Socialist Challenge No. 117, 11 October 1979
The scan: sc-n117-oct-11-1979.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 BLAR PEACH
FIGHT THE COVER-UP
Inside:
What now for the Labour left? Exclusive interviews with Eric Heffer, Dennis Skinner, Bernard Dix
"No, I didn't kill your father."
Plus:
What Benn said at Brighton and what it meant
No. 117. 11 October 1979 20p
10P:
313157
Page 2 scan of this page
A fresh start to fight the Tories
Provisionals tell Pope to get lost
OUR POLICIES
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests of the workers hut of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that the two vital lasks contronine revolntionary socialasts are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition in class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin to fight for the
unified democratic revolutionary socialist
"ganisation which can.
application of tactics. begin in he
thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for
secks in unite the fight of
workers against the with that of other oppressed layers
women, black people, gays struggling for
liberation. This socialism can only be achieved by creating new organs
ot power and defeating with ail
necessary means the power of the
capitalist state. 2 Our socialism
infinitely more democratic than what exists in Britain
indas. with full rights for
political parties and currents that
do not lake up arms against the
sncialist state. The Stalinist models
of "socialism' in the USSR and
Fastern Europe have discredited
socialism in the eyes of millions of
We are opposed to them and will workers throughout the
after fuli support to all those
lighting for socialist democracy.
The interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world scale. Capitalism
has not created a
market, it has created
politics. Thus we fight for working
class unify
scale. This unity will in the long
run he decisive in defeating both
she imperialist regimes in the West
and the brutal dictatorships they
sustain in Latin America,
and Asia. * immediate pies drawling immediate withdrawal
British troops from Ireland and
letting the Irish people determine
their own tuture. 4 The Communist parties in
Kurope are in crisis. Neither ' Eurocommunist'
the pro-Moscon wings have any
meaninglul strategy
verthron of the capitalist stale.
New revolutionars socialist parties
are more HELL A T
hetors. Conditions
more lavourable than over the
preceding three decades. But such
parties tall only be
rejecting sectarianism and seeing
internal democracy not as a luxury
hut as a vital necessity. This means
the right lo organise factions and
tendencies.
I you agree with these principles want be activities by •upporters in your area, fill in the torm below and send it to us.
am interested information about activities in my • I would like additional literature and enclose 50p to corer costs. « Delete if not applicable)
Address
Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 2
of the British
and in society today.
stood for a socialist united front seen as an
that many
to provide something new socialism
bosses
their 'free' enterprise,
bounds
profits.
will be
all
visit to Ireland world.
Fi ne press
Knock North.
worid world :teply to this. international
BAD
Africa TiSTE пОг
for
than ever
The Irish today are
built by
in - the
condition of the Stormont involved Socialist Challenge
Attempts
were
MOTE and the use of force.
Conscience
removing presence in Ireland. ence has
Socialist Challenge
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE was launched on 9 June 1977. It had a clear aim: to create a new tradition on the British left. It was a newspaper which opened its pages to those in struggle • Grunwick, at Southall, at Fords. It decided to take cultural and sexual politics seriously, It reported the news about the ruling class the. Dobson affair, Labour agent Peter Marriner's membership
Movement, magistrate Oakley's thoughts on the Grunwick defendants before they were tried — and on the "Surplus Value' page it analysed the role of ruling class institutions
But above everything else Socialist Challenge
alternative to a Labour government that saw its main job as ensuring the bosses' profits by cutting workers' wages. I wan unequivocal about the need for class struggle in the unions as opposed to class collaboration. We knew
militants were looking for new under Labour. Socialist Challenge led the fight to force the far left to look beyond their noses and
- a democratic and unified revolutionary organisation.
But the Tory government we have now is not simply a goverment that collaborates with the
ruling class in this country. It is leading the bosses assault on workers' living standards in the name of stimulating competition. Its ruthlessness knows no
even to me iberate l unemployment, to. discipline workers and boost
DESPITE the acres of space that! repressive
the press has allocated to the Pope's
not British
newspaper bothered to publish the
IRA's statement on the subject.
particularly
concerned to praise the Pope's calls
for peace when he preached from
near the border with the
It was widely interpreted as
direct call to the IRA to lay down their
arms. The IRA issued a statement in Lne
Republican Army restates its position in regard to
its use of force to bring about political
change from the British government.
Firstly, the roots of the present
troubles go back into history, but
have, in the last decades, their source
social economic
deprivation suffered by the national-.
ist people. Responsibility for the poor
people rested and the British
government at Westminster.
resoive those problems peacefully met with brute force from the state, and people who exasperated organised and fought back with civil disobedience
Immall conscience we believe that
force is by far the only means of
the evil of the British . Their interferdivided the people and
caused untold hardship:
One should not talk about men of violence' and ignore the 33,000 strong armed forces in the Six Counties, their
feeling at the base of the Labour Party.
Dorothy
and reject
excuse to throw people out of work.
something Change
and new
incentives, leaders. provoking occupying areas, the proven, cases of laws, the army torture, and of course the situation in the H-blocks.
Whereas we the british government to cease interfering in our affairs, they are out to exterminate Republicans, and violently repress the claims being made self-determination.
Furthermore, we believe that our orospects for victory are supported by struggles, by our continued existence Callue other giyen the duration of the repression,
and by the widespread support which
we know we command and which our
operations prove.
We know also that upon victory
the Church would have no difficulty
in recognising us.
"Smash the IRA'
The engineers have already shown that the Tory government is going to have a rough ride pushing through its attacks. Tony Benn's victories at the Labour conference in Brighton reveal a similar
Socialist Challenge has to respond to these new developments. As the cuts bite, redundancies are threatened, and wages are attacked, more and more workers will see the need to fight this government
advice 01 C Callaghans and Murrays to wait five years. Socialist Challenge has already shown its ability to campaign against John Corrie's anti-abortion Bill — particularly with all the local reports we've been receiving. Now let's do it on cuts, wage struggles, debating out a strategy to fight the new technology that is being used as an
Let Socialist Challenge 'speak out' about your struggle.
We're going to change the format of the paper and add new columns. Our aim is to win & wides audience for the ideas of Socialist Challenge. We'll be having a regular column on the Labour Party,
called 'Arguments Socialism' that will explain our ideas and contrast them with those of the Labour and trade union
We're going to keep 'Surplus Value' and all our international coverage, but we're making a shift in "Under Review' to deal with more popular areas of culture. Our coverage of racism and sexual politics
forts establishments are bankrupt and have Church leaders, also failed to resolve the massive social and economic suffered by our people and created by British interference. Indeed, it would be correct to say that many of them haven't even examined possible ways of solving the problem.
Irish They lack the courage to honestly identify the problem. will continue to deal with it, untli the colonial British dimension is witharawn and a climate for real peace with justice can be created.
ON? truth in this statement. It is certainly absolutely clear that the church and difference to the population of the calls for peace North of Ireland. been the slogan taken up by Unionist ultras, but the NF laced with assorted anti-Irish slogans. 'AVENGE Mountbatten, kill the Pope' may not have tried to come up with the next best thing last Saturday.
was the main demand of a the demo.
| is going to continue and we're going to have more
all
to change, however,
in Britain that if your
it, but we think that's the only
women's
But we don't think it makes
in this country.
bundle of
demos, pickets, shopping centres,
try going round the estate with it
and ! politicians
people
problems final and
people.
We have, and We believe there is considerable
mobilisations
will make that
SMASH SMASH
THE /.R.A 200-strong fascist march through Central London, well
feature material. Our letters page remains open to
One thing that Socialist Challenge is not going
is its attitude revolutionary organisations and individuals. We're absolutely adamant on this point. It may be ap üphill struggle to convince revolutionary militants
organisation really democratic you can contain different views within revolutionary party will be built in this country Bringing back 'Battle of Ideas' is the way we intend to continue the fight for a unified revolutionary organisation. We know there are different opinions on the nature of the Soviet Union, the way to build
what attitude revolutionaries should take to the Labour Party.
sense or inost questions to act as a barrier to united action or to building one rather than 20 different organisation.
So Socialist Challenge is stepping up the fight for united action under the Tories and continuing to campaign for a new tradition on the British left You, our readers, are central to this fight. Every time you leave home you should ensure you have a
papers with you. Take the paper to factory gates, Take it to the Family Planning Clinic, your school,
Make sure Socialist Challenge is at the centre of all your activities during this winter of discontent.
The only event that can take the Six Counties significant step towards peace is the decisive withdrawal British troops and government.
It is also clear that Britain is not going to withdraw unless it is forced to by the militant struggle of the irish So we the statement says: "We believe that force is by far the only means of removing the evil of the British presence.
The only quarrel we would have with the IRA is that force is not just a
O IRELAND MY FIRST AND LOVE WHERE CHRIST AND CESAK HAND AND GLOVE: matter of guns • there 1s alSo lI force that arises out of the mass of the population on the streets. It is this latter type of force will be finally decisive in the North of Ireland.
Two thousand cops, including the SPG, marched with them, while 300 responded to a call from the Anti-Nazi League to oppose
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REMEMBER BLAIR PEACH
By David Stevens
PLANS are now under way to prepare locally for the Anti Nazi League's 2 December demo against the Tories' nationality proposals and the 1971 Immigration Act.
In Wolverhampton last Thursday the Anti-Racist Committee (ARC) organised a historic meeting. leaders of the most important Indian Workers Associations (IWAs) in the
Avtar Joul and NS Noor. shared a common platform. Tarią Ali spoke on behalf of the Anti Nazi League Steering Committee.
Noor, in a characteristic display of eloquence, denounced the immigrathon acts which successive governments had imposed on black people. He described the cynical attitudes of past Labour and Tory ministers. was they', he thundered, 'who bore the responsibility for the situation.'
Joul explained the origins racism. *It an offshoot imperialism', he explained. 'And now as the capitalist crisis deteriorates they want the workers to pay for it. Their prouts are threatened so they trv anc divide us on the basis White workers should understand that the people who attacked blacks were their enemies as well. He pledged 11711 2 December mobilisation would see more black workers on the streets than ever before.
'We'll make 2 December the
largest anti-racist demo ever'
Tariq Ali said that the argument successive governments had used defence of controls was that it would make the life of blacks already in Britain much easier. 'And yet is there anyone here who believes that conditions improved for black people over the last decade? Is it not the case that Two PASCISI attacks, police brutality and -judicial harassment has increased?? All denounced the decision not to prosecute the SPG killed Blair Peach and explained what nappenine magistrates' court.
The meeting was attended by over a hundred OCODIC, black workers, but students and white anti-racists also in attenderce. The ARC and IWA are
ores sin ball pain come
December.
of of
colour.
main
immigration
have
murderer who
•EELC Barnet
and the arrest of 700.
predominantiv
with overseas
support public enquiry
Peachto death. And despite all their new
combined intelligence of the British police April.
now going to prosecute the Metropolitan
to Fulham Town Hall and starts today.
Lawyers for the Anti Nazi League will be
police have so far refused to impart.
what happened in Southall on 23 April. being incurred.
THE
BUTCHER
OF
SOUTHALL
THIS man is Deputy Assistant Commissioner David Helm. He was in command of the police operations in Southall on 23 April. The orders be gave that day led to the death of Blair Peach, the near death of Clarence Baker, the brutalisation of dozens of black people
Helm is one of the more sophisticated senior police officers at Scotland Yard.
He clearly knew what he was doing in Southall on 23 April. As the pressure for a
Amounts (the National of Teachers Executive has demanded that the TUC put on the pressure) the role of David Helm will come into sharp focus.
In reality Helm should be put on trial. He bears the responsibility for the police riot in Southall He is the butcher of Southall.
By Oliver New, Southall Campaign Committee SO the inevitable happened. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided that there would be no prosecution in the Blair Peach murder case. The audacity of the British establishment knows no bounds. Here we have a clear case of an SPG hoodlum using an 'illegal weapon' to cosh Blair
equipment and new methods of investigation the
cannot discover the identity of the SPGkiller.
Small wonder then that there is growing disquiet within the labour movement on the cover-up. The newly-elected National Executive Committee of the Labour Party has registered its protest in no uncertain terms. It has called for an immediate and full public inquiry. It has demanded the publication of police orders of the day for operations in the Southall area on 23
The lawyers of the Blair Peach family are
Police, and attention for the next few weeks will shift to the inquest which has been transferred
demanding access to information which the
Ourtasks in the coming weeks aretwofold. We haveto build the broadest possiblesupport to expose the cover-up. Wehave to insist that the police do not get away with blue murder. We have to ensure that they pay a heavy price for
Atthesametime the trials at Barnet continue to acquire an ugly significance. There is now some national attention being focussed on the trials. A national picket is being prepared for early November, but all this is not enough. The Campaign Committee is still understaffed and needs all possible help. At the same time we need more money to help pay for the costs and fines
Union
DISBANO
SPG
SOUTHALL
DEFENCE FUND • 700 people were arrested or
23rd April: 342, mainly young
Asians, were charged • 70 are likely to be jailed if the • In sane send so are
cases heard so far very few
defendants have received legal • Fines. costs and expenses are
expected to exceed €100,000.
Defence Fund lenclose E for the Southall Name Address
Send to PO Box 15. London WCZ
SOUTHALL
IS INNOCENT
STOP THE
TRIALS
Southai Detence Committee Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 3
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the lot
"THE settlement will be a inspiration for organised • workers throughout Britain and throughout Euroре.' These Engineering Union president, Terry Duffy, and for once he is dead right.
Confederation of Industry has been leading a carpaign to unite employers against reduction in the working week. By winning a 39 hour week the engineers have cracked that common tront.
