GUEVARA Socialism and Man 15s Od. CHE ROSA LUXEMBURG/KARL SATURDAY, 25 JAN:
Send et LIEBKNECHT: 50 YEARS AFTER. Speakers: Ernest varies. In some years none are Every seven years the Pomos of produced, while in others there different types manufactured. could be a few thousand of the of devils, disguised men. ' Twenty or thirty California celebrate an expulsion who are represented by Average amount made from men array themselves in harlequin rig and barbaric paint, and put The highest total year might be they then secretly go into the vessels of pitch on their heads; year has been about surrounding mountains. These are to personify the devils. A herald Ir Garland says that probabl goes up to the top of the assemblyabout 80% of the firm's expor and makes a speech to the trade consists of these devices. multitude. At a signal agreed upor in the evening the masqueraders components and engineering come in from the mountains, with vessels of pitch flaming on overnment contract. He says cneir heads, and with all the that the firm could survive rightful accessories of noise, switches, although the rest of without making the demolition savage mind can devise, in motion, and the business would have to be "P-sentation of demon The terrified women and children flee for life, the men huddle inside a One reason the firm made the circle, and, on the principle of devices, he says, was just as fighting the devil with fire, they business venture, as he liked air, yell, whoop, and make frantic swing blazing firebrands in the blood-thirsty devils, so creating a dashes at the marauding and Mr Garland said he had never terrific spectacle, and striking seen one of the devices used in practice and had never seen assembled hundreds of women, great fear nto the hearts of the in getting into the He was happy making them as long as the government took of the men enter and hold a parley sembly-house, and the bravest the decisions on where they whole farce, the men summon with them. As a conclusion of the went, and his principles were courage, the devils are expelled Government's. If he found that from the assembly-house, and with La prodigious row and racket of sham fighting are chased away with, then he would stand by in the mountains.
In case you think'the Pomos are a tribe or f Defence saic pokesman a Diggers, this quote comes from any uke the Frazer's The Golden Bough, first published in 1890. The point is that ritual encounters have by no me of these means lost their force of late indeed, with appropriate changes we count say in could stand for any recent of name, Fraze s description confrontation'. I am not knocking the bravery or sincerity of the demonstrators on recent occasions, but I want to suggest that demonstrations that merely follow a ritual are as empty of effect as ceremonies to expel the all, Ronnie Reagan is now their devils were in California. After Governor.
would not be sent to Even the syntactical cementblocks of Norman Mailer's prose in his pieces on the American Conventions in Miami and Fun Poster Workshop Benefit Cast: Cartoon Archetypical Slogan Theatre Angry. Arts Films Sociatu Chicago cannot endow the confrontations with the effectivethem. ness that Yes, (says Mailer of the was, and is, claimed toi worst night in Chicago) it could only happen in a meeting of the or some inaccessible grand room, not in some laboratory indistinguishable from others, or in the sly undiscoverable hypocrisies of a committee of experts, but rather on the center of the stage, as if each side had Here we will vin The battle. Here we will win horror of slaughter, of the indiscriminate use of overwhelming force on all-too-movable objects, of the lust for brutality that brings up something in the passion, by observers of any recent controntation. It is of cours impossible not to elench something - fists, jaws, minds, whatever -when one reads of the bravery of of devils not of reality, but of the emotions and frustrations of being there. I was, after all, in Chicago too, and, come to that, San Francisco when the pigs let fly. Reading about it everyone's scared to one is in no doubt of what one would have done, what one was down...?
whatever one says about the English police they haven't is simply fear. The bravery is that of tested virility not that of somebody convinced their action is got thing for the the Pomos better. - think that everyone in confrontation with police, they re going to be physically on both sides, beaten. And that puts the whole thing on a ritual plane: you know what will happen. It's important to put your body on opinion, or the doing you are tying yourself to the line, and all that, but by so demands remedy games you know are loaded asalust you elevate them to the status of from the end of runcheon should look at th Versus Order Reform vs Revolution Tribune vs Black Dwarf Michael Foot vs Tariq Ali Frin Matt.
