Socialist Challenge No. 133, 7 February 1980
The scan: sc-n133-feb-07-1980.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.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist Challeng 30 WOMEN DIED FROM BACKSTREET ABORTION IN1966 NOT ONE DIED IN 1978
STOP CORRIE'S ANTI-ABORTION BILL
Deaths from illegal abortions: 1966 1977 1978 1980
Hospital admissions due to septic abortions:
1966 1976 1980 ?
30
1
?
2,560 700
'Shot-gun' marriages: 1967 1978 1980
In 1978, just over a decade after the introduction of the 1967 Abortion Act, there were 142,344 abortions in Britain. A leading antiabortionist, Professor
75,000 30,000 ?
Scarisbrick, says that the Corrie Bill -which has its third reading in the House of Commons this Friday - would eliminate two-thirds of these...
In other words, 100,000 women a year may be forced to turn to the backstreets.
No.133 7 February 1980 20p strikers price special
Page 2 scan of this page
Socialist, Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London NI. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9: Distribution and advertising 01-359 8371. For theGeneral Strike
OUR POLICIES
C'apitalion is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers hut of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes thar the ise vital tasks confronting
socialists ar:
• To hund broad-based class Strupee lendencis in
labour movement.
grouping engether militants holding i wide range of political views.
• To begin to fighi crealion unified democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through
application of united front tactics, begin to be seen as an
thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The striggle for seeks to unite the fight of
workers aeainst the bosses with that of other oppressed layers ef society - women, black penple. gays strugkling lor ¡heration. This socialism can only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all necessary means the power of the capitalist state. infinitely more democrate , Our socialism
I than what exists in Britain with full rights lor prilitical parties and currents that des not lake up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models of socialism in the ISSR and Fastern Europe hare discredited incialim in the eses of millions of workers throughout He are opposed io ihem and will offer hall support 1o adl those fighting far socialist democrae?.
The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism has not only created market. created polities. Ther we tight for working clan unit! on an international scule. This unisy will in the long run be decisise in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America. one gra
In Britain if implies demanding the immediate withdraw al
letting ihe Irish people determine their own future.
The Communist parties in Europe are in crisis. Neither 'Eurocommunist the pro-Moscow wings have any
for overthren of the capitalist state. ten revolutionars socialist parties
than hefore. Conditions more Jaspurable than over the preveding three decades. But such parties can end! built rejecting sectarianism and internal democracy not as a luxury huties i rilal necessit!. This means ine tishl do oroanice factions and tendencies.
I you agree with there principles and Hanl involved actisities he Scialiss Challenge supporters in your area, fill in the torn helen and send it to bes.
interested in intermation about activities in my ares. •I minild ithe additional literature and enclose Sup to conser cord. I Delete it not applicables
Name....
AddresS Secialist Challenge ge 7 Febraary 1980
These should
Tories, trying to ease membership.
for the
events are moving today.
when the Labour Party
enough.
socialism also being
their
'HI, Joe.
we'd like your help... all An
Bingham
Horrid. Daily, world Horld
IF
Atrica debate on
Friday uf overwhelmingly Ireland and
women's rights should be harshly restricted.
пОг Labour Party,
that abortion choice of a woman herself. Yet John
CYPE
• fanatical supporters are
to plough ahead -seeing
leader of Commons.
PENNY
member of Abortion in committee organiser Marxist Group, regardless of
More must go on
not only to
and in practice.
For: twelve
fighting off attacks
just on medical grounds but
Page 2
EDITORIAL
general strike, given that virtually every right-wing
trade union luminary has been hinting at the same
ching over the last week (see page 5). For them it's
a way of trying to get small concessions off the
the pressure from their They won't call a general strike.
Instead they issue calls for days of action like confetti. But it's not just empty talk. real tendency towards a general strike in the way
For a start, craft and trade divisions are being overcome in the struggle against closures and cuts. Divisions between the role of the trade unions and that of the Labour Party were also given a knock
called a demonstration against the cuts last year after the TUC had failed to fulfil its congress mandate on the cuts quickly
The boundary between legality and illegality is
tested on kev issuer affecting
working class. The very right to take solidarity
action, picket and generally pursue a trade dispute
effectively has been exposed as a nakedly political
I'm ringing about those
sanctions those **** have got on Rhodesia.
We're taking in 20,000 gallons of crude and
imaginary phone conversation,
tbousands of calls like that must have been
behind the sanctions busting by major British
oil companies which was detailed in
Report fon which
government has decided to take no action).
companies plan
drastically affect the livelihoods of workers, So
does the government and the civil service. The
police organise picket breaking, raids on
ever it needed proving that "social' reasons. Parliament is undemocratic, the
John Corrie's Abortion Amendment Bill this
will oblige. A parliament dominated by men will decide whether or not
to abortion
The opinion of the public, the pamphlet British Medical Association, the
the trade unions and the majority of women is
should be the
Corrie, and his from • the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, are being allowed
backed by Norman St John Stevas, the Tory
the House of
DUGGAN, the National Campaign steering and women's of the International argues that what Parliament decides the abortion movement
the offensive. campaign should be launched,
get Corrie's Bill repealed, but to win the fight for a woman's right to choose in law
years the abortion movement has been on the defensive
on the 1967 AbortiontAct. The 1967 Act was the most liberal abortion law to be adopted in any western country. allowed women to have abortions not
for
WHAT DOES it mean for socialists to call for a issue for millions after the Denning judgement (see
page 4).
There is a TUC, by the trade union leaders.
the persistent might enquire. enough.
Yorkshire
and the South
the
Tap, Tapwho's there?
**** plots against unfriendly to the West.
but
the in strikes, and Tory organisations.
which New
AFTER CORRIE?
It has been vital to defend such legislation. But we also need to know what we'ré campaigning for as well as what we're against. The 1967, leaves the decision in the hands of two doctors. Availability of abortion varies widely.
Some Brent women in.
Mixed reelnes have explained that many doctors refuse to implement the 1967 Act:
'Only one three. of consultants in our local hospital is prepared to do abortions, means that 70 per cent of Brent women who obtain an abortion have
Abortion:
Our struggle
for control
LOOK WHO'S
CHOOSING
FOR US!
Finally there is proof in South Wales from the 200,000 workers who stopped work on 28 January.
Ah, some scepties might say, but that wasn't a general strike, that was only a day of action. True enough - but that limitation was not imposed by the Welsh workers, it was imposed by the British
But still, wasn't it only a regional development,
Once again, true But then the day of action in South on 18 February wouldn't be just a regional development if the TUC had obeyed its mandate on the question of action against cuts.
The current programmes of the Wales TUC
. Yorkshire Trades Councils are palliatives in the current crisis. In particular, the Wales TUC's call for postponement of the closures for two years is worse than useless, as a Corby correspondent pointed out in this paper last week.
But no matter what the particular starting point for a general strike, it inevitably poses the question of power. And power, in the first instance, means
immigrants, and robberies. The secret service
governments and groups
None of these activities is of any interest to
the state's eavesdroppers, whose main concern
is to spy on left-wing MPs (including those in
Labour governments), trade unionists involved
left-wing campaigns
As Duncan Campbell has revealed in the Statesman, technological developments
enable thousands of phone conversations to be
secretly recorded and relevant extracts to be
selected by & computer and printed out.
way knowing women have tried to get an abortion and failed. Women have been known Act Wall long for appointment that they cannot have the operation carried out within the vital initial twelve week period.
Of course, their a decision to have or not to have a child she has to weigh up all sorts of " still factors. The price of houses, nursery facilities, the community in which she the lives, the work she does all come into play. Pro-choice campaigners have which taken up these issues too.
But the 1967 Act wonen are not intelligent enough to New pamphlet from the National Abortion Campaign, 25p not including postage, from NẠC, 374 Grays Inn Rd, London WCI.
demanding
limited
the ruling class to accede to them.
closed down by steelworkers are already using with their pickets. 10 halt the Tory offensive. has long been
their endorsement. engages
and and the rest are doing now.
class halted. to go to the private sector. We have | make such an important decision as
many
à hospital movemen beze
when a woman makes Congress
time to winning Party campaign
HOSe TRI
clear
next manifesto.
We
restrictive
the future.
much choice
come under attack.
• women
to
against Corrie Centre
the existence of the Tory government. So while not
that every struggle should stop and change its demands to calling for the downfall of the government, socialists have to explain that this is inevitably where a general strike leads. Even if a government were to cave in completely to the
. demands of one general strike, then inexorably the working class would step up its demands to the point where it would be suicide for
Such a call therefore also means preparation a the rank and file level of the most effective precautions to ensure that the whole economy is
the same means that the flying
But between then and now the pressure should go on those who are in the position to call such strike action, the TUC leaders: resolutions should go to trade union bodies demanding that the TUC fully support the action of the Wales TUC with a general strike called throughout the rest of Britain
The apparatus of a totalitarian state, which the bogey of right-wing
politicians, is taking shape in Britain — with
While the mass media lengthy investigations into the
possible identity of secret service "moles" over
30 years ago, no inquiry is made into what MIS.
The files of the government and its various
agencies would make fascinating reading. Their
secrets are not kept in the interests of the
working class, but of our rulers. They should all
be exposed, and the surveillance of the working
having a child by themselves.
Whether or not Corrie's Bill is carried it's high time the pro-choice kind of law it would like to see that does allow women to choose. • The Labour Party and the Trades Union both committed • to request?. build on' the victory of trade union and Labour. support for the anti-Corrie and force the labour movement to debate out what kind of law it should sponsor. supporting a woman's right to choose.
The labour movement conference on abortion planned for the autumn and the national conference of NAC should debate out the terms of such a bill. The Labour Party must make a commitment to pass such legislation through Parliament in its
cannot be sure that anti-abortionists will stop at Corrie. If his
Would see even greater restrictions i Doctors and clinics that have been willing to give women as as possible under terms of the 1967 Act will very likely
But one thing is absolutely clear, Whatever happens in the Houses of Parliament over the next few weeks, will not be prepared to meekly accept John Corrie's attempts take control of their bodies.
Labour and. Tory MPs who dare to vote for this bill had better watch out because they'll have thousands of angry women at their heels Mixed Feelings, published by Brent c/o Brent Womer's 138 Miner Avenne, London NW10. 30p plus postage.
Page 3 scan of this page
WOMAN SUNNY TIMES Polls show 66per cent don't know about Corrie but Four out of five women want the right to choose
HOMENEWS
By Jude Woodward
romantic stories are usually the staple fare of Woman's Own. But this week, with the Corrie anti-abortion Bill about to begin its
mould to publish the findings of a specially commissioned Gallup
The poll reveals that 80 per
with a pregnancy should be left to the woman in consultation with her doctor — a clear indication that the women of this country do not want the Corrie Bill.
the people polled felt that the 1967 Abortion Act should either be kept as
Only 33 per cent felt that the law
and this included the small 10 per cent who felt abortion should never Findings
Last weekend the publication of the findings of a poll conducted by MORI for the Sunday similar theme revealed similar results. 56 per cent of those asked tell inal abortion legally available for want it, while only 29 per cent were
Whatever else John Corrie thinks he may be doing he can no longer claim to be giving the public what it wants. Least of all can he claim to be giving women what they want.
CYCL cent believe that the law should stay
proportion of Catholics who think abortion should never be allowed is whole, it is still only 20 per cent who hold this extreme view,
them most interesting.
Moralists
John Corrie has had plenty of evidence laid before him which shows that his Bill is not wanted except by a small: •of religious bigots.
The significant thing is that two such mainstream - if not downright 'establishment' papais published the figures prominence. Although the press in enera stil loves the core and horror of a good-old, bad abortion story there is the beginning of a change of attitude.
Perhaps the reality of returning
Times on a
should be all those who
when endorsed by such
moraists and
have She used to with such
victim Irfa Rayner's
to espouse, let
81 per cent of women feel it •61
their
doctors, whether or not to she
• 53 per cent of women feel
be • 80
available in case of contra-
61 per cent of people would
want an abortion if they or ahead
became way
pregnant as a result of rape.
The
available if it was discovered they
late in pregnancy they were
carrying a severely deformed to the backstreets' has sunk in on one or two well-placed newspaper people.
More likely they have been forced to wake up to the reality of public opinion in this country, particularly
been VITOENY prestigious bodies as the British Medical Association
Claire Rayner, who used to run the Sun's problem page and is very much behind Woman's Own's attack on the Corrie Bill, has a clear view.
nurse and remembers vividly when a young girl of about her age died in her arms, the
oi a backstreet abortionist words: 'If John the Corrie wants a Parliamentary caust
me offer him one... the provision of really effective and
per cent of women felt that if a woman became unintentionally pregnant while
in, past the menopause, she should be able to have an abortion.
per cent of women thought that if legal abortion was made more difficult to obtain then women would go
and seek some other to end an unwanted pregnancy. 62 per cent of women interreiwed would keep a child if
became unintentionally pregnant. In other words beike people anti-child. pro-choice does not easily available contraception for all. than we need this ill-advised, anti-life
insignificant person to have on our side, and her opinion is shared by most of the other "problem page advisers such as Marje Proops and Anna Raeburn.'
Angela Willans, of the Woman's One Core Gil: Spa elis ales that no one who: has heard 'hundreds genuine cries for help from unhappily pregnant' can really
view that aborțion irresponsible or particularly easy.
We should welcome this clear 'stand by Woman's Own, and by the
ANGELA WILLANS Grant's Problem Page that her job was sing before the inundated with letters from women desperate for help in unwanted pregnancies.