Other workers will have to prise open that crack to win a 35 hour week.
This dispute demonstrated the depth of support among members for a reduction in hours.
the failure of the leaderships to call an all-out strike, the action remained solid costing the employers over £2 billion in lost sales. Dangerous
But Duffy's deal falls far short of what WAS possible and needed. It contains dangerous and unnecessary employers.
The settlement covers four years, including a reduction of the working week to 39 hours in 1981, and one week extra holiday. Negotiations on the minimum wage rate will take place
Local implication there will be no talks on reducing hours for four years. This is why the Engineering Federation claim the "industrial harmony through difficult period of recession ahead of us!
Commitment
An additional weakness in agreement the inclusion commitment the
increasing Ferranți still out
By Raphael de Santos
THE DUFFY and
Chapple sell-out has been
a major blow to the strike
Ferranti's Edinburgh
factory, now in its ninth
week. But despite this,
workers are continuing
their action for a 25 per
cent increase in pay.
A lew weeks ago al a
Labour Pie Biant, anti-cuts
rally. Willie OI
Edinburgh Trades Coun-
and a shop steward at
Python Peeble engineer-
ing. talked abour the need
Tor solidarity within the
awar movement on even
sorting ilais struggle.
The scien was recti-
ad a rapturous applau-
Testore or soidarity •sibie around ATMS
ILE: =-:
=5E =:
Fic - = caning
ire:
Tie derridans union paying strike
acialist Challenge 11 October 1979
Engineers break through on hours
An all-out strike
could have won
By Rich Palser
greal tivity.
the cost of maintaining the productivity, are created.
British
last year with the same result any objective of creating achieved.
Retreat
General and
unIon
retreat on that principal.
A far greater victory
employers beginning to
profitable firms what was
the unions LU • LIC
union leaders.
The fighting
employers, the
but by
Confidence Employers"
means
the a decisive breakthrough
to national deal.
Ali IN all, the
of
produc-
STRIKE NEWS
benefit, because it isn't a
national strike.
Bailey's, a building
firm, has been driving
through picket lines at one
Ferranti factory to build
the extension demanded
by Ferranti's expansion in
micro-processors.
But all the news is not
bleak. The white-collar
section of the engineering
union, TASS, while cross-
ing the picket lines, has
shows some support.
Management asked five of
their members to do work
American units, LWO
which - because of their
specification would
normally be done by those on the TASS
SUNC members
refused to do the job, and
were suspended. The
remainder of the TASS
membership gave support
inel colleagues, and
managemen: backed down
and found other work tor
them.
Strikers have pledged
Many work is carried
=: 05 ine unit. they will
door: orders when they
etum io work. The next
HaRE meeting is on 15
October, when a decision
abour continuing the strike
Page 4
The settlement aims to minimise
reducing hours by same levels of meaning no new jobs The Post Office Engineers made a similar agreement
- the jobs 15 not
According to David Basnett of the
Municipal Workers Union, a 35 hour week would mean 750,000 jobs being created. Deals like the engineers have concluded are a
could have been won. There were real signs of the
give, GEC talking of leaving the EEF when the dispute was over, and some more
agreeing settlements. But the full strength of
was never used there was no national strike call from the
strength of the engineers was not tapped to the full,
despite the agreement with the
fight for shorter hours will continue in engineering.
The membership go back to work full of confidencethat their action won
on hours.
Unemployment is going to shoot to 2 million and higher over the next year. Local negotiations are always used 1n
improve on the
the chances ot no struggle in engineering for four years look very slim. Duffy may well be able to claim somè credit for winning 39 hours, but his will not be a quiet life.
One thing is certain: if the labour movement had shown solidarity this strike would have been won by now. Certainly, the Ferranti workers are very receptive of support. Last week, 40 copies socialist challenge were sold on the picket lines.
Lesney -out
By Tessa van Gelderen THE ROLLS Royce lock-outs may be over, but TOr members the electricians' union Lesney's Hackney plant a
The EETPU members have refused to conținue a shift system started last June because management refuse to pay liTe agreed time and a third for shift working. They started ordinary day working and management locked them out.
The plant has 5,000 ALEW members largely women — and the engineering union has agreed boycott electricians' work in the plant. After the suspenI SiOn of stomdn
Labour Party conference lobbiers
worker for refusing work 'blacked' machin-
all the AUEW foundry members struck in support.
The production workers have been suspended on full pay, so the stewards of are producing a bulletin te explain the union's case. These are also being taken to other Lesney plants around the country Lesney drivers, who have also agreed not to cross nicket lines.
Lesneys make matchbox and with at Christmas approaching
company does not want to see the dispute spread.
This is an important dispute for extending union organisation in the
and TGWU bers at the nearby British Oxygen Company are refusing to deliver gas in order to strengthen the PICKIN
Financial support needed, and copies of the strike bulletin can be got from Lesney strike comall mittee, c/o J. Cooney, 12 Highworth Point, Trowbridge Estate, Hackney Wick, London E5.
Joint Shop Sle
Chide
to
THE POPULAR press has been very keen to give Duffy the credit for the engineers break through on hours. With elections taking place again in the AUEW next year their theme is simple moderation by
goods. The truth is far from that.
demand for a cut in hours dropped early on in negotiations Broad Left on the AUEW Committee that forced them to keep demand, for moderation succeeded in doing was making the employers more confident that the unions had no real stomach for a light.
Moderation in the form of the electricians union spoke out publicly for a 'quick settlement' to the dispute — threatening to negotiate a separate
remain firm and denouncing splitting statements which employers' confidence, Duffy defended their "right statements'
Moderation meant there was no call tor all-out resolutions that stewards meetings up and down the country. Instead went off to secret talks and negotiated a deal which ties the union's hands
2olg one
Parhside Contra
Duffy s deal -
a victory for
moderation
through
no fight delivers the
wanted to the
- it was the moderation.
National
39 hours. All
Halverson,
of insisting the strike
strengthen coming pressure make public
strike, despite spot. effect from
Duffy
over hours for four long years.
The membership won this victory
their disciplined and determined strike action. Duffy led
« over le claim, he just negotiated the settlement - and by no means the best that could have been reached. This victory was not won because of moderation, but despite
The Broad Left can take the credit for forcing Duffy to eat his words of last year: If there is to be any clash with Mrs Thatcher we won't start it'.
National Committee delegate Ron
La prominent member the Broad Left, is dead right to call for the membership to reject the deal and
Kut the brogr Left too must learn a lesson.
Only the escalation of the dispute to all-out action could have ensured complete victory. No such call was
from him. it was for despite the upon him. unofficial call that the Broad Left should have been organising
The Broad Left put Duffy on the
Hut I take initiative for all-out action it left the struggle totally in Duffy's hands. If he then sells the members short of what could be won, the Broad Left must share the responsibility.
Page 5 scan of this page
Keeping in regular contact with our readers?
By Celia Pugh
'WHY is abortion not on the agenda. Are the backstreets so hard to remember?".
This chant from a hundred lobbiers finally heard by the Labour Party conference organising committee, and time was found — in the last hour of the conference support all campaigns and organised to defend the 1967 Act. It also called
HACKNEY Against
organising of
Hospital on Saturday
from 2 1o 3pm
provision day-care
facilities in the area. Only 33 per cent
of all abortions are
on the NH$ in
even the meagre facilities
do exist are endangered with the area
health authority's threat to close St
Leonard's Hospital. The picket is at Hackney Hospital.
Homerton High Street,
Fund-raising disco
starting at 8pm at Hackney Trades &
Labour Club, 96 Dalston Lane, E8.
Food. music. raffle and bar.
75p waged/50p unwaged. For further
information contact Cath Young, 986
6739.
Mass lobby
THE National Abortion Campaign
planning meeting on 6 October has
come up with some suggestions for
action after the demo on 28 October.
On 5 February, the Tuesday before
the third reading of the Bill; a mass
lobby of the House of Commons is.
proposed to hand in the petition and
NAC is calling for widespread strike
action. The day of the third reading
Will be the scene for a mass assembly
of women who will make it absolutely
clear to this male-dominated Tory
Parliament what we think of Corrie's
Bill.
NAC hopes that NUPE members
OUR SALES DRIVE
By Tony Southall, York IMG
THE KEY to successful sales that are also politically meaningful absolute regularity. There's no point
sunilewiere. unsuccessfully at first, if one doesn't continue consistently, so that regular readers can be certain of getting their
In our area we sell on Thursdays and Saturdays for a total of 5½ hours. I realise there are problems where violent opposition sellers — we can safely sell one at a time.
Nevertheless, it does seem to me that I ought to be possible, where there are enough people to do a rota,
When will the
Labour Party
give women
a square deal?
was
— to decide to demonstrations
mpaign against the
orrie Bill
pro-abortion speakers in Corrie Hackney the Scottish 13 October demand the Corrie Bill. abortion The
carried out nackney and Corrie to mobilise which
and estate leafleting to follows later, the day of the mass lobby.
Tickets period after bitter debate.
By Ann Henderson
Tional Union
well. attended can face
on Labour MPs to vote against the Corrie Bill. Liz Roberts from Streatham moved the resolution, 'I am very pleased that the issue was finally
overwhelming support for the demonstration. "It is quite obvious that the fight has to be waged outside Parliament and that the main. • force will come from people demonstrating on will take the lead in bringing hospital workers out on the day and that the NUT associations that have taken a
will VI LOTS staffrooms and classrooms. NAC in Scotland is calling on
TUC to organise conference to fight the
overall aim of NAC's campaign is to get the trade union leaders who say they are opposed to
support among their members — male and female for a pro-abortion stance. Local NAC
will e alming lor days of action with workplace meetings, trade union branch meetings, and factory
push locally for commitments to strike action on
Paris on the march GREAT news from Paris. More than 20,000 women marched through Paris at the weekend calling on the French government to renew the country's abortion law, which comes up for debate next month. The law, which permits abortion on request during the first ten weeks of pregnancy, was only passed in 1975 for a five-year
Manchester moves Stockport speaks
THROUGH Manchester area Nat-
sludents. organised several meetings in colleges against Corrie last week. They were
and further education students took petitions.
At Salford College in Manchester over 150 students, mainly in their first year, turned up to see a film. Now they are hoping to set up a young women's group in the college.
Local activities are planned for Manchester on 20 October.
NTERMATIONAL
¡ ABORTiON
RIGHTS
STOCKPORT Trades Council is organising a publie meeting against the Corrie Bill. This will be on October at 7.30pm, at the Egerton Arms Hotel in St •Peter's Speakers include Dr Joyce Linda Thalman [NAC], and Andrew Bennet MP. to sustain a regular public sale for longer than two hours a week.
We have' a 'round' of 18 regular sales. These have been established over a long period of time as a result of our comrades approaching people to whom they have sold regularly work, on the street and so on. offered to deliver every Thursday at Vicinity
One comrade_ went around immediate vicinity at election time knocking on all doors where Labour' posters were displayed.
A key thing about this sales round is that it is a way of keeping in regular
But a price was paid before the organising committee would agree 1o a debate on abortion — ammendments dealing with a three line whip to end the "conscience cop-out' and detailing proposals to build the TUĆ demonstration had
The proposal from Lambeth Central CLP asking conference to 'condemn the 55 Labour MPs who voted for the Corrie Bill' was also dropped when the NEC said it would oppose the abortion resolution as a whole if this was
"This decision shows that the NEC
are not prepared to take on the MPs who voted for Corrie. It is only when they are prepared to take up the issue of the three line whip that women will get a square deal from the Labour
Ann Weyman, from the Socialist Medical
pointed out that Heffer and Benn were some fighters for accountability of MPs when they weren't prepared to extend the principle abortion. Both of them opposed a three line
"Their position is a total contradiction'. accountability on one hand and then leave the important issué os women's right to control their fertility to individual decisions of MPs. They are not in Parliament as individuals but to represent the labour movement.'
north Sheffield
discussion By Liz Lawrence A PUBLIC meeting, Corrie Bill sponsored by Council, was attended by 67 people Tickets were sold for coaches to the TUC demonstration, and ASTMS in donating £25 towards the cost.
Mel Read, member of ASTMS, main speaker at the meeting, called for mass labour movement action to defeat the Corrie Bill. She stressed the need to keep raising the question of abortion in the trade unions, when a union has adopted a policy of support for a woman's choose.
Read criticised Labour MPs such as Tony Benn who think that abortion is a matter of private conscience not party policy, and said that class women pay a very high price tot MPs' freedom of conscience'. • Jane Bruton Sheffield NAC, own experience as a student nurse she knew that backstreet abortions were still occurring in Sheffield.
Discussion at the meeting covered ways of taking up the abortion issue in the trade unions Party; plans for meetings; the weekly Sheffield.
Huddersfield HUDDERSFIELD NAC has already lobbied one Labour Sheerman, who says he voted for the Corrie Bill at its second reading for Gate. "tactical reasons'.
Leesön, He said he wanted to get on the Select Committee, but admits that his " contact with readers, informing them of local events in involved, and taking the opportunity lo gel ID political
Most of these people we visit are involved in some We activity, so even it they don't come to our meetings it's a way of establishing a relationship with group of activists.
the about the local Zimbabwe meeting ' organised by. 'vote trades council and We'll get them to take leaflets for it and encourage them to come. Later in the month we'll do the same thing to help build the local UTOM showing
reading in February. reading.
