movement has to move into the 1980s with a more protessional approach 1o
*Using the Media' is availabh Other Bookshop, Upper Street, London NI. Add 10 pe cent if ordering by mail
*The TUC debate freedom will include firm denu tions of the bias of the bosses' no doubt with last winter's strike Another conl be the present attempts to der engineering strikes by makin of the opponents at British There is a simple way to cr - to call on ever unionist who works in the to ensure that & reply is each and every attack ou
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
21-23 September 1979
MARXIST
SYMPOSIUM
DAYONE
10.30-1.30pm CURRENT ISSUES OF MARXISM Perry Anderson
2.30-5.00pm Workshops The Debate on English History, Alternative Economic Strategy, Bahro's Marxism Speakers include: Perry Anderson, John Ross, Alan Freeman, Gunther Minnerup
7.30-10.00pm RALLY 100th ANNIVERSARY OF TROTSKY'S BIRTH Speakers include: Pierre Frank, Tariq Ali, the Voice of Leon Trotsky
DAY TWO 10.00-1.00pm IS LENINISM OBSOLETE?
Dodie Weppler and two of the authors of Beyond the Fragments
Workshops Class Analysis and Political Strategy, Kautsky and Eurocommunism, The Communist International Speakers include: Robin Blackburn, Pierre Frank 2.00-5.00pm CULTURE AND POLITICS Francis Mulhern THETRADE UNIONS TODAY
Richard Hyman, Steve Jefferys [SWP], Pat
Hickey [deputy senior steward, Rover Solihull
- in personal capacityl
Workshops include youth and revolution
Fill in the form below:
Name...
Address.
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979
LEON TROTSKY 1879-1940 "open the road to the youth"
Make Cheques and Postal Orders out to 'Socialist Challenge'
release from
Leutchar Friday
paper at the same time.
year centenary Conway
will celebration.
J. Thackara
lony Ivicchau Brighton IMG R. Blackburn
Week's total Cumulative total DAYTHREE
10.00-1.00pm TWO TRADITIONS OF MARXISM IN BRITAIN John Ross
Workshops Workers Plans and Workers Control, Women in Eastern Europe.
Speakers include: Hilary Wainwright, Dave Bailey
2.00-5.00pm THE REVOLUTIONARY LEFT IN EUROPE Chris Harman [SWP], Tariq Ali [IMG]
Creche facilities Refreshments available
£l a session. £5.50 six sessions excluding the rally £1 for rally. £5 for all the sessions except the rally [€6 including the rally] if paid before 12September. VENUE: Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London
OUR FUND DRIVE
THIS WEEK we're printing as the main item in this column the press
the International Marxist Group about the rally for the
Trotsky's birth on 21 September.
Besides celebrating the centenary, we hope this event will raise a lot of money for our £20,000 Special Fund. So make it an evening out and help the
we celebrate the of the birth Leon Trotsky. In an era that lives under the shadow of nuclear devastation, and is once again haunted by the spectre of
unemployment, the heroic physical and intellectual struggle of this revolutionary titan Leilali powerful example to all those who believe in the future of humanity.
on 2 Hall. ender at 7.30pm.
Hall, Lion Square, London WC1, the IMG — the British Section of the Fourth International, the movement founded by Trotsky
holding centenary
Our thanks this week to:
£12.50 5.00 10.00 1.00 'JP's petrol + inflation' 10.00
£38.50 £13, 721.25
HOME NEWS By Tariq Ali 'IN ONE SENSE the Commons is the most unrepresentative of representative assemblies. It is an elaborate conspiracy to prevent the real clash of outside from finding an appropriate echo within its walls. It is a social shock absorber placed privilege and the pressure of public consent.
Thus wrote Labour Aneurin Bevan many decades ago. But today even those of Bevan's heirs who might agree with the observation would probably not care to repeat it in public. For it would be considered an attack on 'democracy'
Yet never has the economic situation in Britain needed an ideological assault on the institutions of the British bourgeoisie. The present elected earlier this overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Its popular vote was the largest to be obtained by a British political party. In terms of bourgeois legitimacy the Tories are in a very strong position.
Wisdom
This point is being stressed not simply by the Tories and their servile press. It has also conventional WISHUT wing of the Labour Party and the trade unions. In other words, workers are being told by Callaghan, Healey. Murray know what the Tories are doing is rough, but grin and bear it for five years and then we'll get Labour bäck.'
Leaving aside the question of what a new Labour government would or • would not do, the argument is utterly bankrupt. In the face of a sustained attack U11 working
standards through
expenditure, and soon an ridiculous to expect workers to back and wait.
It is obvious that
movement organised strength
divided on.
fight this Tory government.
divisions will be exploited by the Tory
leaders and their press to delay any
industrial uprising
Thatcher governcle,
happens they will be used to ensure
that it is diverted into safe channels.
Trump
The trump card available to the
British class
government is its political-ideological
strength and the labour movement's
political-ideological
1972-4 Heath attempted to use this
political strength of the bourgeoisie to
defeat the economic strength of the
working class. He failed.
Wilson and then
succeeded to a limited
persuading the trade unions to accept
partial blame for the economic crisis
of the capitalist economic system. The
outbreak of industrial
earlier this year and
government's ferocious verbal at!-
acks on them finally culminated in a
massive Tory victory.
Thatcher governs with the benefit
of hindsight.
the Callaghan experiences behind her.
From present Tory strategy it appears
that Thatcher
blunders to political weakness and a
loss of nerve at critical moments of
the previous Tory administration.
Audacious
The Tory leader and her advisers
are convinced that
pursuit of reactionary policies is quite
capable delivering
because of the political backwardness
of the working class movement. Any
CLASS
House of attempt oppressed resist the greeted with a opinion which exists
the trade unions. between Onslaught
left-winger
prepared
political and mOre
government was
year with an Royalty
order:
become In Britain . of the right ideology British
'We ana Dully workers
the living reality:
cuts in social
unemployment
policy • 1t sit during a labour despite its immense
is seriously • the tactics necessary to
against Conservatives. and 11
by fighting
democracy:
and the Tory
proletariat weakness.
Callaghan extent by
Old man struggles the Labour these remarks. talking unions as the democracy"?
She has the Heath and answer is yes.
Trotsky
attributes Heath's
the audacious
the goods
that ther
by the workers or other sections of society to Tóry onslaught will be barrage of hostile propaganda centred on the defence of. "democracy' against the members of
It is extremely important that the response to the Tory and right-wing Labour ideological onslaught is well
and well argued. The function of bourgeois democracy is to secure the consent of the masses to their own exploitation and oppres sion. The price paid for obtaining this consent is the existence of important democratic rights: the right to form political parties, the right to publish and distribute political propaganda, the existence of trade unions, etc.
Such a system is clearly the best possible way of integrating the masses into the existing political and social
Bourgeois ideology and bourgeois institutions - parliament; church, family, royalty and as a last resort the armed forces — are mere 1e ensure that there is no breach in the system of capitalist fortifications.
• of and institutions is more crucial than elsewhere in Western Europe because the overwhelming majority of the population consists of
• Hence the importance of British social-democracy as a yital pillar of bourgeois democracy.
Trotsky remarked on this feature of British political life on more than one ¡occasion. A perceptive passage in his writings on German fascism revealed
contradictory aspects of this Stronghold
'In a developed capitalist society
"democratic regime, the bourgeoisie leans for support primarily upon the working classes, which are held in check by the reformists. In its most finished form, this system finds its highest expression in Britain during the administration of a Labour government as well as during the
'In the course of many decades, the workers have built up within the bourgeois democracy, by utilising it,
against ll their own strongholds and bases of proletarian
the trade unions, polítical parties, the educational and sport clubs, the cooperatives, etc. The within the forma can do so our mis Callut attain power democracy, bur can do so ully taking the road of revolution: this has been proved by theory and experi ence. And these bulwarks of workers democracy within the bourgeois state are absolutely essential for taking the revolutionary road.
Many readers will be shocked by
Was the old man real British rade 'bases of proletarian Our. heavily
cratised, undemocratic unions? The
was arguing that all
working class organisations, despite
their reformist leaderships, despite
their bureaucracies, would have to be
the centre of socialist activities before
the victory of the revolution. Cleariy
he envisaged the defeat of reformism,
but he refused to equate the unions (as
an institution) with •Compro
mised leaderships.
The strength of bourgeois demo
cratic institutions as far as the mass of
workers are concerned does not he in
the fact that they are bourgeois, but
sanction certain funda
Page 7 scan of this page
STRUGGLE AND DEMOCRACY
mental democratic rights. This on its own would not be sufficient to keep workers confined within, the straitjacket of bourgeois However, one also has to take into aceount the lasting negative impact of the experiences of Stalinism in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
Any successful struggle for socialist in the West will thus have to be mote democratic than what exists today in both its organisation and its alas in order to succeed. In other
cords, socialist democracy must be
institutions of struggle.
democracy.
return to the
Tories.
'most powerli
seen to operate in all the proletarian
Our aim as socialists must be to stimulate and aid ail developments which lead to the mass entry of the working class into political activity at
. question of whether workers should wait five years before embarking on struggles against the
We are, naturally, in favour of the
Illass struggles to defeat Tory policies. But is the British labour movement prepared to accept
the Tory challenge on the question of 'democracy'?