TO THE
CORRIE
AllI
Sunday Times, for it will certainly
However, we don't have a grea deal to thank the campaigning agaisnt the Corrie Bill Perhaps one of the most significan facts revealed by the Sunday Times MORI Poll is that only 33 per cent of the population knew that there was an anti-abortion making
of Parliament. The mass media can take
the credit for that. • hold either *All statistics mentioned on this
page are taken from the Gallup Poll commissioned. by unless otherwise stated.
who are now against the Bill - of Mary explained
utterly depres '67 Act. She was
ending Catholic campaigners
media for
two weeks ago
way
trol
"Is
Woman's Own St,
icluding post.
Socialist Challenge
The state of
things in
Parliament
THERE is a small glimmer of light on the Parliamentary front in the fight to stop the Corrie Bill. Only 98 MPs voted against the Second Reading of the Bill, but at a press conference last Friday, Willie Hamilton Labour MP revealed that he had a list of 160 MPs
committed to voting
He was optimistic that opponents of the Bill would actually turn up for the Third Reading the campaign outside Parliament has turned on the heat and most MPs now have no excuse for not knowing what is at
on the Tory benches, are known to
filibuster the committee stages of the
February is free for Corrie to return to the Commons, if it needs more
the same press conference on Friday, indicated she was confident the Bill would not come to a vote on Friday 8 February and would need at least a
is no vote on 15 February the Bill may return to the Commons on 29
whether there will be free time for it
National Abortion Campaign and the holding a meeting towards the end of February to discuss whether to have a campaign directed towards the House of Lords and other aspects of the way
Answering
the Church
IS anti-abortion pro-life?" is the title of a new pamphlet published by the Abortion Law Reform, Association. The pamphlet concentrates on the
Church's anti-abortion show the inconsistency of their attitade
Church's so-called pro-Fide attitude to the foetus is revealed fer what it really is - profoundly hook and suspicious of women as
A criticism of the pampalet woe be that it tends to concentrat
positive view of abortion.
anti-abortion jamphiet from ALRA,
London N1.
Febrassy 1900 Fee
Page 4 scan of this page
DON'T TRUST
Pickets of steel T
STRIKE NEWS
By Geoff Bell IN JANUARY 1977 Thompson Denning, PC, Master of the Rolls, Baron Denning of
"To every subject of this land, however powerful, I would use Thomas Fuller's words over 300 years ago, "Be you never so high that the law is above you"'
Last Friday the Law decided. that Denning's judgement prohibiting the picketing of private steel firms was itseif 'above', outside and in defiance of 'the law'. trade union movement collective sigh of relief.
But don't breathe too soon. The same day, the news came that James Prior intends to overturn previous decision of the Law Lords in the 'MacShane' case.
This was the judgement involving. the National Union which had sanctioned boycotting of a company not directly involved in a pay claim. Pror is out to remove legal immunity from those workers who take industrial action in support of disputes that do not involve them.
In other words under Prior's law pickets like those at the private steel plants Will liable financial damages. Because pickets wouldn't have the money to pay such fines, that would mean jail. Chis means what the unions have
¡in the House roundabout, they could lose in the House of Commons.
What of Denning himself? Will the 81-year old judge, who has had yet another of his turned, now be booted out? That would be rather difficult. To remove an appeal judge would require a vote in both Houses of Parliament. practice once someone judge he (well, more than 90 per cent of judges are male) is there for life.
Most of those who do become judges share the same upper background as Denning. In 1975, 68 per cent of the High Court judges appointed in the previous five years had been to public school.
From 1951 to 1968
EVEN if the Law Lords had upheld
Denning. all signs
thousands of steelworkers
have ignored his instructions.
Final was tac arall
week five of the steel strike.
IN WARRINGION,
Wednesday, Colin Herd, convenor of
the town's ISTC:
told Socialist Challenge:
ignored Denning. If the appeal goes
against us on Friday we'll still stay
out.'
Warrington steelworkers
been concentrating their efforts on
Walker's. steel
Blackbur,
in Eirope. Colin
maintained a 24 hour picket, with a
minimum
arrangements have been made for a
task force of 200 to be lodged within
ten miles of Blackburn in digs with
local sympathetic trade unionists.
'We've had the support of flying pickets from Rotherham and going to make an example of Waltake away the biggest brick xer 5 — and the rest will crumble.
In RISCA, SOUTH WALES the Denning ruling was totally ignored by 200 Lianwern pickets outside the private steel plant. inspector and three constables told the pickets that under the terms of the Denning judgement what they were doing was illegal. The cops were surrounded pickets why. Exit the police.
In SWANSEA last Thursday 200 pickets prevented Metal Box, which manufactures fooc cans. Swansea pickets also prevented the movement of finished goods from the Signodes factory. spite of union finished goods, supplies should the gates.
Socialist Challenge
Lords
drew
the
of Journalists
astonishingly low 1.2 per directly judges appointed working class
most ruling class buddies.
Lords believe it.
get to
cases it is REUSL who 'interpret' like Denning. becomes a average, 50
class over 900.
That
only an find themselves
would
message of
last
strike committee,
'We've
have
stockholders the largest stockholders explained: 'We've
and
Stocksbridge,
Shotton. We're
arrived gates of the Cashmore
One police
enquiring
anyone entering
This was in
instructions that picket littes. as opposed to steel be allowed through
7. February 1980
from Cal background. This why people like Denning, even if it means breaking the existing law, can unions always be relied on to side with their
Britain'.
But perhaps the fact that the Law Lords overturned Denning suggests that there is such a thing as good old unbiased British justice? Don't you
The steel union was lucky to even
the Law Lords in the first place. Only one in six of those who appeal to the Law Lords are giyen the right to have their appeal heard. In
not the Law Lords the law but judges
The Law Lords deal with, on
cases à yeah. The tive divisions of the Court of Appeal, over which Denning presides, handle
means that if Prior's attempt to outlaw a whole series of traditional union rights is successful, pickets may — at some future time,
appealing
country of police brutality against steel workers.
But as well as defying Denning
the steel strike throughout Wales has
seen the intervention of the SPG on
In PONTYPOOL Saturday
police brutality against pickets was
JUDGES OR
LAW LORDS
cent of | justice to Lord Denning. But they expect little mercy from gentleman. Just 1291 year complained that, "The power of the perhaps the challenge rule of law What Denning and the rest of his class mean is that the power of the 12 million trade unionists in this country
DENNING?
ANY trade unionist, steelworker or picket who would welcome the opportunity of having an exchange of views with Lord Denning might care to note that he will be making two public appearances shortly to promote his book The Due Process of Law.
Denning will be signing copies of POLICE attempting to break up a picket line in Middlesbrough; there are reports from all over the
denounced by Paul Flynn, a Labour councillor. Flynn was speaking at a 2,000 demonstration, caled by the ISTC in support of the strike. Haydn Matthews a member of the South Wales NUM executive also spoke and called for the 10 March strike action
could prove a 'challenge to the rule' that un-elected
he appointed people like himself.
And just because the Law Lords greatest ruled Denning off-side doesn't alter
in the fact that in a democratically-run
society neither Denning nor the Law Lords would have the right to make the decisions they have in the first place.
WANT TOMEET
this work at:
LONDON, 8 February, 4.30-5.30pm.
Bookshop, Bell Yard, Temple Bar, WC2.
OXFORD, 9 February, 11.30-12.30pm. Blackwell's bookshop. to be brought added that the aim should be to bring down the government before the year reception for this call.
In Essex University responded to a call
over-nald. lifeButterworths
fund and
announced representing carry on
ideal world the calling been a mixed drivers.
AS WICK I0 Contrast
strike
forward. Matthews
received a good Reporters:
SCUNTHORPE students at Atwell,
from steelworkers and joined a pickel line at Mistley dock. The students also collected £200 towards the strike
offered accommodation and full use of union facilities to the strikers. The day after Denning had
This verdict delegates the 6,000 Scunthorpe steelworkers voted unanimously that the ISTC executive should ignore the Appeal Court ruling.
In CORBY steelworker John's reaction to the Denning judgement was: 'We'll fill the jails because we'll
picketing.' Stocksbridge Mick added: "If the police start arresting people, in an
TUC should start other sections out. But we don't rely on the TUC.'
In ABERDEEN contingents of pickets have been arriving every week in an attempt to halt the movement of steel on its way to lne nasm ut North Sea. The dockers and members of the National Union of Seamen are supporting the action but there bas
response from lorr Members of the strike committee are travelling as far north
Use off any been d move steel out to the rigs.
But Pat Shevlane, the Scottish
co-ordinator, has expressed disappointment at the lack of support
Scottish TUC and this the backing steelworkers have been given by the
In SHEFFIELD a march and
strong held Saturday in solidarity with the strike. Joe Whelan called upon the TUC to declare a one day general strike.
Bill Graham AnD Henderson, Barry Wilkins, Ann Levy.
Page 5 scan of this page
GENERAL STRIKE?
SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE
HOME NEWS
By Valerie Coultas A GENERAL strike is one of the highest expressions solidarity. It inevitably pits the working class against the ruling class.
A general strike movement can develop from the base or be led from the top. A look at what happened in France 44 years ago shows what is at stake..
In 1936 French society entered a period of intense crisis. Fascism had triumphed Germany and was becoming a threat
ås well. Following electoral victory of the Popular Front in April 1936, a general strike took place that came from the base up.
A great strike wave swept across France on the. basis économic demands for higher wages. The strike movement developed from below, starting with two successful
' A general strike cannot be far off! We are in spitting distance of it. It's a 1926 situation." SID WEIGHELL, general secretary, National Union of Railwaymen.
strikes at Le Havre and Toulouse. The movement rapidly support, becoming: confrontation between capital and labour.
At the end of May nearly all the engineering factories in 'region were out on strike and in the next few days they were joined by textile, distribution, printing and other workers. Factories were occupied in a direct challenge to the rule of the bosses. class, seized with panic, concessions, known as the Matignon Agreement, including massive
across the board holidays.
Giving concessions succeed in subduing the class. but gave it tresh inspiration. They began to raise new demands,
wage and the nationalisation factories.
In one area of Paris the Hotchkiss workers issued a call for an elected central strike committee tepresentatives from 34 factories.
On 11 June the country was at fever pitch and the capital ablaze with rumours that a demonstration to the city centre was preparation. Thorez, the leader the French CP, addressed a meeting of Paris Communists. But he could
'A general strike is the last thing people in responsible positions like me want — but if it's the only thing left to you' BILL SIRS, general secretary of the ISTC.
see only one way forward: "We need to know how to end a strike' that was menacing "national security', he said.
Instructions followed Thorez on how to bring the strike to an end. L'Humanité, the CP's newspaper, explained his actions:
'We think it impossible to pursue any policy that would risk endangering the security of France in the face of the Hitlerite threat'.
The Russian diplomat, Witvinov. made it even clearer:
"The essential point is that France should not allow her military strength to be weakened. We hope no interna-
betore
the
primarily
gained all-out
the Paris
caterings
The ruling
gave
pay and paid
did not
working
of
tional disturbance designs of the Reich'. to group The bureaucrats
local Union wanted
under Party or French of anything to damage it.
were argued mood of the encouraged. from
Maxim
LEON BLUM
will favour the
in the Soviet an alliance Western powers against Hitler. Stalin had already signed a pact with the French government in 1935 and he didn't want the French Communist
workers. doing
Trotskyists in France at the time were few in number, but those there
that the revolutionary masses should be Concessions won now would be taken away again unless the private movement went onto the offensive,
coking
May 1936: France at fever pitch—
WHAT KIND OF
A general strike always pits the working class against the ruling class, raising the question: "Who rules!'
they argued, and this meant workers organising armed defence forming workers' councils coordinate control of production; distribution and to move towards the formation of a workers' government.
The Popular Front government saw that these militants expressed the
LORD Denning's attempts to divide the steelworkers have failed.
sector steelworkers 110,000 in the public sector to stand united against the steel bosses and the Tory government.
On 10 March the Welsh miners have called for an indefinite strike against the threatened closure of steel plants in Port Talbot and Llanwern and the proposed imports of cheap
coal from abroad by British Steel Corporation.
On 18 February the Yorkshire Association of Trades Councils has called for a genera strike against cuts in their area. The stage is set for the British movement to take on the Tories.
The power and confidence to win is not lacking. Even at Hadfield's in Sheffield, where there was supposed to be opposition to strike action,
four votes against coming out last Monday.
But, despite a lot of talk of a general strike, no one is giving the decisive lead that is necessary, least of
revolutionary aspirations
and French working class. Their paper La
lintte Ouvrière while L'Humanité hysterical attack 'provocateurs' for daring to argue for revolutionary ideas.
The French CP then, as now, had
Now is the time for action
all the body that has the power to 15,000 coordinate such action - the General joined
Frank Chappie, chairing the TUC Nationalised Industries discussion on the threatened closures in steel, persuaded the Welsh miners to hold off indefinite strike action until the TUC had tried further talks with the government.
Now It seems as if the TUC are trying to persuade the not to back all-out strike action on March 10 against the closures at Port South
The Tories have made it clear that they will CIDE labour nationalised industry
making high enough profits for the
The f48 million that Mr Nicholas Edwardes Secretary Wales, jobs in Wales is a pittance compared to the £300 million that the BSC is prepared to spend on getting workers in the steel industry to sell their jobs.
movement NUM.
The
were holidays.
prepared
and
socialism, capitalism.
with revolutionary
That's of the fight
confiscated, launched
the to reformism.
right to the end.
