Socialist Challenge No. 186, 26 February 1981
The scan: sc-n186-feb-26-1981.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
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Page 1 scan of this page
Challenge •WE ARE MANY,
KICK OUT THE TORIES
No. 186 26 February 1981
THEY
ARE
FEW"
PULVERISED! That's the state Tory government after last week's conflict with the miners. Back-tracking on all their previous they have been forced to submit to the miners' demands to open.
in the coalfields there was dous determination to batter the Tories and in the face of the threat of an all-out miners' the Tories realised that the
their adTULUTE
was at staKe.
There is no doubt that national miners' strike had
place it wouid have received massive working CaSS support.
The huge turnout and militancy of last
75,000strong demonstration
Glasgow showed the potential for a sustained onslaught against the government.
was a stinging rebuff to the socia
Miners, Glasgow show that...
of the
policies, at a stroke
keep all the pits
democratic' Gang of Four and their gaggle of right-wing splitters.
Now these giant gains must built
The waterworkers who want living wage and the railworkers who call for investment in their industry to save jobs and provide a decent service should ram home their demands. Power
The miners have
can be ocaten. and both the water and rai workers have the
the power -LO TOrGE Tories to retreat.
The mass protests against unemployment have to tinue. Friday May the unemployTeNE MarGr trom Liverpool arrives in London on its way to parliament.
The Labour Party and rade unIon leaders should call for London s Unem ployment demonstraton to be on that ddy Since the demonstra-
Friday, the Labour Party must call or a one-day strike.
Hundreds of thou sands can be brought
Socialist
onto the streets to put the Tories under seige.
Michael Foot said it all when commented Glasgow rally: 'We are
TALBOT
AT SHOP STEWARIS
COMMITTEE
many, they are few He also told ployed people to 'rise forces are there, ready like lions'. The and willing to do just that. But they need to
YON
A
be given a lead.
Michael Foot should declare his support for all those taking against Tory policies.
Job
shock -
vacancy at
kindergarten!
By Tom Marlowe
NOW is the time to sell your television, stop
buying your daily newspaper, and exchange
your radio for a six-month sleeping pill.
Because,
now, THEY ARE TO WED.
And he must ensure that the LiverpoolLondon march ends with the most gigantic protest seen since the war.
as no doubt you will know by
From now until the summer when they walk down the aisle we will be deluged with pictures of them; acres of newsprint aetalling every accep table nook and cranny of their lives, spectaculars showing them in all their finery
the summer (when, incidentally, official unemploymen figures will be around TWO and unree-quarte million) there will be tee SHITES and books them, and posters showing their radiant smiles
So, it is time to head for your Royal Marriage Fall-out Shelter.
Don't blame Diana She isn't exactly broke herself but by marrying him she will be boarding one of the thickest gravy trains in the business.
At the moment he receives £306,382 a year from us, the tax-payers When he is promoted to
enjoys he will be getting on current figures, more then ten times that.
will run Buckingham Palace (which costs us £1,485,000 year) Windsor Castl (£265,912), Holyrood House (£265,912) Kens ington Palace (£483,000) and St James Palace (£763,000).
And then there is his Houses tate Hour. Highgrove which we bought for him last year, costing over f1 million.
Train
Visiting all these dif ferent homes will be no problem for Diana. She Call travel on the roya train (£385,000 a year), SERe -TOva airplane (£2,500,000) even journey around the coast in the royal yacht (£2m) is in all this for you? well What, you may don't spoilsport, look on the bright side All you unemployed, There wil soon be a ice. now's chance. going at the kindergarten where WORKS you can bet your jubilee mug that won't fall foul
Magsie Thatcher's CUES
But talking of cuts,
Charles the had ing
Charles who had head chopped off? No one surely, not even the most extreme extremis. the most terrible terrorist would wish that on out present Charles?
The kindest cut of al would be to chop the whole royal jamboree.
Page 2 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge meeting after last weekend's demonstration. From left : Denny Fitzpatrick, Des Tierney and Pat Hickey
"Editorial
Socialist Challenge
328/9 Upper St, London N1 Editorial and distribution,
tel. 01-359 8180/9. Accounts, tel.
01-359 8371
'Not so much a
U-turn, more a
somersault'
THE victory of the miners has punch-
ed hole through
monetarist strategy. They have been
humiliated by the miners into gran-
ting state aid to the coal industry.
their most slavish supporters into a fren-
zied rage. Walter
general of the Institute of Directors, called it a 'scandalous surrender' and moaned: union when it wishes to have the next general election.'
people who marched against unemployment through Glasgow last weekend saluted the victory of the miners. But there is more than one interpretation of this victory.
For Michael Foot and Len (you remember him, after 14 May last year) the success stemmed from the joint efforts of the miners and the Coal Board in campaigning for fewer coal imports and higher state sub. sidies.
The rank and file miners in South Wales, Scotland and ferently. They realise that it was their immediate industrial action which forced the Tories' retreat, skilful manoeuvres Ezra of Board may have been up to. And they know that further industrial action will be needed to kick the Tories out and make those victories permanent.
Smash the 6%
Now the water, electricity and gas workers, and the queueing up with pay claims in excess of the government's six per cent pay norm. And in Scotland the workers at Talbot Linwood and Greenock Lee Leisurewear have taken militant action to their jobs.
The Tories may have lost a battle but the war is not yet over. doesn't make a spring and one U-turn doesn't solve a crisis. It would be foolish to believe that the Tories will stop their attacks on working people.
The Tories stared into the abyss of a miners' downfall. They will do their utmost to prevent any other section of workers defeating them. that they are better prepared next time to take on the miners.
The labour movement must also prepare for war. The TUC should co-ordinate the pay struggles into a smash the Tories's pay policy. Full support should be mobilised for every struggle to save jobs. The Labour Party should organise a massive national demonstration against the Tories for the day the Liverpool trades council jobs reaches London.
Throw them out
We have to against the Tories and mobilise tens of thousands to kick them out. The only good Tory government is one which has been thrown out.
The miners' action and the Glasgow demonstration have shown that 1981 will be a year of mass struggle. Let's make sure it's also the year which throws the Tories out.
Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981
the Tories'
The Tories' climbdown sent some of
Goldsmith, director
'We might as well ask the miners'
Just to rub the point home the 75,000
Murray he disappeared
Kent know dif-
no matter what the Coal civil servants are
WITh
defend
One swallow their
strike and saw their possible
And they will ensure
united fight to
march
generalise the fight Page 2'
By Patrick Sikorski
THE TORIES are
confronting a series
demands pay
which are threaten-
ing to lead to in-
ausurial action
An all-out strike by
the water workers seems
likely next week, with the
presently
meeting to discuss na-
tional action. Unofticial
strikes and overtime bans
are escalating, following
ne overwaelming rejec
tion of the employers'
per cent pay offer.
Lancashire
workers Have
started indefinite
3u per cent claim.
A week to
remember
By Tessa van Gelderen 'AT the front, one banner sums it all up... "Save Linwood, Tories Out", said the Scottish Sunday Mail referring Socialist Challenge Glasgow demonstration.
The closure of Talbot Linwood, near Glasgow,
the lips everyone the 75,000-stong march.
Delegations had cule roll very corner of the country and every
LICI
The of the miners against the Tory
Inspired both the marchers and the platform speakers. East
The miners shown the way. said Tony Benn in a telegram.
And Michael Foot called on the labour movement
'rise up like lions against the Tories.
The demonstration was led by 1,500 Linwood workers together
1,000 Talbot was workers from
Ullici plants in the country.
Engineers, miners,
workers, steel and rail WULKCIS. Labour Party constituencies were all there. And youth came in
thousands, marching tor lobs that most of them have never had.
some workers threat. ened with redundancies were despondent about
MILLION
MANY!
100
Home News
Next round to the
water workers?
The effect of a na-
tional strike by water and
sewerage workers
unknown. Last year,
without strike, two
collapsed each
day and 50 water mains
burst each week in ine
Thames region alone.
Contingency plans
have been made for the
use of troops but on the
instruction of the local
government union they
will receive no help from
supervisors other
managerial staff. First the miners, then Glasgow
to the placards on the
their ability to fight for their jobs. 'The miners arem workees pos toe from workers the hool lade OBe car worker told Socialist Challenge. 'We depend on the miners to help us.'
But they had no faith
leaders of their unions to fight against redundancies. Women engineering workers from Sunbeam Electric,
Kilbride, had nothing but contempt for Terry Duffy.
One North London railway worker summed up many militants' feelings when he said: 'NUR
magic: Sidney Weighell is tragic.
The demonstration
about jobs, but ==: was more that that was about getting rid of his vicious Tory government once and for all.
Socialist Challenge posters which lined the route of the march thanks to the teams of supporters who had been out every day that week summed up the mood •Jobs not Bombs, Kick Out the Tories.'
was the
Water workers are in position to strike
another body blow to the
Tories.
Civil servants are also
on the move. They are threatening one-day national strike on March after the government's derisory offer of a
7 per cent pay rise The civil servants want 15 per cent and they
al c prepared to follow the
one-day strike with selective stoppages.
Such action can be main message Socialist Challenge, hundreds of which were sold
the demonstration and on the coaches and Halls marchers
Our Manchester sup porters sold 237 copies!
Thousands of badges were sold 'Glasgow against the Tories and save Linwood, Sack the Tories' had been speçial-
totally disruptive and the
civil servants have a £3m
tund and the success of
the miners to keep them
going.
Gas and electricity
workers also look set to
go into dispute over their
wage demands. The Gas
Corporation has offered
an 8 to 9 per cent increase
response to the
unions' 23 per
mand. The Electricity
Council has gone one
better. It managed a I 'nil'
offer to the unions call
for a 20 per cent pay rise
The
refusal to pay these in- chaployers
creases comes
when gas and electricity
prices are soaring. The
two stage gas price rise
BOT
SHOP
COMMITTEE
TINHOOD
Talbot Linwood led the Glasgow demonstration
ly produced by Scottish Socialist Challenge supporters.
When the great demonstration was over Glasgow supporters held a meeting to discuss the next steps in kicking out the Tories
'There has never been a more exciting time for revolutionary socialists, said BL shop steward Pat Hickey, speaking at the
KICK OUT
THE TORI
just announced, spread
over 8 months, is part of
the Tories' policy to
bring domestic tariffs in
line with industry's
The 25 per cent gas
price increase will mean
huge bills for working
class people. An average
household which paid
€170 a year at the end of
1979 wil pay £272 after
October this year.
As spokesperson
from the General and
Municipal Workers'
Union said: 'The
lal.
effect of a price increase
will be to push Gas Corpeak of 1, 000m a year? poration profits
And they say wages are the cause of price rises..
STEWARDS
'We are part of the struggle inside the Labour Party and the trade unions on all the major issues: missiles, unemployment, the 35-hour week and Ireland. The tide is with us. Now let's build a left wing inside the laooul movement committed to class struggle policies.
Page 3 scan of this page
RED BETTESHANGER
By John Kreeger THE Kent coalfield is an island of working class stubbornness in a sea of genteel middle class respectability. of its 3 pits rise like ghostly mirages from the flat cabbage fields, observed by blank-eyed sheep. Near Deal, rudely scarred by the heap.
The men who work far below these fields for our coal were gathered together in this spot during the depression. Driven
and ployment they travelled SUUlIl, sullellics foot, from Scotland, Wales and the North and from across the Irish Sea.
After the war others came from Poland.
United by the need to sell their muscle power and mining skill, they formed pecullar unique culture from the dialects and languages of their past. The local populace saw them as
LOUDIC. as indeed many WCIC victimised militants, rebels and gypsies.
Deep
From their deep strongholds, they developed a reputation for toughness. In the war when Ine National Government and Communist Party said 'more production they said 'fuck production' and downed tools. When their Tenders were imprisoned they surrounded Canterbury jail, with their families until they were released to a heroes welcome.
Jack Collins, Kent Area NUM Secretary
By Celia Pugh in Cardiff A delegate conference
strike action.
ment by closure threats would be withdrawn, threatened to
to their promises.
But three South Wales lodges voted to continue The winding gears
the postcard scenery is Betteshanger slag-
the '72 and '74 miners they played a vital role, sending out squads of flying pickels to lne power stations of North Kent and
1 hev even sent a fleet of pickets up the I hames. Unofficial leaders were thrown up,
positions the local union leadership.
Again
The Tories under Thatcher tried to move aans acm once aralli. and last week the Bettershanger defending the jobs their comrades the Snowdown pit, and ultimately their own jobs, too.
Terry Harrison, secretary of Betteshangel branch, explained how the strike spread to Kent: 'There was pressure from South Wales, who were threatening to send flying pickets to shut down Kent. wouldn't tolerate that... Kent miners
so we took a decision to come out.... An injury to one is an injury to all... The decision came fron a mass meeting of 600 which was unanimous.
John Moyle, the Kent Miners president issued a statement saying that his
against the Tories
of South Wales miners on 20 February voted to suspend their
They welcomed 'with caution' the stategovernment ministers that all pit
but 'reimplément immediately their action should the government not stick
strike Mardy, Penrhiwceiber and Tower. members stations nicker would powel fiance OI the Tory
Employment Act. If any nicker was imprisoned they would intensify The miners reject all arguments about the economic unviability Snowdown. Terry Har-
economic and political problem: 'The spending of £15 billion on nuclear energy and f5 billion on Cruise missiles is insanity. We need a change of government.
