Socialist Challenge No. 132, 31 January 1980

Socialist Challenge · 31 January 1980 · 16 pages, 21,805 words read by machine

The scan: sc-n132-jan-31-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)

Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Page 1 scan of this page

Socialist Challeng

General Strike can smash the Tory offensive

200.00v stopped in sourn wales on monday WHEN the Tory government decided to take on the steelworkers they thought they were choosing a soft target.

They were wrong. How wrong was shown on Monday when 200,000 Welsh workers went on strike.

They struck in defence of the tens of thousands of jobs threatened by the steel closures. But the spirit and anger shown in Wales on Monday went beyond that.

It was a demonstration of solidarity with the steelworkers who are striking for a decent wage.

It was a gesture of defiance against an old rich gentleman who sits in London with a wig on his head. Lord Denning is his name, and on Saturday he ruled

- but such a fightback needs to be organised throughout the working class that 'secondary" - in other words effective - picketing was illegal.

Even Margaret Thatcher didn't know that, because she intends to pass a law in Parliament for just that purpose. Whether or not the Denning judgement is reversed the Tories will proceed on that course.

Steel union leader Bill Sirs declared on Monday that to defend jobs the TUC 'might be forced into a general strike'. And Bill Sirs is 'a moderate'.

The South Wales National Union of Miners has called indefinite action on jobs from 10 March. In South Yorkshire a day of action against the Tory attacks is planned for 18 February.

The TUC must bring these protests together and start now to organise for all-out, indefinite strike action against the Tory offensive from 10 March.

No.132 31 January 1980

strikers price special

MALES TIC

The planning of such strike action would mean establishing co-ordinating bodies up and down the country. The steelworkers and miners must take the lead in setting these up.

Whatever the immediate reaction of the TUC, rank and file trade unionists can start campaigning and calling for such bodies now.

The Tories think that with their parliament, their steel bosses, their judges, and their press they have everything on their side.

But they are mere insects compared to the strength of the working people.

Let them point to their laws. But let us point to the 200,000 who struck in Wales on Monday. And then let us say that this was only the beginning.

Page 2 scan of this page

Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution and advertising 01-359 8371. Is there going to be a

Corbys lessons for South Wales

OUR POLICIES

C'apitalism is in crisis, The leaders of the I abour Party and the trade

the interest not of but of the capitalist class.

Socialis Challenge believes that the two vital tasks confronting revolutionar! socialists are:

• To build broad-haved class struggle tendencies in opposition

Class-collaborationism in the

These should пол-exiure grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.

• lo begin to light for the creation unitied democratic revolutionary socialist

application united lilit. hezin lo be seen as an

warhero engaged in struggies.

brich an organisation should be based on the understanding that: 1 for

rech. 1o unite the fight of worker; against the with that of other oppressed lavers

- warmen, biack people. struggling for hierahon. Ihas socialim can ons heartiered be creating new organs ot power and defeating with all necessars means the power of the capitalist state.

sorialise

I lhan what exists in Britain todas. with full rights for political parties and currents that do not oke un arms goalnst die socialist safe. The stalinist models

'socialism' The Fastern Europe have discredited socialise in the eyes of millions of workers throughout the We are opposed to them and will sitter luil support 1o lighting lor socialist democrac!.

3 The interests of workers and

capitalists are irreconcilatle on a world scale. Capitali-m n61 oniy ereated market. il has created politics. Thus we tight tor working

umity on an scale. This unity will in the long run he decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West mid he brutal dictatorships sustain in Latin America. and Asia.

In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal British troops from letting the Irish people determine their own future.

The Communist parties in Europe are in crisis. 'Eurocommunist' the priMloscon wings have any meaningful strateg! for «serthron of the capitalis: state. Ven revolutionary socialist parties are mort necessary inan before. (inditions today more laspurable than oser the preceding Threr decades. But such

The huilt rejectiny sectarianin and seeing internal democracs not as a fusur! but as a sital necessie!. I his means the right to organise factions and

If you agret with there principles and want he involved activities be bociali Challenge

form betes and send it to un.

intormation ahout activities in my artil. • I would like aditional literature and enclose 50p too conner cords. • Delete it not applicabler Name.....

Address.

31.

the workers

and new world war.

throligh

Ironi

spending; Intelligence Agency.

hosses

their

* draft, had been invasion.

all

MR and By Charlie Keeny (Corby)

world. Corby have had an

all those have still to come.

families. We degrading,

world queue, where the

deride us international spongers on the state.

In the first were waiting officials constantly

they message from

Alrica

prevent shut-down:' ireland and

Critical

So, that.

Neither conditions and

claims for Wakes The

ever

41 E to become 'viable'.

jobs.'

and they told us:

were viability. But

British Steel

produce bringing it in.

more

Naive

The new

amount they intended jobs with. We

this poirt that it began

BSC didn't want io know wanted io know.

EDITORIAL

IN HIS State of the Union address delivered last week, President Carter announced the first steps towards the reintroduction of conscription. For many people, both in the USA and abroad, this must be a chilling reminder of the possibility of a

In the same speech, Carter went on to list the : rest of his war preparations: massive increase in

the formation of deployment force of the US armed forces; the situating of medium range missiles in Western Europe; the attempt to keep the increasingly shaky treaty between Israel and Egypt intact; military aid to Pakistan and (possibly) China; and the renovation and reintegration of the Central

All this was rounded off by the now infamous 'Carter doctrine', namely that if the Persian Gulf appears to be slipping out of the control of forces friendly to the USA it will be restored by any means necessary", including military force:

Carter of course claims that these preparations have been occasioned by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. This is a lie, All these projects, with the exception of the step towards restoring the

implemented well before the OVER the last two years we in

experience that Port Talbot and Lianwern

We faced the loss of our livelihood, the means of supporting ourselves and our

now face the • dehumanising _dole same people that threw us out of work will

scroungers and

two years when we for the sack, related the management: Don't press for better conditions or wages now. It will mean inevitable closure. Help us now and we will be able to

for a long time, we did just allowed cuts in our didn't press any meaningful increases in We allowed workers to leave and not be replaced, even though many of us knew that manning levels were already at a critically low point. With less workers, production levels were surpassed in the frantic attempt

This was all we ever heard for those two years: "We can't afford to pay you more, but become a viable proposition and you can keep your I tely those to You are n changed.

you didn't work hard enough.' Figures

presented about our lack economists from Warwick University told us that the

Corporation's figures were nonsense and that Corby could

strip more cheaply than

sisters.

investment needed would have cost much less than the

to buy our Constant tried to make the Corporation see this. But it was at you

Fi to dawn even the most naive of us that the

- have The sboke int Tiry had beca a gigascic

Third World War?

the Democratic Party.

Kennedy

rapid

camp of Cold War Carter.

slipping towards barbarism?

significant section

Many imperialist adyenture.

A much quoted FRENCH steelworkers didn't fall for bosses' arguments

The BSC's SC had bee had

been fed small drops of hope in a cruel attempt to keep us quiet until they were ready to give us the chop.

If this sounds familiar it should. It's the same argument that the BSC are using over the current national wage claim. Don t asK lOr more 'Work harder for less or the closure will come quicker and harder.'

Don't fall for it brothers

We did at Corby and we found out that unless you fight they close you anyway. Forget about the

of closure, initially for a decent wage , and when

have won that fight inevitably will if you keep solidarity ake heart and know that if you have won once then you I win again.

If For don't fighi froes the serg

Upon i sace

However what the invasion has allowed Carter to do is to put this package together, publicise it and actually regard it as an electoral asset to have done so. The degree to which this is true can be seen in the recent voting in the lowa caucuses of

More cautious sectors of the American ruling class, who had seen Edward

providing a degree of stability relations with the rest of the world, have now stampeded (how permanently is unclear) into the

So does this mean that the world is slowly

War and its accompanying

We have confidence (and relief) in saying no. Despite frantic efforts there is no sign that in the major capitalist countries (including the USA) ny

of the majority of the population - the working class - is in favour of

referendum in the USA established that three years ago only ten per cent of the population thought that war was likely in the next three years, whereas today 70 per cent think that this true. However thinking war is likely is a long way from supporting war. There is as yet no sign that the American workers have

never and the timetable for shutdown ever shorter. you think promises of more jobs to replace the cuts are genuine then take a look at the facts. has found 5,000 jobs nationally in six years. We need 5,800 jobs at Corby or alone, leaving aside the other 46,000 redundancies announced. and As lor the redundancy from what we can see of other areas much of it will go in the pub, the odd will trip to the bookie. packet is replaced by a pittance from fight the dole totally support a family.

We haven't experience yet at Corby, but some of the signs are already there. Shops are people purchase lo be paid for Joses

been won to Carter's war drive.

political direction.

But what of

in

strongest supporter in Western Europe.

Zimbabwe imperialist US troops.

Zimbabwe liberation movements! What that the BSC's

the BSC's.

BSC's job-finding service Don't

than other BSC they don't.

money, example,

survival The regular wage

inadequate to

had this Sort last.

hire benefit from

Any major step towards such a war would generate mighty protests inside the Américan public and of course it is the job of socialists in the USA lo prepare that response and give it a

the lasks of socialists here?

Thatcher is now furiously adopting the traditional position of moder British prime ministers to American presidents — unconditional support for their war aims. She is now obviously Carter's

This is not just paper support. In Ireland and

Britain is playing its part in the against the exploited and oppressed. This war has never stopped. And it is this war which Carter intends to step up. Instead of war against the largest enemy of imperialism, Carter declares war daily on the workers and peasants in Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador and scores of semi-colonial countries where there are

This is the war which we must bend DUT utmost efforts to stop now: Stop Carter's war drive! Victory to the struggle of the Irish and

short-lived and long regretted we can tell the lads and lasses at Port Talbot and Llanwern is that your future is in your hands, not

believe Corporation when they tell you that they can't go on subsidising steel to a greater extent European In fact British steel is subsidised less than in France for where the workers of Longwy have won their battle for and have succeeded in bringing massive investment that will provide more jobs. They have won a against lunatic economic policies first and people

Their lesson is one that we can all from Only you prepared to fight and go on fighting and the jobs of your c

Page 3 scan of this page

A DAYOF DEFIANCE Eyewitness account from South Wales

a Jobs before profits

KICKOUT THE TORIES

STRIKE NEWS

PUBLIC INDUSTRY in Wales came to a halt last Monday when 200,000 workers struck in protest at the threatened closures in the steel industry and the prospects of pit closures in the valleys.

There were no trains and the docks were at a standstill. In Gwent the buses did not run and council offices in the Rhondda were closed. 30,000 miners joined the 40,000 steelworkers in South Wales in an all-out strike on the day of action called

TERRY THOMAS (South

Wales NUM):

*Some members are hiding behind their union constitutions and simply waiting for instructions from their national executives. But no one should criticise the action of the Miners. We abstained at the

TUC general council meeting on delaying all-out strike action, but we're determined to fight.

We just don't want to fight alone.

'I hope the steelworkers will turn their present dispute over wages into a campaign against closures. It would cost the government £33 million to subsidise Welsh coal and stop the closures of the pits. It will cost them £70 million in redundancy payments if the closures go ahead.'

COLWYN WILLIAMS (Swansea Trades Council, member of the SWP):

'You can't play games with a general strike. You can't keep backing down. If we are to get action on jobs then it has to come from the men (sic) in the factories. It has to be organised from below and aboye simultaneously.'

JOHN PERRINS (National Union of Blastfurnacemen, Port Talbot Strike Committee):

"Thirty-five per cent of my members have already lost their jobs through closures. They will not be too enthused with a day of action. They are already very active in stopping the movement of steel.

'We were provoked into this strike because the Tories thought they could weaken us during the strike to accept the closures in Port Talbot and Llanwern. This is not a fight against a frugal employer. It is a political fight against the

"We're not enamoured by the way the Wales TUC has related to this strike. After cancelling the action on 21 January the TUC nationally has taken things out of our hands.

We're weary of Len Murray.'

railway workers are in fight on jobs.

in Wales on 10 March.

clear leadership.

The Welsh

Britain.

problem.

sicer and ine

By Valerie Coultas

by the Welsh TUC.

The message from the industrial heartland of Wales was loud and clear. Steel union leader Bill Sirs, quite overwhelmed by the degree of solidarity of the Welsh workers, put it this way at a rally in Cardiff: "Today is the starting point of a revolution — a revolution against a mood to The TUC both for Wales and nationally is committed at the moment to backing strike action

But how can the strike be made solid? Only if it has clear goals and

TUC's vacillation the about action and their demands for a new management, a stay of execution and tighter import controls do not get to the bottom of the problems faced by the steel and mining industries in

profits, not bad managers, that are the source of the

Fighting for the right to work in

mines today means taking action now to challenge the

dictates of profit, arguing that job come first. 10 March is a clerr focus

general strike action against the Tory offensive.

Steelworkers and miners need to initiate a debate inside the labour

about plan for nationalised industries — a plan that uses the new technology to

working week and takes decisions about investment out of the hands of the bosses and puts them in the hands of the workers themselves.

Only through such a plan for the economy can workers permanently protect their jobs from the anarchy of capitalism.

The Tory government and the bosses will resist such a plan all down the line because it hits them where it hurts - in their pockets. But the

policies that are crippling this country and which will force us to become a nation looking after tourists. I'm prepared to go to jail if my executive instructs me to.

"This is not just a problem for Wales but for the workers throughout Britain. What about a general strike? A general strike is the last thing people in responsible positions like me want — but if it's the only thing left to you...'

political implications of a struggle on jobs cannot be avoided.

If the battle on jobs is to be won by the labour capitalism itself must be confronted.

the

the

support from local trade unionists

them Corby,

and

the marchers •Save Wales',

lodge after 15,000-strong

Sophia Park.

Tiger

Emlyn

the miners in

is immediate.

