Socialist Challenge No. 119, 25 October 1979
The scan: sc-n119-oct-25-1979.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge
DEMONSTRATE SUNDAY 28 OCTOBER/ASSEMBLE 12.00 SPEAKERS CORNER, HYDE PARK
Coachesto London
LIVERPOOL-Special train leaves from Lime Street Station at 7.30am. Tickets from the
from Universitysteps at 7.30am. Trades Council, Victoria Street.
LEEDS - Coach leaves - Coach leaves from Town Hall at 11.30am.
HARLOW.
Coach leaves from Gloucester Tech at 7.30am.
GLOUCESTER - Coach leaves from Waverley Bridge at 10.30pm, Sat 27th.
EDINBURGH-
BRIGHTON - Coach leaves St Peters Church at H1am.
NORWICH
BARNSLEY — Coach leaves Railway Station at 7.30am.
PORTSMOUTH - Coaches leave Polytechnic Student Union at 9am. NEWCASTLE - Train leaves from Central Station at 6.30am. NOTTINGHAM - Coach leaves from Salutation Inn, 8am.
- Coach leaves from Theatre Royal at 8am.
SCOTLAND - the STUC has booked
BEDFORD — Coach leaves St Paul's Square at 10am.
FIGHT CORRE'S ABORTION BILL
BIRMINGHAM - Coaches leave Hall of Memory at 9am. a train leaving from Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow on Sat night. Book through your trade union branch or contact Joanna Blithman, c/o Women's Aid on 031-229 2656. SWANSEA - Coach leaves Central Library at 7.30am.
SHEFFIELD - Coach leaves from Pond Street at 8.30am.
WAKEFIELD - for details of coach phone Wakefield 890649.
ES
No. 119 25 October 1979 20p
CANTERBURY - Coach leaves University at 10am.
COVENTRY Coaches leave CRAWLEY — Coaches leave from
phone Middlesbrough 87616.
CHELTENHAM-Coach DERBY - Coach leaves the
Page 2 scan of this page
'Ifelt that my body had
OUR POLICIES
'aits ano ine drade •milln* aro Hul us tae Harker apitalsi class
alonge belieres thar
• donars aocialiss are:
• I. huild broad-based elass demedle lengenoes in oppaxon
laborar iossepent. These should
non-esclusive arouping together militants holding a mide range of political views.
To beyin to tight lor the unified demorratir resmlutionary socialist organisation which can, through
application ot united tront hran lo be thousands "EPrISO workers engaged in strugkles.
ruch un organisation should he hared on the understanding that:
The serhs lu unite the fight of
Tworher against »ith that of ether oppressed layers 01 S00I01 "omen, blach people. Lil! struggling lor liberation. This socialism can only he ithiered hs creating new organs if power and deleating with all neccars mean the power of she capitalis sale
,dur tacialiona
Ihan what evisis in Britain irday. with full rights tor political parties and currenes that do not tuhe up arme against the seralis stan. The Mtalinist models
in the TEsR and
e ll g :li Palern Parape hise diseredited me alesin ee fe esta el millions of
Ironghom the wirld.
HaTali i He are appored to them and will biTer tuli "pport io ill those fighting tor escialist demecraer.
, I he imeresis of warker, and
on a varld arale. d apitalism tas nol created d morld marhtl. il has created
Class unil! international ale, This unit! will in the long run be drei ist in deltalinu both the insperiadist reyimes in the Hest and the borulat dietatorships they ustain in Latin Imerica. Africa and tria.
In Britain il implies demanding the immediate withdrawal British Iroope trom Ireland and Jelting the Irish perple determine ner osn lulilre
Hu Y omunis parties in trape are int erisia. Veither
le bra bla es wing nart an micaningtu! •fraltys lor alerthrun ut the «aptalisl state. den revalerimars wcialist parties
inore neveryary betert. ( ondition, locay
filsonrable than over proveding thres decades. But such HaTlIL's t'an built rejecting sectarianivm and internal democracs not as a luvurs but ava sital necenit!. This means The right de organne tactions and fendenct
H ron a..er with tbrst principles andl n;smll " 10 he involved deritirs hy Gocialist Challenge supprrters in your area, fill in the torm belon and send if to us.
Him interested internation about aclisitier in my altu « Iwould libe additional literature andi enelere sp do coper enslo. (belefe it net applicabde)
Address.
EDITORIALI
ihr losdes contronting
in the
John Corrie's Bill to amend character. virtually axe
estimate is remarkable achievement.
and abortion would
of members,
oyudic.
secialism
the hasses
their
months but called for free succession
Members' Bills
all her own fertility is now.
Parliament on 8 February.
Readers
Herld
come up with is how ПОГ words 'grave',
the
Never of abortions by two-thirds are the
like.
secing
This is her
66
had
more
menstrual cycle.
borror.
was on the unprotected intercourse.
prescribed a diaphray
to abortion rights.
THE TUC has told the press that it expects up to 40,000 people on Sunday's demonstration against
— or more precisely to - the 1967 Abortion Act. approximately right, it will be a
Not so many years ago, a woman (or come to that, a man) who stood up ad her union branch meting to call for support against restrictions on
with looks astonishment and howls of derision.
Those attitudes have changed, not substantially but enough for the TUC, representing 12.5m trade Sunday's mareh. Len Muray, ils general seceretary, will be among the speakers at the rally in Trafalgar
This opposition to Corrie hasn't come about through some far-sighted liberal mindedness on the. part of the trade union leadership. It has been won by the patient and persistent activities of thousands of women and men on stręet corners, in meeting rooms, at conferences, and through public protests
It is this activity which has built for Sunday's march, and not just in the past few
Never since the women's movement abortion demand, of MPs have tried to add restrictions on abortion tbrough their
The National Abortion Camprign has to take much of the credit for making millions of people realise that the time has come to stop talking about abortion in furtive whispers, and thøt the time when every woman should demand the right to control
To the Campaign Against Corrie should go the credit for mobilising much of the opposition to the present Bill, expected to receive its third reading in
will not need to be told that when everyone has gone home on Sunday the battle will be far from over. Jobn Corrie can cornt on the most vicłous Tory government this side of the '30s
been invaded'
ONE statistic that Corrie & Co won't
many of the hundreds of thousands of women who have obtained an abortion over the past 12 years would have been denied one under Corrie's proposed carve up of the 1967 Abortion Act.
The answer is that by adding the
"serious', and "substantial' to the kind of risk to a woman's health that would justify a termination of pregnancy, the Bill's proposals would reduce the number
abect that's quite apart from Corrie's plans to axe the abortion charities and the
SARAH ROELOFS is among those who have the existing legislation to thank for their safe, legal abortion.
of how happened and what it was like.
I was nine weeks' pregnant when 1 had the abortion. I at Professor Huntingford's day-care clinic at the Mile End Hospital in Tower Hamlets.
I was lucky to have a regular
knew was nurse pregnant when my period was a week late. A pregnancy test at six wecks was positive. My immediate reaction was
Since I was 17 I had been terrified of becoming pregnant, even though I
Spill. I had never had After nine years I came off the pill, and the FPA
Parlament is nearly deaf
Shout loudly, and act now
If that
So what's next?
at factory gates. discussion as well as signatures.
Teachers should organise to дело о speakers into
demand that the newspapers
authorities know
to be held three days later.
weeks and opposition, the
and
to the
Private
considering a conference.
One thing simply refuse to anti-abortion MPs -
of our rights.
I used it properly, I had followed every instruction and now I found that I was pregnant. 1 was lucky to have a sympathetic doctor and he arranged immediate referral Huntingford's clinic.
The three weeks between positive test and the operation were awful. It was a very hot and sticky June. I was tired and nauseous. I felt that my body had been invaded and violated. I would sit on my bed at night and look at my puffy stomach which had been so flat and wonder if I'd ever get my own body back.
The counselling session a week before the operation was informative supportive, and non-judgemental. The only question I was asked was whether to have a local or general anaesthetic. I was given relevant information and decided to go ahead with a local.
I was lucky to be surrounded by upportive women friends. One c hem took the afternoon off work an went with me to the clinic.
tmosphere was relaxed and friend]
was slightly apprehensive but did n have to wait long. In the theatre a
stood on one side and my counsellor on the other side, holding my hand.
Throughout the 10 operation I was told exactly what was happening. The pain was The staff were particularly supportive, I was not a lump of interesting • flesh but a human being to be treated with kindness and respect.
Afterwards, aside from a slight
to help his Bill, and far too many MPs on the opposition benches are too worried about their Catholic constituents to go into the 'No' lobby. Parliament also happens to be male dominated.
For a start, half a million signatures should be the target for the against Corrie. This has already proved to be a positive way of campaigning. Petitioning at work,
and from street stalls leads to
The battle agsinst Corrie and his co-thinkers has to take place where people live, work, and learn.
get pro-abortion the Journalists give pro-abortion arguments a fair presentation. Health workers and those campaigning against the cuts should let the
that it's abortion and other facilities that are needed, not the axe.
The build up of activity should be for early in the new year, with 5 February already set aside for a mass lobby of Parliament, and a women's assembly
For the third reading of the Bill to meet with mass
labour movement will need to weigh in against it. So a major task now is to take the campaign into the heart of the movement. 'The Scottish TUC has already called a conference for 1 December to oppose Corrie. The SE Region TUC is
Pro-abortionists should aim te ensure that one is held in each region.
more. mass lobby Parlament could be more than that. Strike action on 5 February would ter Thatcher know that the working class will not passively accept any of her policies, no matter which section of that class îs directly affected. The TUC and union executives should be called on to support such action.
And if at the end of the day Corrie's Bill becomes law, then doctors and other health workers should
implement it. way Tory and Labour - will find out that in reality we don't depend on them for any
the all the
The
minute
minimal. to the recovery room and we were given tea and biscuits. The cramps eased off. The doctor came in to check on me contraception. i decided to go back on the pill. I wat
the lort MP s anti-abortlon Billi
of Community
petition
Medical Association;
Free Choice: operative Women's
Choice should Association;
Students;
Association
M PenCe Practitioners Abortion Campaign:
Natonal Association Counseline
of Working Women s National Secular Societs:
Horking P'art!:
Women's Aid of Sarisary sersice: Rationalist Press Releure:
Sacialist Educational VPAIeЯ Association:
Committee on Abortion Rights;
C'ampaign Hemen's Liberation Sarah Roelofs: 'I was given all the relevant information...
shakiness, I felt fine. My friend came ( not going to risk another pregnancy.
felt
and to discu: had my I had reluctant!
work
Drop it,
Corrie!
DROP it, Corrie! That's the message from the following organisations which are all opposed to
Abortion Law Reform Association; Association
Health Council England Wales; Birth Control Campaign: Birth Control Trust: British Humanist Association; Brilish
British Pregnancy Advisory Service; Brook Advisory Service;
Child Poverty Action Group; Christians for
Conseryation Sociely; CoGuild; Doctors & Overpopulation Group: Doctors for a Woman's
Abortion; Family Planning Federation Conservative
Haldane Society: Labour Abortion Rights Campaign: Labour Party Conference; London
Radical Mulawiyes, Youth Advisory Centre; Marie Stopes House:
Mational
National Association of Probation Officers;
of Young People's & Advisory Services: National Council for Civil Liberties; National Council for One Parent Families; National Joint Committee
Women's Organisations: National ALYISOR tOlliet.
Journalists Equality National I nion of seheol students: Valional I'nion of Students: Nalinna
federation; Northern Ireland Abortion Law Reform Association; Pregnanc!
Association; Socialist
Free TUC: Lister Pregnanc! Advisory Service; Union of Liberal Students: Homen', Abortion & Contraceplion
[Merses siddel: Wamen Media; Murement: Women's Iherap! Centre: Young Communist Leagut.
Half an hour later I left the clinic. I euphoric telief. was free body back.
A day later1 was back at Y
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The battle for womb control
SEXUAL POLITIC
By Geoffrey Sheridan
JOHN Corrie's proposals childbirth will affect women beyond Britain's shores. Each year thousands of women come to Britain for an abortion, for the simple reason that the laws on abortion and contraception in their own country are even more restrictive than they are here.
Throughout West Europe, the Church, the state, and much of the medical profession delight in women remaining prisoners of childbirth and
In Spain.
Tomorrow, 11 women in Bilbao in northern Spain are due to stand triai. Their crime? Eight of them are accused of having had abortion; one of having
two of having carried abortions.
Take the case of one of the women accused of abortions. She told the police that she had been helping women since 1970, charging them from 800 to 9,000 pesetas (£5.50 to £64) for an abortion - unless they were poor, in which case the operation was free.
The court prosecutor nothing but generous, demanding six years' imprisonment for each
woman conducted.
That makes 60 years in jail. In fact she spent over seven behind bars following her arrest. Refused
And why was it necessary for
The go on LOHONOR abration are aged from 24 to 2. having
All but one is married, with two or three children and YCLY incomes. They had asked doctors for contraceptives and had been refused.
The prosecutor wants months' imprisonment for abortion. As this denial of liberty for avoiding the chains of unwanted motherhood were not enough, the prosecutor is also demanding that the women should be deprived of the right to vote or be elected for public office for a period of 11 years.
No doubt the wizened celibates of the Vatican will have a little chuckle at that. Quite amusing, really, that the denial democratic right. -right to choose - should be met with the deprivation of yet other rights.
No doubt, too, Pope John and his chums don't lose any sleep over the fact that 3,000 women a year in Spain die from illegal abortions.
It so happens that the date set
Abortion internationally
for enforced tried to
out
doing months
trial six each grotesque for the trial
referendum on the Euskadi -the Spanish ment's proposals for devolution in the Basque country — will be held. Since the arrests took place three years ago, could be said to be an attempt to divert attention from it.
Feminists are upsetting those plans.
of Last woman's feminists who occupied the Palace
of Justice in Madrid in solidarity with the women on driven out charge. As the Guardian reported it: 'The national police behaved with unusual brutality reminiscent of the days of the Franco regime. One of those assaulted by the
the family. It's not simply that these institutions are male dominated. Capitalism needs the family to churn out workers for the production lines. It's crude but effective.
limitations, has established Britain as one of the West Europe's most liberal countries when 11 comes to statutory pregnancy.
That's why women come to Britain for a safe and legal abortion from virtually every country in West Europe. In 1977, the latest year for which figures are available, 10,171 women came from
when the Statute of govern-
the timing of the trial
Medicine, Madrid.
them actresses, weekend three hundred
trial were They say: police baton Spanish
in several six-year sentence.
in spite of its
reigns.
IF YOU GET STUFFED,
YOU CAN LUMP IT, SWEETIE!!
deputy, Carlota Bustelo, Sister ist former Socialist the Minister of Industry.