The effect of closing Snowdown would be to lop f2½m from the East Kent economy. It would cost €5m year IO maintain the unemployed. So now the local so hostile in pke pers, so hostile recognise that the miners are fighting in the terest of the whole population. picket headquarters Magness House in Deal a group of miners Oscussed issues during the strike The included:
Terry Harrison (branch Dave Smith (committee member),
Home News
First victory in the war
Mardy lodge to sece socialist
Englanc Socialist
Challenge after the meeting
there's no doubt about that,
and une weisn miners ica ll
une governmen nas been
stopped in its track
But the ingredients fo
closure of the South
coalfield are still there. We
have lu assui alle
vestment in new reserves
recruitment particularly
among young people
and Snowdown colliery — the Coal Board want to close it
Norman Mcsloy, Bill Martin, Dave Pinkney, Paul Westie, Lennie In
Dave Newall and Mick Morgan.
These were among their remarks:
"The Tories are out to get us, but calculated. With the steel WULKCES and Leyland they launched a sustain.
media attack first They tried to take us by sunrise. we give ll now, they'll pick us off one by one. t's a class issue, it's a class struggle.
'We've already lost 6,000 the pits in one year through natural wastage. Those skills aren't easily replaced If we don't recruit, the pits will die. Teams are shorthanded now, this means working at the face is more dangerous.
'Unemployment is a threat us all. brother-in-law was laid off from ine back Con pany at 33 He's worked
ll his life and ha kids to support on £44.73 a week. Now he just sits
Tymawr-Lewis Merthyr for
there's
council une Will become un-
workable and be shut by the review procedure the unions and the coals
board
While we had the Tories
on the we should have slaved our to oressure them
ed investment We've
the orkness li
mobilise other the industry contracts we'll around he's vegetable'
'Unless we show an interest in the unemployed we'll be joining them.' Money
'Yes, the CND's good way to involve the unemployed in a fight. We had a meeting locally to which 500 people turned up. The union offered them money, but they wouldn't take it because they say that they don! want to frighten public opinion.
'There have been
Labour Party.
Wembley tory, but its decisions
The
nembershi of the
inions and part as a whole should decide the leader. At the mo ment workers are join ing ward branches
There is disagreement over who should be leader and which policies should be adopted, but some strong views are ex pressed: 'The Labour Party is a socialist party working within the. boundaries of a capitalist
lose The lie was sown in the
meeting the South
miners would
divided con-
and ballets
would drift back to work.
• L was
rank and tie members wne pushed the strike forward
was an early
morale wa tremendous Four busloads came from
Rhondda yesterday to
lobby the for
sell-outs building up momentum the
time
Clearly these militant Welsh miner: sensed an even bigger vice Tories in the
the
Wal
ineir strike nao continued They know Gormley cannot be trusted not to sell their jobs the future. But this
spectacuia deteat tor
I UTIC la. encourazea state. Benn isn't particularly revolutionary, he's left Labour Party The media makes him into a bogey-man. There have been six Labour governments and all the old problems are still there.
'We'd like to influence the Party more at the local level but in aeneral.
workers won't get involved ir politics unless an issue hits them in the face
or the pubs to go to.
We'd like to change the leadership of our union and get rid of Gormley and Daley, but they're elected for life. The left nearly did it a few years back, but they chickened out at the last minute.
The NUM should open its books on the pension fund. The money's been misinvested, they could use it to build houses for the homeless.
'There's much buyin Scargil's out off at the top, even for himself, he hasn't done anything yet, (we con trust him.'
thousands Welsh workers threatened by the Thatcher axe
Ray Davies, chairpersor
Challenge: 'The steel unions DUCIUS Have roa ine daln or com promise with the Tories and lost 100,000 jobs in the pro
'The miners have showr that it is possible to stor closures and win subsidie
rail and stee worKers
'The miners have achieved more in 24 hours than the TUC has in 20 months.
inal ine lou • Solo en for a national jobs strike The miners have shown tha about time leaders did something about it.
'A local rank and file paper wouldn't be a bad idea, the main problem financial we prefer to do things by mass meetings
Hungry
The Betteshanger miners aren't hungry or intimidated _ike the! were in 1930s They've experienced decades of relative pro. sperity and a decade o! winning. They're organised, well fed an well educated. They'r confident of victory. social its the closed
world and their Phat's woy they olleser would give in.
'We'll fight to the end. I'm proud of be ing Betteshanger miners. We must leac the way. We've got to
For the history of the her Miners and the '72 strike se ne wore on aur Backe by Malcom Pitt (Lawrence and Wishart) £2.95
Socialist Challenge, 26 February 1981 Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
By Tom Marlowe THE membership of the Labour Party increased by 25 per cent last year, according to Labour Weekly.
Between 70,000
80,000 ano are estimated to have joined the party in 1980, bringing the total dividual ( membership to between 335,000 and 365,000.
Swimming against this tide of support for the newiv democratis. ed Labour Party, four mempers memoer announced their intention of leaving aStr TaSt week These were the MPs Tom Ellis, Richard Craw. shaw, lan Wriggles-
and Tom Bradley.
The four are hardlv household Witte bradlev holding any important position within the labour movement, being member of La•ours nauonal executive.
Crawshaw is a barrister, and was described recently in the Financial Times as eccentric, identified
witn nIs long-distance walking feats than any OT Tne big issues currently facing the party. Jenkins
Ellis is a former colliery and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rodaers, while Wrigglesworth did the Samne job for kOy Jenkins.
By Alan Freeman
'WHAT the whole experience of the
National Enterprise Board and plann-
ing agreements has confirmed for
me is that you cannot plan what you
do not control and you cannot con-
trol what you do not plan.'
This is what a bitter delegate from Liver-
pool Trades Council testified to a worker's in-
quiry into the last Labour government's in-
dustrial policy.
inquiry, organised
Liverpool, Newcastle and North
book and those who took part are organising
a conterence tnis weekena in coventry.
Talbot Linwood workers are presently be-
ing reminded of the lessons the inquiry has.
drawn.
They occupied and demanded nationalisa-
threatened closure. But the latour guners-
threatened closure.
ment persuaded the workers to opt for a plan-
ning agreement while it forked
bail out Chrysler.
Failure
Chrysler repaid by selling out to Peugeot,
which is now closing the plant.
Yet the authors of
strategy who include Tony
Holland, have leapt to its defence. The say the
industrial strategy failed only because it did
not base itself enough on shop floor power
place their emphasis.
This is an attractive view for many rank
Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981
Labour Party-
80,000 join,
four leave
figures reported in last week's
Rather than these
ine viouas. more
serious threat to the
left in the Labour Party
the formation by the
memoers
Parliamentary Labour
Party of 'Labour
Solidarity'.
Blessing
This grouping was
launched on
February at a meeting
chaired by Roy
Over 100 MPs
were reported to have
attended, including
deputy leader Denis
Healey. According
newspaper reports,
Michael Foot, wale
not turning up to the
meeting, gave
blessing.
Labour Solidarity is
the coming together
of the riaht and the
centre in the PLP. Its
purpose, said Hat-
tersley, was 'a means
working unity
and recovering ground
lost to the left'
Labour Solidarity is
a last-anton attempt Dy
those in the
parlamentary DOTL
who are politically
close to the Gang of
Four to persuade
Williams, Rodgers and
Coodly Not to cult
To leave the party said the state-
ment issued after
meeting, 'is both
defeatist and divisive
By putting himself
at the head of Labour
bv Coventry, Tyneside has been published as a
previous owners,
out f37m to
Labour's industrial
benn and sular
betrayal
the inquiry's authors also
Page 4
Solidarity, Roy Hattersiey nas once agai confirmed the high opinion has of himself. Once describea as Harolesou Mark Il', Hattersley is probably the most opportunist, careerist portician or all inose in the parliamentary party.
It is ironic that it is ne wino MOST associated with the launchina ot what has been described as the 'loyalty the LabouT Party: trIC suspicion is that Hattersley does not know the meaning word 'loyalty.
Democracy
Certainly his old buddy. nov Jenkins, would confirm much. did most to advance Hatterslev's career in the party. and as a strong pro-Marketeer Hattersley was a firm supporter of Jenkins' 'into the EEC at any price policy.
But when Jenkins resigned from the Labour shadow cabinet In 1972 over ine FFC referendum Hattersley switched He ditched norses Jenkins and promptly accepted promotion Tne same shadow cabinet Jenkins had After that Hattersley became flunky for James Callaghan and Callaghan prospered so cia ne It was noticeable during the democracy
national answers
Coventry
and file workers who saw 1974-9 as a betrayal but realised that the chief instrument
was the Labour guidance of the IMF and big business.
What is doesn't take into account is why Tony Benn was not able to fight back against the Labour right. The industrial strategy fail-
Labour Party-
debate in the Labour Party that Hattersley was criticised by many By Murdo Ritchie AT THE Larchfield dustrial estate in Greenock 240 women are occupying their factory to save their jobs.
They are fighting the enormous •est known ovune orana name 'Lee' on the bums of thousands ot oairs of denims Management with the factory's the women imminent closure, blaming falling exports caused by a pound' i ne dosses their workers' call for a shorter working week, and after that the 240 women immediately seized the factory, locking out the management to stop any
'Workers Inquiry' needs
The doomed Linwood factory - the bosses should be sent to
Led, not would not right under the
Wing agreements.
Roy Hattersley, architect of Labour Solidarity
colleagues on the right for refusing fight Indeed assets being removed.
in-
plant 24 hours a day, building rather than a factory.
air corporation,
threatened ly That's workers from ed through jobs march last Saturday. rejected strikers told
Led three
bigger profits there. because the Labour governmen hand over local control, because at national level it refused to put power in worker's hands.
Instead of nationalising, it stuck to plann-
Instead of giving workers total control of an industry, It sought tripar tite meetings where workers would sit down
tersley kept remarkquiet about the whole business.
Shipyard workers back Greenock occupation
They have now established a well organised three shiftsystem which is occupying the
making resemble a fort , They say they can hold out 'indefinitely'
Their determination stems their from the tact that more thar the half the women take home the especially only wage packet in then tami shipyard the plant marced one hundred makers'
Glasgow on the shipyard spokesperson the Socialist Chall- back in. enge Management has open
factories in Ireland because it knows it can make
While we Scotland.
were ve sculc back
structures
government being able of these corportations.
The
strategy.
National plan
Photo: LARRY HERMAN
building local and shopfloor power.
We need bold
face such as the
tional level
the economy based on social need
against closures, but
In this way we
terests.
Sensing the move to the left in the party he also beaan to blai down his own rightwing views. He made point of changing the political descrip tion of himselt from a 'social democrat' to democratic socialist Now Roy Hattersley has apparently decided that the best wav Mis career is to present himselt as the heale of Labour's wounds Both he and the Solidarity grouping are dangers ot which the Labour left needs to be aware. The riaht wing in the labour noveler is beginning to organise a real fight to reverse the decisions the Blackpool and Wembey conferences. the overwhelming are uniel. against these dividuals is the 70,000plus growth in Labour Party membership in lne last vedi It is the left-wing policies adopted by the Labour conference lnal explain that growth: a return to the domination of Labour by the right of the parwould OnlY danger it. against people in Ireland having jobs most people in this factory are teenagers and have no hope of work if they close the factory down.'
Unemployment Green. ock is already 15.2 per cent Now in the third week of occupation, support for women Dunaig up, from the local WorKers Boilerrepresentative John 'If anyone tried bacherly savo to put these lasses out, 5,000 workers will storm factory gates and get them
Messages of support to: Ms Convenor, Cambridge Greenock,
with the very managers and civil servants who
The inquiry pinpoints this weakness: 'The
present type of state are so biased towards the private corporations tha working class people cannot rely on a socialist
to destroy the power
Coventry conoi ine ference is that it starts from this understanding, which offers a real chance of developing an alternative to the Labour left's bankrupt
So far the solutions offered are limited to
important, but it will not prevent struggles being isolarea by a lulure Laboul government.
but effective solutions to ine most pressing Halonal problems worker
35-hour week to fight - which embody the idea that workers should control the economy in their own interests, and can build up unity at a na-
well as local and sectoral workers' plans, we should be demanding that the TUC and Labour Party draw up a national plan for
We should be fighting for worker's action following the miners' exam ple, and national solidarity for every occupa-
would put the Labour and trade union leaders in a position where they could not sell out again without being replaced by others who really will serve our in-
Page 5 scan of this page
By Oliver New from Southall THE Sarwar family in Southall have been viciously harassed by racist weeks. bars have paraded outside their house; their win dows have been broken; lances have falsely been sent to their house and they have even been subjected to indecent exposure.
ponce nave snown particular interest dealing with these attacks. They were so irritated by the
that Darwal s unDahil. iney assaullca /VIT Sarwai and threatened arres.
Racists are becoming inres ori Wher black racist
Viktiills volelCe LU lIC they find little sympathy. By Toni Foster IT'S mass Lerose, Massacre Action Committee, describing the response to the demonstration that is to be held on Monday 2 March.
*People are responding because there have been so many murders of blacks recently which the police have. not solved, and LIC V always disclaim have any racial motive — all lic authorities are indifferent. The formation ot the NCMAC has providea a tramework tor people to express their rage and dissatisfaction.
Branches of the committee have been set up in virtually every Ila ul town in Britain.
Young people in the schools, polytechnics, colleges of further education, and universities have been rallying their forces anger al the murder of the 13 black youths.
Appeal Fund
14 262:0
The direct action
has set up
a fund for the relatives
Ine acda Dend
•onations New
Cross Massacre Ac-
Committee Road SE24. Tel.