Wales.

NUM

further industries

'60s, railways,

with steel." that take

the requires.' ever known'.

To

strikers.

Then Michael Foot,

boos, Ebbw

began to file out.

Callaghan the state they

steelworks

In€ movement then out - this Wales.

STRIKE SUPPORT MEETINGS

Cardiff To discuss issues and problems arising from the strike, and to raise

Speakers: RAY DAVIES (ISTC branch sec., Llanwern) ELAINE CHAPMAN (S. Wales Ciee Against NHS Cuts) PAT KANE (Socialist Challenge)

RAGHIB AHSAN (Rover Solihull shop steward) CARDIFF: Wed 30 Jan, 7.30pm, Oddfellows Hall, Newport Rd NEWPORT: Thur 31 Jan, 7.30pm, King William IV pub, town centre

"TO OUR dying shame we let

divide us at Shotton, East Moors and Ebbw Vale. Now we're all in it together at Port Talbot, at Llanwern and in the pits. Pay and jobs are part

parcel of the - same issue. We're not going to take it.'

This was the mood of the AUEW contingent from Llanwern and it was

unanimous feeling of the Cardiff on Monday. steel' 'Save pits', •Save "Coal not dole, said the placards carried by steelworkers and

lodge of miners as the demonstration made its way through the city to rally at

As South Wales miners* leader

Williams pointed out, Thatcher had stepped on the toes of

trying to teach the steelworkers a lesson, and in doing so 'she's caught a tiger by the tail. But Williams was a little worried about the postponement of indefinite strike action on jobs in Wales to 10 March, because the 'need of the steelworkers

The closures in steel are expecter to mean the loss of 7,500 jobs. mining, and if the BSC goes ahead with its plan to import twice as much coking coal from abroad the figure could double. The Welsh TUC wants a 'stay of execution' for two years in order to attract new industry to

Lawrence Daly, speaking for the

pointed some people would try to use the wo years delay in preparing the case for a

run-down of major Lord Robens started doing it with the coal industry in the

Lord Beecham did it with the Edwardes doing Leyland, and now Villiers is doing it

"we will oppose any he told the sages

place' the eager crowd. 'If we get the same subsidies as foreign coal we can produce all the

British steel industry

Turn out

As in 1974, so in 1980 the miners would be 'prepared to give the people of Britain a chance to turn out the worst administration this country has

rapturous applause Daly announced that the NUM nationally had donated £20,000 to the steel

Labour deputy leader MP for Ebbw Vale rose to speak. There was a chorus of

and shouts of 'What abou Vale?' Miners and steelworkers at the back of the rally

One miner commented that it was people like Foot, who had sold out to

who were responsible for were in today. It was Foot who allowed the Ebbw Vale

be run down while Labour was in office.

The rally ended with the singing

Red fer had better watch. fists raised.

Margaret Thatcher

was the message from

Newport

sochalist Challenge 31 January 1980 Pages

Page 4 scan of this page

Where steelis as good as gold

SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE

STRIKE NEWS

By Johann Schweik 'THIS dispute,' Guest Keen and Nettlefolds, steel ation's largest customer and one of the largest private steeimakers. in Britain, informed employees in Cardiff last. week 'is nothing to do with us at all.'

The occasion for the letter from GKN's chairperson instruction from the steel union for its members in the private sector to join the strike. That the company's declaration of non-involvement the affairs of BSC should echo the sentiments of Lord. Denning and the goverament can be taken as more than a coincidence. trous to the Tory

the Party. company's last published for 1978, show that

donated £25,000 Conservatives, sufficient to place it in the top ten of the party's financial

Think-tank

GKN also handed £3,200 to the right-wing Economic League in 1978, and for good measure it donated £1,000 to Centre for Studies, which is Sir Keith Joseph's private think-tank for developing his monetarist ideas (not that a lot of thinking is required).

Company handouts to the bosses' own political party aren't especially surprising, but they often indicate some particular interests government policy. For GKN that interest lies in a gravy train known as the British Steel Corporation.

Tucked away in Times over recent weeks have been brief references to talks inconclușive' - between BSC and GKN over what the newspaper refers to as the rationalisation of rod and bar production between the public and private steelmaking sectors.

The need for talks is that in the heady days of 1976 the corporation invested £33m in a new rod mill at Scunthorpe; while similar production plant in Cardiff. Then came 'over-production' in the shape of the recession.

i can be confidently that the beneficiary of this discussion over how production can be merged will be neither the involved nor the public sector. GKN

long experience in channelling

Strikers

versus

Brute

Force

KEITH Johns, organiser for ISTC's

No. 3 division,

Yorkshire and Humberside,

to Socialist Challenge:

The policies of the government enshrined in

The Tories deliberately

steel workers

we could be taken on and beaten. I

think they have

what's happened.

But having made that mistake the

Tories are perpetuating it. They are

trying to break us down

brute force. The use of the

Socialist Challenge 31 January 1980. Paged

GKN and the steel corporation

BIRKENHEAD согрот-

Willenhali the Ductile

Glynwed GKN has been

The Dudley accounts.

in that year

to the

Warley -

Duport

Policy CARDIFF GKN

in

the Financial

profits from BSC. "so far partially

west, nearby

in Britain).

GKN opened a

of these two

one of the

steelworkers

down

The judiciary,

defeat movement.

the industry like South Wales

by whole

closures in both the SCLOTS whole of the working class. don't

which covers South what action

talking situation. attacked by judges, private government. chose the should because they thought

been shacked by The only settlement

per cent

sheen law know I couldn't.

Manchester Steel

WEST MIDLANDS

Wednesbury Patent Shaft

Lloyd Cooper

Brierley Hill

Round Oak

NEWPORT Alpha Steel

The major private steel firms ÷ now taking 25 per cent of the British market

In 1967, when the steel industry

nationalised, GKN of owned two steelworks: East Moors in Cardiff and Brymbo in the North-

both supplying sel bett

engineering works (GKN is the largest engineering firm

The company received f42m in early compensation for the nationalisation

plants, both of which happened to be obsolete. In line with the

main aims nationalisation - throwing tens of thousands of steelworkers out of their jobs - East Moors was shut

have

But after a f4m face-lift, Brymbo:

against us is only the latest example.

backed by the government, is seeking to impose a

working class We initially came out on strike over the 2 per cent wage offer. But we are very conscious of the question of closures and the threat to jobs in

especially in places

There should be a wide campaign trade union movement to demonstrate that the

national and would affect the

think labour movement should have to be asked

is necessary in the We being by BSC, by employers and by the

be clear to trade throughout the COUNT what we should be prepared to do.

which will satisfy the members I represent is a 20

wage rise without any strings. If anyone thinks they could sell anything else, let them try. I

BRYMBO GKN was sold back to GKN in 1974 along with a foundry at Dowlais tor a tota

£20m. Taking inflation account, the company was allowed to buy back its modernised plant for a third of the price it had previously been paid. Meanwhile BSC bore the cost of redundancy payments.

And GKN's balance sheet? In the

'70s the company's surplus nudged an annual £50m. the late '70s it topped £110m. Over

same period, the steelmaking sector has watched its output grow from 8 per cent to 25 per cent of the UK market.

In short, the private steel firms

bloated themselves nationalisation reason to both

Selling point

they also see the weak points of the labour movement.

the steelworkers taught a lesson. "mindless militancy'.

and write for it.

Distribution, 328 Upper Street, London N1. Tel 01-359 8371.

MANCHESTER Manchester Steel

SHEFFIELD Neepsend Sanderson Kayser Johnson & Firth

Hadfields Arthur Lee Osborn/ Edgar Allen Balfour SHEERNESS Sheerness Steel

extend the steel companies, into train to a halt by demanding their thus nationalisation." They been richly compensated by BSC and the state, so they nothing for their plants • That's the view of ISTC member Derek Parkes, who works at GKN's •Cardiff plant. 'Private steelmaking is trading the most profitable By industry,' he says. 'For that reason alone nationalisation makes sense private Monday indefinite strike action provide the kind of struggle that is needed to stop the closures rationalisation which workers interests.

LORD Denning has thrown down a gauntlet to the British labour movement: dare to confront this Tory government and you could end up in jail. The Pentonville dockers faced the same challenge under the last Tory government in 1972, but they didn't stay in jail long. The reason? The organised power of British labour. As Arthur Scargill says: when the labour movement gets going

But it's not simply a question of trade union muscle in the battle with the Tories. They know that the British trade unions are powerfully organised. But

John Corrie is taking on women with his proposals to restrict abortion rights. William Whitelaw has made black people a target. Joseph wants to see

have called in Lord Denning because they know a united response from the trade unions means defeat for them. They'll be pulling out all the stops to divide that united opposition — the courts, the press, the

Political arguments

That's where a paper like Socialist Challenge comes in. It gives the political arguments, the arguments for socialism, that can give a clear direction to trade union action and arm the workers movement against the Tory accusations of

Socialist Challenge is open to debate, argument. It's a paper that welcomes your contribution. Read it, buy it, sell it

If you would like to receive copies of the newspaper to sell, contact SC

Lт85O0W

plant

strong.

build Sunken Brown the strikers largest inside the

police

supported

Surerutu strike to these and to bring the gravy.

should be paid

Prestor

part oi lne

week "The all-out strike in South Wales and the proposal for

and

and raise demands like

defend

Preston.

to be February

FIVE

Cuts In

Trades marchers BSC,

it's open to

Sampsons.

Tom Cranford.

STEEL

BLOCKADE

Glasgow

'WE want a Labour government led by Arthur Scargill,' said three Scottish steelworkers last week McFadd th of Tube Works, Bellshil, Coyle

and Laita a works" delegate from the Dalzie ! Motherwell

attended Aberdeen 11dtC Council on 23 January and told of the state of their current struggle

McFadden assured the meeting: *We're determined to go nign on le the end. The rank and file is very

The trades council set up a support committee for the strike and decided

La public meeting for • the

said: "If we get this response everywhere the Tories will be

- and they won't be praying either.' Blackburn

John Parkinson, Ann Henderson, and Brian Grogan IF Hollywood making a om about the steel sinke around to Walkers in Blackburn — one of thi

steel stockholders in West WOlU • MaRC • a good location for a dramatic pre-credit

Outside the yard lerries line up to form a convoy. When there are 30 or 40 in the line, the sky suddenly lights up. is a signat to we sean avers be charge the picket line, the police unit

yard sends flare time is richt to break through the pickets

military-style of and driver scabbing operation, the Isi nas organiseo mass pickel

by steelworkers from and the Sheffield and mass pickets held last week halting the conroys Transport disinc officials in Preston are still turaing s

fact that theil member are scabbin local unionists has led to plans to morades Support trades Prestors is for edia slur is Trades.

Blackburn

for a hundred pickets last week.

At the Preston Liaison Committee,

La joint approach TGWU. and solidarily action on thi picket lines. A lour of local factorie

union branches 10 organise support will also be proposed

Lancashire-wide mobilisation for a march and rally against cuts in Jobs and services is plannco. 1o February. The events will take place in

A day of action and demonstration to protest against government policy is

held in Manchester 18

indicated their support.

Nottingham

hundred people marched. in weekend support of the steel strike and against

public spending After the demonstrell called by Nottingham

Council's Cuts commilice heard speeches Boilermakers* from representative oi the Union, a steelworker from the Stanton and Staverly plant, and others.

Southall

By P Grant, ASLEF delegate on Ealing Trades Council THE main target for flying pickets formed by strikers from Lyle Spencer steel stockholders in Southall, , owned

Doritason Colnbrook is the main steel supplier to London and the southern counties so far met with little success, but the aim now is to build solid pickets at

Kellan, 122 Redwood Estate,

Page 5 scan of this page

COMMUNIST PARTY PARALYSE LCDTU CONFERENCE

What has happened to the

By Patrick Sikorski THE 1,000-STRONG Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, held in London last Saturday, effectively prevented by the Communist Party orgame mom docussing toe nuts and Dous of a plan for action in the fightback against the present Tory government offensive.

Rather than allow the conference to escape from their tight control, preferred to close it down altogether.

The clash came when Alan Thornett, a Transport and General

delegates who

because of the CP's heckling:

remained indicated the frustration

Tories.

conference.'

LCDTU?

THE MAJORITY of those attending the LCDTU conference on Saturday needed no convincing of the need for a co-ordinated strategy against the Tory government.

And it is worth remembering that during the 1970-74 Tory regime the LCDTU did offer a forum for the mapping out of such a campaien. Not that the LCDTU was any more demoeratically run in those days. But

was able to organise powerful call strikes in 1970-71, and this in turn put pressure on the TUC.

That perjod was the heyday of the Communist Party's strategy alliances with the 'lefts' leadership of the

conference the

WEN

the organisers

Workers Union

REPRESENTATIVES of the majority

opposed the undemocratic ruling of CP chairperson Kevin Halpin agreed to the following common declaration, although it was impossible to put it to the vote

'We condemn the undemocratic way the conference was closed by the chair. The large number of delegates who

discussion about action that can be taken NOW against the

Therefore we call for a recall

JOHN DEASON (Rank & File Co-ordinating Committee) ALAN THORNETT (TGWU, Cowley)

STEVE CORBISHLEY (CPSA national executive) RAY VARNES (NUPE London divisional council)

(All delegates agreed to this in a personal capacity)

EFEA

MIRC

the AUEW TGWU.

build Senes

This was especially the

Relations Act. forces LCDTU could national impressive show.

of the To do

delegate from Leyland's Cowley plant, then John Deason, secretary of the Right to Work Campaign, were prevented from putting amendments LCDTU's declaration. The declaration had only been distributed on the morning of the conference. Conference chairperson and CP member Kevin Halpin was eventually conference to take a vote on whether to allow Deason to speak. The vote was in favour, but microphone was from Deason (who is a member of the Socialist Workers Party). Then stewards tried to evict Deason from the room, bat he was rescued by

of LCDTU with the lack of

democratic thel

individuals such as Hugh Scanlon of

and Jack Jones of the

Accordingly the CP was able to

of "Broad Left' who organisations capable of attracting a evel significant number of shop stewards.

case in the fight against Ted Heath's Industrial leaders

Even after the fall of Heath the

still an conference either inspired on unemployment, held in Birmingham in 1976, was attended by 3,500 delegates. But the conference organisers refused to call any action.

would have been to endanger the alliance with Jones and

and SWP members.