Sit-in protests have also been held in Barcelona, Bilbao, San Sebastian and many other cities.
On Sunday, police forcibly ejected 500 women from the College of
About 1,300 women, many of
writers, lawyers, doctors and politicians have signed a document confessing that they have had an abortion.
'It is obvious that justice is condemning women because they do not have the f250 which it costs to go to England for an abortion.'
Demonstrations will take place
Euskadi towns
Another trial, this time of a woman accused of having an abortion. She is
Conceiçao Massano, who became pregnant in 1974 when she was a studen
nurse in Porte Allegro, in Portugal. Her 'mistake' was to record in her diary
that she went to Lisbon for an abortion. She is liable to between two and eight years' imprisonment.
and a friend who gave the address of an abortionist. They each face a
will not go unmarked. A national demonstration is to take place in Lisbon, and a petition signed by 17,000 women will be handed in to the prime minister, who is a woman.
Behind these activities is the National Campaign for
Contraception in Portugal, which earlier this year successfully campaigned
for the acquittal of Marie Antonia Palla, a journalist taken to court for
making a film about abortion. ICASC helped to organise the international
protest at Palla's trial. Two thousand women
abortions in Portugal — and that's just the official figure.
Carnide, 1500 Lisboa, Portugal.
Spain ; 7,849 from Italy; 4,201 from France; 2,183 from the south of Ireland; 1,732 from West Germany; and 1,255 from the north of Ireland. the total figure was 35,000 women.
Corrie's Bill could effectively close charities such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service - the organisations that many foreign as well as • British women turn to for an abortion. Here's what that would mean for women in just two countries where the barbarism of the Papacy tomorrow, and on the weekend a campaign of leafleting and street mecungs will culminate in occupation of Bilbao's town hall.
Women's organisations Buskadi are raising which include: the removal of abortion from the penal code; an immediate amnesty for the women on trial and for all those who have been imprisoned for abortions; and the setting up of municipal centres for contraception:
The battle is being supported by the International Contraception Abortion Sterilisation Cam(ICASC). Information from: Isabel Ochoa, Salazar 12, 1°dcha, Bilbao, Spain.
..and Portugal
Also on trial is her husband who provided the money for the abortion,
The trial, to be held on 29 October, has been dragging on for five years. It
Abortion and
• die from illegal
Information from: CNAC, Rua Guiomar Torresao, Lote 37 3°dto,
reject their
By Celia Pugh
our 'proper sphere' in the home.
the family.
assault. Potential
We
confident. identity,
society.
media
from the
Indeed,
'Al, but hold on comrades. our daily lives.
Natural the
in
continued oppression. countal! inevitable and even conmendable.
had sustaining competiion from
Jewish people.
Garcia
scape-goats.
controls, keeping protecting the British against 'foreigners'
The real roots deprived living conditions
confusion.
Over a hundred
class for a wage to live by.
position in the family.
Sure, there will be so
saccessful rolation
Why women
proper spheré
'THE DUTY of men and husbands is to bring
about a condition of things when their wives
should be in their proper sphere at home instead
of being dragged into competition of livelihood
with the great and strong men of the world.'
Thankfully, much has changed since, the
TUC made this statement in 1877. Across the
globe women have asserted that we, too, want
to be strong and independent people of the
world. We have said No to the subservience
dependence and discrimination bound up with
In our millions we have thrown off a role of
passive self-sacrifice to the needs of husbands
and children in the Vallium-coated isolation of
We have taken to the streets against the
butchery of the back-street abortion, to assert
our right to control our life and body as we
choose, and to create the conditions where we
can walk the streets without fear of sexual
have taken strike action against discrimination. in the workplace and have confident denney fee ento forgeo
images passivity and dependence foisted on us by
churn out picture of revolutionary socialists as maniac disciples of destruction. In reality it is capitalism which destroys our potential of human creativity and liberation. As socialists we seek to create a society in which everyone can have a life free
distortion, degradation, and deprivation forced on us by class society.
This socialist struggle for human liberation is not worthy of its name if it ignores or belittles our fight as women for our own liberation.
the society we are striving tor enriched by the relations which movements for women's liberation show to be possible.
We have to destroy capitalism before we can talk of a fight for women's liberation.' How many times have we heard this in the socialist movement?
Who are the 'we' who will destroy capitalist power? 'We' just happens to include millions of women who cannot afford to wait to remove the crushing weight of oppression we face in
If this struggle is so secondary, why does the ruling class try every trick in the book to thrust us back behind the kitchen sink and on to sexis advertising hoardings? Dare we suggest that the ruling class nas somethine to can from ow
By this means, our can be pushed aside as natural,
Let's look more closely at what the TUC
1877. Men's difficulty livelihood is put down to workers. And of course the same can be argued about black and
How pleased the ruling class must be when it sees the working class dividing in battle against
when workers march down blind alleys to defend jobs and living conditions under the banner of immigration
women in the home nation and products
of unemployment and the capitalist - is shrouded in a mist of political
years after the TUC statement, these attitudes still prevail. We are told that equal pay brings down male wages, so • long live male differentials. Ignored is the fact that women's fight for a decent living wage strengthens the struggle of the whole working
We are told that women's jobs, nurseries and sate fertility control are dispensible whe we have to tighten our belts. After all, everyone has to make sacrifices; the country can't afford women the luxury of escaping their 'naten!
So the battle against capitalist domination i diffused. How can we possibly tackle the rea enemy when it's not clear who this eseasy is!
Our response must be to disperse the
without revolution — bat there's no cha rela
Page 4 scan of this page
MARGARET No1 ENEMY
women s
today?
By Valerie Coultas •WORKING women are the weakest of their sex. Their lives were too hard and their education too meagre to equip them for the contest. Surely it is a mistake to use the weakest for the struggle! We want picked women, the very strongest and intelligent! You have your own ideas. We do not want that; we want all our women to take their instructions and walk in step like an army.
So spoke Christobel Pankhurst in 1914 expelling her sister Sylvia from the 'official' Suffragette movement, The Women's Social and Political Union.
History never repeats exactly the same way. While there are lessons that we can learn from the Suffrage movement about the need to build democratic Liberation Movement today takes up the concerns of all women -particularly working class women — we have not got a great evidence to support the view that the modern British women's movement has the same ideas as Christobel.
Unfortunately, the Workers Party gives us the impression that it has.
Haying neglected the Liberation movement years, without once attempting
debates and local groups WLM, this. organisation, 3,000 people, has decided to build its own 'communist women's ment'.
At its conference a couple of weeks ago a resolution was passed saying Womens Voice aims of the Socialist Workers Party. It is organisationally but based on the politics of the SWP'.
If the SWP want to organise their own women members and supporters in a periphery organisation - fine. They'll probably find that women ger a bit fed up with this ghetto but that's their business. What we object to is
Do we need a
communist
movement
the ambiguity of the formula and the suggestion that revolutionary socialists in Britain today should build their own movement in contrast to building the campaigns and initiatives of the existing women's movement.
Sylvia, we could understand it. But most this is not the case. the Women's Movement was completely moribund and doing absolutely could understand it. But in the light of the does not stand up.
Hectic If the Women's itself Movement did not allow the SWP to light sympathise. But movement is broad and heterogenous Women's and allows anyone who has a view to that put forward in a written and an oral COMIN does ACL sometimes of course deal of structure].
If socialist ideas were unpopular as indeed they are in the movement in the United States it would seem a Socialist more reasonable course of at the last Conference, 2,000 women came, so
Women's that one doesn't rub either.
for several
base of the WLM. Well, why should the working class women be persuaded to of the join revolutionary of SULt Womens Voice rather than a broad-based women's movement that does move- not demand that they're revolutionary before they can fight against their own oppression?
the SWP say, but the "supports the. well organised. It's not fighting hard
enough against tenuelle against the cuts,
technology.
and make sure it is then. *We welcome his topic from the Womens Voice supporters. expelled from the "official' Suf
• 25 October 1979 Fage 4
If the SWP had been expelled, like
Liberation
nothing we
anti-Corrie campaign this just
Liberation
ideas we could the women's
bit hectic due to lack of
Group achon.
Socialist Feminist
So perhaps the problem is the class project
workers and socialist Action Group.
That's all very well, the sisters of
WLM is not to the demo.
the Corrie Bill, against the
Our answer is simple - get involved
bureaucracy. encouraged contributions Group: ticai issues
to fight Before
leatleted. movement
closure. including
Cette movement
Don't Moke vur
By Islington Under Fives Action
On 10 September Islington Social Services Committee decided to cut grant aid • to Under Fives
by 53 per cent. In response a meeting was called of parents,
local people which became the Islington Under Fives
We decided to lobby the council, leaflet all houses in the borough, organise petitions and planned a demonstration. Six hundred people, mostly women and children, came
Women were affected by these cuts as parents and as paid workers. Many of us had never been involved in this kind of fight before and felt powerless in the face of council
We were all really by the numbers of
Liverpool women fight back
JANET POTTER is a member of the Liverpool Women's Action
talked Socialist Challenge about the activities of her group in Merseyside.
66 reminist groad 'It's broadly socialist
and we're particularly concerned with prac-
- be it jobs, nurseries, cuts or anything else that affects women at home or at work.
Any woman can join who wants
against her oppression. joined there was campaign to stop the Mill Lane maternity wing closing. The group
contacted Ine • labour and eventually hospital was occupied to stop the
Over 100 women were faced with redundancy in Kirby at the FD Centre - an international company
- and they occupied it in protest. Our group publicised the issue and raised funds. We put out a special leaflet outlining different solutions.
the suggestion workers co-operative. In the end a buyer was found and some of the woren got their jobs back.
Show Islington Paykil
the Way!
Fight for more maney from
central Goverment-not cuts
Victory for Under 5's
women willing to do the necessary
We have only won à temporary reprieve. Our grants for next year
going be decided November. The battle has only just begun.
The fact that the social services committee were forced by the full council to back down at all entirely due to the fantastic amount . of pressure put on parents and workers from all groups in the borough.
All cuts in welfare provision hit women hardest. Women have to stay at home, caring for children, the sick and the elderly when welfare provisions are cut. Most workers in these jobs are also women. All these cuts force women back home and women determined to fight them.
More recently we've involved in fighting the threatened
of St Monica's women's refuge in Croxteth Road.
Now the local authority is planning to make it a single hometess unit
with women having priority.
We also involved
dispute Leonard Cheshire
Home. Women nurses were sacked
for trying to torm a union helped with picketing and leafleting.
The case went to a tribunal and the
women got compensation.
we see ourselves as
parcel of the women's liberation
movement. We WalE
feminist perspective
economic struggles.
very important for women to be
supported by other women.
There's iwo socialist feminist
groups in Liverpool. One concen-
on all aspects of socialist
feminist theory whereas
concentrate on theory insotar as it
• applies to the specific struggles that
we feel are relevant to women in
Liverpool. The two groups overlap a
great deal. think
got to have both theory and
practice to build a
women's movement.
Kids
by
come so far members, trades councilors Dy campaiens.
Women's Charter Campaign.
London NI
into
we are
Sheen WE'RE going to
contingent from
battered demonstration.
their constituencies under the alone if Corrie's Bill was passed
heat. Recently We stituency SLabour
part and
with it.
to take Success
into the We think it's
particularly in Edinburgh. women's Inerall
we
was massive attending.
Wilson from the STUC. you've has been a great boost to the strong 9
years they've
'Women in Action', the newspaper for action in the unions on women's rights. Regular production starts in new year, 1980. Interested? Contact the editorial group for orders and info. Send us articles and letters. Contribute to the £1,000 launching appeal.
You'll be in good company. Support has
from union branches and NUri, Civil Service Women in NUT, Women's Rights Group, and the Working
WOMEN IN ACTION Box 2, 190 Upper St,
AMASSIVE
SCOTLAND
By Pauline Tierney, Edinburgh NAC
be bringing a massive Scotland on the anti-Corrie Both James White and John Corrie are west of Scotland MPs and it's almost impossible to get an abortion on the NHS in
"67 Act
The campaign is gaining support in leaps and bounds. Even James White is feeling the
This Glasgow Pollok decided. despite
to endorse the Labour Party's pro-abortion policy and to instruct him to vote in accordance
The organised women's movement hasn't been involved in NAC as much as in the past,
We held a one-day conference in April to discuss fighting Corrie and taking up other issues, but it was women in Women's Voice and other left-wing groups who agreed to build the anti-Corrie campaign. Our first public meeling
success with 100 people The main speaker was Margaret The involvement of women from the STUC campaige. worked in the trade
Page 5 scan of this page
IT IS ironic that the first British government to be headed by a woman is also unleashing a violent assault on women's rights and liberties. If any feminists in this country ever thought that all women were necessarily on the same side, Maggie Thatcher should have dispelled the illusion.
All women are oppressed as a sex. But this does not stop some being willing to exploit others as representatives of the ruling class.
Thatcher's main aim is to save capitalism. She'll trample on anyone who gets in her way. In the last five months she's not only proved to be an enemy of the working class. She and her Cabinet are also the number one enemy
Let's look at the government's record...
*Abortion: the whip in support of Corrie's Bill. Thatcher voted for it. If the Bill becomes law thousands of women will be forced to return to the backstreet abortionists; particularly
*Social Services: the Tories' June Budget demanded f4,000m worth of public spending
David Blunkett, deputy Labour Group the Metropolitan Authorities committee, forecast: It will mean 70,000 old or disabled people being
There will be sackings homes for the old and lancapped and 3,500 places in children's homes will go as will 2,800 nursery places. Four million meals on wheels will disappear.
Who, by and large, staffs these institutions? Who, by and large, looks after the young, old and sick, when the state refuses? Women do.
*Education: the proposed cut of £550 million in the education budret means a total loss of over 100,000 teaching, administrative, clerical and manual jobs. The cuts also mean fewer nurseries, less special education, education.
Milk chop
School meals and milk also face the chop. In higher education a six per cent cut means chopping courses which attract most women — arts, humanities, social sciences.
All this means that working mothers, women
and dinner ladies special targets. movement generally and now they're really affects women mely There are already affects women directly. several motions down for the STUC women's conference on abortion.
Crux
Scottish NAC has been meeting in Dundee regularly and from it we have projected a one-dar ann-corrie conterence in December. We're going to get
The crux of our whole campaign is to get the abortion Issue raised In ine branches. workplaces and working with the National Union of School
get me about abortion into the schools as part of social education.
We're also aiming to get to housewives on this issue through street meetings, petitioning, etc.
On the frain from Glasgow and Edinburgh coming down on sunday
firefighters. hospital represenfatives from many white collar unions in Scotland. Whole
We're hoping they come hack from the demonstration committed to winning the whole of the trade union movement in Scotland to use their power to stop Corrie's pernicious Bill.
