ering militants into a dead end so far has been disunited, without a clear ead of any kind.
Of course, the CP leadership does not clearly and unambiguously endorse every move that Scanlon makes. Instead it operates a similar tactic towards the trade union bureaucracy to the tactic that the trade union bureauc racy takes towards the Act. Scanion tries to avoid the issue of a fight with the NIRC and the Act, The CP leadership tries to avoid the issue of a fight against the Scanlon leadership for an alternative leadership. But in both cases, in the end, avoidance means acceptance. Because the CP has avoided the task of spelling out the crippling weaknesses of the Scanion leadership in the past, the militants were forced by the CP to accept the fragmentation which the executive's policy produced. The CP refused to build an alternative centre that could guide the engineering workers' upsurge and broaden the struggle throughout the working class. At first sight it is difficult to grasp why the CP refuses to present a clear cut alternative to the politics of the trade union bureaucracy. It would be tempting to say that Gollan has simply made a tactical mistake, that he has misjudged Scanion and will put things right next time. But in fact such 'tactical mistakes" have taken place time and again over the last years in such a way that they quite clearly form a consistent pattern - a strategy. And when we look at the basic strategy and programme of the Communist Party we can see that the leadership's refusal to break with the Scanlons of the labour movement is based on a fundamental political agreement on aims and methods in the class struggle.
Both the trade union 'lefts' and the CP leaders want to fight for socialism. But they believe that the struggle for socialism can be victorlous under the leadership of the Labour Party provided only that control of the Labour Party falls into the hands of its left-wing which in turn allies itself with the CP. The meaning of such a strategy is that it is possible to use the Parliamentary system to introduce socialsm: in other words, there is no need to aim for the smashing of the institutions of capitalist rule: all that needs to be done is to change the personnel and put pressure on these institutions in order for the working class to achieve its aims. The mass movement is necessary, but only in order to exert pressure along a path of gradual change towards socialism. There is no place within such a strategy for the idea that the working class must organise its struggle on the basis of complete independence, on the basis of a complete refusal to trust in forces tied in any way to the preservation of capitalism. The CP leadership denies a truth shown repeatedly in the class struggle: that the working class can and must use forces like the trade union bureaucracy, Parliament etc., but for its own purposes, and it must never depend on them in order to achieve its goals. Instead the militants must continually bear in mind that one day, in order to carry the mass struggle even one inch further forward, such forces which are dependant in one way or another on the maintenance of the capitalist order must be pushed aside and defeated. In the struggle of the engineering workers against the Industrial Relations Act it is urgently necessary to free the membership from reljance on the old policies and leadership to unite the movement and carry it further forward. The policy of the Executive of telling members to 'do their own thing' in each locality must be replaced by national action. Pressure must be stepped up on the executive to adopt such a policy. But at the same time every effort must be made to establish national links at a rank and file level so that the fate of the struggle against the Act does not depend entirely on a change of line by the executive. Pressure must be stepped up for solidarity from other unions in the common fight against the Act, but at the same time every effort must be made to establish such unity at a rank and file level. The protest strikes must be supported but a battle must be started to change the aims of the movement from that of protesting the fine to forcing an end to the Act, though that means taking on the government in a showdown and the other instruments of class rule. Only such a fighting policy will guarantee a victorious struggle against the Act. And such a policy involves breaking from the tactics and strategy of the Communist Party leadership. At its 1972 Conference, the IMG unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Gay Liberation Movement (GLM) while reserving the right to criticise its politics. Very rarely on the left does any analysis of the meaning of being gay in capitalist society appear, and most gay people have looked to the libertarian "underground" press for support. But links between the revolutionary left, the labour movement and the GLM are beneficial to all three. WHAT BEING GAY IS ABOUT We are using the term gay people to mean those who want to relate sexually to members of their own sex (lesbians, homosexuals), and those who identify with the other sex, either by changing sex by means of surgery, etc. (transsexuals), or by dressing in the clothes of the other sex (transvestists).
Homosexuality and trans-sexualism are almost universally defined in "respectable" society and in the medical profession as a "problem". Once such a definition is accepted, then the way is open for endless pseudo-scientific studies explaining its "origins" in terms of biology, chromosomes, early socialisation and so on. The gay person is labelled as a "case" and investigated if possible with a view to "curing" her/him. Such labelling in fact represents an attempt to isolate gay people as far as possible, and creates deep feelings of guilt in many. Even many so called revolutionaries accept this definition, only transferring the problems to capitalist society, which "distorts" people's sexual orientations, so that some become fixated on members of the same sex. For such people, the socialist revolution will eliminate homosexuality along with prostitution.