Haipin, using

proposed

against.

forced by the

150 delegates, most nevertheless removed

prevent the

AKRUE UNIONS

* PHASEY?

no more!

rH

N0 Mill

Scanlon — who were themselves, by

support the government's social contract, helping to increase the dole queue.

That failure to give a lead has resulted decline. Neither Saturday's conference nor at the CPsponsored 'Re-instate Robinson' conference two weeks ago were there anything like the numbers

attended the earlier LCDTU It is significant Saturday's platform was decorated by the most significant

of the LaDonnade left, such as Tony Benn or Arthur Scargill.

But it would be wrong to write off

the CP or bodies like the LCDTU because of the fall-off in support. The strength of the CP in industry is still qualitatively greater than that of any other party or group on the left. In no way can any other of the present organisations in the

the only microphone still functioning, then screamed for a vote on the declaration. Although many felt it could and should have been strengthened, none voted

Halpin then attempted to close the meeting a full hour before inwas due to finish. Around

of them seemingly CP members, immediately occupied the platform

meeting from continuing Anyone who then tried to speak from the floor was howled down by those on the platform

unions hope Labour forces the LCDTU once did. that is all the more because such strength is desperately •needed now in at onslaught.

The biggest lesson of Saturday's Derek conference organising conferences luxury.

Communist Party that sufficient to bring out the troops. not The 'troops' nOW that it is worth their while attending such conterences. achieve such a response is to provide rea. forum for discussion can arrive at real decisions on action In order to learn these lessons the recall conference should be organised by a committee open to all those forces present on Saturday. with the declaration as its starting point, can be held.

with shouts of 'out, out, out'. clear majority between 500 and 600, members

closing time, after platform then declaration. to the

denied. the discussing

the Tories.

This

LCDTU

1,000-strong

UNDE

last June.

FORETI

and bodies.

On

Yorkshire Councils'

February.

May, these sections emphasised by Southwark

women

abortion Bill. to attract the type of

And the declaration unfortunate, from

Not the lor Unions' wasn't clear is that democracy

1n not

"call"

Why the no longer

need convincing

TUC The best way to

issues which proceed

LIUH

centralise was arsis This way a real debate,

delegates including some CP

registered their disgust at the platform by staying in the hall until the official

which they left. The took re-vote on the

disruption by leading members of the LCDTU, the conference was

opportunity of concretely . the declaration could be * strengthened and used as a real weapon against

conference

declares...

THE declaration adopted by the

Saturday incor porated all the points of the Code of Practice which came out of the

Rank and File 'Defend Our Unions' conference

It backed the various calls for action which have since come from the TUC

other labour movement

unemployment the declaration supported Monday's one day strike in South Wales, while on the cuts issue it backed the South

Association of Trades call for action on 18

Support was also offered to the TUC proposed 'day of action' on 14

which, said the declaration, "must be a real action of general strike proportions'

On the steel strike there was 'full support in their battle to win higher wages. All appeals by the steel unions for help must be supported... the call Monday 28 January must be met by steel unions to stop the utmost alertness.'

It was left to John Cowling from the ISTC executive to spell out what

generalities should mean practice. He called for an end to the practice of selling jobs for pay rises and for 20 per cent without strings Going beyond official union policy, • he also invited all trade unionists to join steel picket lines. 'Join us and fight' was his message.

The importance of uniting all

of the movement was Smith from trades council. She stressed how the Tory attacks on the social services made women a special target and how a massive ideological campaign was being waged to push

back into the home. Unfortunately Linda. Smith did not link this up with John Corrie's anti-

An attempt was made to add 1o

with the resolution the Defend Our Unions conference. Principally this called for joint action between 'Defend Our

and the LCDTU. But what exactly such joint action should consist of - aberber i would be in the CP'; farzaiti a building on the TL C's initiates. for the extension of general strike action against the tones from the If March date as called by the Wetsh

Clarification on these and other

could • have come if been allowed properly. The declaration provided a starting point. The debate now needs to concentrate on how io

the present siattered LuIs redundancies, around the steel sinie With the general aim of getting nd of the Tory government.

Sacialist Challenge, 31 January 19880 Pape

Page 6 scan of this page

Former psychiatric patient tells why there's

HOME NEWS

sit-in

TEACHERS in the Avon district have occupied staff refused to work a job-slashing timetable and are teaching exam pupils in 'alternative classes'. The struggle threatens to develop into

major flashpoint teachers and the Tories spending cuts.

Hartcliffe in South Bristol is a massive council estate of the early 1950s. People callic out bombed; demolished inner-city to live six miles out on the sprawling new estate in the middle of fields with few services

Three years ago 1,200 students from Hartcliffe school marched to Bristol city centre demandine end LO imposed by Avon country council.

schools, Hengrove and Lawrence Weston, are militant stand. Rod Povey, one of the teachers sitting-in at school, explains:

'Avon authority suddenly decided to cut staff and change timetables in the middle of the school year. They cut our staff by four over Xmas. We

back to find the completely changed.

Going Anglican

TWYFORD school in Ealing is one of the most successful schools, but decision to sell it to the Church of England goes ahead, thousands of Asian, West Polish children in West London will have to take second place to children whose parents enthusiasts.

Nearly three quine Tivyford's teachers. have to follow Anglican priedi work in the school stay on if the sale goes ahead.

On Wednesday of last Twyford staff led a half-day protest strike of students and teachers in the West London ягея. education minister, Mark who proclaims his support for 'parent power', has received a petition from parents who fear that Twyford will become exclusively secondary school.

Nursery action :

By Roger Tanner (Nottingham NUT) 'REINSTATE Elleen the demand of 2,000 teachers when they struck to defend nursery education last week.

Eileen Crosbie was suspended for refusing to teach in her nursery unit at Robert Mellors school because of the fall in standards. replace a nursery assistant meant that 40 children between the ages of three and five were being taught by only one teacher and an assistant.

Within three days of the new term starting the accident record had gone

By Hilary Driver

Asian women.

rejected moves by ACAS to intervene.

into the factory yard. One picket was arrested.

Berks.

Socialist Chall

Avon teachers

By Mike Eaude

children numeracy schemes class sizes change i maderes at any one: between leader over slash

400 teachers'. jobs. 'In November of the marched in Bristol to and decaying hostility

and 27 required two-thirds majority. comprehensive

the cuts gave

Hartcliffe and schools already balloted.

taking

Hartcliffe after for three days each alone. the fight against the Tories.

Bristol Resource Centre; timetable (day), 0272 49815 (eve).

multi-racial council's

African and

Anglicau

of - who mil eleo des to _ have refused to

week the

The Tory Carlisle,

white Teachers' protest last week

months.

Crosbie' was Nottingham These

cut a further 136 assistants.

Failure

threatened employees joined

now prepared to

Chix strike enters fourth month

• SINCE October, 96 workers at the Chix sweet factory in Slough have been on strike for union recognition. When they joined the General and Municipal Workers' Union last year, the Chix workers found that the management refused to listen to their demands for better pay and conditions. The wage was a splendid 95p an hour.

Comparisons with Grunwick are inevitable. Most of those on strike are

Management has refused to meet union officials and has

The GMWU has called for regular support for the daily picket. A mass picket was held on 17 January, which was attended by two hundred local militants. They did not manage to stop the bus carrying scab workers getting

Further mass pickets will be held. With the strike entering its forth month, and still solid, messages of support and donacions can play a rabcall part in sustaining morale. Send to: M. Aamar, 271 Goodman Fart.

*Teaching groups in the first year of the school have been split up, and

lițeraçy have had their doubled It Avon away with this they can cut staff and

Avon county council is Sir Gervase Walker, whose

local authority expenditure by £8m has threatened

8,000 people f express their such "vicious cutbacks.

Teachers at the centre of the dispute have been balloted for strike action,

schools have received the

Last Friday the NUT's action

strike action on a rota basis in the 27 the go-ahead for Miller

Nine schools will be striking this week, nine the next and nine the week worked

Don't let the Avon teachers stand

They deserve your support in

* Letters and telegrams: NUT c/o

Bedminster Parade, Bristol 3. Tel: 0272 667933/4

got

Never

being

taken

YOU IC up 50 per cent on the previous three

conditions will spread of throughout the area if the county council goes ahead with its plan to

Local feelings are running high.

Parents at nearby Sycamore nursery have already organised to fight its of

closure. Council places

Wednesday's march and teachers are centre

ballot for strike

in Tory cuts

is possible that Patrick

admitted

her words 'a whole person'.

other ideas about where the axe should fall.

From early childhood, Anne

says, she was extremely unsettled, finding difficult when she left school to stay in any one place for very long. She

mainly hotels, frequently changing. jobs

She couldn't socialise, and not surprisingly felt isolated.

had no roots and wandering around aimlessly? Anne explains. i had no sense of worth.'

By the age of 32 she had attended numerous out-patient and psychiatric

• and had been admitted on occasions to conventional psychiatric hospitals after overdosing on drugs. Responsibility

And then something happene which changed Anne's life. She wa referred to the Henderson Hospital, in Sutton, Surrey.

*I was very confused when I first

there, Anne says. understand what was going on, It was totally different from anything I had

experienced.

"What startled was the complete way in which I was accepted by the community at the hospital. Things were given to me instead of

removed. In a conventional psychiatric hospitas your identity is

away and all decisions made for you. But in the Henderson

encouraged to take responsibility as part .of community.

When psychiatrists refer patients to the Henderson, their letter usually ends: 'Of course, there is no point in my admitting the patient to our local mental hospital, because it would be a waste of time.'

Communal

The tent for roe es ational emotional problems of young people which is hard to come by on the health service

sycho-therapy The hospital

nakes no use of drugs or electric shocks, employing instead a method

communal organisation patients known in the Henderson residents - at the

of their own treațment programme.

Many of the young people who

No place for sanity

THERE is a date that Anne Miller will never forget, and it

Jenkin, the social secretary, won't either. On 1 August 1937 Anne Miller was

to the Henderson Hospital, da specialised psychiatric unit. She left the hospital 10%2 months later, in

On 31 March the Henderson is due to close, thanks 1o the policies of Jenkin and his colleagues. Anne Miller has

come to the 42-bed psychiatric unit are sent via 'failures' of institutions. All are looking for a way out of the emotional turmoil of their life. Conventional and hospitals,' Anne can't cope with

was didn't _are

on the

without 'using Henderson you talk problems; not just your own problem but all the other residents'. All the shit that's been gathered around you is taken away.

Ten and a half months after her admission to the Henderson, left it, a totally different person, she . says. people. and convictions. I'm not afraid to say what I think. I feel a whole person.'

That is how she has felt for almost two years. which Now the Henderson is under the Tories' health axe, which the social services secretary, vowed in Parliament last week to sharpen. The message is that we shouldn' expect 'a

By Geoffrey Sheridan

Spill for services Why chop Kenneth consultant • hospital, government's

and its

the Henderson option.

other remedial Like

kidney

psychiatric funds Miller comments, authority

people like us country.

ANNE MILLER - Henderson made her feel 'a whole person

. drugs. At the among the

through your • pace quickens

Anne packer much communicate with I am aware of my strength

groups, the press

something.

Patrick Jenkin, has been

government's latest Hospital in

those who

no

their

•Miller:

every ill', which roughly iranslates as 'suffer with a smile'.

the Henderson? Dr Nuttall, one of the two psvchiatrists the considers that the monk ais policies take no'account of secial well-being,

'short, sharp, shock' approach to 'law and order' makes

seem like a soft Vulnerable

the Stoke Mandeville Hospital for paraplegics, and the

units which are threatened with closure, the Henderson depends

from area health serves the Such specialised units are most vulnerable as the of the NHS blood. letting

If Anne Miller had never been to the Henderson, she says, she would still be dependent on hospitals and psychiatrists. Instead she works as a

South London, devoting of her spare time the busia co acting trade indonion.

contacting trade unionists. social services departments, theatre

- anyone who will listen and might be prepared to do

The occupation committee a S Benedicts Hospital in South Londor

particularly helpful. The occupation last week of St George's

Central London and Etwell Hospital in Derbyshire may have set a trend of resistance to th axe which the staff at the Henderson will decide to folłow as the 31 March deadline for closure approaches.

Anne Miller has a word for the government's health policies and

impose them. She says they're criminal. Patrick Jenkin has

reason to maintain a hospital which allows people to work through

problems especially when it leads to the militancy shown by Ann

The labour movement ha every reason 10 ensure that the Henderson is saved.

Menadervie

Page 7 scan of this page

Newcastle conference: Left searches for a 'common endeavour'

Labour executive rejects witch-hunt call

By Geoff Bell IN WHAT was described by one participant as 'the Ascot of the left', 200 people met in Newcastle Saturday debate and discuss Labour left and the struggle for socialism'.

The main speakers included left Labour MP Stuart Holland, former MP Audrey Duncan Hallas of the Socialist Workers Party, Alan Freeman of the International Marxist Group, and Robin Blackburn, described himself as a 'socialist scribe' and a 'supporter of the IMG'.