LOndOEL
01-15/ /200.
For example, the student union Thames Poly, in Woolwich, which has not been given to militancy recent
resolved to close the Poly on 2 March so
that students can join the demonstration. A collec-
tion raised £70 and the SudeH unlenl is donat-
ing £200 to the action
committee.
A mon to ovenlar
the student union's
policy of ( 'No platform
for fascists', which was
LaKCl just after the
speaker from the action
committee, received
eight votes the
more than 150 students
at the meeting.
Assembly
In Deptford itself,
assemblies open to all na-
tionalities, ethnic 5
racial groups have met
weekly.
Sone 300 people
representing different
organisations
Southall racists on the move
neighbours for over four Gangs of vouth carrying sticks and iron
minicabs and ambu-
And the dovernment.
Nationality • Bill. which has
passed • Cosecond second
reading in the
Decones law Duc al ass
ment wi increase
grounds of searching for il-
legal immigrants.
Al salii
asten sectall.
censorship TaCISI
When firebombs
ware-
DOllllall
Country-wide meetings
build Black People's Day
movement,' says John chairperson of the New Cross
sent at the meeting on Tuesday last week.
West Indian, Asian,
ATICA O DaK ocUDiC
born here make up the D annung committee tor
the march.
The movement is bas-
ed on the organisations
of the black community,
sucn as ine Aslan youtn
the Man-
Caesler Black Parents'
Organisation and Afro-
Societies in
carloocall
the colleges. Leaflets
Black people in many
areas are CIstaDuune
leaflets at work, but the
Labour rarty ana trauc
unions have so far stood
aside from ofticial sup-
port.
Hundreds of people
have attended meetings Shefficed Leeds, Araooru.
Manchester,
Liverpool, Huaderstieid
and Preston. More meet-
ings are being set up i.
Nottingham, Birming-
ham, Rugby, Leicester
and London.
been decided
that only the banners of
the action committee will
be carried on the march
and that these will in-
clude the names of the 13
The committee
dead.
recommends, that Olal'
ards be restricted to the
slogans which it will pro-
vide to any organisation
that requests them.
They demand
• Stand up against the attacks by white racists on black people • Stand up against the mass murder of black people • Stand up against the British Movement, the National Front and Column 88 • Stand up against the lies and confusion spread by the newspapers, radio and television • Stand up for the rights of black people to have their parties without interference • We will not let the police play around with our lives.
house you would have need.
magnifying 10 find reports in the papers.
ComDa. Illal the reports on the bombing RAF Uxbridge (just a miles down the road) whick
Irish was CarTIcu republicans
ne escalanon or racisin seems heading dopril 1979 Southall.
hically teoree s Lay election meeting oranised
Southall
National Front Blair Peach died as a result of that police
Southall faces a repeat
NF Delurlano ane
Movement
DEMONSTRATE
took place, and goes on to Central London. Black community mourns its dead
Home News
intend to hold an election meeting on ine same da)
Some re lglous and community leaders Councillor Piara inciuny Kanra Southall IWA — have called oresiuci
on the community to ignore the fascists.
Thev want the issue of racist attacks to be swep under the carpet, possibly the help of a few state bans on But despite this cowardice and the censor -Hơn on 25 Api, no oriy cambael, ooullal Is from the local community but from anti-racists all over police wily time the find repeat peratic politically very ifficu
of Action
Black People's Day of Action On March 2nd 1981 Assemble 10am at Fordham Park next to Moonshot Community Centre, Pagnell St, London SE 14. The march passes 439 New Cross Road, where the massacre
ACCORDING to West InWorld, the Deptford dian fire massacre has led to the black community in Britain being totally united for the first time in many years.
Tension and anger, says the weekly newspaper, is running at fever pitch.
Thirteen young black people died in the fire on 18 January, and many more were injured and are still in hospital. believed that the fire attack was racially inspired The New Cross Massacre Action Committee • says that . source of the .fire was closę to the front window of the terraced
Black people unite against fire massacre
London.
Led through the window
action,
Austin Princess car.
The police
fire was caused b generally
TOOHI l hey nave also
cannabis crashers. ....cidenl ave oculed i che area Although.
Paul Ruddock, 13th victim of the Deptford fire massacre
local Labour MP
By Geoffrey Sheridan THE Rt Hon John Silkin, shadow leader of the House of ComMOlS anc MP for Lewisham, in whose the fire ColDutuciIuy took place told Socialist Challenge on the weekend that he will not be joining ol supporting the March demonstration His commenu was 'There's nothing to sup port Information the march has come me tira nane - nu les been in loucn win me It's being held my surgery day. I can't give that up. give Mr Silkin his que ot• sav ll was terrible thing' that no one had contacted him, Socialist Chi him fered the •none number organs gorenliedee he replied, right thing for the
organ isere
for Community Relations
house in New Cross Rd, South
This was consistent with an incendiary device having been lobb-
A witness, Carl Wright, says nalne saw an make allowıl.
heard breaking glass, and then the person walked to a white
sonist. have made statements to the effect that the
paint thinners stored in the middle of the tront
suggested that there were fights at the party,
smoking and gate
Photo: WEST INDIAN WORIR
'What march?' asks the
and then we' ve got it on a proper basis don't added KnOW TUC uner re LeWisha!l people. 'The fire is a Deptforc tragedy lot of blac! white people are ex tremely concerner he did •KnOW whethel fire was connected with the what alca mels lal lule biaek culli muniv ininks malil was a racist attack. It shows a split the community that's regrettable philo lltal sonhic note the conve! sation ended
over a period of years, including fire-bombings, the police refuse te consider any possibility of a racially motivated attack as the cause o: the Deptford fire
West Indian World has offered a £5,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the ar
The newspaper has received several racist letters. 12 sine ste eders died. Pire sels One stated:
MacDonalds they are offering Roast Nigger Burgers at a special price if you take 12..
The rising tide of racist attacks . must be. stopped. Join the black _community on the demonstration on 2 March. Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Help the US military say
Anti-missile
Action Guide
WHAT'S misiles agate on
following events
listed by CND If you
navo Tin-SnOW
demonstration.
DUDlIC meeund
other anti-nuclear event. please send the cec o vs
27 Februarv: No Cruise MisSiles anam Against the Missiles public
neeting Michael Meacher,
vir socancI• vy clicll r al vusic Koom l.s00m.
28 February: Socialist nalenge open rorum it Manchester. Detente can it
Redmond O'Neill
Thatcher? ihur dietr
Spencer and a speaker from ine communisı r' arly. UMIST, Rm Lecture Renold Theatre, Bldng., Sackville Si.
28 icker or local civi Laling CND picket defence bunker.
7 March: Bristol CND labour movement conference: 'Jobs not Bombs' Sponsored by Bristol Tr
Shepherds Hall, varket. van come rums, workshops, creche.
MaCAr JODS
Bomos march. Clapham Common Hi. Wandsworth
roscilys Clapham South LuDc Kom.
March:
aCKel Stockport Council against their civil defence o'clock at the Town Hall.
Reagan's budget
of death
By Geoff Bell PRESIDENT Ronald Congress on 18 February:
much shorter presently allowed. We are proposing a five year write-off.'
The President
elalll. husinesses solete machinery, which have ob oul the
the speech, ane (
suggested
which ex-actor acaca lo wisic url
main proposal in Reagan's budget was to step uhe mesa spending over
by a massive S169.5 billion
o pay or tus acazar announced cuts on social spending specifically aimed to hit the poor, the sick and the unemoloved. Full detalls of what exactly keagan Is proposing buy the
Is of the world alls lanci have yet to be announcea.
BUL leaks newsnaners nave given sorne indication, and Reagan has
Labour goes into action in Teeside
By Dave Carter, secretarv OT Cleveland Association on Trades Councils in his personal capacity OPPOSITION to Bill Rodgers' .role in the Council for." Social..
Șocialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 6
14 March: Sheffield nuc ezr disarmament demonstration and Assemble 10.30/11 .30am, Carlsle St. Rallv in the Citi Oval Hall featuring Kinnock MP, Ray Buckton ASLEF, Bruce Kent CND.
April: 'Jobs no1 bombs' march in Stocktor (Bill Rodgers' constituen END. Speakers from
Trades Assemble orton Ureen, 12.30pm. Details tel. 0642 2444110.
11 April: Youth CND conference in Birmingham.
12 April: Trans-Pennine march starting in Leeds through Rochdale 1o Manchester.
April: Mass demonstration called
CND Manchester Against the Missiles to greel
March. rans-cennine Be ad [e vo cc0 cv×
Easter: No AlderIllas loll march will LaKt Dlace i nere will be Tarce events in all regional centres
May Day: National CND conference ir don. Details from: CND UoooWi0 London N4. Tel 01-263 4954.
Reagan told the US
'We are proposing write-off time than is
sill coed there the money
IN comes a new nuclear
aircraft cla ier powerea costing approxialely billior
OUT ment benefits for anemocv-
worker. have lost their Jobs
TiS Noi
because
save Si bilion
IN come two more guid-
ed missile cruisers, totallin
52 billion
goes tederal grants to states to assist the educa tonal Dnysilaly financíally disabled. A 'Saving' f $2.6 billion
six new F-14 Tomcat costing
altogether $200m
ÖUT goes $100 million
worth of food subsidies for
very poor in this year alone.
Democracy (CSD) is giving added impetus
movement activity against the missiles in Teesside.
march through Rodgers scheduled tor STOCKIOI scacuuca Anri was io demana lat the ahour hagow detence spokesperson should defend
policy o umil unilatera parly
isaildich
into protest imperialist stance or the imperialist stance
the meeting Teesside-Thornaby consti-
Plan Wrigglesworthe _ MP:
Alexander Haig, laughing all the way to the missile bank
IN comes eight new In truder attack planes, totall
four
olanes. custle I UT582 a. a00s
series paymsas goo the disablec
iNS 'saving' of $550m
the AV-SB jumper fighter (S670m.) and
more ($14m. jus orS balion under Medicald, a restricted payments NisSan 'This thil save country's Dunon nekl ved
poor, une disabled, the sick and the
nemployed are savaged by Reagan's budget, there are
nounced his support for the (SD, delegates unanimous
voted their support for the Stockion march.
Ana -missie dlisls the area are also planning a week of action trom Marci
inciuct showings of the film 'The
Game' porters are holding a publi Socialist Challenge meenne on varei zu
Middlesbrough Trades one accruae als union branches about une Labour Morement Con ference on Missiles and the Cleveland County Associa
Trades Councils have eleutec tm o delegates.
Stop the missiles
Cruise missiles - no one wants to work on it
no to Cruise
ex-NATO chief, now US Secretary of State, the berter oder Reaga tor
better Reagan proposing the largest cut in
ncome lax eve seen in the US. Of these. the Financic Timese dee main benewill main beneficiaries'
A family of four carning $20,000 year have their lax $470; the same size family if 11 earns sso.ovo will benell by $1,883, and if the family
tonowe o be car
was luck!
will bo Reagan's
weallny ousincys Class will aiso benem tron Reagan's machins r nd-oe
This hand-out S45 billion.
Reagan's pro-
posals am nto ia return
stone-age It is probably mosi ferocious working class budget ever seen.
It's not simply a ques-
payments mean that many
and many
them will be the blacks in the poor urban areas
And the threat to the res Thumanra arre.
aircraft carriers. missiles fighters
military's budget, rises from 24.1 pe
USAF
cent to 32.4 per cent
That is an economy that
geared hav
painted a grim picture saic
This Acaeai. amicuntue budget. If it is grim for him il is much grimmer for the
CND LABOUR
MOVEMENT
CONFERENCE
acurday ZMiST Students Unic FERENCE in top let hand corner of evelo
Organisation:
Political party:
Addres
ALEM
28 March, writes PHIL HEARSE.
As one of the aims of the conterence will discuss how to take the Issuc the siting Cruise missiles in this country into the labour movement it might seem strange that this WIl benefit the Pentagon
Bul lne weapons industry. is having problems at the moment.
There acute shortage of people willing to work in this death industry and according to an official report fron
Pentagon leicascu recently this problem will be 'compounded' when Cruise starts rolling off the assembly line.
The shortage of personnel has already led to a dramatic increase in accidents at missile sites in Ine US. particularly those storing the Titan intercontinental ballistic missile.
From 1970 to 1973 there were six accidents
AGAINST THE MISSILES
L• MANCHES I
1 Labour Mr rement are invied to send delegate
with LABOUR MOVEMENT CON
Ciodli Sure. Led byn cetary of delegating body and returned to CND. "1
NO SN
ALL concerned citizens can help solve the problems of the US military - by coming to the CND Labour Movement Conference on
at Titan sites. But this rose lo 1o in 19/9 ,and inere were 21 'mishaps lasi vear of which were caused by wnal Is described as 'human error'
The Titans are stored in three states, buried in sios. caen missie carrie: an eight magaton hydrogen bomb warhead, the biggest in the US's land-based armoury
The strain involved in working with such pieces ot eguipment appears have sent many of the service personnel involved round the twist.
Each year, according
belweer nio on de 1800
between 150 and missile CICW members dne mantehauli work ers are thrown off the job and given a dose of the 'Personnel Relich is Programme', which designed to cope with "emotional' difficulties.
ror ner part, Margaret Thatcher seems perturbed about lese and other dangers associated with missiles. Thatcher
lished in inmeveagazibe
Time magazine tast week sne reouested 'Stop Mr Foot trom Colilelu JUWC carrying out his threat to send the Cruise or : other nuclea Hussues back o the United States.