For a revolutionary marxist gay people do not present a problem in themselves. The problem ies in explaining why they are treated as they are and how they can change that situation. Since we do not accept that sex was instituted. by the Divine (or Society) in order that children might be produced, or that women are only in their natural state when in a subordinate relationship to men or vice versa, there is absolutely no reason why people shouldn't relate sexually to people of the same sex if they want to, any more than why they should not relate to people of the other sex. Such a position demystifies endless prejudices and "learned" tomes, and it is one of the positive gains of the GLM to have forcefully presented this analysis. Far from "withering away", homosexuality will become much more common in a socialist society, as the mystifications and prejudices surrounding sexual relationships are removed. Indeed this was the case in the early years of the Soviet Union when penal legislation against homosexuals was abolished. Only as the Stalinist bureaucracy tightened its hold over the whole of social life did repression of homosexuals become once more the norm. (See the short account in W.Reich, The Sexual Revolution, Vision 1972. Reich's general attitudes towards gay relationships were rather backward). THE OPPRESSION OF GAY PEOPLE If homosexuality in itself is not a "problem" why then are homosexuals universally oppressed in bourgeois society (the degree of oppression varies from time to time and country to country, of course)? Why do many people, among them militant workers who are otherwise anticapitalist, feel an unease and confusion in regard to gay people (Pakistanis, women, and "queers" are the stocks in trade of comedians of working mens clubs)? No ruling group exists for long by means of naked force alone. The continued existence of class rule depends on mystifying the population as to the true central source of their oppression-the system of productive relations which extracts the wealth from those who produce and transfers it to those who own. On the one hand it is necessary to have institutions and symbols which are regarded as right and good by the oppressed so they may think the whole worth while. On the other, it is necessary to have groups of people who are identifiable in some way as different so that people's frustrations can if necessary be turned against them. The family is one such important institution, gay people one such group.
Whether or not they see themselves as revolutionaries or even reformers, as by no means all do, gay people who actually practise their homosexuality threaten the ideology of the family. Through the family, new CLAD CAY BUT NOT ASHAMED Recent GLF demo in Brighton generations of workers are produced, ruling class ideas are passed on, women are subordinated, isolated and divided from productive workers. So control over the family is very important for the ruling class and its state. By necessity gay people must make a clear divorce between sexuality and reproduction. By bourgeois legality they are forced to divide sexuality and marriage. By their very oppression their relationships tend to be fragile and transient, challenging the mythology of permanence sanctified in the marriage ceremony. Gay people around the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) have also consciously come to challenge and reject something of the dominance/subordination, activity/passivity, male/female ideas about behavour appropriate to each sex, ideas which help greatly to maintain the subordination is part of the understanding of almost every of women in capitalist society. In all these ways the uncontested public activity of gay people is a threat.
Gay people are also useful symbols of "moral decadence" in capitalism. All ills we feel can be attributed to permissiveness, moral laxity Jews, Blacks, Gays etc and the persecution of the minority and in some cases their actual extermination (as in fascist Germany) can be a means of deflecting social tensions from their real source -the exploitative nature of the system itself.
The oppression of gay people is therefore both necessary and useful within the existing system, and for that reason it becomes clear that there is only one way for gay people to remove their oppression, and that is by linking up with all other oppressed groups, and centrally the working class, whose exploitation underlines every other, in order to overthrow the system itself. Of all homosexuals, only those around the GLF have begun to realise this basic fact. Other homosexuals have reacted either by retreat, or attempts to reform. THE RESPONSE TO OPPRESSION A. Retreat. Because they themselves often feel guilty, and accept the ideological definitions propagated about them, many gay people go to the medical profession seeking to be "cured". At the hands of the psychiatrists, etc, they will undergo many interrogations and/or physical tortures, which may undermine their whole personalities or turn them into sexual zombies. A small number, for fear of discovery, commit suicide or mutilate themselves. But most enter the "Gay Ghetto". The Gay Ghetto is that very restricted area of social life which at the present time is allowed to gay people by the police. Certain clubs, certain pubs, certain public lavatories ("cottages"), certain open spaces, are available to gay people. Even here they are not free from harassment, which is undertaken sporadically and indiscriminately with the purpose of keeping gay people insecure, restricted and out of the public eye B. Reform. Since feelings of attraction to people of the same sex are to be found among those groups who in their general life situation benefit from existing society, numbers of people have hoped to gain a place for respectable homosexuals in respectable society. The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) is one such grouping. As with any other interest group, at certain periods some reforms can be won from capitalism. These reforms are never secure, never give the group an equal status, and never go far enough. The reform of the law in England in regard to homosexuals is a good example of the results of such actions (it does not apply in Scotland at all). While consenting males over 21 may at the moment engage in homosexual relations in pri vate, the Act is so hedged around with restrictions as to make the situation for gay people only marginally better, and indeed there have been more prosections since than before.