THATCHER
OF WOMEN
promoting
charities.
women, like Thatcher, of these
British legislation
rents go through.
Dubious
Tories imposed a one line
working working class.
refuse Tester of the Association of social service
deprived under attack ps in technology less adult during
their rights
are the fories'
CONTINGENT FROM
ON 28 OCTOBER
are already STUC women's
trade union schools. We're
whole discussion
we'll be bringing workers, and
*Health: already many hospitals in the NHS have been forced to close. The Tories are
private medicine through concessions for private health insurance. They are encouraging voluntary funding of hospitals and say NIS premises will be shared by private
Women will have to shoulder a large burden
both as producers consumers. Whether the target is safe abortions or anti-natal care, women's health will suffer.
*Women's rights: the Tories want to pass
abolishing social security strikers. As it is often women who are expected to manage the family budget, it is they who will bear the biggest brunt of this attack. The same can be said if the threatened increases in council
If the Tories repeal protective legislation on
conditions women will dubious benefit of shift work. Although James Prior has backed down on his proposals to allow small firms to sack women who become pregnant, if he has his way it will still be easier
women maternity benefits redundancy payments.
*Unemployment: women face the loss of their financial independence as their jobs in health, education and local government start to disappear: The post-war white blouse army is
from cuts and the The unemployment women is double that of men, and for womer leaving school between 1974 and unemployment rate increased by 1,110 per cent. Under the Tories things can only get worse unless there is a fight back.
"Back to the family: the president of the Law Society, John Stebbings, recently said that women who co out to work are responsible fol juvenile delinquency. Patrick Jenkin, Minister for Social Services, has said it was the separation of children from their mothers
the war that is responsible for the violence of the modern age.
The same theme is common to both. Women should accept the sackings and the attacks on
and retorn quietly to the home where they can fulfil their role as loving wives and full-time mothers.
For the Tories the attacks on women are not just economic necessities for the stability of British capitalism: they are part and parcel of reactionary ideology.
GO AND GET THE DOCKS
OUT IN SUPPORT,
tax
and
for have the
and
new rate for
1978 the
Tory FIONA!
frequent
staff. damaged.
Education cuts
give women
the chop
by Carole Regan, NUT THE effect of the education cuts on women will be devastating. Axing school meals will mean massive problems for working unemployment for 'dinner ladies' leachers in schools and colleges will come in for the choo and most of them are women. Les!
cleaning of schools redundancies for the mainly female cleaning
Shifts in school hours and terms to save on heating bills will mean that some mothers, who cannot find or afford the extra child care Tachines, wul navelo give up work.
Adult education and discretionary awards are to be cut back — another area where women predominate. The cut in service training means that the teaching careers of many women will be
Women teachers, despite our union's
lives.
issue. It's high executive,
pro-abortion responsibilities members
own newsletter.
fightback
mums and
Part-time
are at the centre of its activity. Nursery demand will
takes flight
their way
disgraceful policy, are also alive to the danger. of the Corrie Bill. Not only will many womes teachers have to give up their jobs, but the young women we teach are often made to fee! so guilty about pregnancy that they are forced into having late abortions or wrecking their
If the Corrie Bill goes through we won' even be able to give advice to students abou abortion because it will be illegal. We're going to wage a massive battle in the NUT on this
time the male-dominated think their image would be damaged if the NUT had
policy, were reminded of thei to their largely remake
Women in the NUT was launched last yea to raise women's demands within the NUT. Local groups have mushroomer • there an now 39 groups outside London and we have own
The NUT should be at the centre of the
against the cuts We're going to defending full-time jobs but that the concerts of its women members, and women in general.
its 57,000 employees i womere a mar a its 57,000 employees if women workers
A public meeting last week, attended by 5l people [45 of them women], decided to pat a resolution to all union branches at the ai port.
The demand for one is to be assessed by a suryey among the entire workforce. The Brited Airport Authority is to sponsor the scheme. Socialist Challenge 25 October 1979 Fage 5
Page 6 scan of this page
The world-wide anti-abortion lie machine
SEXUALPOLITICS
Exposed-
By Rose Knight, National Abortion Campaign
LOOK at the photographs illustrated
this page. The HILLEC identical. Only the languages used in the captions different. Dutch, the other Japanese.
The pictures are taken identical leaflets circulating in the two connutes — iwo countries walch are thousands of miles apart, which have entirely different cultures. What is the connection?
And the between Margaret Thatcher,
ADSC, 21101 Ireland Loyalist leader Ian Paisley?
The answer to both questions is the same. These two countries many others are targets international Lunary denying women the right to control their own bodies. And politicians named abr-ve are part of it.
ABORTION *
LIBERATION&
REVOLUTION
INTERNATIONAL
MARXIST GROUP
Abortion: Liberation and Revolution
new pamphlet International Marxist Group.
able from The Other Bookshop, 328
Upper St, London N1 the pamphlet
costs 25p. Add 15p for pop.
Socialist Challeu ge 25 October 1979
БЕ -
Catholic Church.
campaign against abortion.
One is and apostolic delegates
from
of Catholic lay members.
connection attacking 'the
Labour abortion': through
like North COULLI Y
Protection
and groups such
of an aimed at Human
three ponticians and parties
the intervention Church in election, when
in most cases Tories.
Thousands
are taken.
Bogus
Over leaflet, bogus science,
IS.
Japanese, Chinese,
and Portuguese.
Not
And what other from the
and the ideological
propaganda? from the
Avail- 'experts" WilO
founding
Page 6
Central to this conspiracy is the
Since the early 1970s the Vatican has carried out a full scale, co-ordinated, international SPUC
Directives are sent through papal nuncios
who act as channels of communication between these the Vatican, the bishops conterences or callist in each country, and the organisations
The Church operates its campaign in three ways: direct propaganda, for example the Pope's recent speeche:
abomination of groups in this the Society for the the Unborn unle (SPUC) and 'Life', and international
as the "International Federation of Doctors who Respect
Life'; and finally through support for right-wing anti-abortion
An instance of this third tactic was of ING Catholic Britain's May general it attempted to win votes for anti-abortion candidates their
leaflets are circulated through Catholic organisations. An example is Life or Death', from which the pictures on this page
La million copies of this with its gory pictures and were given out in
Scotland during the last election. The
available in Dutch, French, Spanish,
German, Italian, Polish, Hungarian
institutions have establishments in all these countries.
organisation apart Catholic Church has the
funding, the uniformity of approach,
commitment
necessary to sponsor such world-wide
Teres Propandavis assisted rid
trave
attacking a woman's right to choose.
foundan peresident of SPUC. sir
president of SPUC. .. William is a member of the papacy's
NOT the size of the vast
majority of foetuses when
they are aborted, but the
kind of propaganda that the
anti-abortionists spread
throughout the world Pontifical Academy of Scientists.
In Britain, where Catholics are in a minority, the Church works through
and Life, the latter having
specifically Catholic position on abortion. It is common for Catholic congregations and lay groups to join
organisations en masse, Dust. demonstrations, and to provide the main speakers.
VOST money for activities is either collected at chapel gates or donated by Catholic
Meeting places and free publicity in the Catholic press are also provided.
Invention
A specific example is the role the Catholic Church has played in campaign for the Corrie Cardinal Gordon Grey, leader of the Church in Scotland, organised an open letter to Scottish MPs in support
Priests like Father Hugh OT One Byron at Wisbech Catholic Church asked their congregations to write to
MPs in support of legislation.
The same advice was offered by hospital chaplains, and recently SPUC announced it was setting up a network of hospital chaplains to receive 'complaints' from doctors and nurses about abortion cases. move coincided with a number abortion 'horror stories' appearing in the popular press around the time of the second reading of the Corrie Bill.
These horror stories have often. been pure invention. For example, the case of Zabudah Ahmed which was reported' in the press this January Zabudah had started to bleed after 29 weeks of pregnancy. If she had not had a caesarian operation she would probably Have died. She and her husband agreed to the operation and both her and the baby's lives saved.
But when the story appeared in the press it was portrayed as a abortion', live baby born' horror story. Perfect propaganda for those who said that Corrie's Bill was necessary to 'amend the abuses.
The Bill itself was drafted by George Crozier, a member of the Labour Party and a Catholic lawyer.
LEVEN
of Crozier is also vice-chairperson of the Scottish Lay Apostolate Council, and such 15 deeply structures of the Catholic Church. Recently he sent a letter to all Labour MPs on organisations such as the Guild
to Catholic Doctors, the Knights of St
Columba, the Welfare Commission, these Parents and Electors
Life and SPUC lay The Catholic lobby has never had
much trouble influencing Party. Anti-abortionism into Conservative philosophy.
MP Michael Ancram, alias Michael Kerr, Earl of Ancram and heir to the Marquess of Lothian, the second reading of the Corrie Bill the that its opponents were 'many strange Bill. bedfellows... practitioners, purveyors
of contraceptives and humanists'. In the United States, anti-abortion is equally part of the conservative caucus which opposes sex education, the bussing of black children and a graduated income tax.
But what about
By Aileen Mitchell
This
of
night for a torchlight vigil.
Ron Brown,
were
"late shock
DOOD
battered involved in the
Tone-wille behalf of
all till Catholic Social section the Catholic Association,
the Tory tits neatly Tory
argued during idea that
believe that
choice concerned.
the masses of
Battered woman trial review
The campaign to free June Greig - the battered woman from Edinburgh jailed for six years for killing her violent husband. victory on 27 September when three appeal judges decided that the evidence from the trial should be reviewed.
Donald MacAuley QC, acting for June, submitted that the trial judge, Lord Dunpark, had misdirected the jury by withdrawing the plea of self-defence from their consideration.
Many friends and relatives assembled outside the court to demand June's release. In defiance of the weather 50 women had camped out all
Labour MP for Edinburgh, Leigh, Nationwide TV programme that "justice had not been done' and pointed to the crying need for a Domestic Violence Act in Scotland.
Extensive support for June's case has come from trade unions, women's groups and individual women. The women's conference of the Scottish TUC is discussing a resolution calling for June's release in November. She has been in prison for over seven months and will now have to wait another three to five weeks before the appeal is heard.
Women obviously feel strongly about this issue and identify with June. Donations have even been received from abroad. Here in Scotland we are determined that the delay will not defuse the campaign to ensure that June Greig walks out of the court a free woman.
ten baby van 4la meand ordinary people who are constantly
well-funded • anti-abortion propaganda? In a recent
anti-abortionist Kenny maintained that "the section of the population most in favour
1S upper class men; the of the population most opposed is working class women'
Not one shred of evidence was produced in support of this 'fact' And if it is only upper class men who are in favour of abortion, then there must be an awtul lo ot them National Opinion Poll published in cent of those questioned supported the March this year showed that 55
legally available for all who want it'.
But if Kenny and the rest of the anti-abortion lie machine really do
working class women oppose abortion, then they should have no obiection to leaving ine
to the individual woman Yet that. simple demo cratic right is what these people have i spent billions of pounds opposing:
— notched up a small said on the
Page 7 scan of this page
Where the cops bring out guns on International Womens Day
1969-1979.'The missing element
INTERNATION. A PEOPLE UNDEFEATED is a new pamphlet produced organișation Peoples Democracy. Author John McAnulty analyses the last ten years of struggle in the North of Ireland and examines the roles played by anti-imperialist movement.
The following extract from the pamphlet — its conclusion -flavour. A People Undefeated costs 50p and is available from The Other Upper Street, London N1 2XQ (add 20p for
Ma ten years of struggle in the North? The What conclusions can be drawn from over first and most obvious conclusion is that the Northern state is inherentv irretormable and that any "solution' conunuaon or paruwon ın any guise 'devolution' or an "independent Ulster' involve continuation oppression.
It also needsto be said that imperialism has no progressive role to play in 'peacekeeping' role means in reality bloodshed and death, its reforming role means poverty and destitution for the
• OI the demonstrated clearly the client nature of the 26
and the bankrupicy Dublin governments' independence of imperialism.
We must also say firmly and clearly that today, as at the beginning of the struggle, all the elements exist for a successiul revolutionary overthrow of imperialism and capitalism — bar One. The missing element is a revolutionary workers' party that in grasping the entwined character OI the struggles liberation and socialism will be able to mobilise
Irish revolutionary
the various organisations in the
gives a sense of its general
Bookshop 328
that involves the be it - will of injustice and
Ireland. Its
Irish people. The have also
claims to a political for national
the Irish working class throughout the 32 counties.
Despite tactical gains the imperialists are as far as ever from any solution - in fact, the overthrow of Stormont represents a strategic defeat that they have not yet recovered from. Both North and South the economic system is in crisis — a crisis that imperialism hopes to solve by gutting social services, cutting back wages and crushing the defensive organisations of the working class. imperialists have not been successful and Irish workers show a willingness to fight back that offers great opportunities for a revolutionary
Learn
The resistance movement defeated and continues to lead the fightback in many areas of struggle. But the situation is one of stalemate, If imperialism has no answers the anti-imperialist movement as it is constructed has no programme or strategy that will lead to victory.
This programmatic lack from imperialist repression but from internal contradictions within the movement and can be traced back to a failure to link up with the organisations of the working class in the early 1970s. However, objective changed and the economic and political crises are beginning to 'march in step opportunity of making those links and building a mass movement in all 32 counties.
There are other causes for optimism. The Irish struggle has not occurred in isolation but against a background of the mass upsurges against capitalism that took place all over the world beginning 1968.
in Africa, deepening world-wide,
Europe.
In this area also the
stagnation
programme revolution
not been
presently
does not come
IRA 'pigs'...
conditions have
and offer the
ramine These youthful perished.]
demonstrate Women's Day earlier this year
swoop by *the Constabulary demonstrated outside Armagh son- where prisoners are held.
RUC armed
guns...They struggles have fallen away to reveal a deeper and more determined movement. After defeats
Asia and the Middle struggles with the working class imperialism today is a weaker animal than it was ten years ago. Ireland's strategic position gives us the opportunity to be in the lead in the coming upsurges all over
Peoples Democracy is proud of its history in the struggle and we feel that by analysis, discussion and self-criticism, as well as through bitter experience, we have avoided
and the dangers sectarianism. We feel we have the elements of a
and strategy and that our supporters will not only have the opportunity to help close the long and bloody imperialist domination but also to take part in the world-wide struggle of the classes that g will decide the future of all humanity.
It has been widely reported Margaret has called the Irish later it was reported that she only called the
'PIGS' AND POTATOES
What British pride with Christian breath Can call the Irish 'pigs' loday, When once the Irish starved to death While Britain took the food away.