Not even the left wing of the labour movement has thought out a serious
to these ICSOUlSC vuesliens. social-democrats are addicted more so than the young Nye Bevan -
the Houses or Commons. he
House Commons. revolutionary left, meanwhile, tended to regard all questions about
bourgeols political order irrelevant, merely anticipating that it will all ultimately be swept away by the tide of mass struggle and replaced
with soviets.
If the first approach reveals the utter bankruptcy democracy, the Left weakness of the far left, because all it
can offer is propaganda. However, if it is accepted that the aim is to involve masses in workplace, then has attempt (including within the present
political system) has to be made to develop such a project The objective political and economic situation clearly favours such a project. For because of the gravity of
So
character
to be
in developing of. the
representatiol our armoury.
There
Pucalel force
returned at all? Appeal
assert
government. the Tories way as to British
prevent
of sociallatter reveals the
politics the every possible problem
society.
society.
the economic and social crisis, every major economic struggle inevitably becomes a political challenge to the government in office. Chartists
reply to the •bourgeois offensive has to take as its central thrust the intrinsically undemocratic
of British bourgeois democracy. This means that a number of radical, democratie demands have
prioritised both within the institutions of the working class and
our challenge to the institutions of the bourgeoisie.
Starting off from the democratic organisation of strikes (regular mass meetings, accountable strike committees, etc.), these will have to include the democratisation of the unions and
Labour Party throuch demanding more democratic forms of
within the existing bourgeois state.
One of the central demands of the Chartists was for annual parliaments It was never seriously considered by the British ruling class and was soon abandoned by the workers movement after the defeat of Chartism. And yet the demand is an important part of
can be little doubt that annual elections would create
interest in poltics. would the labour movement introduce politics in the workplace, and would make bourgeois governments more accountable. Would an election next vear returt Thatcher with the same majority - if she was
From this it is obvious that we stress the primacy of the masses in struggle For us real, effective democracy is mass democracy - the very opposite of bourgeois democracy And
the right of the labour movement to appeal to the masses or that basis against the policies of this
A democratically organised labour movement, which is not frightened of raising political questions on the shop-floor and which ends the absurd division between politics (in Parliament) and economic struggles (in the workplaces), is capable of taking on
and defeating them on every possible terrain.
Furthermore, it needs to be stressed that the ruling class does not accept the division between economics (City of London) and politics (House of Commons, the Lords). Their democracy is, in reality, organised in such a
maintain the existing economic divisions. The result is that the House of Commons is subordinated to the needs of national and international capitalism.
Boardrooms
The vital decisions concerning the economic life of this country are not made in the House of Commons. They are decided in the boardrooms of the City and the planning meetings of the International Monetary Fund. The link between these bodies and the
civil service is a little
studied phenomenon, precisel be
cause of the secrec necessary to
prevens capicapposition from the
The labour movement has no need to be defensive in the face of the bourgeois ideological offensive pro vided it puts its own house in order and is prepared to fight back The
we should state, is that there
s too little democracy in British
The strongholds of the workers movement should be utilised to change this situation and create the basis for the transformation of British
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
HANDS OFF ZIMBABWE
Patriotic Front stands
1. The reality in Zimbabwe is that of a war situstion in which the fberation forces of the Patriotic Front as representing the interests of seven million Zimbabweans are locked in a bitter conflict against the forces of the rebel regime representative of the minority.
2. The historical development of the present: conflict situation consistently that Britain, as the colonial power since 1890, has, in successive stages, not only consistently refrained from responsibilities towards people but has also yielded lo. demands of the settler community to the extent of acquiescing in the illegal acts of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
Since the Patriotic Front forces assumed the revolutionary task, imbalance of power between the oppressed and subjected majority and the oppressive minority ruling class through the instrumentality armed struggle.
By its sweat and blood, Patriotic Front becomes decisive factor in the decolonisation process which the decolonisation power had failed to accomplish.
Accordingly, by the fact of the advance of the liberation struggle establishment of firm and indisputable control over a vast region of the country extension of its military operations over 90 per cent of tae total Patriotic Front, which порото от masses, has
force operating
onial system. thes diminishing the role of
•lich it has become merely nominal.
4. By virtue of its established military and political position, the become the sole legitimate and authentic
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 8
London conference, 10 September
Where the
without
racist settler holds
demonstrates
racist colonial the Zimbabwean the racist placed and Army. 6.
redressed the
of
therefore, the the effective and
according
resulting
and the
area of Zimbabwe, enjoys • tbe fullest become the only against the settler
decolomising power to the extent to
process
Patriotic Front has
representative of the people of Zimbabwe,
whose consent no whatever kind could ever succeed.
The Patriotic Front, recognising that the process of achieving an acceptable agreement is necessarily a movement from war to peace,
that the basis of any constitutional settlement cannot fall short of the complete removal of the causes of the war, through the disbandment of the oppressive and
regime together with its instruments of control, and its consequent replacement by a truly democratic government into whose control the liberation forces are
transformed into
The movement from war to peace, being # movement from oppressive settler minority rule to a democratic system, cannot at the same time be based on a constitution of the very racial and undemocratic system it seeks to destroy. To do so is not only to vitiate the principle of democracy, but also to sanctify illegality and racism.
Similarly, to incorporate in a purportediy democratic constitution provisions creating a special position for groups or communities or
such groups or communities preferential treatment on no other basis than those of race or colour is repugnant to the principles of democracy as we understand and cherish them.
All citizens being equal before the law must enjoy equal rights and privileges.
The process of establishing peace from war must aim at the achievement of genuine independence through the utilisation of such modalities as are promotive and not inhibitive of the process. In this regard, the election
leading to the emergence government independent should not only be democratic but also come. under the supervision of such persons or groups
of persons settlement
having
desired
illegal regime.
physical 8. •Any
consistent
People's
demanded
252-252-).
Rhodesia. 9. The recognised negotiations
of the Zimbabwe
the present conflict.
as possess an objectivity and impartiality which are beyond question.
The Conservative government of Britain.
endorsed the fraudulent elections held by the present illegal regime in April as 'free and fair', and having pronounced themselves in favour of lifting sanctions, has forfeited every right to supervise the process D! change. It is decidedly biased in favour of the
proposed scheme envisaging the solution of the Rhodesian problem must be
with the expressed interests of the people of Zimbabwe and the course which the international community, in particular the OAU (Organisation, of African Unity) and the United Nations, has prescribed and advocated with consistent vigour over the last 17 years, that is from 1962 to 1979.
During this period the United Nations has
consistently that decolonised to the satisfaction of the people of Zimbabwe. Both the General Assembly and the Security Council rejected UDI in 1965 at the request of Britain (resolutions 232-232-and
in 1977 Britain sought before the Security Council a resolution empowering the United Nations to supervise elections in Zimbabwe under the Anglo-American plan.
In March 1978 the Security Council passed a resolution rejecting the 3 March "internal settlement' and called for a solution based on the United Nations resolutions on
Patriotic Front has that principle of 10 bring about settlement leading to the total transference of power from the settler racist minority to the majority of the people in Zimbabwe could not be excluded as an additional means of resolving
government begins its
in getting all parties around the table. Elsewhere on this spread
and
whether
itself. 10.
negotiate a solution.
internal settlement
so-called
Signed:
always serious R.G. Mugabe genuine President of ZANU
J.N.M. Nkomo President of ZAPU
20 August 1979
ON MONDAY 10 September at Lancast
conference •to Zimbabwe. For the first time since 1976 a B
But can the Tories succeed in imposing t reprint here a statement of the political p issued in Dar-es-Salaam a fortnight ago. Front's confidence in the intentions of the endorse the central arguments of the stațe
RICHARI pretensions to wield colonial power in explains what we can do to get British har
The Patriotic Front therefore expresses itself in favour of entering into serious negotiations with the British government with a view to any substantial of common agreement exists between Britain and By accepting the British invitation to attend the proposed conference the Patriot Front must clearly be understood to have done nothing more than indicate its willingness to It rejects both the proposed constitutional framework, which has as its basis the illega. consfitution, and the proposal of a ceasefire it unjustifiably makes The war will therefore continue until the objective of liberation has been achieved.
Page 9 scan of this page
louse in London, the Tory aulate a constitution a government has succeeded
solution on Zimbabwe? We ion of the Patriotic Front, bough we don't share the ernational community', we it.
ARVER looks at British nabwe and JOHN HUNT aff Zimbabwe.
By Richard Carver
THE case of the "terrorist passports. well illustrates the British government's hypocritical muddie over Zimbabwe.
The government of Bishop Muzorewa. "illegal Smith regime' plained to the members of ZAPU, known "terrorists', Have OCCU traveling passports.
Now, considering its sudden concern for Britain's colonial responsibility in Zimbabwe, the Tory government could have told the illegal' regime where to get off. It could have suggested that these 'rebels against the Crown' had no valid opinion on who was or was not a "terrorist'. It could even (truthfully) have pointed out that successive British governments had gration policy in blatant disregard of the wishes of foreign governments and had no intention of changing now.
(And it forthcoming legislation would make a British passport useless anyway!)
the
what used to be called the
has comForeign Office that
on
been
for treason
instructive
figure
formulated immi-
have added that
Line late Successive
Westminster black elite, favourite with
Tory manoeuvres
Surprisingly enough, the government did none of these things. Instead, the Attorney General made a statement in
Commons that 'passports for persons known to be terrorists will, of course, be refused.'