Hopefully, similar determination, but this amne opposite direction, , will be seen at the CND Labour Move ment Conference, , which will be • meeting at Man chester's Institute of ocence ao eciaooz Students Union The COC enCI OCCI sponsored by the Labour Party and the Transport anion. en is delegate bas. General Workers
Fill in the slip and help stop missile madness.
Page 7 scan of this page
More
coverage
on Poland,
please WHILE grateful for voul coverace orono I think you should be givlug tal more space lo lne events there. These evells icorescul a Dulll112 ! turning point
history and it is worid DOSSIDIe overrate their significance.
For a start, they confirm the correctness of the mainstream Trotskyist view that socialist property relations already exist in the East: the Polish workers do not raise because they cannot raise a single demand that implies fundamental ing of property-relations in their country.
They demand workers' democracy on the basis of the existing socialist Droocily Iciations.
Second, the events show how the 'state capitalist' theoreticians have ignored a most important aspect of the
West the chief to socialist revolution the bourgeois
on the working Crass. the Hast LOUS obstacle does not exist
ruling bureaucracies have had, willy-nilly, criticise bourgeois ideology over the years, and today they find themselves in the ironical position that they can only attack 'Solidarity' as... 'nonsocialist'!
Third, there is no way the Polish events can be contained. lhe wast today is not what it was in 1936 or 1968. Higher living standards,
education, travel, and improved communications generally make impossible 'isolate' the Polish movement.
The same demands will be taken up in East Germany, Hungary, and, , of course, in Russia itself.
Che consequences are
ncalculable: if the move ment successful, revolutonaries West will have, for the ITSL over years, model of convincing
SOC CEV combines socialist pro-
with perly delationsies workers' democracy.
ance will doubtedly the
Western capitalism, we Cal and his like are already busy trying to subvert the movement by giving support to the obscurantist Lencerces romo the Church, the better-off peasantry, those
111tellectuals who hanker after the feudal past, and so on.
Capitalism can live with une canc tatorships in the East; it cannot live with socialist economies plus workers' democracy.
READER
I WOULD like to correct
crept into my review (12
Feb) of Mike Cooley's
book Architect or Bee
during the editing pro-
cess.
First, the technical
designers of the large Bir-
mingham factory who
demanded with
Dally
the machine' were in the
AUEW-TASS, not the
AUEW
Secondly, there is no
AND
AS A sympathiser of Socialist
Challenge I would like to take up the arguments of
member Geoff Collier the newspaper and the Labour
Party (12 Feb). In my view he commits a olsastrous errori his criticism
Accordina Socialist Challenge is arguing
for a mass campaigning Labour
Party and thus retreating the build tionary party.
In my view he is absolutely
Party is incapable of carrying through the transtormation to socialism. . Let's not forget that Lenin (as opposed to some so-called Trotskyists) the Labour Party as a bourgeois party albeit with a mass working class base.
It IS not a workers' happens to have acci-
wnich dentally acquired a bourgeois
leadership. The task of revolutionaries therefore is to replace this party with a revolutionary
But there which Geoff Collier SWP seem totally oblivious to.
ple in history of a mass revolutionary being without a split in the reformist party a revolutionary will only be formed by a split in the Labour Party and not by in-
I'M WRITING to pro-
spread where, beneath Shirley Williams, you
'Catholic allllabortionist and Labour MP'
This is offensive and gives the wrong inpression, firstly that there is something wrong with being Čatholic, and secondly
LACE Catholics are
Of course you can say the caption is simply factual which it is - but two other pictures on the
are captioned: banker and bon vivew Roy Jenkins', and 'Persecutor of social security claimants Reg Prentice'!
IvIy attention was
such thing. an 'oil
telechiric pipeline'. The
human control tech-
nology described in the
book is a telechiric device
('hands-at-a-distance')
for maintenance workers on vl pipemies.
Thirdly I originally
SOCIALISM
DEMOCRACY
Replacing the Labour Party
dividual UlIG nucleus.
about
mater.
Heteosary certain conditions',
Geoff,
tion of why emergence revolu-
Inte venton Labour Party today.
This
described
completely
Party to form
party
party.
be won to socialism eadership, its programme a problem, structures,
methods and the
split formed
that the right
party
the LP without splitting need a new party.
drawn to this by a close
workmate who was flick-
ing through the paper for
was
angry and offended by it
He said: to be slur?'
When 1 started ummin
aru anille Suul
paper and said well if
that's an example of
your paper, the rest must
be a load of lies and bias.
Now we did get talk-
ing and it turned out that
both from
Catholic background
and personally opposed
to abortion but not
because he's toeing the
'religious party line'
And he was prepared
to listen to our point of
view about abortion be-
ing a choice for women,
not MPs, doctors or the
church.
_Letters
wrote that in a planned car-body welders may (not would) be happy to transfer their skills to a robot device. I was arguing against the implication Mike's book that skills are always to be preserved — it's question recruitment one by to a new revolutionary
How a split comes about is
Geott Collie himself says that 'entrism can
but competely fails to give any explana-
it is, with the of the biggest left wing in the Labour Party for 25
that the conditions are absolutely wrong for any kind
not unnatural since the SWP as a whole is having increasing difficulty explaining this very point! At any rate, it is
improbable variant that a split in the Labour
La revolutionary •au coule take dace wimou a Marxist core existing in that
The Labour Party could only
revolutionary if it broke with its its its history and its of organisation. transformation highly unlikely without a ver-
the Council for Social Democracy affair shows step
would Heve allow the left to gain control of involved.
-'we
Cheap slur
I explained too that our paper has always defended the Catholic minority In tne nort ol Ireland, regardless of disagreements of faith or conviction. But he con. vinced me of the way in wilici vour caoul aupears a slur and a cheap substitute for argument.
We must not talk to the politically converted, nor forget that we stand for the maximum collective and freedom in the society we wish to build on the ruins of this violent, destruc tive, unequal and sexist one.
That includes the freedom of worship and the freedom to disagree, man or woman, with abortion - though not the freedom to impose
Fault in editing technology
whether would in socialist SOCICLV want to retain their skills oi call licw ulic But I would definitely agree with Mike that a vital factor in the development of technology under socialism are the wishes of the Comrade Collier should
back from his tactical prescription and look at the basic programmatic questions
PAUL ANDREWS, London
that view on other people Can I suggest from this some articles the paper could run?
1. Our view on socialist democracy, especially regards religion 2. A Marxist explanation of the roots of and why think likely religion would wither away along with the state; 3. The feminist socialist arguments about the 'unborn'; 4. More articles like 'Arguments for Socialism' directed at the general reader - and not so tucked away DAVE PASSINGHAM,
•• Burnley.
workers whose skills are
anecleu.
Maybe such Inac.
curacies in article
could be avoided if the
edited version of a signed
article could be checked
the person who
originally wrote it.
Labour
Party —
not a simple choice
D Hughes' letter (12 Feb) misses the point
In wanting Socialist Challenge to decide between forming a revolutionary party outside the
wholly inside to extend the struggle for democracy he forgets the fundamental relationshir between the LP and the unions.
Unless trades unionists also fight for democratic representation inside the unions then the block vote is a democratic sham
This does not mean that we should argue for a separation between the LP and the unions, but rather extend the fight within the party into the allions
To have a clear position on this does not mean that SC should make up its mind in relation to the LP - it is not a simple choice of either
-Other.
done by feminist history
others.
fascism, African and labour history.
This collection of essays
past and the rapidly changing nature of popular in.
volvement in politics in recent years.
Available from The Other Bookshop
per .N1 2XP.
Please add 15% if ordering by post.
Finally Architect or Bee Cal obtained from Hand and Brain, 95 Sussex Place, Slough NN, Bucks, price postage include £2.50 ude Sop For single copies, and 10p fo each additional copy. All proceeds go towards the Lucas Aerospace Corporate Plan.
PETE ROSNER, LONDON inside or outside because the trade union role is crucial.
The other point comrade Hughes misses is the role ot a paper and its effects on its readers. The fact that he writes to SC : reveals one of its ; areas of influence read members of the LP and that the ideas expressec in its columns not only retiect but also develot and extend debates in that party.
A newspaper cannot in that sense be a 'mere observer', just as the
passive reflector events, interprets them support the What comrade Hughes misunderstands that perfectiy possible for paper representing revolutionary ideas to intervene and rework those ideas with the left of the LP in the joint struggle achieve socialism; we in the LP should be pleased by its support rather than dismissive because thal support is only now evident.
JANE KELLY, Peckham Constituency Labour Party
THE/BOOKSHOP Edited by Raphael Samuel
People's History and Socialist
Theory Routledge and Kegan Paul, £6.95 This comprehensive collection of Marxist essays on history brings together and develops the work
groups, community publishing projects, labour history societies and
Its contributors include Perry Anderson Sheila Rowbotham and EP Thompson, and 1 covers a wide range of topics such as feminism,
Edited by Mike Prior
The Popular and the Political
Routledge and Kegan Paul, £6.95 written mainly members of the Communist Party provides a reap praisal of socialist strategy for the 1980s taking into account the failings of the left in Britain in the
328 Up . Tel: 01-226 0571
'Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
Peasant supporters of the FMLN
Salvadoran resistance. to back up the Salvadoran dictatorship
Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 8
the United States threatened to escalate the strug gle one stage further by blockading Cuba, in retaliation for allegedly supplying arms to the Government troops in Guatemala. Increasingly the conflict in Central America is becoming a regional one. In Guatemala the government is fighting the Guerilla Army of the Poor, in Salvador the FMLN guerillas already control sections of the countryside, and the Honduran army is poised to intervene
Last week
the post.
IN 1976 Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz, recently appointed minister of the interior to
then president of Guatemala, Eugenio Laugerend Garcia, decid ed to set up a press and public relations office to improve the bad image of his ministry.
At that time I was secretary-general of the media workers been active as a student leader at the Universitv of san Carlos and later in the Guatemalan JourFor these .. reasons the ministers advisers thought that would be the right person to head the new ornice and une ministe personally asked me to accept the
I talked it over with the leaders of the Guerilla Army of the Poor, of which I was and am *a-member. They suggested that I should definitely takeladvantage
the government.
So I gave up my job as union secretary, changed my lifestyle, and did everything I could to get a reputation as a reactionary traitor, and social climber. Thi wasn't ditticult since it is com mon practice in Guatemala for the government to buy off mass leaders by offering them well-paid jobs in the public service
In this way I managed in the space ot a year to become a con
CENTRAL America is in turmoil. The small states in the isthmus have traditionally been dominated economically by the United States and ruled by right-wing military dictatorships
- backed politically and militarily by the US.
But today the workers and peasants are fighting back. In Nicaragua the Somoza dictatorship has been overthrown and replaced by a workers and peasants government. In
'The most
important
role belongs
to the
workers'
O. There's been some con
fusion about the character
sive. People had been ex-
to strike a decisive blow at
Ramon Medrano: We
considered the offensive as
a qualitative step forward
for our struggle. It was the
transition from a stage of
the struggle aimed at the
defense of the population
towards the stage of
military offensive
As the regime had been
carrying out a war of ex-
termination for the pre-
New
population was expecting
a military response by the
FMLN
We considered it essen-
tial to open up a new phase
in the confrontation
ween the people and the
reactionary forces. So we
prepared for a military of-
tensive.
THIS article, translated
L Espresso, details the
experience of ELIAS BARAHONA Y
mained one until several weeks ago when 1-took advantage of special cave lo see guatemad! accordance with orders from the EGP leadership who were afraid that I might be unmasked at any time.
However the four spent the THESEN enough for me to find out the tacues the government uses mi He work of repression Pressive rations In Guatemala there are two very active far right paramilitary organisations: the Secret Army (Ejercito
and the Squadron of (Escuadron de la Muerte).
Together they have responsible for the in the last taken the lives of over 2,000 peo ple, mcluaHig
CENTRAL AMER
VERSUS THE PE
We had no illusions about the possibility since ga decisive,
over the past years the regime's force
been heavily equip. ped by North American imperialism.
A permanent airlift has been delivering at least ten plane loads of weapons a day to Llopango airport here are now as arcas! 100 American advisers in the
than the term 'military assistance' would imply.
Just like in Vietnam, ceded the sending in pree 'military assistance troops.
Q. What then was • the objective of the offensive?
JAM. our intenton w
create offensive CaDacil our fighters, and to test
Inside th
from the Italian magazine
BARAHONA, a member
peasants, worke fessionals, religious organ and July last were Huracic kidnapped.
The member
years. 1 the Squadron o
WeTt SDaIC WOl the elderly. A r the killing of Re of the pro- and Roberto C
the young sons c the. University who had themse Anticom.- escape an ESA
Anothe ESA) shooting of pec
Death the funera
secretary of
been workers union slaughter Melgar. In this
Not the dead u other people w mass leaders, homicidal madn
Guatemala the regime
Guerilla Army of the Po
And in EL Salvador
going on between the
rebels.
Above publis
Guatemalan woman suf
Army of the Poor who
Ana Guadalupe Martinez ( conference
military leadership
capabilities in the framework of a generalised offensive.
Until now the junta's army has been on the offensive, attempting CUS! mobilise important force.
- as thev succeeded in do ing in the Morazan region
But in the offensive we proved that we were capable of dominating the situation on the military level. Our objective was not to conquer the enem
garrisons Our overall o
Lens Ve nas nOL OCCH COm pletely successful, but we succeeded in widening the regions under our control
Unlike the junta's forces, we didn't concen-
COlT forces around San Salvador - we under
Page 9 scan of this page
f the Guatemalan gerilla
rmy of the Poor, who in-
trated the government.
e translation is by the
ustralian Trotskyist paper
rect Action
dents, pro- ple stops ar nothing mbers of
In June 68 people another 75.