[Records exist proving that Britain exported food from Ireland during the Great Potato
in which a million Irish
ELEVEN women face a North of Ireland court this week for daring to
International The 11 were victims of a sudde Royal Ulster after they had pri women political
One of those charged has described 'Armagh what happened: "We were suddenly Britain. attacked by four jeep loads of the
with sub-machine began beating East and
struggle
• continued
of political
Irish and by CND. chapter of
that Princess "pigs', though
WORKERS
7.30pm,
people
Socials
dragging us to the jeeps. So women were carrying babies seemed to be singled out by t for rough treatment'
The women arbitrarily se arrest were held for fire h subsequently charged with tion, disorderly condect sed
A campaign of solidarity
11' has bees ba A public meeti e/ be held soon in London. I subsequent Issues -Challenge.
WHAT'S LEFT •FREE ABORTION on Des
' badges are again availble fre
to! The Week'.
Britain.
Revolutionary Communist 7 er branch. Speaker: Frani Garter Pub, Fairfickd St., M • Nov. 7.30pm. Adm: 20p Disarmament Week. Sat 2i da
IT'SBACK!
Belt 'n' Braces
'Accidental Death of an Amadel
'Simply brillian!' - Tan Ad
From 15 Oct, bookings 01-267672
Party and wagcless redon
ACTION women's rights. 8pm Fri 26 Oct . Gacad Caledonian Road. Londor *1
REVOLUTIONARY COMDALNST TI
Holborn Librar London WC1. Holbors cak
25 Octobes 197.
Page 8 scan of this page
Front-line
reform
By Richard Carver
THE Tory government — which once threatened to bludgeon its way towards recognition of the white regime than any of its predecessors in its search for a negqtiated settlement in Zimbabwe. But if the British solution is imposed, history will assign the credit - or blame -diplomatic wizardry, but to the collaboration of the leaders of the front-line states.
They were the ones largely responsible for the constitutional conference taking place at all, and now they have delivered the Patriotic. Front negotiators back to the conference table.
The fate of the talks was decided not in the hotel rooms of ZANU and ZAPU in London but at the front-line summit in Dar es Salaam. even before the summit Tanzanian President Nyerere had announced the formula would allow the Patriotic Front to back down on the disputed question of expropriated land:
"The only real problem is the issue of who provides the money for compensation to settler farmers. This is not a constitutional question but a simple policy question, and it could be easily resolved by Britain and her allies.'
The Front's statement on returning to the
mirrors this exactly: obtained assurances that, successful outcome of the conference, the United States and other participate in a multinational financial donor effort to assist in land, agricultural and economic development programmes'.
But this is not an adequate explanation. plan for such an international fund has been KnOWI since the Lusaka conference. Nyerere referred to it then quoting the example of the compensation of
Kenyan settlers. mentioned under the 'Commonwealth Resettlement Fund'.
'Indeed a "Zimbabwe Development Fund' or something similar — a multinational effort to compensate the whites and underwrite a new black ruling class — has been a feature of every British scheme since thé days of Crosland and Kissinger.
The Patriotic Front's position on land reform has been inconsistent in the past. On occasions leading members have suggested that it would nationalise uncultivated or settler land, Angola, leaving multinational untouched.
Yet the dispossession of African land - which a compensation fund would not redress the root of Zimbabwean politics, since the very basis of the Rhodesian state is the defence of white settler interests. this that the Patriotic Front decided to make its stand on the land issue.
The statistics on land tenure in Zimbabwe speak for themselves. ana zwooo wintes are cach assignco almost exactly 45 million acres of land. In late 1976 there were about 680,000 African farmers and 6,682 duropeans.
Hands Off
Zimbabwe!
WHEN the Zimbabwe Emergency Campaign
Committee called its national demonstration on
Il November it was timed to coincide with the
debale on the renewal of Rhodesian sanctions.
But with the Lancaster House conference and the
success so far of Tory manoeyures it becomes
cycle vane.
The representatives of the liberation struggle
now in London spend much of their time with
Africa. The British labour movement could play
a vital role in saying: untie their hands. Let the
peuple of Zimbabwe determine their on n future!
states force
retreat on land
course, farms.
misery - has now made greater progress
whites. support 80 • not to Lord Carrington's
16,000 acres,
Yet the as1 which
potential.
'We have
depending Britain, countries WIll
The
Commonwealth by
Margaret Thatcher of the north of security
abandoned post-independence issue. agribusiness
- 1s at
It was in recognition of
The six million Africans Britain and its clients in
The legal abolition of racial discrimination in land in March 1977 made no difference, since, o
only those with By late 1977 only two Africans bought farms in the European areas while plots in the African Purchase because of the poor quality of the soil.
What the bare statistics cannot convey is the
and starvation allocation of land. The division of land was not arbitrary — all the best farming land went to the
And the inferior African land has to per cent of the rural population compared to 20 per cent in the white areas.
White land produces the overhelming bulk of crops for export. The average size of tarms in more than 77 per cent of the European areas is
compared with ten acres on the 'tribal trust lands' which comprise most of the African area. Without a radical land reform white interests will continue to maintain a stranglehold on the rural economy.
Compensation of the former white owners is
thing that scarce development funds should be spent on. Far more urgent is the resettlement of the black population on land that can support them. The result of overcrowded and sub-standard soil in many areas has been the virtual exhaustion of the earth's agricultural harens caused by low rainta this year, only add Natural disasters, to the problem.
On top of all this comes the war. About 95 per cent of the tribal trust lands are under martial law. The white troops have the legal power to destroy crops, livestock and homes; to uproot whole populations and to recruit them for forced labour. They don't hesitate to use it.
Undernourishment and the veterinary services have left livestock vulnerable to disease. An estimated 30 per cent of the cattle in the tribal trust lands has already died this year.
the land becomes more than a debate about the country's future — the question is whether large sections of the population will even live to Zimbabwe. Famine has already hit areas in the
line country and without measures it will spread.
Land reform, therefore, cannot be postponer
or ten years (or for ever) as in the Carringtor constitution. It is one of the two crucial questions facing the Zimbabwean struggle.
The other, unsurprisingly, is who controls the
forces. The present Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, has arrived in London to boost Bishop Muzorewa's flagging
as well as to establish privately with the British delegation a joint approach to the security
Carrington must be pleased with progress so far. There will be no problem agreeing a common formula on the transitional period with Walls, so the next step will be to repeat his brinkmanship over the land issue on control of the army. No doubt the telephone lines to Dar es Salaam and Lusaka have been left open.
Zimbabwean girls at Victory Camp,
Inset: Thatcher and Zambia's President Kaunda
money can buy nev
had
Areas remain vacant
causea by this
toppled
ACION km
Romero to unleashed by
absence of Portraying
the disbanding amnesty for see a new clean-up
drastic incumbent, imperialism's
same time forces.
But mobilisations
Guillermo Revolutionary links Earlich,
Zambia.
junta.
El Salvador
dictator
By Dave Kellaway
THE SHOCK WAVES from Nicaragua have
_ the dictator of neighbouring Salvador, General Carlos Humberto Romero. But the coup of 15 October was, as predicted by a spokesperson of the opposition United Peoples
Front [FAPU] in Socialist Challenge three weeks ago, 'one intended to speed up imperialism's favoured 'democratic' opening'.
HONDURAS
I SALV
50 PACIFIQUE
The coup leaders, Colonel Abdul Gutierrez and Colonel Arnolda Mejano, declared that the
"the inability reason for welr acuon was
control the wave of the subversiye organisations'. themselves as 'moderates', called on Romero's opponents to lay down their
The new regime has promised elections next year, freedom for political parties,
of fascist paramilitaries, an political prisoners and exiles, a of fascists in the non-aligned foreign policy.
But at the same time it has instituted martial law and a curfew from 10pm to Sam, and banned political meetings of more than three people. By Thursday of last week 28 people had been killer and 72 wounded as the army moved against left-wing strongholds.
The directing hand of US imperialism was obvious from a State Department admission that the coup 'certainly did not take us by surprise'. It fits in with the 'Carter Plan' being carried out by US representatives Vance, Vaky and Browdler under the suspicious eyes of the
Direct US military intervention to prop up dictatorships is almost ruled out at the moment in the wake of Vietnam and setbacks such as Angola and Iran. Instead the aim is to secure
interests through operations which maintain the effectiveness of the armed forces while at the
integrating moderate
Events in Dominica, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru have all reflected this plan. Nicaragua upset its progress in Central America in El Salvador has the additional aim of trying to isolate the Sandinista-led revolution.
HEW junta faces
implementing eyen partial reforms. The hardline right prevented Romero's predecessor, Molina, from pushing through a limited land reform in 1976. What is more, reforms cost money - US money. And the present economic situation is hardly helpful in that respect.
The other precondition is to quell the mas
by splitting off the reformist opposition and isolating the revolutionary left
parties of the United Opposition (UNO], who 'lost' the last two fraudulent elections, seem to be giving the new regime their guarded support.
Indeed, one of the junta's civilian members is
Ungo head the Movement MNK), with the Socialist International. Morales Christian Democrat leader, commented on national radio that the regime's aims are the same as his party. Most significant, because of its trade union support, is the Communist Party's endorsement of the
NEW UPHEA
Moderates' ous
movements_ and the UNO has representing
American "increased insurrection'.
EI
new junta.
Premature cals fo
struggle for possible
with Nicaragua.
violence
Isleworth, Middlesex. ther
presidential THREE
and
regime. Telegrams : CIA and the
By Clive Turnbull
'cleansing'
THE revolution which overunity and
threw Somoza was not just a opposition victory for the
workers and peasants, it was : victory for the exploited an oppressed the world over. - and the coup tinues. As the FSIN says: We Today
have overthrown Somoza, but problems in the revolution has only
begun.
price from the people for their victory:
alone, WILl wounded. *40 per population left without ade-
National quate food industry severely penaged by *More than 25 bombing. half
National population unemployed. which has Already there has
strong international to the needs of the Nicaraguan has peopic Despite resources, Cuba has sent large quantities cluding milk agricultural and medical sup-
The response of the 'revolutionary' n
guerrilla дг Marti been different. Marti the allegedly 20,000-str Revolutionary Peoples Bloc (BPR), denour the coup as 'one more example of the handiv
imperialism', and called
Latest news suggests, however, that a pop uprising against the coup is not materialis The emphasis placed by these groups on ar action means that they have not develom rounded political alternative to the electoral and pressure polities of the reformists, means that there could be many illusions in
insurrection can substitute for a political fight with the reforn around demands that mobilise the masse
gentle land reform. disbanding of the repressive forces, comp
constituent assembly. In this process, of cou the people must hold on to their arms.
More is at stake than the revolution i Salvador. The fight to turn this opening in struggle to overthrow the 50 families who ow Salvador and their imperialist backers is the
defend and strengthen revolutionary gains in Nicaragua.
Solidarity with the revolutionary mobil tions in El Salvador must be added to the age of all meetings and events organised in solida
For contact: Latin American Bureau, 1 Cambri Terrace, London NW1; and Central Ameri Human Rights Committee, 59a High Street,
Trotskyist militants Rica Cisneros Castro, José Humberto Sorto Escol and Raúl Mercado Bernal — were kidnapped Romero's National Guard on 17 Septembel part of a drive against trade union activists. demand news of these militants from the
should be sent to:
Presidencial, El Salvador, Centroamerica.
Aid for
Nicarag
plies, teact in Cana darity had Canadian Nicaraguan the tirst o dispatched Somoza's Solidarity struggle fact-findin Nicaragua A recen just Germany s European Somoza extracted a bitter list was the
Nicaraguan long-term I from int
*35,000 dead in the last year and gove
over 100,000 reconstruc nur of the projects v solidarity COULILI undertake Britain the committee the active campaign Esteli. been a Solidarit
Coordinati limited which pr Nicaragua of foodstufis, in- mittee can for babies, Compton N1. Ther
Page 9 scan of this page
IN CENTRAL AMERICA
VALS
ia!
1 committees in towns.
and doctors.
Operation Solilaunched by the * Congress and bad of supplies in a month of fall. Operation he product of a legation sent to
for support feting in West Nicaragua should
Top of the ay the FSLN for without strings conal agencies
ork.
specific discussed that aittees in each region coulu
example, sern Nicáragua
been asked
hospital
ritain is being
Nicaragua
Committee,
bulletin Then Com-
ntacted at 20
London local
Above: Managua's Santa Rosa neighbourhood in August. Below: An FSLN demonstration.
THE ANDRUSH
militant incident number of
As part of its contribution to building solidarity, the IMG is organising a speaking tour of all the major cities to win the widest possible support for the Nicaraguan revolution. Con-
it your arca is not covered in the list below.
Speakers are available for trade union and Labour Party
Resolutions calling schools,
be sent to union executives, the TUC and the Tory government.
29 Oct:
Her: Edinburgh. 31 Vin
By Fred Murphy
Nicaraguan LOYCRUNCH organisations have redoubled their efforts to put
stop counter-revolutionary following the murder on 4 October of FSLN
Marcel Pallais Checa. bullet-riddled body was found near the Central American University campus in Managua.
Pallais had been in charge of an effort to stop sabotage at the Villa Fontana Telecommunications Complex. It is thought that supporters of the somoza dictatorship dismissed from their posts may have had a hand in his death.
resurgence revolutionary terrorist activity September. On 24 September an armed rightist group shouting pro-Somoza slogans ambushed a militia patrol in Managua and killed 19-year-old Oscar Rivas Gallard. Over the previous few days, snipers had fired on the headquarters of the Sandanista Workers Nicaraguan Film Institute in Managua.
In response, the FSLN has 'Control Somocismo, Defend the Revolution' campaign through the Sandinista Committees (CDS) - 'the eyes and ears of the revolution': The CDS are being organised on a block-by-block basis to gather data on suspicious incidents ant on tne wnercabouts ana acmvines of known Somocistas who may be involved in counter-revolutionary crimes.
In the face of internal and external threats to the revolution, the FSLN has also announced its intention to expand the militia to increase the masses' preparedness for self-defence.
As Interior Minister Tomas Borge explained at the Rivas funeral: "Those militiaman do not know that the revolution gives concrete answers to each problem.. instead 01 destroying the militias, we'll multiply them. So in ince montns tnere will be swoooo militia Nicaragua. The workers, the students, the high
In a population of about 2.3 million, 700,000 economically active, the project 300,000-person militia shows the San Antonio sugar mill reconstruction needs.
and mass
terrorism
Pallais's
Pallais had
counter-
since late
Federation (CST) and
launched a counter-revolutionary
Defence FSLN Somocistas,
who killed a
be LCYOUILISIA with organised of a body called for
seriousness
Government
representatives
soups.
after Somoza's fall.
• an example of
Above: Their aim is a with which the FSLN is responding to the rightist
Comandante Jaime explained at a rally in Managua on 3 October that the efforts of the army and the Ministry of Interior are 'not enough' to defeat the counterrevolution. Victory will come only if the workers and peasants 'prepare themselves to control the productive wealth of our country'.
