Socialist Challenge No. 26, 15 December 1977

Socialist Challenge · 15 December 1977 · 24 pages, 25,102 words read by machine

The scan: sc-n26-dec-15-31-1977.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)

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

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Page 1 scan of this page

Socialist Challenge

Government

Just see

what's

inside

JOHN FOWLES SHEILA ROWBOTHAM

DAVID HOCKNEY

ANGELA CARTER

PETER FULLER ADRIAN MITCHELL WOLF BIERMANN

RUDOLF BAHRO

PLUS

Peter Wollen on

Jesus Christ

Miles on Presley Peter Rabbit and the

Grundrisse plus Left-Overs - the after-dinner game for Socialists.

from the Labour

Suriet THE FIREMEN

Season's Greetings

ecember1977 No.26 20p.

SMATTOR

THE AREMEN

ПОТОЛ PETER KENNAN

Page 2 scan of this page

Pie in the sky when you die

A Xmas offering for the Firemen

HOME NEWS

Editorial

disorlal 01-349 8180/9. Olstribution 01-389 830 Advertising 01-358 8371.

The smell they can't

ignore any more

THE LABOUR Party's political broadcast last week was an effective plece of anti-fascist and anti-racist propaganda. For that very reason it was censored by

mandarins, broadcasts' might actually be used to poiticise the masses. But despite the censorship (itseif a grim waring for the future) left wing Labour MP Joe Ashton made an effective and telling critique of the National Front. His message was simple and to the point: the NF is a Nazi outfit.

It would be tempting simply to ignore or downplay the broadcast by arguing that what Ashton said is not new. The far left, after all, has been saying precisely that for the past five years, and the broadcast, (and the TUC decision to back it and

propaganda). vindication of the political line of the far left. But the broadcast has importance because the decision of the official Labour movement to characterise the NF as Nazis could make a critically important contribution to the building of a mass movement against racism and fascism in this country-

A properly and democratically constituted Anti-Nazi League could use the Ashton broadcast and organise meetings around its central message. Ashton did not merely equate the NF with Hitler and Mussolini's thugs in the Thirties; he also pointed out that it was the social crisis upon which the Nazis fed and grow. He did not. revolutionary party to defeat capitalism because he is a left social democrat. It would be absurd to expect him to do so. But he did lay the basis for real and serious united front work against the fascists. Any sectarianism would be criminal.

The very effectiveness of the Labour broadcast determined the response to it by the bulk of the national press and media as politicians. The notable exception was the Daily Mirror which carried the startlingly clear headline 'Crush the Front!' The questions to fascist leaders Verrall and Webster were couched in a sympathetic fashion. The Tory press was actually squirming with embarrassment that Ashton had 'broken the rules'. The idea that the broadcast will give the NF more credibility, is, of course, ludicrous.

It was only appropriate that the Tory MP most outraged by the broadcast hadn't actually seen it. Nicholas Winterton, after all, is well-known for his interest in raciam. He was one of those Tory MPs who recentiy visited Rhodesia, met lan Smith, and spoke about the necessity government" in the country. Not a single newspaper mentioned Winterton's links with Smith's Rhodesia,

Labour's intervention on racism and fascism is a belated, but important first step forward. It must be repeated and acted upon in the localities. This means that labour movement leaders campaign. Meetings propaganda should be distributed, and the fascists should be denied a platform to spread their racist and anti-semitic filth. Whether the far left is capable of responding in a united and coherent fashion remains to be seen.

OUR NEXT ISSUE

This will be our last issue in 1977. We will resume publication in the first week of January. With this issue we are distributing a four-page special on the FBU strike.

We send warm season's greetings to firefighters on the picket lines. We also wish our T0вs an wore 388s0n continue to respond favourably to the paper in the New Year.

wothers hat of the capitolisi class.

Thei

fearful that "party political

multiply Its tremendous OF course, call for a by Tory civilised Probering

must wage a should be organised, all the

and trust they will

OUR POLICIES

people. says

sheald

ta all those sighing for varialia democra

by Geoff Bell

THE FIRST REACTION to HIGHEELAYCLE DELTAR

be striking trefighters was on

if decisive rejection. The offe reflected the Labour Govern

determinn son to stic to the 10 per cent norm. It proposed a len per cent increase now. another ten percent in

1978 and the promise of parit with higher paid industria workers in 1979

I Senes strings were attached. The previous promise

48 to 42 - in twelve months

acceptance of more cost

in other words, a productivity deal. Even more brazen is that the offer represents direct

FBU by the employers The FBU must 'undertake that there will be no recrimination and no discriminatory action against individuals or groups arising from the industrial action...

This amounts to a scabs charter, If the PHU sign it, the Tea union members who have scabbed, or chose who have left the union over the strike will get OSCUE TEE.

Across the country FBU

offer: in Liverpoo/ 6,000 demonstrated in support of the FBU claim on 9 December Dockers, building workers, eur workers and bus workers and others marched with Manchester and Liverpool branches of the FBU. When the • Ercigaleis were asked was! they thoughr of the latest offer

an carsplitting shout of rubbish

DC ACI 5,000 marched in Glasgow and there again speakers on the platform denounced the Government's offer. On the same day 1,000 took part in a demonstration in Newcastie at which Bill Giffin, Cleveland regiona: FBU organiser spoke. He attacked the local press for saying rank and file FBU members were in favour of the proposed

To be sung to the fune of 'Shell Be Coming Round the Mountain

you atand behind the framen, clap your handa [clap Imi

tave to sec nom winning Then If you sland behind the firomen olap your hands (clap twice Tren If you stand behind the firemen. clap your hands iciap twice

г тои о вне ти вар в поворіро тоста big м.

If you'd rather die than marry A man like Terry Par You're on the side let's surely goone win [Repearl I you dent mind seeing the bass go up in smoke you think the ten por ponts a lously joke If you think the boys In khaki ATE NCEING TOLER NOR The FBU are just your kind of folk

unite the tight of the workers agaime The books with that of uther uppres

Government offer to FBU

settlement. Another speaker, Jum Sillars, Scottish Labour Party MP, described the Coverament as thie first Tory Labour Goveromene".

Also on Saturday at a 100 strong meeting in Merthor, South Wales tbe local secretary of the FBU, Bill Rees,

said, 'show me a shop where we Can socad promises and well go back tomorrow.

A number of national leaders of the FBU also stated their The interests bf workers and capital iste ane irreconcilable on wor vale. Capitalise his not sely creste a world marait, who cruled work!

Hing. This we Ngte For Within too unit

can ran he derbove in defeating hoth th mperialist retimes in the West and the bruin the taur dip, they so-laid in Lalie-Anciles

nut feting ise Irish people des mine thee in decade. Rut such parties can onle be built hig

Til cuss the rich to wen

opposition on the weekend of 10/11 December.

ASSISEATH general secretary Dick Foggie commented on Saturday: 11's an insult to ask us to do more work when we are not going to get paid for it, while we have to WADE TO YCOTS TO CET OBE OUCE

Other prominent members of the FRUF are mitine ine poin that the best answer ta the Governments oller is for tbo strikers to go on the offensive. As action union secretary for Merseyside, David Day said,

(Repeat)

It youd stick it out 10l Xmas /70 # Mertyn is the man you love lo hate

you shink the human race Are all a Special CARR The FBU will recognise a mato

(Repeat]

1 you think the strike shouid spreed like forest tires

you want to buld the bosses' funeral pyres a van otire so see soon tyrant Held underneath a hydrant

Repeat firal aranza

TERRY EAGLETON

fo is:

filies in ayurem

s0 cover costs. (Delete if mot appileable] Lundoo NI.

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 197, pege 2

COUNCIL

UNITY IS ENGTH

'the time has come strengthen the strike',

SOCIALISTUNITY Nutional Steering Committee Sunday, 15 Tanuary, 12pm 76b Digheth Birminchum All areas please ensure delegates are clocied to attend.

Then if you stane bahind the tiramen, clap your hande [clap ricel

Then I vau stand bahied tha firemen, clop yeur hands cleo ricel

The or in bene he fine, che our hard tele we)

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

It you agree with these prisciples and want to be Involor in setivites by Socialist Challenge sup portersie spurare, hillin the foner below and sandhi

Fam interested in aure information abrist ded .....

Sunder stil Client: 30b/229 Vene Sitel

Page 3 scan of this page

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Page 5 scan of this page

SHORT STORY

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December1977, page 5

What

LES.

the

judges

y JIM CRACE had

to say

The winning story in the Soclalist

Challenge short story competition was

Refugees by Jim Crace. We will over

the next year attempt to print all the

storles mentioned in the paper. The

comments of the three judges were as

follows:

Terry Eagleton

I chose Retugees

powerful story, with a rather unexpected

twist at the end, Its realism is unobtrusive. I

his writing as well as its stylistic qualitie

My second choice was Sue Aspinall's The

Same ELODION From Angles

which was slightly experimental but

pleasing none the less. My third chaice was

LEYE

Sea. This Is uneven, but strong and would

some editing and rewriting befor

John Fowles

Three stories stood out for me among the

eight finalists Third place

Kinmount's Criminal and Liberal,

recreation of & working class child's murder

in Newcastle. . Unfortunately the central part

(the CHild's first-person

crippling background and the murder was

good that made the surrounding

framework distinclly cumbersome. There

could be a fine, if technicaily very difficult

novel told trom this child's aye view of

Where 1he quilt really des in such cases

Second place to Stephen Chalke's Pretty

Bubbles In the Air, a nicely shaded study of

the multiple alienations, both personal and

social, underlying the friendship between two young men, al done in the context of a

West Ham home maich. With one or two

very smail revisions, this would be well

worth publishing Atrican story, Refugees, A common failing among the other stories ConsEnors wo too Disch ad white but Jim Crace's quite literally black and white characters were much more sklifully interwoven, which makes the final moral all

convincing The creation of and character were 8iso In a class on their own. Look forwand to reading more of this obviously gitted Fay Weldon Chatty Bubbles in the Alr by Stepher

A simple story, written out of a real and not a received experience, property shaped and (most difficult to achievel moving without being sentimental. Stephen Chalke Is the kind of a natural writer (and there are tow enough of them about) who can find meaning in ordinary axperience. He could afford to throw out a lew adjectives and br more precise in his use of language, but never mind (what Is a distracted look?) 2. Criminal and Liberal by Pat Kinmount

written, with 89Se and confidence: an imaginative excursion into words of pain and deprivation. If i don't put the feel of a writer standing on the brim of experience siorino into the maestrom rather then of one who's dragging himsel out, and because it hammers a point o three too hard

Same Problem From Different Angles by Sue Aspinal

Third place in spite of reading more like a draft than a finished work: she didn't solve her own problem, which was dovetals: general comment and particula people. But a real and generous offerin from a good writer to the outside worid pain controlled, Indignation restrained and theretore communicable.

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Well all go together when we go

NUCLEAR E

IN APRIL last year over a

thousand people gathered at

three nucicar sites (Windscale, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk;

and Torness, East Lothian) in

support of rallies organised by

Friends of the Earth and the

Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace

(Scram). On a rainy Sunday

afternoon in July, perhaps as

many as 3,000 people attended

a meeting on the shores of Loch

Doon in Ayrshire, to express

their opposition to the UK

Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) plans to test the suitability of nearby

mountain for the disposal of

long-lived radioactive waste.

Such events are in sad contrast to the tens of thousands of demonstrators who are protesting with increasing regularity at nuclear sites in Europe, such as Creys-Malville in France, Kalkar In Germany, and eisewhere. There are several reasons why the situation here is so different. ENERGY SOURCES

Britain is much more comfortably off as regards energy supply. We have substantial coal reserves, cough for perhaps 200 ycars, as well as the much-heralded breathing-space offered by North Sea Oil. In addition, because we use cnergy much more wastefully than most, there is great scope in energy saving, by methods such as comprehensive building insul. ation. Thus the officially projected • dependence on nuclear power can afford to he less ambition_ least in the short term.

We are not threatened with a very large number of new nuclear stations in the immediate future. Hence, too, ToDy Benn. the Secretary of State for Energy's, ongoing nucicar debate! There is no need to rush into SIULICS expansion in true British Fashion, we have time to pause and think. We have had time for the recently compieled 100-day Public Inquiry into British Nuclear Fuels" Windscale plans, and we will have time for the promised inquiry into the UKAEA's plans to build Britain's first commercial fast breeder reactor. Governments elsewhere, faced with the imminent decline in tossi fuel and anxious to maintain and expand their economies in the traditional way, bave no time for the niceties of public debate.

People on the continent also have other important political grievances which find a focus in opposition to nuclear power. To many, subjected to more obvious suppressive measures such ax the restriction of job opportunities - the increasingly desperate insistence of the nuclear establishIDent Chal Ley must build more nuclear power stations looks bke just anorber dangerous aspect of an already socially-destructive political system.

SEILLE and villagers too are faced with the Immediate threat of a nucicar site. With a history of mass protest, these factors combine with sometimes violent results.

The fact tbat the control of energy supply rests more visibly in the hands of large

OTIVELS corporations, will no real interests Diner than their can. can only exacerbate the already widespread discontent aver the balance of political power. Alternative energy strategies, based on the smallscale, decentralised use of the sun, wind abd waves at least offer the possibility of a society where abe control of cnergy supply and hence our way of life, can pass from

privale companies to the people at

a community level. That doesn't

mean of course that the adoption

of renewable energy sources is

bound to lead to a better and more

equal society — but it would make

it casier.

SIR ARNOLD WEINSTOCK

With the noticeable bulk of the

nuclear industry in this country

(UKAEA, BNFL and

Electricity Boards) state-owned,

position seems superficially

different. The commercial interest

promoting DUCTED

obscured and not easy to specify —

there is room for a good expost on

the subject. One instance provides

an interesting indication.

In August 1972, the National

Nuclear Corporation was crested.

during Tabionalisation', as tbe

only reactor-building

company. Half the shares wear to

Sir Arnold Weinstock's General

Electnic Comany (GECI which

aiso assumed managerial respons-

ibulty. The following Sir

Arthur Hawkins, TEL then Chairperson of the Central Electricity Generating Board.

The fight

against

nuclear

sites

Britain

following the advice of GEC, announced that they planned to order some 32, 1,300 megawatt Westingbouse Pressurised Water Reactors within the next ten years.

Looking back, the CEGB's plans can be seen for what they really were — a blatant attempt to increase the profits of GEC (tbey would have built all the stations) without any true relerence to social or energy needs. Fortunately an unlikely

from the South of Scotland Electricity Board, some trade unions and Frieads of the Earth Forced the CEGB 10 abandon its grandiose plans. Its distinctly grudging магив ошноае іле Drax coal-fired scation in Yorkshire carber this year is in startling

enthusiasm.

TRADE UNIONS

There is an important difference of attitude towards nuclear power in the labour movement in various countries. the broadly-based alliance Australian trade-unionists and environmentalists has led the

campaign against the miniog and

export of Australia's extensive uranium reserves. There are two

things you can do with uranium -enrich it and put it in atomic

bombs, or put it in nuclear power

stations. Neither use, they argue, is compatible with a safe and, peaceful world. Uranium ship ments have been the target of trade union hoycotts and increasingly

angry protests. The Australian Labour Parly, backed by the unions, is now committed to a refcrendumt on uranium mining. the results of which, it has warned, could cause it not to honour contracts made by the Fraser Liberal Government.