Matthews, speaking miners
Committee
was too
Welsh TUC
jobs any that not Miners
of State for Token has procured to create new
committees
a mass following inside the working class. When it argued 'Everything for
Front, everything through the Popular Front' the mass
was disarmed unless it
'The British TUC should follow the example of the Welsh TUC and call a one day strike.
JOE WHELAN, general secretary, Nottingham
moved on to challenge the reformist leaders and bourgeois figures inside tnal ropula rion bovernicul
French capitalists soon counter-attacked. All the gains won in the Matignon agreements of 7 June
liquidated, except paid The • Popular Hront collapsed, not having satisfied fully either the needs of the working class or the rulno class. The ground wa
for the Hitler-Pétain dictatorship which succeeded in the task of destroying the organised workers movement in France.
Reformist leaders like Leon Blum
Thorez will act in a similar fashion today as they did in 1936. When it comes to the crunch, when the choice is between capitalism and
always choose
'Serious industrial consequences will follow' if the talks between the TUC and the government over the steel cuts produce no positive results:
TUC Steel Committee
They always have more respect for the institutions and idea of the ruling class than the power and needs of the working class.
As in the '30s, so today, it is only those militants who arm themselves
clear, perspective that wil give a lead when the going gets touglt.
why, while it's possible to alongside CP members and Labour Party members in building mass actions against the Tories, it's vital to build a revolutionary socialist party that gets across the alternative
party that prepared to see the struggle through
Hadwyn miners' representative 700 steelworkers Pontypool over the weekend, put it this way: 'The Tories are waging war on the whole working class and can only be beaten by the broadest possible solidarity
When he suggested that 10 March
far away and the misers be broug forward while the steelworkers went still out he got unanimous agreener
He's quite right. If the pay chi of the steelworkers is to be settled to their satisfaction and jobs in nation alised industries are 1o be : saved NOW is the time to strike.
and steelworkers si not wait for the TUC to call for general strike. Workers at the bas these industries know that the are at stake if this battle is los
solidarity with thi workers is not caough. Strike
trade
Page 6 scan of this page
STRIKE NEWS
sang the
metal workers' union in West Germany.
his replies.
cross national frontiers.
THE BRITISH steelworkers, just like those in France, are told that they should raise productivity the achieved by the steel industry in West Germany.
Yet it was in West Germany, the country which is held up as the model for 'social peace", and in that branch
industry which determination' said pacified the working class and put an end to class struggle - steel workers engaged in a bitter six-week strike to demand a 35-hour week.
When the steel crisis 1974, cut-throat competition out between the giants in the West. 1978, some 100,000 steel workers in West Europe lost their job, and a further 100,000 were put on shorttime working.
Production dropped by 20 per
and prices climbed by 50 cent. It was not long before the EEC inter ere The reached between the steel producers allowed them to raise prices and at the to safeguard their profitability by introducing protectionist measures, particularly agallist imports of steel from Japan. Plan
The plan for rationalisation and new investment puts profits first, so that the victims of the technological progress' are the steelworkers, who are robbed of their job: In country after country, they are refusing to pay that price.
In West Germany, IG-Metall the Metal : Industry industrial union with 2.6m members,
which the steelworkers organised.- declared that it would take up the fight for a 35-hour week
in 1978. The union aimed to show that possible unemployment by sharing without loss of pay, so that work can be distributed to everyone instead of imposing unemployment.
Strikes West
decided by secret ballot. 155,000 steelworkers entitled to vote (only union members are allowed to
vote) 95 per cent took part in the ballot, and 87 ner. cent strike. Only 8 per cent voted against.
With such overwhelming support for action. backed by
meetings which over 120,000 workers
attended the steel barons ottered Su
socki paid leave. They refused to
Eak: any concession on reducing the
Offer
Tie aques of meani an
adbronzi three days ieave for those
aged over 30, and as much as an extra
interist Challenge 7. Febraary 1980
The day French
and German
steelworkers
'Internationale
FOR 16 years, Jakob Moneta was editor of Metall, the journal of the
When he spoke last week to 500 electricians on strike at the Port Talbot steel works they gave him an ovation. The electricians asked him about the kind of demands they should be raising, and applauded
Here Jakob Moneta, a member of the West German section of the Fourth International, describes the strike for a 35-hour week in the West German steel industry, and how the struggle over jobs needs to
their levels + that
began in broke steel-producing 1974 to
per
'understanding'
meeting in Sheffield last week
the union turned it down.
As . one. Of leaders put it: against more paid leave. ¡Unian, an steelworkers went on strike. barons retaliated are had not involved in the strike.
The strikers'
thousand pickets work
to hold out.
Germany are Out of Barons
win this battle, voted Ic
'taboo catalogue' 22 mass forbidden to concede.
government shown
Stat *74, Hiesi supposed economic miracle
employers, Page 6
JAKOB MONETA - speaking to the steelworkers at a Socialist Challenge
nine days for those under 21 - but
the regional union "We are not at all But we did hot start this battle in order to win a few more pleasant hours under the arilly. marvelous! sun in spain and come back to find that we no longer have a job. We are fighting to keep our job!
On 28: November: 1978, 40,000 the
The steel •Dy • but way. 30,000 steelworkers whom the union
spirit magnificent. On Christmas eve; four
covered the They set up Christmas trees hung with Easter eggs to show how long they were prepared
•But the steel barons decided to
and they had common strategy worked out by the employers" association. It included a
Line unlon demands which the employers were
Among these was the reduction of the working
institute had 2 cul in lne working peek by just one hour would
enempioyment by 300,000 Germany the - has car had one million unemployed. For the
certain amount of
unemployment has a positive benefit - it weakens the working class.
This is what a meeting of the steel employers was told by the man who led their offensive, a former major in the general headquarters of Hitler's
"The strike is an attack must be beaten back. There must be no doubt about the determination of
employers' association and its You cannot go in in a small You must do it with all the forces you have.'
When of the employers suggested that such tactics might leac to defeat, as they had done 33 years before when . the German military tried to put them into practice, former major replied: 'It is true that we have lost the war, but we have won many battles.'
Unfortunately, after which lasted six weeks, IG-Metall lost the battle for the 35-hour week. But I am sure that the working class in West Europe, wich is carrylig u the fight against unemployment, will win this war.
Strike
The main reason the strike in West Germany was lost was because it was not spread to the steel plants supplying the car industry which at that time was experiencing a boom. The union leadership did not want to be held responsible for stopping the
industry endangering upswing in the economy:
The union leadership showed
FRENCH steelworkers -their resistance to closures last year gained support from Ger much less determination employers. But it would be a wild exaggeration to say that the strike led to defeat. leave. The however. is that the 4u-nour remains in the contract until the end • of 1983, and this applies to the whole metal industry.
In a secret ballot of the workers, 50 per cent voted to accept the new agreement and 41 per cent voted against it. But of those steel workers actually strike, there was a majority of No votes.
Studies
Meanwhile studies about a third of the 8m jobs industry in West Germany could be replaced by robots and computers in the coming years, and the recession is now deepening. show that the growth rate will tend towards one per cent a year in the advanced capitalist countries, which means even more unemployment.
The fight against unemployment, which began in West was then taken up in France, is now happening really needed is for us to go into this fight together, internationally
The 100,000 workers who demon-
which
to Britain
From LCR (Luxembourg section of the Fourth Interthe national)
WIDESPREAD British steel strike is being won from strike the trade unions in Luxembourg where jobs are under the EEC's Davignon Plan to rationalise the industry
The federation, the dominant in the steel industry, has sent a telegram to the British unions saying: 'We have Luxembourg that under no circumstances will we allow Luxembourg which might sabotage aLLY delivery
your action. part in further solidarity action along with the International Metalworkers Federation ...'
We ourselves leaflets urging solidarity at the three
Succ
than the
steel We won six weeks paid well. flaw in the agreement,
week they welc
The and the CGT, steel
was engaged in the Europe
metal
• show. that multinational in
Block us out. bosses out?'
Germany and ployed in But what's
and this
Luxembourg
unions halt steel
Dudelange).
support
equally threatened
initiatives important union borders OGB-L, which is through
informed the
our demands:
We are ready to take redundancies!
*For loss of pay, with have distributed
plants (Arbed-Belval, steelworkers!'
strated in Paris early last year against the annihilation of jobs in the French
industry understood this very When a small delegation German steelworkers from the Ruhr Valley appeared at the demonstration
greeted with mighty chorus of the 'Internationale'.
: French Communist Party the CP-dominated union, had argued that the reasen fol the crisis in the French steel industry
German competition. One of their slogans was: 'No to a German
We are all organised is the same
and steelworkers international, and we must see to it that it starts to be as effective as the
corporations, which are acting on a world-wide basis for their interest and arainst ours.
When the steelworkers in West Germany were locked out, they pu
posters saying: Now the bosse
When do we throw the
If we start to plan in common not only the steel industry but the sort of society we need; if we explain what a crime it is to have 17m people unem-
the advanced capitalist countries, then we might in common find the way out of unemployment
capitalist which endangers the future of humanity. Arbed-Differdange, and Arbed-
We point out that the British strike follows similar struggles
luxembourg, Germany, and France, and from this we conclude:
unions, shich are organised at the should demand international level, that they take
which span • We should ourselves, our delegates, establish international contacts to organise a European steelworkers conference to prepare a general strike throughou the European steel industry to win
"Down with the Davignon Plan and its hundreds of thousands of
the 35-hour week without without speed-up and proportional increase employment under workers' control!
"Total solidarity with the British
Page 7 scan of this page
HOMENEWS
By Jude Arkwright LEFT-wing: Labour MP, Eric Heffer told 2,200 youth Saturday: 'You are the standard bearers of the future. We have to build the socialist revolution.'
These fine words were spoken during a Labour Party Young Socialists demonstration rally at London's Central Hall, called on the basis.
Against The Tories'. Her, To an and. the other speaker, Benn, affected by the enthusiasm of many in the audience rather blotted his copy-book at the singing of the internationale when he obviously wasn't sure of the words:
Democracy the Party was the main theme of the speakers. Following the demands by
COOKSON [Socialiat Challenge
the demonstrators.
be expected.) he said, confirm Wakstein's figures:'
fuel transport altogether. reprocessing this could lead to its closure.
Campaign, 27, Clerkenwell Close, EC1.
Two thousand youth
on were those acting as Labour Party'.
Traditions
and
of 'Youth ine real Party were. the 'socialist' main were clearly the last 20 years. - although Benn But NOW. economic crisis
Labour the type of followed in the past.
On ERIC HEFFER: 'We have to build a socialist revolation'
NONUKES INLONDON
By Jenny Flintoft, North London Anti-Nuclear Group TO SHOUTS of 'Two, four, six, eight, We don't want to radiate' a procession of more than 1500 people set off from Primrose Hill on Saturday 26 January
The demonstration was called by the London Anti-Nuclear Alliance. The route roughly followed the North London Line's southern branch, along nine tons of spent nuclear fuel passes every week. Friends of the Earth, the National Union of Raily ›ymen (sic), the National Union of Students, the Ecology Party and Social st Workers Party banners were carried.
A rally was held at Roundwood Park, with entertainment provided by the Covent Garden Community Theatre. Brent South MP Laurie Pavitt welcomed
Steve Forey (ASLEF) spoke of rail workers? disquiet at the inadequate testing of the spent fuel containers. (Flasks have been tested in fires lasting only 30 minutes, and in simulated crashes at not more than 30 mph. Previous fires have lasted up to four hours, and impact speeds of up to 145 mph could
Mike Grewcock (Campaign Against Nuclear Energy in Southern Australia) spoke of the high number of deaths amongst uranium miners from inhaling radioactive radon gas. Nuclear engineer Charles Wakstein pointed out the extreme unlikelihood of large-scale evacuation if a spent fuel flask released its lethal contents, even though between 6,000 and 30,000 people would die.
Martin Goldschmitt (London Alliance) accused the Central Electricity Generating Board of deliberately misleading the public in claiming a flask release would only affect people in the immediate vicinity. American studies,
Demonstrators hope that NUR and ASLEF will eventually boycott spent
Since the British muclear industry depends on
For information on future anti-nuclear activities, contact London Anti-Nuclear Alliance, 6, Endsleigh Street, WC1 (688 4248), or the Anti-Nuclear
rally against the Tories
the Labour right for a witch-hunt against the Militant grouping, Heffer pointed out that the real infiltrators
with *Tory concepts', *a fifth column inside the
Tony Benn took up the theme, taking it upon himself to explain to those "too young to remember' what
traditions of the Labour Benn complained that policies of George Lansbury and Stafford Cripps had been ditched by the Labour Party in
The argued, the posed the Labour Party with a clear choice, and for Benn the choice needed is a return to
socialist perspectives
constitutes such taken bold
action pay.
perspective now, Eric declared: We cannot be mouthied. That's why we support the steel workers, every labour council that fights the cuts, why we oppose all oppressive actions in Northern Ireland and (wait for it) abolition of the House of Lords.'
Noticeable in its absence Heffer's priorities was the need to fight the Corrie anti-abortion Bill. It was regrettable that on a day when up and down the country thousands of militant and angry young women were on the streets against Corrie (2,000 in Manchester alone) the only speaker on the all male platform who mentioned the issue was Tony Benn.