This at least theoretically raises the possibility that Patriotic Front leaders Joshua Niomo and Robert Mugabe — a pair of "terrorists' if ever there was one - will be refused admission to next week's Zimbabwe constitutional conference, while an Order in Council has
issued granting lan Smith and Abel Muzorewa immunity from arrest
of the passports because the issue of Britain's 'colonial responsibility' will
the London conference. It was on that basis that the Tories and the Commonwealth prime ministers were able to reach agreement at the Lusaka conference last month.
At Lusaka it was 'fully accepted that it is the constitutional responsibility of the British government to grant legal independence to Zimbabwe on the basis of majority rule.'
The Tories deliberately hark hack to their 'golden age' of decolonisation in
and carl! 14015 colonial countries We t bequeathed a constitution on the
model, pro-Western and i heavily dependent economy. Then they were cut adrift
The Tories do genuinely seem think that that process can simply be repeated, even down to their choice of venue - Lancaster House. scene of sc many pre-independence conferences.
The Kenyan model has long been a
British governments.
After a brutal war against the liberation
British relinquished • power to amenable section of opposition, having first won considerable guarantees for the many white settlers. Nairobi is now a playground for international capitalism so that the British press is magnanimous v prepared to overook the faci that the country is a brutal, one-party dictatorship.
The parallels with Zimbabwe are obvious. The last Labour government sought make that appointing Lord Carver, served in Kenya, transfer of power in Zimbabwe. And President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania struck a chord in Lusaka when enthusiastically Kenya white settlers were paid large sums of money by possible racial harmony and peaceful transition to independence.
in the statement renrinted on this page. the Patriotic Front rejecis this sort of precedent. Britain's arrogant interference selt-determination 15
more justifiable with the passage of time.
The Lusaka conference endorsed a longstanding aim of British ments, both Labour and Tory, scarch lor a lasting settlement. must involve all parties to the conflict.'
The Patriotic contrast. states that the onlv thing to be discussed is how the white settler regime is to be totally divested of its power. An 'all party" racists and liberation fighters as equal parties to the conflict is unacceptable. By John Hunt
SEVEN YEARS AGO, when the Heath government was trying to legitimize its sell-out plan for Zimbabwe via the Pearce Commission, tens of thousands of people mobilised in protest through initiatives launched by the Anti-Apartheid Movement
Since then Zimbabwe solidarily has laken hard times. Under Wilson and Callaghan the Labour left MPs wouldn't rock the boat by criticising Owen's pro-imperialist manoeu-
And the Anti-Apartheid Movement in turn,
by the munist Party and its strategy of alliance •with these lefts, adopted a 'low profile attitude to work on Zimbabwe.
For a time most solidarity work was carried out by various groups of sectarian Maoists. What little Anti-Apartheid did was marred by favouritism towards ZAPU again because of the CP's links with the ZAPU leadership and Moscow's hostility to ZANU.
The deepening of the Zimbabwe crisis thus found the solidarity movement il-prepared spond. The low turn-out on the demonstration
of the many
graciously
the most the black administer
transition?
- so much
vised under authority,, The
point by
who had supervise the
ones? he announced ' that *In
Commonwealth britain lo make turn out to
correctly
with African demands at years ago be-
tatives Tories CHIC Cl.
that the
Front statement, by That is
which treats
rejecting
Build a Solidarity Campaign
June alarmed Anti-Apar
The Zimbabwe Emer-
gency Campaign Com-
mittee
Anti-Apartheid in an at-
tempt out
activity on Zimbabwe.
This has functioned in a
commendably open man-
ner, with reasonably. de-
mocratic decision-making
structures. A wide range of
organisations are in-
volved, including both
ZANU and ZAPU.
ZECC has taken some
important
notably the picket of the
London conference on 10
September and the soli-
darity demonstration
planned for November.
The question is where it
goes from here.
The first thing to stress
is the need to develop the
wass or a commuus mass
action campaign within all
such initiatives. Support
must be won from
different sectors.
For instance, the pro
ject of launching an appeal
for a direct action boycott
of trade with Zimbabwe if
Thatcher lifts sanctions on
the Muzorewa government
which must be
vigorously taken up in the
labour movement. Par-
ticular attention also needs
drawing
youth into the campaign,
and to approaching black
for their
support.
Secondly, the commit-
tee needs to develop
greater clarity which
political issue it aims to
make ine main focus or ls
mobilisation. Socialist
Challenge belieyes that the
main thing which needs
saying now that. the
Limbabwean people have
the right to determine their
An outstanding problem - and one
points on which the conference could founder — is who will
Zimbabwe during the The Lusaka conference 'acknowledged that the government formed under such an independence constitution must be chosen through free and fair elections properly super-
British government and with Commonwealth
ambiguities manifold Bishop Muzorewa, for example, will be the first to point out that according ta a Tory Party delegation the 'internal settlement elections in April were 'free and fair. So why the need for new
And what is meant by 'under British government authority? And will the
observers' actually be foreign troops, envisaged under the Labour government's Anglo-American plan?
It is to be hoped that the Patriotic Front's statement of position indicates its refusal to accommodate to British
Lancaster House. The Smith regime is only sending represen-
because imagines that the wish to freeze the liberation
The real aim of the conference is more dangerous: the incorporation of the Front into British plans, probably by inducing a split in its ranks
Dial. Yel without the Patriotic Front the combined powers of London and Salisbury will be unable to impose their settlement. That is why we offer the Front our fullest solidarity in
Many British pretensions wield legitimate power in Zimbabwe
own future, and tha Britain has no right to intervent there. Self-determination for the Limbabwean people Hands off Zimbabwe!
Thatcher hopes to imHe see "solution' on the Zimbabwean people that protects British imperialist economic and political interests. British troops have already been trained to go in and consolidate such a settlement as part of a peace-keeping force.
Tory manoeuvres include trying draw section of the Patriotic Front leadership into deal and making more and more concessions to Muzorewa including the possible easing of sanctions.
The kind of movement that needs to be built is one consistently opposes every attempt by the British to dictate to the Zimbabwean people. United action not merely the best way of aiding the Zimbabwean revolution. It is also a very practical way of limiting the Tories' rOOM for manoeuvre Lastly, the ZECC must be built as an autonomous campaign. This building ZECC groups sponsored by laborganiHUTCHICH sations, and paving the way for a national organisation fully independent of Anti-Apartheid, capable taking its own deci sions, and eventually hay. ing its own newspaper, full-time werkers and so on.
By building ZECC we have a chance to develop a campaign which can really assist the struggle Zimbabwe. Let's not blow it!
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page S
Page 10 scan of this page
INTERNATIONAL
the
By Clive Turnbull recently in Nicaragua
'THE REVOLUTION has not ended; all we have done so far throw out Somoza and the National Guard. The revolution beginning.
Sneaking was a representative of the FSLN (Sandinistas) at one of the many rallies held on celebrate 30 days of the Nicaraguan revolution. Workers and peasants,
and women. demonstrated in hundreds of thousands in support of their victory.
It was very much their victory. The National Guard was defeated by the masses: It was the workers in cities like Masaya, Matagalpa, Leon, and Managua who decisive role in toppling Somoza
From September 1978, under the leadership of the FSLN, the masses in every town organised into block, barrio and area committees to prepare the struggle. Militias formed in the neighbourhoods, taking on National Guard units again and again.
Unable to crush the mass upsurge with troops, Somoza sent in aircraft, shells, and rockets to bombard the working class districts. In the capital, Managua, the main industrial area was devastated by bombing in the last days of the battle.
This destruction came on top of the 1972 carthquake, flattened the centre of Nothing was rebuilt. The millions of dollars it relief went straight Somoza: pockets.
Toda: international aid is urgently needed. in Leon the head of the local supplies: ommittee, Vladimir deró, ex tined that aid to date had been ve: mited. 'Most of it has been distribs to the agricultural producton un: UPAs), the hospitals, and. the tro
Line companeros of the UPAs : working in exchange food al:
'In rural areas the peasants have *yeo no ala, Inerad aid has not arriving Le made clear to us the immedi reed for 'basic grains, rice, beans, it, flour, sugar, salt, and oil'.
At. illy in Leon speaker Dora Maria Commi nte Dos (Two), one of the leaders ¡e Sandinista attack on the
Place in August 1978. She stresser need to understand tasks f ; a nation in ruins. need to anse ourselves. CYCEYU participation WHOLES I pcopic can cnoose Inel
entatives, can say whether agree with what we are doing.
She sed everyone to join the Sandin irade union federation and the ista defence committees. I MIS I: ¡ution,' she declared, to be a tive revolution.'
month since it came to power Sandinista leadership has taken a ргорегі: ¿longing to Somoza and his
nationalised amoun to over 60 per cent of the
Fi ne banks have : and a state monopoly establis! : on foreign trade.
seve..: per cent of the land has been ta:. : over. The larger estates are being tu cd into cooperatives, the rest being distributed to the tillers. remainder of the land is in
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 10
30 days of
Nicaraguan
revolution
is to
only FSLN.
The
Everyone 19 August to
collul ca and old, aspects of life
education and discussion..
Ine street corners Jinotega,
played the
street,
were manoeuvres, no sions, FSLN Proletarian.'
Ene milllas. this has been women's
which literally Somoza.
Managua. The
into
bitch!" The Somoza family Cor- worked hand in glove with the US trusts to
for
because been
one of the
Tellez,
the 'We We need this 'has been
and
and
August the hands of 160,000 middle peasants.
The mass struggle has continued to develop since the tall of Somoza leading to the take-over of land and factories not owned by Somocistas. These actions have been backed by the
self-organisation OI the masses has continued and deepened. section
discussing politics.