In France, workers at the Cap-la-Hague Reprocessing Plant (the French Windscale) are very critical of the Commissariat De L. Energie Atomique and its safety standarda. The CFDT union confederation has made

month study of the plant and i calling for it to be shut down while necessary improvements are made. It has also come out against th reprocessing of foreign spent fuel

the central source of controversy al Windscale

lo Britain the majority of established trade unions has not set seen through the industry's argument that muclear means more jobs. In fact, If one is looking to create job opportunities, nocicar power is perhaps the most stupid and expensive method of so doing. On average it costs about 450,000 to create one industry, compared with E100,000 in advanced petro-chemical Jodustries, £20,000 in conventional mass production, and f4,000 in small-scale nology. Indeed, it has been strongly argued that to invest beavily in nucicar development, given its very high capitalintensity. would bleed other more socially desirable sectors, such as health and welfare, and thus actuany cause bacogupymici

LUCAS AEROSPACE

However, some initiatives associled with the Socialis! Environment and Resources Association (SERA, Poland Street, London WIV 3DG), are breaking new ground, The now famous Lucas Acrospace Com-

bine Shop Stewards Committee, realising the limited future of many of the high-technology. detence-connected projects. on

which they were working, and impelied by fear of redundancy, in 1975 produced a

'Corporate Plan', which they prescoted to tbe management as

their view of how Lucas Aerospace shoule diversify.

In the plan, out of a total of 150 proposals, they recommended further work on abour 40, in the areas of oceanics. telechiric machines, transport systems, braking systems, alternative enerly sources and medical equipment, Such technologies would, the combine believed, be compatible with their existing skills and plant, and be more socially USCEL. They LUVE achieved some successes the management at the Burnley plant have agreed to produce prolotype heat-pumps — but tbere is still a long way to go. In some ways, it is

beginning to insist not just on the right to work, but for the right to work on socially useful products. In so doing they are explicitly aware of the implications "We believe that scientists, engineers and workers in Lose industries have profound responsibilicy to challenge the underlying assumptions of large-

right to use their skill and ability in the interest of the community at large. In saying that, me recognise that this is a fundamental challenceto many ofthe economic and ideological assumptions of our society. ('Lucas, An Alternative Plan IWC Pamphlet No 54)

Many of the ШВіОЛ leaders involved in the Lucas Combine wanted to object at the Windscale Inquiry, but were unable to, as they bad to toe the line of their national union.

After a while one gets the feeling there is something in about the nuclear dehate in Britain thal scare arom cocones -feeling that we must be alright, because we're British — American reactors mighi be unsafe, but ours are British-designed and built, and our industry is fully controlled by democratic processes ete m Hence anti-nuclear arguments

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977. paged have tend to concentrate on Ponies and be Ene comple social argument against the

'plutonium economy based on

last breeder reactors, to the detriment, perhaps, of the more readily understandable, but less casily scientifically quantifiable risks of socidents and leakage of radioactive materials.

A contributory factor is the very poor access to information in Britain. We have an Official Secrets Act and no Froodom of Information Act. The Nuclear lostallations Inspectorate, the independent government reeulatory body. have only just begun to let the public sec tbe results of some of their studies. If American evidence is anything to po by, the more tise publie knows about safety, the more it worries.

But unquestioning confidence in the British Nuclear Industry is beginning to be croded, especially in Scotland. The South of Scotland Electricity Board roused the ire of the Orcadians last year, when they persuaded some landowners to agree to uranium prospecting. What the landowners didn't realise is that the contract they had signed also gave the SSEB an option to mine the uranium Protest on the island rose to a crescendo with ao unprecedented demonstration involving several hundred people OUTSIDE Council offices. As a result the Orkney blands Council refused permission for the SSEB even to set foot on their land.

At the other end of Scotland, the UKAEA's plans to test-drill in the Galloway bills as part of a research programme to locate a site for the long term (Le. bail' a stillion years or sol disposal of nuclear waste have met with widespread loca and national opposition. Because of the industry's initial caginess over the plans and the deep and inevitable fear caused by the awesome nature of tbe waste problem, the atlitude of objectors has hardened. The more people knew, the less they liked. It has now come to the point where the UKAEA and their representatives are simply not trusted and it is difficult to see how they are eve puing to be allowed to proceed. Contingency plans in the event of the industry mowing in are known to exist.

In the last resort public feeling about nuclear power will be t crucial factor. And the signs are that this feeling becomes not casily definable in conventional con serrationist lens, 11 runs much deeper. People do not want mere high teebobology and the alienation which it implies, - tbey especially don't want a technology tbat is unavoidably wedded to humanity's most fearsome weapon. It is the signal for tbe movement towards a new ant saner society. it in past time the movernent gained mass support in this country:

By ROB EDWARDS, chairperson of SCRAM

*Thestrength of pubic opposition to maclear power is going to be shown or tied forthcoming events Friends of the Earth are orgunising to oppose the Windscale expension piars, and the Scotish Campaign to Resist the Aromic Menace 1s orgonising o moss demonstration

next nuciear power station Torness Point, East Loshian, 30 miles east of Edinburgh, on the weekend of 6-7 May 1978 Both protests need support und help Contac: Friends of the Earrh, Poland Street, London WIV3DG, 01-434 1684: SCRAM, 2 Aieslie Ploce, Edinbargh 3, 081-225 7752.

Page 7 scan of this page

POETRY

Wolf

Biermann

The old communist

Grandma Meume's Great Prayer

in Hamburg

Goodbye Richard Nixon

Your California bedroom was red white and blue

You won ten thousand dollars playing poker in the Navy

Your college football team was called The Poets

Gave you a sort of safe feeling

You had a music box played Hail to the Chief

Your favourite building was the Lincoln Memorial

Your favourite food was coffage cheese with ketchup

And you never wiped gour arse

Two Good Things

There's one good thing about a cow-pat:

If you leave it in the sun it dries.

And there's one good thing about capitalism -

it dies.

What it Meansto be a Manin London

Down London canyons move the high tension

cowboys, gangsters, boxers and rockstars

Iron mouths frozen eyes

tougher you look safer you are

saw a snowdrop in the park

kicked it to death

felt really ballsy

The Other Bookshop

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NEW FROM PATHFINDER Partraits Personal and Political by Leon Trotsky A vivid collection of political and persomal portraits of Kar LATEST ANEMORA LINUOUTO nancy, V.l. Lenin, H.G. Wells.

Engels, Maxim Gorky, Grigoti Zinoviev and Lav Kamenev, doseph Stalin and many othere.

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And you rucked the bottom of your tie into the top of your trousers

Your favourite Xmas song was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

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Karl Kautsky Georgi PlekAnatol Lunachersky. Friedrich

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GOd, dear God in Heaven, hear me praying

I call you now as when I was a kid

Why did my poor old father not destroy me

While in my mother's womb I still lay hid

Now that I'm old, a grey and deaf old woman

The whole of my short life was plagued with need

A lot of struggle, God, just for a little bread

I strained my voice for peace in two great wars

And what did I achieve? Soon I'll be dead

O GOd, can't YOU make communism triumph?!

God, believe me, man will never do it

I've bent my back to serve the party's good

Remember how I hid Karl Scholz at my place

His guns and all, and even cooked his food

I've grafied day by day for the oppressor

And chen that Hitler, him I won't forget

How then our party broke down on its knees

The best all died in concentration campa

The others snuffed it in the wat like fleas

O GOd, can't YOU make communism triumph?!

TOO HASTY A WITHDRAWAL AT THIS TIME COULD RESULT IN TURNING VIETNAM INTO A BLOOD BATH!

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This book contains valuable lessons for today about the nature of revolutionary parties and Marxist pollies.

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Almost like a fascist in a soviet state And yet he was a communist himseif

And lied, the sod, until the roof fell in The pig, he really had us on all right FINAL PRAYER

Like his father did behind barbed wire To know 1 didn't trust in you in vain

Adrian Mitchell

ROBB

Teamster Bureaucracy by Farrell Dobbs

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SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 7

Christ, God, if we'd only been spared Stalin

To my mind there was one to assassinate

God, that bastard carried on - forgive me -

But still put tons of communists to death

And put the screws on people with his might

O GOd, can't YOU make communism triumph?!

God, please see my dearest Wolf don't end up

See his wayward mind is quickly reconciled

To the party which went and kicked him out

And for my sake please make it over there

That peaceful state we want that's rich and free So that no bugger hops the wall and then

They can pull it down and I'll die happy

Dear God, "cos only then will communism triumph! Wolf Biermann, Poemsond Hallads, $1.50, Pluto Press

Quit Stalling, Call in Stalin

I've got a system A system a system l'vegetasystem Andeveryone goingto fit in

The white folk the black folk The brown folk the yellow folk The men folk the women folk Yes everyone's going to fit in

And if you don't fit my system My system my system If you den't fit my system There's somerhing the matter with you

You'll he locked up in hospital Hospital hospital Locked op in a hospital With thousands of others like you

Locked up with the misfits Misfits mistits Locked up with the misfits You're going to be there till you die

But I'll be out in the system The system the systems Working within the system Having the time of my life

Teamster Bureaucracy is the story of now the Minneapolis Tea atera 01 Local 544, led by relutionary socialists. laught to preserve their tractions of militancy, solidarity and democracy against ta combing ores or Hopsaw susa Depen

and politicians and the Tobin culminating battle — the infamous 1541 saltion trial of twenty-

— Is recounted in tal

hardback E7.75 paperback C2.50

The Politics of Chicano Liberation edited by Olga Rodriguea This collection of resolutions and reports adopted by the Socialist Workers Party USA outlines a strategy for political action today, and exp ains the dynamic of the Chicano struggle as part of the combined American revolution to come — for full lineration and

hard pack @5.15 paperback E1.66

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Page 8 scan of this page

To be black in Britain- 1977

Martin's Quiz of the Year

SOCIAL

The answers to all these

Socialist Challenge or its predecessor Red Weekly

Turn to page 20 for the

talk of cive war where led to

2. Why was Ramon Mer-

3. Who was alleged to be a security risk at Transport HOLESH

4. Which civil righte campaigners were officially wam-

to stop the train of history must expect to get their lege cut off?

'three wise without knowing why? thousands of people take id 6. Why did tens

Februa

7. Which maostine banned by the Southern Irish Government for being 'inGREATERNOO ECOC

8. Who won their equal pay demande by threatening

9. Where did more than 40,000 workers go on strike for

gainst inflation?

March

wu. ny was a norse caret "Cannonball" in the news?

11. Which Labour MP was

BOOKMARX CLUB

Involved in a punch-up with pro-abortion constituents?

Indoor athletice championships halted?

13. Thirty thousand dockers took unofficial strike action on 21 March, Why?

14. Who were lighting in Shaba province?

15. Where did Tribunite MP Bob Cryer cross a picker line?

16. Why was 'Radio Alloe' closed down?

April

17. Whose Journey from Africato America CHINEY OR SAKIST

18. Where were six teachers sacked without notice?

May

19. Which nationalised in-

with the rightwing Economic League?

SUMMAL THSOOISHIOIRE police murder of five workers in the Basque country BESCIOHI by Marcelino Camacho as 'creating a pretext for a Pinochet to Intervene 7

June

21. Where were children rescuod oy polson no inem?

22. What were Lenin Trotaky doing at the National

Mel.ean

elsewhere.

Subscriptions 56 -SETH St. Enoch Square, Glasgow

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was watched

COOKSON

was

Theatre? 23. Who invited diseider and Zhores Medvedev to speak and then canceiled the invitation?

Subscribe lo Scotland's

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Hugh MacPherson. Duncan Compbell, Allan Campbell

Plus features, reviews and the

-I sear. From 7 Days, 40

THEN The Other Cinema SHIREN'S WEDDING Helma Sanders, West Germany, 1976, 116 minutes Shirin's Wedding is about a Turkish woman who flees her village to avoid an arrunged marriage and goes off to join her lover, a migrant labourer working in West Germany Helma Sanders has taken a huge step in this film, in opening up the "new German cinema"

Friday, 16 December to Friday 23 December Tuesduy, 27 Decemberto Thursday 5 Junuary

STAND TOGETHER

Newsreel Collective, Cireat Britain, 1977, 52 minutes Three filn crews cover all the events surrounding the Grunwick mars picket on 11 July this year. Friday, 9 Deceraber to Thursday 15 December

Party leader

left a party, main battle"? 48 change

between March 1977'7

hundred

landslide August

24. What new position did Leonid Brezhnev assume? 35. Who

25. Where did Scotland play a soccer international before the best result'?

as a woman for women. 8.45pm 9pm

8.45pm

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 8 BRUTALITY lewer than 18,000 people?

July Where did a Socialist

Jail to become Industry Minister? kup's connection with the Gay 27. What was James Kir- ion? News conviction?

28. Who said: We havent

we have joined the

29. Why did a vote by 51 to

the course of the Grunwick dispute?

30. Who was (and still is) held in Northern Ireland on COST+ED 00SSC33cRD Illegal documents sometime

January 1976 and

31. Who were fighting in Ogaden province?

32. One person died and a

were injured when police attacked demonStration ar reys males in

ist Party lose all its seats in a

victory by the 'Uncle-Nephew Party'?

Why did the Labour Party scent in Birmingnam Last von tina r

said the Grunwick dispute: 'A draw is

The last issue of INPRECOR

38. Who was arrested in the Ukraine papa in bunding n anti-Soviet organisation'? September

37. Whose Nazi beckground

38. Which well-known Marxist Leninist was the toast of Fleet Street?

Oclober

did bodysnatching' lead to an occupat

40. We all remember Sir Richard Dobaon, but can you name his successor at British RUSTINE

41. In which international operation did soldiers of the Special Air Services take the lead?

42, Whose picket line wat broken by the RAFT

43. Who signed the Mancloa Pact?

44. Which well-known pollticlan was given the jot updating the European vention of Human Hights?

45. Who denied trying to sli herthroat with a bread knife November

so. no ounced alung appeal for 2100,000 to fight the National Frant?

47. what issue was the leadership defeated at the Communist Party Congress?

4B. Vihare was a Minister called Lynch forced to resign in a corruption scandal?

an American union leader Yale for'spitting in the face o the workers'?

50. What brought tears to the eyes of the Shah of Iran

this month, will be devoted ee

to the world economy and will bi

he last in the present series o

inpreper. As ron the New Yan

will be

Fourth Infemational. Suba: rates for the Payable to steroentinental Press

Page 9 scan of this page

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Page 10 scan of this page

CHILDREN

Falls down from above.

Bertolt Brechr

HE CHRISTMAS image of the babe in the manger is with Charles Wesley's gentle Jesus teek and mild and school children all over the country are taught this model of behaviour education being the only com pulsory school subject),

It represents our present myth of childhood in which the child is ascrual, apolitical, wholly depen dent on adalts, never cogaged in serious activities such as work or culture. Particularly at Christmas

nentally as playthings blased will and al lies can do is play, hence the vast sale of toys at this time of year.

Clearly this is a particular interpretation of the story Jesus, as Blake points out:

Was Jesus Humblet or did be

Give any proofs of Humility?

When hut a Child he ran away

And left his Parents in dismay,

It is crucial to look at different interpretations historically to see that childhood is a social invention and not a natural sate.

In the Middle Ages children were dressed exactly like adults. they played the same games as adalts.

from them. Often at che seven ther left home. A twenty-four year old man could be found in the class as an cleven year old child. In the sixteenth century Thomas

цидц

Flatter, aged ten, went around the schools of Europe for five years Charge solehim The youngest charge of him. chikiren from the age of five could wear a sword. Children of eleven устя co poinco me army and you could be a lieutenant by the age of Lourten. As 1ale as 1724 Doe argued that all children over the age of four or five could carn their own bread.