In the workplaces confiscated from
Wheelock said, 'we need to have unions with full participation in power...There must be neither exploiters nor exploited. There must be last and coulladic relatons. lne workers must know their jobs in order to govern their production. The task of the state is solely that of administration. The workers are the true owners of the national wealth.'
There are growing signs that the bourgeois forces are looking for ways to put a brake on the
The Chamber of Commerce orgaoking the Council or State, a preislative several
the programme of National Reconstruction published just prior to Somoza's fall.
This council was to be made
frOM the bourgeois Chamber of Commerce and Industry, FSLN, trade unions, the Catholic Church, and other
Its proposed composition disproportionately weighted towards the most conservative sectors of the anti-Somoza front. • The bourgeois forces hoped it would serve as a check on the social and economic measures taken
Since that time, however, the Sandinista-led government has charted a course that shows it to
New FSLN
to counter
300,000 strong militia alongside a regular army (top) to discourage
Wheelock have made up the "Council of State'
the 'Council of State'.
event its composition to have seats no longer exist. the of 33
parties,
was
measures
rightists
be far more representative of the interests of the workers and peasants than the forces that were to
No date has been set for the convocation of Junta member Moisés Hassan pointed out on 5 October that in any
would have be reconsidered, since a number of groups that were
F5LN
Socialist Challeige 25 October 1979. Pazi
Page 10 scan of this page
FOR TROTSKY
REVIEWS Trotsky: Study in the Thought by Ernest Mandel, New Left Books, €2.95р Revolution агу Marxism Mandel, New Left Books, $4.75p.
TROTSKY'S centenary will not be celebrated this year in Moscow Havana, Tirana or Belgrade. divides the old Stalinist family, the thought of Trotsky unites them. The founder of the Red Army, organiser of the October insurrection
ultimate degeneration will be totally ignored in the land of his birth.
And yet it is Trotsky who is victorious. It is his. ideas (rather than those of his principal adversary Stalin) which continue to fascinate bourgeois historians and inspire revolutionaries to this very dav, it is his theoretical and political analyses which continue to guide the activities of revolutionary Marxists on a world scale. It is this fact (the decision taken by Trotsky to organise and distinguishes him from all the other opponents of Stalinism.
Ernest Mandel's two new books, produced by NLB to coincide with the Trotsky's birth, seek to accomplish a dual task. The Trotsky is an introductory work, designed to stimulate une rcader s appenie, lO serve as a footpath to Trotsky's Revolutionary Marxism Today is a critical interviews with Mandel some of the terriers of the Fourth International: Henri Weber and Denis Berger from France, Robin Blackburn and Britain and Jon Rothschild from the United States.
Mandel's response to the questions forces him to develop the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. His interviewers refuse to let him retreat into the Marxist classics. both stimulating and iconoclastic.
Mande wil be forced to arguments cannot be ignored or dismissed out of hand.
Dynamic of His
Today by Ernest
For Peking, Hanoi Whatever else It
fight back) that
centenary of
possible.
own writings. conducted by set of concepts:
Quintin Hoare from long-term
And the combination is provocative, even Even those who disagree with gone
concede his
Ernest Mandel
Revolutionary Marxism Today
Mandel's Trotsky is compared on the bookjacket by NLB to Lukacs' Lenin. In one
represent an assessment of Lenin and Trotsky as seen through the very special spectacles of
leaders of the Fourth International and
audacity of the young Trotsky who produced
Marxist Trotsky realised that imperialism had created an economic Chinese Wall between nations, that no further country could join the
world understood before anyone else that accelerating created inequality on a planetary scale. The
revolutions.
was pre-ordained that developed countries would follow the same path as the developed capitalist states. in sharp contrast to the 'Father of Russian Marxism', G.V. Plekhanov, who wrote at the same time: 'Russia stands at a crossroad on the way to capitalism and all other avenues are closed to her. In order to fight capitalism only one way is left... to help it grow as fast as
But Mandel retuses to endorse any attempt to justify Trotsky's pre-Bolshevik organisational
"In and of itself, there is nothing positive in Trotsky's stubborn opposition to Lenin's organisational concept of 1902-3; and the recent, belated attempts to rehabilitate it are ahistorical and sterile in character. Indeed the
of "non-Bolshevism" between 1903 appear even more tragic today than they did at the time. They certainly made it much more difficult, between 1923 and 1928, to win the Bolshevik cadre to the key planks of his struggle against the bureaucracy. And if that cadre had
OvOI majority Opposition, would have difference to world history.'
Mandel's Trotsky is certainly the homage of
the less
This was
deepen
institutions.
the effect
major importance fascism;
Trotsky's and 1917
The
the Left made a great
a disciple, but it is not uncritical. He refuses to accept the notion of infallibility as far as any of the classical Marxists are concerned. result is a compact and valuable introduction to the central ideas of Trotsky. vitalyou non-do marie roTskyism. Manders views are his own. They remain the subject of polemics (sometimes fierce) both inside and outside the Fourth International, but that in no •way. detracts from their value interviews were originally published in New Left Review (Socialist Strategy in the West and The Transitional Regimes in the East), but even these have been improved by the addition of supplementary questions and answers.
In his discussion of a revolutionary strategy in the West, Mandel refuses to accept that the defeats of the revolution are due solely to the
• In most cases after the First World War, and sometimes even later in the 1930s or 1940s. the masses began to identify their democratic freedoms — which are an absolute gain that we aim not merely to defend but to consolidate and
workers' state bourgeois-democratic, parliamentary
Although it is true that reformist leaderships bear overwhelming responsibility for this, they could nevertheless not have had
they did without a conjunction of historical circumstances.
was the experience so too was that of Stalinism, through the reformist turn of the Comintern in 1934 and through the repulsive examples of the regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR.
He argues that the experience of Portugal demonstrates, apart from other things, central importance of socialist democracy and insists that it has to form part of any viable revolutionary strategy in the West.
book contains two new interviews: Permanent Revolution in the Third World and The Politics of Contemporary Internationallism. Ine tirst consists of a sustained attempt by the interviewers to challenge the theses Permanent Revolution. They argue that the collapse of the European colonial empires and
Mandel clarifies and enriches postulates of Trotsky's theses.
accepts thạt structural changes in
process of industrialisation example, has industrial workers concetrations in
Mandel describes
countries remain excluded " industrialisation
with state the world market.
the major imperialist states. specific
Of
of both
proletarian power
polemic. The sharp
the
with his political outlook.
But even those
Renai. For
compilation. attempt to understanding of world politics of the
time.
Ernest Mandel
Trotsky
•A Study in the Dynamic
of His Thought
the establishment of juridically independent states compelled the national bourgeoisies to force through a limited industrialisation.
Thus some of the tasks ascribed by Trotsky to the proletariat have been carried through by the post-colonial bourgeoisie. What follows is an extremely useful and concrete discussion.
some of the He charts the changes that have occurred on a world scale. He
there have been important Brazil, India, South Korea, Hong Kong, Mexico, Argentina. The
Brazil, for created in Sao Paulo more than in most industrial the advanced capitalist
these countries semi-industrialised rather than semi-colonial, but despite the persistence of his interlocutors, sountries. The bulk of repopulations
bulk populations from the process of The objective limits further industrialisation lie in the structure of
The semi-industrialised countries remain subjected to the institutions and technology of
The strategy of the permanent revolution remainitotally valid. • The increased weight of the proletariat in the 'third world' aids the transformation of struggles for national-democratic tasks into struggles. . for
Mandel is at his best when he is engaged in a
questioning therefore results in forcing him to confront issues not encompassed by orthodoxy'. Whether he does so successfully depends on whether one agrees
who do not will find Marxism Today a unique it is the only sustained provide an internationalist
Both of these books should be bought, read and studied. I think they will stand the test of
Page 11 scan of this page
Paying the price for 'participation
HOMENEWS By Pat Hickey
THE RESPONSE of the trade union leadership in British Leyland to Edwardes' plan for a
Around of redundancies closures has clearly shown the need for a fight to change the leadership at every level. A new round of redundancies, following on the 20,000 jobs already lost in the last eighteen months, was clearly on we carus tor some lue. Leyland Cars Joint Negotiating Committee had advance notice that this was pending, but they did nothing until Edwardes made the formal announcement.
British Oxygen s
exemplary claim...
By Tessä Van Gelderen
THE BRITISH Oxygen workers' pay
claim is the first in the round of winter
claims — and the BOC workers look
set totake on the company.
The main element of the claim is
for £25 on their basic wage. They have
already rejected
derisory offer of £7.
Management has tried to turn the
emphasis of the increases towards the
shift allowances, but this has been
rejected as divisive
who do shift work from those who
don't.
The workers' claim
around increases in the basic wage.
This becomes even more important
with redundancies
overtime already threatened for eariy
next year.
Micky Bouiter, secretary
Transport Union at BOC
sees the struggle for a 35 hour week
without loss of pay
role in the
redundancies:
'We will have to go for 35 hours
for 18 hours pay it we're not to lose
any jobs. And that pushing up the basic rate now?
The unions al BOC have won the
right the
books, and their claim is based on an
Assessment of the company's abilit
to pay. Predicably
this assessment is correct.
The BOC claim is an example to
other workers of how to build a united
fight to defeat the bosses and the
Tories reactionary policies.
By James Drake
THIS time last year Ford workers had already been on strike for over four weeks for a f20 a week increase and a
tOIl This year National Joint Negotiating Committee is in the process of presenting the claim and 57,000 Ford workers don't even know what's in it.
There has been no discussion in the
union branches, unte
committees have had only token discussions decisions have been ignored.
No notification of the claim has been issued to the shopfloor. The most diligent of noticeboard scourers might have found the 'guidelines' for the claim - a 'substantial' hours. a cost or lying agreement. a lineworkers' allowance and improvements in pensions.
Unless there
expect a flabby deal — perhaps like the
Vauxhall's deal living agreement' means talks cannot be reopened until inflation has risen by at least 16 per cent.
The stewards at Dagenham called a 'B' shift shop September to endorse the 'guidelines', but supporters of the Ford •Group called for a figure of £125 basic to 'he named and put forward in the claim' and
British Leyland closures
opposition
and plant COLLYCLU.
Edwardes
ahead.
The
the plan
met in
into action.
management's
splitting those ignored
clearly There
and loss of
CINCHIL membership of the Hackney,
assured
fight against
dominant
also means
company's
the
ỚC deny tha
meant
unions
.. and Ford's lousy one
and even the
their
increase, 35
shops stewards StEVILS reconvening of the
stewards COst Or mined the claim last year.
talks when mid-November
Workers
arguing and building for. shop
When the details became clear, the LCJNC set up an emergency committee to prepare This consisted of officials and senior stewards and So thoroughgoing opposition prepared by the emerged from the first declaring that he had the amber light to go
Within days the leading convenors were backtracking and declaring their opposition to and their readiness to fight. unofficial British Leyland Combine Committee Birmingham and also came opposition to the proposals, but they no plan of campaign to turn this opposition Many plants did not send any delegation to the meeting, and two of the major plants faced with closure — Castle Bromwich and Canley — did not speak.
The Combine's opposition consisted of calls for blacking of transfer of work and resistance in the threatened plants. exactly the formula which failed so dismally at Speke. The alternative to the Edwardes plan put forward was a call for more investment, an expansion of production, and import controls. The inability of the Combine Committee to put forward any real plan of action left the initiative in the hands of the bureaucracy. The executive of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions met Edwardes last week and endorsed his plan. They completely Combine delegates on the LCJNC, and leaderships from convenors to shop stewards. can be no more demonstration of the complete impotence of the present leadership faced with ment's attacks.
There is no doubt that Edwardes will get the he seeks the have no viable management's rationalisation plan, and there is no prospective leadership in BL. with sufficient support on the shopfloor to combat the sell Bul of the bureaucracy The responsibility for this situation lies with the Communist Partv. The CP has been the political force among leaderships throughout the last ten years. Since the Ryder report, introducing participation, the party has gone along with scheme after scheme to make BL viable. Every scheme has meant more job loss, more speed-up, and so on. Through their leadership at Longbridge, the biggest BL plant, the CP won acceptance for participation and mosals. unions management ensuring the future of Leyland. It meant the surrendering return for involvement in bodies such as the WORKERS at Fords on strike for a decent wage last year. stewards conference to meet to discuss and unite to fight for the claim. These proposals were carned unanimously.
There have been calls from various
committees the Coventry shop conference which deterover
We have to build on the feeling that exists already against the way the claim is being handled. A lobby of the
the company replies in every liTe minimum too requirement to keep up pressure. This is what the Ford Workers Group and other rank and file militants will be
management decisions.
committee
committee that
meeting
The
out in drew up plan to cut 20,000 jobs. establishing LCJNC,
neglected.
from This is shopfloor.
Confed
The only
the plant Committee,
convincing
the right direction.
ballot. The alternative to
plant
Participation
together
independence STOP PRESS: Just four days before the claim is to be submitted, workers have finally found out what's being demanded on their behalf.
Their leaders are demanding a f26 increase plus cost-of-living agree ment. And despite all the demagogy
the about importance of fighting for a 35-hour week, it's not even in the claim!
Instead what's proposed is paid time off (amount still unknown) for
full week worked. This is not
different . from a productivity deal, since any week disrupted by disputes or other factors would mean no time off.
More details next week.
Cars Council, which was used to rubber-stamp
The bureaucracy was strongly in favour of participation because it allowed the officials te become fully involved in the affairs of BL, thus undermining the independence of shopfloor organisation, In particular, it weakened the position of the shop stewards, who had led the resistance to speed-up and redundancies.
The plant leaderships involved in participation that when Edwardes announced his first job-cutting plan they gave him a standing ovation. And the unions and. management together voted for management's
They went along with management again in
corporate bargaining which dominated by bureaucracy. As a result independent structures based on the shopfloor have been completely
The Committer become a rump, with only limited attendance
the plants and no authority on
In the present ballot, agreed to by
bureaucrats, everyone from sweeper to Edwardes himself will be voting. One section of the membership will be voting to do away with the jobs of another section. There is no doubt that the result of the ballot will make it very difficult to develop a fightback. But these problems must be faced.
current capable of starting a fightback in BL today is the far left. To date unfortunately, it has worked together too little The decision to set up the Leyland Action
involving people from Solihull, Longbridge, Cowley, and Jaguar, was a step in
NATIONAL Vil welters CANLEY workers demonstrating on 9 October against redundancies
Workers*
control is the a
answer to the newspaper crisis
Crowds welcome eleriéd editorial board Ford remarkably stupid.
strongly
the
has
the
the the
speed-up, for of trade union democracy.
leadership in BL.