Natareno, had é ESA and n. no longer: called the chief hildren, example is ute Triarte they've killed Mendoya, teachers at. an Carlos, nanaged to
the ing part in
for the municipal
Angel eare l c the sister
and two lol tuc allalr chica. ine for these peo-
PLE
reatened by the
or death battle is ta and left-wing
of
article by ter of the Gerilla rated the govern-
: R P
/ at ERP press
nated the importance he capital.
Why wasn't the heral strike comtely successtul?
Guadalupe MareZ: Because there were few gerillas concened around the capital iney coula nol orer d tary defence the
However SCS all
for a general strike
launched. and that kened the military ggle.
The masses telt that were too unprotected onduct a general strike and thus the general ke was too limited to w the politico-military anisations to transform
strike into a genera
On the morning of 14 July I was talking with minister Ruiz in his office when he was informed by phone that a police chief, one
been. executed.
The minister flew into a rage and
Vol Ine secret police, Manuél de Jesus. Valiente
'Manolo,' he said main Natareno. You know what you have to do."
Half an hour later about 40 hooded men armed with machine pistols arrived at the San Carlos university campus and began fir-. ing at the crowd of students who were getting off the buses to go
Squadron® Death had claimed responsibility
with the Anticommunist Secret Army, on June 21 an ESA
A - DICTATORSHIPS
ment, and, below, leaders of the El Salvador rebels. They are Ana Guadalupe Martinez, Peoples Revolutionary Army (ERP), and José Ramon Medrano, a member of the leadership the FMLN (Farabundo Liberation ront), military wing of the rebel forces.
uprising.
So now we have to consider the general state of morale of the masses. If no victories are won. then the masses won't take part in Thus the military side of the strug-
The leadership of the movement has to nave the capacity to accurately assess the morale of the masses. The appeal for a general strike was launched in San Salvador when ane asses ere nosredıy convinced it was generalised offensive.
They didn't know of the severe losses inflicted on the junta forces. From that point of view, the call for a general strike was a political mistake. The triumphalism which prevailed in the description of the military situation led us to think that the masses would take part in une strike.
Has the FMLN enouah arms to arm the population?
Tose s he question way
pose the question. we ust limit ourselves to considering the capacity of the FMLN to arm the population, then we are makıng an error because the solution isn't just military, but political.
What's at stake isn't SITICLV mutara it's the political death of the junta. It we were oniy to see the struggle as a conflict with another marmy
Guatemalan junta
commando unit burst into the bf. fices of the National Workers Federation (Central Nacional de Trabajadores → CNT) which, is three blocks from the residential palace and alongside the headquarters of. the second corps of the national police
In one room 35 leaders of the
workers" sunions were holding. a meeting. The ESA force compelled the unionists atgunpoint to leave the bulding, ailes. Since ther nothing has beee destroyed the office heard of the 35 unionists, but it isn't difficult to guess their fate.
Intellectuals form another persecuted group. In the month
July alone 20 university teachers at San Carlos university were killed, most of them along
their. wives. This was because the ESA struck when they were leaving home together an interview with two
La leader of the
Marti National the co-ordination of the
would be a disaster — we can't militarily match up to an army equipped by a militarv DUWCI like the USA.
We are waging. revolutionary war in which military questions play role, but that is not the important that belongs to the masses. Q. In the zones controlled by the FMLN, will a revo uuonar cratic comed g verment be
AGM: This depends on the evolution of the struggle. presen ll is nol possible to install a regime of dual power.
The strikes didn't achieve all Ine expected results. To be sure, in the Morazan region there are villages where there are popular political TICW structures but still on
limited scale, W CE WC to spread to the whole countrv Only then will we be able to form a new government. It has to be set up in the country itself, not in exie, ana represent a rea! alternative power.
Because of this, we are having difficulties in convincing other countries to oreak arpiomauc telduons insofar as LC e alternative government.
Our principle task now is to form a bloc of countries wnicn oppose Am acan intervennor EI Salvador.
to go to work.
Kecentty five priests
murdered, their sole crime being that of preaching the need for a land reform for the peasants.
-I've-made this brief summary of the massacre that is under way in my country so that the world may realise the size of the tragedy being suffered Guatemalan people. "This sanhunt, as far as I was able to %ascertain, is being carried out in" the framework of a "pacification - programme to eliminate com"munism".
The programme's inventors. were the president of republic, Lucas gang of generals, Anibal Guevara Rodriguez, miza Palo do, ne,mander n-
Palomo, commander chief of the army and, of course, Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz, minister
By Phil Hearse
TWENTY-ONE members
of the faculty
University of El Salvador
were recently arrested by
the junta's army during
the weekiy
meeting. While 13 have
since been
eight members
faculty are being held as
the instigators
'subversive
of the interior.
the ESA and police.
Carter
The
eresen .care
" WCIC perfrom.
government.
the Garcia and his -muster tole me. as well as He then
the theory of TenSas
the extreme right and meting.
of the ITN
Snow
curriculum
released,
of the
assassinated junta. meeting',
US HANDS OFF
EL SALVADOR!
Support the struggle
of the Salvadoran people
Saturday 4 April 2.30pm
'The Plains', Oxford -march through city centre
They are the brains behind the Squadron of ea e ace e eve co. ding ordinators are finance minister, •Hugo Tullo Buscaro. colonels Hector Montalban and : Oscar Perucina, heads of-military intelligence and German Chupina superintendent of the national
Wing 'pacification programme was suggested br the United States a short time before
Tameceg his human rights policy. Its aim was to cut off all popular protest and
power of the military government which had already been in control for 12
by years, thanks to electoral fraud
•I learned of this plan in mid 19.78, when Ruiz called me to ask for some suggestions for a propaganda campaign that would serve to divert pople's attention
Targe HUNC. murders which were already being openiy attributed to
'Elias. : think something that would explain so police
school many deaths-without the blame falling on the government, the trained
ficers forward his 'opposed and wnicn consists in at tributing killings and kidnapp
of extreme
Tory lies on El Salvador
that is the curriculum
reporter Jon commented in Seal,
report from San Salvador
that no one is putting
money on the eight ever
being seen alive again'.
Last October Felix Ulloa,
rector of the university, was
by agents of the etlers trom acacenc.
to British government officials
-ullla
left, thus making the Lucas Garcia government appear as a victim, and hence interested in fin-
means carry out pacification.
In fact the 'struggle against the opposed extremisms' became trom that time the slogan used by the government both inside the couny ana tor international public opinion.
The governments of Israel, Chile and Argentina are also giv-
logistical, military and political support to the Guatemalan government. Chile
Ruiz, the minister for the in1e9 ere he was decorated with: the Order of the Liberater where decorated
Pinochet minister returned from Chile en : thused by the school of Chilean carabineros and a little put-out by the fact that, whilè the Guatemalan army had 100 officers down there, undergoing training 'his' police had not even sent one.
.As a result he seconded 75
officers to Pinochet's so that they could b as well as the army of But that's not all: an almost equal number of police
army officers from Guatemala are presently in Argentina to learn interrogation techniques and the tactics of repression.
asking them to take up this case
received a typical Tory re-
sponse
Sir lan Gilmour, Lord Privy in letter to World
Universitv Service Chairpersor
Sir Robert Birley commented:
*t would appear. as you say
that the junta is not wholly in
-COLLI OL though we do nol
believe that it has actually con-
nived at these outrages. '(!)
Gilmour added: 'You' may
wish to know that I have recent-
ly received a personal assuranc
Ітатот ПРаТОпРАРо0310.3
minister of his government's
respect for human rights within
the framework of the law.'
In another letter F Trew, an
official at the onusaoreg
Office, wrote: "To intervene in
E Salvador's internal affairs
where no demonstrable British
interest is involved would not be altogether appropriate.
Denounce
Just to show that he has an
honest and clear-minded view
of hat's really going on in E
Salvador, Trew commented: l
understand that such military
assistance as the United States
gives to El Salvador is limited
to non-lethal items.
It is wholly appropriate for
working people all over the
world to intervene in the inter-,
nal affairs of El Salvador to de-
tend the people againsı the
massacres and torture of the
We should demand that the
British government denunces
the repression
A big responsibility lies with
Michael Foot ane une olne.
leaders of the Labour Party to
Da Paca DuP Ara mo xe90s
raise this quesiton until the
British government stops
slavish support for the US in-
teryention.
Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Where you can buy Spanish police murder Basque militant
ABERUCEN. Su sold saruraays ou ide C&As
Mon info bone 643-0669 Fourth Bookshop BRIGHTON: SC salearkel, Londer
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on sale FESSIDE SC on sale Sai lunchime
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CAMDEN: Socialis Challeng al 2i Febres jumble sale at 2pr
if your have jumble ring CHALLENGE:
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Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 10
Socialist Challenge
International Marxist Group notices
псаки.
ABORTION: Day school on Sun 1 *rogated de ta Maren
Abortion GAY LIBERATION: fraction on Sun 4. 30pm. Perspectives for gay
Interested ring Penny on ANTI-RACIST: national fraction on
Sun i March ii Spar Manchene
STAFF NEEDED for Other needed with alloulils Denience or annitude wno could be trained. Cdes to do ordering Apply by ringing counter. 01-226 0571.
Revolution Youth notices
Revolution hould place orders with national of
What's Left
ATES tor What's Lett. ! ord or E4 per col. inch. Deadlir
orior to publication
Manchester. Feh. TOTTENHAM Anri-Nazi League.
BIRMINGHAM Youth CND March
noon al Gosta Green. Sal Maret
ng 1? Aprilermanen
rh, London E12 » Con Crempan. Lahur
Sponsors (Tameside.
Feb
Mand wallen FOURTH TIONAL (IC) Nahuel Moreno speaks al Lon don rally/forum organised by Socialist LaDOur rOuD. bal Feb, 2pm Caxton Hall. London SW1. Admis-
NORTH London Campaign Agains
au palmerine n Cenral Librar
MP Filipino North London 32, 136/ London E8
By Frank McBride
A ONE-DAY general strike paralysed Euskadi (the Basque country) on 16 February atter basque separatist militant was tor-
by Spanish police.
Jose Arregui. allegedly a member 0f
was rested on 4 Februarv in
in ponce custody ne was
prison hospital where he died ol pneumonia aggravated
internal haemorrhages and second degree
A message for all
Socialist Challenge
supporters:
Get
to the
By Phil Hearse
graphic account
20,000 of them.
of the 1,0 proportre
nuclear bombs which
USAF ine nas Europe are also in Bri. tain ano une smanesu of these weapons has
yield
Savec that of the bomb
destroyed Hiroshima.
Britain is the key base for the F.11 bombers. cocu which can carry 'tactical' nuclear weapons 23-times more power-
ful than the Hiroshima bomb
Carrier
It's easy to see then why the Observer repeats CND's accusation that Britain is carrier'. We pay out hude amounts to bav host to this insane array or weaponry, and Thatcher intends to Make us pay out billions ndo Trident for Cruise and missiles.
No wonder, then, that support building up for CND's Labour Movement Conference against the Missiles, take place Manchester on 28 March. There is no doubt that feeling
June movement against
missiles is growing all Ine tine
Deal
But Michael a Foot
blem. Michae
sigr of being preparec to
Socialist Challenge News.
burns on his feet. The Spanish press openly refers to this as 'death bv police torture head of the Spanish police and five other senior officers have
delegated
missiles
conferencel
THE Observer magazine last week gave a
of the nuclear stockpiles in Britain. One fifth of all US airforce personnel abroad are in Britain - over
compromise Labour's right-wing on the question Monerera nuclear disarmament. He appointed anti unilateralist Brynmore John 'defence' spokesperson, and assure• a meeme of the right-wing Manifesto group that he wouldn't take any precipitate unilateralism.
Foot should forced to sack Brvn. more John and reaffirm his commit. ment to unilateral disarmament.
The labour move. ment conference will Two of the most popular badges in Britain
JoBS
News from the Fourth International
resigned in the ensuing
and the head of the Madrid special branch and a police doctor have been dismissed for negligence.
For the government and the reformist parties
be an important step
lowards
this campaign.
There's now only a
month go before
the
concrence
Socialist Challenge
supporters snoula pull
out all the stops to get be their local Labour Par
ty and trade union branches delegated
imum turnout - don't
leave it too late!
Make sure that
when you have your
Thousands bought
in Glasgow!
I won't
die for
Thatcher
STOP
CRUISE
MISSILES
Each 20p
postage. Bulk orders
rover 20) 15p eact
post free. Make che-
ques/postal orders
to Hacknel
Book Club. c/o PO
Box 50, London NI
2XP
the killing of Arregur is a disaster. They had begun to undermine the strength of the nationalist movement following ETA-Militar's assassination top nuclear engineer at the Lemonız nuclear cellule lical Bilbao.
This ill-judged assassination led lo the tirst ever strike against an ETA action
of a 'Front for Peace'
The latest protest strikes against the police torture of Arregui have been much larger than Inc 'peace' strikes, mobilising 80,000 demonstrators and
Why
die for
Thatcher?
STOP
THE
MISSILES
next get discuss you also discuss who's aoina to the missiles conference and which local bodies will be represented.