Meetings and demonstrations take place every day. The neighbourhood
organising all in ine barrios housing, health, food, jobs, orphaned children, cleaning the streets, political
Every area has its local militia. On
and women sit armed with pistols, M 16s, Uzis, Jalils, and grenades; or they ride round in jeeps, armed to the teeth but with a friendly smile or broad grin.
In the barrios house after house has an FSLN flag at the door. FSLN graffiti cover the walls: 'Free country CUrICHL: or death'; "Long live Nicaragua'; 'No
pacts, no concesyes to popular insurrection
Women are massively participating in the neighbourhood committees, in the factories, among youth, and in
One of the reasons for AMPRONAC, the organisation, which has played a leading role in building the neighbourhood committees as a result includes of its experience of mass' work under
Nicaraguan revolution is a major defeat for US imperialism. A today US Secretary of State once remarked of Somoza's father that he might be a son of a bitch, 'but he's our son of a
PUBLICMEETING Defend the Nicaraguan Revolution!
Eyewitness report from CLIVETURNBULL
Speaker from Nicaraguan
Coordinating Committée invited
Friday 14 September, 7.30pm
Friends Meeting House Euston Rd, London NW1
Organised by
International Marxist Group
suck huge profits from the Nicaraaguan workers and peasants.
The mass struggle that defeated Somoza has already inspired workers
peasants in other American countries. In Guatemala, 50,000 students went on strike for democratic rights at the beginning of
In El Salvador churches have been occupied in the capital to call for the release of political prisoners. By day a
workers, peasants, students hold meetings in the churches
discuss their problems organise.
In Costa Rica there have been
large demonstrations in support of th Nicaraguan revolution. Five thou sand striking dock workers have been involved in pitched battles government troops.
US imperialism has not felt able so far to intervene militarily, as it did when marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1965. Carter's attempt to send in troops through the Organisation of American States, just before Somoza fell, was blocked.
The main imperialist intervention at present is economic and diplomatic. It is attempting to bully and cajole the FSLN™ leadership, or
of it, into halting revolutionary process and then to roll back the gains of the masses. This is what lies behind the withholding of aid, the manoeuvres over a loan from the International Monetary. Fund, and the offer of training for the Sandinista army and. police Omar Torrijos, the 'strong man' of Panama.
The FSLN leadership originated as a Castroist current, believing in the words of its founder, Carlos Fonseca Amador, that 'One worker. mountains is more important than 100
strike in the. city. The three
of the FSLN Prolonged People's Wartendency, the Proletarian tendency, and the Insurrectionist tendency — all evolved in light of the experience of the struggle of the masses. The FSLN was the undisputed leadership of the masses in the struggle against Somoza. question that is posed today is: Will the FSLN continue that evolution?
Since coming to power Sandinistas have set up a Government. of National Reconstruction,
number bourgeois figures. FSLN leaders argue that they workers and peasants y set up a
'Everyone, CONCILS government the imperialists, other Lannienca regimes, the social democracy, would attack us.
Central
and
and
with
the
But the bourgeois ministers, while individually powerless, represent a compromise with sure. It means that the bourgeoisie gains credibility in the eyes of the from
masses out of all proportion to its negligible social weight.
So far, gone beyond the programme of the Reconstruction Sandinista leadership . in the them and not the bourgeoisie.
choice will confront them more and more sharply as time goes on: to rely on the mass self-organisation of the workers and peasants to reconstruct Nicaragua, 01 on imperialism will try to turn into a noose with which revolution?
The Just as the mass struggle of the
armed workers and peasants over-
the
which
US
Speakers
the best
imperialist pres- imperialism
against where the masses have
the Government, the has backed immediate This Televi
leadership. the aid which
to choke the this No Betrayal of Chile!
No Deals with Pinochet!
Free all Latin American Political Prisoners!
NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
Sunday 16September
Assemble Ipm Clerkenwell Green (Farringdon tube)
March to Trafalgar Square Michael Foot MP; Moss Evans (Gen. Sec., TGWU); Jonathan Dimbleby; a representative of the Chilean people. Organised by ChileSolidarity Campaign (tel. 01 272-4298)
STAYSAI threw the Somoza tyranny, so they are
defence against imperialist army and police force trained by Torrijos (in the CIA camps in the Canal Zone?) would be a step back into the arms of
Revolutionaries have to throw their maximum effort into the fight
imperialist intervention Nicaragua. This requires the broadest possible campaign of solidarity with
•Nicaraguan revolution for imperialist hands off Nicaragua; fo
Said without strings to •the shortage 0. food agricultural and medical supplies.
Our aim has to be to try to countel the imperialist pressure on the FSLA
But we must also state clearly that the presence of bourgeois ministers in the government will make
harder. Only a workers and peasants government based on the mass organisations can defend and extend the Nicaraguan revolution.
SOMOZA
Page 11 scan of this page
LAST week's issue of Socialist marked the centenary of the Scottish Marxist and workers' leader JOHN MACLEAN, who died at the age of 44.
The following article is an extract from a pamphlet written by MacLean at the end of the hirst world war. he issues it discusses democracy, Ireland and 'terrorism' — are still stunningly relevant. It is the socialist answer to the harrage of hypocrisy propaganda which has filled the media in the wake of the IRA's military actions on 27 August.
THE ALLIES have won-
won. Has recognised? Have rights? The piteous plight of Ireland gives the lie direct to those profound prevaricators called the Coalition Government...
To ally right-thinking retention of Ireland is the world's most startling instance of a britain rules Ireland against Irish wishes wit olicemen armed with bombs and a huge armi equipped with over 40 tanks and as aeroplanes, machine guns galore, other beautiful manifestations of Christian brotherhood, love and charity.
Democracy in Britain means rule by a clear majority vote, alhout i some cases tace ded Ireland vore at the General Election in 1918?
Sinn Feiners and 1,211,516 votes or 79.3 per votes; the Unionists polled 271,455 or 17.8 per cent; and the Independents and Labourists polled 45,939 or 2.9 per cent. Obviously, the vote shows that by 4 to 1 the people in Ireland wish to look after overwhelming vote satisfies the most stringent demands of democracy inside trade union and co-operative circles.
This Irish decision was reaffirmed in January 1920 at the municipal elections, when 95 per cent of the townships outside Ulster fell into the hands of the Republicans under a system organi on presentaken from the Lurgan Unionists, and in Lisburn, Dungannon, • Cookstown the Carsonites have only a bare majority.
The complete statistics of municipal elections show that in Leinster 36 out of 38 towns were won by Republicans and Connaught 9 out of 10, in Munster 32 out of 32, and in Ulster 21 out of 47.
That is not all. controlling and policing 21 counties, and news
Challenge
birth of the
and anti-Irish
For at any rate, • democracy been small nations had their
person Britain's
'dictatorship by terrorists,
many and all the Redmondites • polled cent of the total
their own affairs.
and
of taken from and
elections verdict.
Nationalists, in
The Republicans are now
Rock Against Recruitment
"RESISTERS
AT ACK
21 (choap)
Ireland's
Itragedy
has just arrived that in Ulster the Sinn Feiners Nationalists combined have County Tyrone with 11 against 9, and County Fermanagh also with 11 against 9. Great gains have also been registered in the other four of the special Ulster results are not out at the moment of writing. If all these decisions do not clearly indicate the mind of the majority in Ireland, will never
Britain has obviously, to excuse for the flooding of Ireland with troops, and it must be British labour's bounden duty to see that these soldiers, mainly boys of 18, be withdrawn and let the Irish settle their own affairs... pinathe JIMMI SPIS DISCO
TRIDAI With septombex atConvey Iall Red Lion 5q at 8:00p 00
and other
captured
Irish press. although the final
20 Sept. then 15 Oct. establish any definite
21 Oct
Nov.
Nov.
10 Dec
• secretary
without trial. councillors.
Women
Drapers'
Dublin.
O'Brien,
without trial...
Britain's brutal treatment of Ireland, more blatant today than ever before, indicates that quite clearly. Immediately the AHHNSLICC Was signed more troops poured into Ireland, not as a precaution against a possible rising but as an irritant. Meetings were deliberately suppressed with brutal arrogance, then football matches
sports were stopped spectators and players scattered with violence, concerts and entertainments were forbidden even d concert all lo provide money establish a Labour College in Dublin.
Thereafter, De Valera went to America to get funds to help the Irish Parliament or Eireann. Appeals for funds also appeared in the
Then followed suppressions right and left, as Britain was determined to stand no rival parliament in Ireland:-
The entire Republican press in Ireland was suppressed.
Sinn Fein and Republican organisations in Dublin suppressed.
Weekly meetings of Sinn Fein Central Club suppressed
Military and police headquarters of the Republican government and arrest and imprison the staff
Sinn Fein and organisations suppressed throughout Ireland.
Sinn Fein and headquarters ordered to be closed
12 Dec. Sinn Fein leaders, including the
•of the Sinn Fein organisation, arrested in Dublin and provinces and deportec
Republican headquarters again raided and literature confiscated.