BL
SRVE
ANLE
OUR TIMES
UN
Bank clerks
of tit
-TRUE, Our Timesonly appeared on our pages, and there wasn't a work-in in New Printing House Square. But there was Times Challenger, which helped to launch the press freedom debate within the labour movement, and the Thomson management has emerged from the 11-month fiasco looking
Having locked-out its 4,300 employees when the print unions refused to accept big job cuts in the shape of new technology, management has no» settled without a plus sign to its balance sheet.
It has bought out a few jobs, but at the price of large wage rises which will now ricochet around Fleet Street. It has obtained guarantees of continuous production, which may well be worthless.
And the crucial issues - the direct input of copy by journalists, and manning levels in the machine room
So the ruling class at breakfast have got back Bernard Levin (and thei welcome), while the craft unions have proved they can hold out againsi American-style confrontations, and Lord Thomson's antics have helped the labour movement on its way to a mass daily paper (at least we think so).
The Leyland Action Committee will be concentrating its attention on the main plants faced with closure. But it also needs a broader perspective of developing a BL-wide fight for the replacement of the present leadership. For this a BL bulletin is needed which goes into all the main plants on a regular basis. It needs to develop a programme around the nationalisation of the car and components industry, for opening the books, against redundancies and
the independence the shopfloor organisations and the strengthening
The far left has considerably increased its strength over the past few years in BL and has established itself in most of the major plants. It is time to turn that strength towards a fight for
- remain unresolved.
Socialist Challenge 25 October 1979 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Zip up an arts programme
UNDERREVIEW By Sally Feldman
THE SCENE: A board meeting, somewhere at the BBC Bright young producer (BYP): Hey, I know. Let's do another programme!
All (groans): Oh, come on. another arts programme.
BYP: No, no — not like the others. This is a brand new talking about — an arts programme for the masses!
All (eyebrows raised amid mutters of disbelief): Come on, serious. What do the masses know about art?
BYP: Well, that's exactly it. Nothing. So this will be an introduction to what is meaningful, relevant, valid in the modern arts world. You know evervone can be in louch win tne vibrant artistic forces in our society.
Ordinary people will be able to talk about what's being talked about, and know all the right names. And we'll cover all the subjects that... that Hardnosed executive: ...That
Is that what you mean?
BYP: Well, yes. Money and taste -what definition endeavour and motivation there possibly be?
Scriptwriter: Maybe something there, but I see a problem in presentation. I mean, what papers do the masses read?
All (in chorus): The Sun. The Daily Star. The -Scriptwriter: Exactly. So how can you get people who read big headlines and
words interested in aesthetic enterprise, intellectual debate..?
An, 1 was coming to that. That's one of the features that'll be different about this programme. No item will be more than three minutes long the average span of the working class man. Female studio manager (dutifully): What about woman?
BYP: Yes, you're right. Better make half the items two minutes long. All (except female studio manager): Guffaw, guffaw! Ho, ho, ho! Scriptwriter (puzzled): But what can BYP: Well, I thought we could begin exhibition. I mean, people like cars, don't they? Established _director:
Shakespeare? Can't without a bit of Shakespeare. Socialist Challenge 25 October 1979 Page 12
Parts
Not
concept I'm
you can't be
• SO make
could
you've got
serious critical reviews,
concentration
working class
all very well,
What about service we'd be doing have the arts
Years of the lower classes.
Nicos Poulantzas: An appreciation
Mainstream BBC 1—
All this experimental nonsense is
but imagine what a bringing the voice of the golden bard to the crude
BYP: You want Shakespeare, I'll give you Shakespeare. Here we are — two
of three plainly-clad conspirators from Julius sounding like a local Labour Party
By Robin Blackburn
Marxist theory
Poulantzas
Socialist Party. refreshing
published in International.
Orthodox Ponlantzas'
of
Marxist discourse.
Fascism and
form
Poulantzas tackled the
the 'old'
branch meeting, just to show the old boy writes for everyone.
Caesar Then add a bit about the Royal Shakespeare Company
NICOS POULANTZAS, the Marxist political scientist, died in Paris on 3 October at the age of 43. A prolific writer, he wrote books on the
of the capitalist state, fascism and Nazism, on the class formation of contemporary capitalism and, most recently, on socialist strategy in the advanced countries.
member of 'Eurocommunist' Greek Communist Party of the interior'. For most of the last decade he lived in France, where he was associated at various times with the disciples of Louis Althusser in the French Communist Party, and with the left-wing CERES group in the French
feature of Poulantzas' approach to politics was his willingness to engage in discussion and debates with those who rejected his own 'left Eurocommunism' perspectives: as, for example, at the Marxist Symposium sponsored by Socialist Challenge in 1978, or in the exchange with Henri Weber
earlier writings, such Political Power and Social Class, are couched
orthodox Marxism Leninism. They have filled an important gap in Marxist theory and contain useful criticisms ot bourgeois political science. However they were not directed to resolving immediate questions of political strategy, and to some extent have been absorbed by a predominantly academic
Dictatorship contains Germany and Italy, underlying the tragic failure of the workers movement in those countries to
an anti-fascist workers united front.
With Classes in Contemporary Capitalism establishing the real social boundaries of the working class, differentiating the latter from
and 'new' petty bourgeoisie.
Poulantzas insisted that only those who were involved in the sphere of material production
women?
like.
BYP: 1 know
she would.
loved him...
Hardnosed
them!
the street wants!
Scriptwriter:
BYP:
London
about?
the masses.
FADE Seberg being
proletariat.
on
book, State Power narrowly
the
Missing
skilled and semi-privileged layers from
from the proletariat,
as
movement. and
embodies some highly conclusions. it is. at the same time
books, and contains
an cementing social relations.
encourage of
theoretical antagonist productive Marxist writer.
trouble - to show that art and money don't always go hand in hand..
Female (a little wearily): What about
BYP: A lady interviewer I think Hardnosed executive: Someone to turn on the men...
Female: And that the women will
- how about giving them a touch of royal. Jane'd love to do something for the masses. I'm sure She met a dustman once and just
executive: Lady Jane Wellesley! Are you kidding? Even Radio 4 think she's too highbrow for
BYP: Nonsense. She's the perfect girl for the part. Beautiful, hard to get, a trifle classy — that's what the man in Okay, how about classical music. Now that's something I just can't see you slipping through to them while they' re swigging their pale ale and eating their winkles Well, everyone's heard of the Symphony Orchestra, haven't they? And I don't mean we have to play music — not at all. Let's and Jane can talk to him Established director (scoffing): What Stravinski? The woodwind section? Modern versus baroque? something that will appeal directly to everyone identify with. We must bring the arts right to their own front doors. I've got
All (sighing): Don't tell us! You're going to ask him about football...
JEANSEBERG THE CIA have admitted that they ran a campaign of slander against Jean the French actress who committed suicide recently...
The brash and ruthless CIA Should scrape and clean away the rust And take the deadly dirty away — So Truth and Justice in the dust, And Faith and Freedom in decay, Can read the text 'In God We Trust'
Throughout the plastic USA
N. Racine Jaques, 1979
could properly be considered members of the
Poulantzas resolution of these questions of class analysis might seem to embody a strict Marxist purism. Paradoxically this paved the way for a move away from Leninism in his last
and Socialism The defined proletariat of Classes in Contemporary Capitalism was evidently too slender a social force to be capable of throwing up new ruling institutions; the best that it could do was to develop factory councils which would be a valuable complement to the activities of the workers parties in parlamentary assemblies.
•lissing concept in Poulantzas' later work is that of the 'collective worker', the social basis for the strategy of revolutionary socialism. Indeed, by allowing too much weight to 'authority relations' within the capitalist factory, Poulantzas was led to exclude many
This concept of the working class; he also excluded workers in the sphere of social reproduction
again with the consequence of underestimating the potential collective political capacity of the proletarian
But although State, Power and Socialism
political original and challenging work by Poulantzas. It is more clearly and simply written than his other.
much stimulating discussion of such topics as the principles of bourgeois legality, and the role of ideology in
The early death of Nicos Poulantzas is a sad loss for the left; even though revolutionary Marxists were obliged to differ with many of his conclusions, his work as a whole helped to
new . interest in Marxist investigation of the political domain and to combat the all too frequent resort to militant economism as a substitute for socialist politics He will be sorely missed both as an unsectarian
and as a highly
Page 13 scan of this page
Bizarrestate systems TARIQALI'S description of Kampuchea as neither fish nor fowl seem's quite apt, but only with respect to Kampuchea.
All the states we bracket together as 'deformed workers states' share this designation. So far, wherever capitalist production has been overthrown the form of the state that was toppled with it was not capitalist but some form of pre-capitalist absolutism.
Lenin made this clear with regard to Russia.
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that this political inheritance, in all circumstances, should leave it's mark on the resulting 'workers state'. The absolutist fish mixing with the socialist fowl in fact (Trotsky himself drew attentionto certain resemblances between Stalin and an old fashioned Asiatic despot).
If this notion of a mix is accepted then one which is near vall tish and virtually no fowl is a real possibility in extreme circumstances.
Marx always accepted that when the working class overthrew the capitalist state there would be inherited hangovers from it that would taketime to eliminate. Asno truly capitalist state formation has yet been overthrown we should adjust ideas to account for this. This idea is implicit in the theory of permanent revolution.
Some further points:
Socialism shares with pre-capitalist — but not capitalist — modes of production the fact that it's economic motivation 1s the production of use value not exchange value. The difference is in who uses it.
Another parallel between socialist and, at least some, forms of pre-capitalist states is that neither permit individual private ownership of, at least, the land, which in the pre-capitalist economy is the major means of production.
Within this brief and crude model we can locate Kampuchea and other "deformed workers states'. That is, they will be marked with traces perhaps overwhelming ones, of social formations more primitive and more authorițarian than capitalism. It is always necessary to evaluate each one in actuality before deciding our attitude towards it.
Further, in exceptional circumstances, the overthrow of a. capitalist mode of production may mean, on balance, not a social advance but a retrogression. The exceptional circumstances are most likely to be in areas where the antagonisms between world capitalism and the existing Stalinist states tend to cancel each other out, creating a 'dead zone', free from the usual pressures.
The model might also account for some other bizarre state systems, like Burma, for which we have never had a convincing explanation.
Finally, it would seem that these bizarre social formations could become anyone's pawn, depending on a temporary balance of forces, ana inevitably they are most unlikelyto have anything but a short term esterre.
HUGH LOWE; London W4
sins CORMACE
Neither victory nor
defeat IT WOULD be inaccurate to describe the settlement in the engineering industry as a defeat for the workers falthough the port is certainli debatable). However to describe it as a victory as Socialist Challenge did last week is absurd.
What did we gain from this "'victory"? First, in terms of wages, . precisely nothing. The increase in skilled Minimum Time Rate to £73 will benefit only a very smail low paid section of the workers in the industry apart from small increases in overtime
Semi-skilled workers in the industry feel particularly grieved since they don't even get the same percentage increase as the skilled workers. The increase in Minimum Time Rates are not even large enough to have a significant effect on local bargaining.
The only material gain, therefore, is a week's extra holiday in four years time, and one hour off the working week in two years' time. Even without any strings this should hardly be lauded as a victory considering that most of the original claim was abandoned during the struggle.
However, there are not only strings but chains attached to the settlement. Rich Palser describes the four year clause as a 'weakness'. No-one should be under the illusion that this is something which will gradually be forgotten about while the workers, filled with confidence, renew the struggle for 35 hours.
The settiement effectively amounts to a deal between the employers and the trade union bureaucracy to jointly oppose any attempt to reduce the working week further within the next four years.
This does not necessarily mean that there will be no such attempt but it does mean that such struggles will remain local and isolated and will face huge obstacles that didn't previously exist. There is a real danger that the settlement will actually defuse the struggle for shorter hours and more holidays.
As far as one hour in two years, is concerned it should be pointed out that shift workers who already work 37½ hours will receive no reduction in working hours at all. That effectively excludes large sectors of the industry.
Undoubtedly, the concession of one hour was an indication that the employers were weakening. That was precisely the point at which the morale of the workers was raised and the possibility of an all-out onslaught to win the full claim seemed real. That was also the point that Duffy chose to call off the struggle.
The fact is that Duffy stabbed us in the back at just the right time for the employers. It is scandalous that Socialist Challenge actually quotes the man who put the knife in as their own assessment of the impact of the settlement.
Statements such as "The membership go back to work full of confidence that their action won a decisive breakthrough on hours' cond oniv be written by someone wno viewed the struggle from the windows of Socialist Challenge offices.
To the thousands of workers who are pissed off at having gained so little atter two months of struggle. lt doesn't seet quite like that.
RAB BIRD RON THOMPSON; AUEW shop stewards, Sheffield
A GUILTY CONSCIENCE TS A TERRIBLE THING 10 HAVE lO UVE WHPolitics in film IT was very nice to leaf through the 6 Sept. issue of Socialist Challenge to find that you had reprinted my article on women in the Hollywood cinema. When it was first printed in Canada during the summer, it sparked off a
you as well.
I had been too hard on Norma Rae. They pointed out that the very existence of the film, laundered as it might be, was a victory for socialistpositive indeed. Some people even thought that I underestimated or ignored positive aspects of the struggle portrayed in the film itself. impression that I thought Norma Rae negative in overall terms. Many working women saw the film (working men as well) and recognised
own best desires and capacities.
However, I don't think that I overestimated the revisionist screening of the film. The obscuring of issues — such as women organising, extreme violence, indeed armed, and the problems of bureaucratic mis-leadership—I believe to have been quite purposefül. test this hypothesis in the near future. made Harlan County USA, is in the process of making a film about the real Norma Rae, a textile worker in the JP Stevens mills and the bitter struggies fought there. We shall be able to test the reality of the different versions (and visions) -- one class struggle feminist, the other Hollywood capitalist, one documenting reality, the other fictionalising it.
Second, the particular line of criticism I took towards the films I reviewed came under some scrutiny. lave to have political' content? Should we always judge films by "political' criteria?
Isn't there an element of censorship implied, which leads to supporting socialist-realism as the favoured 'art form', ultimately leading to denying the important and
and in revolutionary societies?
Every society has its own
among other important things, the political character of that society. "l'his is what alows usto analvse art — whether films, paintings. politically as well as shall we say, poetically — the use of image, symbol, metaphor, form.
live by politics alone. In fact films the nature of life situations and issues contronting human beings have scenarios conspiciously devoid of
and words like patriarchy and capitalism.
for review, especially the feminist ones, were consciously conceived in political terms, by both creators and producers. They owe their existence lo ine woman s movement. Lake wise Blue Collar, FIST and Norma Rae owe their existence to the growing presence of the working class in the US today.
thanks.