This Labour against the September general
Sheffield Trades
a national executive
who was the
even
right to
'working
speaking for said that from her public meeting
will be at Fulham Palace
and the Labour
factory gate Cleveland
local day-care
meetings coach
seats, MP, Barry brough 87616.
meeting I month. which we are
discussion with
kind of political
much wider
Next week we'll talk to all of them
the Labour Party, the
Anti-Apartheid accumulated -
One MP who is prepared to be mandated b the labour movement on this issue is Reg Race
'170 Labour MPs have not voted at all, voted for the Corrie Bill. If they take the that it is their own individual conscience decide the issue, they are wrong. If they any conscience they should leave the issue fo
delegations which put in resolutions have ser a letter to the NEC, calling for a three line whi at the third reading of the Corrie Bill.
Reg Race explained: 'In this letter we hav support for the TUC demonstration and hope that the NEC will be issuing thousands of leaflets and posters following the conferenc decision to support the demonstration.'
The wide range of signatures collected for the letter, including from the NUPE and NUI delegations, indicate the significant support for the Campaign Against Corrie in the la
Reg Race continued: 'I hope the letter wil be taken back to CLPs. We have to presserio the NEC, firstly to mobilise for the 28 Octobe demonstration, and secondly to get the righ decision in the House of Commons on the thăn
'We will have to work very hard on th Parliamentary Labour Party to change thei
tactics may have gone awry, and be will not be voting for it at the next
is just well since the Party Young Socialists subatting a resolacon to une nex management committee of the local Labour Party calling for a vote against the Corrie Bill, which i what the Labour Party conference overwhelmingly endorsed.
Two coaches will be coming from Huddersfield to the TUC demon stration. They are organised by NAC, but one is sponsored by the trades council and is receiving additiona financial support from NUPE am
NAC has also been collecting signatures for the national petition and giving out leaflets in the low eact Saturday. holding a film benefit.
West London WEST LONDON NAC is holding a with speakers Joe Richardson MP, Dr Berry Beaumont and Antonia Bennett of NATHE. the Distillers Arms, Rd, Hammersmith, on Monday, 15 October, at 7.30pm.
CLEVELAND County Association of Trades Councils is organising a demonstration London on 28 October, so there will be transport from Teeside. phone Monica on Middles
Trade unions are being asked to 'sponsor' seats on the coach. A public also for this of the Patriot Game and the 22 October abortion demonstration We've taken advantage of SCs new accounting procedure to put of a leaflet with the paper this week
next advertising a special offer of eight weeks' Socialist Challenge for €1.20. If we maintain our sales nearly all the papers we receive, wel be able to finance this out of the profit on our casual sales.
Next week I'll be distributing the five hundred or so back numbers of yea that - T'll enclose the special offer leaflet inside. We'll do the same when the university ters
Page 6 scan of this page
National Zimbabwe demo on 11 November How you can help defeat Rhodesian racists
By Simon Hebditch Secretary, ( Committee • IN THE last few weeke Zimbabwe has once again come to dominate the news media. Commentators and pundits who have managed to ignore the developing situation there have suddenly rediscovered Emergency Campaign Committee (ZECC) was formed in June 1979 to try to bring together & wide range of campaigning groups and parties so as to ensure that the demands and rights of
Zimbabwe people do not unheard at the present time
The original impetus for the formation of ZECC was the likelihood that the new Tor: government was on the point of breaking UN sanctions and recognising the illegal Muzorewa regime. The committee decided to organise a series of actions over September and Öctober leading up to a mass mobilisation of people for November. This remains a major focus of our national demonstration activities, and 11 November remains a day that should be set aside for solidarity Zimbabwe.
Opportunity
The outcome of the Lusaka wealth Lancaster House talks, obviously meant that we needed to re-orient our actions to take account of the presence in London of both our friends and enemies. ZECC has organised a series of pickets at Lancaster House and the Carlton Towers Hotel (where both Smith and Muzorewe were staying), and two mass rallies in central London at which the leadership of the Patriotic Front had the opportunity to speak
HOW HEALTHY is world capitalism
today? And what does this mean for
those struggling to overthrow this
system and replace
internationally planned
economy? In the first of a series of
monthly articles,
ALEXANDER looks at the prospect
of a new world recession.
THE LEADERS of the
world have been reluctant to admit it
but the American economy is in a
recession. Between March and May
1979 it was running downhill at the
rate of 2.3 per cent a year, and almost
all the other economic indicators
production,
spending, productivity - also point
downward. At the same time the
Carter administration, worried about
an inflation rate of over I per cent a
year, is keeping Ine
Interest rates are therefore
again, making it more difficult than
ever to raise cash for spending or
investment.
WTI course the
resulted. Unemployment, which for a
long time was at a
jumped up from 5.7 to 6 per cent.
Carter's Treasury Secretary now says
it could hit 7.5 per cent - more than 7
million American workers out of jobs
before things start to look up. Synchronised
The big question that remains is
this. Will the US slump mean just a
partial • recession
capitalist economy, with the stronger economies weathering the storm? Or will there be another recession like 1974/5,
major economies In stump at the sale
time? This would make the recession
that much deeper and harder to get
Obviously the USA was bound to drag the world economy down with it
to some degree, and the British econ-
omy was headed for trouble without
Many prompting. looked as if the other powers might decline to join the club. Prospects in France weren't bright, but Germany and Japan still seemed to be holding their own, and even Italy was fairly bright.
Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979
Zimbabwe Emergency Campaign
The Zimbabwe
go entirely Sunday 11
work on
Commonleading to the current
directly 45 % socialist 40
ROY
capitalist 30
20 consumer
10
screws
rising
inevitable has
standstill, has
with rising
LIC world
percentage point
'synchronised'
with all the
same league as France. same goes for Italy.
But until recently it
capitalist through 1980 as well. 100 The only capitalism
Page 6
ZECC — organised picket of the Lancaster House conference
the British people negotiations and the political stance of the PF, The first rally was attended by over 600 people and the second by nearly 2,000 — an impressive turn-out of support and solidarity.
But all that is in the past. The future is what is of importance and I make no apology for asking all Socialist Challenge readers to note
Heading for a new world slump?
Profit shares* in manufacturing
*net operating surplus as % of net value added in industry
1955-58 59-62 63-67 68-71
But now more and more people ! expected to ring up a growth figure of are coming around to the gloomy view
• including, at the latest count, such bodies as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of America
It's not too hard to see why. In France the Barre government, faced
unemployment and economy slipping towards only 2 per cent growth, has just decided to spend $1 billion to boost the economy. But that will only perk it up by half a
- and won't do anything for inflation, which from 10
PS sen a lovie upwards cowards
Germany supposedly immune to such diseases — is still set to top the government's growth target of 4 per cent this year. But 1980 could see the West German economy in the
the
Britain, of course, is already in reverse gear and expected to remain so
ray of hope for from the east.
Certainly the Japanese economy is doing much better than any other. It is
~ WANTED WANTED FOR the Saturday Japan
doro United States osa W Germany
• Britain
72-75 7677
5½ per cent this year — not so hot for Japan, but enough to make British government envious even in a good year.
But the slowdown of the world economy means that exports are having a tougher time than ever before, while Japan's heavy dependence on imported energy means that its costs are rising sharply. It looks as if 1980 will also bring Japan down with a bang some brave souls even dare to suggest that the Japanese economy actually join that of Britain and the US in shrinking
Certainly it looks as if 1980 will be another time of trouble throughout the capitalist world. One common
to all this and the •enommatol 1974/5 crisis) is the jump in oil prices. This has led a whole series of people — from the IMF to the popular press in this country — to start crying oil sheiks' whenever anything wrong.
Next month we'il take a closer look at the effects of the 'oil crisis' оп world capitalism.
:20%/1-PF MURDER "OLONY B' 1ABVE the following dates for action.
October will be a Mass Leafleting Day around the country in as many towns, cities and villages as possible. Keep your eyes open for your own local ZECC groups. If none exist it should be your job to help set them up in your area. Contact the Anti-Apartheid Movement office (tel. 01-580 5311) for detalls.
From James Carroll
feature was the presence unaffiliated youth. organised from London, Nottingham, Leicester,
Anti-Apartheid on 01-580 5311.
IT'S BACK!
Belt 'n' Braces 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' "Simply brilliant' — Tariq Ali From 15 Oct, bookings 01-267 6722 Party and wageless reductions Revolutionary Communist Tendency PUBLICMEETING
'Imperialism in Africa anti-imperialist struggle to Britain Japanese Speaker: Frank Richards
Friday 19 October, 7.30pm Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, WCI (Holborn tube)
might goes
and Student Week
colleges and towhs.
student unions.
Activity
Over the same combining
have speakers for local meetings.
have the maximum
I have deliberately
ways of integrating our work
people of
them immediately.
situation. Tackle the Barbarians!
ABOUT 350 people took part in the first demonstration against the South African Barbarians rugby team in Exeter on 3 October. A march through the city centre was followed by a picket of the rugby ground, and a heartening
Seven people inside the ground who tried to stage a more dramatic protest were quickly arrested and hauled before a special court, where they were bound over for two years in sums ranging between £500 and £600.
MARTIN METEYARD adds: Flour bombs greeted the Barbarians when they arrived in Edinburgh on Monday. joined a picket outside the North British Hotel in Princess Street. Daily pickets will be mounted there until the Barbarians leave on Sunday for their match al Hawick. This starts at 3pm and a large demonstration is expected. march a moventry next Wednesday, 17 October. Coaches have already been demonstration,
York, Salford, Norwich, Wolverhampton.
Sheffield, Hull, Bradford, Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge. The assembly point is Lancaster Poly in Prior Street at 12 noon. For further details phone
TERNATIONAL
— extend the NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
"Ten years of the Irish War; five years of the Prevention of Terrorism Act'
Saturday 24 November, assemble 2pm Kennington Park (Oval tube). March to Brixton Prison.
Troops out now!
Smash the PIA. _ POW status for Irish anti-imperialist prisoners!
Self-determination for the Irish people!
Mobilisation meetings: Tuesday 23 October; Monday 12 November. Both
7.30pm, Club Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square (Holborn tube). Contact: 24 No Mobilisation Commitee, BM RCT, London WIX Organised by Revolutionary Communist Tendency. For further
Over the last two weeks of October and the beginning of November there will be a Youth
of Action. organised by ABCC and Was armed.
- can be believe that it is essential that local youth are involved, not just the usual constituency of
time, and doubt with the former where this appropriate, a co-ordinated speaking tour by senior members of the Patriotic Front is being organised. Contact either the AAM office or the London offices of the PF if you want to
Sunday 11 November is the date of the national mobilisation towards which all thi work is being geared, and at which we must
After that action ZECC will consider both its own future and further plans for activity on Zimbabwe.
made this article. a strictly practical one, although I have strong views about the sort of solidarity work that should be pursued in the future — especially by an increasing concentration on shop floor level work in the trade union field and by finding
on racism in southern Africa with racism in British society.
However, now is the time for action. The
Zimbabwe will not thank us for allowing sober debate on the forms of solidarity work to inhibit us from giving practical belp to
That means mobilising people for the activities of ZECC, especially 11 November, and ensuring that a huge segment of public opinion is brought to bear on the current of a number of trade unionists and numerous
At short notice over 50 antl-racists
Loughborough, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent,
THEORETICAL JOURNAL OF THE
The enigma of workers' control
PERRY ANDERSON Theses on English class society
Britain and Russia
SPERAT PROTHAR, MOAN SINT.
The women's movement and the party
The Bolsheviks and freedom of the press Vol.5 No.1 Artune 1979 75p/SL8
Page 7 scan of this page
The Labour left speaks AT THE Labour Party conference in Brighton talked to three of the most prominent figures on some have already interpreted as marking a executive: Eric Heffer MP, Dennis Skinner MP
During the conference, Socialist Challenge outside the Labour Party. Eric Heffer: An important beginning'
Exclusive-
turning point for the left in Britain.
mandatory re-selection
irrelevant.