The invention of childhood as a separate state corresponds with the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The sons of the rising bourgeoisic were the first modern children as they separated off from activities and undergo Jong training preparation TOT working lives. The fact that they

middle class WETC

ignificant. Girls could learn chei Tuture work in the home and so di not need schooling. Similarly it is clear from the way working class children had to work in the mines, potteries and mills that there was no chidhood for Enemi

tbe opposition to this expipitation of child labour that

led socialists to lake children QuE of the factories and off the land and put them into schools till fourteen, fifteen, and now sixteen years of age. Il is understandable when you read wbat Engels reports on children working DOUCHES.

The hand Ishour, the Irregular

of the hours, the freques

nightwork. BHU COLI

HID Fahreoheit), pender chüldren lebility disease 3200 especially Alfec DE En 47E

Of the rift that runs through the world, Dividing us just as surely as the rain

танев, апи пештат

(Religious

the children mISE such heat that the WHERE SIBOO

debillry and chest affections.

clear in they are

public schools. Abolition children's factory present formi

tion, ete chosen occupation.

ape of

SUIC You only

youngest

published

ALLU LIEVE I SEE TOUCH

sheep.

be working

in the untiative:

save him getting caught.

Recently there

side of childhood, largely

school children.

lessons. ting, and strikes.

that

seventeenth the form of strikes in the

STUCTION

school for the Ted flag

the companies

bayoncis had to be suppress a rising of the pupils.

homel

time, suffer from violent

ПашУа, ТОР СинЕЛь. 1X95

oflen go boards CHEN IT

MUT THESE 1000. 100 21455

blowers usmally die young of

However Marx and Engels make

The Communist Manifesto thar it is not children's work as such that they wish to abolish. The tenth demand rends: *Free education for all children in

Combination

Similarly the Paris Commune's Education Commission claims "the right to a complete education and training corresponding to the inclinations and abilities of cach Individual and crabling him actually to begin working in his

Marx oftce remarked whar he liked best about Jesus was his love of children, bur children can he loved without being separated off as if they were a different species.

paracula! work, sex and politics that we deny

have to look at children's books to see the image of childhood that is presented by adults to children in this country.

Compare a couple of books for a - Janet and John, Peter and Jane. year. similar age group which bave been

in China where very young children are cogaged in real productive work in their schools. Safe Sisters of the Caression B the story of two Mongolian girls.

who battle through a blizzard for a whole day and night to protect their flock of

And in Secret Bulletin a boy and a girl before the revolution are involved in printing and distributing revolutionary bulletins. Significantly it is the girl who cakes

she knows more about how to print the bulletins

and she

has been a joterest in the political as a result of the political actions of

These include Jarge-scale truancy, disruption of

demonstrations, leafler-

As a result it bas been discovered

political action by school children is not new. Mutinies took place in French schools in the

three. picketing,

eighteenth century England the

the same Winchester the boys occupied the

twO troops with fixed

AL Rugby the pupils set tire to their books and desks and withdies to SULT SHO AUCE BIG TO DC LARCEN

assault by the army.

More Important, Dave Marson revealed in his History Workshop samphlet "Children's Strikes it 1911° that thousands of workin class children up and down th country came cul on strike that

As the Hall Daily News wrote:

Hull escapes little in the way of

trnehle, and so if came to pass

yesterday thut hundreds of

hool-bor care out on stak

Tull has thes been involved

ОГАННІЙ СТЕГУ О ВЕ

which has trumbled the countr

uring the past few months, Fo

weeks there has beem a fecling n

MUSIC PAINE CHE KAMIE BOD T

dockersi them the millers,

seurat workers, timber

ers, rallusy news hass,

factory giris and now the

S2000 0015.

Strike committees were formed, marches and flying pickets organised, statements made to the

Their demands includer homework, payment for attendance, free pencils and rubbers, a mockly half-day holiday. There is Risinghill School in Istiegion incladed children as young as

SUPPORT From the same period comes the 51911 to achers wee

1914 two teachers were village school in Norfolk distinissed from ENCE JOD. 10 and the came Oled by STINE MU support them, a thirteen year old girl called Violet Potter Another girl described what happence:

Violet Porter brought a paper to

school with all our names on it.

Rad to put a cross aguinst thei

Since 1908 when the French schools' action committees played an important part in the May events, school students in thi coumis have been organised, initially

Action Union and Free School Campaign, and more recently the National Students, set up in 1972. Ibeir main demands this year have been a full comprehensive education system, no corporal punishment or school uniforns, schools, grants students, no secret files, democratic control ot

result has been the general Jack of support and even hosrility Tom the main teachers National Union of Teachen

The Internationale.

is the Internationale!

Bertolt Brecht

- This is an extract from e book: called Changing edited by Marrie Hoyles, to be

bymartin

and the next day offices in master get the Schools

School battle.

sexist in against the Tor school education cub, 10

The most depressing Fascist union, the

When the sixteen year old seamstress Emma Ries Stood before the examining magistrate in Czernowitz She was asked to explain why She had distributed pamphlets which Called for revolution - a criminal offence. En reply she stood up and sang As the examining magistrate shook his head She shouted at him: "Stand up! This

Childhood.

Hoyle

• ARMS

Action this rear has taken place It organised by the NUSS. School Students have picketed the council

Ayleshury. where education is beine cil by million. Thes have gone on strike at Wanstead High against cuts 1 education and over-sized classes They walked out of 5t, Ronaventure's in Torest Gare because the heating system had broken down. Twu school students were ? arrested while distributing leaflers outside the City of Leeds High

Nottingham school walked our after the head-A

complained that Jooked like 'tarts and in Strath- 2 clyde a campaign to enahle girls to y wear trousers ended in a das of ac tion when 700 girls turned up a 2 school in trousers and so won their

the moment is that being waged

National Frant.

Students at schools such as Clissold Park in Stoke Newington and Trinity Comprehensive in Canning Town have been handing out pamphlets explaining the

polities of the National Front. A far cry from gentle Jesus mock and mild.. published next wear by the Writers and Reader Palisting Coopera-

Page 11 scan of this page

FOOD

CLUTTERBUCKreports.

Contrary to what agricultural scientists, environmentalists, and most of the Third world think, their problem is not whether

whether the climate and resources

LITTLESEU

roduction, but is normally quite

Imply one of the capitalist food industry "suffers' from a chronic tendency to overproduce - for the market, Not enough food can be bought to feed the voracious appetite of capitalist accumulation. Only under capitalism could there besuch a problem.

Take the continued production of wheat in North

America since the turn of the century- This became especially

enous during the depression of 1929-30 when a massive surplus threatened "wholesale bankruptcy and the welfare of the nation. It was suggested that 12-15 million acres be removes from production. During the 1990s and 60s such "land banks became a reguiar feature of the US economy and by 1972 had reached 70 million acres • - greater than the total land surface of the UK.

Not was this the only way the US World War whest ot rid of its surplus. In the First via Belgium, to both sides. In the second World War EAC national Committee on Food for Small Democracies was founded. After the war, the Marshall Plan supplied enormous quantities Europe. Since then, under Public Law 480, 25 billion dollars worth of whear has been shipped across the world as food aid - which just happens to create dependency on the U.S. through the technologs necessary to utilise its varieties of wheat, and through replacement of native staple foods such as rice, maize and yams. Needless to say,

Grain furthered the ends of the U.S. TERESTS those of the countries for which the wheat was

Yer what about the well-known shortages and recent rises! Look at coffee: the present shoriage stems from the frost in Brazil in 1975, but the average amount of production In Brazi has been regulated by Government since 1905 through control of the acreage planted. So overproduction is the norm, At the same time food has become yet anorber arena for the speculators, hence forcing prices up.

And it la concern Cuproacon or Be Journe! that is the central motive, not only

marketing boards, but also for the Common Agricultural Policy of the EEC. This has the aim of setting up a free trade area within relatively tightly controlled tariff barriers ( to challenge U.S.

egemony). There are now tw centres of overproduction in th world mountains and wine lakes

Overproduction can also be ased to explain Increased meat

or wheat chan

Likewise, LOOKEL EEC, where better to get rid of its surplus dried milk than by fooding it to cows? It is used for this DurDose in Cimeny (bere have been complaints from British farmers, being more expene nell sir control mar

need to control market forces has some peculiar effects.

The size of potatoes, frozen peas the shape of carrots, the prorein and water content of wheat and food additives are all 'controlled' by 'standards' supposedly sel sclentifically, yet funnily enough, these standards shift each year.

The science of food production

Bread to burn!

While you're stuffing yourself silly this Christmas, just give a thought to the managers of the world's food industry and their problem. Their problem is not how to produce enough food to feed 500 millior starving people. In fact it is the reverse: how not to produce too much food. CHARLIE

So is would standards (set by marketing boards) are there to protect the market — people dr They enable the larger growers

with well sprayed an 1000 constituted crops, to gain acoess to the markets at the expense of the smaller, armers. They are of particular benelit for processors (Unilever in the guise of Bachelors ar whateseri to conlo the marker But surely this B not the only way 'science" i related to food over: production, Doesn't overproduction of food simply arise from improved tochniques? Ironically it does пос. The technology of fo under capitalism make it easier lo organise production and disentire tribution, but do not necessarily contribute to impeoving vicids. In some areas of production, such as peas, growing is now determined by the corporations, who decide not only LOC harvesting, but also sprays and seed types, and they control credit.

supplied, PROFITABLECROPS

TRILCE rationalisation her ledato general,

large-scale mechanisation, increed labour productivity and utilising the best land to grow the nost profitable crops has been th incentive, rather rields over wide areas of land, What thus does is concentrate production on some areas of land andmargmals e production on otbers even more. Even in the green revolution where muracle stral: of wheat and rice, together with irrigation, fertilisers. and increased yields on small areas of land, overall food production did not rise.

afford the mice spente seld

food price

and the necessary fertilisers along with the wealth of this few, there increased rural depopu lation, the ation. The potential capacity fo food production is enormous bu

while it i under the control of capitalism it will always be geared to its needs Capitalism feeds profits, not people!

about

and

for the

although newsagent.

Hertfordshire.

NAME ..

seem that the EEC and

DO YOu

evenly

more diverse cropping

One targe food science and production

totally

and han increasins pesticides

machinery dramatically

WINNER of the Socialist

unemployment and stary-

Chartle Clutterbuck Is a member of the

and interests.

spare Rib

Britain's essential Women's Liberation Magizine

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From 20 December

7:84

THEATRE COMPANY

TREMBLING

Nightly at 8 plus matinées (children 50p)

HANT

BY JOEN MA-GRATH

*300K NOW! 730-1715

SOCIALISTCHALLENGE, 15 December, 1977, page

Left-Overs, our Xmas game

aims to test the wit and skill

players

incorporating an element o

chance. It is a simple game

suitable for any number of

Lefl-Overs involves players

assessing others perform

ance. We would draw you

atlention to the fact that

Socialist Challenge favour:

positive discrimination to

oppressed sections

society

To play Lell-Overe you

need the centre pages of the

paper; 2 dice; a pack

olsuino cards. coins to

mark players' positions on

the board; pens and paper.

The playing cards should be

placed in 2 piles - red and

THER RULES

The game ends when

DIO DINEr ENDS OR SO

Left-Over plate

Play begins with the

amones person untowas

the dice. The player

advances according to the

norber town the paye

on the left follows suit.

board is divided

Into 3 types of squares -

blank, red and black

Red Squares: These

correspond to the red cards

(hearts and diamonds) In

the pack A player landing

on a red square takes the

top card in the red pile,

compares i value to the

OFE the board and

fulfills the Instructions.

Player on the left then

throws the dice

Black squares: As for

red squares but with clube

and spades

The used red and blac are placed beside

their respective

when all have bean used are reshuffled

Questions: Some of the

cards ask players to answer

questions i player can

justify one of the

provided or think of their

maximum of one minute EC

BRAMARAWA? CRAT

speak.

the othel

taneously mark the answer

show the marks togathe

The score is averaged anc

rounded up or down. the

player moves forward

according to this figure.

A player who taruses to

answer a question must po

back 10 squares. Playere

who strongly disagree with

an answer have the right to explain the score awarded

Season's Greetings from

HOUSMANS booksellers for the in-

dependent Left

Peace Diary "78, with 64pp World Directory of 1500 organisations in 100 countries; world maps etc. Plot size $1.20

[post 11p] Mon-Sat 9am-ópm or mail

order A minute from Kings Cross Station for books, pamphlets, periodicals, stationury, badges, etc. for left groups, libertarlans, pacifists and the local community.

Housmans Bookshop 5 Caledonian Rd,

London N1.

Page 12 scan of this page

THE

SOCIALIST AFTER-DINNER

Game Go babysitin папря а пару

Top the game and 1

Can

and? Park the joint an Cathere heapil tol

FINISH

4 g minute.

8u Jv

• FBu member

Part oe manageria

Formand as At

this page

Designer: Sandra Shafee

The rules are on Page 11. Please read them before you read anything else on

Page 13 scan of this page

You are Tom Robinson on the verge

al Sion a 2 veer continet with EMI *pancan vaur commitment

1 wire ones you goo with T

| Denounce the wizard for being ar

You am Mara relumed from •/ Return to the British Museum to finish Capital

) Help bullet the Intemational 44

lollowing you would mes liked to have wristen

perialism e) Einstain's Theory od Relativity 54

teacher you lind the

mabien chalked up. You

c) Rub it off and forget it

our boss nas a nama you

Send a get-well car

Call on NUPE not to treat him

A French toatballer Toula Keeps

lou shou

Send the ros" oft

D TRO CES aSCED

e] Workers atand together,

Irenes

9÷ al Tum It off

10÷

b| Vote guilty by

You K*

Ae Your

24 TOU

African 34

Youhold an FOU meeting. You invite bl A Bryant & May shop siewan

An SS aflicer is on a phone-in. You

b| Hurl abuse at the radio

You are called for Jury service al a

barn nocors not

o] Vote Innocent

Mu num is tunning in anona

b] Treat it as a diversion from the a] Demand if is nationalised

A group of Mormons knock at the

• Ca lis noise h Give them Gerry Henly's address el Chain them to the bed and...

Tany Bean sita nast to you in the

Pan or T alure D More lo the seat on his lat

Tom Cm Tou wins • Es0 million ande al Demand a pay rise b Boycult the order

Your local gieengrocer is a tascist a] Shop alawwhere 6) Demand he stops stocking South c Break his lags

A restaurant has no service charge

DJ Explain the need for unluns e) Pretend not to notice

NAFF is lesfletting your market. You a| Retuse a leafiel politely

Ine man STUD. TOU

b] Remove I1,

Bonan brougn

a| Dennis Howell 84

pub

Hoycott It el Say ll'a for a man

no marsh

Evadia the questio c] Rationally deny I al Go and get pissed

DI Organise a mass sale of Socialis e] Buy rotian fruit to pelt them

on your shopfloor pui up a

N Gat the sheo swad to remove !

demanding union

new England soccer manager. Tol

An old friend senda you a sub to

Sand them a sub to Spare RIb

a) Rate the pub to the EOC

You are on a Right To Worh march. You are aftered a lob, Tou a Ask for time afl with pay to finish b] Accept it with salial, and give Johr

You are mind to a wodding you

3-year-old child asks i Fath i But our mu and hope han

Shut your mouth and hopt

George Habash is a friend and can they lat you off at the new

Your street is having a Jubillee party.

b] Say 'why wait 25 years to get

START

Page 14 scan of this page

What are the unanswered questions about his role in the struggle against the Romans? WAS JESUS A COLLABORATOR, ?