Canada
rather lively exchange of views, two of which I though I would just pass on to
First, a number of people felt that
feminists, and that its impact was very
I certainly did not mean to give the Films No 11)
in Norma Rae's fight and vitality their
We shall have an opportunity to
obscenity
Barbara Koppel, the woman who
the 'earth people'.
Worker 13 Oct] against its rule.
separate role art must play both today
particular culture which is shaped by,
used and disposed.
dance —
But this does not mean that all art should have a political subject matter.
Heaven help us! Human beings do not
death', the which are successful in really showing
things like demonstrations, meetings,
But the films which I singled out
paranola.
we face.
ROBERT KRUM
• Go HOME AND CONFES
In this sense I think it fair and necessary to judge them on the basis of the criteria suggested by the movements to whom they owe
VARDA BURSTYN, Quebec,
The Alien' stinks *I WAS doing this whole bloody thing as a vagina [inside the alien ship], going right through. And at the bottom is this membrane. It'slike я virgin. I was going to have him [an earth man si the membrane and then gas or air or whatever would come wafting out.' [Ridley Scott, Alien director, interview in Fantastic
•Yes, the 'alien' stinks. It's the same social stigma, the same label of repulsion as "blacks stink' and 'women stink', the 'bad' odour of otherness. Weask, who is the 'alien'? Street,
"I wanted to use these sort of characters from the Sudan, very tall, very black and very strong people... the man who played the alien, a fellow called Balagi, looked exactly like that.' (R. Scott, as above)
Scott, motivated by 'insecurity' wants to make films of 'staggering in Heavy Metal magazine. He wants "fantasy' to become reality'. He wants the audience to 'identify' with
The 'alien' in the film is "blasted to fuck' by Ripley! Woman is hero -sole survivor! Alien it 'seems possible' is splendidly subversive'! (see Socialist Challenge 4 Oct) Where woman functions with freedom'!
IMU Alien 'a tremendous film'! [Socialist
For our left reviewers Scott has achieved his ambition - fantasy has become reality. By'describing' our aspirations in a fantastic form, by playing with our fears and prejudices, imperialism attempts to divert attention away from the real struggles
Woman in Alien is not only 'star', but bitch, griper, mother, cool, hard, liberated, intuitive, whore. She becomes an ultimate symbol, she is anything to anybody. To beidolised,
Black man in Alien is a moaner, a cheat, stupid and disposable.
The 'alien' is the black, powerful, phallic/vaginal, raping and butchering, terrorist monster. He/she is the hidden' parasite in the social host, the 'great plague', the 'black
'evil' within, devil, yes, the very 'fuck' in hell. It's 'filthy" communism, it's the nation wreckers.
Alien, the film, is for immigration controls, to stop the 'rot. It is for mass mobilisation of labour in defence of imperialism. It is for buckle down, productivity up. Alien is for national, racial and sexual
The sophistication of the capitalist this social relationship has to be understood. The spirit of solidarity must not blind us to the real dangers
RICHARD KRUM London SE10
Socialist Challenge
events
summer because or the
lunchtime the week before publication write arrive ov rniady
ABERDEEN: SC sold Saturdays outside C&A
- for more info phone Colin, 57406 ABERDEEN: SC
BATH: SC on sale at 1985 Books
more info phone
BRIGHTON: For more info phone Nick,
BRISTOL: SC on sale 11-1, 'Hole in Ground"
Haymarket. For more info contact Box 2, c/o Fullmarks, 110 Cheltenham Road, Montpellier,
BRADFORD: SC available from Fourth Idea
Bookshop, 14 Southgars CUTANLE available Wedge
EDINBURGH: SC on sale every Sat, Princes
12.30-2.00
Niddry stree EDINBURGH: meeting on Nicaragua, Tues 30 • Spencers des ce ui bull and e cards Trades Council Room GRAVESEND: SC • Graves Tiges regal
And.™ HACKNEY: SC meeting on Zimbabwe, Thur l
OLDHAM: SC group ano kule.
Herne Hill BR klosk, High St.). Also on sale Sat 11-1, and Thur/Fri morningsat Brixion tube
TRADE : UNION | Fractions: 3/4 Nov. NALGO: 10 Nov. CPSA; 17 Nov details write to Centre or phone 01-359 8371 Sales drive THIS week's Socialist Challenge carries six pages on the struggle for abortion rights and women's liberation.
weekend of the TUC
In the sponsored demonstration against the Corrie Bill such extensive coverage is not just a political necessity, it gives increased opportunities for sales of the paper.
With such coverage where should . concentrate? obvious answer is at the demonstration itself, on the coaches, at meetings of the Campaign Against Corrie and the National Abortion Campaign
Kut wille such sales shond be promoted remember the main aim of our coverage on womens' liberation both in this and other weeks is to take the issues into the broad working class movement. We want to insist that the struggle for women's rights is part of the struggle of the working class generally and tha1 the male dominated labour movement should see it as such.
So this week, especially because of the emphasis in the paper on womens' rights, make a special effort to sell the paper at factory gates and at meeting
demonstration and the coverage in
week's paper gives us an anrivalled opportunity to insist that
liberation not "periphera issue for the working class, but that it is central. Take that opportunity and increase the sales of Socialist Challenge while you are doing so.
Socialist Challenge 25 October 1979 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
As redundancies hit Manchester engineering Dukinfield votes to resist
FIGHTING THE CUTS—ROUND-UP
HOMENEWS
closures!
THROUGHOUT the engineering employers have been quick to take advantage of the demoralisation now spreading following the national engineers' settlement. On the day they returned to work, engineering workers at Mather & Platt's were greeted with the news that they faced 500 redundancies. On the Thursday the management of International Computers Ltd [ICL) redundancies, including the closure of their plant at Dukinfield near Manchester.
led the unions to scramble for the best deal on redundancy pay, mass workers has decided to resist the closure at Dukinfield. MARTIN COLLINS reports.
In 1976 ICL workers fought successfully to retain ICL's Winsford plant. has helped give confidence that victory may again be possible. A number of things about IČL's operations have also aroused the anger of the workforce.
The first has been a management tour of South Africa with a view to opening a plant there. As the unions pointed out when bringing this to light, the closure of Dukinfield could have more to ao with outdated plant and equipment.
ICL workers have been campaigning against
company's decision to supply the South African police with a computer country's Pass Laws, and will not take kindly to an investment by ICL further boosting the racist regime.
This, coupled with the Manchester of Don Fraser, ICL's hatchet man
durected 8,000 Dundee recently, has among the workers. As Don Black, secretary of the Dukinfield joint union committees, it: 'For management this thing hasn't come out o une blue must have a forward plan of at least fiye years.
Katstoraterises
NO to the cuts and no to the rate
increases — that is the message trom
the newly formed Islington Campaign
OI
against cuts in health, education and
differences arose over whether
statement
sponsoring organisations included a
declaration support
increases, defended on the grounds
that rates are a 'progressive tax'. But
delegates from NALGO,
NUJ and the
Socialists attacked this, arguing that
in a predominantly working class area
like Islington rates are already too
high. It would mean an extra bill of £5
a week for everv working class tenant.
Calls were made to abolish the
cash limits system and to remove the
burden of interest Davment
councils face. This was clearly seen as
part ol arlauonal lgnl.
Action plan
By Carl Brecker, Chairperson, Health
Stewards Committee for Hammer-
suntu, baltng ana nounsiow
ON 24 OCTOBER our area health
authority is voting on a proposed cut
in health services of £3.7 million
which includes six hospital closures.
When the area stewards committee
met last week
steps in fighting these cuts.
Socialist Challenge 25 October 1979
Manchester area the
announced 1,200
meeting
That memory anti-unionism than Manchester
Tun Ine
abpearance in
in seneTI increased suspicion In this: puts
- it is obvious that a firm like ICL prepared by the
for rate action department other ACTSS, Labour Party Young
those attending
day.
which
refusing commissioners place.'
came VUL L work-ins by
work-ins
we decided our next
Page 14
memory.
. latest in
ICL
think
computers-
think ICL
The significance of these leaks has pointed out in a Socialist Challenge leaflet we distributed to workers in the factory: 'Because OuL connection we feel we are in a better position to tight redundancy. But how much better our position would be if we got access to all management's secrets. We demand an end to business secrets and an opening of all the books to trade union inspection.'
The immediate problem for the stewards, however, is channelling this will to resist into a practical steps membership in mass action to prevent closure. situation the employers must convniceu bilalı win prove more expclsive Lo close the factory because of lost production than it would be to share the work available without any loss in pay.
WEDNESDAY 28 NOVEMBER promises to be the next most important date in the fight against cuts in public services. Sheffield city council has decided to allow its 30,000 council workers a day off in order to attend the mass lobby of Parlament called by the Labour Party NEC for that day. A special 800 seat train has been booked for the day by Sheffield NALGO, and shop stewards at the Daniel Doncasters engineering factory have booked a coach for workers attending the lobby.
Throughout London anti-cuts campaigners will be supporting the lobby called by Lambeth council for 7 November. Lambeth National Union of 'Teachers will be
First we have been bulding for a | alone. mass lobby of the health authority meting to demand a vote against any cuts at all. In Ealing afternoon strike
planned with partal sirikes departments; In Hounslow NALGO is giving union cover for
the lobby; and there will be a picket of the district office in Hammersmith earlier in the
A delegation is to meet the health authority, and they have been given'a the clear mandate to tell them: 'If you vote against all cuts and help us in our campaign to expose the misery these cuts will cause, we will support you by
L-VUCR with appointed in your
But we are not relying on the health authority voting against cuts that would only postpone the fight anyway. The area stewards committee
for UCLEYELIN and those hospitals facing closure, and for full solidarity action in the eyent of any threat to those
ILONLI le That includes mobilising workers in private industry to strike in our support.
We are not fighting health cuts of
Right: a magnetic bubble
Each of the squares can carry a million bits of information - the
computer technology. Now it's computer workers who face the axe
back against
involve the Charter and groupings be
Line local there will be speakers from
gevernment
Reading entrails
By Julian Atkinson, NATFHE
THE MAJOR device used to call off the public sector struggles carlier this year was the reference of pay claims to Clegg Commission inference that lots of money would be paid out.
NUPE members were the first to suffer, with a sell-out of their lowest paid TACNDeN. Now LCallCi going to get a dose of the same medicine as Clegg moves to examine their case In olden times professional deceivers used to chant spells to the ignorant Jubiess mutter about multi-variant analysis. They claim this to be an
To produce such onde s ay.
produce such wonders expensive consultancy agency, INBUCON, has been brought in.
They intend to examine a number random and representative
A ban on overtime working started by the workers at Dukinfield has begun to spread nationally through ICL. Solidarity strike action
even if it starts with one day actions vital. It can be a real tonic to workers at Dukinfield and strengthen the resolve to fight
the closure. Perhaps important of all.is to create links between all those facing redundancies.
Meanwhile a campaign of solidarity action is already under way. Leaflets and appeals are being drafted and a joint meting of Engineers'
Red Collar (rank and engineering and ASTMS) alecey vanacrlo lake locssuc drcbcrl lc unions. Emergency resolutions are being put to
trades councils. We cannot Dukinfield fight this closure alone.
job-holders, tions, and then compare these with roughly comparable jobs in industry and the civil service. computer time is projected, which is then presented to a judgement panel of job-holders, management and
The result must achieve 83 per cent agreement on the panel, and be felt to be fair' by job-holders. Asked about any drawbacks to this procedure, an INBUCON representative admitted: 'Perhaps there is one. doesn't work.
are greater. The first is that the more credulous union leaders believe in the mumbo jumbo of modern management, and forget that they are in a good old-fashioned situation. Secondly there is a danger that any old job-holders will allowed to sit on the panel - rather than union representatives elected by the rank and file membership.
Finaliy, whatever out of the computer print-out, there remain the same old methods of trade union strugg e as the onlv quarantee LACIL the most equations are large enough to defend living standards. with the Robbersand cops
By Fred Leplat THE round of increases in student fees and at the London (PNL) milanl resoonse troen tae studenls Miller, the Director of PNL, started off the term now they financing students who could not pay the whole year's fees 'objective' (between £800 and £1200) were told they must sign post-dated cheques or register as temporary students.
cent increase in fees from last year is an increase in hall rents from £12 to £17. 'The hall residents are now on rent
North
Line
By Jenny Flintoft
in danger.' slogan of Anti-Nuclear Group.
through London
Gonle
TOT nuclear power stations. crash, 1 suppose.
AiTISN
Westminster.
people, for most fested —
file is The
let waste Hall, 7.30, 6 November.
establish job specifica- I strike.
After a lot ol new pay scale
some 'indepen-
increases.
such action,
It sometimes Ulay An The drawbacks for trade unionists
bargaining
fight is still high.
figure comes
complicated wage
uniform),
implementation of the latest
nursery Polytechnie of . North
has provoked campaign movement by intimidation; self-
immediately
Combined with the drastic 33 per
Nuclear
North London Anti-nuclear Group
'DO YOU live within ten miles of the North London line? If so, your life is
That's the campaigning North London
times week flasks contamin carcaogenc rutnenium106, caesium-137 and plutonium-239
densely-populated [JULI for
radiation actually penetrates the flasks, so that BR workers
them receive an hourly radiation dose of 10 millirems. This is tour times the permited maxımum
Tadlaton WO KeN
Bolermakers' Union report (Guardian, 3 July) also cast doubt on the safety of the containers, stating that the welds did not meet required
'Sooner or later there will be a
said one of the suclear ruels prestigious exhibition at Central Hail
A burst flask would cOntamlaie an arta or aboul 40 square miles, containing one million
up to 100 years. The containers have been inadequately
- in crashes at only 30 mph and in fires lasting a mere 30 minutes.
Evacuation plans in case of a disaster are also inadequate hecause of the hin value oi the property
North London Health Safety and Anti-Nuclear Groups are organising a joint meeting on nuclear
transport at Camden Town Most hard hit by this are
overseas students who are forced to
pay higher fees anyway which, along
with the quota system, are aimed at
reducing their numbers.
Last Thursday the Annual General
Meting of the student union at PNL;
attended by 330 students, voted by two
to one to occupy the college against the
The authorities obviously
knew that the students would favour
secured the
administration block and gave a half
Soft to the statt. attempt oceupy the
computer room also failed, and when
students attempted to occupy the rest
of that floor a coachload of police
arrived. They charged up the stairs
through the makeshift barriers, and
threatened the arrest of the students
under the Criminal Trespass Law
The students decided on a tactica]
withdrawal, but the determination to
Fightback in Robin
Hood country
FOUR thousand people lobbied the
Nottingham County Council meting
on Tuesday 16 October to demand "no
cuts'. They included representation
from the Fire Brigades Unior (in
from the Mineworkers
Union in the form of Don Concannon
MP, children and mothers from the
campaign, well
supporters of adult education.