Don't be afraid to approach as many local labour move-
1940-1980 Exclusive John Lennon poster!
green or red paper
otherwise, send 30p p&p. Orders and money to:
Manchester M1 2BU
leading total in. dustrial shutdown of the major cities in Euskadi.
These events follow the recent visit Euskadi by King Juar Carlos. The highlight of his trip was the interrup tion of his speech in the Basque Parliament by radical nationalist singing the Basque national hymn
Two members of the LKI (the Fourth International in Euskadi) were arrested during the roya
for 'insults lo ine head of state'. They were caught ters satirising the king and nou face weeks months in jail awaiting trial. ment bodies as you can get in touch with
even those who don't usually support left-wing causes will often suport CND. Act now, and we'll help to make the conference a massive success! See page 6 for details.
JOHN LENNON
SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
Sunday Sunday Sundaday
Now in tasteless dayglo - please specify
Just £1. Bulk orders (over 5) are post free
75 Piccadilly,
Page 11 scan of this page
Beyond the crisis in art
By Michael Margusee ONE of the most arresting developments in the fine arts since the Second World War must be the championing of self-consciously 'modern art by the institutions of the ruling class.
In Britain, the Arts Council, the British Council. the Tate. Hayward and Bond Street galleries have all done WicH Slial c abstract, minimalist, pop and conceptual art all styles which have been defended on the grounds that they challenge overthrow established tions.
In America the pattern Is even more striking. in the JUs absiracl expressionism became new With the patronage. of the Rockefellers and considerable
the CIA, assiance rol was promoted all over the world as a triumph of modern American culuc
To the Cold War ideologues 'modern' art served as example of the freedom enjoyed by Western all
Anti-witchcraft figure
artists in contrast to the blatant ideological subservience
the arts in the Union.
Peter Fuller argues in his new book* that Western counterpart ncial soviet art is nol lo De found in the work of the 'fine all protessionals ubiquitous imagery of what
calls the tradition of capitalism - advertising.
Through its use of technology of reproduction and transmission, permeates society with its lies to an extent state-supportec Soviet Union, lies, does not.
As this tradition has come to occupy a more and more central culture, the fine arts occone marginalised. They beyond historical very much as the
the The opened
TV
Lullai because
good
savages
had CIVilIse.
trading Coast
century
Other
Church has survived its era and, Soviet resort more and more to the devices of the world which has rejected them — pop art is
the real the obvious example.
to ofnur socie ne arass are given the freedom, and in some cases ine micals almost anything they like ano call it art. "mega-visual'
iney work. lo wnom is tel
monopoly work addressed?
As Fuller the freedom of the artist in the West is built upon the absence of the one freedom without which the others that even the ingless, the freedom
of socially. with its own Now,
tion and the arts and increas ingly the government, this freedom is gradually being exposed as the illusion it always was. have acutely aware of the crisis in SuI VIVC the fine art tradition and have
Christian Cla responded in diverse ways. In-
Asante: Kingdom of Gold
By Antonia Gorton YOU probably remember the ballyhoo over
Vikings exhibition Museum. The advertising titillated with visions of 'rape and pillage'. The Queen came to open the exhibition; TV cables snaked everywhere; and queues around the Tuscull.
Magnusson based on its material.
Asante: Kingdom of Gold opened this week at the Museum of Mankind
Piccadilly, London.
King Asante it, but there system won t oe queues or much
and SO far there power. hasn't been a lot of press attention.
The difference is queshon or colour. Cvel allowing for promo-
differences between 'loan' material and that which is a museum's own, black culture isn't a tively big seller in the British museum world doesn't attract the sort of money that the Sunday Times forked out for the Vikings. Kumase
This is shame
Asante: Kingdom of Gold is a very when
exhibition. aisproves ine propagan da about how 'Africans were all just a bunch of
living in the iungle that WC British
, moral duty 10 The kingdom of the Asante is in West Africa
Wides n Ghana Europeans have been
the Gold • since the but at the end of the 17th
necame witt parent that a group fur-
in land had become dominant.
This was the Asante
LicH under the leadership of Osei Tutu, who brought
group of towns and
Under Review
like the Church, they
Conercice particularly decade. feature. Response to do Yet this experiments But to what end do public
points out, the bourgeois press (as it
ty. al call to act criticism,
with cuts in educa-
direct interference by
Of course many artists are and drawing
I nrougnour
terviews, Fuller
Bringing black
history to light
at the British
stood five-deep and Magnus developed a television series
states into a confedera-
tion centred on Kumase.
Their confederation
developed into an ex-
traordinarily complex
of economic,
political and military
It was very rich in
Invaded Asante in 1874, The British finally
and Pert
Kumase
return in 1896, remover
and exiled them to the
smashed up the
fabric of Asante life. Photos
Asante visually
delightful and children
will love it
tions of Asante life as it was in the 19th century the
came into contact.
There's a forest with
a great big snake; there's
village huts to walk in:
there's the main street of
with shade tree; there's a pitch black with the beautiful gold glowing an it size king and the people of his court.
À bonus is the use of the 19th century graphs, especially in the final section which deals the Asante:
The photos of the British colonels with polished cavalry boots sitting in the midst of their black 'subjects' illustrate the mentality of
deed, the sheer variety and in-
of the art scene the last ovcl
timeless reference
proliferation meets with little At times this indifference can be necessarily orchestrated, when it suits the
did the case of the Tate 'Bricks'),
the two into outright philistine hostili- images of
idealist
Fuller opposes this kind of
just as he opposes attacks on the arts. But he argues that artists sion through have opened the door to unis painting, kind of reaction by their own rejection of the material bases sculptule of the fine art tradition, the practices of painting, sculp-
this collec- of late tion of essays, reviews and in-
polemicises Fertility doll the colonialist better than any text.
The personality of the Asante comes through their weights with which they depicted the their daily d proverbs of objects and One of the most common snows (wo CrUC diles crossed at the stomach Although the creatures have a single the heads still stomacn compete to swallow ine food, meaning that it is Tune ol individuals grab what is needed for the common good Other areas of interest centre on the ancestral stools; colourful umbrellas; the "fetishes and fertility dolls.
on two fronts. On the one the hand he attacks the bourgeois formalists for whom the art object contains within itself a
value bearing no the outside
On the other he disputes with the left avant-garde who
object altogether and believe that it
expresses the
In the end, Fuller presents
position. each other, both reductions of art which denigrate the creative
subject and the possibility of its social expres
Ine skills of drawing and
Fuller does not advocate a return to the conventions 19th century naturalism protests against the emptiness
modernism in the name of the great promise held out by modernists of the
Executioner with victim's head In conjunction with the exhibition, a book on the Asante has been written by M D McLeod. keeper of the Museum of Mankind, which tremely informative and simply written Guortunate the subject matter has been treated in a most timid and conventional way by publishers, with ap palling misuse photographs and is expensive along with it.
Among the themes is the social structures of the Asante. For example: 'The social system of Asante, to a large extent based on the matrilineal group, produceu a varie ty of residential patterns.
These constantly shifted and altered "Early in a marriage man and wife might cohabit but the wife could also spend a great deal of time with her mothers and sisters in Shel matrilineal house, travelling to trade or husband on WIls their farm.
'Children might live a while with their fathers
mothers' brother from whom they could eventually inherit property, rights and duties.
Socialist Challenge
early part of the century such as Cezanne, Picasso, and the revolutionary artists or ine Soviet Union prude bedlydrawing painting, sculpture and are historically phenomena and have acted as
carriers tainted ideology But that does not make them the same as that ideology or necessarily bound
Through them the imagination can be brought to bear upon the real world and the elements of that world can be transformed into a new unity, not merely reshuffled or ignored altogether as in so much contemporary art
It is because these practices afford material base, , something deeper than passing laeologies. that art, CVCIl in the bosom of bourgeois culture. can stand against that culture. As Trot-
said SOUl CHIE Stalinist art of the '30s. 'Art can become a stong ally of the revolution only insofar as it remains faithful to itself. *Beyond the Crisis in Art by Peter Fuller is published by Writer and Publishing Cooperative. Price t5.95
But there are ques tions raised by exhibitions like Asante.
Should national treasures be returned to their country of origin? Everyone knows that the British Museum is jamm. ed full of things stolen from countries all over world where the British Army imposed its Will Those who believe that Britain has no moral right retain them would be hand them over to some ot the regimes that exist today There are warehouses full of the centuries of human skil navellioli Ninety per cent of it is seen by no one but academics, and it often uncatalogued and uncared for What is needed is the preservation and display of historical artifacts in the context of their society so that more people can benefit from knowledge of the past. Asante: Kingdom of Gold is at the Museum of Mankind Burlington Gardens, London W1 Admission is free • 6. The 10-5 Sundays 2.30-6.
Asante by M D McLeod published • British Museum Publications. Price £12.95
26 February 1981 , Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
WOMEN, RAF
A lot of people
want you to
come to the
abortion
conference
By Judith Arkwright SUPPORT for the
movemen cor ference on abortion and DOS LIVC escalating.
On 28 February the South-east Region of the TUC is holding a special meeting to build for the cvcill. Several branches of the Public Employees
organising transport come to London for the 14 March conference. Photo: PETE GRANT (Socialist Challenge) The Labour Party NEC uiscussing
from its home policy committee to sponsor the conference • the absence of
Williams make this a definite possibility.
With barely three weeks to go the time to get delegated is now!
Here's what some of the supporters of the conference have to say:
JUDY MALLABER, National Union of Public Employees: 'AS we've
supported woman's right to choose, occause we nuve so many
members and worrier because of our involvement in health. The conference important because we're always on the defensive this issue and at last we're beginning to discuss
vay of going forwara
We've alway opposed restrictive legislation but we'd like to see
there's anything positive we can do. This does not mean we don't carry on the fight against restrictions we ur c particularly concerned about the affects of cuts on abortion facilities.
RAY COLLINS, Transport and General Workers'
Union: 'We fully support the aims of the conterence Any issue which affects the rights of members is of vital concern to us as a union.
yye see. abortion as a matter of democratic rights; not a Labour Movement Conference
ABORTION
and
POSITIVE
LEGISLATION
London
March 14
NA
LAR
:=-
moral issue. We think that the be defended, but we also
should be made available lo women
'A woman must have the right - • wherever she lives, whatever she does — 1o choose whetner or not to have an abortion.
'We don't have
policy on new legislation
support TUC ac poliere is this there need for discussion on ine wuys una meurs o implementing a woman's right to choose.
CHARLES GRIEVE, general secretary, Tobacco Worker's Union.
It is still essential that the labour and trade union movement maintains a campaign in support of both TUC and Labour Party policy on abortion.
The anti-abortionists do not give up easily, despite their recent resounding defeats
1 ne latest alreci altack on abortion rights
of the green form which WOlICI obtaining all abortion have to complete. The changes mean
record will be kept of how many abortions are done on the NHS.
This is an attempt to cover up le laci ina fewer fewer abortions are done on the health service and an increasing number women have to pay.
The conterence Is a vital step in continuing the fight for a woman's right to choose.
It is being organised by the National Abortion Campaign and the Labour Abortion Rights Campaign. Get delegated!
Further intormation leaflets etc, from : NAC, 374 Gray 's Inn Te 01-278 Rd, L
0153.
tinal inno
same tears sin
IN RECENT months feminists that women women were to blame for rape).
dramatic way than ever before.
No woman is safe from the threat of rape. Rape is carried out by men of all classes, in all situations. Figures from the annual report of the Birmingham Kape Crisis Centre suggest that there is a one in three chance that a woman will be raped in her own home, and there's a fifty-fifty chance that the man will be KnOWI LO ICE
The police cannot be relied upon COTOLECI women from rape. Out of
rapes reported England and Wales 1979, only 824 cases were cleared up (26 per cent WELC even vestigated). More than a third of the cases reported to the Birmingham centre were not reported to the police.
The myth that women cry rape to spite husbands or lovers does not square with the facts. New York's all-female rape squad found only two per cent of complainis to be false, about the same level as for other crimes.
However, when look the underlying philosophy of the women leading campaigns against violence against women some questions come to mind. When Women Against Violence Against Women argue men benefit from the threat or use of violence against women', what exactly does this mean?
Is it true that all men benefit from rape?
Many feminists have accepted a revolutionary feminist analysis of rape
socialists have been detensive about ine issue
Individual men get a thrill out of the rape act. Pornographic magazines would not sell if many men did not find the laca or rape titillating. But this phrase is meant to explain more than individual actions and feelings. ascribes the social roots of rape to the power that all men have over women because of their privileged position in society.
Rape embodies male power the revolu-
men have a vested or class
privileges over women, through the use or threat of rape
Revolutionary feminists from Leeds expressed inis view in a letter 10 big Flame (February 1981): •Not every man has raped little girls. or made sexist
the ACTUAL country have taken action to explain their attitude to sexual violence: occupying the offices of the Sun to protest at page three; daubing paint in cinemas showing sexually violent films like Dressed to Kill, and collec tively challenging press and police dictats should stay at home (as
Such protests have focused public attention on the debate about rape in a more
jokes, or hit his wife, or bought porn groped women in cinemas. Yet all men benefit financially, legally, sexually socially. fresm the way these ace tivities control behaviour of, and police, all women 'If flashers, bottompinchers. whistlers etc are the bobbies-on-the-beat of supremacy, Yorkshire Ripper IS Commander-in-Chiet.
in I cannot agree with this analysis. It's like saying inall white propic dir bobbies-on-the-beat white suvichlaly слететоте benefit racial attacks. The racist views held ov many wolle people do, of course, legitimise racial attacks.