During 1919 and the early months of 1920, 66 of the Irish MPs elected in 1918 were sent to
escaped prison Ireland shortly after their election in 1918
Since the municipal elections in January 1920, 35 councillors have been arrested, attempts were made to arrest at least 36 other
On 3 March armed military
Workers' Club, the Irish Workers'. Union, Liberty Hall, the Socialist Party of Ireland headquarters, the Grocers Assistants' Union headquarters, and the Irish
Assistants' headquarters At the same time Alderman the leader of the Irish movement, was snatched away and smuggled • into England, where he was kept in prison
As a matter of fact there is no crime the government has not incited the police and the soldiers to perpetuate in this war to the knife
armed
2,038 sentences,
courts-martial: a total of 25,378.
Raids, 1,135; proclamations and suppressions martial, 2; armed assaults, 92; murders, 4: a total of 1,513..
to the real situation in Ireland.
Acts of Aggression in Ireland 1919
the Curragh Camp 6 April Limerick Hospital.
Dungarvan 29 Longford, 5 June dead by soldiers at Dundalk. 16 June
14 Aug F. Murphy,
midnight. 9 Sept. 10 Oct. 6 Nov. 12 Nov 20 Nov. not halting. 24 Nov. police. 29 Dec. Laurence police at Phoenix Park, Dublin. 1920 6 lan Dr. police while on his medical rounds 19 Jan. police. 20 Jan. M.
22 Jan.
by soldiers and police. 14 Feb. by police.
pamphlet murderous business.
and the
detectives.
to men driven from
country. The
Dail
counties.
again to be re-established.
raid
British Labour Republican
and Republican leaving
raided the Women
by Geoff Bel
al in
labour
LOTTIEC
Bulk rates available on request.
with Ireland. Since May 1916, till December 1919, the government in Ireland has been responsible for 59 murders, 2,084 deportations,
on unarmed • Civilians, 14,153 raids on private houses, 5,041 arrests
369 proclamations and suppressions, 53 suppressions of papers, 506
Since January 1920, matters have become worse. Let us take the week ending 17 April.
260; sentences, courts16; deportations,
This information is carefully suppressed by the government so that ordinary people are forced to come to entirely wrong conclusions as
12 Feb. Pat Gavin shot dead by soldiers at
Robt. Byrne shot dead by police in
26 April M. Walsh shot dead by police at
April Two men shot by police at Matthew Murphy, Dundalk, shot
Michael Rice (60 years) and his son, Martin, shot dead in his house by police.
Glan (15 years) shot dead by soldiers firing into his father's house at
Fermoy sacked by soldiers.
Boy shot at Banbridge by police.
Kinsale sacked by soldiers Cork partly sacked by soldiers.
Motorists shot by police at Sligo for
Civilians shot at Tipperary by
: Kennedy murdered by
Keane , Ennismyon, shot by
Civilians at Enniscorthy shot by
Darcy, Cooraclare, drowned while police held off would-be rescuers
Thurles wrecked by soldiers.
4 Feb. Man and girl shot dead in Limerick
Jas. O'Brien shot dead at Rathdrum
So I might continue itemising the bloody butchery right down to the time of writing this
sick of the whole
To expect the Irish to accept crushing and blackening both is to stretch expectation and endurance beyond the limit. So the Irish have naturally replied by laying low policemen and
Policemen are now resigning by the hundred. Police barracks have been blown up and police-
whole stretches of the Sinn Feiners are however, establishing their own police and their own courts, which now control 21 of Ireland's 32
Britain's police system is virtually destroyed in vast stretches of Ireland, never
Britain is pouring more and more troops into Ireland, and now the navy is being called into play. A terrible tragedy may be perpetrated bs Britain before labour has realised the full gravity of the situation. It is therefore essential that drastic action be taken very soon.
Ireland: 1969-79 cartoons by Cormac
BRITISH LABOUR ANDIRELAND 1969-79
allalysci binarisansalo over therastlen years It is available from The Other Bookshop, 32 Upper St., London N1, cost 40p + 10p post.
Socialist Challenge & September 1979 Page!!
Page 12 scan of this page
Fighting
Corne in the
labour
movement
Fighting
Corrie
in the
abour movement
Fighting
Corrie
in the
labour-
movement
FROM
LET
SCOTT
By George Kerevan IF YOU see a smug, self-satisfied look:
someone s sace north of border, more likely than not person is a member oi the Labour Party While Buronean social-democracy has suffered consistent electoral defeats in the past two years, just the opposite is true in Scotland.
At the generar election, Scotland increased is share of the poll from 36 per cent to 42 per cent; in the UK as a whole, Labour went down from 39 per cent te 37 per cent. Every region, including Wales, drop in the Labour vote except Scotland, where nearly a quarter of a million extra people voted compared with 1974.
This dramatic shift was not just the
of previous, •Labour returning from the Scottish alist camp.
The 1970s slump was bound polarise politics on class lines to the detriment of the lationalists, especially in a Scotland where the cowboy economy bases por oil and multinationals did nothing to halt the net
of 50,000 industrial jobs since 1974.
Scottish Labout laghan's 5 per cent wage limit WOUS DIRECTRIEs stole the SN's thunder by for devolution. Though middle class voters took fright at the referendum, working class voters in the industrial heartlands went overwhelmingly the Assembly, Labour was thus able to seize the banner of self-deter, mination from the Nationalists.
his does not wholly account I
le reconsolidatido of Lábour. On factor is Labour's dominant role in cementing togerber Scottish society -
different from England.
Scottish Labour emerged in the '30s on the basis of cheap housing, Catholic communalism, and a historic compromise with Clydeside ritalto prete Westminster for financial The Tories Socialișt Challenze, & September 1979 Page 12 .
RAISE support the
be spread: " write a ever to explaining why
reading in February.
donation to the Campaign
National council and ask them to: public meeting on the Bill;
the 28 October demonstration.
and 'phone in' stations Join up Jocally and stration.
ND
Highland lairds.
and retorism.
the that SNP: generadoo of
cent wage Labour in
is only showed a
Labour
strengthened by significant
voters Nation- have turned their
campaign to
having drawn setbacks.
t00 weak and
attacked Cal-
- in
fighting
for in
municipal
were
for the campaign against the Corrie anti-abortion Bill in the labour movement - that's the call which has gone out from the National Abortion Campaign and the Labour Abortion Rights Campaign.
The NAC/LARC Trade Union Liaison Committee have sent out a special letter as part of the build-up to
TUC-sponsored demonstration on 28 October against the Corrie Bill. The letter suggests a number of ways in which the fight against Corrie can
your MP s/he should vote against the Corrie Bill at the third
*Put a resolution to your branch meeting asking: for support for the Campaign Against the Corrie Bill; a
Against the Corrie Bill; affiliation either to the
Abortion Campaign Labour Abortion Rights Campaign.
*Call on your national executive body to inform sponsored MPs of your branch/union opposition to the Bill and ask them to vote against it.
*Raise the issue at your local trades
circulate affiliated branches with information; coordinate local opposition to the Bill and provide transport to London for
*If official support is not given, start or join a local NAC or LARC group, talk to friends, neighbours and ask them to sign the NAC petition against the Bill, write to your paper
your local radio. with other people come to the demon-
- they voted labour
reduced to Edinburgh lawyers and
With the : new dead. recession the Scottish working class has returned to what it knows best fortress Labour with its paternalism the
Paradoxically, this revival has not strengtened the Labour left. True, the old guard bureaucrats were ousted in the mid '70s by the Scottish unions, pace: having Tarled to stem the rise of the
But they were replaced by a new bureaucrats* who, though mindful of supporting the union hierarchies against the 5 per
limit are machine politicius rather than left militants.
The left is not well organised. The Tribunites are on the wane and the Bennite Labour Coordinating Com-
getting off the ground, For the most part, there are informal coalitions of left militants controlling local party machines.
The Labour pro-Assembly forces,
the епіту of part of the decaying Scottish Labour Party breakaway,
attention to the against the cuts. Devolution is a forgotten issue. The current leadership of the SNP poses no threat,
no lessons from its The new SNP left-wing Group 79, which held its founding conference on 18 August, is
too ideologically confused to make any difference.
BILL:
2 3 They
4 of the welfare state
against the Bill OCTOBER 28
Don't blame Scotland
However the national question is not
The very victory of the Party in Scotland will range it against Thatcher on Comments such as. 'this is the worst election ever for the Union' were flying freely in May. The economy is set to move at a different while unemployment England in August, it continued to worsen north of the border. It has not gone unnoticed that three of the four shipyards scheduled to be axed are in Scotland.
The future of the Labour Party in Scotland will ultimately depend on the direction of the mass struggles against the Tory governmert.
VOTE
LABOUR
*Г The Scolish working class returned to fortress Labour « with its paternalism and reformism
FIVE REASONS
WHY TRADE UNIONISTS
SHOULD MARCH AGAINST
CORRIE'S ANTI-ABORTION
4. Women should have a democratic right to decide for th
Al race orons moul tight for this right just as they fight agains
belongs in the control of ee prenane more ran
and pay with their labour for the dismantling
5 fore in does to desire from me leat on or te lond
Support the TUC demonstration
12 NOON SPEAKERS CORNER HYDE PARK LONDON
Scottish working class voted in droves for Labour as a bulwark Labour Thatcher. But • Scottish founded on reformist wheeling and dealing, not V11 SLUREICS The first signs of the end of the honeymoon are already apparent in the campaign against fell in expenditure tuLS Lotnian Labour Partv nas called a public demonstration against the cats for september, the right-wing Strathclyde Labour councillors are demanding that Labour-controlled Lothian carry the bulk of commón front against the Tories will not look so secure when it comes to The choosing the method of struggle
recorded Saturday.
day-care and plans
publicity
SAW Demoralised, melted sway.
protest
wark
Workers Party. •Ihi against
leading mass
the public While leftish
abortion women's
the The Sept,
Lots
the Saturday
September.
down for
Birmingham area
London demonstration North-west TUC in
to NAC,
are coming in.
your group
CAMPAIGN NEWS
A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
Wandsworth
RESOUNDING victory for of the Corrie Bill in South London last The occasion was the opening of a clinic at South London Women's Hospital, Clapham Common. Opponents of a woman's right to choose, parading under the banner of the anti-abortion group Life, had announced their intention to demonstrate outside the hospital demanding • the closure of the day-care clinic.