How significant do you see the victories achieved at the conference by
Eric Heffer: It is the beginning of the radicalisation of the partv. lne grass roots feeling in the party is that they want to see a much more speedy moye towards socialist policies. Part of that argument, and a very important part of it, is a move towards much greater
Photo: G.M. COOKSON (Soclaliat Challenge
true, as Jim Callaghan suggested, that the constituency parties will be taking
Once conference decisions are made unev behind those decisions to be carried government. That is the basis of the
action. I would argue we have seen an important beginning of that. on the right to return to the old positions, but it is my view that a lot of this opposition will melt away. the Campaign for Labour Victory and the Manifesto Group, declarations are only fierce declarations and when it comes down to it l don't think there will be very much in
support in the trade unions and their that, for the battle in the unions will be
What sort of issues should the left be
We have to get down to conducting
constitution The national executive took the view that the committee of inquiry would have me mignt to look into all tuest mallers.
shouldn't have been set up in the first place. It was set-up principally by the right wing who want to change the national executive into a right-wing
what has happened. I'm going to be on my guard and I want others on the to be on their guard and to ensure that the victories won on the constitution
when labour power and chuck away conference decisions; we can't have a committee of inquiry doing the same thing.
last week two resolutions were passed which
Others insist that the changes — the of MPs, and the national executive of the Labour Party rather than the Parliamentary leader having the final say in the manifesto — are so much hot air and
against Tory policies, such as the cuts in public expenditure and unemploy-
support for the struggle of workers in
standards. These are the basics, but This means raising the issues not
The struggle against the Relations Act was a good example people like myself leading the struggle in Parliament, working alongside the
ment have shown that they have been most successful when there has been a
whether you look at the suffragettes,
Dennis Skinner: I'm not euphoric'
overturn the decision on the election of the Parliamentary leader then, yes, the
step along the way.
provide a little bit of enthusiasm for people outside the Labour Party to get involved. The issues on constitutional change may not have been understood in detail but I'm sure that for a lot of
conference has been exhilarating; for what the issues have been about is about havinga say or not having a say.
shouldidentify with those struggles as
di always regard my position as being on the side of the workers in any industrial struggle and of asking questions later. The trouble with a lot
the National Union of Public Employees. the right to strike, the right to vote. won because the campaign around it
Do you see the current leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party as an obstacle to these type of struggles? The leadership of the Parliamentary party came together to oppose the
mysell,
prepared to oppose what I regard as.
sures, it is possible they won't be so keen on the broader socialist policies. swords inthe House of Commons, but the struggleagainst the Tories has to be
When you use the word 'obstacle', what I want to do is to get policies changed and then carried out. If there are people who won't carry out the policies, then obviously they are an
one off ourses seat othe
binding on MPs but on abortion rights
restrictions on a woman's right to choose should not be binding. Conference is on record saying we are opposed to changes in the abortion law. But conference is also on record
three-line whip in the Commons on the issue. I support both these decisions.
socialists, and I've got many in my constituency, who are very, very left wing indeed, but who take a different
of Labour Party leaders is that their first step is to ask questions. be some concern about the way that strike was being led, but still it's my
Teach-ins
steel workers, the campaign against the cuts, and so on. The leadership of
should be engaged in teach-ins and seminars trying to explain what the
of these cuts know what they mean; they don't need teach-ins. They need toknow whether the Labour and trade union leaders will combine io ensure
the Labour left and the party's national
and Bernard Dix, assistant general secretary of
We do not agree with some of the things the three say, but their views do have an important bearing on the issues we will return to in future weeks — the way forward for the left, inside and
view even if one doesn't agree with it.
convince them, but I'm not going to put myself in total all-out opposition to very good working class comrades.
On Ireland you said at a meeting
support re-unification. Do you think there isany growth of that sentiment in the Labour Party?
To be quite honest, the party has got When thetroops were sent in they were OI
intentions and because Gerry Fitt and
onlytwo voices raised in the Commons
Devlin was one and I was the other.
I think I've been proven right. But because of my admiration for people like Gerry Fitt I've said little, although
class has become divided. Our job isto concentrate on building the unity of the working class in Northern Ireland
nas got lnto unis situațion by getting away from the
support for these type of views, but because of the violence, people have been diffident about saying about the issue, because of the teeling rightly or wrongly that this could
us who support reunification are in. councillorsto fight the cuts. I want the trade unions, white and blue collar, to
Ireland and the Corrie Bill weren't placed on the agenda at the very start. I and others said some provision should havebeen madeto discuss these issues.
Wetried to get the Callaghan question
It might beokay for some people to raise the Northern Ireland issue al question time, but what was needed was a debate, to get the leadership into defining a policy on Ireland, onethat is
women - the Corrie Bill and all the oner righis. The Labour Party conterence should be about coming
Bernard Dix:
A leadership
whichis
acceptable'
most. sigmiecent party
significant party conferences since the war; perhaps since 1952 when the Bevanites swept the board in the elections to the national
But that was a victory which
up with the kind of institutional changes within the Labour Party which we managed to achieve at this conference.
The left has now got not just
"hen. of supreme importance acceptable to the amorphous
you are defining the Labour
so there is
outside Parliament: Similarly,
expressing support
section of the leadership outside
Parliamentary party.
the right to expect
the Parliamentary wing from insulated in total to tre House of Commons and the
What we have to do is to
struggle against the leadershi
Page 8 scan of this page
THE
AND
TON
By Geoff Bell THE STORY of Tony Benn's week of triumph the Labour Party conference can in part be to in his own words. triumph. To stories told by Benn meetings at last week's conference.
appointed Postmaster Buckingham Palace and was given a bit of pap called a royal commission which said "to t right trusty and honourable Anthony Benn. make you Postmaster General'. It piece of paper, but it didn't mention the electio
had gomebau appointed Postmaster General. which I pledged colleagues in the Cabinet were doing anythi hostile to the royal interest I was to report them
Secret Act and said: secret. secret."
days. And let me say, when I asked "do I have take the privy councillor's oath?" 'no, lots of other people would like to Postmaster General".
Civil servants
are non-political, so I am told. But they give y a brief when you become a minister, a big or
brief which was headed
Labour victory with Mr Benn secretary of state, and one for the secretary
sent me the wrong brief.
Labour ministers.
would secretary
ended up in the Department of Energy.
"I sat in the Cabinet — experience
up the government, had a word told us and cut public expenditure by £4,00
and we cut public expenditure by £4,000m you still read in unions who run the country. Chrysler
work for Chrysler.
lending wouldn't buy government funding raised the minimum lending rate by 1 per And what happened the following day! Th was a killing in the City of 1200m in one
year.'
Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 8
. So too can the meaning of t begin with, here are a series at a number of frin
'In 1964 I was elected for Bristol and w
General. went
was a ni been blessed and had be
"Then there was the privy councillor's oath
myself that if any of
once. Then a man came along with the Offic
"Everything you de If you blow your nose that's an offic
"That was only the beginning, the first the
they ss
"Then you meet your civil servants. Now th
During elections they write briefs for each si When we won the second election in 1974 am was re-appointed Minister of Industry I got
"Secretary of State 1 Industry (if not Mr Benn)". They had prepa three briefs — one for a Tory victory, one fo
back again state they hoped would be appointed. And th
'I'll tell you the deal the civil servants offer
They say: "You do what
permani said to me when I was appoint Minister of Industry in 1974: "I take it you're l going ahead with your manifesto, because if do you'll cross the Rubicon." But I did an
- it was an astonishi — when in 1976 the IMF sent a m into London under an assumed name. He ra
with De Healey, and told us that if we didn't do what
we'd be finished. And we did what we were ti
A the newspapers that it's
"The same with the Chrysler experience. TI came to us and said they needed money and if didn't give them money they would go away. away? Who created the wealth for Chryster this country in the first place? The people w
"In March this year the City of London w on strike and said to us that if we didn't raise !
rate by 1 per cent gilt-edged securities for depends. The Cabi
because of the raising of the minimum lendi rale That very same week I was negotiating w the miners and what was on the table was ! million, for a quarter of a million miners, for ‹
Page 9 scan of this page
Tony Benn told these stories to the delight of his audience. The ¿themselves because they offer a rare insight into the workings of British democracy. They are good, propaganda. And it is good that Tony Benn is now telling them.
Pressures
He told them in the course of the battle for democratic reform which dominated last week's
Labour conference and with which he and Eric Heffer have been most associated. He sees the struggle for a more accountable parliamentary party and leadership as part of the battle for the reform of society in general. He explains his view or tner relauonship us way.
'You have Labour ministers but once they get there they face these huge pressures. What we are trying to do is to help them. What Labour ministers need is the mobilisation of the labour
wrestled all night with the permanent secretary at the Department of the Environment. He never
seemed to realise that if only he had told the
movement outside they would all have been on his side.
'He thought you intellectually with the civil service, just to get the clause in the Bill that you were elected for in the first place. outside in to provide countervailing pressures. And that's what it is all about. We have been
pushed out of power and the reform movement is
to bring us back in again.'
The obvious comment to be made on that •guote is inal il 1s Crossman for not telling the movement outside' what was going on, coffice ever follow that advice.
Power
But such a criticism only removes a small layer of the icing from the cake Benn is now
presenting to the labour movement. It would be
of that cake. The question he asks is: "Why at the
78th annual conference of the Labour Party do
we find the structure of power in our society so
little changed?' And the answer he gave on one occasion was: "The problem isn't Mrs Thatcher.
The problem is that capitalism is declining.
An obvious retort is to ask
'structures of power' would change if capitalism
was expanding.
the birth of the British Labour Party more or less
coincided with the beginnings of the decline of
British imperialism. So there is nothing new in
observing that the failures of the Labour Party
and the failures of capitalism go in tandem.
It is more appropriate to ask why this should
change now.
Can it really be that the mandatory re-selection
of MPs, and the final say of Labour's national
executive in deciding the manifesto, is all they
amount to? Tony Benn says no:
•When I hear people saying that the debate in
the Labour Party is a constitutional wrangle I ask
were the Chartists a constitutional wrangle?
Were votes for women a constitutional wrangle?
Are the rights of trade
represented a constitutional wrangle? No, they
were the claims of the disinherited to enter into
their rights as citizens. That's what the reform
movement within the Labour Party is about.'
Vengeance
A comparison between the struggle of the
Chartists and the goings-on at Brighton last week
inflates the reforms won at conference out of all
proportion. But for many delegates the battle
which Benn waged did have a historical and political importance which outsiders cannot
NORDS
WAYS OF
BENN
stories are valuable
parliamentary uDOn, very good socialist Dick Crossman described how ne
could argue it out
You 'have to bring the movement
the hall.
those
but nor did Tony Benn in Party.
whether the
Indeed, it can be observed that What are Tony Benn's solutions?
1J.
to be
change.'
easily grasp.
For years the rank and file members of the Labour Party have been kicked around, spat
slandered and parliamentary leaders. They conference decisions thrown in the dustbin and replaced by the most right-wing policies Labour government has ever implemented. Last week in Brighton Benn offered vengeance.
On numerous occasions he said that the battle was about policies and not personalities. In fact his concrete social and economic
largely unspecified. references here and there to import controlshe talked vaguely of workers co-operatives, and sensing the mood of many delegates he attacked the Corrie Bill on abortion and called for a woman's right to choose. limit of the alternative he offered.
Applauded
Yet for many delegates such failings were not important. The motions on internal reform symbolised the chance to humiliate the party
CLONEL LUC leadership has for years humiliated them. took that chance with open arms, thanked Tony Benn a thousand times over for giving it to them. Wherever he went applauded, when he entered a room applauded, when he rose to applauded, when he finished speaking he applauded, and he was applauded when he left
It was a bonus for the constituency rank and file that Benn took the occasional side swipe at
on the revolutionary left hounded them with some success these last few years. Said Benn at one meeting:
'All right. I'm not going to disrespect of the socialist sects. Socialist Worker, Socialist Challenge, Newsline, I read them all. I even read the writings of a certain Mr Posadas. an Argentinian gentleman. I read it because in the world of socialist thought you need different
*But the analysis is different from action, and the framework of action is the British Labour
• as broad as the where you can be a Catholic at one end and an atheist at the other. We are a very tolerant party. I don't want to chase anyone out of the Labour Party. I want to bring them in; bring in their knowledge, their analysis; their dedication.' Dishonest
To portray the Labour Party rather than the revolutionary left as the party of 'action' is gross and dishonest, as Tony Benn suppose the revolutionary left did accept invitation to thrown in their lot with the Labour Party, what does Tony Benn offer, what is his strategy for change?
"And yet still this country is run by the same people who ran it when the Labour Party was set
Why has it been denied to us; democratic change, what we were entitled expect and were organised to achieve, through the ballot box?
'For don't ever belittle parliamentary детостасу. instrument of change but it is an integral part of
OT:
'And when we've won the argument in the party we will take it out to the country, and when we win the argument in the country we will get a government that will really do it, and then we will come up against the IMF and the EEC and will have to do it all over again with them.'
•Such are examples of the limitations of Benn. His formula is almost simplistic. Get a leadership which is accountable, ensure a radical manifesto
adopted, and then, via
ignored Jaby the
have seen ORK
any B/L4
policies He made
That was about the
The switched off by person Frank Allaun.
that led out he They Royce, and they Royce workers?"
The was speak was Royce workers
were more fortunate.
When who have agenda
speak with 100 would be lobbying.
Irish campaigners
Church of England, demanding
discussed, outside' knows. Still, his 'movement outside'
argument, manifestos through to
Just deserts
the role of it is not the sole
also means, the society it presides Benn's socialist dream?
parliamentary
KICK
OUT
CORRIE the Wednesday afternoon session at the Labou choose Party conference a man tried to mount the speaker's rostrum.
quickly 'left' chair-
Allaun went on to order fringe meetings that the man be ejected from the subject. the conference. As he was being
shouted 'Rolls what about the Rolls organised
Allaun replied: Not this Party, where afternoon. There are a lot of
the case people who are sympathetic but you cannot speak.' So the Rolls
were left to lobby and chant outside the conference.
Others
conference was first issued two and crucial questions — Ireland and abortion — were not down for Executive, discussion. It seemed that they
restricted
out to
But neither the abortion nor and the
THere ner ared to accept that. The United lost Troops Out Movement held a
Monday morning that Ireland be the Labour Abortion Rights Campaign did the same on Wednesday on | and
democracy, the new Jerusalem will arrive.
To be fair, he does say that the 'movement must be prepared to come to the aid of the parliamentarians if things start to go wrong.
the impression he gives that is subservient to dependent on the House of Commons and what Labour members do in the House of Commons.
To pick one of the many available holes in his Labour governments have on numerous occasions. •they are written by the NEC or a right-wing party leader is not in that sense particularly relevant.
Mandatory re-selection and the temporarily lost cause of the election of the party leader were
Benn suggested, of ensuring that promises and party decisions were not flouted in the future. But then, as speaker after speaker Holca curing une debates on internal retorm, most of these procedures are already common currency in many social-democratic parties. For instance, is West German social democracy and
over the limit of Tony
Such questions and criticisms are not meant to belittle the achievement of the Labour left at Brighton last week. They gave Callaghan, Healey
ABORTION
COCHOOSER
AL THORI
Meanwhile, outside the conferenc....
behalf of a woman's right to
Inside the conference itself a petition signed by over 4IN conference delegates demanded that Ireland he placed on the agenda, and no less than four 110Y
held on
attended ing by Hemel HempConstituency Labour speakers argued for withdrawal.