INTERNATIONAL

ESUS OF NAZARETH lived

in a time of politicul turmoil

Beiween the lines of the Gospels, which are our main source of information, this comes through loud and clear. But it is never brought to the surface. The last thing that the writers of the

This

which could apply to anybody. Above all. they did not want to tie Jesus in with the fate of the Jewish people who, at the time of writing, had just been crushed by the Roman legions after a hitter resistunce war.

However, the actual situation in which Jesus lived is plain enough. In 63BC Palestine was conquered by a Roman army, led by Pompey. and made part of the Roman province of Syria. Pompey, accompanied by his military stalt. strode into the Holy of Holies of

been defended by its priests after the reigning king had opened the gates of the city to the invaders

final showdown 133 years later in 70AD, the history of Palestine is mainly a story of Jewish resistance which took place during a time which was fundamentally one of Roman CADILBLUE. of Nazareth lived right in the middie of this period and, despite his well-known attachment to tbe other-wordly he could hardly have been blind to what was going on.

It is not certain exactly when Jesus was born. All we can say is that it was during the reign of the Emperor Augustus, who died in 14AD, and that during Jesus adult life Augustus successor Tiberius was on the throne. Jesus may have seen the end of Herod's reign, as an infant. Certainly tbe

followed Herod's death must have impressed him,

stories which were told him as be

HEROD'S DEATH

TEROD'S DEATH produceu

crisis, Herod had heen servile to the Romans and cruel and extortionate to his owe people. He was loatled and bared. Naturally, when he died there was general rejoicing and the national movenient came to surlace again. There had already been rumblings shortly before the end of his reign.

A student demonscacon, more or less led by two Pharisees, Judas and Matthias, bad culminated in

down of the Roman eagle which • Herod had displayed

in the Temple to please masters. The ringleaders were burned alive. When Herod tinally died, there was an uprising Jerusalem. The procurator, inus, the top Roman

troops into the capital to maintain

Herod's treasury. festival of Pentecost, fighting broke out between pilgrims to the Temple and these Roman troops. Sabinus was pinged down in the

ARMED UPRISING

At the same time, there another armed uprising in Galilee. led by a partisan leader called

known as the Gaillean, whose father had etecuted by Herod for insurgency. This was a large-scale uprising in

TESTS TOOK HeRS

from Nazareth, where Jesus spent his childhood.

About an hour's walk away, in fact. The Romans had to send two legions, that is, twelve thousand troops, down from suppress these revolts and rescue Sabinis. During the fighting

Temple was badly damaged an Sepphoris was completely destrosed. When the Romans restored order they crucified 2,000 rebels.

Palestine is a comparativel) small country. Herod's kingdom of Judea was not much bigger than Wales, about twice the size of Northern Ireland I did not extend so far south as Israel does coday, but it covered a tringe of what is Syria and Jordan. - about five million probably was not homogenously

Jerusalem area — Juden proper and in traillee to the north. whete they were fairly recent settiers.

In hetween was Samaria, where the Samaritans lived. Samaricans had their own religion which was a vacant of Judaism. Fogise the Temple dur had they their own holy mountain in Samaria. In the towns there were a number of Greeks and Hellenized Syrians or Phoenici nas, who bad Tirst come in the wake of Alexander's armies and now identified with the Romans Herod had encouraged immigration of Greeks and had built a number of new towns for tbeat, including a new port and cania Catares which nanonu -istic and pious Jews would not live in because it was dominated by

What was the political situation in Palestine when Christ was born?

What were his own class origins and how did they affect his teachings?

At this time of feasting and goodwill it seems appropriate to ask

His: TICUMOUS ORCAS SCISS theatre and a racerrack

in ational and religious difference TNSOTECELUUALE Sab- had some of the features official in

During the

guerrilla were often

the Roman occupation crystal

TT6I5

carber been

overlooking the Temple made a obscene gesture to the pilgrims.

the Roman tax appropriations.

Something like a tend Syria to collectors, the and it provoked

time, right during the childhood o Jesus. focus of the revolt, The population

Jewish. period

DIRECT RULE STARTS The

did

place on a

powers, in Judea at least.

turther

years, from 27 to 36 AD

split by

Northern Treland or Cyprus. The Jewish national movement took a religious form; it was religion which bound the nation together.

The leaders of the Zealots, as the

partisans were known. ultra-teligious, and religion was one of the main two issues around which opposition to lised. There were uprisings so the late Thirties, only a few years after the crucilision of Jesus, when the

was a big riot when a Roman soldier on guard on a root

The second issue was economic:

Rome did not cax its own citizens but relled on wringing what it could out of subject peoples. The system was laid down officially and then the actual tax collection

vas left to private enterprise, o

basis.

Roman troops backed up the tax

Naturally tax collectors were regarded as collaborators with the

Pharisees, Romans and there were frequen attempts to sabotage the system and boycott it. Quirinius census in 6AD was designed by the Romans to help implement tax collection elernents trol.

widespread struggle, which was not subdued for some

Once aain Galilee was the

ere was heasy fighting in tt armed struggie.

butte as well, lod by a shephe called Athronges. Thousands were killed by the Romans during thia

The census was particularly Techico paine e marked tal beginning of direct rule by Rome.

The puppet regime was abandoned Herod's death. His son was exiled Romans shortly after and the Procurator given full parable!

In Gatilee and in South-East Syria, the Golan Heights area, two ather sons of Herod were allowed to stay on as autonomous rulers.

Generally speaking, the Roman changed Procurators quite rapidly. Pontius Pilate, who lasted nine industries,

was an exception to the rule. Pilate was intensely hated and this loathing carpenter shows through all the Jewish

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 14 source documents which remain He was both harsh and corrupt: When he took money from the Temple treasury there were massive demonstrations against He suppressed them by putting troops into the crowd in plamn clothes, with concealed weapons, whosuddenly capt into action at a

iven signal. In the Gospels, thet

re references to the killing o Galileaus, always trouble makers and to tors in Jerusalem at th time of Jesus" death, while the word used to describe the two "thieves" crucified with Jesus is the same generally used to describe guerillas, rather like "bandits.

However, the real struggle built

a from the forties onward

alminating in a full-scale natioar uprising in the sixties. At the same time, the national strugale began to cross-cut with an increasingly overt class strugale. The traditional ruling class in Judaca consisted of an interlocking bloc formed by large landowners and the hereditary high priestly families who contrelled the Temple: THEOLOGY GRADUATES

The Sadducees were members of this bloe. They were challenged as religious authorities by th

who were rigourists, organised on a stict entry basis incocells, led by scribes, graduates in theology, but also including

aadi and even labouring backgrounds. It was the Phariscos abo welded the Jewish nation together into a religiouspolitical force. Many of the Zealot leaders were Pharisoes who bad decided to move into a phase of

The mass of Zealots however. came from the people, from small towns and villages. This period was one of an overall movement int the countryside cowards large escates, throwing small peasants many of them in debr, off the land There were a large лилост об slaves in Judies at the time and these made up part of the guerrilla armies. There were also an Increasing number of hired hands who are often mentioned in surplus of labour meant that the were usualle employed on a casual basis. There was naturally a drift Eat the certine a de s

an increasing SEICHE employment in small craft

Jesus and the apostles came from artisan Tamilies; Jesus was n

imported from the Lebanon and

HIV ONE SUSSEs Went fishermen, owning their pur boats. We know from other sources that the fishing industr was thriving in Galilee at the tinne and there was investment in pickle for use in exporting fish.

Jesus did nor come from the masses, who were either living of charity there was an efficien dole system in operation - or els were day labourers or slaves Neither, of course, did he cum trom the priestly caste or from t rich business or land-owning background. He was a petty bourgeois KIDNAPPINGS AND ASSASSINATION The ruling class throughout thi period became increasingly com promised with the Romans. I wa the Roman Procuratol appointed the High Priest, usuati a matter for bribery. In return, the High Priest acted as a Quisling maintaining law and orde Jerusalem, a sensitive area for Romans, with his own Templ police and handing over trouble makers for trial.

Yer at the same time, the Templ and its High Priest were the mair symbols of national conscious Dess. In the end. canse out into the open. Zealo kidnapped a Temple official an Like Bander-Meinboff, held him ransomt for the reicaso of politica prisoners. Assassination of colla borators was stepped up, until High Priest was struck down 100

When, in the sixties, resistenc gathered momentum, there wer particularly troubled economit LITCHASE COCAIISES to the Temple had provide employment Jerusalem these suddenly halted, After riols the programme was set in motior again in the form of paving the cit streets. At the same time, ther were complaints that the bish priestly families who equipped themselves with arme gangs. were marauding countryside extorting Either u which they had no claim Marters carne to a head in 66AD when, after a huge rux haycott, th Roman Procurator locted th Temple treasury to make up d lelicit. There was an immedi Zealor uprising. The Roma main force withdrew and th remnant belt behind was massi red. One of the first acts of t1 Zealot regime was to destroy th records of dehts freciog th masses from the grip of mone lenders and landlords. A new Hig

Page 15 scan of this page

A detail from the facade of a medieval Romanian monastery,

Priest was clocted by lot, which fell • a peasant, an impoverished bember of the priestly caste, an act regarded as outrageous by tiling class opinion.

THE LEFT IS ISOLATED

During the four years between 66 ind 70 AD there was all out war. A whole Roman expeditionary force, omprising two legions and several housand auxiliaries, was wiped mut. The Romans lost over 5.000 afantry and 480 cavalry: This detory led to the setting up of a rational Government, represent ag all aspects of religious opinion. ath Sadduccees and Pharisees ind even Essenes, the monastic roup who produced the Dead Sea crolls. The Zealots opposed this overnment, which they regarded a class based and potentially ollaborationist. They were quite

The Jewish commander in

Josephus, who was a 'harisce. spent time israssing the Zealors than reparing detences acoust Rome Then the Romans arrived, under espasian, he capitulated on the

and became ollaborator. Later he wrote a istory of the events to justify his ompletely treacherous role. The backbone of resistance was d throughout by the Zcalots who

len in the mountain fortress at lasada, When the Remans took crusalem in MAD, under Titus, undreds o1 thousands were utchered and the city levelled.

recounts how al one oint the Romans ran out of wood if crosses and, when they had

saces to put more crosses up in.

context that the rucifixion of Jesus and the riting of the Gospels must be

COMAN REPRISALS

Where did Jesus stand? It can ardly be believed that he a arable to hat was one around nint as tae Losper riters make out, Roman reprisals int bave struck the families of ws known to him in the area. ne of Jesus's own disciples, one the Twelve, was Simmon the calot who presumably particilled in one of the uprisings. Keading the Gospels, the picture esented in the sait is that of a. essive collaborator Altbough HIS WAS

INTERNATIONAL

executed by Pontius Pilnte, every effort is made to clear him of any real responsibility. Crucifixion was nos a Jewin mebod elecution, lt was the punishment for political crimes Spartacus was crucifed, for Instance

Whereas the Jews had responsibilky for ordinary religious offences. the crimies went to Pilare Yet the Gospels claim that Pilate washed his hands of the affair, protested Jesus's innocence, could see no wrong in bim and was pressured into crucifying him by the High Priest and his lobby.

Jesus himself is represented in a pro-Roman light. For example, he i described as friendly with taxcollectors and collaborationiss. He heals the child of a Roman centurian. He advises, not simply going along with the authority of Kome under duress,

And, of course. important incident recounted concerns the payment of tax, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which i God's. In the Gospels, this is presented as a particularly cunning reply which outwitted Pharisees who asked it. In fact, it is not at all equivocal, supports the payment of taxes to Rome The whole question of taxation was the burning issue of the day. Onthis issue, Jesus took a pro-Roman stand and backed the claims of the Imperial power KEEPING JESES CLEAR OF JUDAISM

The coulletpati of this Roman artitude of the Gospels is the persistent denigration of the Pharisees. The Zealots, as such. play no part in the Gospel story at all. They are simply suppressed verbally, as the Romans suppress

militarily.

Pharisoes are very much in the forefront. They are used as strawmen who food Jesus the straight lines which enable him to score off them. The purpose of this, as far as the Cospels are concerned clearly to distinguish Jesus and the Christian community Jews and the Jewish cause. In LET OST every case disagreenient with Judaism which a brewe so mat Jesus can be distanced from his own people Stones like that of the Samaritan are heavily prompted to the same cud.

A numter of scholars have tried to rescue Jesus from this pro-

........

Roman presentation, especially in

and Belsen, conmentators on the Gospel have at long last become

Roman sensitive to its anti-Jewish bias. In

particular, the episode of Jesus's

and it has been

crimes and responsible for his execution — asa

polstical politicaloffender.

strator who was likely to allow the High Priest's lobby to pressure has against his betfer judgement. only PACIFIST SENTIMENT

claiming that Jesus was actually pro-Zealot and sympathetic lation means discounting the great stabs of pacifist sentiment which but going fill the Gospels as nothiag but

post-fall of Jerusalem PR, put in the most by the fawning Evangelists, eager

net torub Romeupthe wrong way. the money changers out Temple are stressed and the fact that Jesus armed patrol and one of disciplies drew his sword the resisted arrest. Indeed. Luke describes how Ir plainly

instructed his disciplies to buy swords just before the arrest, though he quickly added that two would be enough.

Iris certainly true that there are patches of anti-Roman material in the Gospels which may get closc to the attitude of Jesus, or at leas the carly followers, than the Gospel writers do. For example.

pro- the story of the Cadarene swind

Seems to have an anti-imperialist gibe hidden away in it. exorcises an evil demon, who is called Legion', and the demon then enters a herd of pigs who plunge over a cliff. The Roman But the

Decupaton troops were known ax pigs by the Jews, so the moral is pretty clear, But conversely, there is a definite strain of anti Temple preachiag. He is MUELICE particularly the financin] instituFrom the tions,

it is Much Be vanous ways Temple made money: donations,

taxes, commercial transactions and so forth.