But the Wandsworth Campaign Against Corrie arranged a counter-demonstration which mobilised 200 people in support of a woman's right to choose and the opening of the clinic despite the short notice. The Life march was only 150-strong on arriva
10 take in flowers 10 children in the hospital ward — a sick
stunt hastily abandoned when the Life organisers
opposition. their forces simply
of- the anti-Corrie included the local trades council, a number of NUT branches Wandsworth, Lambeth and South-
campaigns against Corrie socialist feminist groups, and local branches of the Labour Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Internațional Marxist Group and the
Wandsworth: Campaign Against Corrie now intend to lobby the surgery of local Labour Ml Tom Cox, who voted for the Corrie Bill at its second reading. The lobby takes place at opm on Friday 7 September at 611 Garratt Lane, Wandsworth. International meeting 'INTERNATIONAL
Tights' international forum organised by the International Contraception, Abor tion and Sterilisation Campaign, Fri 7
:7.30pm, Conwav Hall, Red Lion Sq, London WCL Street action CAMPAIGNING against the Corrie Bill has begun in Birmingham. The main aim of the campaign locally is to get trade unionists involved in the fight tor a woman's right to choose
of activities are in the pipeline. Apart from petitioning in the town and among trade unionists
campaign hopes. set . ир anti-Corrie groups in the National Union of Teachers and the National Union of Public Employees
Special events planned include a day of street action in twelve different areas of Birmingham on Saturday & September 2 September while a mass event on
will have street theatre, exhibitions and singing to publicise a public meeting on the 26
The group wants to get a train
the demonstration London on 28 October, hopefully full of trade union members from the
Expectations are also high in the North-west area for a train down to
day of financed by the
The National Abortion Campaign
Manchester and Salford is organising petitioning every Saturday in the Greater Manchester area.
Bury Trades Council has affiliated
and already lots resolutions from local trade unions
It's only seven weeks to the demonstration. So let's hear from
Page 13 scan of this page
Picket vital
Southall
start 10
By Oliver New
crippled Barnet Magistrates. Southall show trials will begin in earnest on that date.
justify their atrocities, offensive weapons.
Southall itself, not to mention the rest of London.
Curitisy.
September [nearest tube: High Barnet].
SPG-—
THE MURDER of Blair Peach by a member of the Special Patrol Group on 23. April led to a huge wave of protest the labour There have been many calls for the SPG to be disbanded, including a motion from the Association Cinematograph, Television & Allied Technicians which is debated at this week's TUC Congress.
The State Kesearch recently published the first national survey in brilall. stated: "The development of the SPG from an anti-crime unit para-military one has led to one very obvious contradiction, namely, that having been trained and used in its
used in anti-crime unit:
Anti-Terrorist
The survey is based on the annual reports of the Chief Constables for 1978 (published during covers all police forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It shows that 24 out of the 52 police forces in the UK SPG-type units, 15 of which were. formed after 1972.
The first SPGs were formed in 1965 (in London and Hertfordshire).
centrally-controlled • units to go in to support local police divisions in crime prevention drives: All SPG-type units continue to be used in this role in local communities.
However, from 1972, the role of
SPGs (especially in urban areas) was extended to include their use pubile anti-terroristsituations. This involves, as the annual reports show, specialist training in riot control and firearms. training.
role, argues, resulted from the decision in 1972 (after the confrontation between the police and Saltley in Birmingham) not to create a
'third force' (a para-military force) to
show trials
September
THE SOUTHALL Deferice Committee has been told by members of the Civil and Public Services Association that their strike action is unlikely to have
Court by it sentember
Among the first batch of defendants will be Clarence Baker, the manager of the reggae group Misty. Readers will recall that Clarence was nearly killed by the Special Patrol Group during the police riot in Southall last April. He was in the intensive care unit in Hounslow hospital for a week. In a clear attempt to
the police are charging Clarence
Support for the picket is becoming national. Rock Against Racism are calling on supporters to be there by 9am, Barnet Trades Council is backing the picket, as is Hackney and Tower Hamlets Defence Committee. From outside London the Leamington Anti-Racist Committee and Warwick. Students Union are sending a coach all the way to Barnet.
Parita Trivedy from the campaign committee in Southall told Socialist Challenge: 'We're delighted with some of the support which we're getting from outside Southall, but it is still not enough. And we have a real task mobilising in. mobilised now and not after tough sentences have been handed out.
The 10 Septeniber picket is also an important test for the Anti Nazi League and the groups that support it. For if they cannot defend the Southall 342, it is unlikely that they will be taken seriously by black people in other parts of the
All out for the picket! Assemble outside Barnet Magistrates Court, 9am, 10
killers in blue
stand between the Many countries have a 'third force' movement.
OI terrorism.
due to
Bulletin
to 1979) and
Northern
now have
Bae
order
State Research
pickets CORMAL
This means that the
with possessing
University:
This support should be police and the West European which consists of a 'para-military police who are trained to deal with pickets during 1972, strikes, political demonstrations and
As a result of successfully resisting the idea of creating a 'third force' in
The following resolution will go before the TUC 16 SPECIAL PATROL GROUP public concern. Their
the Special Patrol Group.
the police undertook fundamental change of direction in traditional policing roles: *Every major city now has its own SPG, many of them playing the dual
Congress asserts that the activities of the Speciai Patrol Group pose a fundamental challenge to public ordér and to the civil and political rights of citizens legitimately engaged in industrial disputes and political activity. Despite discussions with the Police Federation and the previous Government. the activities of the Special Patrol Group continue to raise issues of deep
unwarranted intervention at Southall which clearly merited a public inquiry have provided further evidence of the dangerous and unregulated character of
Congress believes that the Special Patrol Group must now be disbanded and instructs the incoming General Council to actively pursue this objective.
Association of Cinematograph, Television & Allied Technicians
TPORMALAR THEY SHOULD BE FLOGGED!
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!
STIFFER
CENTENCES
STOP THE SOUTHALL SHOW TRIALS!
RELEASE THE SOUTHALL 342!
On 23 April the police rioted in Southall. Blair Peach was killed, dozens of brothers and sisters were wounded. predominantly black workers, were charged. Some have already been sentenced, but the majority will face show trials from 10 September onwards. outside the courts.
You can raise the plight of the 342 in your trade union branch or trades council. You can donate money.
For further details ring: Parita Trivedy [01-574 1325]
We want your help We want you there
role of anti-crime and para-military units. The SPG in London, and those in the provinces, and more in industrial disputes and political demonstrations, record during the Grunwick dispute and their
Regular picketing is being organised
are involved more some of
and by
In Greater
called for the policing communities,
single
342 people, having an anti-terrorist capacity they are developing the ability to take on
the functions that had previously been the preserve of the army — the ability to kill.
There have been widespread demands for the disbandment of the London SPG, the Tactical Aid Group
Manchester and the Support Group in Strathclyde. TUC general secretary Len Murray has
disbanding of the London SPG, and the Labour Party Conference will also have before it a resolution to this effect in October.
This survey shows that SPG-typ units exist in many other parts of the country outsdie London, and Ina their elite status and training leads them to be 'aggressive and violent when called on to undertake norma
roles in the local at strikes and demonstrations'.
State Research Bulletin No. 13
copy 50p (inc. subscription £3 p.a. from: 9 Poland Street, London W1.
& HIGH-RANK Socialis! Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
By Varda Burstyn EVERYONE remembers all films of the thirties, forties, and fifties
from the ones with numbers like 'We're In the Money' made in the depths of the depression, to those of the fifties, projecting a blonde, beaming, picture of sexual relations in a decade of pure sexual misery.
But few of us remember that the sexual and class values in these films were by no means a true reflection of what was happening in society. Nor were they even the expression of writers, directors, and
The explicit movies made America dictated for over 20 years by the Hays Production Code (1933-1951).
In relation to matters sexual, all films had to have a 'happy ending' marriage for lovers, reconciliation for troubled partners, whatever necessary to restore the family unit again. No pre-marital or
was allowed, accompanied by appropriate conseq lences. Bedroom scenes were permitted only if there were twin beds, and each person had one foot on the floor!
The infamous production code did not reflect social reality. values that it propagated were those of the entire population. it aio reneck nowevel, was complete control over industry, and the values it needed to
Its control in spheres of life.
It further reflected a relationship of forces between the capitalist class, the working class, and women more generally, insofar as the capitalist class was able to impose, through its monopoly, censorship in what appeared to be the "harmless' entertainment industry.
Although virtually every capitalist country still has its board of censors, today no such official code exists to regulate the "moral'
American films. As a result, many of
ilavc become accustomed thinking that the images, situations and patterns we see in the movies are in some sense a real reflection of life, of the trends and contemporary society, even if it takes the cinema a long time to 'catch up' with reality.