The event was staged by Newcastle Socialist Centre, and its organisers strove hard to create an atmosphere seeking TO LECH than pulcincs ng differences. Many of the concurred with this approach. Unity

For Audrey Wise, 'Argumènt is part of building a movement; action is part of building a movement. these together and we will build the movement'. And for Duncan Hallas, 'Irrespective of who "is right on the question of long term strategy, we do have a common interest in developing the practical action against the forv offensive While Alan Freeman pleaded: "Don't let them split us up.'

The expression of such sentiments. did not mean that, as Hallas put it, 'the fundamental issues which divide

were avoided. concentrated on the capability of the Labour tarty to denver sociarsi

The immediațe relevance of that question was apparent composition of the audience. By ánd targe it was not particularly working crass. кашле, u was represellalive of what Freeman described as 'relatively socialist-minded people' steward.

'the

Wise,

who

the

agreement UYC. speakers Take

unity in Discussion here

see no viable alternative.

in the Wise in encourage.

• struggle who have itself":

TED HESLIN: A Transport and General Workers Union shop

AUDREY WISE: "The rank and file have always been on the losing end of the struggle in the Labour Party.' been drifting towards the Labour Party since the fall of the last Labour government, essentially because they

It was such a movement which

particular sought to "I am not saying it's ai easy road', she conceded, but argued that it did offer the prospect of 'class

within the Labour Party the former national

supporter Workers

when he proposed a

Defend Ted Heslin *The Juls.

Heslin affair is now

left would offensive. 1 NIS right of

within the party,

For some at the conference the admission that the Labour Party had class struggle within it, rather than being a weapon of class struggle, would have justified their scepticism about throwing in their lot with Wise, Holland and company - - never mind Callaghan, Healey and company. Particulariy when Wise agreed that, "There's never been a golden age in Labour Party, there's always

MEETING on Wednesday of last week in London, the Labour Party's national executive turned aside the hysterical demands of rightwing Labour MPs and Fleet Street to launch a major witch-hunt against Labour left wingers.

The NEC decided not to publish the report on "Trotskyist infiltration' prepared in 1977 b

agent Lord Underhill. In : second decision, it voted by 14 vetes to 8 not to endorse the expulsion of Ted Heslin, former executive member of Oxford City CLP and a

of Socialist Press, paper puls soas neferred back to the party s Socialist Instead Heslin's organisation committee for re-examinațion.

Heslin, a Transport and General Workers Union shop steward, was expelled a year ago

motion on his general management committee calling for the removal of the right-wing party leaders. Instead his own party decided to remove him.

Last week's NEC meeting was picketed by 15 supporters from Ted's union branch and

A leatlet handed out by fh Campaign argued • They must leary regee all atte pis touse the Underhill Report to hound the Militant grouping. But the sharpest point is that where of beber expella. Ted Hesin thesp be

expelled. defended. His expulsion must be rejected.'

The decision to refer the expulsion to the organisation committee does not mean that the

But both on this CUYCL issue and the ruling class offensive 'Trotskyists' in the Labour Party, the Labour

be best advised to on toul ir aly wornig the affiliation all working organisations to the Labour Party, and the right of all such groups to organise openly

CALLAGHAN: Coming under a lot of fire

been struggle and the rank and file have always been on the losing end of that struggle:' Blanket To such Freeman replied that the strategy of the labour lett. was succeed, pull a your head'.

Despite the witticisms, or maybe because of them and the fact that what point-scoring there place in a friendly and non-sectarian manner, there was a willingness on the part ot most of those involved t listen and other's arguments.

Stuart Holland, in reply to far left critics of his alternative economic • strategy, spelt out thạt for him thi involve the books of the multinationals, and the right of the shop floor to hire and fire

of the WHAT'S LEFT

VRIES are Sp = word: semi-display £2 a colum nch. Deadline: Spm Friday before publication. A Daments in Bovancı between tenants wst. Expe nst Tac against

the

class INTERNATIONAL Contraception, Abortion

Sterilisaton camoaen information Bulletin: nrst 15su6

capital Holland.

and Wise

demand

this country'.

Steel

rights determine the

veranty

(Socialist Challenge)

far

Newcastle

GV Cookson

themselyes for

Photo:

longer

Parliament,

afterwards that has done workers' action'

Another Düncan Hallas admissions, Alan

Freeman it at first vou

blanket over

Labour own existence, left-wing

Wing Committee

seriously consider eạch

Benn,

be : opening of the common puins tep dane to tand bou novenen. details ring 021-472 7726

I these alternalves

and trade unio

Hail Red Army!; Leninist Factien.

Spartacist Publications,

and

: 574

management. "I want a challenge to

which powerful', said

But on other issues both Holland

were less receptive. For

demand, fithe ephe to Four lers

. that, Labour launch a campaign on Ireland which will sweep the length and breadth of

The reaction of the Labour left to such calls for action - and there were others made by Hallas, Freeman and Blackburn around issues such as the steel strike, the cuts and women's

will to large CALCI attitude mail. militants to that left

debates like that il Newcastle are important, and it is good for all concerned that a rea dialogue is now taking place between sections of the Labour left and the

left. It is also excellent that the desire for unity in _action found a concrete expression in support from

HOOION suggestion ot a socialist afliance campaigning on different issues.

But such discussions and alliances can only go so far; they do not by

provide instrument establishing national coordinated fightback against the Tory government; they • do not. solve the

term question of how socialism can be established. Parliament

In answer to this latter question, Audrey Wise argued that 'one arm is

one arm WOKGR action' - which brought a comment

'Parliament's nothing but strangle

solution •came from - the'building of 'an revolutionary party'; while advocated the dual approach of a united revolutionary organisation seeking affiliation to the

Party but maintaining its and the building. of currents the Labour Party such as the Labour Coordinat

It need hardly be said that the argument will continue, particularly at the 'debate of the decade' between

Holland Wise Paul Foot, Tariq Ali, and Hilary Wainwright in London on 17 March. But if there is

what Blackburn called vision, common endeavour', the most obvious place to start is on the steel picket lines.

'WOMEN'S LIBERATION Sociali!

Chalden Moed Hengen sang ay

bat/band. disco) s arts Spm. El. S fos he whole aa socia

Serenon. Adm 75p. Ash welcom

the PTA Campai : NWSPTAC, RCT

RSP. Star and Garter pub, Fairfield Stres

Piccadilly station). Time: 7.30pm, date: Thur 7 F

ghanistar

usi Dron Torn Robinson abel Paise e Cens rarite 36 lm gesa nd Hien 200 ndon E8. Thi Socialist Challenge 31 January 1980 Pape?

Page 8 scan of this page

ABORTION: THE STRU

ON

By Jude Woodward FOR OVER 50 years

have been fighting for abortion rights. The legal and the medical situation has progressed since the early campaigners took up the slogan: 'Our bodies are our own'.

The 1967 Abortion Act represented a qualitative step forward for women, now we face a Bill which is likely to reverse these gains. As we enter a new stage in the struggle for women's right to control their fertility it is useful to look at the history of that campaign and see what lessons it has for us today.

It was the laws passed by the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution In changed the character of the fight for fertility control in Britain.

The first decrees of Soviet power stripped away centuries of prejudice. abolition of illegitimacy divorce on demand, 'Abortion may unimpededly in the soviet hospitals where the maximum of safety is secured'.

Victory

Before the victory question of birth control in Britain was firmlý associated with working class. against the ideas of Thomas Malthus, an 18th century clergyman and amateur economist, who sald. that overpopulation swamp the world's argument sull sterilisation in many Third World countries.

Malthusian ideas were used to justify rigid sexual segregation in the workhouses, and were.

'IF one understand by the

family a compulsory union

based on the marriage contract,

the blessing of the church,

property rights, and the single

passport, then Bolshevism has

destroyed this policed family

from the roots up.'

Trotsky, Liberty Magazine

1933.

behind most early efforts to take birth control

advice to the working class.

Other ideas — of genetic inequality of races

and classes

overpopulation to produce some of the

horrific arguments in favour of birth control,

similar to those Keith Joseph and Enoch Powell

advance today.

When Malthusian

advocated birth control in the streets of South

London they

early socialists and communists were exceedingly

doubtful both

contraception.

The Russian revolution

dramatically: It allowed

group of people, main!!

members

CaL: Pary and so s0

476 5

Browne

Remand. most succinctly: smash d isory sterilisation just

Socialisi Challenge

women in this. but 1917 that really

Along WILL and the provision of

legislation guaranteed that

pertormed free and

of the Bolsheviks the

views about the polemicised vigorously

would eventually food resources an justify forced - combined with theories about

League speakers

were heckled by socialists. vost

abortion. and

changed things the emereence Or a women, who were both the Party. ment the Communist Party in the was an acte birth controi Obably over its refusal to fight

She put the other seei • We are our 16 as much as

31 January 1980 Page8

compulsory maternity. It is for women to choose whether they will have children or not; and if so, how many, at what intervals, and with whom. Russell

Stella Browne, together with feminists, SUCH as Dora Chance, set up a campaign group to get ine Labour Party io change its policy and birth control. They took the issue to Labour Party conferences in 1924, 1925 and 1926, and in the latter year they won a slim tavour or Dinn control actice di oka dumor.

The the

= ==

Lots. 4: 41...

did not start to give

wing this success, Stella Browne, oi, Frida Laski and Janet Chance set up f

"The Russian revolution allowed the emergence of a group of people, mainly women, who were both socialists and also pro-birth control and pro-legal abortion.'

despite mass other early Russell and Janet

on abortion

majority in

forwarded campaigning from Co. every way,

Eier

Many com advice already

ANTI.

ABORTION

BILL

Abortion Law Reform Association in 1936. The founding conference was well attended by vocal working class women.

One of them, Nurse Daniels — who had been dismissed as a health visitor in Edmonton;

opposition from local class women for giving birth control advice intervened indignantiy:

*Poor women live under the spell of fear and thev are always trying to get temselves might Working women want abortion. not the poor have it? Let the poor have what the rich have already got.

The association received thousands of letters from working class women, many of which they

1o Birkett Committee Abortion in 1937. It campaigned vigorously in

in the streets, through petitioning and conferences and by attemping to organise working class women until the Second World War interrupred its work.

during war Stella bombarded the association mass action for abortion righte

turning

Stalin reversed the Sovi policy in 1936, releasing at the of unfavourable statistics to suy

TO CORRIE

ONSI

working. class

working

Why should

Brown

febt tide was

International Ne Conference, 1922,

handed a great many ai

policy. This sapped the self-confidence of th

pro-abortion movement, and 'IN my opinion, as a Feminist and a Communist, the fundamental importance and value of birth control lies in its widening of the scope of human freedom and choice, its self-determining significance for women. Birth control means freedom for women, social and sexual freedom, and that is why it is so feared and disliked in many infliertial corners today... (it) is the beginning of the end of a socia system and a moral code.'

Stella Browne.

Page 9 scan of this page

side.

After the Second World War, ALRA had become little more than lobbiers with their eyes fixed oere was no more talk of mass action or street campaigning. ALRA did play a role in fighting

only Dora Russell of the association's early feminist founders lived to see.

For those early abortion campaigners, as for us now, the issue of women's right to control

was a direct Her ey medical profession, the Church, and to the state. It was not simply a question of righting an

women, an assaulll 'morality', and the liberation of sexual relations.

Pleasu

• Stella Browne sexual 'pleasure, despite atmosphere this ban

that experim ely, ment."

These

¡GLE GOES

OPPOSE THE

CORRIE BILL

group of liberal Parliament.

remember

chalenge

the liberation puritanica.

sued openly in favour of prevailing isy and laboo. 'What is * asked. 'It is a sexual women should without punish-

the pro-abortion

KEEP IT

SAFE

movement in this country, and working class women that they organised, have much to teach us now. Obstinacy

As the pro-abortion movement faces the possibility of serious reverse

the obstinacy of campaigners. They faced social ostracism, loss of custody of their children, sackings, and the prospect of a long fight against not only the establishment but the labour movement itself. But they were determined to keep on fighting.

We have come a long way since then. have begun to win the fight in

La sere ae ewer üst learn their lessons and insist that an issue for the whole working class, action is the only way to win.

knowledgements for inform ly baye Widgery in Intern fuly/Auguşt tion Rights Campaign Fine Struggle in

EVERY

to start

The impression wrong

made very announcement. between

to conceive

Church in explicitly reactionary

Archbishops jointly that abortion, stances, is an "evl

The By Sue Watkins

concerted press

the Corrie Bill.

paint a

The

immoral.

disgrace. Stories Stories having

given the Whether it's young have abortions. the

deal with cies on their own, thirteen LemmelOn

pulis and a not

we should and who those early

These

dangerous

completely We the labour reveal the

street abortion: obstacles in

gratuitous

STOP

1975 and

enters fight

SO often the Catholic Church gives the misleading impression that it is about to change, about

playing a more progressive role in society.

is always

A few weeks ago the Pope

controyersial He said that married people arguments who are not actually planning

- as long as they love each other and as long as previous they don't use contraception -is no longer a sin! Well, it's a

But last week the Catholic

political and intervention into the foetus! the eurrent fight around the Corrie anti-abortion Bill. The In seven British Roman Catholic

declared in all circumnot a light matter for the religious.

Catholic Church has

made no secret of its opposition

BAD NEWS

THE PRESS coverage of the Catholic Archbishops' latest statement on abortion almost certainly kicks off a

campaign leading up to the vote on

We can expect the press to

lurid and terrifying picture of abortion: a mixture of blood, gore, horror and sex.

idea that women sometimes have sex when the don't want to have babies will be portrayed as perverted and

An unwanted pregnancy will be a shameful

about women abortion will be dragged up from the files and

full treatment. women, old women, single or married, British women of women from another country, some sexist O racist angle will be exploited.

example is The Sun's shock horror revelation last week that women under 16

Would The Sun rather they attempted to

unwanted pregnanlike the findings VCal old girl in

secuted for taking six laxative who W43 pro- and

bath in illegal) attempt to end her pregnancy, every

had a miscarriage the '67 with the threat of imprisonment hanging over her? Lying

that abortion is a furtive, squalid,

affair grew up during the century when it was

outlawed. They ideology of back mixture of nightmares and titillation, the

and humiliation of women. two

Ne Daily Express you'll are likely to find the main of the anti-abortionists' *it: the idea that legal

Catholic Church

to abortion in the past, but this was not simply a restatement of known policy. I was timed to get the maximum publicity just before the final reading of the Corrie Bill in Parliament.