The youth at the rally looking for a way forward, although there was much talk about socialism the platform had little to say about how it was to be achieved
what concrete steps should be
now the offensive:
The most Andy Bevan, • Labour Party's youth officer and a supporter of Militant, could offer was to join the Labour Party. copies of the youth paper Revolation sold lke • hot cakes at the rally suggests that for many membership
the LPYS was not the total solution,
Many at the rally were looking for
policies involving action. failure of the rally was that the only
the • organisers. interested in was marching the youth to the top of the hill - and marching them down again.
BOC
defending
jobs
By Tessa van Gelderen
Oxygen depot in Greenwich have been suspended since 18 January for retusing to unload a contract lorry The use of contract labour can lead
insisted on abiding by an agreement under which the lorry should have
BOC management at Greenwich
workers responded those who had been suspended. As a
John Walsh, convenor Hackney BOC says: 'Management has tried to use Hackney to break the Greenwich dispute, by asking us to supply the Greenwich customers.
this happen. If they succeed at Greenwich they will try to take on the whole of BOC.
Don't pppick
up a Penguin
TONY BENN has declared support for the boycott action by
Penguin Books threatened job loss.
Management at Penguin plans to eliminate a total of 90 jobs, would include 36 redundancies. The
unions publishing company — the NUJ, SOGAT, and ASTMS — are opposing all forms of job loss, including 'natural wastage'
Their immediate response is boycott 290 books are various stages of production. Among them is a reprint of Tony Arguments for Socialism.
Heffer : mealy
• the
in were
and
Tory
the
That
The
seemed
trades councils and trade union political organisations. Angry and noisy NEARLY 3000 angry protestors marched in Saturday demonstration in the North-west for over a year. the centre of the with the chant of 'Free abortion on demand' in a very spirited iwo mile march to protest the Corrie Bill.
There banners including Abortion and student unions, women's and gay groups, Labour Party and political organisations. Trade union on the march included the Transport Union, Post Office workers, Government officers, General and Municipal workers and others.
The march ended with a rally with Dr Sheila Abdullah, Terry Straiton (Manchester NUS)
Thalman (NAC steward). The biggest response from audience care Thalman said: 'We
of
defeat the Corrie Bill and we going to defeat government.'
We Charming
Tony Benn, east, at his surgery last week. He was his usual charming self, persuade us that he was doing all he could to help.
He thought that LARC's campaign on Labour MPs
his had been very effective — we hope
he's right. against However, he was at his least
helpful on the 'conscience' vote. He didn't think an which MP's voting behaviour should be a
matter for discipline - he pointed that trouble several times if it was. He also said that a three line whip was never issued for
1o Presumably he shares
most Tory MPs that if a thing has never happened in the past that's a Benn's good reason why it shouldn't happen.
in the future.
CAMPAIGN NEWS
Forced
childbirth
A WOMANS RIGHI TO CHOOSER
OVER 100 people marched through Newcastle last Saturday to protest agains the Corrie Bill on a demonstration sponsored by the North Regional TÚC. !! was also supported by the County Association of Trades Councils, many local
and noisy Manchester on in favour biggest
Piccadilly Gardens, in
city, reverberated
•more than fifty the National surgery • Campaign, trade unions
South Chief Whip, banners The Local the Flindi Michael ASTMS, several
Bill. and Linda •and ASTMS shop
when Linda are going to are WAS this Tory Corrie
choice the major
out leaflets. for Bristol Southmembers anxious to campaign,
NAC and on 5 February
would support. question of the
would have been
Oxford.
Private Members Bills
the view of Local abortion
speakers
branches, sbortion campaign groups and
However, he will be coming to speak at the rally on Tuesday, and he threw in the information that he had been deluged with "masses' of anti-Corrie letters, with only two or three
Whatever Benn does, there will be big contingents from Bristol on both Tuesday and Friday.
Vote against
ON 18 January Bristol women staged
torch-light procession the
of Michael Cocks, MP for Bristol and Labour Party to press him to vote against the Corrie Bill.
procession delivered which Cocks voted for at the Second Reading. He was offered
arguments should change his mind, including the fact that his constituents were against the
just thai representation was not his role!
Islington
THE London Borough of Islington
thoroughly lobbied about the Bill last Saturday. motoreade bearing about 35 pro
campaigners went round all shopping centres in the borough, stopping at each one to give
The motorcade was supported by
of the local abortion IMG, Big Flame Labour Party members.
The leaflet advertised the lobb
and the women's assembly on Friday. The respons was good: several people said the
come and many expressed
Youth march LAST Saturday saw 400 people on a ‹Youth against Corrie' demo through
There were groups of local school students- members of the National Union of School Students
and Student Union members.
. campaign were also represented. One of the
was leader of the Portuguese abortion campaign. Socialist Challenge: 7 Febraryy 1980 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
consciously, unstoppably.
Iranian people with open arms.
face trial for his crimes.
conntry to the imperialist system.
Socialist Challenge
INTERNATIONAL
FROM FALLS ROAD to Soweto, the news that Tehran had been seized in a mass popular insurrection and that the last government of the Shah had been sent hurrying into exile after him was greeted with rapturous applause.
Television brought the streets of Tehran into homes across the globe. By their slogans: 'Death to the Shah! Death to Carter!', the Iranian masses publicly indicted monarchic dictatorship and imperialism alike. By their action, they tossed the one aside and mocked the other's impotence.
For all those struggling against oppression the February revolution showed the power of the masses; bursting the chains which had bound them for 25 years; renouncing the limitations placed on their lives, collectively,
For socialists, there could be no other response but one of welcome. All but the most isolated sectarians hailed the courage and determination of the
But could the Iranian workers and peasants continue their revolution into a movement that would end imperialist exploitation for ever? One year afterwards they have not yet done so. But is the revolutionary process still going on? Two of our regular contributors on Iran offer different views.
And we highlight the great events of that year.
IN October 1979 President Carter dramatically signalled his continued support for the Shah by allowing him to enter the United States for 'medical treatment'. The reaction in Iran was swift as the US embassy in Tehran was stormed and its staff held hostage for the return of the Shah to
Khomeini hoped to use this to divert attention from the failure of his regime to solve any of
the pressing problems facing the country. But the mass mobilisations against US imperialism
began to pose the question of how the workers themselves could break the chains still binding the
7 February 1980. Page 8
By John Leadbetter
one of the propaganda struggling World War.
tremendously
way through
anti-Shah
of workers on 23 December:
'The radius internationally.
throughout the dominated nations.'
ditional
broad layers insurrection.
In the same resolution, on the state
By Azar Tabari
very little
struggle. Nor
of the left,
explaining
to face 'trial'.
the rule
the Shah.
consolidate their
anti-imperialist struggle,
marked
was
again
THE SEIZURE of hostages by Islamic students and the occupation of the US Embassy received mass support from the Iranian people. It also unleashed
mightiest. imperialist campaigns against people since the Second
The demand for the Shah's extradition was
popular Numerous marches over the past months have wound their
Tehran the rates or tre Embassy. Gatherings of unemployed, women, students and youth have given voice to the anti-imperialist sentiment that was the product of the
movement. The internationa ramifications of the Iranian struggle were clearly expressed in a resolution passed by the islamic Workers Shoras (factory councils) and read on a demonstration supported by tens of thousands
of revolution spreading Revolutionary methods, economic, political, social and military planning must be the guiding principles for struggles
Islamic world and in
This political consciousness is not con-
the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. It is a product of the radicalisation of
in Iran since the February And it extends well beyond the specific demand for the Shah's extradition.
demands are made "for the development of basic industry and production of raw materials and
The Bad and the Ugly
THE OCCUPATION of the US Embassy in Tehran and the events around it have
with anti-imperialist can demand for
return of the Shah be characterised as anti-
imperialist in any meaningtui sense.
Socialist Challenge, like many other journals has been filled with why the Iranian masses detest the
Shah and why they are mobilising for his return
But it has gone unnoticed that this
sort of mobilisation is an exception rather than
Where thousands
Nicaraguans storming the American Embassy in
Managua to demand the return of Somoza,
certainly no more a butcher nor less a thief than
Is it perhaps that masses in the process of
taking their fate into their own hands find more
important focuses for mobilisation, and regimes
that have progressive social projects (no matter
how deficient) do not find it necessary
rule through hysterical
completely symbolic demands for revenge?
Just prior to the present so-called upsurge of the Iranian situation by increasing
ferment: among the Kurds; in the universities
where issues of freedom of political debate had
been raised; among women, some
whom were beginning to organise against the
new marriage and divorce laws, which repeal the
small gains that had been made under the Shah;
among the workers, where there was a modest
The Revolution continues
resolved by confiscation
farmers and agricultural workers'
Iran requires some examination. Powerful
undermining SUCI making the question of rallying call has
constitution were who participated in the earlier
that their political suppressed by and
the all
of course these retained their force.
Downing classes led
government. When Islamic Guards against the Kurds,
IRAN: 0
THEIN
rise in economic struggles
the most typical
that renders this time-honoured appeal even more retrogressive.
of
accordingly.
of the discipline into the army.
and incident
that unravelling
get away with
•01
follows:
spare parts'. The land question should be
of the property of feudalists and big landlords, "to be divided up in accordance with a plan that meets the needs of
Thus the view that the Embassy occupation constitutes a diversion of the masses from the more crucial class battles to be fought within
Any hope Khomeini might have had of
developing struggles by anti-imperialism clearly been The numbers who voted in the referendum on the
markedly lower than those • referendum on 'Monarchy or Islamic Republic" last March.
But it is in the arena of the national question that the revolutionary process is being carried forward most powerfully. From the earliest days of the Bazargan government, the Kurds asserted
would religious dictator. The overthrow of the Pahlavi regime unleashed a social
Kurds which went fat beyond questions of democratic rights, although
Clashes between the peasantry and the land-
to lane seizure. anda redistribution of property through village and area councils. The whole question of capitalist land relations was raised, forcing the leadership of the Kurdish Democratic Party into taking a clear oppositional stance to the new centra
•Khomeini launched his he acted The embassy occupation, far from impelling
these struggles forward, acts as a brake on them.
It simultaneously diverts attention from the real
issues facing Iran and serves as a rallying cry for
obscurantist appeals
'national unity', overlaid with the Islamic veneer
reactionary
Khomeini is now in a position to blame all American sabotage
already a huge propaganda campaign lor the
restriction of consumption has been launched
All dissidents can now be branded as agents of
US imperialism and will suffer the wrath of the
occasion to implement what he had failed to
achieve before: a massive mobilisation of youth
into armed militias under the total control of the
clergy and their henchmen and a reintroduction
To complete the picture, one has only to add
the impact that the embassy seizure has had on
the American political situation, The longer the
the more likely it will Khomeini will succeed effects of the Vietnamese
revolution on the consciousness of the American
people, rendering it possible for Washington to
direct military interventions
against revolutions throughout the world.
The line that has been taken by most of the
far left on the current events in Iran flows
logically from its analysis of what Khomeini
stands for. It. çan be summarised briefly as
Page 9 scan of this page
VEYEAR AFTER SURRECTION
Huation of popular of the most oppressed come rapidly to Women, who had played a prominent
demonstrations
to organise for their own liberation
'Thousands marched OD
Women's Day, but rapidly found continuing struggle is one
pelling the revolution forward beyond is of the 'Islamie Republic'.
asly in defence of capitalist against a threat to a capitalist state. Kurds are not the only tenacious fighters sional rights. In Azerbaijan tart the constitution was also decisively Lin what amounted to a boycott of the Hadicate that they saloon adition Perhaps over half the population • fighting imperialism and raising their meini represents a bourgeois leadership so many other currents in semi-colonial es, although in Iran this sort of curent aned religious garb. Accordingly, he i
trying to hold the masses at bay unti
order stabilised
¡sation' of capitalist development set in tHe will then presumably fail to satisfy
ands of the insurgent masses and will lose political authority in their eyes. laving lost faith in Khomeini, the masses
an alternative leadership admitted, of course, that Khomeini, like rgeois leader, will resort to repression
like the urds demand for sent). Primarily, however, the process is one of rising mass combativity and the
Verosion- Khomeini's authority,
to decisive test ment and the working masses. je, Khomeini would have to be defended imperialist or restorationist forces. this picture bears In no sense can Khomeini be said to
a bourgeois leadership.
some extent still is supported of the commerical bourgeoisie (in the
The bulk of his base comes from the
irban petty-bourgeoisi nd de-classed masses in the citie
the majority of the new generation of
Politically, he has not
of how a bourgeois state could or
inction. His project,
explained quite unambiguously both
id in writing, is the establishment of
the clergy as the direct representatives
carth: Independent thought has no such government.
accomplished.
revolution is moving.
The political revolution;
armed forces as
destroyed.
Khomeini,
insurrection the
in the against the Shah,
no such army exists.
8 March,
of the Shah. of the
communism Unfortunately,
property
last year exists. and classes in cannot be
channel acon rule, for even and
rural poor
- maybe us.
unacceptable Khomeini's
self-
system DuL
between the
In the
no resemblance to
revolutionary Although he
by no reason to defend
and the
the slightest
The has
own national and class demands.