After all, isn't Saturday Night Fever a film about the alienation of urban, working class youth? Aren't Girlfriends and Norma Rae feminist films? Aren't films like these evidence that Hollywood has its thumb on our pulse, since it is able to make movies that reflect and explore experiences and questions seventies?
Hollywood films have changed -
at least in some measure — in their
presentation taken place due to two overriding
factors. First, the women's liberation
movement has had a direct effect on
Hollywood itself.
Women actors,
directors have all felt the supportive
and challenging impact
movement, and have begun to push
away some of the old barriers in their
path. Increasingly, they are demand-
ing that role, job,
more into line with their 'reality."
Second, the men
control the industry have also felt the
impact of the movement, in two ways.
Doubtless, there are some who have
rethought certain attitudes to women,
and whose contribution to
films comes from what we could call
positive motives.
But largely, the pressure of the
women's movement
form of a large audience
Hollywood who nave also
affected. by this movement and will
pay to see films which deal with their
ile experience.
This kind of motivation by its very
logic implies an imperative to
down the revolutionary.
of women's liberation.
10o crass or cynical an explanation for
the minor proliferation of films like
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,
#lick i Girlfriends, a brief look at these films Unmarried Woman,
reveals that this tendency is very much
al piay, mixed in with the positive
motion toviard change for women.
Alice and An Unmarried Woman
Socialist Challenge 6 Septerber 1979 Page 14
those
musical
'wholesome' spontaneous
values of the
were
the
extraunless dire
The not What capital's
the film
all other
certain content of
to
issues
of the the world (widowed
This
both have pubescent children. and
the
and script come the one case
other. largely
film. into the • certain handsome, cowboy, and
twilight comes in the and established artist.
outside Nevertheless, been they took the first steps
and nursery
play
possibilities protagonists in life,
If this seems moving parts in a play of
not yet make a feminist film.
Julia or
Girlfriends.
playwright and
The seductive illusion
Women in
Horywood
both revolve around the adventures ot women who are left on their own in
For divorced).
Ellen Burstyn plays Alice, a working class woman who supports herself by waitressing, and would like to sing for
Jill Clayburgh • plays the ex-wife of a stockbroker, a woman with few visible skills but with some undefined artistic aspirations. They
While these two women live on opposite sides of the class fence, their situations are otherwise similar. They even have similar coteries of women She friends, cynical and heart-broken, but full of wit and courage, waitresses in
idle ex-wives in
If these similarities are remarkable, even more remarkable is the symmetry or the resolution in eact
The working class woman goes sunset burly and atfluent the petit-bourgeois woman goes off into the New York
with her handsome, • burly, UWII. these films were greeted as 'feminist" simply because
to bring women out from the shadows of the
on to centre stage. Women appeared to have been granted the opportunity to be seen as
not simply as male initiative. Fair enough — but this does
was released at about the same time as Unmarried Woman, and
quickly followed lies
Julia told the story of a friendship between Lillian Hellman (Lilly), the
novelist, and her
friend Julia, a woman who studied philosophy at Oxford, and went to Vienna to work with Sigmund Freud.
became a highly committed socialist and anti-fascist in thirties, a commitment which led to her assassination.
Julia represented a major advance over Alice because it gave us a sense of the role which social and political commitment can play in women's ability to transcend traditional female barriers, as well as the profound role
OCIN CCI women. underlined the right of women to lead independent and creative lives of their
Julia lends itself immediately to a comparison with Girlfriends,
story of two young contemporary women, and how their friendship
as they grapple with evolves implications singlehood marriage, children and work, and of Louise. sexual relations (essentially with men).
Where Julia takes place against a sweeping backdrop of shattering events, Girlfriends is very much an 'everyday' film. Its success
in the way conveys contradictions between what the old woman wants ('I want Martin to look after me, ' says Annie) and what the "new' one aspires to ('You don't need
the
Sally Field as Norma Rae, modern 'union-maid'. anyone to look after you, you car take care of yourself, We get a clear sense of how these contradictions put friendship as well as on each woman individually.
Good as these films are from a feminist point of the exhibit several
central flaws First, while they explore some of the issues in male-lemale relaulon the ships, they do no exploration of either and lesbianism or collective living and
childrearing as potential alternatives 'normal' sexual patterns. Consequently, resolutions available to each woman world-
protagonist inevitably dealise social-sexual Ine
Nowhere do we get even a flavour of the women's movement itself the very thing which makes Susan and
Susan replies)
SLICOS
view, they still important, CYCL
From
there is
process and family change. all the bourgeois) throughout. come up . all the limitations of the
allanke
Annie's new lifestyle (not to speak of the film itself, possible
consciousness-raising groups to building demonstrations.
nowhere any sense that women can improve the quality their lives if they are engaged in the
of collective activity for Good old American (read individualism persists
The film industry has shown a marked aversion to combining the themes of women's liberation with class politics in the spate of films that have emerged respond to the appearance of the working class, as a class, since the mid-seventies.
Page 15 scan of this page
Speaking loosely, one include such films as Taxi Driver, Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, and the Leer numer in inis calcgory. those films. most concerned working class politics are Blue Collar and FIST. In all these alone control the action. Women are not even 'sidekicks' to men, let alone equal participants.
Women are supportive
nagging wives,
union.
producers,
Maids, Les. emotional
of arms, clearly erther
Hollywood's tible charisma.
Hally ways
As lal as
warian County
other women in position do:
nowhere stil
from Ine
Instead,
idealistic male
New York.
organise in the South. depicted County, between Norma sheriff. contrast possibilities inherent in it.
liberation and presenting
these questions.
all negative.
way these could Hollywood's
developments,
with
films, men
exist
WIVeS,
whores, directors,
du Roi, and
that recently
Hollywood's 'real-life'
which real-life
organisers the image of production of the
laundered
go,
clear
as most situation ana women
point of view.
CaNs Norma Rae's co-workers are never shown grappling with their own needs and strategies, collectively deciding
their rebellion against their conditions takes place through almost passiye trust in their leaders, in this case Norma Rae and the young,
organiser arrived from union headquarters in
Most glaringly conspicuous by its absence is the extreme violence which confronts working people when they
This violence, so graphically in Harlan reduced to a scuffle Rae and the local
to the blatant manipulation of the Hays Production Code, a very subtle mampulation 1s going on in Norma Rae and the other films 1 have mentioned. By giving us hack our own reality in an altered watered-down form the Hollywood cinema also hides that reality, and the
In other words, it helps to defuse the potential dynamite of women s
Mass struggle by selective and partial aspects-of life-situations which pose
Une would not want to say that the effect of these films is by any means
Bv portraying strong women and working people fighting for their rights, greater legitimacy is gained for a change in sex and class conditions in society as a whole. But we must always keep in mind that the
issues are presented reaction to social on large part
We should never approach these films without being on the look-out for those missing dimensions of social reality which are most exciting and inspiring, lest we forget that these do
lives and accept the built-in pessimism and conservatism of the mainstream capitalist cinema.
Once more on NALGO ALAN Walker'spoints on Liverpool NALGO ( 16 August) need to challenged. If John Strauther's letter (26 July) contained some inaccuracies,
no doubt because
growing frustration with his comrades in the Liverpool NALGO left, particular their extremely sectarian attitude towards an amendment to 'their' motion rejecting a 9.4 per cent pay offer. Alan Walker's inaccuracies are a continuation of these attitudes.
forward bythe NALGO Action Group (NAG) did not call 'only for a one day
It was a detailed escalation with the demand that it lead to all-out strike action as soon as deAl.GO supporter, were for all action to be controlled locally by elected strike committees accountable
sections wishing to strike be given support. The latter was opposed at the general meeting by a NALGO Left would give a free hand to the social workers and the reds (yes, it was put
While it is true that the amendment was smashed at a general meeting because opposition of the 'Left' - 'stupid' "unrealistic', etc.) it certainly received more than seven votes Here Alan confuses an executive with a general
saying that NAG is increasingly on the sidelines when members mobilise to
attempt to mobilise the membership against the offer was supported and in many cases led by the NAG. Indeed, what was really necessary for rejection was a mobilisation prior to the Group
start, but in Liverpool the NALGO Left chairperson refused to even allow a call for support for such a lobby to be put to the meeting.
INAG are always on the sidelines, why is it that in the social workers' strike, even in Liverpool, there were
nationally that 'potent force' to which
NALGO) Trades
Council report
SOME five weeks ago our trades council launched a report, 'Five Days
attemoted
account of a delegation we had to Belfast and Derry in May. Copies were sent to all the national press and unsurprisingly provoked no response. Copies were also sent to yourselves,
Star. More surprisingly more disappointingly — none of these
apology Last week's article on the Iranian economy by Fred Halliday was taken from the Irish Times.
INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS INPRECOR THE latest issue of the Intercontinental Press/Inprecor (Vol. 17, No. 31) contains a series of reports
the revolutiorary upheaval Nicaragua as well as coverage of the repression in Iran.
Individual copies cost 30p plus 10p p&p, but subscriptions work out cheaper at Ell for a year (48 issues), £6 for six months (24 issues), or t3 jor 10 weeks. Cheques/POs should be made out to "Intercontinental Press' and sent to: IP/I, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP.
papers showed a flicker of interest in their printed pages.
Our press release clearly pointed out the main aim of the report — to aid the opening up of discussion in the labour movement on the critical issue of Ireland. We welcomed • be and opposition views and did not seek
to push the 'correct line. Perhaps that is where our trades council 'failed'. No "line' guaranteed no 'news' and meant no coverage.