Almost as shocking as what these Archbishops actually say is the fact that the 'liberal' - Guardran gare them nearly a half a page to explain their case without a word of the counter

The archbishops' statement is in fact a liberalisation of their

position, They say that if a pregnant woman's life is in danger doctors may

situation though they had two patients. • Previouer the doctor had fo think of only one life - that of

other respects the statement - Abortion and the Right to Live - just reiterates the Church's traditional, and utterly mysoginist approach. If a woman is raped 'the newlyconceived child cannot rightly be made to suffer the penalty of

2

FIGHT CORRIE'S

ABORTION BILL

restrictions on abortion stop abortions happening. Statistics

the opposite, the of the Birkett Committèe show. In 1935 estimated that between 100,000

150,000 (completely abortions were done year in Britain Under Act, the total figure is around 130,000

The anti-abortionists and their allies in the press are lying when they say abortion can be 'stamped out; it just means stamping on women.

Evourite trick of The and, to a certain extent, The Guardian is to have

describing their abortiens, one glad to have

cone remorseful anc this *fair

Matures really people into ate's about

Socialist Challenge

death for a man's violation of the woman'.

To abort a deformed foetus. say the archbishops, , is to kill another human on the basis it would be 'better off dead' judgement we have no right to make.

Of course, it hangs on the fact that they believe life is a "question of 'souls" rather than •sometbing that's socially -defined. But even taking this « into account it is remarkable how little the real life of the woman is considered compared to the incredible concern for the abstract and potential life of the foetus.

Clearly the Catholic Church

determined to throw weight behind the Corrie Bill. But this Church that bans contraception, réfuses to allow women to become priests, and above all continues the cult of the holy nuclear family bas built up a huge debt of outstanding fury among women. They won't get away with it forever. whether you are pro-or anti-

They avoid saying whether abortion should be the woman's decision, the doctor's or the state's. This is the trap the trade union movement has

The only way out of it is to say that - for women - it's

bodies, our lives terminating or continuing pregnancy should be established in law decision.

If your local paper publishes anti-abortion articles then demand the right to put the opposing point of view Contact the NUT chapel and

Strom the abortion camp i can talk to them. Use the teners page. But

all else fails then there's always directive sion The London Eve we did give space Spint of view bed by women t : their lesbian

31- vary 1980 Page

Page 10 scan of this page

Trotsky-no let-up in struggle against the bureaucracy

INTERNATIONAL

CAMPAIGN NEWS!

A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE

Ву Вягту Wilkins

LAST Saturday Campaign held a conference attended by about 60 feminists, socialists and trade unionists from Newport and the South valleys.

The conference had two purposes - to discuss how to také forward the struggle for abortion rights and to movise support ior the mass JOBDy of Parliament on 5 February and the wo The campaign had ered ine

campaign had asked.

Wales TUC to sponsor the ference but met with refusal. Derek Gregory, NUPE full-timer represented the Wales TUC at the conference, defended this grounds that it could not sponsor anything without having organisational control!

Ros Olivier, NUT delegaie 1o Cardiff trades behalf of the Cardiff Abortion CamPor abortion ried sis tot tust le

abortion rights woman's issue but also a class issue and that the attack on abortion rights is a part of the overall Tory offensive against the working class.

In the final report-back people were urged to intensify their campaigning against the Corrie Bill over

crucial next three Transport is being arranged for both the messiobby of Parlament and for the women's assembly. phone Cardiff 43470.

Photo: G.M. COOKSON socialls

300 people marched through London against the Corrie Bill last Saturday

GLASGOW march against Corrie sponsored by the Scottish TUC on 2

Move off at 1 3 m Custom House Quay, Speakers: Chris Aldrid Abortion Campaign); (TUC); Mary Harrison (Chair).

Socialist Challenge 31 January 1980 Pageo

By Dave Packer

Cardiff Abortion

oil-rich Persian

Cardiff,

Wales means military force'.

for call-up should he reimpose the military draft.

con- against the who

on Cold War. It poses vital

ticular, USSR itself and its defence. spoke

Is not lust a

Defend

weeks.

We have

For details unconditionally

contradictory.

of workers'

collaboration

workers democracy.

class nature of East rally.

(National Tess Gill tional class struggle...

Soviet Union

Against imperialist

war threats

LAST WEEK President Carter warned that any Soviet attempt to use Afghanistan as a springboard for seizing control of the

Gulf region would be 'repelled by use of any neorcer This including tough language was followed by an announcement that he was ordering registration of men aged 18 to 26

decide to

This escalation of war threats

Soviet Union (faithfully reflected by Thatcher & Co.) represents at the very least an ideological preparation for

questions for every socialist: in par-

our attitude towards the

Many workers, despite a natural suspicion of Carter's sabre-rattling, state will ask how it is possible to oppose TCHLOES these moves and detend the Soviet Union when the latter tramples on the democratic rights not only of the masses in the USSR but also of those in independert countries (to the extent of using brute military force).

before

argued that it is necessary to defend the Soviet state

against imperialist war threats despite the bureaucratic actions of its totantarian regime in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This may seem contradictory; but in fact the state. nature of the Soviet Union itself is

The Russian revolution in 1917 drew a sharp line in the labour movement between those who identitied tially with this revolutionary establishment Soviet

power and those who counterposed a perspective of class-

with the capitalists.

Subsequently, however, the issue has been confused by the rise of Stalinist totalitarianism and the liquidation of

In his long struggle against the ascendancy of Stalin's regime, Leon Trotsky many times defended the

the Soviet state established by the Russian revolution From left to right: Grechko, Podgorny, Brezhner, Kosygin, Suslov.

'MISTAKES on the question of defence of the USSR most frequently flow from an incorrect understanding of the methods of "defence". Defence of the USSR does not at all mean rapprochement with the Kremlin bureaucracy, the acceptance of its politics, or a conciliation with the polities of her allies. In this question, atin all others, we remain completely on the ground of the interna-

•We must formulate our slogans in such a way that workers see clearly just what we are defending in the USSR (state property and planned economy),

Why we defend the

Crete

Saudi Arabia (its social Dasis, une

property and planned economy) despite the bureaucratic degeneration that was taking place. One of his last political struggles

The was struck down by Stalin's assassin was on this question (see quotation printed here.

We defend the Soviet Union unconditionally in the sense that we defend these gains. We defend it as a workers state and those things within

which correspond to a workers

This is not conditional on the actions of the bureacratic elle have usurped political power the working class. Here lies the essen-

contradictory liattic of Union. Stalin, the representative of the ascendant bureaucracy, was able to transform the Red Army from the armed expression of the revolutionary letariat to an instrument in the hands of this bureaucracy.

Clearly it is out of the question to support all the actions of such a 'Red Army'. Its character is graphically illustrated by the gold braid, epaulettes

numerous medals that weigh down its generals. The foreign policy

Iceland

• Germany The points marked are US military bases

of the Soviet bureaucracy, with its internal policy, concerned with the preservation of its narrow material privileges. Conservatism and defence of the status quo are the hallmarks of from all bureaucratic elites.

the Detente main

The Kremlin policy of peaceful co-existence with pro- (détente) is directly counterposed to

the policy of revolutionary interna. tionalism. national class struggle to the national interests of the bureaucracy. The outcome of the Spanish revolution and civil war was a tragic confirmation of its counter-revolutionary character: However world proletarian revolution.'

USA Soyiet Union support 1o whole. in, line is entirely

interests and

perialist NATO.

But

shoulders imperialism

It subordinates the inter- perspective against workers

within

- and this is the con and against whom we are conducting a ruthless struggle (the parasitie bureaucracy and its Comintern). We must not lose sight for a single moment of the fact that the question of overthrowing the Soviet bureaucracy is for us subordinate to the question of preserving state property in the means of production in the USSR; that the question of preserving state property in the means of production in the USSR is subordinate for us to the question of the

(Leon Trotsky, In Defence of Marxism, 1939)

Aleutian Is.

Hawaii 'Guam Caroline Is.

\7th Fleet

tradiction

the defence. of its own material interests also forces the bureaucracy to detend (even if very inadequately) the 'socialised property relations on which it is a parasitic growth. But we support only those actions which defend these gains; there is no question of giving political

Ine bureaucracy as a

It is for this reason that we also defend the right of the workers states to arm themselves against the war threats of imperialism. We defend the formation of military alliances to this end while utterly opposing all im.

military blocs such

in the final analysis the defence of the gains of the Russian revolution effectively rests on the

internationa workers movement. Only through an unyielding revolutionary and anti-

policy, incorporating of ruthless struggle the bureaucracy the states by the workers, peasants and rank and file soldiers

these stales, will Stalinist totalitarianism be finally removed from our movement.

Page 11 scan of this page

Pre-Olympic drive to round up dissidents

Andrej Sakharoy is Games.

Dr. Sakharov, chauffeur-driven

of Sciences.

His removal without trial was illegal leading families from the capital, extraordinarily By Helen Jamieson THE forcible removal Sakharov decisively proves what Soviet oppositionists have been saying for months Soviet leadership is centrally concerned 10 prevent any between domestic critics foreigners during Games. This is the only possible explanation for the decision to remove Sakharov to Gorki, otherwise quite pointiess exercise in gaining bad publicity.

This latest action is part of a general sweep against critics which is wider than anything since the beginning of the 1970s. The drive has in-

arrest and sentencing of members of the various monitoring groups,

the Ukrainian group; union activists, religious groups, national oppositions in Ukraine and among the Crimear Tatars; of young leftist groups and feminists in Leningrad; of samizdat journals including the Current Events and Poiski ches). Psychiatric repression has continued to be used.

Detente

The last wide sweep between 1970 and 1972- - when 200 people were arrested in the Ukraine connected to the opening Brezhnev's new detente policy. It was designed to show that detente would not mean. any domestic relaxation, and to prevent the opposi-

currents from attracting influence in the new international atmosphere that was emerging at that time. Many activists to between 12 and 15 years in prison and exile.

A new form of protest emerged in 1,976 with the formation of Helsinki monitoring groups Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia

These groups together to try to expose Soviet violanons or neir own mitments at the 1975 Helsinki Conference Security operation.

Partly in response to Carter's human rights demagogy, and partly because the monnoring groups gamed significant support minorities and religious groups, the Soviet. leadership rounded up movement's main leaders in 1977 including Orlov, Ginsburg and Rudenko. Their heavy sentences were designed to isolate the movement totally from domestic sup-

and were accompanied by at-

INTERNATIONAL

Sakharov removed

from the limelight

AMID intriguing Izvestia suggestions that Dr.

American Mole, the creator of Moscow's nuclear bomb was forcibly removed from Moscow to Gorki last week. The party leadership wanted to ensure that its only world famous domestic opponent will be out of range of foreign TV cameras during the Olympic

who was taken from his car while on his way lo. the Academy of Sciences, will suffer little material hardship by being removed to a new flat in Gorki. And he has not been expelled from the Academy

— a trial was obviously felt to be too costly — but it was a very different action from the sentences of exile to Siberia being meted out to lesser known political figures. Rather, it is in direct line with the old Tsarist practice of banning dissident members of

of Dr.

that the

contact and! the Olympic

an Helsinki especially those or trade

Lithuania,

ANAYEVO

Chronicle of (Sear* CAMPS HUMA RARWAY had been of at RIVER - ROAD

political MILES

wider

on offer were sentenced tempts to

The Georgian tively silenced, Russia, and worked

voluntary com- wide range came Cothe Soviet Union:

groups Klebanov's from ethnic Association,

the second Professional Trade Union Shcharansky, tion (SMOT), has repression since November 1978.

has on offer. political leader, Chaban-Delmas.

Gaullists

realpolitik in

human rights

stricken attendance on the same plane.MORDOVIAN CAMP COMPLEX

MOSCOW

RUSSIA *17A OZENNY

RIVER VINDREY

SEL'KHOZ STATIOI

RIVER PARTS

Treatment of Sakharov was mild compared with other things the KGB has

crush the monitoring groups outside Moscow altogether

group was effecbut the ukrainian group responded to each new wave of arrests with new members, and along with the others contined to produce new documents. More significantly, a

of hitherto unheard of to the surface throughout the European region of

In particular two trade. union

appeared. Vladimir :

Trade Union ГЕСС formed early in 1978, was quickly and brutally crushed; but

group the InterAssociasurvived despite it appeared

A Moscow-based group monitoring psychiatric repression continues

mild compared with the other things that the KGB

Timed so that it would compete with Afghan beadlines in the Western press, the action against Sakharov succeeded in torpedoing the Kremlin's single diplomatic triumph since Christmas - the friendly visit to Moscow of France's third-in-rank

Moscow overlooked the fact that while the

. are unashamed backers of national foreign policy, the French bourgeoisie is firmly committed to trying to use

demagogy against its domestic labour movement. Chaban-Delmas had to retreat to Paris the day after he had arrived in Moscow, with the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister in panic-

Meanwhile the French desk in the Soviet foreign office must be wondering whether one of those who decided the timing of Dr. Sakharor's removal might not be the American Mole!