Consider what a confrontation consists of. Usually formal (Mind you, no one unde polled - when the finit 10 permission is requested: even if it is refused and the demonstration nevertheless takes place, the forces of law and order have been over 90% were on the des under 25 to pass some po Beston what asked their o well warned - they are always sualors side.
better prepared than the demonstrators. The leaders of the I submit that demonstrati protest agree to stick by certain essentially vicarious affai those rules is going to take place. matter since a ritual step outside rules - or they don't, it doesn't in advance. They allow outcome and programme with all protest action w Many activi-s now feel that have to be clobbered in order to they something, and tho participants to fou che very obliging in this respect. Then Show their fervour. The cops are about it afterwards to for they would have done Because they once had victim's position they would have anding about it the following day, and those who also read about it cluck and pretend that in the newspapers, not the p people follow them mi The forms are observed.
done exactly the same. them is accused of not play indeed anyone who steps But too often it's just a game. Not not because it enables see the game. . It is a sham, dat stake. They are, otherwise, there'd ben demonstration. But to the constitute the whole of thei protest activity. They too. And following a ritual that was pretty imoprtant they'd be shocked to dil very comforting: a crowd of brave once had some sort of effect was Were other things to do to ke the devils away.
though during the action people is greatly reassuring, and The ' other things' must slap and order vine is t know that afterwards there's going death they prepared for what's going "law and order to be lots of the old and where knows were going to The fact is that demonstrations - to bal but on the streng no no point in going. Actons b which everyone now says are useless, but we all go on them anyway, for if one sect refuses to part. We are not always in the intellectual, political, necessary physical, of those s join another's march it has one of its own - are based on the same ame situation - if thi kind of empty faith that sustained be changed thered b And it's not just any sort of protest. We have evaluate each action on its demonstrating I'm criticising, it's because we cannot rely outcome is also drearily familiar. knows and whose cul-de-sac The idea of demonstrations waiting. We have long the point when we selves, that your cause is just and system, or vour old slogans we can expec campaigns, when by repeating expressions of solidarity, often They are also walls to come tumbling down. embarrassing to the system, and there nothing in our inventives as such have a certain symbolic i can si importance. But why try and continue to follow the old way effective actions? Anyone who till the devils overtake us? thinks radicalisation does grow policeman results of an opinion poll taken not so long after Chicago: 78.7% thought the police were justified.
• Please open my account 1 am enclosing S To the Black Dwarf 7 Carlisle Street W
A very open letter to John Hoyland from John Lennon Dear John, Your letter didn't sound seems. I know what I'm up against - narrow minds - rich/poor. All your relationships may be poisoned - it depends how you look at it. What kind of system do you propose and who would run it?
all three versions (Revolution 1, 2 and 9) then try again, dear John. You say " In order to change the world we've got to understand what's wrong with the world Until you/we change your/our heads - there's no chance. Tell me of one successful revolution. buddhism, etc? Sick Heads, and nothing else. Do you think all the enemy wear capitalist badges so that you can shoot them? It's a bit naive, John. You seem to think it's just a class war.
we were downtrodden working class students and bought a sweater or something which was reasonably cheap and lasted. We set up Apple with the money we as workers carned, so that we could control what we did productionwise, as much as can have it.
When I say we con people - I mean we're selling dreams. Friends of mine like Dylan and Stones, etc who are doing their bit would understand what I said -ask them - then work it out.
The establishment never slotted us into a ' cheeky chappy ' bag, dear John - WE DID - to get here to do what we're doing now. I was there, you weren't. So suddenly the papers told you we were taking acid - two years after the event! So you decided that our music was best then. You're probably right about why thev didn't bust me before - they, like you, had me 'tagged '. I'il tell you something -I've been up against the same people all my life - I know they still hate me. There's no diference now - just the size of the game has changed. Then it was in endless fucking prose.
you - the left - the middle - the right or any fucking boys' club think. I'm not that bourgeois.
Look man, I was/am not against you. Instead of splitting hairs about the Beatles ask yourself: why? And then - come and join us.
Love, John Lennon PS-You smash it - and I'll build around it.
John Hoyland replies:
Dear John, It must be nice for you not to be in any boys' clubs.
You're right, though. My letter was patronising, and maybe some of the things I raised in it were trivial. It's what you say about the more serious ones that I want to deal with. Above all, my point was that we've got to understand that the hang-ups emanate largely from the kind of society we live in. Unless you see this you end up blaming it all on nasty men. I think this is much more naive than blaming it on the class war. Yet this is what you do. You say what's wrong with the world is narrow minds, sick heads - people.
That's funny, because we're supposed to be the ones with ' minds that hate who are ' on a destruction kick ". But we don't blame people, and we wouldn't want to shoot all the capitalists even if they did wear badges, because we think it's natural for them to behave the way they do. What we blame is the form of society which produces them - which by its nature is competitive, puts profit before principle, places power and privilege in the hands of the few at the expense of the may, etc. Given such a society a lot of people (rich/ poor) are necessarily selfish, narrow-minded, unscrupulous, They have to be. That's the way the system works. Build a better form of society - one based on co-operation and participation and sharing - and people will respond accordingly. And we know this will happen, because we see history moving inexorably towards this kind of society - both in the capitalist countries and in the communist ones.