There are no built-in guarantees that these historically progressive tasks will be successfully
What has become increasinely clear over the last year is that the national and agrarian demands run up immediately against the state. Assessing the relative strength of the state is the key to understanding which way the
February insurfection ushered in a state power was from the hands of the upstart monarch into those of Khomeini - but through the efforts of the insurrectionary masses. In the process, the
La main component of state power were radicalised and split, and those
most loyal to the old regime were
Today the forces of repression available to
Bani-Sadr and their bourgeois are a blunt weapon for imposing Islamic law and order on the Iranian people. Rhetoric about the popular army of 20 million' and squads of fanatical Isiamic Guards are not a substitute for a loyal and efficient army. Events
Kurdish provinces, in Tabriz and Baluchistan have shown over the last year that
The Islamic Republic remains only the shell of a state, camping out in the ruined ministries
In recent weeks, Khomeini has redecorated the interior with a president and a constitution, and hung a sign reading
nor capitalism but Isiam'. as the bourgeois figures who have been struggling to run a government for the
are acutely aware, no
The impact of Islam on the struggle of social
Iran over ignored, of course. It provided a leadership for the anti-Shah movement, and a
and communication through the network of the шоссис. Mass activity is encouraged only when it unfolds it is thienty of the the orient it pops it is ruthlessly crushed the moment it beyond such limits. Complete conformity is the
among the hierarchy Khomeini will brook no dissent. consciousness or ete workers and tand
cers and urban and .of Iran cannot be underestimated. The consolidation of Khomeini's authority over the past nine months has meant mounting selfabdication of any confidence and independence in favour of trust in god and his imam
economic project-- to extent that he has even the vaguest idea of what an economy is — is not a rationalised capitalist
an austere, autarkic preferably guarded from intercourse outside world. If that means a regression in the level of national production and an absolute decline in mass living standards, so be it.
On the basis of these observations, it must be concluded that there is absolutely
For progressive Khomeini's leadership. It follows that anyone concerned with human progress in any form has
Khomeini's rule against anything. This does not mean acceptance of US military intervention (which would, in any case, only raise the prestige of Khomeini still further). But it does mean that opposition to a threatened intervention must in no way be cast in any form that suggests defence of the existing regime.
It does not bode well for the future of Iran
nat the raajority of the international left ha
een unable to distinguish between a deepenin process of permanent revolution and a rise in irrational fanaticism serving to consolidate the rule of a repressive and reactionary theocracy.
passed. "neither
Persian-speaking seen above) after. attacks on
Each Madari.
itself
the
society, : with the
nothing
AFTER the Shah's
Bakhtiar government.
The
IRAN under the Shah was totally dominated by the
minority. National rights
ruthlessly repressed. But as resistance to the Shah's rule
grew, the nationalities — Kurds, Arabs, Turkomens --
moved to the forefront of the struggle. And Khomeini
has found it impossible to drive them back. The latest
upsurge has been that of the Azerbaijanis, who virtually
took over the city of Tabriz (including the radlo station,
their leader, departure the pace of events quickened. Eight million people turned out to greet Khomeini on his return, in a direct challenge to the
latter's attempts to get things back unde control by using the Imperial Guard to repress airfonce technicians a few days later backfired spectacularly in a mass revolt. Brian Grogan, reporting from Tehran for Socialist Challenge, wrote: 'In southern Tekran,
whatever
colours.
needs of capitalism. which the restabilise a attendant needs imperialism.
Socialists
overthrowing
lines
politically armed
La party.
iS
were
Iran.
ships ana a support for all the struggles of
Bani-Sadr.
Shariatthe
barricades were built array stood paralysed.'
commaad ar
revolution is unique, expressing itself through
instruments are available. Islam what lends the Iranian situation its particular
But religion has not suddenly become a historical force above the laws of class struggle Any serious attempt to meet the demands of the
directly into conflict with the Islam is a cover behind bourgeoisie seeks to rebuild and capitalist state, with all the for a relationship with maintain that • capitalism can provide no answers in Iran today. But more thar this, we maintain that the possibilities exist fo
capitalism and beginning the reconstruction of Iranian society along socialist
Only the working masses will provide the driving force behind such a further revolution however. And they will be successfur only it
by mass evolutionary workers party, and if they address themselves to the questions of state power.
The task for socialists in Iran is to build such
The resolutions put forward by the Islamic Workers Shora indicate that such a task
on the agenda today. But it will not be achieved by abstaining from any arena in which the proletariat is struggling, or by seeing in their struggles only some kowtowing to Islam.
For socialists here and in other • imperialist countries, the most important task is to oppose any imperialist threat to the growing struggles in
That means unconditional defence of the unfolding Iranian revolution against US war-
US blockade, together with the masses against the capitalist governmeat of Khomeini/
These are the best ways for us to link up with the struggling masses in Iran, and take forward the struggle against imperialism together. most combative area of the city, practically the whole population demonstrated in the streets. Ha
with cars and sandbags. I
Sacalled Challeage 1 Febranny 1926 Pages
Page 10 scan of this page
A'TREND OF LEFT-WINGSOCIALISM'?
IRELAND
THE ARD-PHEIS conference) of Sinn Fein held in Dublin over the weekend of 19-20 January was dominated by discussion of a proposed social programme for the Republican movement, entitled "The Dimension', This was put forward as a new introduction to Eire Nua (New Ireland), the programmatic reference document of the Republican movement.
In fact, the 15 point 'Social Dimension' constituted fairly rounded programme. It took as its starting point the most radical statements of Patrick Pearse; the president of the provisional republic proclaimed in 1916, from the programme adopted revolutionary Irish parliament during the war of independence:
'We declare that the nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the nation, but to all its material possessions: the nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth-producing processes within the nation, and with Pearse we re-affirm that all rights to private property must be subordinate to the public right and welfare.'
From this, the 'Social document went on opened the way for advocating the carrying out a socialist revolution. stated among other things:
•We deny the right to personal ownership of productive property such as a large farm or a arge factory. This type of ownership involves the exploitation of other people's labour for . Dersonal gain and is alien to Republican principles. Co-operative
Point 9 stated: 'Private enterprise will have no place in key industries and state incentives will favour co-operative projects as the most socially desirable.
However, such proposals remained mixed up will ine popunst notons incompatible with a collective, planned economy. poin: 8 included the statement: 'Each individual worker will own an economic unit of the means =i production
The report of 27 January's Bloody Sunday commemoration demonstration was inadvertently omitted from last week's Socialist Challenge. The 2,000 strong Birmingham march, called by
Sinn Fein conference
(national By Gerry Foley
Social foreign policy.
Provisional Republican:
general
citing a paragraph that would by the
Marxism
towards alternative
Dimension' to make proposals that prisoners, which session, For example, point 7. Jimmy.
the movement's Bernadette
La couple of months later.
For example,
amune the rariors annie:
H-BLOLK
ONe KAL
ORITAINS
ONDENT S
internationalist perspective, without which the establishment of a socialist economy in Ireland is inconceivable. It called only for "neutral"
and for expanded trade and contacts with the 'third world'.
The debate over the document was sharp, and a cera poncal tension was obvious. Republican News, the weekly paper of the
• movement, took note of this conflict in its account of the Ard-Fheis in its 26 January issue. It quoted one delegate, George. Stagg, who was elected to the eight member national executive, as saying that he opposed the document because it could be the "thin edge of the wedge' in a 'trend of left-wing socialism'
'alienate us from the people'.
Republican News pointed out that this view received some support, but that the document was nonetheless adopted overwhelmingly.
A number of delegates, mainly from rural areas, did voice suspicion of a supposed trend
"Marxism'. But they proposed no programme and did not wage. a concerted fight against the adoption of the 'Social Dimension' document
The discussion on the defence of Republican was conducted in open was marked by very sharp conflict. Drumm, one of the most prominent older Republicans, raised strong objections to.
attitude to the National n-block commutee -'ne main organisation trying to mobilise broad support for the most •persecuted section of Republican prisoners.
Drumm said that the Republican movement had been 'inconsistent" in its attitude to the H-Block Committee, He complained that the Republicans had waged a campaign • against
Devlin McAliskey the only candidate in the EEC elections to defend the H-Block prisoners; that it had accused her of trving to rise to power on the backs or elic prisoners', and had then allowed her to play a prominent role in the H-Block Committee only
As in previous national conferences of Sinn Fein, it was the president. Ruairi O Bradaigh. whe served ai the centre-teight in the balane
NANON
screaming abuse at 'troops out' supporters.
In his presidential address, defended the National H-Block Committee,
'Sinn Fein is gratified at the establishment of the broad-based National Committee' on the simple platform of the five demands by the prisoners themselves for the restoration of prisoner-of-war status. We urge our members to redouble their efforts with the assistance of non-members on this great issue of human rights.'
Much of the presidential deyoted to answering movement was undergoing a major political change. O Bradaigh said, for instance:
"It has been suggested that those who reorganised the Republican movement at the time the present phase of 1969-70 must now be disappointed and that the Irish Republican different from that which took up the challeng in 1969. '
O Bradaigh replied to these accusations by saying that in every generation conservatives had tried to attack Republicans by claiming that they had become something different from, and alien to, their predecessors. He said: "The only difference between the current phase of the age-old Irish Republican struggle and any other former generation is that it has gone on longer, has achieved more, success than anything in the past.'
The statement made at this conference by vice-president Gerry Adams military victory was not possible did seem promise a move toward greater realism. The main policy resolution leadership is the logical conclusion of this realisation:
"That this Ard-Fheis endorses the need to build a diversified struggle on many fronts in pursuance of these objectives and, therefore, supports the proposal to build an economic resistance campaign.'
Revolution
The adoption document will not be a step forward for the Republican movement unless it opens up the way for a more concrete and realistic discussion within that movement of how to achieve a social revolution in Ireland. If this does not happen it could have the actual effect of holding back the progress of the meramer
The demand for i gaze it
Sion Fein was a considerable success. The counter demonstration attracted only a few fascists -including one in the British Army who was later 'disciplined' after he appeared on television
•O Bradaigh
*Smash H-Block formulae in
revolutionary programme Mass address was accusations that the
conference
the struggle began in On the other
quite
people.
and is nearer ultimate
that a purely Marxists -proposed by the 1916 rising?
Split
charges that
of the 'Social Dimension' develo!
discussion
A more open.
SE COCTE
in the movement who have learned by harsh experience who the enemies are and what 1s needed to achieve real victory. But it would be an illusion for them to think that the formal adoption of the often vague and contradictory
this document means. that the has the elements of a rea
Such a programme has to be concrete and to be fought for by specific policies and means of action that flow from these concrete objectives. There was no discussion of a concrete campaign of social action and mass mobilisation at the
hand, •the adoption of a number of radical general propositions is going to provide more of a focus for fire from the right. If this pressure is not effectively resisted and concrete campaigns of social and political action are not advanced, the result could be political paralysis and greater isolation from the masses of the oppressed and exploited Irish
The fact that leaders of the Republican movement have felt it necessary to make public assurances that there are no Marxists in the movement is not very promising in this regard. Such statements create a glaring contradiction and political incoherence. In particular, what would it mean if there were no Marxists in the Republican movement now, since there were
most notably Connolly - in the
In his address; O Bradaigh tried to answer
left-wing politics were being smuggled into the organisation by saying that the Provisional leaders had carried out a split in 1969 to stop this sort of thing. But those who led the Republican movement before 1969, and the Official Republican faction afterwards, did not
and frank political and decision-making in the organisations they controlled. Eventually the organisation degenerated and broke with the revolutionary traditions of Republicanism
. frank and concrete debate at this Provisimal 4rd Fres at have been a
Page 11 scan of this page
BRITISH warships are
those bombing a small Caribbean
island and
livelihood of its inhabitants in a
massive NATO
Operation Springboard.
The exercise has taken place every
year since 1959 and centres on the
island of Vieques, part
colony of Puerto Rico. Seventy per
cent of the island is occupied by the
US military; it was from Vieques that
invasion
Dominican Republic was laurched in
This year, however, the exercise
has been extended to
Caribbean area in line with Carter's
•Wal threats against
imperialist fears that the revolution in
Nicaragua could spread to neighbour-
ing states. Royal Navy participation
has accordingly been increased with
the despatch of the destroyer HMS
Birmingham to join the two British
warships which normally take part.
But it is Vieques which is (literally)
in the direct line of fire.
Springboard means two months of
ship-to-shore shelling
bombardment
effects on the local population (now
reduced to 7,000) can be imagined.
Their main livelihood is fishing — but
the best fishing waters are occupied by
the manoeuvres.
Zone
Not that the local fishermen's
association is taking this lying down.
Ten days ago Operation Springboard
was halted for five hours when the
local fishing fleet sailed deliberately
into association president Carlos Zenon the firing LUnC
By Roy Alexander FOR the past three headlines have been held by the roller-coaster performance of world gold political event has been immediately translated
cash: «What Afghanistan? 50 dollars much for a second-hand Shah of Iran?' *20 dollars an ounce!'
After a nerve-racking week for financiers in which the price shot up from under 600 dollars to over 800 dollars (and trading on the New York 'futures' market bought for delivery at some allowing • speculation on
taking dollars) the inevitable unmaking not a few capitalist fortunes on the SWAL
The immediate cause of this unseemly public carnival capitalist immense amount of money that is floating around the world today looking for any way to turn a fast dollar, pound, franc, etc. The growing concentration of the hands of a few firms especially corporations and financial institutions -broken down all the barriers between nations. branches of production, or commodities.
'Hot money will shoot from country to country, plans of exchequers, seeking a 1/16 of a per cent edee on the interest rate. buy anything that stands still long enough not at all interested in its practical use (what Marxists call its 'use value') but only in the fact that it is a commodity (with an
once thereby enriching their pockets. Once the price was quite happily swished into sugaroney was quite happily switched into sugar copper.
prospect capitalist recession, with mounting inflation, has made investment in industry or stocks and shares somewhat unappealing. time some means of protecting capital against
European capitalists are. busy trying to deny their workers, attacking the indexation schemes prevalent on the continent) is urgent.