DARASHEVO 3 & Contrai Honpital

• HEROZAYOO STATION

¿& Central gation RIVER YAVAS

***10

SF

MDREY -18 LESHOY

1182 Time

BOYA POLYAMA

to operate despite the exile of its founder, Alexander Podrabinek. movement of invalids demanding their social rights has appeared. And a Left Opposition youth group whose leaders were imprisoned or sent to psychiatric hospitals in spring of last year was shown to have had wide support by a protest demonstration involving some 200 students in Leningrad The group's documents also showed that they were in touch with other leftist groups in some half a dozen cities.

In the summer of 1978 a new literary review called Poiski founded in Moscow, involving a wide range of political views from Marxist to liberal democratic. Among those involved were Old Bolshevik, Raissa Lert, and the very Marxist historian Mikhail Ghetter.

Another literary project, Metropol, appeared with the support of some of

Russia's 110S

Most recently, a feminist journal started to appear in Leningrad at the end of last year (two articles from the first issue will appear in the next issue of Labour Focus on Eastern Europe).

by continuing ferment in the national republics and amongst groups. In Georgia at least 5,000 people demonstrated in defence of their national rights against their constitution in spring 1978, and summar delivity bas occu bandstar-

• strong-in Lithuania. of the Crimean Tatars to be able to return to their homeland has also been very vigorous during the last two years. Savage

But the KGB has been hard at work on a search and destroy operation against all these movements during the last few months. It has been savage towards the and the Left Opposition group, using psychiatric repression in both cases.

Metropol has been and contributors to it have been expelled from the Writers' Union. The entire editorial board of Poiski has been threatened with arrest, and two members are already in jail awaiting trial.

Leading Lithuanian and Tatar acsentenees, and since summer 1979 no. fewer than Ukrainian Helsinki Group have been arrested. tenced, Oles Berdnyk, member of the Writers' Union, was given a total of nine years of jail and exile Another Yuri Badzyo, a former headmaster and party member, year for seven years followed by five years' exile. members of the Ukrainian Helsinki group are certain to be arrested in the near future. Editor

In Moscow, Tatyana Velikanova. the editor since 1974 of the Chronicle of Current tvents was arrested last October. Moscow member Malva charged with anti-Soviet agitation, was and a number of leading dissident

Christians Father Gleb Yakunin have been arrested:

This month three members of the eminent Revolutionary munards have been sentenced to between one and three years in jail, and the editors of the new feminist jour-

SAKHAROY — removed from Moscow to Gorki

popular official nal

second issue

this

All these activities were matched

religious

changes

The struggle trade unionists jail

members of the GINSBURG

Of the five already sen-

former

Ukrainian activist,

was jailed last

Support

More of the 30 current

This stronger

Elaboration

Helsinki Group Landa has been League Com- Poiski editors.

NWtt.

Women and Russia have been threatened with jail if they produce a

One perhaps significant twist. in

course of events has been the decision of the Soviet Supreme Court to annul a three-year jail sentence on Edward Kuleshov, a worker in an engineering factory making combine harvesters in the Donbas region of the eastern Ukraine (see 'Headaches for the Prosecution' in Labour Focus

- arrested in 1977 Vol. 3, No. 4 on the fabricated KGB evidence in Kuleshov's case). This unprécedented Supreme Court decision suggests that the Soviet leadership may be wishing to make a propaganda gesture towards trade union opinion in the capitalist world

could be symptom Stroking ass stipper in the Westing Soviet interest in conditions where its entorts at"col.

with the imperialist bourgeoisie are breaking down. If so. it makes, working class DUSUL IU victims of repression in the USSR al the more important.

The Eastern Europe Solidarity Cam paign decided at its last meeting to raise within the labour movement cases of repression of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group members and of the

For further informs. tion conctact: EESC, c/o Vladimin

10 Park Drive, London

Socialist Challenge 31 January 1980 Pagell

Page 12 scan of this page

General strike shuts down South of Ireland

NF'smash IRA' march for Glasgow

IRELAND

By Tom Marlowe

THE LARGEST general strike in the

history of the Southern Irish

took place on Tuesday 22 January. In a half-day stoppage called by the Irish

Congress Trade

estimated 700,000 people took part in

a series of demonstrations throughout

the 26 Counties.

400,000 joined the Dublin march.

The strike was

taxation system which

Southern Irish state. This works in such a

way that 87 per cent of all income tax

collected is paid by industrial and service

sector workers — about 700,000 workers

in all. Farmers - and there are 170,000 in By George Kerevan THE National Front is to hold march and rally in Glasgow on March under the banner IRA'. This response to the successful (U)TOM last. April attracted over thousand people. The Movement in Scotland is calling for Ine labour movement to organise a massive protest stop marching.

West of Scotland NF organiser Raymond Skinner claims the march was prompted by calls from 'Ulster Loyalists in Glasgow'. The latter have been outraged by TOM demonstrations in Glasgow and Dundee over the past eighteen months, that they have hạd to go to the NF to organise a counter-demo is revealing of their weakness.

Orange lunatics

In April, despite two weeks when the TOM march was prominent in the Scottish media, the Loyalists could muster only a few hundred counterdemonstrators who shuffled along throwing the • odd beer Front's links with the Orange lunatic fringe stem from their attempt to make up for the scant appeal of their rabid English nationalism north of the border.

John Tyndall is the scheduled speaker at the rally, though this was announced prior to his resignation as

NF führer. Tyndall's father was Ulster Protestant. The rally has still to ger police permission. The leader of Glasgow's Labour Jean McFadden, says group would not want to see the National Front marching Glasgon's streets'.

Ball it is not only the NF who are

Socialist Challenge: 31 January 1980

state

Unions,

year.

Approximately

the unequal

over

operates in the

ers, 15

'Smash the

demonstration

Troops Out

the NF but the fact

The wall. administration, the British • lne Laboul

through successful organised by Edinburgh, Page 1?

the South of Ireland - contribute only one per cent of the total income tax. But it is not only farmers benefited from the Irish taxation system. Taxes on the richest five per cent, who own 71 per cent of all wealth, have either been dropped or massively cut in the last few years. A wealth tax has been abolished and corporation tax will be reduced from 45 per cent to 10 per cent next

In all, taxes on capital yield only one per cent of the total raised by income tax. Among the victims of the taxation system are married women, who pay a disproportionately greater amount of their income to the Irish exchequer than do single people.

What all. this adds up to is that while industrial and public sector workers work one day in five for the Irish revenue commissionthe self-employed and The demonstration in Glasgow last April which attracted over a thousand people. worried about the TOM. Interest in Scottish TOM has also been shown by

who have been march. investigating a recent speaking tour.

In the week 13-21 January, a highly

of meelugs was TOM in Glasgow, Dundee, Stirling and

about one day a year.

who have

them and onto the worker.

larger farmers Aberdeen to publicise the Birmingham Bloody Sunday commemoration

These Lord meetings addressed Hayes, ex-soldier who served two tours in Northern Ireland. Hayes also spoke to kids in a local school.

an army representative

Ireland'single biggest

issue - Benn

By Geoff Bell

terview on Irish radio, unreported in the British press.

that it would not represent a moye towards a solution.'

contribute less than one day a month, and those in the higher levels of business put in

Reports in the British media have tended to portray the arguments about the Irish taxation system as a conflict between industrial workers and farmers. In fact, as speakers at last week's demonstrations made clear, the general strike was against the whole system which demands that Irish industrial workers pay for all the rest. As Ruaidhri Roberts, general secretary he the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said: whole burden of taxation has been shifted not towards those best able to pay, but away from While the Irish Fianna Fail government, under the new leadership of millionaire Charlie Haughey, has promised to look into reforming the taxation system, it also wants to do a Margaret Thatcher and impose severe cuts in public spending. Roberts made it clear that the repeatedly called the school seeking Lloyd's name and address. They gave were no explanation as to why they wanted an the information. army intelligence: Lloyd had actually debated the army's role in Ireland in Iront of tre Kids will a segcan TONY BENN said last week that the North of Ireland was the single biggest domestic issue in the United Kingdom', and that 'what is needed now in Britain is a real debate about the situation in Northern Ireland'. Benn made the remarks during an in-

although his comments have

As to his own views, Benn was suitably contradictory. He said that he believed the partition of Ireland in 1921 was 'wrong ... I think you cannot look at this without a very broad historical sweep and recognise that attempts 1o solve the problem in London have never been successful'. But then he added: •On the other hand there is the anxiety, which I do feel myself, that it you move precipitately to solve it by a withdrawal of troops, which is the argumen. put forward by some people, that this might lead into a situation so terrible

So for the moment Benn has adopted the position on Ireland most favoured by the Labour left — in favour of British withdrawal and reunification in principle, but against it in practice. Nevertheless, his call for a 'real debate' can only be welcomed; especially as Benn himself has shown some reluctance in the past to be drawn on the issue. For example, in his book Arguments for Socialism, Benn mentions Ireland ... not once.

Irish unions are also opposed to this:

'We

reductions in

government spending

• of employment opportunities.

are in no. way policy.'

what follows last tion — "Tax the greedy, not the needy'. This says little for

attend Westminster

members Labour

right-wing

position gone attempt show Cabiner

seeking cuts in overall taxation, we are not seeking and are opposed

public expenditure. We recognise the need to maintain the level of

housing, on social welfare and on the creation

We do not wish to see a diminution in that expenditure and we

seeking a deflationary Tory

But whether such a deflationary policy is followed by the Irish government depends on

week's general strike.

Certainly the militancy of Irish workers can hardly be questioned. 1979 saw more days lost through strikes than in any other year since the establishment of the Southern Irish state. The message to the Irish government was summed up by one placard on the Dublin demonstra.

Over 300 people attended Lloyd's meetings, which were also addressed by Harry McShane, a veteran socialist who told of campaigning for. "troops our' with John Maclean in 1920. The Edinburgh meeting was to have been chaired by the Labour MP for Leith, Ron Brown, who sent his apologies when at the last minure he had to the steel debate

* One MP missing from that • debate was Tam Dalyell, who was sent up north the same evening to speak to Edinburgh Centrai Party. TOM Edinburgh Central had taken part in the heckling of Callaghan during a election rally But attempt purge the hecklers back-fired when the loca party voted to adopt a troops out

Dalyell was sent in as part of an to persuade Edinburgh Central to 'cool it'. But by the end o the meeting Dalyell was also calling for troops out. He even took back with him copies of a report prepared by the original hecklers to explain their positions, saying that he would them around Shadow

NEXT WEEK:

Gerry Foley, American journalist and author or several pubucatol. on Ireland, reports on the Provisional Sinn Fein conference held recently in Dublin.

Page 13 scan of this page

INTERNATIONAL

IN THE slums of Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, Garcia have been living stricken exile for the last ten years. Many of their shacks are made from no more than beaten tin cans. They are the human price for the imperialist war machine that is being put together in the Indian Ocean; a problem that the Thatcher government is now trying to sweep under the carpet.

Diego Garcia, and the other islands which make up the Chagos historically attached to Mauritius, colony from 1814. But in the 1960s there were growing demands for Mauritian independence. How was Britain to retain control of the vital shipping routes?

Bribery was the answer. In return for 40 million rupees the Mauritian ahandoned at claim to inhabitants were not consulted as the islands of the Chagos Archipelago were lumped in with other far-flung Islands Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)..

Indifference

Two years later, on 25 April 1967, the US and Britain concluded a 50-year agreement to

purposes. people living there. But ¡hem?

In 1970, when the decision lo establish a naval communications base on Diego Garcia

breaking the

agreement

appear mortally

trustworthy.

their word

* authorised

* refused prosecute

Smith regime;

to the Muzorewa;

ground

the

and doing delay the Robert Mugabe.

Guards

All but the second these are explicit violations of the lancaster House accords

Most publicity has been given to the presence 0f an estimated 250 South 'guarding' Beit Bridge. deployed up to seven miles inside the

and are equipped artillery. It is less well known that the

section of the Lancaster agreement in which it was agreed that LICTE would involvement, including by

The Supplement to not included in White recording the talks, despite the fact that was only the commitment on the South Afriean troops issue which Patriotic Front to sign the agreement.

434 families from Diego

in poverty-

Archipelago, were

La British

government

Diego Garcia.

the British

Jointly Gence There was still the problem of the

who cared about

How Britain is

Lancaster House

Lord te ormciple

actually worth. any

less than

how they collective

LYCI the E, the

omitted of Bingham Report oil Unfair belatedly

possible

and last of

officially

Africans British

They яге

with forces, since

House

South

Grounded

Annex E is

Paper The British Rhodesian air

induced the

January. Soames

about Mania Marred

was announced, the American administration

'uninhabited'. It was the truth whole truth. Over the previous two years some

been forcibly evacuated in the face of general

The islanders found themselves dumped in Wolls sills,

compensation the British government came up

handed over to the Mauritian government to

of this money found its way into the islanders' hands until 1978, by which time it was worth Foreign Office officials insist that

Carrington's commitment to of non-intervention is still valid. — an instructive example of what an English gentleman's word is

Whitehall is evidently stricken by

amnesia. well forgetting the Supplement to Annex

government mysteriously notify MPs of the publication of the third annex to the

oil sanctions-

HUYCELICEI suggestions that this had something to do wiln tue andex suue, bovidence of Criminal Offences, and the fact

General's announcement that there would be no criminal prosecutions as

knowledge that the Rhodesian army is operating at will inside the country.

given to what was laid down in the

units of the security forces should be restricted to within four kilometres of

grossly unfair, since the cooped up assembly areas under the eye of the

_ but obviously not unfair enough for the white khodesians. is difficult to estimate the extent of the casualties caused by the security

the Patriotic Front rock the boat, but there have been at least two incidents in which half a dozen. or more people have died, and possibly dozens with one or two casualties.

supposedly 'grounded' force . was vuly 15 minutes away from being sent into action against 450 guerillas on 7

only refrained

Invasion victims

no one cares

The exiles of Diego Garcia

— DIE TOE LIC

Ick-Will:

Mauritian government. because the group laid down their

The 'auxiliaries' are meant to abide by the same rules as the army, of which they are technically part. In fact they are a private gang owing allegiance only to Muzorewa. they have if anything even greater freedom of movement. There have been numerous reports of auxiliary rampages and beatings of people who fail to produce the correct party card. They often pose as Patriotic Front supporters in order to detect ZANU and ZAPU supporters

The British refusal to clamp down on the auxiliaries is part of a larger concern that Muzorewa, the trusted servant of the whites, should win the election. To that end the same civil

and police apparatus

settlement elections last April will be wheeled out for a repeat performance on 27-29 February.