Good Above all Jesus did not in any

was advocate ciolent resistance to the Romans, but believed that it

spuritual change in readiness for

recent years when, after Auschwitz

trial has been gone over in detail

admitted that Rome and not the High Priest was

Pilate was not a weak admini-

InstitutIon,

This line of reasoning has led or pobitically.

writers to go as far as

This interpreIn costrast, episodes like driving

of lie

was arrested by

and might be Jesus apnarently

three execution, Jesus

OPPRESSED

Jesus's critical of a to the of Temple institutions

and more than ance the Maaris,

the coming of the Kingdom. He conceived of this change in a was which brought him up against the Pharisees, because he was an antitraditionalist in his attitude to the Jewish religious Law

Ethically, he was a purist, but not in any legalistic way. Judging from his nunterous parables abou vineyards, labourersand husband meo, he was fully satisfied with the exiting relations of production. including slavery, and the general conomic set up, though he was disrustfulof the rich. He seens to have felt that the Temple should IcH be in ans was

either commercially

JESUS NOT SUBVERSIVE

In itself, there was little that was subvershe in Jesus' preaching and, in this sense the Gospel writers were right to portray him as a passive collaborator, But his fate was senled when be began to attract crowds, partly because of his fears of healing, partly because he was a compelling orator. The Gospels seversi tunes tel how hr tried to get away from the crowds and pive them the slip, anxious about the outcome well he

Pontias Pilate's Fast official act for example, in 36 AD, only two or

years after Jesus's

crosd of Samaritans a bo expected

Holy Mountait. Anybody who gathered large crowds was in danger of being halted in their tracks for political reasons, In Rome the careers of sports and theatre stars were abruptly stopped when they began to acquire supporlers who

RELIGIONS OF THE

It is quite usual for messianse and prophetic religious movements to spring up in times of political unheaval, Jesus can he compared with the new movements which sprang up as part of the response

advance of European imperialise: Peyotism and Ghostdancing among the American Maces, Has Had Vietn Ringa-tu amone the These movements attempt to break out of the confines of an appurently bopeless historical predicament by stressing the glorious other-wordly role for the followers or their prophet In a time of political turmoil, they appear anxious to suppress

Amber 1977, page 15 anything which might develop into a threat, usually cynical and ignorant, and inclined toerr on the side of ruthlessness rather mercy. They are por down and, the circumstances are right, a new cult based on the prestige of

THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE

The real strengel Jesus's preaching lay in his ability respond to conflict without beins sucked into it. He was the man LE the middle. Not only was he in the middle of a class conflict but of a national liberation struggle He was able to find something to say which made sense to all kinds of people without ever coming down on one side or the other, This still is his strength. The discontented, the disaffected, the wretched of the carth could rapood to him. So could lax-collectors and Roman soldiers

In part, this was because he chose

riddles and parables, to tell stories ratber than make satements, Bur parily too it was because he had a talent for che ring of truth. for wards which sounded right, whicl pushed everyone a liccle bit further together. He walked a verhal tightrope which he wove as he went along. And he could back il up with a quotation every time, i precisely because he had this ability to reconcile conflicting aspurators, that he some imes seemed subversive. But in the loug run anytling that covers over contradictions by appealing to hoth sides always favour those in power. And Christiansty shildoes

by PETER WOLLEN

Page 16 scan of this page

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Page 17 scan of this page

John FowLES

INTERVIEW

bably more widely-known across

books

Collectort1958), The Magis (1966)

Ebony Tower(1975) and Dam

The left has, in gener!

omewhat lax in assessan new

developments in literature. Whãe it

is tree that the future of the novel.

the relationship of politics te

TOLD HIM ACHE BEAU DICENT trade union agenda, it would be

TOMICS RECST DOOR

blication. Fomles describert it as

mage to Lakacs. Much of th

Now tripal

INCITIN

without his clotbes, he hi

sammoned his mandaries to launc

The Comelands to ecle and de men

LIAT MUTIN DOCHISE MOUSE D

inconclusions.

A general siasement in novels seems to de that the conrral female characters are repositories of right Jeeline. self-awareness, whilst the centrat male characters are repositories of cuirure, imaginarive artifice and elf-indigence, In en essay Notes on an Unfinished Novel pot wrote:

*My femule characiers tend to dominate the male. I see man as a kind of artifice, and womun as a kind of reality. The one is cold idea, the other is warm fact

In bringing these two polarities together you show thar the former, the female characters, can have a pustave eject on me farter, the male characters, but nou do лог lespite the forr that you bring them to a point of mutua! recognition, resolve the inevizable conflict and tension that exists between them. Do you believe thar the two are irreconcilable and have you ever considered exploring beyond the impact of mutual recognition? 1 HE TWO perennial incom-

patibles the HEETALE condition sects to me the des-

desire for social equay. the

desire social equality. battic between the two desires is less destructive when the female principle dominates or has at least some sort of parity, as during the escape from the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and our own time

Male-principle societies much more strait-jacketing. More conforming, besotted by law and order, suspicious of heresy -right-wing in short. Eve welcomes change. Adam eyen Marxist Adam fears it. Socialism has still to shake off the handicap of having been largely conceived and formulated by men and in a male-dominated age. Comte is a classic case of onesidedness, as the feminist J.S. Mill was quick to Point out at the time

One thing I don't like about certain aspects, socialism the inflexible

TOTE TOE preserving of traditional structure and creed at all costs, and the low value pul on the characteristic female gilt for personal judgement and feeling and for the practical as 80ainst the 10ea For instance. certain familiar uses of parroted invective and esoteric jargon seem

MENS MILITANTAIN CORPORE

SAYS READ to me a good deal less socialist tha Just primeval male

On the other hand Lam equally suspicious of extreme liberationist attempts to prove that the onl difference between women men is psychological. I believe tha it is vital that women retain their ability to think, differently from men. much they may share intellectually the same social beliefs. This

has to be recognised.

The 'enion and conflict" that must result is inherently fertile -not of course when it springs from

e attempt to in outmoded roles. give-and-take democracy of the good male-female relationship i he basis for all other democracie This is one reason why more women are urgently needed in government and parliament - no the sort who ape male attitudes but the odes who can modify and see through their always incipien! conservatism. I have absolutely no belief in a time when the two sexes will live in amending barmony

What concerns me as a novelist is achieving the point of recognitics both of the difference and of thi mutual need. What a right subject for ordinary novels established, Til then, alas, it stays in the domain of science fiction. You have implard that you do nor WIGEESEUNETE incorponate as central characters they are an essential device in your hooks, and act as the conveyors of "radical" ideas. Why do you feel unable so anoise and express their development and their motiva Vator they are not to be under HAT I REALLY meant i

traditional male standards. Like most male arts. I have a strong female component in my character, just as most

This may belp us in creating characters of the opposite sex, but more than sympathetic visitors in a

mly wainer characters seem short

0n molvation and analvsis suppose most notoriously in The French Liestenent's Womer Is because I am wricing from the standpoint or tus male 'visitor" The art of the novel is also very much bound up with the art of leaving the reader to fill the gaps

1 could have Woodruff more than I did. But not to do so was a conscious decision.

REPKODUCING

MILITANTS CAPITAL One strong reason was that I think women are far less amenable to analysis than men — for a number of historical reasons, but primarily bocause the and

has brought one pood: a kind of common exile that permits them to feel and act Sand outside the ritual games and however role-mania of the average male.

Sarah Woodruff was deliberately crealed to suggest this 'beneficial' mutually NOC DIEDC DISCONSE CANE WAICh

is closely linked to the presently needed gifts' I mentioned just nOW.

critics rever said te felt that the rities Daniel Martin concealed ghest was dent/aly sastained. the relationship seemed sivisticoly to break down: the first was the decision of concluding paragraphs of the crucial points dilemma does the asthor need to stand berween Daniel Martin and happens his [Da's] own inentions?

can't really answer this. They at character converge. didn't mean to stand between Daniel and his future, but beside him or with him. Fraternally women you

In a recent television interview, YOu socialist on several occasions denied being a polirical being.

radical ecologist movement] exist

relationship between these state menes?

The nation of sociologists being the only peopie obie to take cornect decisions in a complex industrial society is something eise How does this ider square with the lore serious question do controls the levers of society

been

torn

into politics, I would count myself a socialst or a radical because E would much

country chan one of the right

harab stomach the belief the left sbares

with the right: that ever-increasing industrialisation is the only

- ATPRECATION

ESPER OF TEXTS

STRATEGIC MISIGHTS.

'READING THE CLASSICS

AND The PResS. boredom

production.

INTERVENING IN the removal of MASS MEETINGS, will marry CHANTING SUDG/INS political.

West,

cation. and biological

It wind of their pest exploitation Viable supreme

others.

Feeding

we felt that th Trequently They fisctinction in the novel bermes

and his

there were DR we Dices where the

between them

spending.

ТАТАТ. of enlightened politicians alone

I certainly

Rousseau on, described yourself as u ToresCenoverpopulation. ond Said that showid the egarvalent of the French "Les Verts" paro la

didactic CERTEN the

Howerer "scientists und

you mentioned. done to this

which

HAVE ALL my adult life

perween

biological and political view • society, L am not a politica

rather doctrinal But the orber side of me cannot

an exclusive interview

however great the worker control, * enduring alienation. The worker can own the micans of production But he will never bappily own the repetitive and life-stultifyioe daily

much actual

This in certinly far worse in n

capitalist society, bur I don't think

capitalism alone man to his full The prise problem of bur world is biological rather than

The chase. East and after higher wages.

OLELIALCORSEHMSS opium to dull the basic horror of concomitant gross under-edu-

I loathe the Labour Govern menr's current indoctrinate schoolchildren with the notion of production as the supreme good, i.c., to turn them into brainwashed work-donkeys who call be led synthetic carrots. This fits in perfecily with their philistine contempt for the arts in general. They don't want ordinary TOOUCTOHVCCUNUAE COUSCE mure thinking lives The only healthy form of those two basic jocompatible desires in each of us: sell-knowledge and concern for

Increased access to money will never break the begeniony. Any socialism that devotes almost all its time and energy to solely conomic pain is cutting its own throat:

more of the same old poison. In every class, richer men seldom discover an incrensed desire for social equality. Far more

turn embryo Party in South Wales.

A true socialism has to find new ends and ambitions for mankind. ever increasing manufacture and consumption, all pleasure in existence reduced to buying and

Only disintoxication will get us through the straits ahead. I don't believe

will ever dare institute it, since they keep power Who shout theoretically control continuing the intoxication society is less important to me than what actually controls it: money,

That can be countered only yant

intelligent socialism intelligent cough to take account of conditions its founders, from

could not have joker in the biological pack,

You have said before that you see yourself, in part, as a writer with a

Tole to pic Under standably, you are keen for pour work to speak for isel

Fi would be helpful if you could comment on your attinade to the relation berween Party in the light of the damage polities and literature — particu Jogpiano Stalinist school of or

DOUBT profoundly whether

navel is the place for political

propaganda, except perhaps 10 1 090000 forn. or 10 serious political analysis. Othe modes and modia are now far more apt for dinect effect. 1 am intensels apposed to all externally imposed interference in the arts. This was the most damaging of all th

blunders the Stalinises. All serious artists are born contrasuggestibles, add persons out. But no society cun stay healths withoul -their

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 17 Wouid ir be four to say that pou are less critical of Samuel Becker's vision and James Joyce's form than of those wrisers ond critics who have sought to trans/orm these into a rude of thunh for whe modern writer? and all three have had ES. All three are grear writers

disastrous effects on count Jess lesser ones. I think there is a close parallel with the Romantic period, with Chateaubriand, Byron and their brood: there too we see the retreat of genius into convolution, self and ongst followed by an endless swirm o inauthentic scribbles trading on a fad...and the first dose of modern fascisin in the butside worle!

Farthermore, would this explain

with George Luides, who cogenity organd tha the tragody of modern urt was its

away from its rea! social basis?

ES, VERY MUCH so. The

interesting question is to what

extent real social basis implies stylistic and thematic realism. I have very little time for the Tastionable theory that you can't criticise a society unless you first smash traditional

Unfortunately that only too often also smashes the common sign-sestem between artist and general audience. Which CAPES preaching to a converted elite.

T believe that it is wrong to merpret the works a a major urder on the hares of their w thories, If these works are importent it becase they con achieve a form which can render the conflices of their times of the fliest range wizhin the given historical reading Does Lakes' corment concur

POWERHE •dirinste

the media?

HE KEY WORD here b

In the strict

contest (to interprer the works for theit social value') then obviously Lukacs is right. On the other hand there is a place for examining bow the artist thinks that he (sic) achieves his (sic) socially valid form. 1 know the engine for my own books in ar unresolved psychological dilemma — almost a dialectie, It has little influence on the gencral tenor witere a book goes butil can affect narrative sbapeand confrontations of character quite deeply. It is wig the book goes, if il does, 1 don't see a conflict here Lukacs was talking of external value. I speal of interna. mechanism. The first is clearl more important than the second -

Spot its construction plan, But if the design "warks", there must be some value in knowing the designer's owat view of itsgenesis —andby no means, in he insended,

It may be very useful to find ou why it worksas he didn t intend, as Lukacs himself showed in his examination of Walter Soon. J suspect a very interesting case 10g some facure Lukes is Evelyn Waugh, where overt beliefs and actual effects seem to me highly contradictory. 1 am not quite sure why the left's favourite literary devil is also very arguably the one wha dil the mod damage 10 his own side

Page 18 scan of this page

items such as posters and printed T-shirts.

The licence granted Factors Etc. "an esclusive licence to use and скріок штридпоці тос WorG EDC commercial Elvis Presley rights* in return for live per cent of all net sales of Presley Items. The crass comacroansa wich dogged Presley from the day he met Tom Parker continues unabated by the singer's death.

T-shirts designated 'memorial" were sold for five dollars to mourners at Presley's funeral and over 1,700 copies of the Memphis Commercial Appeal were stolen from news stands and sold for five dollars each

Book publishers Pocket Books had orders for 250,000 copies of The Private Elvis within 24 hours of his death, and Ballentine Books, publishers of Elvis, Wher Happened?, a lacky memoir by two of Presley's ex-bodyguards, rushed through a five million copy reprint, two million LUSI which were ordered by one retail chain alone. This book - its title a grim Collidence since it published before Presley's death - was bought outright from its two authors for E250,000 one year ago. Thus the ex-bodyguards receive no royalties on these massive sales nor on the film rights which are being nepotiated right RCA Records, who oripinally stuned Presiey 332,000 estimate that the total gross of Presley's 22 year career with chem was 543 billion. He has sold 600 million singles worldwide, which 100 million were sold since 1975. "Hound Dog/ Don't Be over mihim copies sold the over 8 million copies soundtrack to the film Bine Hawai was his biggest album with ww s muon sold, He nad 3s million-selling singles and 24 gold albums. toe 3a taims ne made grossed over S150 million and when his career was in full right be made three films a sear with a million dollars advance on each Disk Sales in Phenom Spurt, Post Presley" ran the front pape

imports remainders

books on radical alternatives

Parts fiction etc.

the north's

largest

alternative bookshop

UNDER REVIEW

N DEATH as in life... Just two days after Elvis Presley's death — on the day of his funeral in fact

Vernon Presley, Presley's father and the executor of his estate, and Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's long-term manager and mentor, signed a marketing agreement with Factors Etc. Inc., probably the world's largest mass merchandisers of novelty

Variety for

pressing ans nave been working flat out for 24 hours a day since Presley's death on 16 August. Th Nashville plant alone estimated that its profits will be up 35 per cent this year because demand created by Presley's death.

Even in Britain the record industry was shaken.

Records found itself with a union dispute at its Washington, Co. Ducham, quickly went out of stock of all 25 albums it had on Pressing requirements had been so low through the summer period that RCA had served redundancy notices on about 90 of its staff wantucynow motocanceiana to request its staff to work overtime.

The umons concerncd accentd the cancellation of the redundancy notices but didn't want to work overtime. Bur an agreement was quickly made by the desperate was record company and by September there were 12 Presiey albunis in the Top 40 and several more on their way up.