The next steps planned in the are to hold a labour conference on 17
November, and a mass picket of the
Sherwood rooms that same dav whet
Margaret Thatcher will be meting a
'small and unrepresentative group' of
Tory trade unionists
A unified demonstration against
all cuts isplanned for 8 December, and
a further lobby of the County Council
in January, when it is hoped support
can be won for industrial action.
Page 15 scan of this page
Defence serves witness summons to police boss
HOMEN WS IT WAS THE MORNING OF Monday, 22 October, at Barnet magistrates' court in North London. There was more usual because a new stipendiary magistrate was expected in court. After the terror of Canham «and the vindictiveness of McDermott could Mr C Burke be any worse?
This was not an unimportant question for the six men on trial — including Gurmil Brard,
central leader of Movement One of them, Aulak, had four separate assault charges. He is the person you can see in the logo above the appeal for the defence fund being held by four policemen!
Burke enters the court. He is wearing a three-plece. suit, navy blue with thin white stripes. A whiter-than-white sticks out of his jacket pocket. He is balding and wears spectacles.
David Harvey, the defence lawyer, delays the proceedings by announcing that the case against the six is so vital that he operational orders and radio logs of the police for 23 April. Surprisingly, the magistrate hears the argument.
The prosecution counsel is sent to ring the Chief Solicitor for the Metropolitan police, to inquire what was in these orders. She returns and announces 'snatch squads' in the orders.
Harvey tion. He then asks the magistrate to insist that David Helm, the MeNee's assistant in charge of operations on 23 April, appears as a witness.
Helm served on him. The magistrate does not dismiss By an ACTT member at London Weekend TV MEMBERS of the three big TV unions
NATTKE, EETPU importantly ACTT - return to work this week confident after an 11-week struggle that has ended in a major victory over the employers.
The pay offer is worth 25 per cent over the next 12 months, and almost 45 per cent over two years.
forcing show-down mid-August, the ITCA employers' organisation. the annual pay talks into a virtual lock-out. Its aim was to demoralise the unions and push through unacceptable changes: rapid and uncontrolled introduction of new technology; a low pay deal; and erosion of the degree of union control over staffing
What neither the bosses nor the union leaderships had anticipated was the strength of resistance of the rank and file which brought week's victory. Both NATTKE and the EETPU negotiators had recommended the original 15 per cent ofter to their members, who turned it down. At the end of July Tate withdrawn and all ACTT members in the 'independent' TV were threatened with unless they resumed working'.
This meant working management scabs doing the jobs of other members ACTT general secretary Alan Sapper felt he had no option but to call out all ACTT members. members of the other two unions were locked out.
What the companies did next is very revealing. They did nothing. And they did it for a month.
In early September improvement on the 15 per cent offer,
Southall show trials
David Helm
'excitement', than
between
Southall Youth
were all charged with assault.
handkerchief
could япу
Southall
needs the seriously, Southall:
that there is no mention of • help. reluctantly accepts this informa-
'Butcher of Southall' and
Victory in ITV strike
and most in the - escalated
high
about this
Hotter was
companies suspension 'normal new technology.
Four
pay improvements local bargaining, alongside increase stewards. dispute.
of technicians Within days all the
lead to a job massacre.
unable to they made no proved to be
the idea out of hand. If the trial necessitates Helm's presence he will consider it seriously. The trial starts. Harvey tears the police evidence apart, reveals sharp inconsistencies the evidence. offered police officers, and it soon becomes clear that the police are lying. that, but in this case it is extremely blatant. The question is whether magistrate Burke will do as McDermott and Canham and the other magistrates at Barnet have disregard defence witnesses and photographic
The trial is expected to last for at least three days. As Socialist Challenge goes to press there is no way in which we can foretell the verdict. But given the seriousness of the charges it is likely that some of the defendents will receive heavy prison.sentences.
In such an event a mass picket of the courts will become a necessity. Balraj Purewal of the Youth Challenge: 'We are considering the matter very as other
Meanwhile in many localities the plans to burn the Barnet magistrates and collect money for the Southall Defence Fund are going ahead. Money is now drying up. More has to be raised. Please raise the matter in trades unions and students unions. Even Sograll on Schobill then Da Southall discussion led by M Asghar and Suresh Grover, Institute of Race Relations, 247 Pentonville Rd, London N1, 6.30pm, Thursday 1 November.
The
bloody
won
but added two major penalties: local deals, and a commitment to introduce.
of the Labour government's pay restraint had led to
coming through and a consequent the power of shop
The unique technology of TV puts into the hands of small highly-skilled
the ability turn off the profit machine at the flick of a switch. But new technology could
The companies' gamble — that the unions, with no strike pay, would be
sustain a long battle • a major mistake. improved offer in mid-September was
EDMOND
Asst
by different
Nothing unusual about
generally done and sympathy magistrates Socialist
organisations in modest donations will
presented
workers
rejected by an astonishing 85 per cent
of union members in shop meetings
throughout the network. Then
advertisers began to put pressure on
management.
The deal finally accepted gives 17.5 pen er 7.S percent in fantary, and a backdated to 1 July,
further 15 per cent in July 1980. There
are no prohibitions on local deals, and
the introduction of electronic news
gathering has a protracted schedule
involving an arbitration procedure.
With wide variety
technological changes in the offing -
glass fibre optics, video-cassettes and
records, cable TV, satellite TV
- the whole character of the
television industry is about to change
The magistrates
MACDERMOTT served in the office of the DPP for over 25 years and from 1968-72 was
DPP, before becoming stipendiary in 1972. On the London court circuit he is known as a man of politically reactionary views.
JOHN CANHAM [with a 93 pe cent conviction rate at Barnet] is
to have little for social security defendants. After legal service in the army during the 1950s Canham was in private practice on the SE circuit handling police prosecutions almost exclusively. He has rarely been known
o acquit as a magistrat
'ENNETH COOKE {84 per cen conviction rate worked his way up via a number of jobs such as clerk to
in Lancashire and Yorkshire. He has been a stipendiary since 1970 and was made a recorder in the Crown Court in 1972. An ex-RAF volunteer reserve squadron leader, he has a reputation as something of an unpredictable character in court.
Finally PETER BADGE [77 per cent conviction rate worked for a time at the solicitors' department at Scotland Yard. For two years before his appointment as a stipendiary in 1975 he was senior solicitor to the commissioner in N° Ireland and
the state's case at the Detention Appeals Tribunal, where Ulster detainees contested the state's right to intern without trial.
radically in ways no one has thought through properly.
TV, and TV-related
profit-making.
degree
not money.
of scotched the companies magnificent display of strength.
and
to see that they don't win it.
• 700 people
Asians, were charged.
Said.
! enclose f Defence Fund.
Name..
Address.
Send to: called confereece oppose
black
black
and labour agreed
of Agains after the further
There will be a vast expansion of
outlets, and consequently enormous new areas for
The companies want to enter this new territory unencumbered by the
control The they disputa was basicinly about. Ta, y have had to face in the past. The
immigration
Happily, the union rank and file
plans by a The nature of the final agreement shows the companies eager to continue that fight. It will be up to the rank and file
SES.
SOUTHALL
DEFENCE FUND
were arrested on 23rd April: 342, mainly young • 70 are likely to be jailed if the present trends continue. • In cases heard so far very few defendants have received legal
• Fines, costs and expenses are expected to exceed £100,000 --==
for the Southall PO Box ISl, London WKZ No to Tory
nationality laws
By Davy Jone
THE DATE kas been m anti-racist den 25 No
the immigration i as the existing 1971 It promises to be th
years. At the conferenc peoples' represented, as well as movement that regiona committees should be mobilise support and tr demonstration.
Many delegates clear see an ongoing camp conference. the (CALL) argued for a demonst actions. Th Movement successfully conference to supporti in the North and Mid demonstrations in the Asian sub-continent to the London demoustr A national steeri elected to organise the and a broader co-o open to every supportin was promised.
latest bulletin fron Campaign Against the Laws has been published. It i analysis of the Tory pro and national French immigration laws, threats against blacks in Oxford London and many other topics beobtained for 10p per issee, or Z £2. Write to: CAIL, House, Camberwell Grove
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1 2X Q. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution and advertising: 01-359 8371 PRAGUE TRIAL OPENS
THE TRIAL of Petr Uhl and five other leading Czechoslovak civil rights campaigners opened in Prague Monday The six, another four still awaiting trial, all face between three and ten years tn
PHISO0 T01 subversion,
because of their work Committee to Defend the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS).
The prosecution has singled out Petr Uhl, arevolutionary Marxist and the editor the Information - Buler ive deren deais accused. The other are: Jiri Dienstbier, a Eurocommunist and Charter 77 spokesperson; Bednarova, a veteran Communist of 25 years standing and a leading Czech journalist in the 1960s; Vaclay Havel, a former Charter 77 spokesperson and world famous playwright; Benda, Catholic Charter 77 spokesperson; and Dana Nemcova, psychologist prominent in the cultural ground in Czechoslovakia.
The trial is the most sweeping crackdown against domestic critics to have been carried out in European country for over a decade. It is also an event of importance in the unfolding crisis of Czechoslovak Stalinism,
reaching repercussions.
The ten Chartists wére rounded up bypoliceattheend of Mayunder cover of the Pope's visit to Poland. But the Charter movement and firm and continued their activities, while the labour movements of the West were eriraged by this repression.
split opened up in leadership and at the end of July the trial was postponed.
The regime then scrapped any pretence of lega. consistency offered to free the best-known of the ten, Havel, on condition that he went to the USA for a year. refused to go unless the others were released.
Finally the trial began. But even now the black farce continues. Some Western correspondents have called it
Intercontinental Press
•SOME countries possess abundant resources, others have nothing. What is their fate? To starve? eternally poor? Why then sation? Why then the man? Why then the United Nations? Why then the world?
These words are from Castro's speech at the UN General Assembly, which is reprinted in full in the latest Ssoue of the Intercontinental Press/Inprecor [Vol 17, 38]. Also featured in this 40-page issue *Nicaragua: Revolution March', adopted the Secretariat of the Fourth International.
Individual copies cost 30p. 10p post, but subscriptions work out much cheaper al tlk or [48issues], ff for six issues], or £3 for 10 weeks. Cheques
POs should be made 'Intercontinental Press' and sent to: IP/I, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
Registered with the Post
on and
supposedly
in the
Charter 77
main
Otka
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who Inder-
East
ally
great political
and could international
those earlier filmed and VONS held spectaculars.
thrown round the prevenl BHCWS leaking out. party Sabatova, Petr
assaulting a
Panel
But Havel
THIS Sunday's
TUC that demonstration.
To be civili- coulty. conscience 01
Fidel
weekly | Britain: | Abroad:
statement,
the United Name..
Address plus
La year months [24
. ФЛІ 'Socialist Challenge'.
Office
ANNA SABATOVA in front of the court building a 'show trial' reminiscent of the Stalin period. But it's the very opposite of
broadcast French
This time a ring of steel has been
court-room to of the proceedings Party's On the first day Ana Uhl's wife, was removed from court on a charge of trial,
policeman for taking some notes of what was happening:
Yet the regime has heard that fair trials aresupposed to be open. So, with meticulous attention to detail, the police have chosen the smallest court room in Prague's city courts as the against Corrie's anti-abortion Bill was called by the TUC. But it wasn't the
mainly built this That was left up to pro-choice campaigners in NAC and anti-Corrie caimpaigns all round the
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most suitable place for the event.
The Czechoslovak diplomatic service has been in disarray. Eminent
Communist lawyers refused visas to attend the trial by the Paris Embassy, as was the Labour
Peter Archer QC.
Canadian lawyer Gordon Wright, however, was given a visa to attend the
then earica from court-room when the hearing began on Monday.
The official indictment of the six accused proudly declares that it is
brese voines or evieice terely
these volumes evidence culiull wilal wcalcouy Kaow. uaalas
GOCEEII Challenge has participated fully in this campaign. explained why and how Corrie's Bill has to be fought. Socialist Challenge buDUUILELS in every locality particinated inocal campaigning activities. We've reported the and national initiatives against the Bill a newspaper. Published by Reigocrest Lid. for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London NI.
members of VONS the accused met and worked vigorously expose were considered to be gross breaches of the
law by the police and the courts; that
The Human Rights in
Czechoslovakia First six
the Charter 77 now on trial
in Prague. Help their families. Send donations to: Charter 77 Fund [SC], c/o Reg Race MP, 133 Grierson Road merely London SE23.
.in the build-up to this demonstration. Our coverage We've
won't stop after this demonstration any more than the camozien acains Corrie's Bill will end then. At least, we have
nope i won't, bul inere s lne small question of money. local
Without telephones to get the news in, without printing, transport to get the papers out, couldn't provide the information and ideas which help militants to mobilise for the campaign against Corrié. Ur for any of the other struggles we fight to build either. profit. We need £2,500 every quarter from our supporters to stay afloat. So far our quarterly fund drive has been going fairly well (the figures are printed below). another event this autumn
rebates.
Several people have used this bribe from Thatcher's Budget not to drown their sorrows at lory policies but t( carry the fight forward by donating all or part of it to Socialist Challenge. Why don't you do the same? Your money will be put to good use. Just fill in the form bełow and return it to us with a cheque or PO....
Photo: Palach Press
against such
Said to the
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rights in members of Europe.
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77 activists
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P.O. Box 82, London E2
VONS tried to arouse public opinion
bureaucratic acs ol repression; that it provided financial
families political prisoners; and that it allowed its activities to be publicised internation-
The indictment can produce not one single fact that would earn VONS criticism from socialists in the West. But what it does unwittingly bring to light is the fact that the Czechoslovak authorities consider any challenge to
SLALL decision being an unpardonable act of subversion.
The Husak regime' s entire conduct of this affair shows that it has been
Again a stable hold on during the decade since Russian tanks rolled into Prague.
The best hope for the regime a return to the Cold War, which would allow it to cover up
political bankruptcy pointing to the dangers posed by the growing militarist bandwagon in the West. Thatcher's vicious speech last weekend, threatening to inflict worse suffering on the peoples of the Soviet Union than Hitler did, will alarm people throughout Eastern Europe, and will be used by the Stalinist bureaucracy to justify the stepping up
The task of socialists is to fight the new militarism in the West all the way
doing everything in their power to destroy the NATO
But they must also step up practical solidarity with those like the Czechoslovak civil rights activists who are struggling for basic working class
the countries of tastern
The mass working class organísations in the West should respond to the Prague trial by strengthening their links with those struggling for socialist democracy in Czechoslovakia and by
campaigning for the immediate release of the jailed Charter
Our thanks to:
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← Socialist Challenge No. 118, 18 October 1979Socialist Challenge No. 120, No v, 1979 →