But it is the capitalist class that is the real bobby-onthe-beat.
They gain higher profits from cheap They maintain control of society encouraging divisions within the pressed. It is their police which harasses We Diacks Similarly with women.
In treating women as inferior beings, legitimise violence against women. Despite the servicing role that women pro vide in the home, men do 'all Constel materially benefit as a group or class from female oppression in same way as ao tic capitalists Men think of women as their property because
Do AND HOI MEC
Institute of Contemporary Arts women have been subordinated for centuries and because the capitalist system encourages them to view women that way. The marriage relationship coottes that oppression.
The wife, having tracted ticular man, becomes the possession of LUla. man!
the of As Alexandra Kollonand tai explains in Sexual Relatrom tions and the Class strug.
gle: 'It is the bourgeoisie who have carefully
idea the absolute
the absolute possession of the tracted partner's emo tional and physical "l' thus extending the concept property rights to clude the other spiritual and emotional op- world.
Sexual double
are reflected in the rape laws Inese Ves ble in law for a man to rape his wite because the holl marriage vows mean that a COLISCHI forever and she is now the property of her husband. This contempt womens Dol all hilliale characteristic of men. It is a product of centuries of oppression discrimination which women have faced, parSpraying paint onto sexist photographs displayed at the
ticularly their social and economic dependence on
This is daily reinforced by the roies women men are ascribed the patriarchal family; by the respon sibilities that are still accorded worth childcare and domestic
Rather than entrenching maie prejudice against women by looking only at the conservative attitudes of men, why not try and break male collusion with bourgeois con- about women?
It is the capitalist class which gains most in-
women s cneao abour and free domestic labour, trom women's reticence Ic identify stan- unionists.
Our job is to show how much better the lives of the entire working class would be if both women and men earned decent wages. want both sexes to join in the fight against the bosses and the government secure their rights for freedoms
Would not both sexes be better if women were allowed to grow up and pressing their personality
and sexual desires to full? Wouldn't working class men be a whole lot better off if women were liberated?
The class which con and trols power through
parliament, the courts, the press, the army - - is quite preparea to use violence le defend it's privileges. for fact the capitalist system
encourages male canaren to ássociate the violence. rape.
assertiveness at a very ly age. It is not a male which does this bu capitalist one
. is not possible treat the state as an im tial arbiter that can be ed on to defend wo against male violence
women who call for death sentence for ra imply. Any strengthe
of the repressive appar
of the state can potent
be used against any gi
which prepared
challenge the capit
class's monopoly
The arrests and e
mous fines that wome
latel all I
at sexually violent show this to be the ca
For this reason we l to come out clearly ag any form of censorshi
We want to give the state right to decide on t matters. Banning above will not solve problem
It is not possibl
evolve strategy
fighting rape that sir
isolates male power a independent social for values society.
Demands need to
placed on the state ra
than concentrating out from men as individual the capitalist class is le and the hook you can en
Will retormist stra trades for . fighting rape
main question beco
fighting patriarchal titudes, demanding hi
sentences for convi rapists.
We Socialists have to honest in discussing ra
There will alwav
and to rape in Class
nere winds
as long as sexual rela between the sexes alienated. It is only wi ex- the framework of a to new society where the tions between the sexe free relations, entered
and continued financial, social or se compulsion women are lo dependent on men -we can talk of ending r
That new society be coloured how fight in this society an ne son o social
It is vital that a stre popular and indepen women's liberation m ment is Igning on al aspect female oppress because this car that women's concern like sexual violence not pushed aside at stage in the struggle socialism.
ink win the ytem.
have to throu capitalist parasites establish a new power power of male and fen In workers. This has to our long-term goal, when
Page 13 scan of this page
E AND CLASS
called by NUS. They marched along Fleet St to condemn violence against women, but the police prevented them going
Though Eve was made from Adam's rib, Nine months he lay within her crib; How can a man of woman born Thereafter use her sex with scorn? For though we bear the human race, To us is given but second placeAnd some men place us lower still By using us against our will.
If we choose to walk alone, For us there is no safety zone, If we're attacked we bear the blame, They say that we began the game. And though you prove your injury, The judge may set the rapist free: Therefore the victim is to blame, Call it nature, but rape's the name.
Chorus:
Reclaim the night and win the day We want the right that should be our own, A freedom women have seldom known: The right to live, the right to walk alone, witnour ical
A husband has his lawful rights, Can take his wife whene'er he likes; And courts uphold, time after time, That rape in marriage is no crime. The choice is hers, and hers alone, Submit, or lose your kids and home. When love becomes a legal claim, Call it duty, but rape's the name.
And if a man should rape a child, It's not because his spirit's wild: Our system gives the prize to all Who trample on the weak and small. When fathers rape, they surely know Their kids have nowhere else to go. Try to forget, don't ask us to Forgive them, they know what they do.
ON the march to Reclaim the Night last Saturday. through Soho. Singing and chanting were the order of the night.
Reclaim the Night
(Chorus)
WE APE ANGRY When exploitation is the norm, Rape is found in many forms: Lower wages, meaner tasks, Poorer schooling, second-class. We serve our own, and like the men We serve employers. It follows then That body's rape is nothing new — But just a servant's final due.
We've raised our voices in the past,
OUT NOW: new Socialist Challenge pamphlet.
Available from Judith Arkwright, c/o PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
Individual copies, 50p + 11½pp; reduced rate for orders over 20. Cheques payable to 'Red Weekly'
Some 1,500 women joined the demonstration in Central London
(Chorus)
RIGHT TO WORK:
THE CASE FOR POSITIVE ACTION Hogh we can segregation b requality at
THE
NGHT
And this time will not be the last!
Our body's gift is ours to give Not payment for the right to live.
Since we've outgrown the status-quo, We claim the right to answer NO!
If without consent he stake a claim, Call it rape! For rape's the name!
Words and music, Peggy Seeger
A WOMAN'S
next
Idle. for
fiancée.
YES
the the face,
The
-noto: Joanne waiter
Local
U Bren
be
Confronting
sexual violence
nave every right to
free of charge. ual history. The should be abolisnea and brownel pimps should be penalised instead • Sex education freedom, not sexual repression. 16 voluntary intercourse, should be abolished. • Rape crisis centres
under the control of women themselves.
mass media and in advertising. • Sexual harassment
part of equality legislation. which have ignored
of redress is necessary for women harassed or assaulted at work.
Be kind to
pets, but
women...
Come back 'Jack the Ripper . all Is vorgiven leaflet put out by the Rossiter Road Residents' Association ir Balham, South London, calling for achion agalnst prosulules Il their area.
Bra-less typist 'grabbed by boss', headline in the Sun on 10 April 1980 for an article woman who was dismissed from her job after complaining that her boss had assaulted her. The article included humorous puns about "bust-ups' in the office.
Leeds killing it's the Ripper. Headline for an article Evein-u pin-up in the Yorkshire Post, 19 November 1980.
Kidnapped - with a cud The Daily Star's headline an article on 22 November 1979 about a 'dashing medical student' who abducted his ex-
Could you rape this woman? The unacceptable face of feminism. Caption under a photograph of NUS secretary Fiona McTaggart, in Oxford student paper Cherwell.
Bubble and shriek headline on a report of 'why Pete scalped his missus' in the Daily Star on 27 October 1979.
Pete had punched his wife in cut off her hair, and hit her with a frying pan.
Three open buttons on her blouse spelt death for a holiday-maker the Daily on 26 june 1979 article described how became excited by a waitress's exposed chest tempted to rape her, and then death when she fought back.
A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree; the more you beat them, the better ther Frank Muir wise-crack on Radio 4, 8 February 1981.
Most of these examples are from a report by Birmingham Rape Crisis Centre. • Self-defence is no offence - women cannot rely on the police to protect them. They should
defend themselves. Self-defence classes should be available to all women
• All anomolies in the rape laws should be removed. Rape should be defined as any form of sexual assault. Married women should be able to sue for rape. Compensation should be awarded to women who are raped. Judges should no longer have the right to question women about their sex-
status of 'common prostitute owners and
should be about sexual Young people need to learn how to treat the opposite sex with integrity, not to conform to the double standards of adult society. Feminists should be consulted far more about sex education in schools. The age of consent laws, which codify those double standards for young people, disallowing these under
and battered women's refuges should have public funds, available to advertise these facilities, which should remain
• A code of practice should be drawn up by the trade unions and the women's movement dealing with material which is sexist and titillating in the
at work must be designated as sexual discrimination and become
The trade unions, this question, and the women's movement need to work out what kind
who are
Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
How should Northern Ireland
be
governed?
unions are asked to submit their views.
deal with the third question, Northern Ireland be governed?
The consultative document asks:
government? • Should tegrated into the UK?
tent to withdraw?
people there?
in the Government of Northern Ireland?
negotiate an independent Northern Ireland?
HISTORICALLY, the view of the Labour Party has been to favour the unification of Ireland.
This was the position of the party at the time of the partition of Ireland
was propoșed by Harold Wilson during the period of the Heath government, when the then enter OT the Labour Party proposed a policy involving British withdrawal from the north of Ireland over a period of 15 years.
both this policy unrortunalely and that of dRu-DUHOS. pIuwithdrawal, which was adopted bv the partv in 1920, were forgotten once Labour tormed a government.
obvious that most of the other options proposed in the discussion paper. have been tried and failed.
Integration
Devolved government, powersharing, was brought down by the Loyalists through the JIste Workers' Council genera 1974. Similal DUE
Northern Ireland
Secret
been dropped as workable.
Integration is, in effect, the present policy, and one favoured by the last Labour government when the Loyalist parties WCIC promised CAll d seats at Westminster in return for supporting, in parlameil, the government.
It is obvious that this policy has brought nether peace nor lustice to the peop': of Northern Ireland.
Outcome
Total independence has not been tried but TAIS was the de facto situation until 1969 when the Unionist government in vormern reano rued without any interference trom Westminster Massive discrimination and repression
analisi
Socialist Challenge
THE Labour party has produced a consultative paper on its Irish policy. A series of questions are posed and CLPs and affiliated
Socialist Challenge is running a series taking up these questions, and this week we
'How should
• Should Northern Ireland have a devolved
Northern Ireland be fully in-
• Should Britain make a declaration of in-
• Should it be prepared to withdraw from Northern Ireland without the consent of the
• Should the Republic of Ireland have a part
• Should Britain encourage and attempt to
Northern Ireland
The next steps? the Catholic community were the consequences If the Loyalists were again allowed be 'masters their own house with, as would be probable, lan Paisley as president of an indepenNorthern e and the consequences for «ouc vouc be lod horrific to imagine. nese unree options involve, to one degree or anoler. a surrenaer LO the Loyalists, and give the Loyalists the right to veto proposed
Biln ar a urenc o
The
represent a surrender Loyalist blackmail.
Crossman
Yet it was exactly this 1921 of policy which in allowed the partition of Ireland to be imposed in the first , place, an act which is at the root the present conflict.
That needs be weeded out.
This means accepting the following judgement late cabinet minister Richard Crossman, written September 1971 'This (Northern Ireland) is not a natural state or any kina dl all an artificial political D CUGl created to destroy political rights and to maintain one group of people in permanent power. By its very essence denies ever principle democracy and aiwoys trom the time this House of volmons crec eo n In other words, the Northern reland Slalo should be dismantled and the wal liliul.
26 February 1981 Page 14
Ireland on which it is based should be ended.
This would involve handing over to all the people Ireland the right to determine the future how that country should
Whether this would involve a centralised unified leland, a federal Ireland, any other constitutional arrangement in a 32-county context would be left the people of reland to Women's Day WOMEN in Ireland have made an international appeal for sup. port for a demonstration OUTSIOe Armagh women's prison in the north of Ireland on 8 March, International Women's Day.
Two ago y cats aroup of womel maly rom betast ano budilt held peaceful demonstration solidarity with
political wulfell
Ireland
lan Paisley - one Labour option would hand him power
decide.
To say, as the Labour Party discussion paper does, that this would mean the 'expulsion' of Northern Ireland from the UK, or as the paper
implies that the Loyalist maioritı should have some inalienable right to veto any decisions, 1S t0 accept the legitimacy of a Daru On and the Loyalists majority in the artifical Northern
To Armagh on International
prisoners in Armagh.
This demonstration RUC. broken by the
and the women arrested
Two were ana chared later imprisoned in Armagn Toi of fines.
On International Women's Day last year
500 over clucino 200 women trom •cople
England, •cotang and Wales, attended a pro
This say the organisers, 'we intend to
Ireland state.
The Labour Party needs to adopt the socialist principle of self-determination for all the Irish peo ple. To give such a principle practical effect it has to declare its support for an unconditional British withdrawal from the north of Ireland. return to Armagh in even greater numbers
June TIme une ore test takes place the new hunger strike prisoners in H-Block be joined by a number ir Armagh wil nave beer
one week provides addi tional reason for those ir Britain who support the prisoners to travel to At magh „Inal weekend Men and women are in vited to participate
Furthe information from: Di on 01.691 8298
Prince Charles and Allibar
Justice must be done
BUCKINGHAM Palace informant tells me that Liz and Phil are doing all they can to stop an inquest being held inlo ine dealn or taelr son s horse Allibar. They are trightened that the great British public will found out that it was murdered
The New Standard let the cat out of the bag wien admitted that Charlie had spent 'many
talking to the horse alone'
if you had a Okay, family like Charlie's, you would prefer talking to horses than to your mum and dad Nor can you Diall the socialising with his intellectual equals.