HEN ASKED for his reaction to Presley's death at a recent • press conference John Lennon replied. 'Elvis died when he entered the army. It's a TICH Shared By many poopie Presley's lasting concribution to Rock 'n" Roll was made between July 1954 when he did his first session for Sun Records and June 1958 when he cut his last tracks for RCA Records before entering the US ArmyDuring changed the face of popular For ycars Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records Tennessee, had been looking for a WE MUSEWINGE TEEATH country music with blues. Such a formala he regarded as a million selling idea. Presley Togetber with Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black on bass (there politics

sexual politics

and

Joined

the

army"

the

REA

pressing plant in and

catalogue. a white setting.

in -apan, white background Tupeia, Mississippi. childhood atlending the Church black gospel music. lescence was spent hanging around on Beale Street, cultaneous pink inckets and black shirls of the black pimps brief time Elvis the outspoken sexuality and the swageer and sneer which make bim a spokesman for Memphis, whole gencration of alienated middle class American south.

the black while "pop" race records. With the advent o Kock a Roll these two audiencs were married comine from Khyllin and Blues and Doo Wop. In fact the first

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Something Tha Presley was uniquely qualified to da, coming as he did from a poor

in South

was spent In Tact a Christ where he and singing absorbed the sound of Southern

His ado There was

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chese same street corners he found fron

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Prior to Presley there had been

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Rock 'n" Roll record as such is

recognised be Sh-Boom' by The Chords. On thi white side, Rock came from the Rock-i-Billy tradition. At the same time as Presley, Sun Records also had on its roster Johnny Cash Jerry lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

tape exists from December 1956 of all four playing so-called Milion Dollar Quater the

ло was in which smail local label like Sun could break someone like Presley and it wasn't until RCA came in, waving unprecedented amounts of cash that he was able to reach hs audience. At hit first RCA session berecorded "Heartbreak Hotel' it was to be his first US Number 1

Unfortunately the same commer- bee cial Factors which enahled Elvis to reach Number I were to be his

Colonel Tom Parker Presey he had a million dollars million dollars, Some people

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SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977. page 18 would liketo know what happened THERE PHON

Seemingly uncomplainingly, El vis made over thirty formula films each more ahsurd and meaningless than the last and designed te produce a million selling sound track albuns. Il is a sad fact that Presley never made a decent albur

his best albums are all compilations of singles bur again he nese complained

He cook out his frustrations b shooting out television screens in

at raceland mansior aod, shortly before he died, he $200,000 recordine studio at Graceland by accacking it with a sub-machine gun because he we unable to ger the sound he wante there fairly safe to say that if Tom Parker had allowed his boy into the hig warld, rather thar surrounding him with a net честесу and silence, then Previes better records. Tour Parker was a southere huckster and good couch at his job to launch Elvis and maintain bim on that commercial show-business level But if Elvis had been allowed to work with top line Rock 'n' Roll producers such as Phil Spector. who knows what be might bave come up with

The sad thing is that Presley was

rumoured Ic front To Parker and also to be dissatisfied with the wa Its records were selling. He had sacked most of his Mempitis Mafia that usually surrounded him. and was apparently trying te recreate his carly "Mempbis sound' over again, We'll never know if he could have shaken off 19 ycars of mediocrity but even it he had been unahle to his contrihution remains and it's by his carly singles he is Keatucky! Blue Moon", "That's

'Cood Rockin' Tonight" A Hombreak Migh Mystery Train' "Tomerrow Hearthreak Hotel, •Blue Suede Stroes *Lawdy Miss Claudy, 'Shake Rattle and Roll Hound Dop go You, Ted Up "Party', Me Nice Jailhouse Rock', "King Croole Wear My Ring Around Your Neck',, and. inomically, the last track he cut before entering the army. 'E Got Stung

MILES 66 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1 (01-439 8471)

Page 19 scan of this page

PETER RABBIT AND

GON

T HERE CAN be no such thing as an

innocent reading of the Tale of Perer Rabhit As that most percipient an.

alyst of the later

Blyton, puts it: "We must pose this work

the question of the specificity

object, its relation to its object. The only

reading of Peter Robbir which speaks to

us through the congealed layers of the past-becoming-present is a symptomatic

reading- a rcacne m which we listen

attentively to Beatrix Potter's silences."

So much is of course clear 1o the average

reader of this epochal work, this work which has not only transformed collective perceptions of rabbitness (Koninchentichkein but which has contributed a new chapter to the political economy of the cahhage patch. It is our contention in this brief monograph that Peter Rabbir marks a watershed in sophical development, ological rupture from the earlier problematic of the Herne Bay manuscripts (above all, The Tale of Squirrel Jemime Puddleduck).

Nothing more tellingly illustrates the completeness of this scientifie metamor. plosis than the contrast between rather schematic Nutkin-Puddleduck period LI2S0 of the principles of comparative political economy manifested Rabbir. The dramatisation of the conflict between Peter and Mr. MoGregor in the celebrated garden points, in a so brief episode contradictions and levels mination characteristic cabbage production The revelatory stance (Potter's favoured methodological device) is that 'moment"

McGregor, chasing Peter garden, seizes the rake and the fleeing creature. Through Mroke of transformative which the essence the from that of t00l Potter lays bare the onisms of a sub-feudal order in which the role of producer LITE TERESOURH patible in their binary opposition

I is quite clear

the unpublished drafts and revisions

of the carly McGregor is to embodiment (Trager) of small peasant proprictors from whom baronial landlords extracted in direct and unmediated forms surplus value in the dual forms of military service and corve labour. However, we must state quite emphatically that despite certain surface sinslarities the role of Mr. MoGregor in the productive process

manuscripts, Enid

of its our

Potter's phil distinct enisem-

Nukin and

the

and the

in Peter

those acute of overdeterof pre capitalis In-

when Mr. from the

an inspired

Take changes that of irresolvable

and the role of warrior linked yet totally incom

Trom our reading of

manuscripts that Mr. understood as an that CELS le uacked

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cquated with that of the Seven Dwarls, as so many theorists from Schumpeter onwards have argued

The extraction of surplus from productive labour of the Seven Dwarfs by the Royal Household (Soon Whitel was a medicied political form, though ultimate-

up hy terror. condition more akin lo the Asiatic mode of production than to sub-Feudalism Failure to appreciate this crucial disinc tion has led to quite understandable

among the readers of these - though untortunately we cannot go into the important question of whose self-interests are in fact being served by

THE

GRUNDRISSE

ROSA and CHARLIE PARKIN the

which is from

these not accidental attempes at mystifi cation and concealment

The thesis we wish to advance is that the entire cpisode beiween Peter MeGregor, quite apart Trom the scene is decisive in marking a con uncture in the transformation of Peser

object ol history to the subjoct of history, It is precisely at chut "moment when Peter is threatened by the trake that he pets his blue jacket caught on the fence, and can only make good his escape by abandoning it. Agaio, in this capsule statement we have Patter's brilliant portrayal of the self-emancipatory act

cal state apparatus. have in a sense prepared us.

Nonce the

draft of Peter expresses serious internal Structure is a racit recognition Tull welchcing проп Tiesy M can only be accounted the over determination instances within the gi farmiyard. What

cised bedgehog to imagine Polter ITHE in any

Our attempt

answering this

who sock virtualls to the level of a fairy

1. Enid Biyler Maspere and Mr rake

Rabbi LXIV 119701 G. Lukaos, Wellpeis

Resig-Dorter Srudion. VIlE 11958

19/21.

*********

SEASONS GREETINGS

Gaylord

Indian Restaurant

79 Mortimer Street,

London W1

16 Albemarle Street,

London WI

69 New Street,

Birmingham

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977. page 19

is of course the throwing off of servile, anthropomorphic starus imposed by the

structures-in-dominance of the ideologi-

It is during Peter's rearful monologue in the polling shed that the foil significance of his act comes home to him: i.e. that be has finally and irrevocably entered the realm of history as a reflexive agent. From this moment on he will be marked out by his kinsmen, Flopsy, Mapsy and Cottontail (who chose to remain in the ever-pre-given structure of the warren) as a figure of destiny: the singular and heroi Figure for which all Potter's carlier works

previous manuscripts matches the theretic presence - including the much Tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle which, norwitbstanding Lukacs' extrava gaut assertions to the contrary, still bears the unmistakable traces of the Herne Bay period." It is quite clear from a sympto matic reading of the Preface to the second edition of the Czech translation of Tigg Winkle, published after the linal (Pitney)

Rabbit, that Porter rescivations about the of the argument. of the • failure give forces bearing inkle's actions which for as a conjunctive en coralicy of the his as i in ellect is to present us with a completely de-histori-

subject - It is impossible falling into the sume later analyses of pre-caputalist economic formations.

produce Teading of Peter Rabbir deliberately poses the problem of what it is to read. Only

question can wC Teel confident in our lask of rescuing Patter's contribution to science from the hands of

rechuce this Tale

2. Sen Nicod Foulanizes, Hegemeny, Surplus Patch, a reply to Mil bend in New Left Review

4. Acoro's biting comment is herd very much to the point. The though: 1o which a positive ance of the dialecte la forolcden. cvershools as being one. T. Adomo, Spasms (Franklur

Page 20 scan of this page

COMMENT

Slipping,

SUE SLIPMAN, the President of NUS and a member of the Communist Party, has been sc amco Dy ine mecra tor nor e pigce sne pugnı stand against the revolutionary left on free speech for tasciste an0n0r Cas on o inon Zionist witch-hunt. She has been praised for her 'moderBLO R 10310IU policies", She is, in short, the kind of Communist you could DaTHIV MOVO TO ICR. ANC 10 00 her justice, she has fully

ned this reputation.

Shieiding the Zionist state грит untertunarely, The

reindeer got away."

QUIZ ANSWERS

S.Ana ONSAH. newly-

appointed youth ofticer of the

abour Parl

The Charter 77 movemens Czechoslovakla (by the

newspaper Rade Prave)

Hosanbali hed to scomsl to the

MOME ORL aRYS HIRISI1S

TanEi STr0L knowing

orden denete deportation AnKimlo order ta gite en

protest (successfully)

Introduced by the

Sadat Govamment.

ворото PHO Po. erten elbrd pran CIN CAPNIZ BITER

former Northern Ireland prem-

er Brian Faulkner

11. Michael C/Halloran. MP

ertelington Nort

• stadium In San hij

Sebastian was ocupied by

,500 Basque nationalíst:

SO EDESE KoaIrS InR

Katangan rebeis aga nst • William Craig

the Zaire Government.

15 Atine Randolph Holci in

Oxford

For ane to lef-wing 02RI00

domonsiralors in the Italiar

alty of Balogn:

That of Kunta Kinte in

Alex Hale, s ROols

Wiiliam Tyndale.

The British Sesuf ai Pound

documents

Not Its plant

aTBOIWICE

600.000 workers. ATTIKE tavo ying

tho 10100000A

during the South Moluocan

siega

22. Th Bolts

Robert State

Solution 23. The CP-run Communist

University of London.

Che sorEt

Unicn, ropraaing te gusint

Podgorny:

26. India -(George Ferman-

who led the

Party of Groat Britan. trom

29. The Crickiewood sortere

VE HI •LEES DeRELID

their un on lesdera to drop the

bayeett Grunwick's mail.

slipping, sunk

TOn CrCm DesenEnG

'democratic rights" as the only

issue, telling al every alage to

Arabe and their struggle

nernen sane cente orinc

debate. •Silpman revaals the

real face of "Eurocommuniam"-

Like Carilo BETADIY

liging towards the monarchy

WO ROTS HERSE 1083.3NG

craves respectabllity in the

eyes of liberal public opinion.

we are vurg wei BotuaRneo

P° Дожала

we got him on

the Ciminal TrespassAct...

30. The General Serelary or Peoples Democracy, John CATIUH"

37 Somars -strugaling 10 secede from Ethlosis

32. plutonium mactor project

33. Sri Lanka

TUGA cause the Saclalis

Unity campaign exposed hin 6. Philip Agco and Mark asafascist infiltrator.

35 APEX General Secrutary the e. Londan student teache

of Hans Schieye kicnepped by the

AUEW executive mem

ber Reg Birch, who persuaded

tis locked out members at DENYI0100 19 90 8CK. Cn mangoment sterma

TH HOURAHA AOC ter patiants were Torcibly termovec

4CE Michael Edwardes

The storming of the ked arliner at Mogadishu: air asistants at West Drayton

43.1108 60а 87 150УRI treslened closure of Prestan ment and opposition parties.

Unioniat MP ard Moeller, the atlempt by Basder Meinhot prisonars

The newly farmed AntiNazl League.

ARITANH

Moreragging review

Morni husralla

Santiago imisa, sne e picket line to speak at the HISSTa apo. Bris of tis visn to d at

HOW YOU BATE More than 40: Ether you wark for Socialist Chellange ahould apply for a lob with the paparir mecintety.

31-40: You mad the paper 12027 41 caretully: keep it

C-OTOUre 3 supporter who desn'i always find it essy to get through the paper. ariting ut and sen: nuin concon to the Fund Drive now

20 ar less: Your problem is that yoi ust AHH CHI ONCErONER enOUCT MaKe BEC pou score peler nest sar cy ASKnD DUT a cheap-rate tute cip nis macne

rates go up January.

Palestinian tor

respect with that democratism: "II is a CO PanT aSOTUGaT and conciliatory - towards the light. At the same time It is cigenl, malevolent ano toky

towards the laft".

Trotsky In Their Morals and

These perfectly to Ms. Stipman.

And yet, a doughty defender di democracy tromists', her sion does not spom to exlend,

CIHET PIH.

Indira Gandhi's

iceived the tull backing

DsoDw ane Tid oSSr. Irag. where the supplied the barbaric TECIME -WITN suppression. of the

eople. At this very moment in

Ethiopia, mo carcy is helping the military junta to Entrean independence fighters. And. its struggle for Tote CMer Sn aE CunE

Il Slipman cialms this has nothing to do with the British OmNUNISErS. MaY OneBSK why the latest

beration, a group the CP has no small influence. carties a plece by the Ethlopian Ambassador? anteresting io note that amono Liberation 's Liberaler Zontets or Mapan

zim on Arab land [they even supported the 1956 Sunz attach on toypl!!. With liberators Ike these, who needs occupiars?

Finally, In this festive EDDOW IE. bureaucracy has

give Begin and Dayan a Hitle Martin SONSTAS DOSeDI. TORR lin's cynical use of antisemitism In the case (he is soon to be charged

"high treason'. already been found gullty by

belter time for the hard-

past. Soclalisis must make it topra onin the Sovler ninn their business lo SA WE AA TM REDIO LAOI OT that repression in the intereats of Zionist colonialism.

онна и Mas NETS I the Soviet Union, Zionist attempts

and oppression of Paleslinians, abe Cala AMenOno CD Soviet-Israeli alliance against the Eritrean HX PHINEE answer tos, Sipmai anter will tellow "democrata".

ALAN ADLER (London)

*************

1. In our story on the NUS conterence last typographical eror (believe it OT NOL MIR YR EING S000S suapicious] reduced the number of NOISS delegate:

ETUTE apolopise to the concemed.

Hodgson's book Balley Inacrertontly forgot te mention tha bock's publisher and the price. Socialism and Parlamentary Democracy by Geoff Hodgson is publishod br Spokesman Bf

*************

wrote

WOIUS apply

ARTSHAlibertarian pas-

dictatorship

•Kremlin Be'att TOT IME Kurdish

SOVIRT DURARI

ruling crush

allies -in democracy are many dangers.

Issua in which

also paper" YINE rward by

workers for workers'

Clearly this he

ODD VIE ano conterences were COVIC gramoled.

decided Zionist movement

exposing

Intensify the

LIB I8T1,

rank and file CELSILL. feminists and gay Ists. and arund

week, on mo Dako nde

Uaf the could comrades ism in this country.