C. Revolt. Both the retreatist and the reformist response of gay people involve the general acceptance of the ideology of capitalist society. The GLF and its counterparts in other countries (FHAR in France for instance), like the women's liberation movement, stem from and in turn contribute to the challenge to that ideology which has been developing in numberous ways among sections of youth, a challenge stimulated in the early 60s partly by the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, and in this country by the CND. GLF is a recent development. It only became significant in 1970-71, as young gay people, usually already radicalised in other ways, began to challenge the basic definition of themselves presented by all "responsible" sources in our society, and thus came into open conflict with them. Gay people began to "come out"-be publicly identified as gay with slogans "Proud to be Gay", "Gay is Good" etc. They refused to accept the restrictions demanded by the authorities and made ridiculous court proceedings taken against them. The Gay Liberation Manifesto published in late 1971, explicitly rejects the capitalist system and the institution of the family. Groups from the GLF have shown their solidarity with the working class by taking part in the trade union demos against the IRB and anti-imperialist demos, as well as attacking some symbols of sexism such as the Miss World Contest, and contesting the reactionary forces around the Festival of Light.
TACTICS While a fairly explicit rejection of capitalism GLF member, the actual practice of the movement is very diffuse, and subject to immense diversionary pressures. Because "coming out" itself represents such a big emotional step for most people, a part of the movement has given support to those doing this an almost total priority, turning away from public activity. Others have felt the prime task is to link with reformist gay people in CHE. This gay "nationalism" can frequently turn to hostility against all out groups, and in reality represents a road back to the ghetto or reformism. For instance, Gay News has recently carried features about gay marriages in the United States without noticeable critical comment. Still others have become so involved with trying to create a new life style in communes and in personal relationships that it has become an end in itself, and thus utopian, for there are no solutions to problems of personal relationships in a capitalist system. Sometimes this can become a tyrannous new moral code as pressure is put on people to be bi-sexual, to have multiple relationships, or when "radical feminist" men attack gay women for refusing to wear skirts, make up etc. As with other specially oppressed groups, the distrust of authority among some members has spilled over into a refusal to organise meetings in any effective way, and some groups have become paralysed and so inactive. In London but not elsewhere in Britain, gay women and transvestists/trans-sexuals have felt it necessary to organise separately from gay men GAY LIBERATION AND THE REVOLUTIONARY LEFT Thus it cannot be said that Gay Liberation represents a coherent political movement anymore than the Women's Liberation movement does. But this in no way makes its existence as an autonomous movement less significant, Firstly, the left has consistently underemphasised and neglected the analysis of revolutionary positions in relation to family and sexual relationships GLF is forcing us to make good this lack and providing some of the ideas to do it. Secondly the GLF is exposing the reactionary nature of the psychiatric profession and the repressive legal system, sometimes in quite dramatic ways. Thirdly the more politicised members are moving out to challenge bourgeois ideology with in sections of the working class. But above all, if the gay movement does not continue to go forward, the reactionary tendencies symbolised by the Festival of Light will move onto the offensive against gay people, and possibly begin to link up with the fascist/ racist movements into a really dangerous diversionary threat. Thus we need the GLM. Gay people also need the political support of the revolutionary left and the wider labour movement, for an introverted gay movement cannot resist serious attacks by the state. It is the job of revolutionaries, especially gay revolutionaries, to intervene in GLF for a broader revolutionary perspective, away from introversion and gay nationalism, reformism and utopianism to an interventionist policy.
Tho Rod Male 20 lanuary 1973 Pade Б