Bullion
Gold bullion speculation is a pretty select
lne key handles most of the gold from South Africa -consists of only five firms. you need to have abour £100,000 before you can ask one of these gentlemen to pick up a nice gold bar for you. If you want to go into the big time and enter one of the periodic gold auctions held by the International Monetary Fund (IMF, you will have to lay your hands on something like £500,000.
INTERNATIONAL
among
destroying
exercise called
of the US
the
the entire
Cuba and Operation
and aerial
year,
exercises
defiance.
'trespassing'
Fishermen's
weeks the financial
prices. Every
an ounce! How
- where gold can be
future date, future price place at 1,000
tumble has begun,
frenzy
yen, mark. capital in wealthy individuals and
the multinational
has
making chaos out of the best laid
, rinanciers wil
About 65 *exchange go up down, banks
hands. •I a period of
At the same
8000 as various wage efforts At present prices
insurance
involved.
Caribbean island
VIEQUES islanders demonstrate against NATO war
has been arrested for this act of serve their sentences.
Last year military police in riot gear broke up a religious service in the restricted zone and arrested 21 people
including Roman Catholic bishop. Many of the 21 were given prison terms and hauled off to separate jails in the USA to
THE
NEW
GOLD
RUSH
One of the reasons why gold trading is so frantic is that only a small proportion of world gold stocks actually passes through the market. per stockpiled in the vaults of the various central of the capitalist world international agencies like the IMF. Another 6 per cent is held by the Soviet Union and China. Less than 30 per cent is in private capitalist
Confidence Despite the repeated attempts of capitalist treasuries around the world to assure their citizens that the paper money they issue is 'as gold', and despite their to devise of avoids upon the limited supply of gold, they show even less confidence in than the financiers. Since stocks in the central bank vaults have been any medieval miser. They only see the light of day in cases of economic emergency.
The price of gold is like the premium on an capiralise: the higher ve is the greater the risk covering On present trends, capilalists seem 10. heavily the chance of their system living 1o a ripe old age.
- British warships bombard
One of them, Angel Rodrigues Cristobal, is no longer alive to tell the tale. On 11 November he was found dead in his cell in Tallahassee, Florida. The authorities claim it was suicide; but the islanders accuse them of murder, and point to the fact that his head was extensively bruised.
world's gold is
of repeated financing
the world capitalist
1971 the
future
the world's writing down pretty
By Martin Meteyard
US imperialism, which seized Puerto Rico in 1898 and turned it into a supercolony. The economy has been totally distorted to serve US needs: 95 per ent of production in Puerto Rico i exported to the US, and 98 per cen of all from the US.
A gold bar in the balance — price £100,000
healthy
Fertility
through programme. the Atlantic which
Atlantic
areas of the Oceans,
headquarters
denies Such methods are nothing new for independence
British backing
goods consumed there came Committee Eighty-eight per cent of Puerto WCIV 6XX
OLDHAM Ci
Wed 6
Ricans receive less than the minimum income set by the US Department of Health for a family to live under
conditions. The real unemployment rate is 46 per COLE forcing two million Puerto Rican (out of a nation of only five million) to migrate to the USA.
The population is also kept down
massive sterilisation Thirty-five per cent of Puerto Rican women of reproductive age have been permanently sterilised; only around 300,000 women in the country still possess their fertility.
But the US maintains an iron grip on Puerto Rico for one reason above all others: its importance as a strategic military fortress. Puerto Rico houses
headquarters of the South Force (COMSOLANT)
US "military activities in the Caribbean and South America and out Africa are including South
Indian and Australia and Zealand. Also in Puerto Rico are the
OI the Naval District, the Caribbean Air Fleet, and the Antilles Defence Command.
It is for this reason that the US
Puerto Rico the right to and claims with that it is 'internal affair'. And then they have the nerve to create a hue and cry about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan!
* For further information contact
for Puerto Rico Independence, BM-CPRI, London
WHAT'S LEFT
singer, Jonathan Hamond (NU)
forthcomil
Wharfedale Rd (off Caledonian Rd), London N
immigration contro
AFGHANISTAN: Don't join the imperialist outcr
a. London wil: Fob, 8pm. Conway Fall, Red Lib
Nation controlsist La. Poor men supporter s. Sun takers.
IWA(GB)
•HTGHT for Trotskyism in the I Lain Socialisi to
6, 7.Зр. Finds House
fenderson Hospital, Ston, Shrey 01-66 1611/2.
SOCIALIST STUDENTS ALLIANCE NATIONAI
'You're behind on your
payments, so we're repossessing
your kidneys."
Socialist Challenge : 7 February 1980 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
| New report exposes
'UNJUST arid restrictive continue to prevai. With elections only & few weeks away, this situation should be considered extremely concerned to see the advent of freedom and genuine majority Zimbabwe people.'
This is the conclusion briefing document Repression in Rhodesia' produced by the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF). It spells out in some detail how Britain's maintain the status supremacy; extracts from the report are printed below.
The State of Emergency
Through action announced on 18 January, Lord Soames has decreed that the February elections will be held under the terms of the national State of Emergency...
The repressive measures presently in force under the State of Emergency include:
*powers of arrest and indefinite detention without charge or trial;
*the control, property, livestock and crops;
*the control of freedom including the removal of people into protected villages or keeps;
*control of the semination of information, particularly that relating to the security situation, censcurfew andresshe establishmentions:
*curfews defoliated, mined and free-fire zones;
clinics, churches and control of water supplies...
According to a British spokesperson Salisbury, (
as a whole is such as to conclude that there is
for Rhodesia Front (ZAPU); however, Soames' action indicated 'that there will be no free and fair elections because purpose is to limit the movement of people and freedom of speech'...
Martial Law
Martial law, first declared by the regime under the Emergency Powers September 1978 and subsequently extended to virtually dune country, prisons, remains in force...
While these powers are not fundamentally different from those already under the State of Emergency, they have very serious implications in that the persons authorised to enforce them are defined extremely widely, to include virtually all public servants, the army, airforce, police, police reservists, the secunty force auxiliaries, mercenaries employed as vigilantes by the priyale seetos...
While the operations of the special court martials were suspendca following his arrival in Rhodesia, there has been no move to release those sentenced to prison terms by them or those detained without charge under the martial law regulations...
Protected Villages
There appear to be no plans to dismantle the protected villages, or keeps, to allow inmates to return to their old homes in time for the elections. Under the agreement this was one of the matters left to be resolved by the Governor.
The regime, for its part, has indicated its intention to retain the protected villages and 4uucald to be using the auxiliaries, the majority allegiance to Bishop Muzorewa, to control and administer them..
of protected villages constant armed guard, have their freedom of movement severely restricted, and are exposed to considerable violence and personal abuse at the hands of the security forces.
Octoner 1979, soldier was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment on various charges of rape and assault against the residents of the protected village under his care. According to the magistrate, the charges made horrifying and gruesome reading, and showed that the people were subject to savage and brutal onslaughts where little or no regard was paid to age, sex or the condition of those attacked'.
Since the ceasefire there have been reports of continued arrest of inmates of protected villages, and interrogation and beatings by the police, district assistants According to a resident of a protected village. north of Salisbury, Socialist Challenge 7 February 1980 Page 12
INTERNATIONAL
conditions
seriously by all
rule for the
of a new on 'Political
role to quo of • white seizure and destruction of
of movement,
collection and dis-
including
establishment
grinding-mills, and the
in the governor's judgement the
a state of emergency A spokesperson for the Patriotic
said that Lord
the whole Regulations
includg
provided for
and foreign
Lord soames Lancaster House
The
security force Front of whom UWE high level
the most live under
example, a white
all the assistants, and auxiliaries.
*things have got much
WHITE mercenaries now serving Lord Soames in Zimbabwe
worse here since the ceasefire. Now they say hey will shoot anybody who is even a minute late coming in at night'...
Election Arrangements
Sir John Boynton, the Election Commissioner, has made it clear that the elections will 'differ
slightly in procedure' organized by the regime in April 1979...
main features COOT elections, apart from the fact that the Patriotic
parties were not involved, prevailing state of martial law,
of military mobilization involving extensive call-up Rhodesia's history, and the concerted and systematic use of a wide variety of positive and negative inducements to get voters to the polls. Once there, voters were required to choose between one or other of the parties to the 'internal settlement' agreement.
A number of unsatisfactory aspects of the forthcoming elections for the 80 Common Roll (African) seats, due to be held on 27, 28 and 29 February, have nevertheless been conceded by
parties to ine agreement — for example, the fact that there is to be no registration of voters. public service, notably district commissioners and their assistants, will play an important role in running polling stations and in the general conduct of the elections.
District commissioners and
who fall under the auspices of the Ministry of Home (formerly Internal) Affairs, are armed and trained in counter-insurgency tactics. They share the same powers of arrest
Britishrule
in Zimbabwe
agreed at Lancaster 'civil police' maintaining from those transitional
April 1979 identify were the Al CACCY
of manpower
years
has always been
Lancaster -House wins the
December 1979).
The regime's The BSAP
35,000 reservists
reservists are white. district police
the leguidl
and detention without charge under Emergency Powers Regulations as the police, and the same powers under martial law as the rest of the security forces.
Under the pre-independence arrangements
House, the Rhodesian (BSAP) are responsible law and order during period, including the themselves (Annex D, paragraph 20).
• It is in practice extremely difficult to
Many sections of the British South Africa Police as 'civil police', in view of the extent to which the police have been mobilised to fight the guerilla war. The BSAP is a heavily armed paramilitary body virtually all of whose able-bodied members have been deployed on front line counter-insurgency duty in recent
The impartiality of the police, whose task
control and suppress nationalist political activity, is also a matter for concern. According to one report in the British press, BSAP members have been warned. by senior regime officials that they will lose their jobs, if not their lives, if the Patriotic Front
elections (Financial Times,
comprise an estimated 8,000 regulars, including national servicemen,
Whereas two-thirds of the regulars are Africans the great majority of
Lord Soames has decided that the regular
on their own will be insufficient to maintain law and order during the elections and has authorised the deployment not only of
armed including
Whites called
up for
elections
the
reservists and army territorials.
for
the 28 January to 5 March 1980. elections
deployed were white.
April 1979
19 issue of the weekly
Sandinista and
crisis in France.
cheques/POs
the
auxiliaries, but also the mobilization of police
Call-up papers for a general mobilization of the security forces were due to be sent out in mid-January and it was subsequently reported that all fit white men between the ages of 25 and 29 had been called up for five weeks from
During the 1979 elections an estimated 100,000 armed personnel were mobilized to "protect' voters. Around two-thirds of those
Indications are thus that the February 1980 elections will take place in much the same climate of military preparedness as those of
*Further details from: IDAF, 2 Amen Court, London EC4M 7BX (tel. 01-606 6123).
Intercontinental Press
AN eyewitness account of the 200,000-strong anti-junta demonstration held in El Salvador on 22 January, and the government repression unleashed against it, is featured in the latest
Intercontinental Press/ Inprecor (Vol 18, No 4). Also in this issue: a
balance-sheet of the Nicaraguan revolution, and an analysis of the 'creeping
Individual copies cost 30p plus 10p pop, IPI subscriptions work out much cheaper at £ll for one year (48 issues), £6 for six months (24 issues), or £3 for 10 weeks. Please make
out to 'Intercontinental. Press' and send to: IP/I, PO Box 50, London Ni
Page 13 scan of this page
HOME NEWS
THE CONFERENCE of the International Marxist Group is to be held in London this month. In our 24 January issue we carried contributions on the way forward for the organisation different points of view inside the IMG. This week the League for Socialist Action, revolütionary organisation, gives its opinion on the matters under debate.
The LSA has voted in favour of fusion with the recent aggregate of the group. Participation conference discussion is part of the process towards joining the two together.
The aim of the government is crystal-clear. It is to change the balance of class forces sufficiently to drive up the rate of profit for British capital. This aim - which has confronted all governments over the past few decades - she has pursued with ruthless determination. Divide
Implementing. laws, slashing social services to create a mass "pool" of unemployed, she : hopes to both divide and weaken the 'core" unions before confrontations take place. The steel strike is the first example.
This offensive, erode all the won working class since the war, already drawn thousands struggle. As sectors movement thove into however, they inevitably pressure on their organisations lead that fight. The fight against the Tories is linked with a fight to turn their organisations into struggle'. This process can already be seen in the fact that it was not the 'left' but the TUC which led the mass Campaign against Corre rally and the Labour Party's national executive committee which organised the anti-cuts demonstration.
This growing pressure the tensions and fissures. within the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour Party (as registered at the last conference in the sweeping rebuffs to the Callaghan leadership).
Conflict
The fight to turn organsanons mio organs or suruggie against the Tories brings ever-wider layers into conflict with the reformist leaders who seek to control it within "parliamentary' limits. In this sense, the anti-Tory struggle is paralleled by
struggle by the class to create, within its own organisations, a new leadership adequate to its needs.
It is within this dynamic that, in OEl Marxist Group Ilas to perspectives for the coming period. A correct understanding dyriamic could allow a small ¡oice lo begin lo gall influence.
Certainly, there is clear agreement
all comrades that requisite for Intervening process means adopting a proletarian orientation. Inability to do so would not. only *marginalise' radicalisation of key sectors of the union movement as it enters struggle in the years ahead. render ineffective our attempts to build movements on (abortion rights, etc) increasingly can only be won by being
labour movement.