Dave

gone

84.95 [clolh common

most

fuckine Sargill

At last,

YOU

'Open a NECCaaOr

defender

THE ANALYSIS of Socialist

hallenge by the Nationa aortarator ols Flame Dose in iriy opinian. a number of inersting points pr marily centiing around the nature er 8 revolutionar socialist paper. I feal the path that thay sundest is prone to

Those comrands wno, the myselt, were ether members of the International Socialists BE OUnU EE CHaRPI Soclallst the mid-Seventies will remem-

USUSADAES position PUT left. leadership Inen was inat gocianis! Worxe was a paper for workers

the political climate Challenge aqu rou a papar annen by

seen at a totally time when Hank & Fle pader:

being The statement by Bia Flame In many waws

International

-22E Socialists and

revolutionary

unity

Store

THU LAM SEVERAL RECENT Initiatives on the revolutionary letl (in

trade union the AOLINIS liberation-

LEEINE SU DOG BL CHU have brought together people of different political organ isat- JO HOrOE

of us, former members of the interested International Socialists (SWP), NoNO OCER HROHLO H UCDE moves, and we all feel that they where relevant,

be important for Tura Br resunonar bobinI

There must be many people who like us still identiy tc CELIA DERCON some extent with the ideas and experiences of IS. Although we

in different directions, we may have some HARRY

SUTSUIOHS make to the moves now going

HYMAN

We, the undersigned, there- MIKE

WHITFIELD.

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 Decamber 1977, page 20

Angry, angry,

angry!

FIRST wantto say that I wish •Id written to your paper betore to say now much walcomed YOUR HOR WH СОГО ОПО how much i get out of reading it

the time But I've WHU BEY TECAUSRm (President about Arthur NUM

Why did you print it? Would

been plain Arthur Sargil! lunknown activist)? Why didn't

on SECTOU in Open Foruma tc

Forum! remecung ine views of the editorial board

Why did you print on Page 1 'Arthur Scaraill or

GENISm What you printed on Page 14

was Arthur Sargill (Presiden NUM YorksnHe Daing Soxis

With many other feminists was at Grunwicks

smacks of the same analysis.

Today socials! Chellenoe

stands apart Socialist Worker not on HE BuSS O1 mC imaginative and direct treat

-ISICI Socinilst Workcar TOULOYNE tact Ihat Socialist Challenge has raised the levot of theory •nUAIN SS LIBE STOCK

comment that TEaHEnE much lo New Left Review is a pompliment that could be paid

to C BUDHG& Ona CH TRe

As an independent sociaiist have been imoressed to mens of the articles in Socialist

the Battie ISOMURSI speciai particularlyl. I may not

agree with the political line or the hid. but onu bs a Berious attempt theory can a unitied revolu Ilonary socialist movement

supbort the ideB Or B conterence of International Solasis on evlatonely unity. lt is proposed to hold this meting in London on 11

sessione will be on (11 on the reiavance of the IS tradition lobdre Portodigny tu delnig

ralationship between revolutlonary socialiste and LE POTK NOL SES. current situation, the tasks of We socialiats, and the moves

TOSDIULOTOE UnIT

Any of your readers who are

in furthe details Slould write to M.

Sallsbury St, Hull, indicating

their present halds ot ooltica activity

BOB CANT, RAY CHALLINOR,

RICHARD STEPHEN MARKS GORDON PETERS, PETER SEDGWICK, MARTIN SHAW,

WICKS, THONY, SOONU ENGINEER,

HINTON RICHARD MANT PEARSON SHERIDAN, JOHN

November getting my legs

kicked and my body bruised

DELSUAO ITECOENIGE TO CUREE

A. Scarglil) 'that it is a matter

of grave concer lacing the

KOTARE 0 035

Nelther i nor any other feminist

need patronsing by someone

the

TENISTE symbols our

degradation, exploitation anıd

ODpresSIOr "totally

insignificant'

Would you have printed his

letter, withou!

TE SON H ile reerEnCR Isi

of "birds"? Are

SUUR COMELU

anUStE hisstoceo the

pin-ups in the Yorkahire Miner

and delend vigorousiy YOU

affitude to Page 14 of Soclalist

Challenge?

How about an apology and

an explanation?

DIANNE GRIMSDITCH [Leeds]

CRE HUBUL

Un race value the sug-

gestions of Big Flame lead the

way to diluting of politice or a

long ast o sirike reports. More

importantly the major probiem

les in the vinw of the working

SiDDe COls

assu puan. The Big Flame

cialms that

Challenge is not a paper which

cou a de nanoso arouno me

estimates and

_OOHUEESHE

A paper has to be fought tor

TH 1032 RUHI STIED

must have news, anaiysis,

theory and humour and in my

opinion space should be lound wh saocs earures on Ene history of the class. . Finaliy, it

YOUIU BECHI UHRCIe SANT any

political paser worth fighting

way onto the W.H (apologles to Time Out)

N. STONE [Ilord

ACENONTEDGEMENTS

wald like toi Plato Press for peritting u in publes we banled trom Rah «Permana' siew (ok "E5

Au Munihly, for permissica to repriut an extraet trom a to-part intervier yish, Dartu Bockae), hy Peter Fuller *******

Page 21 scan of this page

PETER FULLER talks to one of Britain's most famous living painters DAVID LOCKNEY

CONTROVERSY

Somerhing which is still absent from your workis any referenceto class. In your book,

1 think conservatism in Engiand if you want to. /

vorking class bockground When yo

anznow do you gnore a large part of yo

ickground and experience? You haven engaged, for example, with the working class reality of Bradford since your very early works.

In Bradford one painted what one saw: a city full of dark streets. There is a painting 1 did — it's never been reproduced anywhere - called 4 View of Bradford from Earls Court. It's abstraction, but it's got lots of frontals of little men on it and it has the Bradford motto, WICH I5:00 Bradford bus, labor omnia vincir: work make a link. The moment you put from Cars Court vou reste il can't beg vouse FILW

We've falked about art beine shar in on itself One way of working towards a solution mighr be to choose suhjecis that relate to the ives of a greater number of people.

Lagree, of course. That's why I am always painting the figure. You can interest people who don't know much about painting: ibe people's lives. They gef interested BAB BE EE BIT.

modernism, people painted the figure. But, as vom have miled English art remained conservative. Much of it related only to middle class experience. Now you recognise that, but you don 'tiry and break indown. Painting the figure ismot, in itseif enaugh?

course, there were exceptions Englishart, like Hogarth, But, in the 1960s, I and a lot of other people beliered that England. Now 1 see it wasn't a breakdown

But from 1962 to 1965, this breakdownof

WAS Something changed; bur it didn't change anhine lke as much as people thought. 1 remember being shocked as a boy Bradford when I read Orwell's Rood to Wigan Pler. He says that the middle classes all thought that the working class smelled. I couldn't believe that when 1 read it. 1 thought, now why would they think that? Now, obviously, things have changed, But the divisions are still very mach there.

That's why you have problems with the Arts Council The official art world in have a certain view of'art. That's why they because it covers things up. 1 now realise that, but l've only sust becun to scoit that

The very conventions which comventions: they were port and parcel the medie classes way of sering the werid. Perhaps. But one has to remember that the middle classes were the only people, in a sense, who did view the world. The peasant, after all, does not view the world at all; so you cannot just say chat it's that. It's a bit more complicated After all, there are some exceptions. Hogarth wasa better artist than most,

Heescape from the erstacronic patrons by peoishing engravings; this gose him a much wider audience and greater freedom, You have sought a bigger audience than that which Now, you don't get the increased audience duction. I'm aware that I reached a rather wants an audicnce. Bur I have a conflict about this. I lock myself in bere; 1 don't go out much; the silly art world 1 try and ignore. Hogarth had it casier. In his day the conventions were accepted. There was no tradition of a counter-conception that he had lo deal wich. It's more difficult now

every in

because you have to deal with that as well. Don't sou think you could make a much wider breakthrowen df instead of paining Californian swimmine pools, art devices in more ambitious subject matter? Ehone fo one day problems to deal with. Ie's complex and difficult. Sometimes I feel like putting off dealine with a great big sometimes subjectsaredeceptive. Yousee a Seury thiel Calloria es notiete

In California it's not.

England had a hot climate things would be in quire different, Inscontent is not quite what icappears in Bradford, A swimming pool in Bradford would be foolish.

Ter ner criticiving swieming pool. finde weythrough to realism, in hisday, l pointed stone-breakers and peasents. Tow ralk about how hard it is for working class

Personally, I think that's criminal, Really criminal. I Wil lake every opportunity...

Yonare ino position to bring the experience of these people to the centre of the concerns of art. Bur you don't.

I have spoken abour that many limes, thought.

You've spoken about it. Bat Eie talkine abour what you paint On the canvas. The subject. The problemis are always immense. One thing you have to guard against is chat if you let the subject

might finish up with illustration,

Ein nor sarine you showid er the subjec

completei dominate'

the issue completely. picture that has a lot of meaning for a lot of people. I think the idea of making pictures for 25 people in the art world is crazy and ridiculous. It should be sopped; in some way it should be pointed out that it can't go on. In this way old Fyle Roberison was trine to say that Unfortunately he just tried to articulate it from... a not quite right point of view, Kisaj has seid chat he woald fike to be A Painer of the Peopic', He gor the phrase

wand it that way?

I would, actually. But why have you said

solutions?

said abour how

subject. But

differens Hay.

picture..] Now you because you paint

La lew other things. well as his. actually lead outwards,

that you are not interested in Kitaj"

Part showid break out, nogwine a new subject marter, and all the rest, whar does he point? Portreits of John The Orientalist, a fantastic imagioar references. He makes the same mistake as chose he opposed kimself lo. You in

suffer from this same closkre. (somerhine is to energe frow this Kitaj-Hockney alternative, row'il have to begin by breaking through ther. In know what you mean, But, for instance. Henry Geldzahler over there... [pointing ro

I've painted him before; I'm painti g him again. He'sone of the lew people 1 talk to a great deal about art, even though we don't agree about it.

SOULC once completely devoted to formatism. Personally, ne safriend, a ratber amusing person. warm in his way, quite serious. A bit lazy. Tomint himin his predicamenrs fils in with

The ruining shows a screen covered with

productions of printings and he

oking at them, He's a formolist art expe tooking ur images of images of other pointings. Formalist pointing is pamerin abort printing in one sense; this is paintin about pointing in anorber, feel vou are trapped, You wantro ger through to realicy; what socro the or screen, the reul world bar you can't, or poir won?, go throngi The painting is called Looking et pectures on a screen: this means tbat the spectator is the painting. [Wales up to carvas. 1 If you 've por yourself to here, in front of the canyas, whoever you are, then he is looking at pictures on a screen, but so are vou. You

behind the screen as a slight escape. But I haven't goe round to il. Now that peinting is not just about art. 1 know that it has hundreds of shortcoitutes, but 1 cannet make up my mod what they are. You're saying, probably it's the subjoc matter that really starts the problem. I'm not that sure. I think the subject matter can

You wiked abour your cariy painting, in pour book, as rung in part conscions

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 21 propoganda for acceptance of homo sexuality. Whar seemis zo me fundamental abour your work — and it is nomerhing the crires always avod — is thai it is painted from a specifically homosexuu! wewpoin Well, 1 think 1 gave up homosexua propaganda a long time ago. I'm not sur about what you are saying. I really don't knew, Jam homosexual. T've never had an erutic thought, or au erotic experience, with a lemale. A Jot of people like to make cu that it dominates one's life. Sections of the media are alwave focusins on it Jad Hassan, in his film, tried to make out it was a dominant thing

Whereas 1 look at it in a quite different way. I don't think it's dominant at all. Et's important, of course. bex 15 an unporant motivation in everybody's life. Perhaps you are right. In the art world context, it's underplayed; in the modia, they overde it. Nobody seems to have gor the true balance.

Berger's thess seeers right aboud how mos European printings of wonen, have beer produced by men who destre worten to br passive as a result, in mary such pointings women have no personality or sexualty af their own. The is commoniy represented as inutiable and supine. Now this was a limitation introdaced infe vision and representation by a scruci mode. One af the thingr that makes pour pointine distinerive is charit indica es anorher way of sering the figure and the world, because pour sexualizy is aiso distinct.

And that's where thear world doesnot deal with it. I agree with what you've just said Yes. But, really, l've bardly done any male nudes. I do only very fes. Somebody pointed our that the tradition of the male nude in art is of strength, a symbol of strength and power sensuouseroticis. Tomake the male nude the tradition. I read tbat once about my paintine somewbere. But the only thing 1s there's only two or three pictures on that; is nor a tecurting theme.

Your many double portraits seem to amour sera fairty consistent exploration of the doubes and possibilites of two people trying to relate to euch other, is that fauri Well, about the portrait of my parents, my father said hethought that the portrast - in bis words, tItshows| concentrate'. Recause be steading the book. My mother, whe isa Wele bit more aware, sensed it was about something eise. He's in his own world. My mother is sat there, rather patiently, doing what I say. My Father cannot de that. He finally picks up a book to look at the hidden thie. Many people would read ir that was. The problem is that when you look at a picture of two people, you are going to read many, many things into it You are forced to, Formalist criticisan tries • to avoidthis; 1 think that' sa real criticisan of its criticisms.

Jeet there are zwo opposing tendencies ir Tour recent wowy. On the one nono. tr breakthrough in the printine HOUr

orher works like the Louvre's windows. The formeris becoming more concret: you are inokerg for ways a) grasping reai people in en image. But in the Jater workt, which seem to descend from A Bigger Splash, the figure hus vanished alfogether, or is as best on absen! presence, and the visihie world inself again seems threatened. On the one hand you have this reflective, Mercisstic, art screen; on the orher, a very defimire arrempr to break throwgh, Do pou feef that's true? Yes. I think that when the work is misinterpreted, it is this which is mis interpreted. Collectively, people don 1 se the essentis strusee. But adont that al times perhapsit smot very clear. 1 still chink failings. I don'1 make it that clear. The la

interested du formal problems; but the mon-las audience 1 inerested int lhei. and criticise coeur. Si I'm wedeed in beiween. I don't care really, One just coes on cursuine it anvaar, cing can't really stop. Some things just bave to be donc.

Page 22 scan of this page

News

Lines

HANSEN-PETER RABBIT LINK CONCLUSIVE THE SO-CALLED Christmas issue of Socialist Challenge, paper The revisionist International Marxist Group represents the latest stage in the historic task of Pablolim: the liquidation of Trotskyism, the International Committee of the Fourth International. and Comrade G. Healy.

The Pabloite rag carries a Thise pee on Peter Ribbit.

This surprising. considering that this is the same Peter Rabbit who Is known to have corresponded with leading

MARXISM AND LITERARY

CRITICISM

TERRY EAGLETON

"Marxism and Literary Criticism is unazingly

comprahensive for its brief tomat. By pre.

senting his babut trough tour

"Literature and History, "Farm and Content,

The writer and Commitment.

Author as Producer, Mr. Engleton has been

able to sum un the main areas of Marxist

criticism in che West today. He provides

excellent resumes 01 individual critos and

positions, clear expositions of approaches and

atonems who at the same tne

explicit his preferences and, in The Author as

Producer, concluding with pointers for the

times Literary Supplement.

12.50 Paperback L1.10

LAW AND ORDER NEWS STEVE CHIBNALL A fasciating analysis af the cress and the way in which at handles the reporting of came especially vicient crime —and on the orner side of the coa, the reporting of malice crine. Concheonsane

Stese Chibmall wwid y chronicles the ab and Now bot of crme carnalism and ofthe reetions berween generations of cone reporters and... the lads at the Yart. Now Society C8.00 Pape-back 13.50

UNDER REVIEW

members of the Fourth International in Mexico in 1940. News Live has authenticated copies of letters from Joseph Hansen of the so-called socialise Workers Party to P.