This, unfortunately is not violation of Lancaster House but is

inhabitants of Diego effectively left to their fate.

Of the 434 families; 422 signed a

repatriated to Diego Garcia. Public meetings were held, and the issue was taken up by the

Moyement• Decent embarrassment to both imperialism and the

Enter a London barrister named Bernard Sheridan, bearing a new British offer of no less than £1 4m (about £1,000 per person). There

fully in line with what the Patriotic Front leaders agreed. One of them, Joshua Nkomo, play atrocities in order to win favours. He may well come in handy if Muzorewa's standing among the voters drops much further.

The British presence in Zimbabwe is thus Hellel.

Governor would have British troops Africans at Beit Bridge. Not only did Soames not de this, but he wouldn't be prepared to years.

The question does not really even revolve though 90 years as the colonial power has shown only too clearly what they are likely to be. incapacity of the do anything masses of Zimbabwe.

That is why the idea that more British troops or more Whitehall civil servants would solve

the money,

Indian Ocean Territory'.

Initially the

them some money. not without friends.

the government informed.'

The

compensation

in which they their homeland.

Thatcher's military

world', ask them

The reply should be interesting misplaced.

is already trying to

security forces'

British

neutral thrown his against explained by against the South

do it in a million

around British intentions -

It concerts thee • Britisk state ever to to benefit the African

everything is

was just one little snag. In order to get hold of

, the islanders had to sign a paper declaring that 'we abandon all titles and rights which would permit a return to the British

islanders" response was farourable. Most of them are illiterate, and all they knew was that somebody wanted to give

But fortunately they were

A Port Louis docker, Michel Gerard Nina, made it his business to find out what was going on and then began to contact all the Diego Garcians to tell them: 'Don't sign anything You have to talk it over with the MMM and

and keep the newspapers

British-sponsored secret deal was blown. Now a general meeting of the islanders has voted not to accept any strings on the

offered, and steps are being taken to invalidate documents already signed

gave up the right to return to

The moral of this little tale: that Carter and

build-up in the Indian Ocean has nothing to do with anyone's "selfdetermination'. So next time some Tory collars you with a lecture about the threat to the 'free

when they intend dismantle the military bases on Diego Garcia and hand the islands back to their inhabitants

Only if the • British presence is reduced — to nothing! — can the people of Zimbabwe decide their own future.

Intercontinental Press

AFGHANISTAN'S long struggle imperialist intervention Ernest article in the latest issue of the weekly Intercontinental Press/Inprecor (Vol . 18, No 3). Other features examine the growth of the US nuclear arsenal in Europe, the performance of the left in Portuguese elections, repression in Colombia, and the figh for the 30-hour week in Sweden.

Individual copies cost 30p 10o pop, but subscriptions mort

For £3 for 10 weeks. Please make cheques/POs out to 'Intercontinenta Press' and send to: IP/I, PO Box 50 London N1 2XP.

Socialist Challenge 31 January 1990 Pagel

Page 14 scan of this page

LETTERS 328/9 UPPER STREET LONDON N1

Afganistan -not a new issue THE INVASION of Afganistan by Soviet troops has raised once again the issue of whether there is ever any justification for the Red Army to intervene in the internal affairs of another country. The issue is not new.

Itarose in 1920 when the Red Army marched on Warsaw, Uptill then it had been, as Deutscher puts it, 'a canon of Marxist politics that revolution cannot and must not be carried on the points of bayonets into foreign countries'. Trotsky resolutely opposed the Polish venture; Lenin, who had hoped that the advance of the Red Army would act as a catalyst for the Polish workers, subsoquently admitted his error (Klara Zetkin: Reminiscence of Leniu). For the same reasons, Trotsky opposed the Ked Army's invasion of Menshevtk-ruled Georgia in 1921, though Georgia was even more of a hot bed of imperialist intrigues than Afganistan today, where, effectively, Moscow has been the dominating influence since 1968.

To come a little nearer to the present day — in his interview with a correspondence of the St Lou's Post Dispatch (March 1940)

Trotsky was asked if he, as former. head of the Red Armies, felt it necessary for the Soviets to move into the Baltic States, Finland and Poland, the better to defend themse ver against aggression. The question concluded, 'Do you believe that a socialist state is justified in extending socialism to a neighbouring state by force of arms?" Trotsky replied:

...The defence of an isolated workers' state depends much more on the support of the labouring masses all over the world than on two or three stratemic boints.. that does not exclude the right and duty to give military aid from without to peoples rebelling against oppression. For example, in 1919 we naturally had the right to help (the Hungarian revolution) by military means ... Unfortunately we were LOD weak..

"The invasion (of the Baltic States etc) is seen by the populations not as an act of liberation but as an act of' violence and thereby facilitates the mobilisation of world opinion against the USSR by the imperialist powers...' (Writings 1939-40).

There is no evidence of a mass. popular uprising in Afganistan which called for revolutionary intervention of the Red Army. Trotsky's strictures on the Soviet invasions of Poland, the Baltic States and Finland can be cogently applied to the current situation, a situation even more complicated by the existence of not one isolated workers'

themselves on opposite sides of the battle-lines.

We must not and cannot give any support to the imperialist campaign against the USSR. Trotsky, quite correctly, while opi osing the march into Georgia in 1921, nevertheless subsequently staunchly countered the imperialist and social-democratic campaign for the restration of Menshevik rule and the withdrawal of Soviet armed forces. Similarly, he never demanded the withdrawal of the Soviet armies from the Baltic

opport the steel scales of meetings Kick our the Tortes

Pm. Digbeth Civi Thine2 Speakers e Laker o0l san 7001 CARINES, WGl 30 han

• Phone Cardiff 394755 for TALO/SHANE Monera (form er eevor

METELD. Tues 29 Jan spa tars: Yara aiea Tari Th

Acm res iNGi and seate Tom Calt

*e Vir Ce pae Sina Rd car ip ti,ri 1 Fet,

=% saa Broke:

Sacictes Chadrags

states and Poland in 1940.

We, in our turn, while conderning the policies which sent the Red Army into Afganistan to bolster up a bureaucratic satellite regime, do not join the chorus of' imperialist jackals who call for their withdrawal as this would create a power vacuum which would be quickly filled by imperialism.

We must demand that the Soviet troops respect the rights of the people of Afganistan to determine their own future, which must include the right of the Afganistan people to demand the withdrawal of foreign troops from their territory. We must give every support to any movement toward the establishment of organs of popular control, even where this will meet — as it will -- the violent opposition of the occupying Red armies.

CHARLIE VAN GELDEREN, London NW10

Soviet arms to the Afghan masses AS COMRADES McNair, Andrews and Shuja correctly point out (Letters, 17 Jan), to raise the slogan 'Soviet troops out of Afganistan' is to effectively condone Carter' sattacks on both the Afghani revolution and the USSR. However both comrades Andrews and Shuja commit the inverse mistake to that of Tariq Ali by assuming that the USSR could go some way to meet the aspirations of the Afghani masses.

Of course it is not excluded that the Soviet army may be used as it was in Eastern Europe to create a deformed workérs' state but this is only a possibility and even so would result in the political expropriation and domination of the Afghanı masses by the Soviet bureaucracy. It is ub to revolutionaries to chart a course that is independent of the bourgeoisie and the Soviet bureaucracy.

The intervention of the USSR was not because Brezhnev might still have a sentimental attachment to proletarian internationalism but designed to stave off increasing destabilisation along its southern borders. The revolutions in Iran and Afganistan, coupled with the imperialist military build up in the Persian Gulf and Pakistan, meant that the bureaucracy had to intervene to prevent a serious dislocation of the status quo in a strategically vital area.

The fact the invasion delays the machinations of imperialism should BULICIS LERSNEC LIP10• intentions of the USSR are for once

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS

satur days apm-spes orsie she Ro man Bals dan furdays 2рm-3рn

available from- Fourth Idea

Fullmarks, H1O Cheltenham Road, Montpellier, Bristol every apm Thursday HUDDERSFIELD: SC kurday 1 lam-lpm. The Paorae

FORUM, SWINDON: SC cei sale 11-1 every Sa.. Regent Si

s bifotapei tube. Stinda 10.30-12.00 Brist Lane

31 Jancary 1900 Prge14

PROPLE FANNING FOUND honourable (and comrade Shuja seems to imply that the USSR should intervene militarily wherever there is a revolutionary situation). However to large sections of the Afghani masses, particularly in the cities, the Soviet invasion is a progressive move. in such a situation revolutionaries must put demands on the bureaucracy that correspond to both the objective needs of the Afghani toilers and their existing consciousness. by comrade McNair (Imperialist hands off Afganistan; No sanctions against the USSR etc) demands such as 'Soviet arms to the Afghan masses' and Make the government responsible to workers' and peasants' organisations' give revolutionaries an orientation to the self-organisation of the Afghani masses while attacking imperialist designs on Afganistan. the Soviet bureaucracy and the world bourgeoisie fear most, the self-organisation of the masses, revolutionaries can give a clear lead not only to those people outside Afganistan in solidarity with the revolution but also to the Afghani masses in their fight against imperialism.

TONY VANZLER, Hull

Afganistan: having it both ways

IT WAS predictable that some people should try țo use the columns of Socialist Challenge to organise welcoming committees for the Red Army. 17 January) defends the invasion of Afganistan by explaining that: "The only way forward is to create a working class from above with Soviet help' -Soviet Union in the 1930s.

hardly guess the Soviet army was in Afganistan. Amid tired rhetoric about imperialist war drives we find the Soviet 'invasion' - in inverted commas! If 80,000 troops are not an invasion this is truly a breakthrough in revolutionary nomenclature. It opens the way for the alleged 'persecution' of soviet oppositionists, the imaginary 'labour camps' and of course the so-called 'invasion' of Czechoslovakia.

sole virtue of consistency. They are convinced of the revolutionary potential of the Soviet army and will, one hopes, cheer it all the way to Islamabad and New Delhi.

The editorial of Socialist Challenge wants to have it both ways.

because it strengthened the counterrevolution in Afganistan and the region as a whole. But because of

forced to take sides. Therefore, now that it has happened without our being consulted, we support the invasion.

Unfortunately what passes for dialectics in Upper Street is not Sc also avata ble necessarily good sense in the real world. Since when have

NIACCAE1 O C98 Ę 7*0 bureaucracy and the politics of stare shops in leveland imperialism? If the invasion helped O Spencer Marker, Sraciot the counter-revolution at first at what point did it stop doing so? Above all, ат 1р-12.30рп whatever happened to Socialist Challenge's much trumpeted support

IT'S THE OLYMPICS! self-determination?

Coupled with the demands raised

try convincing them.

By developing the thing that both

errors Morrison.

consultation.

Thus comrade Andrews (Letters, needed defending.

- an ominous echo of the

From comrade MacNair we would

redundancies'

But these comrades do have the

It argues thus: the invasion was wrong

these new 'political conditions' we are

jobs.

revolutionaries been forced to choose

for the right of nations to

Your editorialist will no doubt say (remember Finland and all that) that such piftling questions go into abeyance when great international class conflicts are at stake. That is nonsense. With a moment's thought it would have dawned on your editorialist that this is precisely when we ate most required to defend self-determination — for not surprisingly it is then that it is most under threat.

The only alternative is to argue that the Soviet Union can violate other people's self-determination at will because it is a workers' state. That is the basest polițical opportunism Editorial Board members who believe that should be despatched forthwith to the Ukraine or Czechoslovakia and

RICHARD CARVER, London SW2 Men's group

I WAS pleased to see that my article on men' s groups was included as a Speakout in the last issue of Socialist Challenge. Untortunately the pleasure was marred by two mistakes.

For some inexplicable reason the article was wrongly attributed to Paul

Secondly the title of the article was changed from 'Men's Groups Achilles Heel and Socialism 'to 'In defence of men's groups', without

To me the two titles have a very ditterent orientation. The article was intended as a positive assertion of the usefulness of men's groups and their role in the struggle for socialism, not as some dubious phenomenon that

JAMES SWINSON, London N5

Steel: now let's

fight for jobs

COVERAGE of the steel dispute has been good, but there's a sore thumb — the absence of the fight against closure. It is not good enough just to say 'stop the closures', or "no

The reformist bureaucracy is intent upon separating the question of pay and jobs, though most steelworkers probably want them linked. The solid support for the pay strike among steel workers only weeks away from closure like Shotton and Corby is testimony to this.

The bureaucracy is after a deal or pay ar tne expelse or Jous. Du position is obvious enough, but witness too the pressure the TUC nationalised industry committee applied upon the Welsh TUC to get it to postpone or abandon a real fight agalnst uneinpioyich.

Incidentally we should probably raise a call for the sacking and re-election of the TUC nationalised industry committee. It showed its own bankruptcy by refusing to support the Welsh TUC action on jobs and offering no alternative defence of

Bevolutionaries need to prepare steel workers for turning the tight on pay into an active defence of jobs. Apart from saying no to closures Socialist Challenge has emphasised work sharing. This ignores the practical problem that to impose work sharing one has to be in control of the plants in the first place!

The sharpest way to pose work sharing is for an immediate 35 hour week in steel and for à scale of future hours to be decided by workers themselves. However all slogans on the organisation of work in steel, on nationalisation of the private sector, and for a workers' plan for steel, revolve around the same pivot, that is workers' control.

