In August 1959 the United Tenants Association in the London borough of St. Pancras set in motion the big gest mass rents struggle since the end of the war.
On 29 July the new Tory majority of the Council introduced a differental rents scheme which would have doubled or in some cases even trebled existing rents.
WILDFIRE
Opposition and resentment to the Tory tent scheme spread like wildfire, Committees of tenants were set ap in every block. More than 25 tenants associations were formed, and all affiliated to the UTA.
On 1 September, 4,000 tenants ronged the streets of St. Pancras in a mile-long procession from Kentish Town to the Assembly Rooms at St Paocras Town Hall.
Miases of people wete involved on a day-to-day basis. At one time the UTA were sending out as many in s0 women every night banging on the councillons" doors. They also pat out leaflets up to three times a week.
The rent scheme was supposed to start on 4 January 1960. In the early stages 80 per cent of the 4,200 tenants affected withheld their increases. The chiel Tory pokesman, Councillor Prior, went frantic and warned that ... unless there are special circumstances a tenant who gets in arrears is liable to be evicted."
As January went on the pumber of tenants witholding the increases sumped. Some of the local Labour Party leaders amongst the tenants crawied along to the rent office and paid their rents-a move given maximum publicity by the press and the FIGHT The tenants decided to fight the eviction threat by concentriting the struggle around two tenants. Other rent strikers paid up their rents and everything was built around defending Don Cook and Arthur Rowe, who faced eviction.
Barricades were thrown up around the flats, Plans were made for a 24bour picket of both flats... workers all over the borough pledged support.
At five o'clock one morning 800 police and the bailiffs swooped. A desperate two-hour defence was mounted. Oil was poured over the advancing police and bailiffs.
But the mass of the pickets could not reach the beleagured Don Cook and his family, as the police blocked off the approaches to his flat in lines three deep. Cook and Rowe were evicted.
From then on the opposition began to crumble. The State had stepped up the violence. The working class movement had oaly two allarnatives. either it could work for a victory for Labour at the next el ections or turn to the broad working class movement for solidarity strike actions Red Weekly 14 November The Communist Party, scared of the consequences of an open con frontatton with the State, opted tor the position of returning a Labour cil clections.
CAPITULATED
From the streets to the ballot boxes became the new line. A Labour Council was elected, But the law relating to council rents was interpreted and enforceable by the District Auditor with authority to enforce surcharges on councillors. The new majority meant nothing as Labour capitulated to the Auditor and enforced the increases, The tenants of St. Pancras waged an heroic struggle. But heroism is not enough. In these struggles it is vital to place no reliance in the constitutional machinery and those Labour leaders who so fervently belBy proposing such a situation, the tenants leaders dug their own graves.
Ipalise these dwellings of the labour and housing movement.
majority in the London County Cour related to their incomes. erty with the aim of forcing the local authorities to immediately munic The Housing Committees should fight for the local authorities to peg all rents at pre-Housing Finance Act level, end all interest payments to the money-lenders - the records of the councils should be made available for public inspection; and extend the public works departments to carry out a rapid programme of repairs and building If local firms try to sabotage building programmes by withholding materials or trying to charge high prices for them, then the Councils should encourage the workers to occupy the factories and purchase the materials directly from the workers' committees.
A campaign must be organised right through the working class move ment for the nationalisation of the building industry: the building supply industry; all the land - except that owned by owner occupiers; and all the building societies and insurance companies.
All people displaced by re-development must be adequately re-housed, Councils must be forced to submit all re-development plans to conferences Housing must be provided for all, based on people's needs at rents major issues involred. ations,
The Discreet Charm of Bourgeois Democracy is the title of a film produced by the Agitprop department of the FCR (Revolutionary Communist Front French Section of the Fourth Internationall to explain the nature of fascismn and of bourgeois democracy.
The film, whose dubbed English version was first shown at the Red Weekly Rally in London last Friday, has been shown in France to tens of thousands of workersand students.
IMMIGRANT WORKERS Two themes are taken up and Hustrated throughout the hlm.The first is the special character of fascism us a capitalist tendency.
The French lascists, like the National Front in this country, concentrate their fire on the immig rant workers (prodominantly from Notthern Africa), organising mass altacks on their homes and shops. Several dozen Immigrant workers vere killed in France in 1973 by fascist commando groups.
The decline of French imperialIsm, to whose former "heights" French fascism would like to return, is attributed to the immigrant workers who are responsible for the decline of living standards'. ANTI-SEMITISM Together with this goes the strong streak of antisemitism which has always characterised the French Right. An amusing sidelight in the film is an interview with a French Fascist 'intellectual', who denies that he is an anti-semite in one sentence only to reaffirm his fears that "there are too many Jews holding high office in France' in the next.
The anti-semitic strain is further stressed by a leader of Ordre Nou cau (New Order) at the rally on 21 Thus modern French fascism is able to unite its old themes with its new preoccupations.
SMASH IT NOW The Freach comrades of the Fourth International argued that democracy these tendencies had to be smashed and destroyed before they had a chance to grow. The struggle which they waged on this question on the by the French Government.
This in turn saw the entire working class movement in France united to demand that the ban be meant that the Ligue Communiste's actions found a very deep echo from a broader coalition, the Goverament decided to ban a whole series of fascist meetings, including onc the victory of the Chilean coup.
too, the fascists of the MS draw on their old traditions. They speak quite openly of their auns, which are to destroy matcrialism.commista and marxism and defend the nation'. In case the faithful still catertain some doubts, the MSI gangster spells out his perspective: "We would like lo physically exterCP night of 21 June led to their hanning lifted. The tradition of the Resistanice its logical conclusion, inside the French workers' movement.
Fearing even more vigorous responses which had been planned to celebrate The film also shows that in Italy different traditions"
italist state the working class. minate every atember of the Italian STATE APPARATUS The second theme stressed by the film is the absurdity of the idea that the state apparates can be dem ocratised" and 'neutralised". Footage from Chile demonstrates the bloudy result when such a view is taken to The project of the Union of the Left in France, which is based on a sunilar model, would run into exacthy the same sort of problems. But Just as the late Allende used to say that "Chile is not Brazil... we have different traditions so today the French CP leader Marchais declares that France is not Chile. we have To the strengthening of the capis shown in the very detailed training given to groups such as the CRS (a more sophisticated version of the SPG in this country) - the reformists reply is to make more concessions and as this process continues it demobilises The fascists of Ordre Nouveau prepare to "defend the nation' on 21 June 1973 In contrast to this approach, the sections of the Fourth International in France and in Spain are making propaganda for workers" sell-defence as the best safeguard against both legal and extra-legal repression. In so doing they are carrying out the line adopted by the 10th World Congress of the Fourth Internationa 'The most effective response to this danger is to revive the reflexes of self-defence and properation for workers' milities on the basis of worker and stud ant strike pickets. But it has afreedy proved indispensable in Spain and France for the revolutionary organisations them selves to take initiatives in self-defence. This may be the case tomorrow in other Europian countries.
Such initiatives must be concaived und executed in such a way that they will be understood and endorsed by the work ers, fink up with the workers' organisation traditions of sell-dafence against fascists, encourage more massive forms of self-defence on the part of the working ices' C. Howard
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discreet charm of bourgeois