Rabbit addressed to Dear Peter Rabbict, overwhelming proof that J. Hansen was an :IA. Give Trotsky's known fandness for rabbits, the sinister overtones of the letter are obvious.

The omissions are just as striking. Socialist Challenge

A Selection of Recent Titles

Published by Methuen and Tavistock

Methuen,

EDUCATION MIKE SMITH

themes,

and The

as a whole. making

Paperback 21.00

-Tavistock.

ANCREW TOLSON

and the pratessional nierarchy

can print a whole two pages on the situation in the Middle East in 33 AD once mentioning the Jamahiriyah, the Grent Libyan Arab Revolution of Muammar al-Gaddali or the treacherous roic of Stalimom in pre-Christian Palestine. (Readers are referred to the 47 part series by Jack Gule for the true picture).

Doubtless revisionist playhos T.All's political mentors at the Financial Times will display their usual enthusiasm for thi latest anti-Trotskyist political buffoonery, Tomorrow - Sylvia Frankin and Winnie the Pooh: the Unanswered Questions

ING

THE FOLLOWING resolution was passed by the National THE UNDERGROUND AND

A Guide to the Alternative Press

In racent years there has been a rich mushrooming of elternative press publications in the educational field: and at a time when educational premises are coming increusingly under stain the aiternative crisicue is assum ing cans derable importance. Hence a need for this guide, in which Mike Smith cafly and sensitively brings together the various parts of the alternative critique, and allows us to sanit

- a breve atlempt to assess she educational Pomoopiy o lie undereround press perceptively sitten and pleasant to read." THE LIMITS OF MASCULINITY

In this the first book to explane the socia

m'asculinity. THE SAUTO seransistes the ways in which resticlive definit one of gendar and identy are supported by the lamily, the school, the factory

every encouraging exploration of this whole area." Mary Stact The Goardian.

E5.50 Social Science Paperback E1.86

OUR OWN PEOPLE

ABOUT NINE months ago 'Pirate Jenny Theatre' company started discussions with Dave Edgar on a format for a play on racism. It was to be a play which starled from where Destiny left off. We were at the time an all-white company so we felt strongly that we wanted to deal with racism as 'our' problem, not simply put on a play with analysis. Also as a company with a feminist orientation, we saw the obvious parallels between sexist and racism and wanted to think of ways of linking them, Would it, for example, be politically and dramatically more interesting to explore the racist attitude of a white working class womun towards ber Asian sisters working and living alongside ber? Hou could one take up the extraordinary fact that Asian women tradirionally the most oppressed section of any ethnic

Committee of the International

Marxist Group:

The IMO, British section of

the Fourth International, take

critical note of the failure of the

enge to produce an unreadable

*The expanding rendership of

what has mistakenly become a

popular political newspaper is

entirely out of sep

corjunctural need to build a

cadre organisation of leftward

moving cements who have

broken with Labourism, reject-

od centrist illusions (see autumn

perspectives document: Our

Winter of Discontent'), and are

fully conversant with new mass

vanguard developments in the

Therian peninsula

"This is most clearly defined

by the so-called Xmas spocial

Scarcely any of the contribut-

tons concern key political

issues, and none has the merit

of mobilising the hase for the

mass pickets thar are now vital.

For example, the sexist, racist,

and anti-working class phen-

omena Santa Claus/Claudia

comes off virtually unscuthed.

It is therefore proposed that

the excessive wages and coffee

demands Socialist

Challenge Editorial Board be

dismissod, and the Org Bureau

instructed to withold

payments uttil the paper has

recruited at least one new

member."

Posed: Sir for, five against,

three assentions, one no vote,

two asleep.

Socialist

Worker

COR - WHATA

BLOODY CHEEK! JOE SMITH (unemployed

paper round boy and member

of the rank and file Paper Charter), writes Wort

ers and their wives are victims of'a new con trick

Socialist Challenge, the

paper associated with the

International Marxist Group -

which only students

allowed has got a blood - HEC Derve. This wock they upper their asking price by Sp. For Sp workers could boy an exrra cigarette.

But does Socialist Challenge care? Not on your nellie! (Do workers realiy talk like this? -P.Foot). They're quite happy as lang as the circulation goc up. Everything goes up these days. Encluding the member ship of the Socialist Workers Party, which is now 30,000 strong. Join the SWP.

Near week: How Tesco made a huge profit ond of selline used Tea hags to old-une pensioners.

group living in this country. Have boen so often Teading imporlant industrial struggles

Imperial Typewriters and Grunwick to one but 14b.

In Our Own People, David Edgar manages to deal with these problems with compassionate insight into humanity al its most corrup and vulnerable. And yet b doesn't allow his audience to Lose sight of a biting political analysis which allows neither them nor the characters off the hook.

The format of the play is an Industrial Enquiry into a strike Yorkshire mill ASiaD workers at

La strike in which the Asiams are out, but the whites remained at work (whitelegs"). In the first half of the play Edgar makes 00 "theatrical" concessions to bis audience. We are in a cour Toom, We muit listen carefull to the case for the Asinns, put over in the best radical lawyer Trains, a all cos not al tradition Ms Watts. ber case with 'unnecessary" political teferences. The lawversfor the management and the

Socialist Chullenge has- jusi

produood a 24 page Christmas

CANTEEN WORKERS ON

HUNGER STRIKE

THE LACK of popular appeal

of Socialist Challenge was

never more obvious than in its

Xmas sue. As a tew copi

found their way by -aocident

of factors

canteens in Liverpoal and

angry workers em-

barked on hunger strike

"What a load of old cobblers.

said Jim Jones, a shop steward

of many years standing. Jim,

sho was educated at Canter

bury Univerxity, told us that the

Amas issue had set the strugale

hack many years.

In housing estates and

tenements the reaction was

stronger. "IT IS

accident", said Molly, who has

been involved in many tosses'

newleft review

AN INNOVATIVE critique af

this text is, to say the least,

problemacic, • The anguishie

antinomy confronting much of

the British left clearly manifests

itself in the lacune of this

particular dewvre: wherher

within a specific conjuncture it

poses the probleur of the

transformation of the qualita

tise to quantitative within the

framework of the contradiction

hereoch intoritative analysis

and analytical information;

whether such a contradiction is

antagonistic or noo-antag-

obistic; or whether it is simply a

lapsus in the epistemological

COLUTERUC Wellan,

schanng. Тітралаго

perboently poses the problem

in his devastatingly relevant

critique of Freud's pecho-

pathology: why exoriare

the original rext? Why indeed?

The anwer certaints isn't in my

Latio primer, but the parallels

with this opus are striking. Or,

as Poultantzas once put it, in a

dazzling trompe /ocil: La

plume de ma taile est sur le

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 22

unions appear oqually enger to ingoore the growing racial

cleavage in the factory itself.

Within half an hour bi listening to the case, thc courtroom starts to erupt. The audience are plunged into a plor traught with allegations of manipulation, racism and exploitation.

All socialists should try and see the play. More importanriy They should attempt persuade non-socialists to do so as well,

All too often political tbeatre groups get from their fellow radicals what amounts to the same treatinent one is used to from bourgeois critics: theatrical 'critique of a play is an isolated "thing', written, performed and over. There is rarely any real attempt to use the work done by these groups as a stepping scone to the daily work of socialists in the area.

We in Pirate Jenny have an

play on the most important problem facing all of us 30 Britain today: racis and the rise of fascism. Criticise us by all means, BUT USE US.

We are touring England and Scullund antil March, Farther information from Pirate Jenny: 01-969-22H2 Our Xmasissue

What the left

press said

Morning Star

Issue — Press Association:

BIG FLAME

disputes over the past lift

that this lot have

Ignored us in this issue'

At a protest moeling called Tational Senearin corades tenants, Big Flame

explained that they sympathis.

ed with the teriants point or

view. We're not involved in the

paper' snid one BF leader. This

remnark wal greeled by loud

cheers. After a three hom

session it was decided nor to

burn all copies in the area. Half

the meeting adjourned for

midnight mass, while the rest

retired to discuss how to take

the campaign forward.

Next week: Socialist Challenge

pots its case.

bureau de mon onale". (Clesses

in Contemporary Capitalison

p. 2314), Bon mor, Nicos: The

pncase loses much in trans

lation, but the underlying

verisimilitude is incontro

vertible. The ironically entitled

'game" on the centre spread

epitomises the object

Poulantzas cricique: the

quasi-Borges labyrinthine

strncture serves as a model of

SUIC vulgar materialism

pervades the British left. On

bught almost believe that the

auteurs had never heard of th

transformation problem or the

tremendous amount of unpro-

acetive labour we are engaged

in. As Marx originally wrote:

The Marxists have changed the

world; the point however & 1o

interpret ir. This sharply pose

the dichotomy between Heed

and Kant that Marx

wrestling with in 1843 wher

he.

(contined on page 25]

* Socialistsche Herousford

erung Weinochten Nwmmer

(London 1977).

(An English translation of this

review will be published next

vear hy New Left Books, price

Page 23 scan of this page

THE PROPHET RETURNED

Among the massive amount of publications currently on sale in Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Great October SocialIst Revolution is u two volume work entitled *Lenin: Collection of Photographs and Film Stills', Volume one tains over 650 pages of pictures of Lenin from childhood through revolution to deuth. There are many fine shots in the volume, but it is marred by the usual falsilication of history photos retouched and cropped to eliminate prominent Bolsheviks who were purged dur-

shows:

World

Not So Green As Its

Do Not Go Gentle

phone 01-485 2872

INTERNATIONAL

-the photographs-conBelt and Braces Roadshow Company send fraternal greetings to all readers and remind you that you can book our three

A Day in the Life of The

Cabbage

ing the Stalin era.

However on Page 401. due to an extraordinary oversight by the publishers stitute of Marxims-Leninism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union'-there appears Leon Davidovitch Trotsky (arrowed above), co-leader of the October Revolution, founder of the Red Anny, later exiled and finaily assassinated by Stalin. The photo was taken at a meeting of the Counell of Peoples Commissan in the Kremlin on 3 October, 1922. Thephoto-

(836 9960)

-The In-

next to Lenin.

that he took

Cornerhouse Bookshop 14 Endell Street, London WC2

Opening hours: 10-7 Mon-Sat *For Radical Education Books

graph below, not in the book, within seconds of the one abore, shows Trotsky clearly, as well as many other prominen: Belsheviks cropped out of the published picture, including Rykor and Kumeney standine

Trotsky's last appearance in un official Soviet volume was in 1935 as a one inch drawing in a book on the Civil War, 42 years later, on the anniversary of the Revolution

such a part in creating. *Proplet Outcast" has made a fiting return

SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 23

but tuken

square LENIN MARK TOR BEGINNERS

Vladimir, Karl & Fidel wish you a Happy Christmas

Lanin for Beginners, Marx for Beginners and Cuba for

Irom: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 9-19

Rupert Street, London WIV TFS

_WRITERS and READERS

What's

Left

Saturday pelare publication

Lawrenos Tensch. W10 17 CHi al Spm, Et ALARM! SWP Great New Yoam

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CAMPAIGN Ageinst Repressior

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FIRST OF MAY, Edinburgh ia

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Theatre presen Divide and Rule Britaint songa and discussion. mission 50p WHAT'S ESPERANTO? Read for yoursall explanator

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Registered with the Post Office use newpaper, Publisued by Reigoerest Led. for Sociolist Chullenge, 328/9 Upper Stref, London NI. Prosted hy Goodied Press Limer. 25 Mundoct Road, Bicester.

In conjunction with Peter Kennard, Socialist Challenge has produced a set of postcards featuring six of Nennerd's pholomontages.

in black and white, the six mards relate to South Africa Tee Saration the Iroland, Chile, Seveso, 1974 miners' strike, and repression in the USSR. Each card is 7 by 372 inches. and printed with all normal post card requirements English, French and Ger-

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fire station.

car.

It's the sort of scene that is becoming all too familiar in

what's happened over the past days and weeks.

* The Special Patrol Group attacks the Grunwick picket line on 7 November, arresting

more; * Troops are called in to break the FRU strike, as well as being sent to Bermuda to back up the

*RAP drivers scab on the sir tratric controllers" strike at West Draylon: * Now ir is revealed that the anned forces will be called in to break a possible lorry drivers" strike in the New Year: * And fascist leader Martin Webster addresses a police

But Brtain's top cops have little to learn from the Natsonal Front when it comes to strike breaking. The Durham chief constable claims that Webster was invited because he bad been involved in causing public disorder

What a load of rubhish!

By that argument we can expect to see Richard Dobson COMPLACENCY HAS not set in ansong our readers. This week tV TS came in throuch the post, plus bankers orders to the mune or ti3d which were transferred to our account. The [1,900 target is now within our grasp. Wehave only E123.731o go before Lenin can sigh with reliel. Please make sure this arrives before 11 December,

Of this week's tund drive, 252.80 oripinated from Heal sy's Christmas handouts. present from Downing Street is

our readers, but Henley has nor been so generoos tir Socicis Challenge: Our bills are always

every penny you can spare keeps us on the streets. LAST CHANCE

CHEAP SUBS

From 1 January, the subscription rates for Socialist Challenge will be increased. Recently the price of the paper rose to 15p, while we held the subseription rates.

Thus antil the end of the зейг subscription Socialist Challenge is still fantastic value. The yearly rate in Britain will be E10 - at present it is just $7.50.

This is a give away price, 50 rush off the torm now...und give yourself or a friend a superb present Orders must reach us by las post on 31 December to

SCABS IN UNIFORM!

"Mow them down,' shouted the police inspector. The scene was an FBU picket line at Epping in Essex last Monday, where the cops were leading scabs into the

Two of the pickets were mown down. Trevor Swain and Keith Woods ended up in hospital after they had been carried along for yards on the bonnet of a scab

appointed to the Commussion for Racial Equality.

But nothing would surprise us from this Government. Anything goes aslong as it preserves their precious pay policy The loity cavers strike is a good example. The likelyto be 15 percent — which would break the 10 per cent norm. So the Labour Government has scraped around every military unit in Western Surope to find drivers for beavy fuel tankers.

This only goes to show what we're said all along: uniformed scabs in the Green Goddesses are not there to profect life and limb — they ure there to prolect the 10 per cent sorm and the 12 month rule.

This use CO1: MOOT industrial disputes must stopped.

Labour Government's anacks out our living standards.

Merlyn Rees, the man who spent rep years directing the troops in Ireland, has put hi brute experience to good use.

He must go, and so mus Callughan, Owen, and the otber gunslingers in the Labour leadership-

Only £123 to go

Other supporters have helped in kind. In the last monch two

to our under-equipped staff from supporters in London and Colchester. Another reader wants to sell a record deck no! unusual you might think except that the proceeds are to go to the fund drive.

Also, of course, we recontly This were given a pew tape recorder by supporters in Japen, Weare stll short of filing cabinets, a television, angeline routini would he anything you think would useful. So keep them and the money rolling in.

obtain the present burgain rate.

Name DEW Address

Complete and return to:

the

be line. A print of a painting will Stepney plus 10p sap while stocks last.

SUBSCRIBE NOW!

Domestic: 6 months, E3.75; 12 months £7.50 Abroad: Airmail, E12.50. SurEwce, E9 per annum.

I caciose a donation for the Fighting Fond of Cheques, POs and Money Orlers should be made payable to 'Socialist Challenge"

Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London NI.

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