You talk a lot about sick heads. This also depends how you look at it. What do you think about a person who's content to sit around being beautiful while the rest of the world burns? What do think about a person who claims to be concerned about people and their values, but remains silent when confronted by the actual struggles and sufferings of most of patronising - it was. Who do you think you are? What do you think you know? I'm not only up against the establishment but you, too, it I don't remember saying Revolution was revolutionary - fuck Mrs Dale. Listen to And then - destroy it. Ruthlessly.' You're obviously on a destruction kick. I'1l tell you what's wrong with it - People - so do you want to destroy them? Ruthlessly?
Who fucked up communism - christianity - capitalism -Apple was never intended to be as big as Marks and Spencers - our only reference to it was to get the kind of deal we used to get from this nasty capitalist shop when we could. If it ever gets taken over by other workers, as far as I'm concerned, they school masters, relatives, etc - now I'm arrested or ticked off by fascists or brothers Who's upset about the arrest? OK. I'll have a cup of tea. I don't worry about what and the Stones - think a little bigger - look at the world we're living in, John, and want to change institutions should free their minds " instead'. Why instead? What makes you so sure that a lot of us haven't changed our heads in something like the way you recommend - and then found out it wasn't enough, because vou soy calor oc como cicy turice ou are happy when you know that kids are being roasted to death in Vietnam, when all around you you see people's individuality being stunted by the system. Why couldn't you have said ' as well'- which is what I would say?
You say you sell dreams. So do Cliff Richard and Engelbert Humperdinck. It is just a question of whose dreams we like best? Or should we start to ask what role these dreams play in people's lives, what they make them do, whether they make them act or go to sleep, whether they're revolutionary dreams or go-tosleep-and-forget-it-all dreams.
Let me tell you something back. I've been very involved in some of your music. The feeling I've go from songs like ' Strawberry Fields Forever ' and 'A Day in the Life ' is part of what has made me into the kind of socialist I am. But then you suddenly went and kicked all that in the face with ' Revolution ?. That was why I wrote to you - to answer an attack you made on us, to criticise a position you took, to answer an attack you made on us, to criticise a position you took in relation to the revolutionary socialists movement - knowing that what yousaid would be listened to and respected by millions, whereas whatever reply we make here is read by only a few thousand.
Now you say you're not against us after all.
Well that's nice, because I'm certainly not against you. I just wish you were a bit more on our side. (We could do with a few good songs.)
As for who I am - what kind of a question is that, for Christ's sake?
What do I know? I know it's possible for us to create a world which could one day become a loving paradise for every human-being. Is that
The Black Dwarf 10 Jan 69 Decent British housewives Dear Sir, The day of the revolution has come and gone, and ordinary, decent, British housewives can now heave a sigh of relief, and put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea. The mindless militants, inspired by vivid recollections of Paris in April and May, and romantically dreaming of revolution and barricades in the streets of the West End, can now return to their factories and offices and universities to write more pamphlets on workers control and resume endless debates on the alienation of man in modern industrial society. Working class mothers can carry on going to bingo, and middle class fathers can roll their trousers up again at the local masonic hall in perfect satety. It was, after all, just another march, very significant in its way, but hardly a turning point in British politics. Just something els for historians and self-appointed experts to analyse and explain for the benefit of the mass produced conformists of the future.
Independent television almost openly advertised its programme for 27 October as follows: 3 pm to 4 pm " Match of the Day'; 4 pm to 5 pm ' Demonstration of the Day But the record crowd was disappointed. Both policemen and demonstrators played a 10-man defence, neither had any imagination in front of goal, and everyone seemed content to hang on to a single point. When the final whilste blew, there were very few who were sorry. It was all rather boring.
British society has an inexhaustible capacity, for rendering ineffective by ' good-natured tolerance ' any and every form of radical dissent. For once, it nearly didn't work. Our 'humane ' liberal " dailies, a crucial link in the English proletariat is not apathetic Friends, Phyllis Deane, a statistical economic historian of some repute quoted: ' In the terse years between Waterloo in 1815 and the massacre of Peterloo in 1819 it has been said that England was nearer to social revolution than at any other time in her history.' This was no doubt due to the flood of labour onto the market after the war and the slump in demand of the industries that thrived on the war, notably ship-repa airing, iron and woollen industries. Thus, infation turned to deflation, real wages fell drastically and the real earnings of the average working class family were lower between 1815 and '19 than in the 1780s. Thus with a fall in real wages and a rise in unemployment, the standard of living of the working classes fell, causing, according to Deane and Asa Briggs, a near social revolution.