Whilst the capitalist media — at this time of continues the bi-partisan "security terrorists' policy, socialist media, with its concentration on the bombs and bullets', excludes from the debate large working people who would wish to ask the deeper questions why and what must be done?'
COLIN RANDALL (Newcastle Trades Council)
FIVE DAYS
IN IRELAND
DERRY
Newcastle on Tyne Trades Council
Acid test of
Kurdistan
IT IS not long since the people of Iraqi Kurdistan were branded as agents of imperialism for their struggle against the "progressive'
pro-Moscow Communist parties, did not see the atrocity that was being
limited means, gave at that time of isolation is remembered with grati-
So we are all the more disappointed
Challenge (30 August) of the struggle in Iran. Just as Ireland is the acid test
WHAT'S LEFT
ENTRIES in Whats Left Display Friday before publication. All payments adyance. mean: BORrON air available 'FREE each, "The Week'.
it Hike memoria service wed lt ser
7.30pm, St Mary's Church, Lewishar High S Organised by Black Conscioustiess Movement of South Africa.
SOCIALIST feminist and child
room for two months. Phone Oldham 692 1468 or Freeman 852 1671
IMG TRADE UNION fraction weekly September NÚPE; 23 September —
• NALGO, CPSA. ror delails write to aenure o phone 01-359 8371.
is desperately needed for cois vide is occoerately
Challenge. PO Box 50, London NI
can spare. Books for Southern Africa, Box
POLITICAL PRINTSHOP, pould be useful asset. Applicants must have had r design some experience in design, although would be Challenge (Print), PO Box 50, London N1 2XF
comments 'anniversaries' promotion of the against the seems that the
sections of nation
SHIRKO within branch) question of Kurdistan is decisive for | position.
are Sp per • word ads are f2 a column inch. Deadline: 5pr BA, BSC
economy to
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(minimum 5); Tel: 01-737 3922.
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the future of the Iranian revolution. If Khomeini can build an army capable of crushing the Kurds, the fate of the other nationalities in the non-Persian
the Iranian working class and the socialists, will be sealed in
Kurdish people against this barbarous
of Kurdish fighters dying before a firing-squad was used with a headline stressing the threat of execution faced
appreciate and share your concern for
• Kurds are being massacred daily, your priorities leave a very bad taste.
picket of the Iranian embassy. didn't mention that the bulk of this picket was called by the Association of Kurdish Students Abroad, specifically on the question of Kurdistan We affirm that many of the Kurdish militants present also protested at the jailing of the HKS members, and we don't doubt that your own supporters will defend the Kurds. So why not say explicitly that this was a joint action,
impression that it was a picket mainly on the issue of the Iranian socialists?
solidarity in the coming months. Th kind of coverage in inis
(perhaps unconsciously) sectarian -
party above those of the oppressed
opening for some people in the Kurdish movement who
oppose future joint work with the International Marxist Group and the
apology in Socialist Challenge would
journalists will show greater sensitivity to the feelings of an oppressed
whose people „todar defending a front-line trench of the world revolution and are paying a heavy price for their courage.
ABID (Association UK Kurdish Students Abroad —
• We apologise to the comrades for any misleading impression that may have been given by the coverage in the last issue of Socialist Challenge. refer them to our editorial statement on page 2 for a clarification of our
LECTURES in Marxisin: Lecturer David Yaffe
• Focus on Marx's critique of politic examine the today; imperialisn nationa oppression, racism, women's oppression unde capitalsm are discussed from a revolutionar workine cass standool (secure
even bi rearest 7:30-9.30pm Aldeate Aldgate East). Dates: 25/9-11/12/79, 8/1-18/3
15/4-27/5/80 : 30 lectures
MEETING of Revolutionar communist tendency cast Longon branca -
Fran Eden, at Hackney Labour and Trade Union "Pube sector cuts how to bent inem. searc! Halt, Dalston Lane, E8. Wed 12' Sept, 7.30pxm
Fi Is September demonstration agai Defend East hospitats
HACKNEe Cuts:Speakers aleited from lat Socialist Challenge campaigns against hospital and school closure
Thurs 6 Sept; 7.30pm , Trades Hall, 96 Dalston Lane, E8 (change of venue)
Game (firs sume in Hull - Fri 19 0c in Middleton Hall, Hull University, Cot Socialist Books, or ring Angic 441922. LICKES IDI LIVERPOOL Socialist Challenge recently obtained premises fo
Donations towards cost of reak. rates, security, etc. gratefully received -
BOX 50.
Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Poge 15
Page 16 scan of this page
i. First blast caused by parked hay lorry. 2. Army lorry smashed in first explosion. 3. Gate house wrecked by second bomb. 4. Vehicles in second blast. 5. Castle keep The death they covered up
By Geoff Bell IN ALL the hysteria about the deaths of Mountbatten and friends and those of the 18 soldiers Warrenpoint, one victim has ignored.
His name is Michael Hudson, son of one of the Queen's coach drivers. He died across the river Warrenpoint. The reason his death has not been explained by the media is that he was shot by the British Army. A trieno wiln dim was wounded.
When the British mentioned Hudson's death they have shrouded it in mystery. The Sun, 28 'DON'T blame me Tory." So says the badge and it's selling like hot cakes. It's easy to see why. Our newly elected government has not taken long to bare its teeth. From Prior's proposals to restrict picketing rights to the abortion, jobs and welfare facilities the Tories have made it clear they stand for - class war, not class. peace.
And despite the politeness of the
at the TUC, gentemen and shipbuilding workers have shown that the British working unlikely to take these atlacks lying down.
Unlike the popular press, Socialist Challenge takes the side of labour in the struggle against capital. It reports the real facts about the government's policies here in Britain and abroad. especially in countries like Ireland and Zimbabwe, where this government is preparing crush minority and do deals with apartheid. Socialist Challenge explains why these attacks are necessary for capitalism to survive and how the fightback must
Registered with the
Socialist Challenge
6. Where Hudson was murdered.
IRA gunmen'.
killed been
from
This
press have
Socialist Challenge
• I didn't vote waged in Britain and abroad.
strangle the
attacks and the press.
workers:
[particularly
engineering power).
Challenge CEAN another view
the Tories,
government to its knees. vor do we & Co.
DUCK URU Catholic
Party alternative. And debate out that alternative.
Post Office
85: 2
August, explained that Hudson was "killed in crossfire between troops and
The following day the Daily Mail reported that 'a civilian was killed in the crossfire on the Republic side'.
But there never was any 'crosstire' at the Warrenpoint ambush. After a thorough search of the area the Irish Army said there was 'no evidence of shots being fired at the British.
was confirmed by local councillor Tommy Elmore. He told the Irish Times he had 'checked with local people and they had told him there had been no sign of IRA men shooting at British troops'. On the | bullets.
Fight the Tories - and boost
This Tory government is out to
working class. It has Parliament, the House of Lords, the law courts, the police and the army on
When a group of go on strike, other workers are told they're greedy and stupid and violent day after day in the Sun, the Express, the Mail and even the Mirror
when Labour's in
That's why a paper like Socialist
important. It gives @ socialist view.
Unlike the timid trade union leaders, we will give a voice to anyone who wants to see action in the fight against
anyone who understands the need to bring this
simply want Callaghan They've. enough damage as it is. We want to continue to fight in and outside the
for socialist we're prepared to
Published• by
5
other hand, said Elmore, gunfire had been very intense and many houses had been badly damaged by it.'
Originally the British "claimed responsibility' for Hudson's death. Their first statement after the ambush said he was a 'terrorist'. But this statement was hastily withdrawn when the identity of Hudson was revealed.
W 1231 really seems happened is that following ambush British troops started randomly firing across the Hudson was caught in the hail of
But to do all this we need your support. Opposition to this government will come from people who can't get hospital beds, can't afford private abortions, can't send their children to public schools, and can't live on their lousy wages. If you're involved in a fightback write and tell us about it or ask us to come and report it.
you're @ regular reader Socialist Challenge but don't sell it yet, how about trying to? If you already sell, how about trying to sell more? The more readers, subscribers the paper has the better it will be. The more people that are prepared o write for it who involved in their trade unions, Labour parties, and groups, the more stimulating paper will be to read. The better it will reflect discontent working people have with this Tory government.
We aim to make this winter discontent boost for Challenge. We strongly urge you to do that too.
'British
they have
Army Loyalists unexpected.
List John Taylor
the name of "security'.
have When on
the conference
border.
against these 'men of violence'.
There are government to
is part of the UDA.
applied because where it has the Loyalist camp.
demands that
similar occurrences British soldier leaves Ireland.
of
sellers,
Lutte Name. community
the
ordinary
of Socialist 'Socialist Challenge'.
Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London Nt
It is hardly surprising that the British media has chosen to ignore the death of Hudson. Nor is the attitude
displayed towards the
When European MP and Union-
called on Loyalists to bomb the South of Ireland there were no outraged editorials in the British press calling for his arrest in
Sunday the Ulster Freedom Fighters held an armed press
Belfast there were no demands that the British Army act
HU calls on the declare illegal the despite the common knowledge that the UFF
These double standards have been
Britain remains always been
That camp continues to resist the
Britain leaves Ireland and gives the Irish people the right to rule themselyes. That denial led to the events of 27 August. It will lead to
until the last
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← Socialist Challenge No. 111, 30 August 1979Socialist Challenge No. 113, 13 September 1979 →