The key demand against closures must be one which allows the body of workers to take action, against the opposition of their leaderships, to prevent the further rundown of steel. This has to be through occupying piants hence effectively vetoing the plans of the BSC management and their cupboard backers, the Tory government.

Time is short but now is the time to raise a slogan like 'From a strike on pay to occupations against closures'. STEVE BELL, Cardiff. Solidarity is key IT's time that the TUC and the trade unions united with the BSC strikers.

The steel strike is now a few weeks old and the nickets ar‹ getting organised. The movement of steel is virtually at a standstili. But the time has come for the rest of the workers in this country to support them

The fight is not just for percentage rises and protection of jobs in BSC alone. It is a fighi against the Tory proposals which are affective all of the working ciass

The media are often, if no always, asking the question: 'How long can you last out on strike?' We should ask the question: "How long will the steel bosses and the Tories last?' The answer will be 'Not very long at all' if the workers unite and support the steel strikers.

If the Tories defeat the steelworkers there is little chance of anyone else putting up a fight. They have been picked by the Tories as being 'easy" to beat, but we must prove them wrong.

The backlash of the cuts in jobs in BSC will be severe throughout the country, especially in South Wales, which will be "left for dead' by the Tories. It is also pretty obvious that those who are lucky enough to keep their jobs will not earn a decent living wage.

This is why the TUC and ourselves must not sit idly by and see the Tory cuts in the NHS, social services, jobs, eduçation, and an ever rising dole queue make the lives of the working class even more unbearable and hard. Sadly this is the capitalist way.

It is time for united action against the l'ories, because 11 evel there was a need for solidarity amongst the working class it is now. Remember - Thatcher hasn't done swinging the axe yet!

Support the steelworkers now and kick out the Tories.

P.H. WILSON, Mansfield

Page 15 scan of this page

UNDER REVIEW

By Anthony Francis

A CAPTAIN Willard is sent by military intelligence up through Cambodia in search colonel whose atrocities - committed through a fanatical pagan sect beginning to attract altention back home. The colonel is Kurtz. — plucked. from Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and transported to South-east Asia. On his way Willard witnesses example after example of the cruelty towards. their occasionally reflects, ironically, upon the disintegration that human beings suffer in the context of war.

Apocalypse Now appeal to those who feel that war is simply morally wrong. It never raises itself above this platitude and by half way I had lost any notion that it was supposed lo be about the most barbaric imperialist history: Vietnam. Instead there is a bizarre and formless scenario of violence which reaches a climax in an attack Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie is relayed from loudspeakers strapped to the underside of the helicopters.

Crisis

This is the crisis of Hollywood realism: $30 million spent on the portrayal of violence, but 'no idea of analysing why all this is happening.

it is sexist in thai the frenzied male world of the army is transmitted through the eyes of Willard, the cool-guy who is unflinching and emouonless cven in

sever

Hollywood bull-shitting of a gruff male voice padding out clichés like 'he's got balls".

So what is this film worth? I don't think very much, except insofar as, unlike many of

I! glorifies the driven-to-evil individual falsely cut loose from their society, politics, history and authority (which is presumably why we are assaulted with quotations from Eliot, Kipling. Wagner and The Golden Bough). But this is schizophrenic the army had become. it was still in Vietnam on the orders of its generals and a president operating from behind a ciassical

The formal climax of the film comes when Kurtz, in a state of abject moral exhaustion -disgusted with the war, himself and the world

gives himself up, as it were, to be sacriliced.

world in negalve ignorant to politics, change or why he has

below

But he is 'an honourable, and having read The Golden Bough and other such mythological texts he decides to die in his own 'noble' way. That is to say, he consciously refuses to confront and analyse the nature of his predicament. And thence war itself is taken out context and Vietnam distant and coherent statement except NOTTON The root of the contusion lies in Coppola's

inability to make a film Darkness — and the inadequacy of Conrad's novel itself.

the novel, 'employers, a British ivory-trading company, to go up the Congo and seek out Kurtz, who has abandoned the company himself. with a mad, Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness begins its description in England in the genteel drawings; room of Marlow's mother. from Westminster.

On his way witnesses (what we now know to be Belgian) colonialism in its most brutal form, And we

Vietnam inte

of an American

- are Americans' barbaric

"enemy', and

is a film that would

calamity •modern

yillage . where the wake of the most

cultured man',

bastardised.

exempt from any

'the horror, the

based on Heart of

sent by his

and surrounded

devoted tribe. Unlike

fils DOal icayes

up the Congo, Marlow

too.

are reassured by Conrad's dialogue that the wiles tans business

capital and subjugation. In addition to this, Conrad describes the whites' fear, due to

of both the appearance of the Africans and their landscape. decaying and desperate, it is inferred that the disintegration of this European might be due to his culture and Marlow returns to England, lying to Kurtz's

that he died an honourable. manly death of dignity.

Base

If Coppola had adhered to this structure we might have had a more interesting film. might even have seen the base: America itself, and the directors of the war. But Coppola's film never returns home

bloodstained and dizzy, steps of Kurtz's den.

would have still have made the film chauvinist

Africans as passive, speechless lambs, offering themselves up the capitalistic arms of the white imperialists: the only words they utter are of

a $30m war epic directed by Francis Ford Coppola, has attracted attention not only among

the bourgeois press but in socialist newspapers

Two different views of the film, now on general release, are presented by ANTHONY FRANCIS and VALERIE COULTAS. 'Marlon Brando's ox-like figure eventually looms out of the shadows as Kurtz'

Coppola,

all vuleis

civilisation. In the end,

•We

We leave Willard on the Hart -adherence to Conrad's form

Kurtz's demise 'Mr Kurtz, he dead'

This kind of deduction seems to be beyond

because he does not -seem understand what form is. Interviewed on The South Bank Show, accurate description of what American foreign how he would make a film about Vietnam, he then said: 'I don't want to make a film about Vietnam, I want to create Vietnam itself.'

All I can conclude is that one only has access to $30 million to make a film if one is not going to rock the imperialist boat.

THE OTHER BOOKSHOP

Black Bolshevik, by Harry Haywood — Pluto Press, £2.95 Black Jamaicans Struggle y Slavery, by Richard

- Community Education Trust, 95p

Scarlet Woman, No 10, Newsletter of the Socialist Feminist Current, 45p

328 Upper Street, London N1 2XQ [Tel. 01-226-6571]

By Valerie Coultas war.

•cavalry

that sticks.

destroying 'blowing

into the inside.

Sex

Hendrix,

bizarre

: Captain

beyond

military Save to

he gave a reasonably that the

possible for the

willing

Neither

WAR films are usually memorable Apocalypse Now is no exception. The audience leayes the cinema stunned into silence by the sheer brutality of

the bombastic US colonel in the

That who strides • across minefields takes a sadistic delight in killing Vietnamese. He is a caricature

I love une smell of napalm', he says to his coterie of admirers after

whole village and the ass' of a brave Vietcong woman who throws her hat

helicopter with a grenade

The music of Wagner, the Doors,

Sound helicopter blades beating above, the Bunny girls that arrive to titillate the sex-starved GIs, all make the brutal events seem

and unreal. The audience itself is invited lo participate in a hallucinogenic experience. Mari Sheen, is a ClA asassin. He Willard played is sent on a trip to kill Colone? Kurtz, a modei US soldier who has gone

pale and only succumbed to brutal paganism and genocide but is doing it outside the

the US,

(The Americans were conducting

operations

whère we see him Saigon hotel room getting drunk and displaying his masochism, right up until the gruesome ending of the film. assassin, to appreciate his "sanity" in an insane, barbaric world.

shoots a Vietnamese woman because he dislikes his companions' hypocrisy when, having shot her, they want to

mission to accomplish

Kurtz, the man he has to kill. The

becomes at the prospect of meeting a man who has come to terms with a horrible war by immersing himself in

The swift killings in the earlier part of the film contrast with the

particular brand of barbarism, which is based on the real forms of torture carried out by the South Vietnamese

Ine scenes an nonetheless shocking for all that.

eventually looms out of the shadow! as Kurtz. He is intrigued by the fierce resistance of the Vietcong to 'cadre'-like discipline and military

Western world, cannot understand

Vietnamese spirit of resistance Is vased not on some inscrutable Asian personality but on a commitment to fight as hard as

liberation of their country. Kurtz idolises violence for

own sake. The Vietcong were

to fight the Americans violently because that was the only way to get rid of them.

Kurtz nor the film's director fully understand that. But it's still a film not to be missed.

Socialist Challenge 31 January 1980 Pagels

Page 16 scan of this page

Socialist Challenge

THREE surveys! recently reveal that majority of people in this country either want to keep Abortion Act or want a more liberal law. John Corrie, with the tacit backing of a large chunk of this Tory government, prefers to ignore this, and insists imposing his own personal views on the millions of women who live in this country.

It's hard lo believe that he can really get away with it. Unfortunately there's a good chance he can.

Who do we blame for this?

Firstly, we blame. this government which has: made pussage of Corrie's Bill exceptionally easy. Norman prominent anti-abortionist "leader of the House', has used his position to speed up its passage. The government may not have packed the Bill, but it will go through i if it does - on the strength of the Tory majority in the Commons.

That's why everyone who opposes the Corrie Bill should be demanding an end to this Tory government. Labour

The second reason why the Bill is likely to get through is down to the Labour Party. It should be obvlous that all those who defend the interests of the working class should defend and fight for a 'woman's right to choose But the Labour Party still insists it is a matter of 'conscience'.

There will be no Labour whip to ensure that every Labour MP votes against the Corrie Bill. A number of Labour MPs will vote for it.

Even by standards of British social they shonk be ashamed themselves.

The fact that the Labour Party insists it is a matter of consclence has allowed the Communist press for a very wishy-washy line on

Although the party itself supports a woman's right to choose, it encourages campaigns to act simply on the basis of defence of the '67 Act.

to the arguments, particularly in the trade unions, Clearer

If the Communist fought for a clearer abortion among its supporters in the trade union movement we could have

huge CHLOLL engineers and building workers the lobby on 5 February. Then we'd have seen if the Tories dared to press ahead with the Bill!

For most of us, and especially those whose memories stretch back before the likely passage of the Corrie Bill is

Britain:

Abroad:

Name

Address.

I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of

Cheques. POs and Money Orders should be made payable to

Socialist Challenge

published the vast

the 6

on Tory the

John-Stevas, and

overtly cowardly democracy of

Party

frightening.

Corrie may not achieve 'conscience'

getting abortion

platform, Party had It DUSILION on not an issue for the unions.

not an issue for socialists. on

would have pressure on the labour puts us in a very

scarcely have to look to the future. '67 Act, the contain clear

SUBSCRIBE NOW

12 months £12.50; 6 months £ 6.50 12 months - Surface Mail €12.50 - Airmail £18.00 Multi-reader institutions: Double the above rate" Complete and resurn to Socialist Challenge, 328 Upper Street, London N1.

Registered with tod Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge,

OVER

OUR

DEAD

BODIES,

CORRIE

Allouton 5 and 8 February

hard to believe. It is demoralising and

But now is not the time to be demoralised. The campaign against

what it set out to do, but it has achieved many the things. The TUC demonstration last October was an historic step towards

adopted as an essential part of any cless struggle trade

Increasingly difficult for Every trade union leaders to say that it is

It is unheard of for anyone to claim it is

The strength of the campaign that has been built against Corrie, and the

movement, this good position to take the struggle forward. Now we

The next Labour manifesto has to

commitment to

positive legislation on abortion, and an end to • the "conscience'

The strength of campaign against Corrie puts us in a strong position to apply pressure to

Labour Party. If Corrie's BIll becomes lew it will be a setback — but only a temporary one.

Our sights must now be set on the

union conference on positive legislation called for next Autumn.

union. must be represented there to discuss how to win positive legislation, and to ensure Labour Party is not let off the hook.

Let's make 5 and 8 February the biggest possible show of the strength of feeling of the working people of

country. turn-out, particularly from those unions with a clear policy on abortion, can still turn the tide. But if that doesn't stop the Corrie Bill, we won't let the Corrie Bill stop us.

Our

Fund

Drive

4 WELSH general strike, a call fron national general strike and the fifth week of the steel strike... the struggle against the Tories is really hotting up.

Eleven more Fivers to Fight the Tories' came in this week making 66 this month. UCATT members, members and Socialist Challenge supporters have all dug into their pockets to boost the fund appeal.

LIFE

INFUATONS HIGHER THAM MY vote

the that the

our total so far is already poised at the £800 mark. Let's make it £1000 by the end of the month.

Ann Shirley M Korn A Southall Paddington IMG ] Hammond Hammersmith IMG Reading IMG UCATT member R Johnson Swindon IMG Anon Total this week Cumulative total Correction: £5 credited to F Revell in issue 131 IMG Wolves IMG.

AN ITEM in Standard of 25 January alleged that

With three weeks of January gone Socialist

we understand £5.00 5.00 2.00 15.00 2.00 internationa 15.00 15.00 5.00 35.00 10.00 2.50 public allist £784.54 engagements

should have been from

London's Evening

328/9 Upper Si, London N1. Printed by East End [offset] Ltd. PO Box 82, London E2.

Challenge and its editor Tariq Ali were 'parting company'.

This report is a fabrication based on •Fleet Street rumours'. For some weeks Tariq Ali has been concentrating on a series of speaking engagements concerning the Southall trials, the steel strike and the

situation This has meant that he has been playing less of a day-to-day role in the running of Socialist Challenge.

Because he is the best. knowr

face of the International Marxist Group he often has public

which take him away from the offices of the newspaper The last few weeks is only the latest in a series of occasions that this has happened over the last two years.

But Tariq Ali remains editor of Socialist Challenge.