As our job today is to bring about conditions suitable for a working-class democracy, and not the development of ideological awareness and critique of bourgeois mystification ' as suggested by one Dwarf, it is helpful to be aware that the present government's measures of letting prices rise while freezing building chain of " repressive tolerance', seemed to forget their historic role and were beginning to assume a different one altogether. As the hysteria mounted, and as each passing day brought fresh rumours of chaos in tube stations, occupation of key buildings, and 'fast-moving guerrilla arson squads', all kinds of shadowy right-wing forces began to emerge from dark corners, and, for one brief moment, respectable man seemed on the point of casting off his liberal, democratic clothes to reveal the fascist obscenity concealed beneath.
But it was not to be. As zero hour approached, everyone got cold feet. The striptease artists were too ashamed to reveal their nakedness, and those formerly consumed with lust lost their desire to look, for fear of what they might see. The day passed peacefully, and demonstrators sang 'Auld Lang Syne ' IN GROSVENOR SQUArE with policemen. British "good sense ' prevailed. A revolution had died.
Only the obituary remained to be written, and this task fell appropriately to those champions of ' moderation', The New Statesman and The Guardian, who wagged their fingers reproachfully, and then assured us that we could now cheerfully forget all this nonsense about fundamental change, and get on with the really serious business of piecemeal reform at the margin.
Where do we go from here? Anybody know? Yours sincerely, Richard Chessum, Pantyle House, 19 Station Road, Langford, Biggleswade, Beds.
workers' and busmen's pay increase, is bringing about a fall in the workers' standard of living, after a period of a rising one. The English proletariat is not as apathetic as recent remarks would have one believe; it mobilised itself in the rise of Chartism, George Lansbury's opposition to the London council concerning Poor Law rates and the Hunger Marches of the early '30s. They may realise now that no Parliamentary party is seriously interested in their position and since the present Government has more than two years to injure its position further, revolution can come in the foreseeable future, if a leader emerges similar to Cobbett, O'Connor or Lansbury.
The policy of The Black Dwarf, and all the other organs of the Left, must be to bring home to the workers their position in the system, to continue the criticism of the bourgeois-inspired PIB and to associate the struggle of the British workers with the US Negroes, the Vietnamese peasant and the Mozambique guerrilla.
Yours, Andrew Shallice, 26 Queensway, Levenshulme, Manchester 19.
Awareness of relative specificity Comrades, Your unsigned article on the RSSF (3 Dec)
strives to maintain a non-sectarian posture by denouncing all 'the sects' as equally dangerous to the student movement. This is surely a little disingenuous. For in the struggle for the programme and manifesto of the RSSF the conclusion to which you support, International Socialism was the major force demanding a student programme - against the other sects' you mention, Maoists and RSL.
political and tactical autonomy of local RSSF groups, and inhibiting control by any one ' over the movement. Far from adopting a purely sectarian outlook we allied ourselves with other revolutionary tendencies - notably New Left Review - who also had a serious student perspective.
As you will see from our pamphlet on ' Education, Capitalism and the Student Revolt ' (4/6 post paid from IS, 36 Gilden Road, NWS), we have developed perhaps more carefully than any other group the awareness of the relative specificity of the student struggle within the general context of a socialist offensive', for which you call. We tried to fight for this at the conference.
It is difficult not to suspect that your call for ' an autonomous identity and an autonomous ideology' has its own sectarian motives. An identity and ideology cannot come from nowhere - does the Dwarf, or the IMG to wishful thinking. If a revolutionary student left is emerging in this country, the theories which ' the sects ' (or some of them) have developed are playing a crucial role. IS in particular has given a lead in many institutions in forming a Socialist Society and in developing the struggle in the colleges. The RSL with its outworn attachment to the Labour Party, or the Maoists with their one-sided emphasis on the lairs of US Imperialism, may indeed be extraneous to he student movement. But you cannot brust off IS, because we have helped to create the few ' strong local bases' which exist at the LAURICHL.
Fred Halliday replies:
As I wrote the Dwarf editorial on RSSF in the last number, there are a few points I'd like to make about Martin Shaw's letter.
The attack on the sects was because they concentrated on fighting each other - hence " the accompanying low level of debate'. They were more committed to themselves than to RSSF, or the political discussion that others were trying to carry on. In this sense, the IS -apart from a few Mao-bashing elements - are clearly exempt from these criticisms. Insofar as they were trying to raise the level of political discussion, and increase the intensity of theoretical contestation of bourgeois society they corresponded to the programme contained in the editorial.
