PLAY POWER by Richard Neville. Cape, 38/-.
Roll up! Roll up! And light up. For thirty-eight shillings Richard Neville, the Australian Wizard of Oz, will take you on a breathless tour of the world's underground system.
All hippie life is there in addition to a few pot shot t the Dwarf. You can learn how to smuggle drug into Istanbul, how to live free in London, how to get laid in Laos. You can tread the trippy trail to Khatmandu.
and chapters on sex, cannabis, international drop out travel, and pop. He's good on the last bit because although he doesn't seem to know much about music he is rightly scornful of the way the industry cannibalises genuine mass feelings and then spits them out again as marketable gobs of black plastic. The descriptions of the Stones in the Park and Chuck Berry at the Albert Hall chalk Neville up as one of the best journalists around: Tynan in a sheepskin.
A cheerful book. A jolly book and nobody minds if he puts Proudhon's words into Marx's mouth. But it is also a serious book. Neville isn't kidding. He really thinks that the revolution begins in the King's Road And attention must be paid because lots of intelligent young people agree with him.
On the second page of the first chapter Nevillegives us a small sample of how hippie erosion is going to change the power structure. He meets two girls in the street. "Both have sleeping bags slung over their fringe leather jackets, mock Aztec jewellery and Eastern carpet shoulder bags." They talk. They slip him a bit of hash. "A casual meeting. Two voung chicks. Nothing extraordinary; except a reminder that girls like this are everywhere and they're not going to grow up and marry bank managers.
Oh Christ, Richard, is there any way I can convince you that you are wrong? They will marry bank managers. They will. Of course the banks will be different:
groovy neon-lit perspex palaces of pleasure and power ull of relaxed young executive cats suspended luxuri ously on invisible air jet sofas. But they WILL STILL BE AND THEY WILL STILL OWN YOU AND ME ..... BABY.
The great spectacular we call capitalism has got you so deluded you can't see beyond the end of your joint. On January 20, 1,500 people filled the Dusseldorf Theatre to see the opening of Trotsky in Exile-the latest work by Germany's greatest living playwright, Peter Weiss.
In this play Weiss has sketched the ups and downs of the Russian revolutionary movement, from Trotsky's first exile in Siberia at the turn of the century to his murder in Mexico in 1941. Discussions between the main exponents of Bolshevism and Menshevism alternate with scenes from the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The play is packed with action; the victory of the October Revolution, the Krondstadt uprising, Lenin's last fight against the them up. Does nothing change?
list societies.
plotters."
trial benefit.
ment. 1. Leisure.
in a socialist society whether they work or not. country properly organised could afford to do this by leisure is so terrible. For one thing most sensible peoalso to pursue one of this book and the regular production of his mag zine point to his own experience of it, and that is the ecstasy into the world that didn't exist before. 2. Self-indulgence and guilt do not have the answer although been advanced since man could talk. Neville's concern with pleasure seems to be almost exclusively with the fashionable around to tishing or chess are all represented.
Trotsky in Exile is full of action, but it is also a play of ideas. Peter Weiss, together with his collaborators, has succeeded in an astonishing way, in dramatising ideological debates and bringing the high points of Trotsky's activities Dack to ire The play is not Trotskyist. Trotsky's struggle to build the Fourth International is not shown and is hardly mentioned in the much longer manuscript. But one does not ask an author like Peter Weiss to restate programmatic documents. His art, like all revolutionary art, has another function to fulfil. It brings a message to people who have not yet, or only incompletely, understood basic aspects of reality "rom this point of view Peter Weiss's play i a true masterpiece. Cutting across three decades of Stalinist slanders and historical distortion, Weiss reestablishes the truth about Trotsky's historical role. His message will be read, heard, and seen for months, if not years, by hundreds They used to give the natives beads and drugs to shut A Bohemian fringe has always existed around the edge of middle class society and it has always had an influence on the way we dress and look. It can some3. Yippie Protest times even help to change our soical attitudes about sex and pleasure. But it cannot change the fundamental facts about power, prosperity and wealth in capitan the last chapter, The Politics of Play, Neville gets straight into it. He sneakily divides the left into two factions. "The sober, violent, puritan, Left extremists, versus the laughing, loving, lazy, fun-powder Neither: I thought so. He tells us uhat the right we? are you with, comrade? to make the revolution is to create a fun-loving counter-culture opposed to work and devoted to plea- the altar. sure. A very attractive philosophy particularly to me at this moment as I sit here sweating out this review instead of getting stoned at the Chicago Conspiracy Neville seems to me to be confusing three very different problems and he has got them all wriggling together in this last chapter in a disarming orgy of arguThe full realisation of the identity of every citizen is a long time glorious aim of socialism. I accept the principle of the granting of a basic living wage to everyone This the end of the year. But I don't think this problem of weaknesses with its ple would want to work, not only to supplement their income (which would be fixed at a certain ceiling) but of the most satisfying pleasures tory. which Neville doesn't mention, although the writing harm? And of making something: of putting something This is a much more difficult problem and I, frankly, others.