Members of Hemel CLP were also to the fore in demanding that Ireland be discussed at the
number of times the demand for an Irish debate was taken to the conference floor,
finally, to the obvious embarrassment of the National
the was discussed for half an hour on Friday morning
Michael Foot was wheeled "terrorism' motions critical British policy in Ireland were
thanks in part to the block yotes controlled by the trade union bureaucrats.
Nevertheless, that Ireland was forced onto the conference agenda was a victory in itself,
reflected the
and Foot their just
this and Dix and Arthur Scargill,
cries of 'reformists
ignored Whether
existence of Wedgewood Benn. It is
issues'. about.
ARCA interest in Ireland within Labour's rank and file.
On abortion motion attacking the Corrie Bill was finally taken and passed.
Whether the national executive organises for the anti-Corrie demonstration on 28 October remains to be seen.
Perhaps the most heartenmoment the entire conference was on Wednesday, at the doors of the conference the Rolls Royce and abortion lobbiers chanted in unison: "Open the gates of — kick out Corrie with a three line whip'.
As Ior Ine worst moment, that was provided by Neil Kinnock, a trendy lefty MP who is more trendy than lefty.
During fund-raising speech at the Tribune rally on Wednesday night he began with a joke about 'loose women in North Wales'
When his remarks were drowned protest he complained: When I tell jokes about Jews I'm not called anti-semitic, when I tell jokes about South Africa I'm not barracked for being a racist, but why when I tell jokes about women am I called a sexist?' you ale. Mr Kinnock.
deserts With justification they can claim that they are the masters now. With a growing coming together of the Benn/Heffer wing of the parliamentary party and certain left union leaders such as Bernard
an alliance 15 being formed which cannot simply be dismissed with
For "parliamentarians'.
Although Tony Benn is each of these things
As to what else he is, former MP Tom Litterick commented: 'There's a lot of us who think in the same way, but the broad movement comes to Benn. All the reforms we are fighting for do depend, if you like, on the corporate
somebody called Anthony something he argues against and so should we... it trivialises the
It's true that it is a gross distortion to see what is going on in the Labour Party as a popularity contest between Tony Benn and Jim Callaghan. But Benn is nevertheless now the undisputed and highly popular leader of the Labour left.
One reason he is there is the wretched record of that left over the last few years, which meant that its leadership was not difficult to capture. But from now on Tony Benn needs more than words and dreams to merit that leadership. As he himself said, it is 'action' which politics is all
socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
BOOK REVIEWS
Spies, kidnappers
and plain old
strikebreakers
Bisbee 17 by Robert Houston, Writers and Readers, 1979, Hbk 15.95
Why do they mount this gatling
A thousand miles from ocean,
Where hostile fleet could never run
- ain't that a funny notion?
If you don't know the reason why
just strike for better wages,
And then my friends
You'll sing this song for ages.
THIS verse from murdered Joe Hill introduces and sets the scene tor a remarkable story about events in the border town of Bisbee, during the jingoist period that swept America in 1917. It covers only a few days in June and July, as America entered the war, but I imagine it was one of the most eventful periods in the history of working class America.
The Industrial Workers of World (Wobblies) organised
• miners In Bisbee and closed the mine with a strike. 2,000
their leaders arrested. Then most of them were kidnapped, crowded into wagons and taken across the state line.
Bawdy
The author's grandfather was a Wobbly and the book shows us the rough, bawdy company My family, , there would be no town without
says 'Mr Big'
Douglass) and the class struggle that climaxed there.
Houston tells the introducing each character separately
Dynamic of His Thought By
Revolutionary Marxism Today Hrnest Mande. New Leit
Both together for f6 plus 65p
£3.50 plus 35p p&p.
What Went Wrong by Barrett • Camden Town Hall tuston koad London NWT
Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 10
•gun
if you don't die-
Arizona
the the then
WELC
cattle
with the love-making scenes.
town WELCOM
Walter working class point of view.
The working class giants, SLUL Y by 1Iww, are all inere
The Other Bookshop
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report, 85p plus 25p p&p.
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The most comprehensive display of socialist and radical writing from Britain and abroad at present available
1979
Socialist
Bookfair
Friday, 2nd November 12.30 pm te 6.30 pm Saturday, 3rd November 11.00 am to 5.00 pm
JOE HILL was the most prolific of the Wobbly songsters and their most
famous martyr. He joined the IWW in 1911 and spent the next three years as
a migrant worker and IWW organiser.
In 1914 he was framed on a murder charge, sentenced to death and
despite a worldwide campaign was shot by firing squad in 1915. On the eve
of his execution he wrote to Big Bill Haywood, general secretary of the IWW
saying: 'Don't waste time mourning. Organise.'
and attempting to show us events! through the thoughts that they might have held. He takes a bit of licence as
mentioned.
The book is a novel — a political
but it is based on real to events that have been well-researched but still told with feeling. And from a
leaders of the period and organised in the
For example
examines class. purchasing
we
Zimbabwe, CIS
bidding Logic machines.
aided
low, and
The history executive.
Elizabeth Gurney Flynn, and Big Bill Haywood come to life again, Others, like John Reed and Jack London are
The class enemy show themselves
ruthless bunch, organised as the state machine that they control.
They are organised inside as well
outside the working class movement. ducatnerous spy posei as a working class leader the secret of this person's identity remains a mystery until the end of the book.
An excellent passage in the book
Ine minds of the middle The son company agent, young army officer, is home on leave before being drafted to France to fight in the war.
see him struggling • with conscience and his class loyalties
Another character, the Sheriff, only needs a little prodding to do the
This masters in the company. He defends the property of the ruling class although, like the working class, he hasn't a hope of sharing it. It's interesting to see how he finishes up.
Political points are made with good simple logic. 'Wouldn't you fight for the country?' , the DA asks an arrested Wobbly. 'Not me boss, I live in the city,' he replies. 'No, fight for your native land, I mean', 'I don't own no land.. , the landlords own all the land and the bosses own all the
If you own any land, I'll fight you for it."
And then: "For every dollar a man gets that he didn't earn, another man earned a dollar he didn't get.
The strike is broken by the bosses
abetted by the usual supporters of the ruling class priests, the politicians both high and
by the lack U1 "official' union support.
Wobblies fade away into books having truly earned their place as fearless fighters for their class. But one wonders if things would
gone Wobblies had their attempts to call a general strike come after the events of the October Revolution in Russia.
It is refreshing to know that even
people cataloguing events of the struggle, ensuring that some day the real history of the American workers will be published.
COLLINS, member NUM
Green and
pleasant land
Quatermass By Nigel Kneale, Arrow Books Phk 95p
IF YOU are eagerly awaiting the defeat of the ITV bosses so you can tune into the promised new sci-fi serial Quatermass Conclusion', it Judging by the book of samb Nigel Kneale, Bernard Quatermass thrilking TV audiences on the BBC in the fifties with encounters with assorted aliens, is a decidedly fascist outlook. on life in 1990s Britain
The younger Quatermass, screened in the days of CND, fought the Military for a civilian rocket programme geared to scientific and human needs. OK, so we were all naive then. Fantasy story for Quatermass which mirrors in fantasy form the political shift to the right of the anti-establishment liberals
helplessly while gangs of youth called Badders mug the elderly Quatermass.
on hand
Solapse of the shite regime but only it
with Professor Quatermass on hand to well says one character. 'What oil?' is the
some mindless alien force knocking off
about Kneale-Quatermass' notions of what is wrong
sacrifices himself but saves civilisation,
La war
the Tory way of life back to Russia. Ireland his The book ends with Quatermass' side-kick Gurov reluctant to leave his beloved Republic of Russia, rejoicing In its new-found freedoms, gladdened him too to see England recovering land with its soft green fields and quiet towns.' Ugh.
But worse is still to come: Kneale has Ireland reunited by 'Colonel Billy Corcoran' and his 'Protestant army,
with Russian march south to conquer Dublin.
I don't know debressine than John hells of Heaven' which has the IRA still fighting 2160AD Intergalactic Red Army to save us from this rubbish?
GEORGE KEREVAN
Arcane mysteries
of Einstein instein for Beginner. by Joseph Schwartz McGuinness the Writers and Readers £1.95
SOMEWHERE in this book I read that nobody understands inertia. I certainly don't, but I suffer from it a lot. Books
beginners should of useful for those like myself who have not been quick off the mark in the past - the perpetual beginner
Previous books in this series have been usetul in trying lu revolutionary politics Lenin in a ciear and entertaining way characteristics that don't easily spring al C class to mind when thinking revolutionary left. Such books can help to make revolutionaries.
But, to reverse thesis for a moment, we aiso have to try to interpret our world to change it.
are "The then forget
the conclusion
technology,
reaches,
understana are some private
Gripe
'Remember the oil?'
Relativity.
with the world than
better
with and
UNSUCCeSS theory.
bird but
weaDons' who
that's any less
Boyd's 'Rake inertia there no COTC COLIN SMITH and Michael
particularly
explain the ot Marx and
about the
Marx's tamous
Scientific research and its consequences
important socialists to understand at least in outline.
Not even David Yaffe, I suspect, would insist that everyone must fully understand why E=Mc? before they can'overthrow capitalism but we should be aware of such things. The mandarins of capitalism as well as Pol Pot would like to make obedient yahoos of us all.
It is important that we continually pry into the arcane mysteries that lurk in the physics labs. Even the most abstract theories can eventually lead to
sometimes potentially lethal as with nuclear power and the
profits -make capitalist's hands at best clumsy, at
Einstein's theories on relativity are so far innocent of such implications but
Schwartz and McGuiness physics is not what most people discuss on the bus and its language is very
Very few people are in a position to appreciate the haiku-like beauty which must be contained in some scientific
The first half of this book is by far the best. Here the authors set the scene Perhaps a bit mechanicaliy, how eve the abstract world of physics is related
particular case the needs of the growing Germany at the turn of the century.
The gripe I would have about the cartoons is that they tend to depict foreigners as quaint eccentrics, the sort who would come up with such weird theories as Einstein's Special Theory of
However, the second section I think fails. After doing quite severe damage to my brain I felt cheated. The cartoons are more of a hindrance than the help they should be and there is too much reliance in the text on mathematical equations. Other books have done this
Only the Special Theory is dealt
there nothing about Einstein's more exciting work - • the General Theory of Relativity and his
attempt at a unified
Einstein was a socialist, a very rare
practising . natural scientists, but it tended to be of a rather passive variety, if only because his life's work was elsewhere. However, when he was called upon to intervene he failed. Pogo-sticks
Finally, what I now know from this book is that there are no instantaneous : reactions and that the speed of light is constant, all of which is very reassuring
sutterers like myselt.
Einstein also shows how we inertia bound folk can make ourselves more time, except that we have to approach the speed of light to do it.
This is very paradoxical and my head hurts. No wonder Einstein, turner
about LUI SUIN pogo-sticks. He had a great face for a
Page 11 scan of this page
BOQK REVIEWS
Education in ferment Schooling the Smash St. Kids By Paul Corrigan MacMillan, £7.95
Education of the Future By S Castles and W Wustenberg Pluto, pbk £3.95, bbk £8.50
THE GUERILLA working class boys to the demands of school is the key note Corrigan's new book. mucking about class, expectations, and the semi liberated zones" of street life: football are all realistically dealt with,
oddly himself to male school students.
Corrigan aims to uncover the reality of the boy's experience in school, and at the same time to strike a blow towards demystifying sociological research. He says that he started out with liberal social democratic ideas that education was an unoualtied good and that the 'problem' lay in factors such as social disadvantage which handicapped the education of working class youth.
But he soon discovered during the year he spent with school students that the great majority would truant if they thought they could get away with it, and that nearly all the students saw school and its demands in terms of the power of others over their lives
Punishment
The education system, says. in its origins and remains today an
of class attempting IO win the minds' of the oppressed with ideas and blandishments, and failing that with DAHSINCIL. Illevitably
resistance power of teachers in the class room and to the police in the streets.
Lots of people have pointed out things like this before but the crunch comes in the concluding chapter, 'What you gonna do about it?'
Corrigan says that involvement in the struggle for democratic demands will bring working class conflict with the social shaping their lives. reasonable, but it is not followed by any
give students have successes and failures.
of SOCICLY history lessons story of you, Kids'. This resistance of
entail. of Paul
Truanting,
Contrast
jobs and
music, and
Corrigan
domination
'hearts and
Ltere to the alien
denies
relations This sounds quite
discussion of which demands would be appropriate for such a struggle, or to
school organised with
The book ends with a call to struggle to transform the consciousness in class
'ordinary folk that are no longer about Great Men and Women, but more 'the
me and the Smash St. kind of demagogy isn't really a substitute for a discussion of what socialist education would actually
The Education of the Future, by
SOIL
developing a discussion on the nature of a socialist strategy for education.
polytechnic education, which involves
capitalism between work and leisure, manual and intelectual labour. and be tween education and production. The authors explain how ideas of polytechnic education first arose in the dialogue
ideas of socialist education in Russia,
early revolutionary Russia, expressed in arguments and experiments among
and Makarenko, and the endeavours to develon education suited to "serve the people' in the course of the zig-zags of the cultural revolution and the mass voluntarist campaigns of Maoist China.
appreciation of the problems besetting hose societies and of the bureaucratic
advances made, defeated the polytech-
moves such as the demands to relate education to 'the needs of industry' in Westerf capitalist countries, and how far these have anything to do with the
breaking from blinkered academicism.
moves as an attempt to integrate young workers ideologically into the projects
is compared in the similarities between
education in West Germany, and the ideology of 'the socialist personality' in
latter the idea of the 'totally developed
transforming society has been twisted into the goal of producing docile wage labourers in remarkable conformity to the goals of the West German system. negative assessments to educational moves in the polytechnic
The first, an example of an advanced form of the experimental independent school, is that of the Tvind schools in Denmark, which are radica and anti-imperialist, but nevertheless partially state financed. They impose demands of a high order on teachers, including a requirement to work for some years in a factory. Their method is involving travel projects, direct study such as studying farming in Turkey by
peasants, and attempts to relate the experience of particular projects to the local labour movement and commun-
Compromised
The Freinet movement in France, on the other hand, 1S compromised by the imposed by the state system. embodies a set of 'polytechnic' goals and derives its importance from its status as a radical movement organised nationally within the state system movement given great impetus by the post '68 radicalisation.