As for the slogan, ' Don't Demand, Occupy', the attack on this ignores the theory of slogans in general. The agitational slogan is an intense summing up of a more complex position; depending on its status, it can represent either a guide to immediate action or can define a strategy over a long period of time. It was not intended only in first, but also in the second sense. The occupation is a component of the student, and proletarian, struggles to be carried out under specific conditions; in certain situations it can be a means of radicalising through mass struggles, and is not to be seen necessarily as the permanent seizure of a section of the capitalist infrastructure.
DWARF ACCEPTS TRIBUNE CHALLENGE By our political staff We are confident that our unde student situation and our perspective will win over more students. I am sure that here edge on the Dwarf. Your slogan Demand, Occupy ' may have had relevance to LSÉ in late October Halliday's reply to Roger Smith.
in general it is not simply advent self-contradictory. We need dema LSE, around which to mobilise peop occupy. You are wholly out of touch w students if you think that the majority down the country, are ready to occupy that, on hearing a splendid revolutiona rallying cry from Carlisle Street. The t revolutionary minority needs to connec the mass of students before anything cer happen. This is the function of the dem which must be made (such as those we a to outline in our pamphlet).
Likewise with ' the theory of students as vanguard'. If all this says is that studen " detonate a proletarian explosion', whe the 'theory differ from a simple descr of the French events? But does this mak students a 'vanguard'? Can they lead workers' movement to revolution - or still require the intervention of a consc revolutionary minority of the working c itself, organised in a 'party'? If the latt true then surely the notion of a student vanguard ' is highly misleading. Student see the need to build a workers' party, no a student movement. Of course, we can a that such a leadership is not built simply proclaiming it in Clapham High Street, anywhere else. But the necessity remains to rid ourselves of some of the illusions of ' student vanguardism ' is a prerequisite f ensuring that students do play their prop in the building of a new revolutionary movement.
Fraternally, Martin Shaw, IS Group, Socialist Society (RSSF), LSE, Houghton Street, WC2 PS-Please don't make cuts, if you print letter, without asking me.
Nobody thinks that students are prepared occupy just like that, but the role of the occupation can be critical, and the examp LSE, Hornsey, Birmingham, Bristol, Gui over the last six months show that the ' tin revolutionary minority ' can cease to be tin and become a significant vanguard - altho still a minority - through occupations. In addition, the occupation is not an alternati demands; it is a means of pressing for demands, and an experience of mass strugs that may radcalise great masses of students are not radicalised by sending requests to university administrations. That is the ser of the slogan.
The theory of the students as vanguard is merely a description of the French events. lays stress on aspects of revolutionary strat that traditional socialist strategy has not emphasised. The greatly increased importa of the university in capitalist society, the ne for a struggle on university issues - student power and ideological contestation - and th possibility of students mobilising tactically the university by building red bases - thes not negate the role of the proletarian party they do supplement it. Our editorial in issu no 5 should clarify the situation for those feel either that there is no need to depart fr the traditional theory of revolution evaluate decades ago, and for those who think that changes in the superstructures of capitalist society have removed the need for the organisation of a proletarian party.
The Editorial Board of The Black Dwarf has accepted a challenge from Tribu (the weekly organ of Labour's Left) to a public depate. The debate will take pla in Westminster Hall on 24 January at 7.30 pm. The subject: Parliament, the Labour Party and the struggle for Socialism. This is, in fact, the first time that left-wing MP's have debated revolutionary socialists in public. Tribune will be represented by Mr Michael Foot, MP, and Mr Eric Heffer, MP, while the Du will have Comrade Bob Rowthorne and Comrade Tariq Ali. As the attendance
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Gods, that history for once should take place not on some back street,
back of the throat that tastes like licked metal - all this has been described, with and without
the kids involved. But reading about it gives one a false sense,
fighting for, whose side one would rally to. When you're in it - and
actually run riot like the American since 1819 - the dominant emotion
American-, French-, Italian- Spanish-, or German-style,
the victim has the satisfaction of and remember it go
that great principles are not at off steam, but becaus
primitive Pomos the casting-out nothing else: like the Poo
happen, and on our side en were you then, when they charged
the whole gamut of protest action rituals, or authorities whe that follows rules which everyone, have us follow their path to a
all, is that you persuade public repeat the mistakes of part
Likewise in the debate on the Constitution, in which we fought for a structure preserving the