Perspective
While such agreement however, there 2190 disagreements as perspective which should guide our work in the labour movement. In the opinion of the League for Socialist Action, ability to take advantage of the dynamic opening up three factors:
1: Building a class-struggle left-
from IMG at a
IMG
finally organisations
Thatcher
decisive
which seeks to
the Dy has. into of the labour
struggle, bring to
'tools of
explains
rooted
their in practice, Calle This rejecting Icadership (a la Party) organisations'
Trades Union are sectarian.
Mass action
Internationa
situate its
of this on concrete issues cadre
significant the bureaucracy,
this labour movement.
Developing
us from the
The discontent
would asc
basis, social issues expression in the Labour
which building up to Callaghan).
Labour Party
with forces exists, exist into the Labour Party the political
This spot.
proletarian rests on implemented. different currents Party such
SEEKING A
wing against the reformist leaders is
in the struggle against the Tories. It is through fighting for mass action to defend living standards and basic rights that the reformist leaders basic
be isolated and achislycly 'denunciations' of the Socialist Workers • building front (like the Socialist Campaign for Labour Victory, All
Alliance etc), which
class
It is through building mass action
- and supporting anti-Tory initiatives by sections of
, if necessary - that 1) the thousands will be drawn into struggle and will be given the opportunity to test out the various currents in the
class-struggle levl-wing cannor de lsolalca doi car Labour Party (which is the political wing of the trade union movement).
and radicalisation that emerges in the unions, often on a
political IfUS Party (as can already be seen in the opposition
young
In seeking to build mass action
against the Tory offensive, we must carry this struggle
to put the
means that all supporters in the unions should be active if the Labour Party if a real
orientation to be Analysis of the the Labour
League for Socialist Action contributes to IMG debate
PROLETARIAN
ORIENTATION
Coordinating Committee ÷ is important here.
The demands that we raise should be aimed at reinforcing two
concepts: class independence and class unity. The positions we advocate to deal with unemployment and inflation register our belief that responsibility for the capitalist crisis. working class
The fight to win the movement for defence of abortion rights or anti-racist work is based on the attempts to unite the • WOrKINg
against attempts to split While comrades will be involved in day-to-day work in the Labour Party etc, we feel national priority terms
should be around: anti-cuts 2) abortion; 3) the immigration laws; 4) Ireland.
All other activities of the IMG
Launching a youth organisation is vital today since the layer we should
campaigning programme. Instead of should be clear from the start that
International (though organisation
Fraction work in the Labour Party Young Socialists should be a priority.
As regards Socialist Challenge, we feel that it should cease being a paper for the left but should re-orient itself towards those layers in the labour movement .we are influence Paper
It should be a) explaining basic labour problems of concern Ciobs, wily •it ' протал. it racism/sexism our demands to answer the crisis. d). reporting unions, that Socialist Challenge should be a paper ot workers for political thrust should be explaining the need for united action. labour movement and putting the reformists on the spot (not in sectarian way but in terms of action).
Finally it is clear that the IMG cannot become a mass party merely through individual Splits and fusions, particularly from the Labour Party, will play a centra. role in this process and we must be constantly on the alert to seek out forces moving in our direction.
Fusions, however, dictated by abstract schemas, but by the dynamic of the class struggle itself which will push certain tendencies closer to us (and draw others away). If the IMG adopts a clear strategy in the labour movement, fusion with the SWP must be rejected
Not only is the SWP programmatically opposed International
should towards fusion could mean adapting
the SWP's line which passed by the dynamic of the class struggle in the years ahead.
PSR more thei around
had
the
zone fourfold),
the from
itself organised
well
Marxist
be £47.50 meals, facilities,
send seeking
report to militants inflation etc); b) explaining
fight etc; " c) popularising
basic struggles. 000k.
workers. Its central • pustage
by the includes:
plus
recralment
A cannot be youth work
satino vol
Fourth , but its strategy carries early
take. move cost
months, sectarian/syndicalist will increasingly be by-
* Next
Portugal
THE Portuguem Trotskyists of the s
Tabled their vote to t 37,800 Deceraber's assembly elections, and would have
deputy if proportional representation had been established on a national scale
The PSR made gains throughout
country. These pronounced in the Setubal industrial
(where its vote increased agrarian reform area, and some districts in the north. It managed this despite an intensive media witch-hunt: on the last day of
campaign the radio and networks even falsely announced that the PSR slate had been invalidated by the electoral courts.
Particularly upsetting the authorities was the PSR's emphasis on the fight for the right to abortion. It was able to publicise this and its other positions through 65 minutes on television and 12 hours on various radio stations (of which six hours was on national radio). Having profited
this unique opportunity, the PSR is now trying to consolidate
national scale and is beginning a recruitment campaign.
Summer school
A SPECIAL summer school is being
by the International Marxist Group this year. The school will take place near Cambridge from 12-18 July inclusive.
The school is limited to 130 people and will feature as its main
•Zith century revolution as subsidiary courses on the British labour movement, Marxism and the family, an introduction to
economics and issues in political economy.
The all-in cost of the school will
which will include all social events, films, sports swimming and country walks. A deposit of £10 secures your place at the school. (All cheques to be made payable to the 'The Week', and
to PO Box 50, , London 2XP.) The school is open to Socialist Challenge supporters on application to local IMG branches
World Congress
THE ELEVENTH World Congress of the Fourth International took place in November last year. The Congress reports and documents are printed in a 200-page large format
It will go on public sale in : March at approximately £3 plus
The book, which is a supplement
Intercontinental Press/Inprecor,
The world political resolution, reports on situation by Ernest Mandel and the turn to industry by Jack Barnes
Resolutions on Europe, Latin America and women's liberation.
Majority and minority viewpoints on Indochina, Nicaragua and socialist democracy.
report on international
special offer to IP/I subscribers in Britain and Ireland the book is available at f2.30 including postage. Send payment to Pathfinder Press, 47 The Cut, London SE1 8LL,
are a subscriber.
Offer open to 29 February
If you are not yet a subscriber, why not subscribe now and get you
copy of the supplement. Subscriptions for Britain and Ireland
£3 foi issues, f6 for and f1l per year IP/I, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
week. News of Hugo Blanco's election campaign in Peru. Socialist Challenge 7 February 1980 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
LETTERS 328/9 UPPER STREET LONDON N1
In the picture WE THANK you and your reviewer, Larry Herman, for his useful review (17 January) of our new publication Photography/Politics: One.
However we would like to point out some inaccuracies following his remark on 'how language can unwittingly be used to confuse'. In the course of making his point your reviewer has misquoted the article (for 'feminists' read 'feminine' crucia difference!) ano cut out an important explanatory footnote and a specific reading reference which even included page numbers. Additionally it was a highly
We have tried to work towards a consistent use of nonmystificatory language in this publication, this does not mean we should ignore technica anus wien erev are necessary, especially it we give ample back-up indication of where ceria cle iull.
It's far too easy to dismiss exploratory or theoretical work with nit-picking attitudes.
PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, London N1 Advising the
Afghanis
SUCH is the level of hysteria in petty bourgeois circles over the war i Afgharstan that some oi vour correspondents have been infected with it.
Richard Carver (Letters 31 January) for example mocks defencists as organisers of Red Army welcoming committees. He was shocked to see the word "invasion', in one letter, placed in inverted commas. Yet Trotsky used the same inverted commas around the word 'invasion' when the petty bourgeois opposition in America
base yourself solely on the features
position will be devoid of the
cheapness to vulgarity when he tries to sav that detencists wond denv
every action of the Red Army. Again we look at the social content. once more again on the nature of
workers' strikes or peasant protests: 'We have never promised to support which is the instrument of the Bonapartist bureaucracy.' Likewise:
from the US bourgeois press and
moves of imperialism in a
clear as with roland and
will be established by the
oa o or ea st ie Komat Bath. Phon.
avarlable from rourin
. To. Fro mor met hone dat aio.
COVENTRY: SC avalable from Wedge Bookshop. For DUNDEE: SC available from.
Thursday. lam-Ipm. The Pazza: SC also avallabie a wal er Sce Brabe al and rion obe,
SC. on sale I1-l every Sar.; Regent St TEESSIDE: SC intes pt Road, Mre ahlesb in (Cl, arla ad
OWER HAMLETS: SC suppler sel ,a-12 Sver hitchape ube. Sunday 10.30-12.00 Brick Socialisi Challenge 7 Februay, 1980 Page 14
BAD
TASTE but away from them, fight in their camo. trv to expand and deener
TED COXHEAD, London N1. International conspiracy A FEW weeks ago you were suggesting that the failure of the
abandoned the practice of proletarian internationalism in favour of 'detente'.
you state your opposition to the
on the grounds that it aids a Western imperialist 'war drive'.
development in the Marxist dialectic, is just old-tashioned hypocrisy!
SE4 Young Socialists
needn't falsify history in the
Socialists...
Keep Left'
the SLL (now WRP) which
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS
CARDIFF: SC
ore inlo rine chone Colin. 57406 Nick, 605052. High OLDHAM
BRITSH TRADITION those forms not because they are
the expropriations but our advice to
conduct revolutionary propaganda against the Kremlin oligarchy; fight
masses in the course of the struggle,
their struggle and give it the greatest possible independence. Only in this
insurrection against Stalin.' (Open Soviet Union to assist the Iranian left was a result of an internatiónal conspiracy, in which the Russians
And yet, in your latest issue,
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
Does this represent some new
For am I to assume that it ANDREW GOODWIN, London
PHIL HEARSE is right to defend the Militant tendency against Lord Underhand's witch-hunt, but he
process. He claims that his Lordship was 'instrumental in the 1960s in driving out the leaders of the Young
who had won the YS to Marxist ideas through the paper
As a founder member of the YS, and, from 1961 to '66 a member of
produced Keep Left, I am qualified to dispute this statement. The YS was overwhelmingly Marxist right
10B Books, Salisbury OisIde COAS — foI
OLDHAM SC sold every Saturday omside Yorkshire
more iniormaton about loca
Public Meeting Kick Out the Seward James Neli, Shett. 2). Bath in Thompson
mare. Tel. 061-236 4905 Yor more informatien. ers
г тоге птогта
S GENANG HYSTERCAI ABOUT THE SOVIETS WHILE KISSING THE BACKSIDE OF THE YANKEES OR (GIVEN THE CHANCE) ORDER ING TORTURE IN IRELAND WAC HICVaOUCKU Double departure YOUR 'General Strike/No World War" issue (31 January) expresses a
"Is there going to be a Third
accompanying. barbarism?'
of 'war and revolution'. Only fools
Faced with fresh danger of war,
main question: What can the
years before 1914 refused to support the war plans of the imperialists and
A third world war will not be a repetition of the first or the second, but a war between East and West, capitalism and communism; and it will be fought with the most horrendous weapons. All the more reason, then, for the workers to
- STABBING WORKER!
-CONDONING refuse support to the imperialists and prepare to meet war with revolution.
If, upon the outbreak of war, the workers of the West fail to overthrow their governments and take their countries out of NATO, the consequences will be more terrible than in 1914 and 1939. The peoples of the West will have to choose between revolution and probable annihilation
On the front page of the paper you call for the steel strike to be turned into an indefinite general strike. But you say nothing about the fact that a general strike will bring the country to the brink of civil wal
It matters little whether you propose a general strike against the Tory 'offensive'. All general strikes turn political. In 1926, the TUC declared that it was merely coming to the aid of the miners and dREes CESTOLIC tdut government. Trotsky called this "ridiculous'
On another occasion, Trotsky wrote: 'Nothing can be on a higher plane than the general strike, except the armed insurrection. history of the working class movement proves that every genera strike, whatever may be the slogans under which it occurs, has an internal tendency to transform itself into an open revolutionary clash into a direct struggle for power. (Whither France? p.79.)
He continued: "The leaders of the proletariat must understand this internal logic of the general strike, unless they are not leaders but dilettantes and adventurers
'Politically this implies that from now on the leaders will continue to pose before the proletariat the task of the revolutionary conquest of power. If not, they must not strikere tp. Beak of the general strike.'
DAVE BAILEY, Newham Liaison Committee I WAS amazed to read in Socialist Challenge (31 January) a statement allegedly signed by myself and three others about the last conference of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions.
I never signed any such statement. I never made any such statement.
You even claim in your report that an attempt was made to mové this statement as a resolution at the conterence and was prevented b! heckling. No such attempt was
You also say I signed my name under the Rank and File Co. ordinating Committee. No such committee exists
I did make an attempt to get moved a resolution calling for a conference organised jointly by the LCDTU and the Rank and File Defend Our Unions Committee. I am still working for a united opposition by both organisations to the Tory Employment Bill.
It would be rather more useful if you had printed that resolution and the call for unity which I made. Nothing at all is to be gained by snide attacks on the Communist Party.
All you have done by your illresearched inventions is io make the search tor a united fightback against the Tories slightly more
THE LIST, . WELL-NIGH OUR TASKS WVl-k
VUN difficult. and for accompanying published
not the statement.
The entire
attempt favour of
the class struggle However,
tor the mos differences.
Sorry!
APOLOGIES several issue. strike,
Grant; pages abortion Journalist.
Our Spare journalists
Jnuary Journalist.
1979.)
- AND DO WITCH-HUNT JOHN DEASON, Secretary Rank and File Defend Our Unions
Patrick Sikorski replies: First on the
coverage of the LCDTU conference.
John Deason was approached by supporters of Socialist after the conference chairperson had moved to cose the meeting it wo
delegates that it would be better to come away from the conference with a positive statement calling recall conference rather than have the conference split on an organisational
Verbal agreement was reached on
worked on and agreed. John Deason was given and took a copy.