But he had no right to do what he did Allibar. Clearly his Royal verbal inanities bored poor old Allibar to death and the horse just crumpled up and died.
Why should Charlie be allowed to get away with this? Supporters justice must demand he be brought to the Old Bailey IO account for Allibar's cruel death.
Social Democratic claret THE trickle of former National Union of Students stars joining the Council for Social Democracy is threatening lo become a flood. Sue 'I haven't changed my politics' Slipman and her colleague Penny Cooper are off in the direction of good claret.
Limehouse crusaders are dene new cs n yesterday's rebels.
The grapevine says ex-NUS president, Sue - slipsliding away
The Insane Society
by Bob Pennington
Trevor Phillips
eportin for London
Neekend Television, an eX- VICe soeni Alan
Christie - are just dying
to join Britain's best-feo and we suspect shortest
lastinne olied parint
Related member of the CSD says: 'We have recruited the first woman president of the NUS, now we can get its
SOLOCK president.
What is to stop us getting ls /I/sl-ever president? Told he was dead, the guy replied: Well that did not stop George Brown joining, did it?
Sorry about that NORMALLY lan Paisley is about as fun my as that other boring
Ulster comedian Frank Carson But did cause ripple of laughter last when the revereno claimed that the Ulstel Unionist Party were threatening to bump him off
Plan has never likea violence and murde
was just coin cidence that one of the EnTree men convicted in 1966 of murdering Catholic oermar Belfast said when ar
terribly restca. sorry I ever heard of that Paisley decided to follon him
Like his follower, We oe dre sorry. The announcement by the UUP that it is not sending a hit man after the priest is neither fair to lan nor to humanity in genera Why disappoint the re incarnation of Tutan Carson, ex-pharoah of the Orange Empire?
Photo. CHRIS DAVIES (Ranort)
Page 15 scan of this page
Reinstate
the ILTA 8
By Ray Sorotkin, Lambeth NUT in personal capacity 'AT A time of crisis in inner city education the teachers union (NUT) would be more welcome fighting the members who protest against those cuts, said Stuart Holland MP at last week's press conference to defend suspended from the NUT.
The teachers were all suspended suDoorune the strike against the cuts by council workers in Lambeth earlier this month LIUs. candidates in the Inner Lon- suspendea were also
I cachets Assuclalluli (ILTA) elections.
amnetn Central MP John Tilley also proested NUT pri ent Fred Jarvis, saying: shocked to learn yUu nad suspenaed from membership several Lam-
teachers
rime was demonstrating t
pubic service workers. The trade unIon moverent Lambeth has asked me
possible representations for their immediale relstalcichil.
John Esterson, secretary of Lambeth Teachers Associauon Is onc ol lusc suspendeo. He tolo ue oress conference: 'You wouldn't
ser dist pinar actio waken
against Wales Hillic s even though cormicy was azallsl leil action.
Dave Pcton gnomet suspended member, a0ded
been sent out to all local NUT associalions forbidding any discus SUlla The right wing in the NU1 are becoming desperate.
'No buts, there's got
to be buses'
bus-
work Monday
plement new fare
Many of the
feel that ousworker: they were sold ek Tor meeting last
them Lu totale The eisinis lt
and 900
ocen The busworkers been Torteu Tare rises
the
¡ransdort crossed the
ESTIL
MA
CUlS than sniping
eight teachers
Richardson,
Kopert right-wing general secretary
threatening charges against other mem Ders ror lie attenaing ine ILIA annual general Among
threațened Mike nose LOOSe C MCg DICl" dent.
The union executive further showed tiality' calling Dolce azallisl a 150-strong teachers' pickel protestng
suspension on February suspensons is groting. Six Opposition Labour MPs, six Inner Loncon Concauo! AuLnOTILY members and various trade
Labour parties and
protested
Show your support 1o those victimised by attending pickel une disciplinary hearing TrOm 8:30am on Sat 28 February Mabledon Place, London WC1.
On Friday 6 March, at 5.30pm at Central London Poly there will be a mass ral-
Spin sers inv ied include fo.
Speakers invited include Kenareson vir Jack collins NUM, Bernard ConnolMcLean CPSA ISTC Stewart thousand busworkers
maren
Bristol MP Tony adressed
the and under. lined
tne ories
He also inquiry the
taken
counciror Inel
lived was the
city f tarsir 50 wAlen off
Omnibuses
'The still thousand broost.
41U form Bristol alone, for Mike busworkers
told other ous
workers, yet over.
Festival for
women's
rights against
Tory attacks
New badge available for 9 May
festival 20p each or 50 tor t8 Write to: Festival Organising Committee. 374 wav nima concor
OLD 8 171 By Jamie Gough POLICE in Huddersfield have been conducting a witchhunt of gay people. They have been:
• Picked up at home and at workplaces. with
ed phat tris eas beaus.
that this was because of homosexual oftences.
Stopped the street and questioned.
• Forcibly medically examined.
• Diaries and address books have been confiscated.
The police have compiled a bulging dossier which they say will lead brought. charges being
They have announced that they will keep up their mu vesuicalluls for anther three months which shows that it is their hatred of gays rather than the nature of the 'offences' that determines their activities.
Raids
The police now intend to snul. down the town's Gemini club, which is the major club in West Yorkshire. say This follows series of Taos ontne cauto.
By Dominic Johnson, NUPE shop steward, Oxon NHS in personal capacity Lady McCarthy,
on Longworth Geriatric Hospital on 10 Feb.
Members COHSE (the health service the hospital une nosolal for len weeks lu prevent the closure of the top floor and 13 beds.
The four patients still on the top floor were snatched ana moveu amulel •.nospial, as police seaiça Qul
News
GAYS THE WORDR24
Taking the offensive — Gay Pride march summer 1979
GAYS RESIST
POLICE ROUND-UP
An action committee was formed earlier this monln al a mecling al luc Gemini, attended by overuu oeoole.us now organising the lobbying councillors, OI TOCa MPs, and labour move ment organisations stop the closure of the club.
The action committee has also booked two coaches to go to the demonstration against state repression of lesbian and gay people in Manchester on Saturday 28 February. National The repression Huddersfield is not an isolated instance. Over the past couple of years number of police Will -iuL. mounted. In the last few lids
months alone, there have been major operations in Stockport, Stoke, Hull and Edinburgh.
And it's not just the police. Lesbian and gay people are continually discriminated against in the courts, in schools, !!
HOeNEa nosoldis public employment The demo this weekend Is al opportunity to begin to Turn s ude
Labour peer authorises
raid on Oxford hospital
. chairperson of the Oxfordshire Area Health Authority and well known member of Oxford Labour Party gave the go-ahead to a raid
roads leading the hospital. One picket assaulted ambulance statt as he tried to close the gateshe raid caused erea distress to staff and to the feared that they might also be mov ed. Nursing auxiliary Kate
LeNDeN-
The demonstration assembles in Oxford Rd under the Mancunian Way at Ipm. It is followed by a rally, with a mixed disco (plus a women only one) in the evening
For details on local transport arrangments phone your local gay switchboard. From London, coaches leave Gay's the Word bookshop, Marchmont St, WC1 at 8.30am. Tickets £5 from LuC DOOKSAOD or by post from Gay Noise.
COME OUT!
White said: 'I didn't think 1 would live to see the day when ople who charge of the health service coula cu S0 IOW
»u-berson oicker wa. immediately set up and the
committee step up the fight n conoc ivi aluul
A call nas been raised to exp labour Pancarthy from
Labour Party
Messages of support and comacins io ine Lore wort Hospua occupaton can De
Barbara Kussen Weybread Faringdon Rd, Longworth, Ox-
RONDON
BARD BAY SWITEHBOR2B
01 837-7924
THE Polish official news agency has announced that the new
trade union law has • been dratted
Originally designed to
enshrine the new
by Polish
ToedOe WUt
workers lasu vear s
Gdansk agreements, the
draft includes a proposal
that strikes be nomi Git
by ceptiona economic
custareo anti-union
measure ooks kery
disrupt Poland's so 90-day truce. In
Britain Labour-
roland sunuaril
mittee mas calleo to
labour movement
Chile human rights concert planned THE Chile Committee for Hunder Righ coi ko ditsa fund-raising concert in
London on Saturday 4 April
the artists
AHOHR pearine wil be te nuea folk groups Karaxu and
French communists
step up racist campaign
THE FRENCH Communist Party has launched 'a war against drugs'. The war is being fought against im-
. The first vic. migrants tim was Mohammed K. Moroccan migrant worker Montigny.
Acting on a tip-off from an Algerian Moroccan family the Com Hulls l mayor led a protes march to Mohammed's tia accusine num oi arue ocuai ina ocans on e eo | cluded the charming 'End this poison' Mohammed is
the delamation oi character
1 nese moves follow the call from lf leader weorg Marchais for an end to all
This Pitry who bulldozed down a mayor Toca immigrant noste. Xmas eve. And in Amiens, sur-Seine communist cour ds vc cu dalma an campaigns.
Socialist Challenge 26 February 1981
GAY TEACHE
GROUPE
Photo: GM COOKSON (Socialist Chailenge!
Hands off
workers'
Poland
demonstration in port of the Polish workers on Saturday March from Hyde Park to The soviet embassy 2pm
Socialist Challenge supports this demonstration, backed dy Ine casI European Solidarity Campaign and
bodies, and moverell uroes ITS supporters to attend it.
Saraguro and the Persian Tolk singer snusna
With the recent increase in repression, murder bs Chilear governancil as well as the country s aire poverty and unemployment the work of the committee is vitally im DUllalll
ckes conve ooiener from the Chile Committee for Human Rights, 266 Pentonville Rd, The CP mayor of Montigny
When will the Morning Star disassociate itself trom this disgraceful racist campaign by its French counterparts?
Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Challenge 'WE ARE MANY,
No. 186 26 February 1981
THEY
ARE
FEW'
Tory government after last week's conflict with the miners.
miners' demands to keep all open.
In the coalfields
was a tremendous determination to
the ones and in the face of the threat of all all-out miners' strike the Tories realised that the future OT their administration was at stake.
There is no doubt that national miners' strike
Share taken place it would have received massive working class support.
The huge turnout and militancy of last Saturday's 75,000strong demonstration
Glasgow showed the potential for a sustained onslaught against the govern-
It was the stinging rebuff
„LU Socia
20p
Miners, Glasgow show that...
PULVERISED! That's the state of the
Back-tracking on all their previous policies, at a stroke they have been forced to submit to the
the pits
democratic' Gang of Four and their gaggle of right-wing splitters.
NOW these giant gains must be built upon.
The waterworkers who want living wage and the railworkers who call for investment in their industry to save jobs and provide a decent service should ram home their demands. Power
The mines nave shown that Thatcher Call be beaten. allo both the water and rail workers have the power to force une Tories to retreat.
The mass protests against unemployMont han Friday to continue. 29 Mav the unemoov. ment march from Liverpool arrives London on its way to parliament
Party and trade union leaders should call for London's unenplovment demonstra tion to be on that day. Since the demonstration arrives on a Friday, the Labour Party must call for a one-day Strike
nunereds of thou sands can be brought
Socialist
PIL
onto the streets to put the Tories under seige.
Michael Foot said it all wnen ne commented at the Glasgow rally: 'We are
TALBOT
SHOP STEWARDS
COMMUTTEE
many, they are few.
He also told unemployed people to 'rise like HOnS forces are there, ready and willing to do just that. But they need to
ON
be given a lead.
Michael Foot should declare his sup. port for all those takIng industrial against Tory policies.
Job
shock -
vacancy at
kindergarten!
By Tom Marlowe
NOW is the time to sell your television, stop
buying your daily newspaper, and exchange your radio for a six-month sleeping pill.
Because,
now, THEY ARE TO WED
And he must ensure that the LiverpoolLondon march ends with the most gigantic protest seen since the war.
as no doubt you will know by
from now until the summer when they walk down the aisle we will b
aclugea will pictures o
them: acres of newsprir detailing every acceptable nook and cranny of Enem Haves television spectacular: showing them in all their finery
By the summer (when, incidentally, ficial unemployment figures will be around million there we bette two and
and books OI them, and posters show. ing ineir raalant smiles
So, it is time to head for your Royal Marriage Fall-out Shelter.
Don't blame Diana. She isn't exactly broke herself but marryln, him she will be boarding one or ine mickest grav trains in the business.
moment he receives f306,382 a year from us, the tax-payers When he is promoted to the position his mother enjoys he will be getting, on curren
then ten times age
will mean Diana can have the run of Buckingham Palace (which costs €1,485,000 year Windsor
casu
£265.912 Holyroo
House (£265,912) Ken ington Palace (£483,000) and St James Palace (£763,000).
And then there is his new estate, Highgrove
Gloucester which we bought for him last year, costing over fl million. Train
Visiting all these different homes will be no problem for Diana. She can travel on the royal train (£385,000 a year), the royal airplane (£2,500,000) journey around the coast in the royal yacht (£2m). is in all thisfor you well What, you may don't spoilsport. look on the orignt side All you unemployed. There will soon be a job yuu. chance going at the kindergarten you can bet your jubilee where she works, mug that won't fall foul
Maggie Thatcher's cuts.
But talking of cuts. wasn't it the first King Charles who had his head chopped off? No one surely. not even ind most extreme extremist. the most terrible terrorist would wish that on our present Charles?
The kindest cut of all would be 10 chop the whoie roval lamboree
← Socialist Challenge No. 185, 19 February 1981Socialist Challenge No. 187, 5 March 1981 →