sion':
This is also a view held by several black political groups who realise from bitter experience that they are in far more physical danger from racist police and the racism of the whole state machine, than from the handful of fanatics in the Front.
But the Front is not simply another instrument of physical repression that the ruling class may choose to use against the workers' BUNCHELL The trained, disciplined and specially equipped forces of the police and the army are a much more efficient military weapon than the rabble of fascist bands. But while the special Patrol Group may be able to do a very efficient job of breaking up picket lines and mopping up demos, it will not recruit very many rank-and-file workers to its side in so doing. Repression of this sort will tend to unity and strengthen the workers' movement, as workers band together against what is clearly a common danger and a common Fascism, on the other hand, is a political movement that confuses, divides and weakens the working class (white workets, the unemployed, the unorganised) and enlists their aid in doing the ruling class's job of attacking the organised workers movement, under the banner of fighting the blacks, the Reds, etc.
'RESPECTABLE'
Precisely because it is a political movement, the Front is at the moment concerned to play down its fascist character, and appear as a "respectable' organisation of patriots. Far from plotting military asaults on workers' organisations. the Front's lesders are more concerned with calming down the hotheads wbo are itching to 'get at the Reds', (Although, of course, the racist and anticommunist propoganda of the Front does encourage such actions.)
The Front's attempts to take to the streets do not (yet) stem from a desire to engage in street battles with the Reds. What they want is to publicly present themselves as a mass political movement, a 'normal' and respectable feature of British political life, albeit one that has a militant image and is prepared to tight in a determined way for its aims. They war to appear do areas Tre as possible to the tens of thousands of Red Weekly: 5 September 1974 Page 4 election of Hitler to the Chanceliorship without serious mass resistance.
INSTRUMENTS
The influence of reactionary ideas such as racism, and the growth of fascist organisations like the NF on the basis of such ideas, will be important instruments to try and bring about the political defeat of the workers movement. The musleadership supplied by the reformist bureaucrats who presently bead the mass workers' organisations will only lead the working class up a blind alley to the ruling class's political slaughterhouse.
So the fight against the reformist - Labour Party and trade union bureaucrats, the fight against the ruling chiss and its state machine, and the tight against the fascist organisations and the reactionary ideas they peddle, are not separate struggles They are all aspects of the some struggle - the struggle to lead the workers' movement forward to confront and solve the problems produced by the capitalist crisis, and to defeat the attempts of the ruling Enoch Powell - the long "Will he?-Won't ha?' is over.
EVER SINCE the defeat of the Tory Goverment, various supporters of the ruling class have come forward with a whole series of exotic and nasty schemes for defeating the working class.
These range from the crusade of Lord Longford to group all true patriots, the private armies of Sir Walter Walker, and the slightly more serious strike-breaking squads of Colonel Surling. are bigger than fascist ones. Such activity does not strike at the political roots of the NF, and does not effectively black their ability to conduct their political campaign.
The most powerful weapon against the Front is the mass bostility that many, many workers feel towards fascism, and the mass anger that they will express against the Pront when they recognise its true charac ter and importance.
The anti-fascist movenient must tap and organise those feelings, Effective action against the fascists, clearly backed by such mass sentiment, will not win sympathy for the Front anong politically confused workers. Instead it will cause them to ask how it is that the activities of the Front evoke such strong reactions from among their fellow workers, and think again about their position as workers and their reactionary and racist beliefs.
At the same time, the unti-fascist movement must extend its work against the NF to the other areas of their activity. Their election activity. their work inside the unions, and