It is true that no signatures were appended in the heat of the moment,
this reason the text
in Socialist Challenge explicitly uses the word 'agreed" and
'signed' both above and below
Secondly, we do not claim that an
was made 10 move resolution; simply that it was judged impossible (sic) to do so.
We apologise for appending the wrong committee to John Deason's
As is well known we are always in
united action of those fighting in the workers' interests in
as John Deason has said, this cannot cut across the need
eNECINEYC debate It is for this reason that Socialist Challenge is in favour of a democratically run recall conference. ASSEMBLY OF WOMEN
1pm Friday 8 February
Central Hall, Westminster
Torchlight procession to Fleet St
from Temple Place at 5.15pm
for not crediting illustrations •last week's Photo of Welsh 3, Paul Highfield; Chix strike, page 6, PM Photo of abortion march, and Топу Sleep CALU. page 16, The
apologies are also due to Rib. The article on trainee sexism appeared on Under Review in the 24
issue was credited to The In fact originally appeared in Spare Rib (Septembes
Page 15 scan of this page
UNDER REVIEW
«TONY Benn is a liar. Not an accidental liar. Not a slip-of-the tongue liar. Not a liar in the speech. But a cool, calculated, deliberate, with-malice-aforethought liar.'
That was the Daily Mirror on 6 November last year. It could have Telegraph, Mail or Express but no, it was an editorial in the Mirror, the newspaper which in
full page advertisement in following month claimed:
'The Daily Mirror îs a newspaper of the people. The only daily paper which supports democratic "socialism. which has supported the Labour Party at every General Election since the War:
'The Mirror is part of the lives of the people of Britain. campaigns on the issues that concern us all. It is our newspaper.
All of which was in reply to Tony Benn, who had claimed in a number of speeches that the Mirror has always been Labour Party and the trade unions.
The Mirror's protest of innocence on this charge is partly due to the circulation war of the VICES. populist Daily Star has meant that the Mirror's "democratie socialist' credentials become more important.
Sales
But that is not the only reason. If the Mirror was only concerned with its sales it would not attack Benn so mercilessly. It knows that Benn is a popular figure among hundreds of thousands of knows that Arthur Scargill enjoys a similar support.
But last week the Mirror went so far as to call for the prosecution of Scargill because he advocated breaking Denning's ruling on the steel pickets. Said the Mirror:
*The argument Scargill is that that is what he wants to happen. It is a strong one. But if the law is to be applied impartially,
"As a 'Mirror Comment', this seems 10 back up Benn's case that the Mirror, along with the rest Fleet Street, conditioning and brainwashing the people ...
accept policies that are
the top
acknowledged, that a single man
in possession of a good fortune,
Pride and Prejudice are five in
number, all aged between 15 and
21, and without any inheritance
since their father's property must
pass to a male heir (their cousin
consequently spends all her time
Fay Weldon's dramatisation
currently being serialised on BBC
FAT
cheerfül, cynical yet tender writer committed feminist
views about the lot of women. Jane
Austen, writing some two hundred
years before her, was a mistress.
calm, elegant understatement.
weapon was irony - the barbed nib
at:: end of the quill!; combination extraordinary women should have been dynamic:
For despite Ms
: directness, her anger, her hard edge
— and despite Ms Austen's seeming acquiescence in all the niceties of the society she describes so minutely there are arresting between them. Both use the details of social manners as a key to their own views of morality. Both indulge in a
excitement of an emotional
been Daily
Tribune the
The only paper
comments and
"hostile' to the
The emergence of the working people, just as l
against prosecuting Mr
he ought to be granted his wish.'
*are engaged
not in their
Г Pride and Prejudice:
Fay Weldon goes over
SALLY FELDMAN
with strong
Her
The these two
Weldon's
sundare
wall, are you
Arthur and the
King
There are other examples. 'winter of discontent' when Labour power, the Mirror was indistinguishable from the rest of the national press. Britain is being held to ransom as industrial chaos grips the country', ran its lead story on 18 January 1979.
To go further back, enthusiastiç supporter of Barbara Castle's 'In Place of Strife' proposals for trade union 'reform'. "Bloody
Mirror, Mirror on the
socialist after all?
TRUTH, Mr Benn
2 Mirer Comment FE
During the was in were
the 'winter of
umolsts, right-wing policies
By Geoff Bell
What Tony Benn said on radio
about the Daily Mirror yesterday!
& Don't belleve ever what the Daily Mirror says
That is a lie!
This is the Mirror's record since the war
Mirror's front page headline when Castle's dissimilar to the Prior proposals today. announced - plans not too
In the case of both In Place of Strife' and
"discontent', the Mirror 'attacking the rights and interests of trade
while defending the of the existing • government. And that sums up the attitude of the Mirror to the Labour Party: it supports the right wing of the party, but not the party itself.
have a devotion to their own sex -and a deep-rooted mistrust of men
Weldon as adaptor Prejudice for inspired. At last, I thoughit, have an interpreter of the novel who could see romance, deep down into the more serious and more that lie beneath the surface of the story. quite what has happened. For instead of using her own modern perspective highlight perceptions, have obliterated much of the delicacy and subtlety of the original work, in a crass attempt to make it modern. - there was no need to turn her into a Sybil Fawlty. Mary, in a quiet way, was a wonderful miniature caricature credibility. Darcy's proposal, in the original, was all the better for being understated. But here, there are too many moments which are Jane Austen would never have been - over the top
well - we are suspended delicious position everything to come right between the lovers, tinged with just the right won't. But there is more to the novel than romance - far more.
Aware
Austen novel must be aware that she is dealing with a closed, conservative, repressively upper society where important decisions are dictated by status, money and connections. But not everyone is aware of the anger and the sorrow that underlies brilliant descriptions, characters, the fluid language - even though it is present on every page. struggling to believe in love, loyalty and integrity — when all the evidence
estimation, a Labour
right-wing leader.
Coup
keep him in politics'
other Labour Party manland
Anvil, £2.5
- Anvil, £2.50.
was
particularly Laboul
wicked love of the ridiculous. Both | points to the fact that marriage is a
That is why the choice of Fas circumstances,
of Pride and television we'd
beyond the comedy of
original honol correctly placed.
But, for some reason, that isn't
when the five
Austen's Fay. Weldon seems to often-quoted book
Mrs Bennet was always atrocious
here she is exaggerated beyond
what polite
that she The story flows along perfectly
in the longing for
anxiety that maybe
touch,
Anyone who has ever read a Jane
WelcH. middle class all of life's most
but this the the lively which
For Jane Austen's heroines are all
on
Thus while it has called for a retum of a Labour government since the war, each of those governments has been dominated by the right wing of the party. When, in the Mirror's
government steers left, the newspaper is quick to go on the offensive. In April 1968 the Mirror launched a campaign for the removal of Wilson in favour of a more
At the same time the Mirror's chief, Cecil King, was plotting with Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, and Richard Marsh for a right-wing coup within the Parliamentary Labour Party; King arranged for the Mirror to pay Marsh an annual fee of €500, not for any journalistic services, but, recorded King in his diary, 'to
The key to the Mirror's attitude to the Labour Party is that there are, in effect, (wo
One, Parliamentary Labour Party, has always been controlled by the right wing and acts independently of the
that consisting ordinary rank and file Labour Party members whose policies are decided at conference and whose leadership is the national executive.
At present that party and its executive are considerably to the left of the PLP. And that is why the Mirror is hostile to the darling of the Labour Party rank and file, Tony Benn.
The Mirror is indistinguishable from the rest of Fleet Street in that it is run by and serves a capitalist company with a capitalist ideology. It just thinks that the best way capitalism can
right-wing Labour governments rather than Conseryative ones.
THE OTHER BOOKSHOP
The Singing Flame, by Ernie O'Malley •
On Another Man's Wound, by Ernie O'Malley
On Our Backs, Sexual Attitudes in a Changing Ireland, by Rosita Sweetman — Pan, £1.00
328 Upper Street, London N1 2XQ (Tel. 01-226-6571)
financial arrangement. All but one of her heroines (Emma) are in straitened their whole future happiness depending on the finding and trapping of a rich husband. All of them are forced to spend their adolescence hoping for coincidence - that they will fall in love with someone who happens also to be
And the dilemma is never more extreme than in Pride and Prejudice, daughters Just because they are daughters — have no right to an inheritance. Their only salvation can be marriage. Hence the opening lines of the which, • 1n Ms Weldon's version of the novel, are put into Elizabeth's mouth.
Comment Many of the original author's insights are given to Elizabeth - an irresistible device. Yet I couldn't help that that, too, was misleading. Jane Austen cultivates a distance from characters, even the nicer ones, so can comment on them little of the tension is lost when they are allowed to do too much of the commenting themselves.
And though the handling of the absurd Mr Collins is dead right, and the elder Miss. Bingley's constantly snoring husband is another good didn't feel this production ever really came to grips with the Jane Austen attitude to men. For in the novels, they are almost ail of them either ridiculous or dull. The locked in their social prisons, are allowed to shine, while the men step down.
That is the most potent similarits bétween these two women writers production has failed pinpoint it. And similarly it has failed to illuminate the most dramatic ways Pride Prejudice achieves its timelessness: * The final episode will be shown . BBC-2 on Sunday evening and I repeated next Wednesday.
Socialist Chillenge ? Februaty 1980 Pagt 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge STEEL STRIKE: TIME TO
ewspaper. Published by Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge,: 328/9 Upper St, London N1. Printed by East End [offset] Ltd, PO Box 82, London E2.
Hadfields, personal capacir Rab Bird (shop steward, MY BOSS Derek Norton, the managing director Hadfields private company, has decided break the law. On Monday he said he was going 'withhold' £2 million a month owed to the government income tax, national insurance and value added payments. Norton says he's protesting picketing of private plants.
But only last week Norton and the rest of the private steel bosses were telling steelworkers how we had to obey the law that is the 'law' as interpreted by Lord Denning:
Now, after the Law decided Denning's ruling was itself illegai, Hadheids has decided that the taw isn't such a good thing after all.
ZIMBABWE
End British collusion!
Saturday 23 February
PICKET: Foreign Charles St, SW1), 1-2pm. RALLY: LSE Old (provisionally), 7.30pm representatives from Patriotic Front parties
Organised by Zimbabwe Coordinating Committee, Charlotte St, W1 (01-580 5311).
Britain:
Abroad:
Name
Address
I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of -
Cheques, POs and Money Orders should be made payable to
'Socialist Challenge
Registered with the Post Office
PUT THE
BOOT IN'
such
of steel Wales.in oarticular. to for our rights (see page 4). to But just
all but won. in plants are being picketed. tax that against join the picket lines. steel
co-ordinating committee has another way withdrawing all British Stee their area.
£100° million spokesperson Lords action like this:
wedd position either
in.?
Let's not
Office (King government.
Theatre with
why trade Emergency c/o AAM, 89 help they can. talking about
the Tory government.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
12 months £12.50; 6 months £ 6.50 12 months - Surface Mail £12.50 Airmail Multi-reader institutions: Double the above rate Complete and retum to: Socialist Chalienge, 328 Upper Street, Landon N1.
Thousands of steelworkers have
double standards.
Before and after Denning, before and after the Law Lords, the picketing of private steel plants went on. In South
Dickets simply ignored Denning's instructions. The message was law or no law, we fight
because Denning was overturned doesn't mean the strike is
The latest estimate is that only ter per cent of private steel
This needs to be stepped up and the best way is
apart from those working in steel, to
The South Yorkshire steel strike
forward. i ney are safety Love.
Corporation plants in one Scunthorpe complex alone this could cost BSC
Stan Sheridan, for the South Yorkshire committee, explained the
"The BSC management has been sitting back for the past six weeks and not producing one ounce of steel. Sir Keith Josephi is not going to save BSC
not going to be in that
'We have decided to put the boot
kid ourselves. This strike is not really so much against BSC management as against the Tory
It is they wao control the purse strings, just as it's they who say we have to lose over 50,000 jobs
That's why steelworkers need to do all they can to win this strike, and
unionists everywhere should be organising to give us all the
When it comes putting the boot in, that boot should be aimed squarely at
Our
Fund
Drive
AS the steel workers step up the pressure on the Tories, you, supporters, have given our campaign a massive boost with a record £523.56 this week.
Last week Jakob Moneta, former editor of the German steel workers paper and a member of the Fourth
STEEL
WORKERS
POWER
OFFICIA-
International, toured Britain.
KELLIC successful Socialist Challenge meetings and addressed a mass meeting of striking electricians at Port Talbor. YOU helped to make that possible through your donations.
At every important demonstration and rally of steel workers we have had Socialist Challenge reporters on the spot. We want permanently in South Wales reporting on the build up to all out action to prevent closures.
Help us meet the challenge. Send a fiver to fight the Tories and join the 155 other people who already have.
Our thanks this week to:
J. Hyatt Hackney supporters J. Flintoft
LATER
steel strike He spoke Leicester IMG
Bath IMG Sheffield IMG
Tony Francis Anon Crawley IMG to keep journalists N Bolton
P Bellis Brent IMG Leeds IMG
H Astor
AHN Swindon IMG 1.00 Total :5.34
Paddington IMG 40:00
20.00 Stamps collected 5.00 Nottingham IMG 25.00
-00 30.00 South East London IMG 25.00 Oxford supporter Paddington supporter
Outer West London IMG 85.01
20.00 10.04 523.56 Cumulative total .1308.06
← Socialist Challenge No. 132, 31 January 1980Socialist Challenge No. 134, 14 February 1980 →