The authors are quite clear that it will take revolutionary social change to effectually transform - they are equally clear that the content of education is itself a significant front of struggle which should be linked to others. It's not difficult to imagine the difference it would make in Britain if
educational ideas worked out practically and advocated
a grouping within the teachers' LICI DAVID HOLLAND
receptive mind
sefection of his writinga! Pbk 95p with the crime.
the great Blacks, unavenged which led the Soweto revolt. Nationalism
Writing "On Theses'
The latter,
toward liberation.'
broke with
(South African tion), a Black student body.
Black Consciousness
definition . Ot coincides exactly statement:
the road towards emancipation,
committed
out as a subservient being.'
Revolutionary
revolutionary and a born leader.
That he
Liberation'
June 1976.
far more committed to constraints Yet it which would
economy, private enterprise participation... Retreat
fluid and receptive.
achieved.
NIMROD 'NDABENI
Biko—a fluid and Stave Biko: 1 Wile What Like, A
IT IS now two years since Steve Biko was murdered in a South African jail. Although his family have been offered compensation — in itself an admission of guilt by the white authorities — no one has yet been arrested and charged
In this, as in other aspects, there is a remarkable parallel with Malcolm X
leader of the American whose murder also still goes
The publication of this selection of Steve Biko's writings makes it very clear why the apartheid regime wanted to get rid of him. For, just as Malcolm X became the authentic voice of Blacks in the US, Steve Biko was voicing the aspirations of the new generation of
the South African 1935, Leon 'Trotsky chastised the drafters of the theses because they regarded the siogan of a "black republic' as 'equally harmful for the revolutionary cause as is the slogan of a South Africa for the whites' wrote Trotsky is the
case of supporting complete oppression .. The former is... taking the first steps
Steve Biko took these 'first step toward liberation' when, in 1968 hr
the white-dominated "liberal'. NUSAS (National Union of South African Students) to form SASO
Students Organisa-
From 1969-72 he was active in the
of which he is regarded as the 'father'. To anyone who wants to understand this movement. these writings are a must.
Although it is probable that Biko never read these lines of Trotsky's, his
Black Consciousness with Trotsky's "Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on
you yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you
Biko was no Marxist. He addressed himself to all the black people. This fallure to understand the leading role which the black proletariat will play in the South African revolution was his greatest weakness. But Steve Biko was a
was travelling in this al. direction can be gauged from the las article in the book 'Our Strategy for European journalist in 1971, in which an interview
in which Steve Biko reflects on the new situation created in South Africa by the students uprisings in Soweto and elsewhere in
While insisting that he was still
'explore as much as possible non-violent means', he does not rule out that conditions might arise
call for a military solution: Although he declares himself for an 'egalitarian' socialist society, his definition of this is that of a mixed
"a judicious. blending of and. state
Steve Biko was in his 31st year when he was murdered; his mind was still
• The course of the struggle would undoubtedly have led him to re-evaluate the means by which the liberation of South Africa from white imperialist domination would be
Books recently received Britain and Latin America, au annual review of British-Latin American relations, 1979, published by the Latin America Bureau, , pbk £2.50.
Invaluable for those involved in or interested «datin America Capital and Culture, Germas cinema by Julia Petley, British Film Institute 1979, pbk £2.45.
Theatre of the Oppressed b 'Augosto Boal, Pluto Press 1979, pbk f2.95 hbk £6.00.
A book about theatre as a rehearsal for the revolution'. Cuba: The Second Decade edited by John Griffiths and Peter Griffiths, Readers and Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
QUESTIONING THE FRAGMENTS
Beyond the Fragments has completely sold out of its first edition. The book has become a focus for a 'feminist critique' of Leninism.
Sheila Rowbotham, Hilary Wainwright and Lynn Segal have refined some of their ideas in the debate around the book, which is to be published in a new edition by Merlin at Xmas.
Socialist Challenge put several questions to the three authors.
Is the 'socialist network' counternosed building organisation?
HW: You've coined the word 'network' which I think implies cohesion and which does not exist yet. In discussions of Beyond the Fragments we have emphasised the growth of all sorts of socialist initiatives not under the control of any one political party.
Reference is always to unity between the revolutionary groups. There is thought given to the new ways of organising which can be learnt from socialist activities outside the party tendencies. Perhaps this goes back to a common assumpuon in the eariv particularly held by the Socialist Workers Party Party, that the vacuum which opened up as the Labour leaders moved further and further to the right would be filled by the growth of a new party.
But partly because of the peculiar staying powers of the Labour Party, and partly because no revolutionary organisation near the answers on the problems we tace in modern capitalism new forms of sexual and cultural oppression, the double-edged features of the welfare state, 'It is all too often the revolutionary organisations who march by or march in with an
assumed superiority'
the new forms of capitalst crisis. stabilisation and so on — as much theoretical and practical advance has independently of the revolutionary organisations as from within them.
The result is that there are many sources of socialist initiative, organisation and theory. For example, there are very councils and combine committees: currents within the women's movement, the gay movement, tenants groups and Labour Party wards, local socialist resource centres, forums and cultural projects.
Revolutionary groups could and should be vital catalysts to developing greater cohesion and sharper responses from this heterogeneous. movement. The obstacle, though, is that all too often it the revolutionary which do the counterposing through marching by or marching in with an assumed superiority.
It's not just a matter of them fighting for their beliefs, as we all do. It is rather that they puff themselves up pretending that they and they alone are already the socialist organisation and anyone outside is 'separatist' or 'reformist'
'inactive. That's the impression you get from the SWP.
Or alternatively they accept conditions for a mass socialist party aren't yet ripe, but then they insist that only their internal discussions are sufficiently scientific to create
'The IMG has a strong
streak of that programmatic
arrogance'
the programme necessary for such a party. The International Marxist Group has streak of that programmatic arrogance.
How then do you think a mass revolutionary
will be built in Britain today? party • LS: We know that the revolutionary left has no popular base in Britain today. have to show the highest level of flexibility and creativity in beginning to build that popular
Not just the legacy of Stalinism but also the reality of the Sorter-type Russian state
Wage 11 October 1979 Page 12
talk of
revolutionals
organisation
rarely any
had anywhere
— on new technology, on
and
been made
political trades
democracy. newspapers
important part
organisations
that this goal of
that the
capitalist state.
production.
La strong facilitate the greatest
SR: I feel uneasy in • questions because 1 disagree we are going to
scope of socialist politics. authoritarianism of the helps
week so that more housework can be shared."
bourgeois ideology and convince peopie that there is no real socialist alternative to bourgeois
Most feminists reject the idea that no real change is possible under capitalism - that we can only build an organisation to smash it. We feel that the way we choose to live now is an
of the struggle to. build
•...but we reject the idea
smashing the state dictates all the structures and strategy on the way.' socialism. Many of us accept that the capitalist state will, finally, only be violently overthrown, but we reject the idea that this goal dictates all the structures and strategy on the way.
We face contradictions in dealing with the
The women's movement has been in the forefront of fighting for a new kind of a socialist alternative in the NHS and with battered women's refuges, and so have those workers who have produced plans for useful
I do not see a possibility for building a single revolutionary party in Britain today. What I do see are possibilities for creating structures that
possible revolutionary unity in practice and strive to build the belief in a possible socialist alternative to capitalism.
responding to these rundamentall with the political framework in which they are set. They present an overview which rests on a self-confirming but narrow definition of the
It becomes a block to trying to work out what we should do by sharing our experiences.
'A wages offensive is of little use to women unless it fights for more nurseries and a shorter working
They presume that someone can zoom in and make a total analysis and remain apart from the reality they are analysing. can attempt to use what I have learned from my own experience and that of through history and theory — to help develop this political process.
But this doesn't mean I or anyone else can usefully pop up as an individual feminist Jack or Jill-in-the-box with total solutions. How do you define the women's liberation movement HW: There are, on the one hand, all the local groups, • papers, and conferences based on explicit support for all the demands of the women's movement and which have basic feminist principles in common. But I would not limit it to that hard core. specific projects — women's aid centres, equal
'I do not see the possibility of building a single revolutionary
party in Britain today'
pay campaigns, NAC groups, centres, and women's liberation groups.
There are all the women activists in political parties and the women in Women's Voice, who may not have been in women's groups, but who have been influenced by and contributed to feminist struggles.
What do you think a socialist feminist practice is?
SR: I think this question can only be answered when we have a history of a socialist feminist practice.
I am personally unclear socialist feminism is a kind of political practice apart from the socialist and labour movement and the women's movement, socialist feminism is a developing approach
LS: Socialist subordination
benefit from
the moment only manifested
towards women shows draw people
devoted much migraines?
Like anyone else, I
others movement'
There are the more
membership is rising.
women's movement.
How do developing!
following points rape crisis develop
interests.
about whether
' whether Socialist Challenge
bartlace
towards socialist, labour, and feminist politics. 1 incline towards this last way of seeing it. 'All men benefit from the oppression of women,
however exploited they
are themselves'
feminists know that the OI women has become integral part of the capitalist system. All men
the oppression of women, however exploited they are themselves. And at
we are seeing an ideological backlash which aims to strengthen the sexist aspects of bourgeois ideology and re-affirn women's place in the home.
A wages offensive is of little use to women unless it fights for more nurseries and a shorter working week so that more housework can be shared. Male domination over women is no
super-exploitation of women at work, but by the ideology of sexism whereby women come to feel — as well as to be seen — as people who are inferior to men
The daily occurrence of rape and violence us that a socialist feminist practice should not centre solely on women as workers but in the home and in the minds and actions of women and men all the
Do you think the main priority for women is oroanisino in the communiy:
SR: No. A small left group may decide to make a priority of certain areas of struggle because of lack of resources, but the vital feature of the women's movement has been its capacity to
together over innumerable resentments and sufferings which were not even seen as ponical by sociansts
For example, what socialist paper ever
to the subject recent feminist pamphlet on migraines which came out of a women and health conference has stimulated a tremendous
It is in the community that many women are most active today, fighting nursery school and hospital closures. I object to the argument of Lindsay German of the SWP that the women's movement relates to women where chev are
...the only way women
in unions will get
stronger is if they are
supported from the
outside by a strong and
independent women's
weakest, in battered wives' (sic) homes or rape
rather than where they strongest, in unions and tenants' associations, In fact. women are not strong in unions todav and we are not getting any stronger, even if our
I believe that the only way women in unions will get stronger is if they are supported from
La stole independent
you see the women's movemen
LS: The women I work with agree on the
- that the movement will autonomous, by strengthening regional co-ordination between different feminist activities and campaiens. Bi realising the strength of the Tory attack on women and working with the rest of the left and the labour movement to defend
By demanding that men change themselves and their relation to children and women now. By realising that the ways in which we as women have learned to care for and nurture others is a better way for all people to relate to each other than the competitive, aggressive, self-centred way in which men behave.
And by trying to strengthen our confidence. creativity, and co-operation as women.
welcomes contributions
Page 13 scan of this page
political prisoners released
By Gregor Benton THE extraordinary news has reached Europe that Zheng Chaolin (Cheng Chao-lin), a leader of the Chinese Trotskyists, was freed on 5 June this year, together with his wife Wu Jingru (Wu Ching-ju), herself revolutionary, who voluntarily shared his last seven years of captivity. were allocated a flat in the city centre by the Shanghai Municipality.
Zheng Chaolin was member both of the Chinese CP and of its relatively influential Trotskyist offshoot. He has spent nearly halt his life in jail, first as a revolutionary' under the Kuomintang and then TrOm 1952 'counter-revolutionary' under the CP Traditionally August Blanqui, spent 33 of his 75 years behind bars, has been considered 'record-holder' for political prisonership. Now Zheng has beaten that record by one year. Infamous
Zheng's case was recently taken ur by Amnesty International, at the time of the campaign Amnesty had no firm proof that he was still a prisoner or even that he was still alive. They were also unaware that Zheng's 72-year-old wife, Wu Jingru, joined her husband in 1972, after he was transferred to a labour-camp in Pudong, on the east bank Huangpu River in Shanghai. Earlier Zheng had occupied a cell in the infamous Ward Road Jail, as it used
Shanghai International Settlement.
In Pudong Zheng's improved He
sullcwliat. greater freedom (including his own TOD an Cole cren cala al income from teaching fellow camp inmates, although both he and Wu suffered persecution when the Gang of Four was at its peak. wu's reason applying authorities to join her hüsband was partly that she was too ill to attend to herselt: beine blund and para vsed Her health has recently worsened, and she frequently collapses.
The tragedy of this old couple is all the more appalling when one learns 'something about their past.