VELOUS ones have this immense drugs. He gets The Romans had very little Clive Goodwin only lifted part of the veil, Peter Weiss completely rehabilitates Trotsky and Lenin's old comrades.
Trotsky in Exile is an act of great personal and political courage. For years Peter Weiss, Europe's foremost radical playwright, has been a guest of the German Democratic Republic and of the Soviet Union. Marat-Sade, his passionate denunciation of Hitler's crimes, his violent accusations against Portuguese colonialism and American imperialism, have been played in all the theatres of Eastern Europe. As he fought for historical truth about Auschwitz, about Vietnam, about imperialism, he now fights for the historical truth of Trotsky. Stalinist bureaucrats won't like it. But Weiss's latest play will endear him, more than ever, to militant youth, workers and intellectuals the world over.
Trotsky in Exile is also significant. Great artguilt about riotous self-indulgence or, as Neville might say, mass fuck-ins. Play was in the seat of power. But for most people it could not have been a very pleasurable society to live in.
Neville approvingly details such attacks on orthodoxy left. accept the old left's point of view that much of this can be politically alienating to the working class sometimes I sion can breed inferiority and a fear of the unknown that perhaps only outrageous example can dislodge These are the strands of Neville's argument and to reduce them all to one imperative slogan FREAK it will part with an ounce of political power." The rev gradualists looning around doing their thing. think Neville has worked hard enough on this book even though I phoned him up when he was in the middle of getting it together and he was nearly out of his mind with the sheer bloody hard grind of it. It didn't Here and there Neville does touch and there on the left's ne-down rhetoric rubby Marist leatlets and hand Be are up against one of the clev erest and longest-running ruling classes in world his.
Wong resught give us a combrance of tee , where's the with other militants and the Dwar/ and countless We desperately need new forms of action to combat and arrogant power structure. Play Power skims through some possibilities. It could be worth nicking from Foyles just for that.
that the tide is turning in favour of world revolution. It serves notice on the neo-Stalinist rulers in Prague and Moscow that should they intend to repeat the horrors of the Moscow and Slansky trials, they won't get away with it as they did in 1936 and 1951.
At the end of the play, Peter Weiss lets Trotsky, just prior to his murder, sum up his political convictions, the meaning of his life and work: "I cannot abandon belief in reason and in human solidarity. Since my youth this belief has only grown stronger. I have never known personal revolution. Failures and disappointments cannot prevent me from seeing beyond the present decline, the rise of all the oppressed. This is not a utopian prophesy. It is the dispassionate foresight of dialectical materialism Never have I lost confidence in the revolutionary force of the masses. But we have to prepare ourselves for a long war; for years, if not decades of uprisings, civil wars, new uprisings and new wars. And when it seems at times as if the class struggle weakens, under the extortion and lies of bourgeois power, and the fragmentation of its political leadership, then the young generations will come-the students, as at the beginning of the century in Russia, but this time in a broad movement. They will come from the universities of all continents. They will take up the struggle and drive it on. They will learn to find a common language, common action with the vanguard workers. Just as the working class has borne privation and sacrifice, so it will shoulder the upheavals and the reconstruction. The victory over world capital will be possible when a new revolutionary party will stay at the head o he proletariats. If death surprised me today, I could say, I have worked for the uninterrupted struggle of liberation of the exploited and colonialised; for the necessity of the widest spread. ing of culture and science; for an art which gives man's urge for renewal untrammeled expres sion; for the development of technology, which, when it understands how to utilise the energies of the atom, will ease life in the future. Everything has been dominated by the thought of international revolution. Only this revolution can finally abolish exploitation, violence and Wants.
This message of rational confidence in mankind's future, and of indestructible faith in the proletarian revolution, delivered by an old man at the eve of his death, will resound for a long time in the hearts of thousands and thousands
dealings with firms profiting from business in South Africa, some of them took time out to have a deeper look at the files.
One interesting item was labelled: "Co-ordination Staff Foreign Office (Men) CONFIDEN TIAL". Back in 1947 a Vice Admiral Sir James Troup made contact with the then Appointments Officer, Mr. Joynt, with a view to "the recruiting of candidates from the Scottish Un versities for A Government Service. " Since thei Joynt and his successor, A. G. Acaster, have maintained contact with a succession of officers of the Intelligence Co-ordination Service, renamed Co-ordination Staff, Foreign Office in 1957. The current contact is a Mr. G. E. Williams who can be contacted at 3, Carlton Gardens, London, S.W.1. (Tel: 01-930 6940).