Emigré
Zheng Chaolin entered revolutionary politics in Paris after World War
when he joined with other young Chinese émigres to tound the tamous French section of the Chinese CP. Among Zheng's Paris comrades were Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping; (later foreign minister in Peking) and Li Weihan (later head of the party's united-front work).
Zheng, who was born in 1901, went to France as a worker-student in 1920, and in 1923
was Chinese to Study in Moscow at the University for the Toilers of the East. In 1924 he returned to become secretary of the propaganda department editor of Guide Weekly, party publication.
During the summer of 1927 Zheng was appointed to the important Hubei Provincial Committee of the which was directly responsible for leading the revolutionary struggles in the Yangtse tri-city of Wuhan during those stormy months. Zheng was also among the fewer than delegates to the CP's August emergency conference, which represented a decisive turning-point in party affairs.
Among party workers in was Wu Jingru. At the age of 19 Wu started work in the party's agitation
WHAT'S LEFT •LEEDS Hands Off Ireland! Rally
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TEESSIDE SC group Autumn Fayre, 10am, Sac
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Zheng Chaolin and Wu Jingru after iheir release THIRTY YEARS AGO the partisans led by Mao Tse-tung
They proclaimed the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. After a protracted struggle spanning two decades, the Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of Mao and Liu Shao-chi and the Chinese armies under the command of Chu Teh, Ho Lung and Lin Piao had achieved their objective.
The new republic deströyed landlordism in one błow. It dismantled and destroyed the decaying bourgeois state of Chiang Kai-shek. A decisive factor in the victory of Mao was the role played by the CCP's guerrilla bands in the war against the Japanese imperialists. anti-Japanese struggle that the CCP emerged as a national politico-military force. It was during this period that it supplanted Chiang Kai-shek and was seen by the masses as the only force capable of achieving national emancipation
regime had destroyed landlordism and capitalism. But its Stalinist parentage meant that it was congenitally incapable of establishing a regime based on proletarian democracy and soviet power. Furthermore, the Maoists ensured that the working class in Peking, Shanghai and Canton remained immobile during and after the seizure of power. This commandist approach was institutionalised by the Chinese Communist Party.
Thirty years after the revolution, China is today racked by a growing political crisis. It is not possible to discuss the reasons for this here (weshall do so at length in these pages in the near future). On the international front Chinese foreign
propaganda department and Zheng (without formal ceremony or registration, as was then the fashion among radical youth in
The defeat of 1927 led many of the dwindling band of Communists in the
to question the parLy and of the Moscow-based Comintern behind it.
Or send any books Books for Southern Atrica, Bo:
Ilc. socans cuarence ro dox su, dolnol
OLDHAM Socialist Challenge group meeting:
the lessons of 1972 for toda Mike Smith (ex-convenor, al Sergeant-at-Arms pub, ht realit Chapel Nicaragua). Plus stide lo cl . SuDm, ollanla vuu, first work: day schools organised by Scottish Homosexual Rights Group tor men ana women acuve i irade umon work hekets ow ge oo ene ac vc can burgh Trades Union Centre, Sun 28 Oct. For full
Thirty years after the Chinese revolution
One of the worlds oldest
country', Pinochet,
movement.
Origins
It was during the In Moscow itself a Trotskyist current developed students, about half of them.
Many of these Chinese Trotskyists were arrested labour camps, but a handful made their way back to China and took with them secret documents outlining the views and
stone 38394 (day)
BENEFIT
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NATÍONAL DEMONSTRATION! cauc tor rsa kepuocan yrisoners. Drs wl f Iteland. Oxford. Sat 20 Oct. Assemble Zor
Street, off Cowley avallable. Evening social. Organised by Sinn HULL UNIVERSITY FI Society and Hut
Middleton Hall, llc ti.
nui uiversily, Koao. Hul. rr wcr at s 43om au wercone
Challenge, Hull 441922 LOOKING for a challenge? Thanks to an Arts
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policy is dominated by the old themes of 'socialism in one
which has led to grotesque alliances with Mobutu and numerous other dictators. alliance with the United States against the USSR is being modified, but has already led to the virtual collapse of Maoism as a current inside the international labour
Internally the central thrust of every mass upsurge, regardless of its origins, has been the need for socialist democracy (1956, 1966-69, 1976, 1979). The programme of the Fourth International thus acquires a burning relevance in China (oday, many of Trotsky's writings are already being circulated. Some of the more recent articles and books by leaders of the Fourth International [Ernest Mandel, Livio Maitan, F Wong) have also been translated into
The recent release of Zheng Chaolin and Wu Jingru, discussed below by Gregor Benton, must be seen in the context of the increasing de-Maoisation which is taking place. The political evolution of China is nowhere near ended. All the indications are that the level of political awareness within the masses is higher than anywhere in Eastern Europe or the USSR. A political revolution in China could transform world polities. A victory for the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky would mean a return to internationalist politics and socialist democracy. should not be too surprised if China sees mass upheavals and soviet power before the USSR.
Opposition. In China they won the support of a large number of party (Chen Tu-hsiu), the founder of the Chinese Communist movement. declared themselves for the Trotskyist line, and were among the eighty-one signatories of the political platform of the Chen Duxiu group in 1929. After
ty orkers n nealre need socials access singing nertorm shows on women. racism. control for trade unionists, women's groups Write ouse, Holbein Plac POW Ibein Hou PERSON into collectives a mixed collective running a community cafe and .reche wnb crOCu SNODAYC MCC Socus yuu Gucol mind low wages, has lots of energy and possibl some collecave experience pomarily involved wiln tne organisanon dao running of the shop, but we hope that they wil also be prepared to work on the cafe dur herord.
Cottingham Oxford 48249 SocIalist SPorters Revol tion in ran Tues 16 bet. T.90 SPARTACIST League
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Road, Oxford. Democracy) and Comunice
Strugele Left 'Smash H-Block'. Film: "The
their expulsion from the officia
directed their energies towards building an independent Trotskyist tendency
In May 1931 both Zheng and Wu were arrested by the Kuomintang
most other Trotskyist leaders. Wu was released after several
of interrogation and Zheng was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
In 1938, after completing seven years of his sentence, Zheng was freed from prison during a general amnesty proclaimed after the outbreak of war
His condition was extremely weak, and he retired for a while to a village in Anhui.
After Zheng's recuperation, the couple moved back to Shanghai in 1940, where they actively participated
the underground anti-Japanese resistance. Wu headed one of the two
schools run Dy the Trotskyists (under the very noses of
Japanese occupiers) in the workers' district of west Shanghai.
After the war Wu continued he educational activities, while Zheng directed his main effort to editing The New Banner, a fortnightly revolutionary journal published in Shanghai
In 1949, after a split in the Chinese Trotskyist movement, Zheng became leader of the International Workers Party. Its membership never exceeded
and its life was cut short not long after the CP's victory on a national scale in the same year.
friends the government, recognising his considerable talents, contacted him through Li Weihan, who knew Zheng in Paris and urged him to compromise with them. but heretused
On the night of 22 December 1952 Chinese Communist security forces
DELWCCI Trotskyists and - among them Zheng in a nation-wide raid After a secret trial, Wu was sentenced
paralysed in both legs. Fortunately she was given a room by one of her old neohbours in shanghai. and exister on small sums of money remitted to her by friends in Hong Kong.
Of the fate of the Trotskyists other than Zheng and Wu, some of whom
branches of Amnesty
quarter of a century
Communists? He stood accused of no crime other than his political beliefs. He had devoted his whole adult life to the service of the revolution. His friends knew him as a gentle man, more a martyr than a
Pretensions
Xiaoping waited until his old friend's
sapped by age and sickness before intervening to secure
course pretensions of the post-Mao leaders to represent socialist democracy and legality, although Deng's action is to
De r non Roni Aner Hal Chae
"Willesce 80p Victory. to the Blanketmen Workers Revolution in Iran meetings For Ipm, Wed 17 Oct, Committee Room 2, Guild o Students, Birmingham Uniyersity; 7.30pm, Fr 19 Oct, koom i), Central Hall, corporanor Street, Birmingham 4 (for any other information
'Can the Labour Speakers Schofield Can Cen Labour Part politica Room, 1 Thorpe Close (under Westway flyover) • 1 UC. 23 Oct OUlIL in the MCCUIN
Highfields Community Centre. Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Carter fears second Cuba
Hugo Blanco's impressions of Nicaragua
By Martin Meteyard
military task force in the Caribbean.
region.' He also
these exercises regularly from now on.'
includes assault ships. Reality
with Soviet troops.
Nicaragua.
cronies. It raised the prospect of a new
quo which ensures imperialism's profits.
As Carter himself said:
breakdown of a common effort to preserve peace' Kremlin
the "peaceful: debate to add to his lengthy lișt of failures. HUGO BLANCO, Die best-known revolutionary Latin America, visited recently.
*I have come to Nicaragua to learn', Blanco said upon arrival on 29 August. Blanco, who was a deputy Peru's Constituent Assembly until its dissolution workers, leaders while visiting a number cities Nicaragua, Managua, Granda, and Chinandega.
During Blanco also gathered information to help Peruvian workers and peasants taunch a solidarity campaign with the
Fred Murphy asked him what were his main Nicaraguan revolution.
FORTUNATELY, the revolut-ionary process is forward. In Peru, we had feared that it was stagnating, or even slipping
that's seemed on surface, provisional government was formed that included some bourgeois figures.
Arms
In addition, the call for turning in arms appeared to be a negative sign. From our experience revolutions, it was those who wanted to put a brake on the revolution or turn it back who followed such a policy.
But seen firsthand, it is clear that the situation is much more optimistic. At the moment, real power rests in the hands of the FSLN.
On the question of learned that counter-revolutionary Somocista bands still throughout the country. Naturally, if Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979
THE US-manufactured 'crisis' over the presence of Soviet troops in Cubareached a new stage last week with President Carter's announcement that he is establishing a full-time
Carter said that this would allow the US to 'respond rapidly to any attempted military encroachment in the
Washington would 'expand military manoeuvres in the region. We will conduct
Underlining the hypocrisy of all the US statements about 'foreign troops' and 'military encroachment', one of the first of these exercises will take place on Cubaitself! Two thousand Marines will stage a landing at the US base at Guantanamo Bay backed up by a naval task force that
In reality, the reason for this 'crisis' has nothing to do
It can be spelled out in one word:
The revolutionary overthrow of Somoza by an armed and organised people scared the pants off Carter and his
mass upsurge throughout Central America and the Caribbean which could deal savage blowsto US strategic interests in the area.
This is why the Cuba crisis' has been so closely linked to the question of the SALT treaty with the USSR. Nicaragua isa threat to detente, to the maintenance of the world status
"The bicatest, danger to American security is certainly not the 2,000 or 3,000 Soviet troopsin Cuba. The greatest danger to all the nations of the world — including the US and the Soviet Union - is the
Carter's aim is to isolate the Nicaraguan revolution by stopping other outside aid and using the promise of US aid to blackmail the Sandinista leadership into reaching an accommodation with imperialism. He rightly calculates an
policies of the Kremlin bureaucrats will make them see things in the same light.
Buthis current moves are above alla sign of weakness — offear at thesolidarity mobilisations which the Nicaraguan revolution can inspire among the downtrodden masses of Latin Americ and the world. And those mobilisations, if pressed home, can make sure that Cartersimply has another
of the just anyone can leaders in Somocistas Nicaragua attack people. is correct that
the militias Somocista bands. interviewed Sandinista abstractions, of came up in the including Nicaragua.
Masaya, Peasants Nicaragua,
for Agrarian Reform (INRA).
of the Somocista landowners, non-somocista stolen land from moving state.
how gains, such as the two months' since that the demanding.
the government,
other lost wages.
Unions
There has been a big unionisation Workers Federation (CST). also progressive.
arms,
attended do.
But Page 14
Florida 2 US
Key West
Havana
Cienfue MILES
KM 300 The US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba carry arms, the can use those arms to Therefore, we think it the people remain armed, but in an organised way both through the people's army and
— in order to disarm the
These are concrete questions, 40|
and that is how they concrete case of
towards
In the countryside, we were able to see advances in the agrarian reform, initiated by the Nicaraguan Institute
The peasants have taken over the land of the big landlords. And not simply the
but also of landlords who had the peasants or occupied land that belonged to the
The working class has also won
pay workers had been he workers wanted to be paid for the two months that they were on strike; the last two months of the war. his measure was taken by
which demanded that the bosses pay the workers their
wave 01 in the Sandinista
There are many other advandes of the working class that could be mentioned. Many of the complaints of the workers are being
unfortunately, of
A Miami
namas Guantanam Jamaica
300 OPERATIONS Nicaragua's industry has crippled by Somoza's bombing raids. Production is at a standstill. The war was very brutal, and Nicaragua is now in a very difficult economic situation. Imperialism is trying to use this to strengthen the bourgeois sectors. Government
I believe that the Sandinista LUCINCTL truly forward. But it faces many problems and the advance of the revolution
guaranteed. It is possible that the capitalist sectors will grow stronger.
One big weakness of Nicaraguan revolution is the lack of
of the Sandinistas are aware of this and are trying to encourage mass organisation
all areas, including the army, workers, peasants, youth, residents the neighbourhoods. Naturally, it is more difficult to confront the bourgeoisie as long as the people are unorganised. Sandinistas
The efforts of the Sandinistas to organise the people show that they are interested in moving forward. Even if we may not agree with all the tactics
are used, clear that the Sandinistas are genuinely in favour of organising the masses and therefore of pushing the revolution forward, since the organisation of the masses is the best guarantee of progress.