In the words of a 1948 handout: "It may not be known that there are branches of government service which are accessible by selection and not by competitive examination". Acaster's job, which he appears to fill most conscientiously, is to pick out any likely candidates for Government spying work and diplomatically approach them for interviews with foreign office personnel. has from time to time enlisted various members of the academic staff. Amongst those currently involved are Professors Beattie, McMillan and Steele.
Chief qualifications for the job appear to be luency in languages-Arabic and Chinese are ir reat demand just now-and above all "reliabl character". A 1950 applicant, Mr. Taubman, Telephone 0983-81-3855 Ext. No.
Please address any reply to THE GOVERNOR and quote Your ref.
Mr. Fred Halliday, 7 Carlisle Street, London, #.1 Dear Sir, life imprisonment for murder.
natition the The following letter was received by Fred Halliday, a member of the Dwarf editorial board, on January 15, 1970. Previous to this he had received a letter and documentation about Dennis Stafford, who is serving a life sentence for murder in Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight. Fred Halliday sent a reply to Dennis Staffond, a reply that was never received. This letter from the Governor of Parkhurst claims to justify this.
Stafford was sentenced on 15th March, 1967 to life imprisonment for murder, together with Michael Luvaglio. He argues that he is innocent and has put forward the following points in support of his case: there were no witnesses of the alleged "murder" produced by the police at the trial, and the conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence; the police withheld from the court the information that they had twelve signed statements, three of them by police officers, stating that the two defendants could have been innocent of the crime; a piece of evidence crucial to the prosecution has now been proven to be false-it concerns the visibility of a road junction from a point 300 yards distant. The Home Secretary has refused Stafford's Appeal against the conviction; his attempts to rally public opinion are now being blocked by the means described in the letter we The Black Dwarf H.M. Prison, Parkhurst, NEWPORT, Isle of Wight 13 January 1970. who is in the special security wing at this in which he was sentenced with Michael Luvaglio to You may remember sending an acknowledgment to the letter, and I am writing to explain why Stafford cannot be allowed to continue this correspondence. When a prisoner has exhausted all his rights of appeal to the if he has a grievance about his conviction, special security wing at this prison, with which was enclosed a statement of the circumstances in which he was sentenced with Michael Luvaglio to life imprisonment for murder. You may remember sending an acknowledgement to the letter, and 1 am writing to explain why Stafford cannot be allowed to continue this correspondence.
When a prisoner has exhausted all his rights of appeal to the courts, he may, if he has a grievance about his conviction, petition the Home Secretary, and it is open to him to seek legal advice about his position. He may also write to his Member of Parliament. Stafford has been allowed to consult a solicitor about his representations and, in addition, a copy of the statement you received has been passed by a Member of Parliament to the Home Secretary who has replied that all the points raised will be looked into.
Prisoners thus have ample means of raising matters about their cases but it is necessary, in the 20th February 1970 The termoil in Ireland has split Sinn Fein. At its recent conference it divided on the question of'attendance'. Its constitution states that Sinn Fein can run candidates for all the three parliaments that have Irish members, The Dial, Stormont, and Westminster: but that they cannot attend if elected. Now they can, and a mininty of physical force supporters have walked out. The majority failed to get the two thirds that it needed, so it put the new political line through by a straight majority approval of the new IRA programme, which itself comes out for attendance.
The new programme of the IRA, the military arm of Sinn Fein, boldly declares that 'war is an extension of politics'. Political, economic and cultural resistance to imperialism are given first place. But armed force is far from being ruled out. It also states: "If freedom can be won without violence then by all means let us win it that way, but, let us not allow victory to be snatched from us by those who will have no scruples about the use of violence when they see power and wealth and privilege slipping from their grasp. Only an armed, determined people will be listened to with respect.
"The war with Britain has never been halted and never will be halted as long as Britain claims a right to legislate for Ireland."
Are these fine words sufficient? Without a mention of the working class politics that will have to lead Ireland to independence, the IRA declares, on the basis of 2,500 words, The way forward to the 70's is clear. The time for questions is over."
Dublin housing actions and the Civil Rights movement have finally swung the base of Irish republicanism from the countryside into the towns. This new urban voice has made itself heard, and it has demanded politics. The issue now is what kind of politics; the time for questions, in fact, has just begun.
FEBRUARY 12th: Is there a "Trotskyist plot"?-th
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But the information isn't all useless. There is a quick selective run down on the world's hippie press
but I think that is a calculable risk. In The Big Flame Jim Allen says that to occupy your own factory needs in church. The youre akin outing some hate
think I agree with them, that it is more like pissing on There is no doubt that centuries of oppres-
OUT! is an evasion. As someone once said, "the ruling lass will give you all the sex and pot you want befor itution is not going to be made by a lot of 1 done
When Edinburgh University students occupied the campus appointments office to protest its
I understand that you have recently received a letter about prison, with which was enclosed a statement of the circum-