This shows us that the Sandinistas — even if we don't agree with all their tactics - are not trying to halt the revolution, to protect capitalism, but to advance the revolution.
Even in relation to their tactics, it is very difficult to criticise them without knowing the actual situation.
I LANT I C
OCEAN
A US Naval
Base
Dominican Rep.
Santo
Domingo been I believe that the progress of the
revolution depends to a great extent on the attitude of the rest of the world towards Nicaragua. For that reason, I think that revolutionists throughout the world have a major responsibility. That is to initiate a broadly Nicaragua solidarity volving not only revolutionists. but everyone who agrees Nicaraguan people should not starve to death as a result of Somoza's barbarısm.
yet Aid
We must call on all humanity to the help save the Nicaraguan people, so
that Nicaragua can really become the The master of its own fate.
We must also launch a campaign to prevent any military attacks against Nicaraguan people, and already suffered so much as a result of
Somoza's genocide. • And we must fight against any indirect attack. on the people, such as the miserly way which aid is being doled out, aid that Nicaragua needs in great quantities. Countries that produce as much food as the United should send aid quickly and directly the Nicaraguan something that has not happened yet. Instead they send promises. Hypocrisy They sent aid to Somoza - to help him kill the Nicarguan people now they are withholding aid that could help the Nicaraguan people live It necessary international campaign that can force an end to this hypocrisy and provide open and direct aid to the Nicaraguan people.
sentence
charges
TRACHRI
save the
San
Juan to Ayatollah
Qom, Mehdi
Puerto
Rico Tehran
Avenue,
Bahro:
Critique
CRITIQUE
FOLLOWING 'International London's Ocloder
the work conference.
ThaT IS
will • based campaign in-
further that the campaign.
general
anniversary of the
concerned paign.
who nave
Nicaraguan Thores
in
£3.50 subscribers, States and Canada employed).
latest — and
to build an
should
TGWU and Iran
A COPY of the petition circulated at the TUC Congress calling for the immediate withdrawal of the death
against Iranian Trotskyists and the dropping of the
against them been returned by the Transport & General Workers Union with the signature of
organiser Ron Todd and twelve other delegates and officers.
Another boost to the campaign to lives these and other militants in Iran has come with the circulation of an appeal to Labour MPs against Khomeini's programme of executions by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. This has so far been signed by Tony Benn and 28 other MPs, including eight members of the Labour Party NEC.
Protest telegrams should be sent
Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran; and to Prime Minister Bazargan, Tehran, Iran. Copies should be sent to the
daily Baamdad, Hafez 24 Zartoshtian Alley, Tehran, Iran; to Ettela'at, Khayam
Tehran, Iran; Kayhan, Ferdowsi Avenue, Tehran, Iran; and to Socialist Challenge.
conference to be held on 12-13 Oct
CONFERENCE ON BAHRO, 12-13 OCTOBER
the success of the Congress For and About Rudolf Bahro' last November in West Berlin, which was attended by 3,000 people, the journal Critique is organising an 'International Confer. ence on the Socialist Alternative and
Conway Hall on 12-13
In the words of the organisers, this will he 'very much a continuation of
of the West Berlin Speakers like Ernest Dutschke, André Gunder Frank, Ernesto Laclau and Michel Raptis guarantee that there Will be plenty of interesting debates, but a look at the agenda reveals little
directly connected with discussion of Rudolf Bahro and his book, The Alternative.
But this should not detract from the importance of the questions that
actually be debated the conference, and from the fact that it will provide a welcome opportunity to
defence
A delegation from the conference will, in fact, visit the East German embassy on the first day to deliver an appeal for Rudolf Bahro's release and
for political prisoners on the occasion of the 30th
GDR. One of the conference workshops will also be
with the defence cam• And a new pamphlet on the Bahro case, produced by the Rudolf Bahro Defence Committee, will be on sale for the first time.
Registration starts at 9.30am on Friday, with the opening address by
Medveder 10.30am.
Saturday's sessions begin at 10am. The conference fee is £2.50 per day (or
for both days for Critique students and un
Intercontinental Press
combined wit ›Y Cl EXTENSIVE coverage of develop. ments in Nicaragua continues in the
issue of the weekly Intercontinental Press/Inprecor (Vol 17, No 36). Individual copies cost 30p plus 10p post, but subscriptions work out much cheaper at Ell for a year (48 issues), fó for six months (24 issues), or £3 for 10 weeks. Cheques or POs
made 'Intercontinental Press' and sent to: IP/I, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP.
Page 15 scan of this page
There's goid in them thar guts external
By Johann Schweik PARISH churches which need a new steeple tend to go in for events like fêtes, jumble sales, lotteries and straightforward. appeals to. faithful. Once upon a time, Britain's hospitals were funded in this way. That time is also now.
It isn't simply for those 'little extras', such as TV sets, that National Health Service hospitals are increasingly turning to charity.
The cash limits on health introduced by the last Labour government and now dear to the hearts of the Snatcherites mean that hospital administrators are going cap in hand for a few extras such equipment, and the routine repair of wards.
In short, the Tories' closely approximates to: "Let it bleed'. have another policy for health: 'Let the cash register tinkle'. The Tories are consistent, for the first leads inexorably to the second — tens of millions of casualties littered in between, namely working class people.
The plan is simple enough, as the balance sheets of the British Association show. This outfit, the largest of the health insurers, had a subscription income last year of £82m. It paid out £50.7m in benefits. Eureka!
Trick
The trick is to mainly insure those are groups and least likely treatment. For the over 65s, the chronic sick, and the disabled the premiums are much steeper. The mentally ill and pregnant women can forget it. In other words, those most in need of health care can make do with the NHS, which is falling to pieces. Oh, sorry.
Who gains? companies for a start, and they now cover 2.4m people in Britain, 25 per cent more than in 1971. 'hen there's the orivate such as American Medical International, which is a multi-national with Britain, Switzerland, and Austria.
And there is also those esteemed members of the medical profession, most particularly a large
SS 1979 style
A SMALL pointer to life under the
Tories. An unemployed reader who
went to claim social security benetits
in North London was told that in
addition to his rent book he would
need a letter from his landlord in
order for SS to cover his rent.
The reader, surprised
demand, explained that his landlord
wasn't at all forthcoming
providing this kind of evidence.
fact, it was extremely difficult even to
get a rent book out of him.
The officer was
Finally, the reader suggested that a
visitor should be sent to his flat to
confirm the facts about his claim. The
officer went off for advice, and came
back to say: 'Sorry, but the cuts have
meant that we're short of visitors.'
All of which suggests that
should oppose the Civil Service cuts,
but it would help if the Civil Service
unions took up a fight for claimants'
rights.
Oxfordshire
nurseries
By Annie Pile
OXFORDSHIRE county council is
not finding it so easy to carry out its
policy of closing all nurseries in the
Photo: MICHAE area.
A lobby of the council's education committee last Thursday was joined by teachers, after Oxford city NUT had voted unanimously for a half-day
strike in opposition to the
In Burford and Witney, the NUT has voted support for the campaign and will have a half-day strike on 13 November, meeting of the county council, when the decision on education cuts will be taken.
Tories against health
the ambulances, medical
policy for the NHS They
with some
United Provident to recure
The private health insurance
medical companies,
hospital projects in
Cutting up rough
supporting the campaign.
been petitioning nurseries.
yesterday,
by this Illogical axe
about In Hospital in
insistent.
save f6m.
we planned
•TO
the date of the next full
number of consultants, who will give an arm and a leg fours, that is] for a weekend villa in France and a Rolls Royce.
The result is that by March of this year there were 122 private hospitals in Britain dealing with acute cases.
All these doctors of death rubbed their hands when the Snatcherites took over in Westminster, for they, of course, are the merchants of 'free enterprise'. 'We intend to facilitate the wider use of private medical care, the Tories said in the Queen's speech.
So what are they up to? The Tories want to
she recent royal Commiston, on the NES.
the recent koval Commission They've said they will abolish the Health Services Board, which was set up to phase out the 3,000 pay beds in NHS hospitals.
They will make life richer for the consultants,
Pals
The CPSA in Oxford is, also facilities
As well as lobbying the meetings mentioned above, the campaign has
in defence of the Oxford Trades Council held a public meeting on the cuts
and has called . way. demonstration for next Sunday.
By NUPE members at the Bolingbroke
SW London staged one-day strike on Tuesday against the conversion of the general hospital to exclusively treating old people, as part of the area health authority's plan to
Don't Moke vur Kids
Show Islington Council
Fight for more money from
central Goverment-not Cut
GO in Islington North London: playgroups,
childminder centres, Mother and Toddler clubs [sic],
and more besides, because the Labour council aims to cut
52 per cent of its grant aid to under fives' projects.
Six hundred local people, many of them parents and
young children, marched against this axe last Saturday,
on the
lan Scott, a full-time official for NUPE, says: 'Management's propos
are completely illogical.
Bolingbroke has no specialised
geriatrics and carrying out important surgical work for the community.
"The area health authority should keep St Benedict's in Tooting open Jump for geriatrics and stop playing with people's lives in such an irresponsible Nottingham lobby
Brian Simister, vice-president, Nottingham Trades Counci
LOCAL authority union officials in Nottingham who went to see the Tory county council about its proposed cuts were not entirely happy with outcome of the discussions.
• the Way!
October at 6.30pm,
of the world'.
by making it easier for them to work both within the NHS and do private hospitals which are axed from the NHS will be handed over to the private sector.
How do we save the NHS, and our lives? By opposing all the cuts and service jobs. By fighting for the NHS to provide facilities which depend on charities or private hospitals, such as day-care abortion units and kidney machines.
By taking direct action to convert pay beds into NHS beds, and preventing the building of any more private hospitals. By demanding an immediaté stop to unions such as the electricians' supporting private medical schemes, and that the whole of the private sector be brought into the NHS.
For if we don't, the doctors of death will be waiting for us.
The result — a lobby of the county hall on 16 October, from 12.15 to
The 2.15pm. Virtually every public sector
union will be supporting it, calling on is the Tories to halt the cuts now. Several thousand are expected on the lobby.
fees
MANY overseas students at North London Polytechnic this term have not been able to pay tne extornona : and racist. increase in tuition fees, which have risen by a third to f1,026, in line with government policy.
They have been temporary students, paying fees for a month only. The students' the Poly meets in a fortnight to decide what action to take.
The next council meeting is to be lobbied, on
Islington Town Hall, to be told by Islington's mayor that the cuts were 'the way
London N1. Details from Maggie McDonald 01-278 1713 [day], 01-278 2682 [eve].
Our
resource.
And members
John
as well as jobs.
Empire
And small
claim to defending health particular faith
people presently
the Foreign
implies
23 years ago.
distant
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Portugal was
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the way,
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union at
of Hally
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defend jobs. remoyed.
movements.
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Shah's rule,
in to
16
Upper St,
KHUY
Aunty
By Geoffrey Sheridan IT SEEMS that all across the globe tears are being shed at the Tories proposed 10 per cent cut in the budget of BBC External Services of Britain relayed to foreign parts
• Wrote Chris Hitchens in the New Statesman: It may seem odd to some people that a government pledged to
"Britain's standing • In the world" should commit such an act of vandalişm against a precious national
the two unions whose threatened by the the NUJ and ABS — have risen to this latter day
Bullism, launching joint *Hands off the BBC campaign in order to defend the 'national interest
The Tories evidently have a better appreciation of the shrunken role of British imperialism than those who
have abandoned
Fact one: BBC External Services which began in 1932 as the Empire Service Broadcasts, is funded from
Office's 'information vote. Fact two: BBC management is always at pains to deny that this
Many governmentai control over editorial policies. Yet the only example ever wheeled out to support this contention is the reporting of the Suez invasion, which occurred a mere
With daily broadcasts in 38 languages, few in Britain can claim to know just what is being beamed into
transistor But incidents which from time to time shed some light on the goings-on at
Bush House suggest that the British
well served by External
Censorship
The censorship and sacking of Jorge Ribeiro and Antonio Cartaxo when the challenge to capitalism
at its height in 1975 showed that it was acceptable to have
when right-wing dictatorship was in power,
once it was overthrown (Trade unionists at Bush House, by
did absolutely nothing to defend Ribeiro and Cartaxo).
No doubt BBC External Services provides a less biased, or at any rate a differently biased news service thar
the repressive regimes around the world, but that is not the
which the labour movement should be called on to Monitoring
It was British imperialism which helped to instal and maintain many of those regimes, and it is in the interests
working class that they are
From this consideration, as well as
that of press freedom, the opposition
to the cuts in External Services should
be based on the demand for full access
to de given to namona. hberatiol
Left-wing East Euro dissidents should also be
provided with access.
During the dying • days of the the BBC allowed the
Iranian embassy in London to lister
External Service broadcasts
through a direct link to Bush House
• If the BBC can be so courteous to
the likes of the Shah, it can do the
same for everyone else who wishes to
what the Foreign Office's
Aunty is up to. Monitoring facilities
should be made readily available
Socialist Challenge 11 October 1979 Page 15
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Tariq Ali fined
TARIQ Ali, the editor of Socialist Challenge, is the latest to be convicted in the Southall show trials arising from the police •riot on Tuesday, Ali For obstruction, plus
appealing the conyiction.
Stipendiary McDermott ignored evidence from a police surgeon that Ali had suffered head injuries compatible with a blow
heads above 'The new Fund Drive starts this
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On Monday, McDermott handed out a one-month jail sentence for "threatening behaviour'. For the latest on the Blair Peach murder, see page 3.
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